Chapter 6
‘I like your name,’ Emilia told Jay Alexander. They were walking in the topiary garden, leaving Tobias to deal with a private phone call inside the house.
‘I like yours,’ Jay told Emilia. ‘It’s wonderfully old-fashioned.’
‘Yes, our parents always liked old things. Their parents too. Apparently, Mum wanted to call us Toby and Emily, but Dad insisted on Tobias and Emilia. We all seem to be stuck in some sort of time warp here.’
‘So that explains the dress?’
Emilia could feel herself blushing. ‘It’s Victorian.’
‘Yes, I can see that. Why are you wearing it?’
She took a deep breath. How on earth was she going to explain the dress to an outsider? Honestly, she decided.
‘Tobias likes me to,’ she confessed, instantly feeling as if she’d betrayed some trust between herself and her brother.
Jay frowned. ‘That sounds a bit . . .’
‘Weird?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know. It is,’ she said. ‘It’s really weird – I’ve been wearing the old dresses for a few days now and I’ve kind of grown to like them. But it’s beautiful, isn’t it? Nicer than jeans and a T-shirt.’
‘Well, yes,’ he admitted. ‘I suppose it is.’
He smiled and she smiled back. She’d only known this man for half an hour and she already liked him immensely. He was tall with fair hair and brown eyes that crinkled at the edges when he smiled, which he seemed to do a lot. He was one of life’s happy people and it was nice to have a little bit of happiness at Morton Hall – Tobias was always so serious about everything and it could weigh her down.
‘Where did that smile go?’ Jay asked her now.
‘Sorry?’
‘Your face clouded over there.’
‘Did it?’
‘Yes.’
She shrugged. ‘It was nothing.’
‘No? What were you thinking about?’
She bit her lip, wondering whether to answer. ‘I – I was just thinking about Tobias.’
‘And does your face always cloud over when you think about your brother?’
They stopped walking. They’d reached the west entrance of the maze and Emilia turned to face him.
‘I was just thinking how easy it is to chat to you. I don’t get to do that very often.’
‘Tobias isn’t the chatty sort?’
She gave a little smile at that. ‘No, not exactly. He – well – he spends a lot of time alone.’
‘Which means you spend a lot of time alone too?’
Emilia paused. There were too many questions coming at her now and she felt a little uncomfortable so she asked him one of her own.
‘How did you meet Tobias? Only you don’t strike me as somebody he’d really get on with.’
‘Ah, you’ve found me out!’ Jay said, holding his hands up as if in defeat. ‘Would you hold it against me if I confessed something?’
‘I’d have to hear it first,’ she told him.
He leaned towards her, lowering his head conspiratorially. ‘I heard your brother had a marvellous art collection here, which I was desperate to see!’
Emilia’s eyes widened. ‘Is that true?’
Jay nodded. ‘I’m ashamed to say it is. I’m an artist, you see. I love paintings, especially portraits, and portraits in private collections – those hidden gems you don’t normally get to see – are particularly interesting to me. I travel up and down the country cataloguing them.’
‘Really?’
‘I’m not talking about the big houses like Chatsworth or Hatfield where the collections are famous, but smaller houses like yours – where the owners were affluent enough to be collectors, but whose purchases aren’t well known. That’s what interests me.’
‘So, have you seen the collection here?’
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I got distracted by something more beautiful.’
Emilia could feel her face heating up at his declaration and by the way he was looking at her.
‘Oh, you mean the maze?’ She gestured to it. ‘Yes, it is a bit special, isn’t it?’
He held her gaze as she smiled at him and, when he spoke, his voice was deep and very calm.
‘I wasn’t talking about the maze.’
She swallowed hard. She’d never been the focus of a man’s attention before. Well, not one that wasn’t her father, her brother or a teacher. She wasn’t sure how it made her feel. Fluttery inside, she thought, skittish, flirtatious. Happy. Yes, that was it. He made her feel happy.
‘Have you seen the topiary?’ she asked him.
‘Only from the windows of the house. It’s very impressive.’
‘Let me show you.’ She led the way before he could say any more.
‘You know, I’ve just had the best idea ever,’ he called after her.
‘What’s that?’
‘I want to paint you. In that dress.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She stopped underneath the topiary peacock.
‘Why’s that being silly?’
‘Because’ – she stopped and frowned – ‘because I’m not a model.’
‘You don’t have to be a model to be painted. I bet all of your ancestors were painted, weren’t they? They wouldn’t have been models.’
Emilia considered this. ‘They were probably more patient than me. I’m a fidget. You’d get mad at me.’
‘I promise I won’t get mad at you and we’ll take lots of breaks.’
‘But I haven’t said you can paint me yet.’
‘Haven’t you? I thought you had.’ He was wearing a little smile which was really very hard to resist.
‘No!’ she said, trying desperately hard to be mad at him and failing.
‘Listen, I really would like to paint you. That dress, that smile, that red hair. We’ll be the Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal of the 1980s.’
Emilia gave a snort. ‘You’re not painting me drowning in a bathtub!’
‘So you know about Miss Siddal?’
‘Of course. She posed as Ophelia for Millais and nearly died. We have a portrait of her here and at least one Rossetti and a Millais.’
Jay looked stunned by this. ‘You do?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘Well, I was hoping, but one can never be sure.’
‘You’ll have to see them.’
‘You’ll have to show me.’
They walked around the topiary garden. ‘This is better than anything in the house,’ she told him, watching as he shielded his eyes from the brilliant-blue summer sky and studied the topiary beasts.
‘They’re pretty impressive,’ he said, ‘but they are only hedges.’
Emilia gasped in mock horror. ‘How can you say such a thing? Just look at the little face on our dodo!’ she said as they approached the odd-looking creature.
‘I’m just saying that I get more from looking at a painting.’
‘Yes, but just as much care and attention has gone into turning this heap of hedge into a living, breathing creature as anything put down on canvas,’ she said. ‘I’d say it was harder, actually.’
‘Oh, now you’re just being perverse,’ he said, a twinkle in his eyes.
‘I am not!’ Her hands were on her hips. ‘I think very highly of our topiary. It’s some of the best in the country.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said, ‘but I can’t get all worked up about it the way you obviously do.’
‘But just look at the contours of this dodo’s face – the shape of the beak and the way he’s holding his head ever so slightly off to one side. It’s as if he’s watching us. That’s character.’
‘He does have character,’ Jay conceded. ‘You have a very talented gardener.’
‘We do.’
‘Are you going to show me the maze, then?’
‘You want to see it?’
‘Sure.’
‘Okay.’ Emilia led the way across the lawn, passing a little knot garden stuffed full of rosemary, mint and thyme which was dancing with bees.
‘There’s so much space here,’ he said. ‘You’re very lucky.’
‘Do you have a garden?’
‘I live in a second-floor flat in Oxford,’ he told her. ‘I don’t even have a balcony. I’ve just got this depressing view of another block of flats.’
‘You should move.’
He laughed. ‘As simple as that?’
‘Get somewhere with a garden.’
‘Maybe I could move here? Live in the centre of your maze?’
‘That might be nicer than a flat.’
They’d reached the west entrance of the maze again and that’s when they heard Tobias calling from the topiary garden.
‘Quick!’
Before she had time to think, Emilia had grabbed Jay’s hand and had run into the maze.
‘What are you doing?’ Jay shouted after her.
‘Quiet! He won’t follow us in here. He hates the maze. He gets claustrophobic.’
‘But why are we hiding from your brother?’
They turned to the left and ran down a long green corridor before turning right. Only then did Emilia stop running, dropping Jay’s hand.
‘Because, if he finds you, he’ll take you away from me, or me away from you. He’s very possessive like that. He doesn’t like to share anybody.’
‘And you don’t want to share me?’ Jay asked.
Emilia realised that she had given away a lot rather too soon, but what was the point of hiding anything?
‘I like talking to you,’ she confessed, surprising herself.
‘I like talking to you too.’
They smiled at one another in understanding.
‘Emmy?’ Tobias shouted. ‘Jay?’
Emilia’s hand flew to Jay’s face, covering his mouth and causing him to giggle.
‘Shush!’ she hushed, slowly removing her hand.
‘Are you sure he won’t come in after us?’ Jay whispered.
She nodded.
‘Come on!’ Tobias cried from outside the maze. ‘I know you’re in there.’
Emilia and Jay stood perfectly still, their eyes upon each other as Tobias continued to call, his tone getting progressively angrier.
‘He sounds pretty mad,’ Jay said in a low voice.
‘He likes to get his own way.’
‘So I see.’
They were quiet for a moment longer. Tobias’s cries were now receding.
‘I think he’s gone to the walled garden,’ Emilia said.
‘So we’re safe?’
‘For now.’
Jay shook his head. ‘I didn’t expect this today.’
‘Expect what?’
‘To be trapped in a maze with a beautiful woman.’
Emilia’s mouth suddenly went dry as she looked into the brown eyes staring at her.
‘We’ll have to come out sooner or later,’ he said.
‘Later then,’ she told him and that’s when he moved forward, the golden gravel at the centre of the maze crunching softly under his feet. Emilia didn’t dare move. She knew what was going to happen; she just couldn’t believe that it was going to happen to her. How many times had she read about moments such as these in the slim romance novels that she and her friends had hidden under their pillows at boarding school, to be brought out and read secretly in huddles of giggling girls? How often had she visualised herself as one of those very heroines swept up into the arms of the hero? And now, here she was, in the heart of the maze with a handsome man who seemed intent on kissing her.
Slowly, oh so slowly, he lowered his lips until they touched her mouth. It felt as if the whole warmth of the summer was in that kiss – the blue of the sky, the cries of the swallows, the scent of the herbs and the deep secrecy of the maze. She knew she would never be able to see, hear or smell those things ever again without thinking of this man and this moment.
When their lips finally parted, Jay let out a long deep sigh.
‘Was that too forward of me?’ he asked, his mouth just a breath away from her own – ready, it seemed, to repeat the experience if she gave him the tiniest of encouragements.
‘It might have been,’ she told him.
He nodded and then rested his forehead against hers.
‘It won’t happen again.’
‘No?’ she said, unable to hide her disappointment, which made him smile.
‘Well, maybe—’
Before he could finish his sentence, she’d kissed him.
‘That was very forward of me too,’ she told him a moment later.
‘Yes, it was,’ he replied, ‘but I liked it.’
‘Come on,’ she said, turning away from him in a flounce of Victorian dress. ‘We’d better go and find Tobias.’
‘Already?’
‘Before he rings the police!’
‘Would he do that?’
‘Very likely!’
Emilia led the way through the maze. Jay muttered something about being impressed that she knew her way, but she wasn’t really listening to him because her mind was focussed on her brother. He’d sounded pretty mad when they’d been in the maze. She’d managed to tune him out, but she was growing more and more anxious about facing him now – he’d always been one to hold a grudge. Jay was his friend and not hers and she had heard the jealousy in his voice as he’d shouted to them across the garden.
‘Hey – slow down!’ Jay called behind her. ‘What happened to later rather than sooner ?’
But she didn’t slow down, not until they reached the house.
They entered together, their footsteps sounding loudly on the slate floor of the hall. Emilia knew where her brother would be and entered the sitting room with a feeling of dread weighing her down. Sure enough, Tobias was slumped in an armchair in a dark corner of the room; his head was lowered, cradled in his hands as if he had a pain that only his clenched fists could prevent from splitting his skull in two. He was prone to headaches, although Emilia had her suspicions that he brought them on himself through whatever substances he had hidden in his bedroom. He spent such a long time in there with the door locked that she’d come to the conclusion he must be taking something. It would certainly go some way to explaining his tempestuous mood swings.
‘Tobias?’ Emilia called softly as they entered the room.
He looked up, his eyes glazed as if he had been sleeping.
‘Where have you two been?’ he asked.
‘Just in the garden, Tobes,’ Emilia said, doing her utmost to keep her tone light.
‘But I walked all around the garden and couldn’t find you. Didn’t you hear me calling you?’
Emilia frowned. ‘You were calling us?’
‘Yes, Emilia, I was calling you.’ His face was suddenly dark and morose, as though he knew she was lying to him.
‘Oh, I didn’t hear you.’ She watched as her brother’s gaze switched from her face to Jay’s as if daring his friend to lie to him.
‘Nope,’ Jay said, shaking his head. ‘Didn’t hear you.’
They stood in silence. Tobias’s disapproval was evident as he kept them waiting before he spoke again, controlling the silence as a headmaster might.
‘I’ve had an idea,’ Tobias said at last, standing up. ‘Sit.’ He motioned to the sofa opposite him and the two of them obediently sat down as Tobias began to pace the room.
‘What is it?’ Jay asked.
Tobias stopped by the window, looking out into the garden.
‘I’d like you to paint Emilia,’ he said at last, his eyes still fixed outside.
Emilia turned to Jay who looked as surprised as she felt.
‘You’ll start tomorrow,’ Tobias told Jay, only now turning to face him. ‘Unless you have any other plans and I don’t think you do.’
‘No other plans,’ Jay confirmed.
‘Good. Because this will be your priority. A commission.’
‘I’m happy to accept,’ Jay told him.
Tobias gave a little nod.
‘Now, did you want to see these paintings of ours or not?’ Tobias asked. ‘That is what you came here for, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Jay said, getting up to follow Tobias out of the room. Emilia watched them and, as Jay reached the door, he turned around and gave her the kind of smile that she knew would be her undoing.