Page 25 of Save Me (Maxton Hall #1)

Ruby

“What’s wrong with you?” Ember asks, making me jump a mile.

I’m stirring a pan of jam, so deep in thought that I didn’t even notice her creep up behind me to stare over my shoulder.

“Nothing,” I say, a moment too late.

Dad points an unopened packet of preserving sugar at me. “Your sister’s right; something’s up.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re bugging me, that’s all.” I stir a bit too vigorously, and the hot apple mush splashes onto my hand. I inhale with a sharp hiss.

“Get that under cold water now,” Mum says, taking the spoon from me. She pushes it into Ember’s hand and me over to the sink, where she runs the tap.

“Can’t you just leave me in peace?” I mutter.

“Gladly,” says Dad. “But you’ve been like this since that trip on Saturday, and I’d like to know why.”

I just mumble. There’s no escape, even at home.

I’ve never understood why everyone complains about Mondays.

For me, every Monday symbolizes a new beginning, when you can get things on track for a great week.

Normally, I love Mondays. But today, absolutely everything is rubbing me the wrong way.

People at school, memories of Saturday, Ember’s curious eyes.

Even the little splash on my hand that burns like hell. Stupid jam.

I wish I could just shut myself away in my room and focus on the next three months’ worth of homework, but my family forced me to help cook up the apples. Even though I’m pretty sure the jam’s just an excuse to get me to talk.

A moment later, Ember confirms my suspicions. “Why don’t you just tell us what happened?”

“Because you don’t really want to know how I am,” I retort. “You’re only asking because you want all the details about Beaufort’s.”

“That’s not true!”

“No?” I say provokingly. “So you’re not interested in what it was like then?”

Now she shifts her weight awkwardly to her other foot. “Yeah, I am. But both things can be true. I can be interested in one of the biggest gentlemen’s outfitters in the country and in how you are at the same time. There’s room in my heart for both, sis.”

“That’s sweet,” says Dad, rolling past the two of us in his wheelchair to get to the stove.

He takes a clean spoon and dunks it in the simmering jam.

I always find it fascinating to watch him taste things.

When I try a dish, I look…normal. With Dad, you can tell at once that he’s a professional.

His expression changes, like he’s mentally taking apart every ingredient and considering whether there’s anything missing, and if so, what it could be.

Just like now. He’s put his head to one side, and we’re watching, intrigued.

The next second, his face brightens, and he wheels back slightly to the little metal trolley with all his spices.

He reaches for the mixed spice and adds a pinch or two to the pan.

The cinnamon smell reminds me of Christmas—my favorite holiday.

“There’s nothing to tell, Ember,” I say belatedly, making my sister groan with frustration. “You already know everything there is to know about Beaufort’s.”

“I’d love to see inside the workshop though,” she sighs, resting her chin on her hand.

“Would that interest you? You want to specialize in ladies’ clothes, don’t you?” Dad asks.

The doorbell rings, and we look at each other in surprise.

“Who could that be?” Mum says, heading toward the hall.

“It’s about the atmosphere, Dad. Seeing the way people there work, the materials they use, how they cut out.

It would have been so interesting.” Ember’s wistful face makes me feel guilty.

I get that she considers it unfair that I had the chance, just out of nowhere, to visit a major designer’s head office and she didn’t.

But on the other hand, look how that ended up for me.

There’s no way I want my sister to ever feel as humiliated as I did at that moment.

“I’ve got an idea. Couldn’t you ask your friend to give me a tour too?” Ember asks. She’s only half joking, which unsettles me.

“You can ask him yourself, Ember,” says Mum unexpectedly.

I turn around with a frown. “What?”

“The lad’s on the doorstep,” she explains, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “You didn’t tell me what a looker he is.”

I stare at her, my protective instinct going from zero to sixty in nothing flat. “You didn’t let him in, did you?”

“Of course not. That’s up to you to do that—or not, if you don’t want to.” Mum comes over and presses a kiss on the top of my head. I can feel my family’s nosy eyes on my back as I cross the kitchen and step into the hallway. I feel numb as I walk to the door.

James is on the front steps. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in such casual clothes. His dark jeans and white T-shirt make him look like a perfectly ordinary boy. If I’d bumped into him on the street, I probably wouldn’t even have recognized him.

Hanging over his arm is a large black protective cover with the Beaufort’s logo on it. I stare at the swirly “B” for a second, suddenly filled with unbearable rage.

He shouldn’t be here. I don’t want him anywhere near my family. My life here has nothing to do with my life at Maxton Hall, and I can’t deal with the fact that he’s standing here in front of me, erasing the boundary I drew years ago, just like that—least of all after Saturday.

The moment I open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, he takes his eyes off our rosebushes and spots me in the doorway.

An emotion I can’t interpret flickers in his eyes—I never can manage to read him—and then he takes a step up, making our eyes level.

He clears his throat and eventually holds the bag out to me.

“I wanted to bring the dress round for you. Tristan has altered it. It should fit you perfectly now.”

I make no moves to take it from him. “And you had to come to my house for that?”

He takes a deep breath and exhales violently, then rubs the back of his head with his hand. “I wanted to speak to you about Saturday too. I acted like an arse, and I’m sorry.”

For a moment, all I can do is stare at him.

It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him say anything like that, and I can’t help wondering how often in his life he’s apologized. When I think of every liberty he’s taken at school in the last few years, his moral boundaries must generally be set considerably lower than mine.

But now he looks truly sorry.

“I don’t understand why you did that,” I say quietly.

Especially not after he held my hand and we definitely had a moment. I saw exactly how warm his gaze was, and I clearly felt the chemistry between us. I wasn’t just imagining it.

He gulps hard. He doesn’t speak for a whole minute, just looks at me with inscrutable eyes. Then he mumbles so quietly that I can barely hear his words: “I don’t understand myself sometimes, Ruby Bell.”

I open my mouth to reply but shut it again.

I get the feeling that he’s being honest with me for the first time, and I don’t want to ruin it by throwing his apology back in his face.

So I say nothing. I’m quiet for so long that with anyone else, it would have got awkward, but I sense that James and I could look at each other in silence for hours—each of us just trying to get a glimpse behind the other one’s facade.

“Why did you really come?” I ask finally.

“What you said this afternoon…” He hesitates. “What if I don’t want to go back to the old days?”

I laugh tonelessly. “You threw me out. And before that, you embarrassed me in front of your parents. You acted like I wasn’t good enough to be introduced to them.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

I see him rock back and forward ever so slightly on his feet.

It’s almost like he’s nervous. “It was fun on Saturday. Until…my parents turned up.” He clears his throat.

“I think it would be a shame if we suddenly acted like we don’t know each other.

You’re not invisible to me anymore. And I don’t want to pretend that you are. ”

Although the bitter aftertaste of the weekend is still there, his words make something contract inside me in tingling excitement. “I don’t know what you expect from me now, James,” I say quietly.

“I don’t expect anything from you. I just don’t want to go back to how things were before. Can’t we just…know each other from now on?”

I stare speechlessly at him.

He’s not being serious . The thought flashes through my head.

He can’t be being serious. I’m not stupid.

I know that James can’t stand me—even though we genuinely did have a nice time together on Saturday.

I’m the reason he got barred from lacrosse, and I know one of his sister’s biggest secrets, which makes me a risk to him and his family.

I bet he just wants to keep an eye on me.

“If this is just another of your schemes—” I begin skeptically, but James interrupts me.

“It’s not,” he says, coming up the last step.

I can’t believe his words; I know that perfectly well. I can’t get a handle on him—I doubt that anyone can. But at this moment, there’s something in his eyes, something honest and remorseful, that takes my breath away for a second.

How has this happened? How did we go, in less than a month, from total strangers to bribery to hatred to here?

The door opens behind me. “Ruby? Everything OK?”

I stiffen. Standing in front of me is James Beaufort with a hundred-and-fifty-year-old dress over his arm and a look on his face that makes me go weak at the knees.

Standing behind me is my sister, who I was fighting with over Dad’s jam only a few minutes ago.

My two worlds have collided head-on, and I don’t know how to react.

I go hot and cold all over, nod to Ember with a forced smile, and try to tell her, without words, to back off.

She looks from James to me and back again, curious and skeptical at the same time, but does eventually draw back, leaving the door ajar.

Only then can I turn back to James. It takes me a couple of breaths to get myself together. Then I realize that I owe him an answer. “I don’t know,” I say truthfully.

James nods. “OK. Actually, I only really came to apologize for Saturday.”

“Only for Saturday?”

Now he smiles wryly. “I’m certainly not going to apologize for treating you to a lap dance.”

No clue whether I can accept his apology if he’s going to say stuff like that.

I don’t know if he means it or if he just wants to pour oil on troubled waters so that I don’t tell anyone about Lydia.

Even so, it would make my life easier not to be constantly annoyed at him.

Or if I could occasionally speak to him about school stuff.

I noticed at the weekend that he’s got more than just a quick tongue; he’s intelligent.

He was fun to talk to. And there was that certain something that gave me pins and needles and made me curious for more.

I know it’s unwise and that I shouldn’t trust him an inch. But the longer I think about it, the more I realize that I don’t actually want to go back to the old days.

I look him straight in the eyes so that he’ll understand that I’m deadly serious as I say: “I’m not letting you treat me that way again.”

“Understood,” he replies quietly, holding out the dress to me again.

At that moment, it starts to rain. Not much, but enough that, despite the bag, I’m scared for the dress. Hastily, I take it from James and hang it safely in our hallway.

By the time I get back, James’s hair is full of water droplets that are now making their way down his cheeks.

He wipes his face with the back of his hand, then runs it through his hair without taking his eyes off me.

The polite thing to do would be to invite him in before he gets soaked through, but I simply can’t.

It doesn’t feel right. I can’t introduce him to my parents and sister. Maybe I never will be able to.

“I accept your apology,” I say in the end.

His eyes light up. It’s the first time I’ve seen an expression like that on his face.

So we stand there in the rain, him on my parents’ front steps, me in the doorway, not prepared to let him in.

But it’s a start.