Page 100 of An Unholy Affair
She stared at him in astonishment, as if someone offering to help was still a foreign concept to her. ‘But don’t you have things to do?’
Jack swallowed his irritation at Simon—and all her other parishioners—who were happy to eat the fruits of her labour, but not help in the production of it.
‘Top of my to-do list is you,’ he replied, her excited gasp helping to soothe his annoyance. He leaned forward and brushed a kiss across her lips. ‘So if you’re not around to be thoroughly “done”, then I need to find something else to occupy my hands.’
‘Oh…’
He kissed her again. ‘I don’t think we’ve got enough time now for you to be properly “done”, so why don’t you show me where the fencing is and I can make a start on it?’
She glanced at her watch, holding it up to catch the growing light. ‘That would be amazing. I’ve got a bit of time before Matins.’
Jack changed into welly boots, then helped Eveline manhandle netting from the back of the shed. They then began the laborious task of attaching it to the inside of the existing pen with a hammer and fiddly staples that were difficult to use in the cold.
After Eveline left for church,Jack continued with the fence and thought about what he’d be doing if he was back in his flat in the south of France. There, he would have still been asleep, waiting at least another hour before leisurely waking and ambling towards his balcony to take in the morning sun.
Now he was tramping about in a stinky pigpen and wasn’t sure he’d ever felt quite as content. Back in his Monaco apartment, the first coffee of the day would be accompanied by the sounds of toots and engines from cars and mopeds, shouts from people, yaps from expensive dogs, and the low horns from the mega-yachts in the harbour. Monaco was the subjugation of the natural environment into a carefully curated playground for the über rich. It wasn’t messy, and it certainly wasn’t muddy.
But here, in the ancient rectory garden, the natural world was doing its own thing, no matter how Eveline attempted to tame it. Autumn leaves fell with no consideration for the tidiness of the paths, weeds elbowed their way between the flowers she’d grown, birds whirled past as they fought and chattered, and the pigs churned the ground and defecated at will. But even though nature was noisy and chaotic around him, the morning held a stillness about it.
He finished attaching the electric netting to the existing fence, then connected the battery, which luckily Eveline had kept charged. Back inside the house, he put the kettle on and cracked eggs into a bowl, knowing she would be back from school soon and likely to be hungry. Contentment seeped down to his bones. Doing these small tasks for her, helping her day run a little smoother, gave him such satisfaction. Maybe thiswaswhere he was meant to be.
A small sound from outside the kitchen made him pause. It wasn’t loud enough to be the back door unless Eveline was trying to creep in and surprise him? He turned with a smile as the kitchen door quietly opened.
Simon entered the room, his face contorting from confusion to annoyance.
‘Where’s Eveline?’
Jack forced himself to take a breath. ‘Assembly at Foxbrooke Primary school.’
‘She should have been back by now,’ Simon replied, as if it were Jack’s fault that she was not.
He shrugged. ‘Can I help you?’
Simon’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you doing here?’
Jack glanced at the work surface. ‘Eggs are ready to be scrambled, then I think I’ll make some toast and possibly fry up some bacon if there’s some to hand.’
‘This isn’t your house. You can’t just help yourself to what’s not yours.’
‘True,’ Jack replied, forcing his features into a smile, whilst his right fist itched to be planted in the middle of Simon’s pompous face. ‘That’s why I always knock when I arrive and wait to be let in.’
Simon opened his mouth, his lower lip quivering, but Jack didn’t let him speak.
‘As for what I’m doing at the rectory, I’m working from here to organise Foxbrooke Manor’s Winter Ball, and the food I’m about to prepare is for Eveline, not me. Do you have any other questions?’
Jack leaned back against the Aga, his posture relaxed as Simon drew himself up.
‘Now listen here,boy…’
Images of Jack’s bullying father flashed across his mind, tearing apart the scar tissue from memories he thought had healed over. Folding his arms across his chest, he raised an eyebrow, feigning nonchalance even as his heart rate rose.
‘… I don’t know what your game is, but you need to leave Eveline alone. I—Shedoesn’t need anyone like you getting in the way and ruining everyth—her reputation.’
What the fuck?‘And tell me exactlyhowmy presence “ruins her reputation”?’ Jack asked scathingly, even as the icy fear that Simon knew his secret dripped down his spine.
‘May I remind you that Eveline is Foxbrooke’s vicar, as well as an unmarried spinster—’
‘What is this? Seventeen eighty-two?’
