Page 67 of A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street
He lets out a breathy laugh and holds his hand out, and as always, I’m unable to resist anything to do with his hands. My ballet flats tap across the paving slabs and everything feels right with the world when his fingers close around mine.
I go to sit on the wall beside him, but he stops me. ‘You can’t sit on a wall in that beautiful dress. The bricks will snag the organza.’
‘Look at you, learning stuff from spending the past few weeks in a dress shop.’
He pulls his knees up so his thighs form a flat surface and pats his leg.
‘I can’t sit on your lap.’ I let out a semi-hysterical laugh.
‘’Course you can. I mean, if you want to. I know things aren’t right between us; I owe you an explanation, so maybe you don’t want—’
I cut him off by perching on his lap. I loop my arms around his neck and he turns his head to kiss my inner elbow, his arms sliding loosely around me, holding me tight.
There’s so much fabric to the dress that it’s everywhere. I pat it down and try to tuck it around our legs, and I feel him relax. That sense of peace settles over me when I’m with him too and soothes all the sharp edges and tattered nerves of the last few days, and I lean in to kiss his cheek and he lets out a long, shuddery breath.
‘When I was ten, my father shot himself in the courtyard. I woke up in the middle of the night with an overwhelming sense of dread. A fear I couldn’t see. I knew something was wrong. I ran through the castle, desperately looking for him, searching for reassurance that I was just having a nightmare. I saw him from the window. The glint of his hunting rifle catching the moonlight. I screamed. I pounded on the glass, but he didn’t hear me. I was too far away and the building was too big. By the time I got out there, he’d pulled the trigger. He took his final breath in my arms. I blamed the castle itself. If it had just been smaller, a normal-sized house, I would have got there in time. I would have called his name and he’d have turned around and seen me and realised he was about to make a huge mistake. He’d have put the shotgun down and we would have gone inside and warmed up with hot chocolate, and he’d still be alive. In my mind, it was the castle’s fault that he wasn’t, and I’ve hated the place for so many years.’
One hand rubs his shoulder and I let the other stroke through his hair when his voice breaks, and his hands tighten on my thigh.
‘Maybe it was the castle that woke you up that night too. At least he wasn’t alone. All death is horrible, but the least you can hope for is that the person is with someone they love when it happens. And he was. The last thing he felt was your love.’
He looks up at me with his head tilted and tears in his eyes. ‘Andthatis why I fell in love with you. You see this castle in a way that no one else does. You see the world through different eyes. I’ve never thought of it like that before.’
I blush and continue running my fingers through his hair, trying to hug him one-handed without suffocating him in the dress. ‘I should apologise for all the “mad viscount” stories you’ve heard. No one meant any harm. None of us had any clue he was your father.’
‘It’s okay. He was broken after my mother’s death, but I had no ideahowbroken. A father wouldn’t talk to his young son about mental health, and half the labels we’d put on it these days hadn’t been invented then. We stayed in the castle, locked away. There were staff back then but they were fired because he became convinced they were plotting to kill us. I was taken out of school because he thought my teachers were part of the plot, and what young boy wouldn’t be overjoyed at that? He taught me everything he knew. Taught me how to be a gentleman, how to treat people right, how to act, how to speak… and then the weirder stuff like how to stop the “powers that be” from reading your thoughts, and where to hide from “them” who might be watching. Obviously, looking back as an adult, I see he was suffering from psychosis, delusions, hallucinations, but back then, I thought he was just being daft old Dad, making up stories like the ones I read in books.’
I kiss his forehead, giving him time to talk.
‘Things only got worse when his second wife came along. She fed into his delusions rather than recognising that he needed help. She targeted him from the very beginning. She saw a vulnerable man who had a lot of money and set out to part him from it. She never cared about him, never loved him, but he thought she was the answer to his prayers, sent by some higher power to rescue us from whatever he thought we needed rescuing from. She used his love against him. Used it as a manipulation tactic, a way of getting him to do whatever she wanted. I was too young to remember the love my mum and dad had, so that was my only experience of what love means. For years, I’ve protected myself against love because I’ve thought that’s what it would be like. You’ve shown me otherwise. The stories you’ve recounted to me about my mum and dad have reminded me of what real love is and what they shared, before it all went wrong.’ He rests his chin on my bare shoulder, the shadow of his stubble making my skin tingle.
‘Why did you come back now?’
He manages to shrug his shoulders without dislodging any of the places we’re touching. ‘I’ve had loads of offers on the castle over the years, but I’ve always hung onto it. I couldn’t face seeing it again, but I didn’t want to get rid of it because it was the last place my father was happy. The last placeIwas happy. But this time… I don’t know. Something felt different, I guess. I’m going to be forty next year. Thirty years will have passed since that night. The supermarket’s offer was no better than any of the others I’ve received, but I convinced myself it was time to let go, but I couldn’t let go without coming back one last time. One final chance to bury the bad memories associated with this place. And then I met you.’
I can’t help smiling at the abrupt way he ends the sentence. ‘It feels like a lot of sentences ended that night.’
His chin moves against my shoulder as his face shifts into a smile.
‘Are you really an estate agent?’
‘I am,’ he says with a guilty laugh. ‘Everything I’ve told you about my job is true. The only thing that I wasn’t quite honest about is that this isn’t a project for work – I’m using my annual leave to be here. I had no idea that Ever After Street had sprung up around the castle in the decades since I was last here, and when I realised the level of feeling in the area and how unpopular selling the castle was, I didn’t want anyone to know it wasmewho’d made the decision to sell it, and the more I’ve found out about Ever After Street, the worse I’ve felt. I’m sorry for the stress I’ve put you and the other shopkeepers through.’
‘Not me, not any more… I quit my job.’
‘You’ve…what?’ His hand shifts from my thigh to curl around my waist and he pulls back until he can catch my eyes.
‘After you left the other day. It was all too much for me too. It made me realise some home truths.’ I repeat some of the things I said to Ebony in the shop.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I could actually do with an estate agent’s help. I want to find a little shop somewhere, on a high street, small enough to afford but big enough to display some dresses in the windows, sew, and do fittings. What my mum did all those years ago, but on my terms. It won’t be the same, it won’t be The Cinderella Shop, but…’ I trail off because every time I think about the reality of leaving the shop, I want to cry. Itisn’twhat I want, but it feels like the only way it can be.
His fingers brush up and down my thigh, rucking up the sparkly organza and smoothing it back down again. ‘How about here?’
‘Here?’
He looks up at me with shining eyes. ‘Here. Either a couple of rooms in the castle or somewhere in the grounds, somewhere with shelter, space, big windows… I know it’s not Ever After Street itself, but if we’re going to hire the castle out as a wedding venue, it would be kind of cool for brides to come for fittings here too…’
