THIRTEEN
Copt Hall
Thursday, 7th September 1939
NOAH SPEAKS
I was with Ecub and Erith, walking the gardens at the side of the house, when I felt Grace’s pain.
Catling!
As always, two emotions consumed me instantly: anger—fury—that Catling should so torment Grace, and a bleak impotence that was more devastating than the anger. What could I do? Nothing, really, for all I could do was fuss, and Grace so hated to be fussed over.
I knew from what I could feel that Grace was in the gardens at the back of Copt Hall, and I (as also Ecub and Erith) were with her within moments.
She was not alone. Jack’s valet, Malcolm, was standing by her side, and, as I ran towards Grace, Jack and Matilda materialised directly before my daughter.
I couldn’t look away from Grace. She was now half-crouched, bent over her wrists, and I could feel the suffering radiating out from her.
“Grace!” I cried, and ran the final few steps between us.
Before I could reach her, Jack stepped in front of me. “It’s all right, Noah,” he said. “Malcolm can take Grace into the kitchen where it is warm and quiet—”
Quiet? What was he trying to say?
With that he turned away from me, not even waiting for a response, and bent down and said something very quickly and quietly into Grace’s ear. She gave a tiny nod, then rose and, still half-crouched about herself, her wrists clutched to her chest, walked slowly towards the kitchen, Malcolm a half-step behind.
“Jack,” I began, irritated by the way he’d stepped in, but he motioned to me to wait.
“Malcolm can keep Grace company for the time being,” Jack said to me. “He can be quiet for her.”
I was grinding my teeth by this time, but I gave a jerk of my head.
“And while Grace endures,” Jack said, “you and I can talk.”
“Matilda and Erith and I,” said Ecub, “shall clear the tea things from the drawing room—no, do not worry, we shall not disturb Grace in the kitchen—and then wait in the car.” She looked at the other two women and winked. “I’m sure one of us has remembered to bring a flask of whisky with her, and we can spend the time quite pleasantly while waiting for Noah and Grace.”
Jack smiled his thanks, then took me by the elbow and guided me towards a stand of trees beyond the grass.
The trees hadn’t been there a few minutes previously.
Even this evidence of Jack’s power did nothing to quell my ill-temper.
“There was no need to step between us, Jack,” I said, none too gently pulling my elbow from his hand.
“She didn’t want you, Noah.”
That was too much. I stopped in my tracks and turned to him, my mouth opening to let him know what I thought…
“You said to me that she doesn’t like to be mothered,” he said. “Look, I know you want to help her, but…”
Oh, that “but”.
“Perhaps it is better to just let her be,” he finished. “Let her endure alone. She didn’t choose isolation by circumstance, Noah, but by choice.”
“It is easy to see that you are not a parent,” I said, and then wished I hadn’t. When he had been William, Jack had been an excellent parent to his and Matilda’s children, and he had been a loving father to our sons as well, even if he hadn’t been the best of husbands to me. And he’d been gone almost three hundred years since last I’d seen him—who knew what children he’d fathered in that time?
“Walk with me,” he said softly, and I briefly closed my eyes, and thought if he’d said that to me when he’d been Brutus, and I Cornelia, with that same measure of warmth and sweetness, then all of our troubles would never have had the chance to start.
So we walked. Twilight was thick about us now, and a heavy mist clung to our clothes and hair. I was glad for the coat I had put on earlier to walk in the garden, and slid my hands deep into its pockets. Above us the trees twisted, their branches mostly denuded of leaves, the earth to each side of our path humped into eerie misshapen swellings with the pressure of the roots below. Our feet crunched on dead leaves and forest litter, and as we walked deeper into the forest, and as the night settled about us, so all of the tension of the past minutes dissipated.
“It feels good,” I said eventually, “to be walking thus with you.”
From the corner of my eye I saw him smile slightly. “Aye, it does.”
I stopped, turning to look at him, thinking how handsome he was. I wish…oh, I could wish for so many things, and it couldn’t make the world any better a place, would it?
“We should have walked thus a long time ago,” I said.
The amusement dropped from his face, and he regarded me with an intensity that made my stomach twist with emotion.
“What we should have done a long time ago has been a hard and long lesson to learn,” he said.
We fell silent, neither of us able to look away from the other.
“I—” I began.
“We should—” he said at the same time, and we both laughed self-consciously.
Then he leaned forward, and kissed me.
Oh, my. This wasn’t that hard angry kiss he’d given me when I’d met him the night he’d arrived at Copt Hall. This was something altogether different, and far more unnerving.
I drew back a little, just a little, but not far enough, for he merely closed the distance between us and continued the kiss, deepening it a little.
Eventually I managed to draw back enough to break the contact. Gods, what was I doing?
The answer to that didn’t bear thinking about.
He smiled a little, and way too intimately.
“Perhaps we should get back to the house,” I said.
He didn’t move. “I can scarcely believe that you will fetch those bands for me willingly. For years you’ve hidden them from me, and refused me access.”
I was still so befuddled by the kiss, and so confused by my own reaction to it, I wondered if he was talking about the bands…or something else.
“And you will just fetch them from the Faerie for me? Whenever I ask?”
Just the kingship bands, then. “Of course,” I said. “Whenever you ask.”
Again he gave me that odd look he had given me earlier when we’d talked about the bands.
“Jack,” I said, “I’m sorry that I kept them from you all these years. You know I had reason enough.”
He gave one of those infuriating slight shrugs. “I know you thought to have reason.”
I was about to snap, but he spoke before I could manage it. “And they’re in the Faerie?”
“Of course they are, save the two I sent into the Otherworld.”
And yet again, one of those strange looks.
“Jack?”
He smiled then, easy and relaxed, and changed the subject. “Have I mentioned today how beautiful you are?”
“Jack, don’t.”
He reached out a hand, and ran his fingers softly down the side of my face.
“Are you sure I can’t win you away from Weyland?”
“Jack…”
He turned his face then, staring back to the hall. “Catling has retreated,” he said, “and Grace’s pain has faded. We should go back.”
I was disappointed at his words, yet at the same time relieved. Yes, we should go back.
Back to Grace.
I sighed.