Page 19 of Oz (Finding Home #1)

Chapter

Eight

Last time I went on a proper date I think I was seventeen

Oz

The next morning, Chewwy and I clatter down the stairs and come to an abrupt stop. “What are you doing?”

He grins at me from his position on a stepladder. “Sorry. I’m just getting these cobwebs. They’re getting bad.”

I fold my arms. “Don’t tell me. You are doing this because Martha, the housemaid, is frightened of heights and once smiled at you when you were five.”

He grins and carries on swiping the duster over the ceiling. “Actually no, smart arse. Martha has a headache.” He pauses. “And yes, she was very smiley when we were children.”

The stepladder wobbles alarmingly and I shake my head.

“Okay, enough. Come down before you break something we might need on our date.” He looks down at me and I nod emphatically.

“I’ll look into getting Martha to do something else.

” I reach for my diary. “Surely we’ve got a member of staff who used to be a stuntman. ”

He laughs and gives another few swipes of the cloth and then comes gingerly down the ladder.

Once he’s on the floor he lopes right over to me, stepping close as my pulse thrums. “Good morning,” he says softly and kisses me.

It’s a soft kiss, barely there, but it feels like he’s marked me.

No one has ever done that before or looked so pleased to see me.

Normally it’s a quick ‘thanks, was it good for you’ and a hearty slap on the arse.

I swallow hard. “Good morning,” I say softly. I step back to get my equilibrium and his lip quirks as if he knows. “Well, are we ready for our practical work date?” I say briskly.

He strokes his beard contemplatively and I swallow at the rasp of those long fingers against the hair. I want to rub my face in it, I think dreamily and then start as he speaks.

“Not work,” he says firmly. I look dazedly at him, my mind still so full of face and beard rubbing that I’m not following. “It’s a date,” he says clearly. “I’m even buying food.”

I make a face of amazement. “Wow! Food too.”

He nods. “I know. Last time I went on a proper date, I think I was seventeen. We do kiss at the doorstep and go home, don’t we?”

“We do,” I murmur, stepping close to him. “But we live in the same home so I think we can do more kissing to fill the time.”

“You strumpet,” he says admiringly, and I laugh.

“Why haven’t you dated?” I ask as he gestures to me to follow him. Chewwy gives a long-suffering sigh as if pondering the whims of humans and follows us. I look at Silas as he hasn’t given me an answer.

He shrugs awkwardly. “I’ve been with a lot of people, but they usually started with sex. By the time we looked at actually getting out of bed they invariably discovered they couldn’t cope with the isolation of living here. The fact that I was never here didn’t help either.”

“You are here. You’re just here at different hours,” I say crossly. “Why didn’t they adjust?”

“What? Stay up to eat dinner at two in the morning?” He smiles at me. “I think you’re the first.”

“Did you date morons?”

He considers. “Probably in a few cases.”

“And what gender were the morons?” I ask the question that’s been in the back of my head since the woman at the county show.

He shoots me a look and then I gasp as he grabs my arm and shoves me through a door to our right. I look around. We’re in a little lobby leading to whitewashed old stairs. “Oh, this is what you meant by a working date.” I get my diary out. “What needs doing here?”

He grabs the diary, pulls the rubber band around it and puts it under his arm. “You won’t be needing that,” he says smartly.

“Why are we here?” I ask plaintively. “Because I can actually at the moment understand why you’re single.”

“Ssh,” he says, his voice laced with laughter. He opens the door a crack. “Niall’s coming.”

I wriggle round until I’m in front of him. He groans under his breath as I get comfortable, my arse banging into his crotch. “Where?” I whisper.

Then I hear the voices of Niall and the builder. “Mr Johnson, I’m not really sure what the problem is here.”

“Oh no,” I whisper and go to open the door but he stops me.

“Ssh. Stay right where you are.”

Mr Johnson says something and Niall’s voice comes closer. “Well, there’s an easy way to settle things. We can find Oz.”

“No, no,” the builder says quickly. “There’s absolutely no need for that.”

Silas gasps a laugh and I elbow him.

“Why is Chewwy sitting there?” Niall ponders and clicks his tongue. “Come on, boy. Let’s go and find your beloved.”

“Is Lord Ashworth around?”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about him,” Niall says in a very dismissive voice. “Chewwy has a very pronounced attachment to Oz. I think it might be because he’s actually taller than Oz. He enjoys the feeling of superiority.”

“Cheeky twat,” I hiss and Silas pinches me to be quiet.

The voices move on and the next second I’m spun around, and he kisses me. He takes his time, sucking on my lower lip and rubbing his tongue against mine while he pins me against the door. When he pulls away I feel almost dazed and follow his lips for a second. “What?”

He pulls back. “I didn’t say good morning properly,” he says simply. “You ready?”

“For what?” I ask faintly, but he grabs my hand and pulls me towards a door set under the stairs. I follow him through, looking around as I do. “This house is like fucking Hogwarts. Every time I think I know everything, I find something else. Where does this go?”

“Behind the stables. We can cut around to the car from there.”

I follow behind him. “Why did you hide?” I hear myself say. I almost want to look behind me because that nervous voice surely doesn’t belong to me.

He stops abruptly and turns back, grabbing my face in his warm fingers. “Not for the reason you’re thinking. I just didn’t want anything to stop us going out.” He sounds horrified and I relent.

“Okay, that’s fine.”

He doesn’t let go. “Did you think I was ashamed of you?” He sounds so incredulous I relax.

“I didn’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time. Wait, where are you going?”

He’s turned and is walking back, still holding my hand. He stops and looks back at me. “I’m not ashamed of you. I’m proud to be seen with you. Come on. We’ll go through the front door. I want everyone to see.”

I laugh and tug free. “No. If we go through the front everyone will see us and someone will magic up thirty problems instantaneously. Silas, stop, it’s fine.”

He turns back reluctantly. His kind face is clouded. “Who treated you like that?”

I smile. “No one, and I mean no one. Don’t worry about it.” He opens his mouth, but I forestall him and turn back towards the car park. “Come on, for goodness’ sake. I want to start the date.”

“Now, it’s a date,” he says dolefully and makes me laugh.

We climb into his old Land Rover. It’s battered, with dog hair on the back seat and a strange smell that seems to be a mingling of some sort of antiseptic and wet dog. However, for some strange reason I feel utterly at home.

I stay quiet for a few minutes while he drives and then turn to face him.

He’s sitting comfortably in the driving seat, the breeze from the open window making his hair fly around.

This close I can see the laughter lines at the corners of those amazingly coloured eyes.

He turns, and I don’t even try to pretend I wasn’t staring.

“What?” he asks, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Just surprised we’ve not driven into a bush yet,” I say, a smile tugging at my lips.

“Fuck off,” he laughs. “I’m a good driver. I was just a nervous wreck when I was a teenager. I just covered it well, unless you were a driving instructor. It was harder going back and telling my father I’d failed than it was breaking that poor bloke’s nose.”

I examine his face intently. He’s given that information away so casually but I know I’ll store it away like there’s a worldwide embargo on Silas details. Things are starting to become clearer about him. He looks sideways and catches me watching him. “What?”

I shrug and give voice to the question that’s been in the back of my mind for a while. “I was just wondering what your childhood was like.”

He shoots me a glance that’s heavy with something I can’t put a name to. “Why?”

I hesitate. “You seem to have been very reliant on the staff.”

To my amazement he laughs. “You’re right. It’s a good thing too, because if we’d been reliant on our mother then Henry and I would have died from neglect.” He sobers. “While with my father, I’d have rather explored that option.”

“Was he one of those helicopter parents the media keep going on about?”

“Only if the helicopter was an Apache helicopter and it was crashing on you.”

“Oh. Oh shit!”

He nods and carries on talking slowly. I think it helps that he’s not looking at me.

“He wasn’t a nice man at all. You’d have hated him.

He was every preconceived idea of the aristocracy that you came here with.

He was arrogant and petty, narrow minded and petulant.

He thought he knew more than anyone else, which is why you’re working yourself into an early grave trying to do up the house. ”

“Not an early grave. You make me sound like I’ve got cholera.” He laughs. “Would he approve of all this?”

He laughs. “Fuck no. The thought would have given him apoplexy. We opened the house twice a year to let the peasants see how wonderful we were and then it was just us again trying to survive the guerrilla warfare he thought was child raising.” I swallow hard at the shadow on his face.

“He was terrible to the staff. They’d do some small thing and they’d be out on their ear, and as they lived in the house they’d lose their home as well as a job. ”

“What was he like to you and Henry?”