The Unfinished Garden (26 page)

The air was laden with moisture; Tilly could smell rain
coming.

“No,” she said. “I think you’ll find that was my idea.”

“I suggested using humor to help deal with the truth. Not hide
from it.”

Hide? What did he mean?
“What am I
hiding from?”

“The real reason I came here. The fact that I’m impulsive when
it comes to love.”

Déjà vu. She’d had this conversation before, or a similar one,
in this very spot. She stared at the mutilated thistle by his foot. “If you’re
not spontaneous, how can you be impulsive?”

“Another sadistic twist of OCD. I want something? I can’t see
beyond that need. Once again my mind is stuck, seeking instant gratification. Of
course, there is another explanation.” He smiled, but it hit Tilly like a slap.
“That when it comes to love, all bets are off.”

Yup, same conversation.

The Shetland pony at the far end of the field swished its tail.
Tilly and her sisters had dreamed of keeping a pony in this field. They’d even
corralled their father into approaching Lord Roxton. But their mother had put
her foot down at one mongrel, four budgies and two incestuous guinea pigs.

Beyond the pony, two elders daubed with white florets framed
the gate to Woodend. This view had been a tonic for so much of her life, and yet
how many times had she stood here and talked about love: courtly love with
Rowena, teenage love with Sebastian, the passion of a lifetime with David? The
pony snorted, and Tilly imagined herself toppling into a black hole as it
collapsed from the inside out. She could almost feel herself fall, the world
around her spinning out of focus.

“So this was never about the garden?” she said.

“You can’t avoid every truth.” He extended his hand. “Goodbye,
Tilly. And thank you.”

What was it with him and handshakes today? “No.” She refused
his hand. “You can’t dump talk of love on me and bugger off to parts unknown. We
need to talk about this.”

“Talk about what? Talk about how you captured my heart the
moment you walked toward me, gin in hand? Talk about the second when the image
of your face burned itself into my mind and became the one image I’ve never
wanted to erase?” His voice was sluggish, dragged down with sadness that seemed
to have blasted away his anger. They had both followed their emotions, and look
where it had led them. Tilly sighed, echoing the despondency she sensed in
James. Why was she forcing his hand, when she didn’t know where she wanted the
conversation to go?

“That first day,” he said, “the day we met, you stood up to me.
I can steamroller people, Tilly, but with you, I never stood a chance. You
sneaked in and peeled away every defense and I let you. I held up my hands in
surrender and let you see me lose control. I’ve never done that before with
anyone. I felt safe with you, because you saw the real me. And it didn’t scare
you.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. “Three years ago I
was in love with a woman I hoped might be the one. And yet I never let her in. I
never wanted to. And when she left, I vowed I was done with love. But I met you
and I knew, I just knew….” He closed his eyes. “I smell your hair—pears and
vanilla—in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep from wanting you.”

He wanted her, but he wouldn’t kiss her?

“Your voice never leaves me, and your eyes? I see your eyes
every time I close my own.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture Tilly recognized.
A headache was sneaking up on him. She reached for a spot above her right eye,
the epicenter of every one of her migraines. Migraines, something else they
shared that involved only pain.

“Do you know what happens when I fall in love?” James said.
“The OCD latches on and tortures me with my passion. You talk about solitude as
if it’s the Holy Grail. But it’s not a choice for me—it’s survival. Every day I
wake to the dread that something terrible will happen to you. And then?” He
opened his eyes and gave a bitter laugh. “The OCD moves on to my jealousy,
distorting my feelings into self-loathing. I’m on fire, consumed by images of
you with Sebastian, you with David—” His hands tore through his hair. “I see
David—” his voice turned hard “—before he fell in the bar, his face full of
shock and disgust. I see his ghost watching us, repeating over and over,
Anyone but him.
I see Sebastian, his face full of your
history, saying,
I know more about her than you ever
will.
If I asked you to walk away from Sebastian, never see him
again—would you?”

A thought picked at the back of her mind. Suppose this
quicksand she’d imagined earlier was of her own making. Did that mean she had
the power to tug herself free?

“No,” Tilly said. “Because it’s not your decision to make. It’s
mine.” And for the first time in days, she felt calm. No, it was more than that.
She was flooded with relief—relief that she hadn’t kissed James; relief that she
hadn’t started down another life path that wasn’t hers.

“I never wanted to lose Sebastian’s friendship, and now I have
a second chance. I don’t know where it will lead, but I want to find out, as
much as I want you to stay. Does that make me fickle? Possibly. But I’m not a
gambler, James. I want to bumble along, take time, not risks. You were right. I
don’t know what I want, but I need the freedom to find out.”

And I’m so not ready to talk about
all-consuming love and passion. Been there, done that. And it ended in
death.

“I gave up my name, my home, my career for David. I lived my
life through him, through his achievements and his ambitions. I stopped wearing
red. Red’s my favorite color, but he liked me in brown. And guess what?” She
tugged on her red long-sleeved T-shirt with the sparkly swirl over her chest.
“No brown these days.”

She patted her noncancerous breast and felt strong in health
and purpose. “This lump has tied me into knots of regret, of second-guessing
myself, of thinking my life forward and backward and inside out.
Self-flagellation’s great for the soul, isn’t it?” This should be an evening to
celebrate, not the time for another farewell. “But it’s also smashed my world to
pieces, and Sebastian is one of those pieces. If I’m going to put everything
back together, I need to figure out where he fits in.”

A surge of anger came from nowhere, like an invisible fist
punching her in the gut. She wanted to scream at David and pummel his chest. She
wanted to hate him for abandoning her, hate him for leaving her to face the
threat of cancer alone. More than that, she wanted to hate him for dying, so
that, once again, she was standing in the spot where he had proposed, facing the
knowledge that she could circle through love and loss a second time. And who had
the willpower for that? Three years ago, James had cut love from his life. Three
years ago, the same thing had happened to her, but not by choice. Today she had
choices, and she was going to take them.

She blew out her breath. “Your determination, your
single-mindedness, remind me so much of David. And that terrifies me. I worry
not that I can’t love you, but that I can. You’re a man I could fall hopelessly,
helplessly in love with. And lose myself in the process. That’s a trade-off I
won’t make. I can’t follow someone else’s blueprint for my life again. I just
can’t.”

She thought of Sebastian—dependable, reliable, predictable.
Like Monty, he would always veer to one side. And she knew, in that instant,
that James would leave and she would let him go. Hadn’t it been inevitable from
the beginning, when he’d wanted to hire her? She should have agreed, should have
signed a contract, done the work, then walked away. But then again, she’d never
been neat, not even in relationships.

“I want the easy way out,” she said, “because some things are
too painful to be repeated. And you must agree, otherwise why leave?”

“No, I disagree. I believe that pain of the heart, like pain of
the mind, should be met head-on—demystified.” James tossed back his hair. “And I
would stay and battle every monster in my head and beyond if I thought it would
bring you to me willingly, certain only that you loved me.” He paused. “What I
don’t believe in is allowing myself hope where there is none. I may be many
things, but I’m not a fool.” James’s eyes followed a horse and rider along the
horizon, galloping over the ridge. “I don’t understand why you’re so hard on
yourself. Where you see weakness, I see strength. I see an incredible woman who
could never cower before a man, even one as demanding as me.”

He took two steps toward the wooden stile that led into The
Chase and then paused without turning. “But I can’t love you, Tilly. It’s
destroying me.”

The druid oaks threw a blanket of quivering shadow over him and
he vanished, swallowed by the blackness of The Chase.

* * *

James thumped his fist into his palm. Of all the stupid,
self-destructive— What the hell was he doing? Why was he leaving the arena?
She’d admitted she could love him. He should stay and fight for that honor. He
could easily beat the crap out of Sebastian. The guy was a Wall Street suit and
a slight one at that. He didn’t even have a regular workout routine—playing a
game from England’s imperial glory days didn’t count. James could snap every
bone in Sebastian’s puny English body and not break a sweat.

And what did he, James, mean—that he couldn’t love Tilly? He
couldn’t stop loving her. Hadn’t he tried? Hadn’t he used every piece of logic
in his arsenal, and it had changed zip, nada, nil, nought, zero, nothing?

He had loved her the day they met, he would love her tomorrow
when he got on the plane, and he would love her every week, every month, every
year after that. He wanted to touch her; he wanted to take her, claim her as
his.
Mine.

She was meant to be with him, not with Sebastian.

Jealousy and rage, contaminated feelings he couldn’t contain,
seeped out of him. He folded his arms over his head and longed to disappear. How
could he be such a fuckup? None of this would have happened if he’d kissed her.
All she had wanted from him was a kiss. He should have kissed her and made it
count, made it matter. Forty-five years of age and he couldn’t kiss the woman he
loved. Any progress he’d made fighting fear this summer was lost.

He couldn’t make sense of what he’d done; he couldn’t make
sense of what he was doing now. OCD and his temper had always been powerful
allies. When they aligned, he was pretty much screwed. Which was the real reason
he had to leave.

Bravo, James. Once again,
self-preservation trumps all.

The bird of prey, the buzzard, cried overhead and James watched
it circle.

And then he did the only thing he could do: he ran.

Chapter 27

The day was killing her by minutes, time moving as
slowly as it had on Isaac’s first morning at preschool. Tilly had been watching
the clock since 6:00 a.m., marking James’s progression from her life:
He’ll be getting in the taxi; he’ll be boarding the plane;
he’ll be gone.
Every part of her ached, exhausted from the weight of
her thoughts.

She wanted to huddle up and ignore the world, but she had
promised her afternoon to Isaac, her evening to her mother and her lunchtime to
Rowena—if Ro ever hung up the phone.

“Countryside Steward Scheme Payment Rates,” Tilly read from the
pamphlet abandoned on Rowena’s desk. And tried not to listen as Rowena, who was
seated opposite with her feet up and the phone cradled into her neck, berated
her banker.

Tiddly and Winks snored on their tartan beanbags, the large,
black clock on the wall ticked a funereal knell and rain tapped against the
estate office skylights with the even sound of persistence. At home, days like
this were precious. Summer rain in North Carolina fell only in torrents that
flattened plants and swept away soil before disappearing back up into the sky.
Pretty much like James.

A bluebottle buzzed through the dust on the windowsill, and
Tilly stretched. Yuck, there was that scrunching noise behind her ears again.
Was this how middle age sounded—could you hear your body failing as everything
drooped and sagged? Well, at least she didn’t have to worry about that with her
boobs. See? There was always a positive side. Just as tomorrow she would wake
up, post-date with Sebastian, and know that James’s departure had been a
blessing. Right?

Wasting time was strangely unsettling, like walking into one of
those fancy salons David loved sending her to for some exotic-sounding beauty
treatment when really, he could have said “I love you” by ordering Hawaiian
pizza once in a while. (According to David, the only acceptable pizza topping
was pepperoni.)

She stared at the bamboo flooring, an unexpected choice that
certainly made a statement. Lord Roxton’s estate office had been a hole of a
place lined with dark paneling and cluttered with tack and shotguns. Tilly
shuddered, remembering the dried mud ground into the floor, the odor of damp and
the scuttling noises that kept her hovering by the door.

The current estate office, with its whitewashed walls and track
lighting, had the atmosphere of a studio. Unlike the dumping ground that was
Rowena’s bedroom, her office was neat and ordered, except for the scrunched-up
balls of paper that had failed to reach the trash can. The huge plot map flanked
by insurance certificates, the neat piles of receipt books, the clumps of paper
layered symmetrically and the shelves of binders labeled income and invoices,
spoke of efficient business practices. The only personal items were a peg of dog
towels that reeked of wet Labrador and a multicolored photo frame. Tilly picked
it up and smiled at Isaac.

“Bloody bankers.” Rowena slammed down the phone.

Tilly replaced the frame, angling it toward Rowena.

“So, James is gone.” Rowena squeezed her tea bag against the
side of her chipped mug. “Did you know that he reorganized that mound of wellies
in the butler’s pantry? Paired them all up. And cooked me a fab breakfast at
eight every morning. I’m going to miss that Yank.” Rowena blew across her tea,
sending a ribbon of steam toward Tilly. “This is when you say, ‘Yeah, but I’ll
miss him more.’”

“I’m not sure that I will, though.” Tilly paused. “Miss
him.”

“Give it up, Petal. If you’re going to start lying, take
lessons from me. I’m guessing James confessed undying love?”

Tilly nearly said yes. But was it a confession of love or words
of obsession?

Rowena kept her eyes trained on Tilly. “That’s a yes?”

“He rabbited on about pain and then left. It was hardly a
Hallmark movie moment.”

“Hallmark movie?” Rowena frowned. “Is that a cultural
thing?”

“Smushy saga with tears.” Although there had been tears after
James left, and Tilly had cried until her head throbbed. But the tears had been
for David.

“Ah.” Rowena thumbed through a stack of papers on her desk.
“That explains why I didn’t hear the two of you bonking out your goodbyes last
night. Multiple orgasms seemed inevitable after I saw you skating along my
private road looking all lovey-dovey.” Her green eyes flashed with glee. “I hope
he at least gave a decent farewell snog? Or a toe-curling grope? Strikes me a
man that sensual would know what to do with his hands.”

“Don’t be crass.”

“Don’t be a prude.”

Tilly picked up the Countryside Steward Scheme pamphlet and
placed it on top of the stuffed in-tray. “It’s always about sex with you, isn’t
it?”

Rowena shrugged and then jerked when her ancient desk chair
wobbled. “Romantic relationships are sex, Haddy. Otherwise, what’s the point? I
mean, who spouts this twaddle about marrying your best friend? I have a best
friend—you. Shouldn’t the whole partner thing be on a different level? And
doesn’t sex, the most intimate thing you can share with another human being,
take you to that level? What else is there?”

“Love.”

Rowena gave her the how-stupid-do-you-think-I-am look.

“Come on, Ro. You’re the one who believed in white knights.
What went wrong?”

“Brilliant tactic.” Rowena clapped slowly. “Deflect the
conversation from yourself.”

“It’s not a tactic. I don’t want to talk about some guy who
floated through my life and then vanished. You, on the other hand, are here to
stay. Best bud till death do us part. And I’m curious…. How
did
you morph from the poster child for Elvis Costello’s ‘I Wanna be
Loved’ to spokesperson for Spinsters R Us? You’re not going to devolve into Miss
Havisham, are you?”

“Ha, bloody, ha. I also used to believe in Father Christmas,
but you don’t rail on me for not hanging up my stocking every Christmas Eve.”
Rowena threw one leg on top of the other, so that her right ankle rested on her
left knee. Her gypsy skirt cascaded between her thighs while she picked at a
hole in her fuchsia sock, making it larger.

“Let’s just say that I grew up and realized my happy ending
didn’t feature a man. The love of my life is, evidently, three thousand acres of
land so beautiful that I get choked up every time I look at it.” Rowena’s chair
creaked as she turned around. “Although maybe not today.”

The landscape behind her was shrouded in gray light that was
more suited to a November afternoon.

Rowena swung back. “You know how hard I fought against this,
how determined I was not to spend forty years of my life without a decent
holiday. Not that we would have been capable of doing the family bucket and
spade thing even if Daddy had been able to get away…but the world took on a rosy
glow when I discovered conservancy. Corny as it sounds, I’m making a difference.
For the first time in my life, it’s not about me. And when I die, the estate
goes to The National Trust, so the land can’t be gobbled up for more naff
housing developments. Keeping Bramwell Chase a village will be my legacy, not
perpetuating the Roxton name.” Rowena tugged around her ponytail and braided
then unbraided it. “Besides, mice have eaten the Roxton christening gown.
Definitely a sign that there isn’t meant to be a future generation of Roxtons
tripping off into the great blue Christendom yonder. Does that bother me? Not a
jolt. I have a grand life. Why ruin it with a man?”

When Rowena was on a tear, there was little to do but listen.
Tilly sighed and gave up all hope that they’d make it to The Flying Duck in time
for lunch, not that she was hungry. In fact, the thought of food made her feel
sick.

“Men are like combine harvesters,” Rowena said. “Big and loud
and programmed to churn up your life with ridiculous provisos like watching
rubbish telly before going to bed at nine o’clock every night. Sod that.
Sometimes I sit up all night watching films because I can.”

Tilly thought of David’s 10:00 p.m. lights-out and the nights
she had waited for his breathing to fall into a rhythm so she could tiptoe back
into the great room and read.

“It’s bad enough having male worker bees buzzing around me.”
Rowena opened and closed her desk drawer. What the hell was going on with her
today? She was more fidgety than James. “Every day I have to contend with
inadequate men—an alcoholic gamekeeper, two farmworkers no one else would
employ, and let’s not forget the ancient gardener whose sole talents are mowing
in a straight line and maintaining a picture-perfect crinkle-crankle hedge. Why
I promised Daddy I wouldn’t fire them is a mystery to me.”

Promise, my ass. Your heart has a gooey
center.

“Thank God I’m down to one tenanted farm,” Rowena continued.
“Otherwise I would have even more useless specimens of manhood in my life. Of
course, that excludes my darling Isaac, who is male perfection personified. And
Archie has potential, and James is pleasingly lacking in testosterone.”

Tilly opened her mouth to ask about Sebastian, but Rowena
started talking again.

“Men are good for little more than a quick poke, Haddy. And for
the record, I’ve given that up. Eight months celibate and counting.”

Tilly’s jaw went slack. Rowena hadn’t been celibate since she
was sixteen.

“Yes, my gyny bits are rusting away as we speak.” Rowena peered
down her sweater.

“Okay, so forget the sex, but what about companionship? Don’t
you get lonely, Rowena, patron saint of the countryside, rattling around in a
house we used to call The Museum?”

Rowena flip-flopped her head. “Nope. The estate’s given me
purpose, and the Hall is history incarnate. How can you beat that? They define
me, announce to the world: this is Rowena Roxton. What defines you, MRH?”

“Motherhood.”

Rowena grabbed a piece of paper from her desk, screwed it up
and hurled it at the trash can. And missed. “I said
you,
Matilda Rose Haddington.”

Tilly flushed with anger. “I can’t claim motherhood?”

“Scrape away motherhood, widowhood, wife-hood. Tell me what
defines
you.
”

Tilly stared through the huge picture window into the soggy,
monotone countryside, and saw her woods filled with bright shadows and the cries
of hawks. “My business.”

Rowena began riffling through all the papers on her desk.
“Convince me.”

Tilly sat on her retort, the one that said
shan’t
. Wasn’t she a teensy bit proud of Piedmont Perennials, a
business she had built on word of mouth, not an advertising budget? Why not read
that fat business plan Sari had mailed her, the one Tilly had shoved, unopened,
into her knickers’ drawer? Besides, wasn’t that part of the reason she’d pushed
James away—so she could figure out what
defined
her?

“I might expand into a retail nursery.”
And why not?
Tilly felt herself thawing inside.

“Damn, but we did good, didn’t we, Haddy? Found happiness in
the rubble of our lives. I wish we could say the same for Sebastian, poor pet.”
Rowena jangled her car keys. “Aha! Found them. Think he’ll stay…in the
village?”

“Woodend is his, if he wants it.”

Rowena grew still. “Now why don’t you sound as happy about that
as you should?”

Tilly shrugged; it was easier than attempting to explain.

“James has really wee’d in your bathwater, hasn’t he?”

“Yuck, Ro! What a horrid image.” Although apt, since James had
certainly muddied the waters, not that they were clear to begin with. “James is
irrelevant here.” What a heartless thing to say, but she had to stop this
thread. James was gone, and that was that. “I’ve been offered a second chance
with someone who was wound through my life like ivy. How many people get
that?”

Rowena held up an unopened envelope and crinkled the window in
an attempt to peek inside. “Isn’t this a third or fourth chance, or have we
stopped counting?”

* * *

Tilly watched the day die and waited for her sense of
disconnection to do the same. She squinted through one eye, then the other, but
there wasn’t much to look at beyond mildew-colored clouds lumbering across the
sky. And an empty gin glass. Everything swayed, even her emotions, although
hopefully not too much, otherwise who knew what she might say if probed about
James. She would acknowledge this once and not think on it again: she missed
him, and it hurt like hell, the
tear-me-apart-and-trample-on-the-bits-that-show-signs-of-life hell. Either that
or she was blottoed.

“Where’s Isaac?” Sebastian, who had been closeted in the study
with her mother, stepped onto the patio.

“Tree house.” Tilly closed her eyes, but the world continued to
rock.

“James get off okay?”

Clearly, James’s departure was the hot topic of the day.
Everyone had asked her about it. First Isaac—
Can James come
over to hunt for black snakes when we get home?
—then Rowena, then her
mother—
I’m going to miss James, and what about you,
darling?
—and now Sebastian.

Tilly rubbed her eyes before opening them, but the scene in the
sky hadn’t improved. “Yup. James is gone, vamoosed.” She waved an arm in a
dramatic swoop. It hung in the air for a moment before dropping to her lap,
where it lay as inert as a bag of potting soil. Definitely blottoed, then. “Left
on a jet plane never to return. Happy?” Would her legs buckle if she tried to
stand?

“Extremely.” An impish grin flickered on Sebastian’s lips.

Tilly smiled, a Pavlovian response to his beauty, but inside
she cried. Sebastian might be happy, but she wasn’t. Far from it. She leaned
forward, waiting for him to drag his chair up to hers, then slumped back,
shocked to realize she had anticipated the movement James would have made. As if
to ram home the point, Sebastian positioned his chair a good eighteen inches
away and sat heavily. He crossed his legs and his arms and said nothing. Which
was a blessing that gave her less to focus on.