Page 39 of Save You (Maxton Hall #2)

“Why did you stop?” I ask, grinning.

“Because I made Lydia promise to stop moaning about ballet at home.”

“Such a nice brother,” I remark.

“One does one’s best,” James replies.

“It’s just as well it was only those three lessons. Otherwise, I probably would have stopped as well and not kept it up another two years,” Lydia says.

“Why did you stop?” I ask.

“Lack of discipline,” Mr. Beaufort replies, as if I’d asked him the question and not Lydia. “My daughter generally only persists with things she finds easy. The moment she faces a challenge, she gives up.”

An unpleasant, heavy silence spreads over us, like a dark thundercloud that will start rumbling any moment.

Lydia’s lips are set into a pale line. Beside me, James grips his knife and fork so hard that his knuckles are white. The only person to keep eating at his leisure is Mr. Beaufort. He doesn’t even seem to notice that his unkind remark has killed the mood around the table.

How is it possible to be that insensitive to everything going on around you? To be so ignorant when it comes to your own children?

My friend Lydia faces up to every challenge. Speaking about her like that shows how little he knows his daughter.

“Well, I’d still love to see the photos,” I say in the end, keeping my tone cheerful to break the oppressive silence.

“I’m sure you looked really cute, even as a little rat.

” I’ve never had to be the bridge between this many people before, or not in an atmosphere like this, and I don’t know if I’m helping or just making things even worse.

I only know that I want to ease a bit of the pressure on James and Lydia.

“I’ll show you after dinner,” Lydia replies with a forced smile.

She raises her head, and for a moment it looks as though she’s looking at their father.

But then I see that she’s looking past him, to the enormous family portrait hanging on the wall over the antique fireplace.

It’s an oil painting of the whole Beaufort family, including their mother with her fox-colored hair.

James and Lydia can’t have been more than six or seven when it was painted.

“So,” Mr. Beaufort says suddenly, dabbing his mouth with the napkin and standing up. “I have another video conference. Good evening.” He nods to us and leaves the room.

I look in disbelief from James to Lydia, but neither seems particularly surprised by their dad’s abrupt departure.

“He just walked out,” I whisper, glancing over my shoulder to the door through which Mr. Beaufort just left.

“He does that. Don’t worry about it,” Lydia declares, leaning back in her chair. She smiles and rubs her belly. The fact that she does that around us, without a second thought, fills me with a warmth that’s very welcome after Mr. Beaufort’s icy glares.

“He always finds some excuse to get out of an awkward situation,” James remarks, taking a large sip from his glass of water. “Even when it was him who forced us into it in the first place. I can barely ever remember seeing him for longer than two hours at a time.” He snorts. “Which is fine by me.”

“I bet he doesn’t even have a call. Mum would never have allowed it,” Lydia mumbles.

James holds his breath. After a moment, he lets it out again audibly. “If you want to get away, I hereby set you free,” he says, glancing sidelong at me.

I furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”

“We can knock this depressing evening on the head now and try again next week.”

Lydia nods. “Nobody would mind if you’d rather go home.”

I stare at them both in outrage. “I’m not wasting this delicious meal.” I point my fork first at my half-eaten chicken, and then at Lydia. “Besides which, I’m not going anywhere until I’ve seen your ballet photos.”

Lydia laughs and James shakes his head with a smile.

I turn my attention back to my food, trying not to let anyone see how much the encounter with Mortimer Beaufort has unsettled me.

The rest of the meal is much more relaxed, but I’m still glad when we can go up to Lydia’s room after pudding and shut the door behind us. Now we’re sitting on her large, comfy sofa, looking through old photo albums.

“You were so sweet,” I sigh, pointing to a photo of James and Lydia hugging each other, their chubby little cheeks pressed close together.

“That’s from when we were three. Look at the curls I used to have,” Lydia says, pointing to her hair in the picture.

“You don’t anymore?” I ask.

She shakes her head and runs her hand over her ponytail. “No, thank goodness. I’d probably go mad if I still had to tame those every morning.”

“Oh, but they were so cute. James never had curls.”

I look at him as he sits in one of the armchairs opposite the sofa, flicking through a travel magazine.

“His hair always looked pretty much like it does now,” Lydia says, tearing me away from my thoughts.

I lean closer, to get a better look at the picture. “He’s always had that serious expression too,” I remark.

Lydia snorts and turns the page. On the next page, there’s a glowering mini-James, holding an empty ice-cream cone.

“He dropped the ice cream out of the cone,” Lydia explains with a grin.

“Poor baby James,” I murmur, grinning too. When I glance over at him, his only response is to raise an eyebrow.

“Lydia, don’t act like you were sorry for me. I still remember the way you laughed,” he says dryly.

“That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it? You didn’t laugh at me?” he retorts.

“OK, I did. But then I let you share my ice cream.”

“Yours was banana. What kind of a person likes banana ice cream?”

“Not me,” I say.

James points at me. “There, you see.”

“You’re both nuts.” Lydia shakes her head and flicks on. In the next few pages, the twins are six or seven, and now Alistair, Wren, Cyril, or Keshav turn up more and more often.

“It’s mad that you’ve all known each other so long,” I say in amazement.

“Yeah, isn’t it? Sometimes I feel like we’re brothers.”

I nod and look at a picture of a chubby-cheeked Alistair, his golden curls sticking up all over the place. Then my eyes are caught by a younger version of James with mini-Wren in a headlock.

“Did you and Wren ever talk?” I ask James quietly.

“We discussed one or two things.” He hesitates. “He’s got a lot on his mind.”

“Bad stuff?” Lydia asks at once.

James shrugs his shoulders. “I promised not to tell anyone.”

Lydia frowns with concern. I can see that she still has a lot of questions, but after an internal struggle, she just nods. “OK. But do you think it’s going to work out in the end?”

James nods. “Wren’s going to be fine. After all, he’s got us.”

Lydia and I exchange skeptical glances.

All the same, I’m relieved that James and Wren seem to have made up.

During that long phone call on my birthday night, James told me how important it is to him to enjoy this last year of school together with his friends.

He wanted to make the most of it and not worry about what will come next.

His mum dying changed things, but that makes it all the more important to have friends he can count on. And vice versa.

A little later, I say goodbye to Lydia, and James drives me home. Or rather, Percy drives me home, but James comes along for the ride in the Rolls-Royce. We’re quiet as we leave their property and head for Gormsey.

However little I like it, it feels as though the run-in with Mortimer Beaufort is a shadow hanging over us.

I’ve met the man on three occasions in my life, and he’s tried to come between James and me every time.

I so hope that James won’t let him do that again.

That the thing we have now is stronger than his father’s influence.

“What are you thinking?” he asks suddenly, his voice deep and warm.

I look up and meet his turquoise eyes. My stomach starts to tingle.

I take a deep breath. “That I’d like to spend more weekends like that with you.”

James looks up into my eyes and then down again, as if he doesn’t know how to defend himself against me.

“And at the same time, I’m wondering…” I pause.

James waits, still looking at me. “What are you wondering?” he asks after a while.

“I’m wondering how things are going to work out. For you,” I whisper. “For you and your dad, I mean. With him telling you how to live your life, and you letting him drive you into a corner where you don’t want to be.”

James lowers his eyes and stares at the car footwells, as if there’s something fascinating to see there. He takes a deep breath. And another. After a while, he slowly shakes his head.

“It’s not just about him,” he begins after a while, his voice rough. “Everything comes down to Beaufort’s, Ruby. It’s not just Dad’s life’s work that I’m going to inherit.” I gulp hard as he glances up again and looks straight at me. “I…I don’t want to disappoint my mum.”

I inhale sharply.

I’d never thought of that. Of course his mum’s death has changed things.

I spent the whole time thinking that everything would work out fine so long as James could follow his own dreams, rather than his father’s.

But now I realize that that isn’t what matters anymore.

James isn’t only tied to Beaufort’s by his dad.

The main person keeping him there now is his mum.

“You won’t disappoint your mum,” I whisper.

“But what if I do? What if I can’t do this?” The expression in his eyes is one I’ve never seen on him before: fear. It flickers on his face and seems suddenly to fill the massive car.

“I’m there for you,” I say. Only four words, but at this moment, I’m putting everything I can into those few syllables.

James gives me a long look. He seems to understand everything else I’m trying to say. Gradually, the sheer panic fades from his face, to be replaced by tenderness and the warmth that’s been in his eyes for me all evening.

The next moment, James takes my hand. He links his fingers into mine and squeezes gently.

“And I’m there for you. Whatever happens.”

I let myself sink back and lean my head against his shoulder.

It’s a little easier to breathe now.

We can do this.

James

It’s after half past one when a loud crash startles me awake.

I jerk upright so fast that the e-reader falls off the bed and lands on the floor, but that’s the least of my worries.

I run at top speed over the landing to Lydia’s room.

But when I fling her door open, she’s just sitting up in bed, rubbing her tired eyes.

“Are you OK?” I ask.

She nods. “What was that?”

“Must have been Dad,” I reply, feeling my pulse quicken.

I don’t want to go downstairs.

I don’t want to know what else he’s smashed.

I don’t want to fucking worry about him.

Everything in me is yelling at me to go back to bed, but I head down the stairs. Another crash. Whatever Dad’s up to, he’s in the dining room.

I creep quietly down the hall. The closer I get, the more clearly I can hear him. He’s mumbling something; he sounds like he’s angry with somebody. Could it be Mary or Percy?

Just before I get to the dining room, I press myself against the wall with the door on my left.

“You bitch,” my father slurs. “You shouldn’t have done it.”

I frown and creep closer. Who the hell is he talking to?

“I’ll never forgive you. Now I’m on my own with the two of them and I can’t do anything right and it’s all your fucking fault!

” He roars those last words. I lean out from my hiding place just in time to see him hurl a full decanter of whisky at the family portrait over the dining table.

I gasp as the decanter shatters, the sound ringing in my ears.

The brown liquid runs down from Mum over Lydia and me.

It looks as if the paint is running. Mum’s face smears like a melting waxwork, gradually transforming into a monster.

A grotesque mask, looking down on my father from above, mocking him.

At this moment, the anger at him that’s always slumbering inside me awakes into new life, and the heat that flows through my veins is one that only he can trigger. I clench my fists, and I’m about to walk into the room to confront him when he suddenly makes a new sound.

From behind, I see his shoulders shaking. He gasps for breath, again and again, then suddenly his knees give way and he sinks to the floor. Among all the broken glass. He claps his hands to his face, and then I hear it again.

My father is sobbing.

I can’t move; I’m rooted to the spot as I watch him weep.

I think about all the times he made me cry.

I think about his fists, his shouts, his insults, and the cold way he always looks at me.

I think about the day of the funeral when he instructed us on how to act.

The way he didn’t tell us about Mum’s death.

And I realize that I’m not feeling the satisfaction I want to feel. Anything but. My dad is suffering. What kind of a person would it make me if I turned around now and went back up to my room?

It’s not easy to take the first step, but I do it. I walk into the dining room, being careful not to step in the wreckage of his fury, and stand behind him. Purely on instinct, I lay a hand on Dad’s shoulder and press it for a moment. The sobbing stops at once and he holds his breath.

Just as I’m about to take my hand away, he reaches for it. He clings to it, almost desperately, and I let him. A weird feeling floods over me. Something I haven’t felt for my father for ages.

I look up at the portrait of us. Dad has both hands on Lydia’s shoulders, and I’m standing in front of Mum, who has her arms wrapped around me. The colors might have blurred, but I remember what it was like that day. I remember what it felt like to be part of a family.

The feeling burgeoning in me now is only a shadow of that, but I hold fast to it.