IT HAD BEEN hard to go to his room alone. Not having any condoms to hand wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker, because Sam was sure that they could still find things to do together. But he wasn’t going to think about that. Wanting Eloise was terrifying, because he’d never wanted a woman as much, and certainly never after having known her for such a short time. It was the kind of sure knowledge that nothing would be right until they were together that he’d seen in his father’s actions.
Sam had woken before dawn, looking out of the window to find that another couple of inches of snow had fallen. That wouldn’t be enough to block the roads that were already open, but the conditions would be icy. He got dressed, hoping that the creak of the stairs wouldn’t wake everyone up, and slipped out of the house.
He’d roughly cleared almost half of the driveway when Eloise appeared, her arms wrapped around her as she ran towards him, the thick sweater she was wearing obviously doing nothing to keep her warm.
‘Brr... It’s cold this morning. Come inside. I’ve made you some breakfast.’
Sam didn’t need to be asked twice. A little exercise, to work off the nerves about whether his conversation at the newspaper office was going to come to anything, had seemed like a good idea, but now he was getting cold and tired. He followed Eloise inside, knocking the snow from his boots before seeking the warmth of the kitchen.
Paul and Aunt Celeste were already up, and there was a place set for him at the table. Eloise set a plate down in front of him, containing bacon, eggs and tomatoes with a pile of hash browns.
‘That’s just what I need. Thank you.’ Sam noticed that Eloise’s tablet was lying on the table.
‘It’s there. I’ve seen it.’ Eloise was grinning at him, and he realised that she was one step ahead of him.
‘I didn’t tell Eloise to look.’ Aunt Celeste was keen to protest her innocence. ‘But you can’t stop an intelligent woman from working things out. It goes against the grain.’
He nodded, starting to tuck into his breakfast. ‘All right. So what did it say?’
‘It’s a lovely piece.’ She sat down opposite him, beaming. ‘Right at the top of their news pages on the web.’
‘It’s called “We’d like to set the record straight”,’ Aunt Celeste added approvingly. ‘It’ll be published in next week’s paper as well.’
‘Good. I’m going to finish my breakfast and read it through. Just to make sure they put in everything I asked them to.’
Eloise winced. ‘You had a list?’
‘Aide memoire.’
No one looked particularly convinced of that. But Sam didn’t want to share any more. If he couldn’t go back and put the past right, then maybe he had some say over the future. Last night, when he’d held Eloise close and kissed her and she’d kissed him back, he’d seen a tantalising possibility of what that future might be.
But right now he had to stop thinking about that. When breakfast was finished, they left Aunt Celeste and Paul to clear away and he and Eloise went out to finish clearing the drive. That, and working alongside her at the Community Hospital, was the kind of sharing that was real and able to provide solid foundations of trust that they could build on.
At lunchtime the stream of patients began to dry up, and they had a whole hour’s break. Sam was looking forward to spending the time sitting with Eloise and drinking coffee when one of the other volunteers, a nurse who had left her two small children with her husband to go back and help at the hospital, came up with a better idea. Lottie’s mischievous sense of humour had kept them all going when it seemed that they’d never cope. And her announcements in the waiting room had become legendary, making patients feel that they were part of a group effort with their doctors, and that they would all be seen in order, even if there was a long wait.
‘Snowball fight!’
Eloise clapped her hand across her mouth, almost dancing with glee. ‘That’s so wrong...!’
‘Yes, isn’t it. Whatever would the papers say?’
‘I could call them and let them know...’ Sam took his phone from his pocket.
‘No! They have to track the story down for themselves, Sam.’ Eloise was laughing. ‘There’s no fun in it if they don’t.’
Paul and Aunt Celeste had caught wind of the enterprise and trooped out with them onto the open land behind the hospital.
‘Douglas versus Grant, eh?’ Aunt Eloise took Sam’s arm. ‘I’m claiming the best throwing arm.’
‘Oh, really?’ Eloise pulled a face of mock outrage. ‘Watch out for your nose, Sam...’
He chuckled, covering his nose with his hand, and Aunt Eloise gave Paul a very sportsmanlike hug before he was sent off to join Eloise and the other three people on their team.
‘Right now, Sam, I can’t throw as well as you, particularly since I had that frozen shoulder. So I’ll keep you going with snowballs, and you just keep throwing.’
Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t you think that you should exercise the shoulder a bit?’
‘Well, of course, and I do.’ Aunt Celeste rolled her eyes. ‘But we’re talking about family honour.’
‘You should have thought about that when you went and got engaged to a Grant.’ Sam grinned at her.
‘Nonsense. Paul and I fight all the time, we both rather like it. You might think about it, Sam...’
Had Aunt Celeste’s knowing eye seen what was happening between him and Eloise? It was just as well that she hadn’t asked outright, because Sam had no way of explaining it, or how he felt about it. But right now that didn’t matter, because Eloise and Paul were lobbing snowballs in their direction, and Aunt Celeste had already dodged a particularly well aimed one. After the stress and hard work of the last couple of days, this was fun.
At two o’clock the doctors in the temporary A&E department started to compete for patients. Then at three the announcement came. The hospital was enormously grateful for everything that the volunteers had done in helping to keep things going. Now that the roads were open again, and the main hospital was accessible to ambulances and patients, they should go home, secure in the knowledge that they’d done a fantastic job.
Paul seemed restless, energised by the early mornings and the gruelling workload. Sam could identify with that, they’d been doctors with a mission that had suddenly been whipped out from under them. He couldn’t regret that there were no patients left to treat, but adrenaline was still buzzing in his veins.
‘What about the pictures?’ Paul nudged Aunt Celeste. ‘That film we wanted to see is still on.’
‘Is it? That’s a good idea, we really shouldn’t miss it. How do you both feel about subtitles?’ Aunt Celeste turned to Sam and Eloise.
‘Um....’ Eloise looked up at Sam. She clearly felt the same as he did, that Paul and Aunt Celeste’s taste in films was great, but that she wanted something that didn’t require sitting still for two hours.
‘Perhaps we’ll give that one a miss. Catch it later in London.’ Sam ignored the knowing look that passed between Aunt Celeste and Paul. Whatever they thought they knew was probably far less complicated than the facts and it was best to leave the explanations until he and Eloise knew what to explain.
‘You could give Sam the tour,’ Paul suggested, smiling at Eloise.
‘The tour?’ Sam had already been shown around the house.
‘Yes, Gramps and I worked out a tour, as a fun thing to do for the house party. It takes in all of the hidden things that no one ever sees about the house.’
‘Sounds interesting.’
‘It is, very...’ Aunt Celeste seemed to approve of the idea. ‘The house has been around for so long that it’s gathered up a lot of fascinating little foibles. There’s a priest’s hole...’
‘I didn’t know there was a priest’s hole. Where?’ The tour was beginning to sound more interesting by the minute, particularly since his tour guide was so remarkably beautiful when she was brimming with excitement.
‘Ah!’ Eloise tapped the side of her nose. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’
It was the perfect excuse. Paul and Aunt Celeste had decided to go and check out the new Indian restaurant in town after an early showing of the film they wanted to see, and said that they wouldn’t be home until nine o’clock. That gave Sam five hours alone with Eloise, in a house that had more spare bedrooms to explore than they could ever possibly need.
The house was chilly, which seemed to be its normal state during cold weather, but Eloise led him to the kitchen, which was always an island of warmth. She heated up some soup, from a seemingly inexhaustible supply in the freezer, and showed him the back of the pantry door.
‘How old is some of this graffiti?’ He ran his finger across the clear acrylic sheet that protected the door.
‘We don’t know about most of it. Some of it’s pretty ageless.’ Eloise pointed out a heart, scratched deeply into the wood, with two initials. ‘Whoever “EW” and “JP” were, I hope they had a nice life together.’
So did Sam. Both he and Eloise knew that things didn’t always work out the way you’d planned, but it suddenly seemed important that they had for these two anonymous lovers.
‘But look—this one.’ She pointed to a fainter inscription and Sam narrowed his eyes, trying to make it out.
‘“I left my leg...” What’s that...?’
‘“At Waterloo.” And his heart is here.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Sam could see now that this was what the wobbly script was saying. ‘So that must be almost two hundred years old.’
Eloise nodded. ‘This one’s a bit more recent. It was written by Gramps’ mother, at the end of the war. My great-grandmother.’
‘“VE Day, 8th May 1945. May God bless the peace.”’ Sam grinned. ‘It’s all here, isn’t it? Love, injury and loss...hope for the future.’
‘Yes, that’s what makes it so fascinating. We’re not so very different from the people who wrote these. I’m here too. I remember Gramps taking the cover off and telling us that it was important we were there.’
A little lower down on the door, Paul’s initials were there, along with those of his first wife. Underneath, three more groups of linked initials.
‘That’s my parents, John and Elizabeth Grant. Gramps helped me do my initials underneath, when I was eight years old. And look, there’s Gramps again, with Celeste.’
Sam nodded. ‘I remember Aunt Celeste telling me about that, when Paul first asked her to marry him. She said that she was very touched that he wanted to include her on the list of family names, but I didn’t realise that it was on the back of a door.’
Eloise laughed. ‘That’s the thing about this house. It can be very grand, but it’s the little things that mean the most. Come and see the priest’s hole.’
She led him into the sitting room, and challenged him to find it. After taking the most obvious route, and rapping his knuckles on the wood panelling, Sam looked for secret levers in the fireplace and peered behind the bookcases.
‘Okay, I give up.’
‘You’re sure? You haven’t been near it yet...’
Sam looked around the room. The steps that led up to the first-floor gallery were a possibility, but the space beneath them was concealed by wood panelling and Sam couldn’t find any openings that a man might slip through.
‘You’re getting warmer...’ Eloise teased him, and Sam walked up the steps, knocking the stair risers as he went.
‘I can’t work it out.’
Eloise chuckled. ‘You had the right idea. Here, let me show you.’
She joined him on the stairs, and ran her fingers along the edge of one of the wooden stair treads. A click sounded, as if a lever had been released, and Eloise swung the two top steps upwards to reveal a small cavity. Sam looked inside.
‘That’s no more than a couple of square feet. No-one could fit in there.’
Eloise laughed. ‘Which is exactly what you’re supposed to think. It’s a hiding place for valuables, but at the back...
She pushed at the wooden beams at the back of the compartment and they swung to one side. Reaching in she flipped a switch and a light came on revealing a brick lined hidey-hole, extending downwards under the stairs.
‘If anyone did work out how to lift the stairs they’d find the smaller cavity and most likely stop there. Even if they did investigate further, the beams can be secured from the inside so they won’t move.’
Sam bent down to look. ‘Clever. And if you removed the wood panelling under the stairs, you’d just see a brick wall behind it.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And this is the only one?’
‘We’ve looked and we can’t find any others—but then they’re very cleverly concealed. Celeste had an idea of doing some kind of sonar survey, and Gramps is looking into how that might work, so maybe they’ll find a few more.’
Sam took another look inside, wondering what it would be like to have to hide away in here. As he reached in to switch off the light he felt his hand snag painfully on something.
‘Ow.’ When he looked he saw blood. ‘I think I found a nail.’
Eloise took his hand, inspecting the wound. ‘Probably rusty if I know this place. Are you up to date on your tetanus jabs? I should have warned you that you need to be if you go exploring here.’
‘I’ll be fine. Although if you’ve got a plaster... Before I pass out from loss of blood.’ Eloise had been squeezing the small cut and it had started to bleed more freely.
‘Just making sure there’s nothing in it.’ She let go of his hand, and Sam followed her to the kitchen.
‘Hold it under the tap.’
‘That’s what I’m about to do.’ Two doctors fighting over one small cut had the potential to get ugly. Sam rinsed his finger, watching as Eloise reached up to one of the high cupboards, punching the combination lock before flipping open the door.
The cupboard was large and very full. Eloise was stretching to get a good view of the upper shelf and Sam turned the tap off, walking over to see if he could make out its contents any better.
‘That’s one of the things I like about Paul. He doesn’t stint on medical supplies.’
‘No, but I wish he’d organise them a bit better. He knows where everything is, but no one else can find anything.’
Sam reached up, moving some of the contents of the shelf to one side to get a better view. As he did so, two boxes became dislodged and fell out of the cupboard, and Eloise caught them.
‘Ah, here we are. This one’s plasters...’ She fell silent and Sam was suddenly aware that he’d been standing very close to her. The other box contained condoms.
She dropped it suddenly, as if it would burn her, turning round quickly to face him. ‘We don’t need to worry about those, do we.’ She opened the box of plasters, taking out the largest one.
No, they didn’t. Sam held out his hand, and she somehow managed to apply the plaster without touching his skin. But her scent still caressed his senses, calling to him that any decision could be made at any time.
‘Thanks. That’s great.’ It was one thing to know that the roads were clear now, and that Sam could get into his car and drive to find a chemist’s shop that was open. It was quite another to have a box of condoms fall out of the cupboard. Sam had never felt that the fates had any sway over his life, but even he had to admit it was an awkward coincidence.
This was crazy. He didn’t need to hide behind practicalities to control his own actions and desires.
Eloise picked up the box, turning it in her hand. When she came to the side that displayed a use-by date she was still again, and Sam couldn’t help but notice that it was over a year away.
‘I don’t know what these are doing here anyway.’ She stuffed the box back into the cupboard, slamming it shut, and Sam heard the lock engage. As if that made any difference. Eloise could open the cupboard back up any time she wanted...
He tried to tear his mind away from all of the possibilities that seemed to be leaving no room for anything else. ‘So what’s next on the tour?’
She was silent for a moment. ‘The desk that Gramps put in Celeste’s study has three secret compartments.’
‘Three?’
‘Yes. And the wall at the back of the property is part Roman. Gramps has extended it but he used contrasting stonework that complemented the Roman part, but also made it obvious that it was different.’
‘Fascinating.’ Eloise was fascinating. Her hair, her eyes. Her skin, and the way that her cheeks were flushed in the warmth of the kitchen. He could take or leave both the Roman wall and Paul’s extension of it.
‘It’s cold outside, though. And if you wanted to stay here...?’ Eloise took a step towards him. ‘This place feels like home to me, Sam, and decisions I make here can’t be left behind or thrown away. If you feel differently, then I won’t mention it again.’
Right now, Eloise was the only truth that he could rely on. The only thing that seemed constant in a world that had thrown this challenge at him when he’d least expected it. Eloise wanted him and the sheer joy of that dissolved all of his fears. Sam didn’t know how he would come to terms with wanting her as much as he did, but that seemed like an obstacle that could be surmounted now.
‘Paul and Celeste won’t be back for another four hours.’ He knew that, almost to the minute, because he’d been counting the moments he had to spend alone in her company and valuing each one. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more than to spend that time in getting to know you better.’
Still, he couldn’t make the first move. Consent wasn’t a concept that Sam had ever struggled with. It was perfectly simple. There were no smudged lines, no difficulties in knowing whether a woman had made the decision that she wanted him. But his father’s continual disregard of his mother’s wishes had made Sam even more careful, wanting even more for it to be spoken in a way that gave no room for doubt.
Eloise was motionless for a moment. Maybe she’d give up on him and turn away, and he’d have to deal with that.
‘Sam, I want you to take me upstairs and make love to me. Is that clear enough for you?’
She’d put two and two together and she understood. And he knew now too. In one swift movement he lifted her off her feet, perching her on the kitchen worktop. ‘Give me the combination...’
Eloise was smiling now. ‘Make me.’
He kissed her, feeling her body mould against his. Exquisite. Sam wondered how long it would take before she gave him the number, and hoped that she might hold out a little longer. He slid one hand around her back, covering her breast with the other. Even though she was wearing a thick sweater, and no doubt a couple more layers of clothes underneath, he heard her cry out.
‘More, Sam.’
‘You want to play this game?’ He could do that. Pulling her hard against his body, so that she could feel just how much he wanted her, he slipped his hand under her sweater.
‘Oh! You’ll have to do better than that, though...’
He whispered exactly how much more he could do, and she wriggled against him. The feeling stoked the fire in his veins, and he described another scenario in slightly more detail.
‘Sam! Three-seven-four-eight.’
‘You’re sure, now?’ He held her close, planting kisses on her neck, finally managing to free his hand from the layers of clothes under her sweater, so that he could touch her skin. He let his fingers trail to the clasp on her bra, and then forward, to skim the softest skin of all.
‘Three-seven-four-eight, Sam!’ Her arms were clasped around his neck, and suddenly she let him go, pushing him away from her a little. He felt her hands move to the front of his jeans and almost choked with the intensity of his reaction to her touch.
‘Do it!’ She knew that she had the better of him, and her voice took on a commanding tone. Sam reached above her head, punching the combination into the lock and hooking the box of condoms out of the cupboard. Eloise took them from him, pushing him away as she slid forwards, planting her feet back on the floor.
‘Come upstairs. Right now.’