The next time I laid eyes on Fortescue, he was carrying out his traditional breakfast duties rather than tossing spears with absurd skill. He politely cleared his throat. I heard the clatter of a laden tray set down on my bedside table, too peaceful to open my eyes and make sure. The unmistakable aroma of coffee contradicted the idea. The warehouse hadn’t stocked that particular brew since Noah floated the Ark. Plus the blinds weren’t ascending to flood my room with unwelcome morning sunshine. I nestled into a cosy ball, my head supported by a wonderful pillow – one that wrenched itself swiftly upright. I was tipped unceremoniously onto the mattress.
“Fortescue.” A mortified choke issued next to me.
Uh-oh. I remembered the events of last night too late and worked to get vertical, finally opening my eyes. My gaze switched from Fortescue, standing by the window with well-trained aplomb, to Smith sitting rigidly beside me in bed, his expression that of a rabbit in the fox’s lair.
“There was nowhere else to sleep.” Smithy glanced over at Hugo’s abandoned cot. Looking back, he said defensively, “You didn’t specify!”
What a rare and treasured sight: Smith rattled. It was too amusing watching him battle embarrassment. Give him a cliff to jump off and it was no big deal, but an intruding butler and he went to water. I swore one of Fortescue’s eyebrows trembled with humour. And it was much better to focus on that than the reason for Smithy’s presence under my doona.
“Smooth,” I said. He shot me a furious glare, his tousled hair charming and sticking up all over the place. “Is there any news on Hugo, Fortescue?”
“Sadly no, Winsome. We are expending all efforts to find him.” I could tell; even in the dimness of my room he looked exhausted. My worry for his health sprung back to the fore, competing with concern for Hugo. “I’m a big girl now, I can manage breakfast in the kitchen. You need to go back to bed, Fortescue.” It was a plea with little hope, but I had to try anyway.
“Nonsense, Winnie. It is my pleasure to serve you. The day I am unable to fulfil my duties, is the day I am in my grave.”
His choice of phrase sucked. I changed the subject. “What’s on the menu this morning?”
“Freshly squeezed orange juice, custard and almond Danish, summer fruit salad and … coffee.”
He frowned in reproach. Honestly. I could noodle around in bed with Smithy barely clothed, but mention coffee and the condemnation was rife. Smith observed this exchange with mute curiosity, hiding his bare chest behind a raised sheet.
“Clever.” I leaped out of bed to stop Fortescue from serving us. “Bribing me with food. Maybe to distract me from demanding to know the truth about what’s going on around here?”
“Your guest will be hungry after your strenuous evening.”
Who cared if I’d spent the preceding years famished for something other than alfalfa sprouts? It was unbelievable Smith and I had fallen asleep after all that we’d shared last night.
“Nice deflection. Fortescue, did you wear purple socks to bed last night?”
“I am in the habit of donning woollens for slumber, it maintains the circulation. Please inform me, Winsome, if you wish to shop for yourself. Bordello lingerie is not my purview. In any case, let us maintain appropriate decorum.”
Huh?
“W-Winnie,” Smith gaped up at me. “What are you wearing?” He grabbed the first thing to hand, a pillow, and stumbled out of bed to shield me. “Fortescue, could you please find me a robe for Bear? And possibly run me a cold shower,” he added, under his breath.
That vitaver stuff they made me drink must have really ironed me out. I guessed Mrs Paget had cleaned me up and dressed me for bed. I looked down to confirm that the wardrobe terrorist had struck again. The Pussycat Dolls were more demure than me in my cropped lace singlet and tiny matching hipsters in hot pink, a marked deviation from my usual t-shirt and shorts that fell below my knees. Fortescue narrowed his eyes at Smith’s generous expanse of bare skin.
“Perhaps two robes are in order.”
A brief time later, with modesty restored – Smithy very suave in one of my cotton dressing gowns that barely spanned his chest – Fortescue left to discuss Mrs Paget’s role in my transformation into an exhibitionist with Aunt Bea.
“You have half an hour. And then, disclosure,” were Fortescue’s ominous parting words.
We ate breakfast in bed, me using the cover of a stuffed mouth to avoid speaking about current affairs. Pretending this was the average morning of a girl getting to know someone she hoped would take their friendship further helped me cope, if only temporarily. The worry that Smithy wasn’t the one girl type surfaced, and along with it the likelihood he’d prefer to date someone sane. Who could blame him? I’d prefer to be someone sane. I used the remote to switch the stereo on, and my favourite playlist of the second blasted Santigold’s ‘Disparate Youth’ to life.
“Must it be so loud?” he nearly bellowed.
“Yes.”
After a minor wrestle, he took possession of the remote and dialled it down. Damn. Now I really had to face the music. Smithy yawned loudly and stretched, cueing that I could not stall forever.
“That was the best night’s rest I’ve had in ages. Well, after all the screaming and humming.” He smiled expectantly, waiting for me to explain said screaming and humming.
“Six hours of sleep is hardly refreshing. Ten, maybe.” I took a large bite of Danish, although it proved a challenge to choose between the yummy custard and the boy. “Can’t talk, eating,” I mumbled through food, working to put off breaking the spell until necessary. As an added bonus I was free to discreetly gawk while he talked. I should have chosen a skimpier gown for him.
“Well, I’ll tell you the rest of my story then, shall I?” Smithy looked guilt-ridden; it was plain even as he hid behind his coffee cup.
“There’s more?” I gulped, hoping for a denial.
The same misty expression I’d seen on several occasions lately scudded his features. “Promise you won’t get cranky?”
“You used to say that every time you did something I wouldn’t like.”
He visibly steeled himself. “My hours of waking have been getting longer and longer. I can’t sleep now for more than four hours at a stretch, sometimes fewer. But I don’t feel tired. In fact, I can’t burn off all the energy I have. And believe me, Bear, I give it a good crack. Today is the first time in months I haven’t been jumping out of my skin.” It was almost the only way he could wear less.
“None of the parkour regulars can keep up with me anymore and I’ve gone through about five personal trainers. They all quit once they discovered they’re not fit or strong enough to coach me. One of them got real snippy when he couldn’t up my weights any higher, suggested I sign up for the Olympics.”
He wasn’t boasting. He seemed as bewildered by this revelation as I was. “I work-out for hours and it doesn’t make a difference. I don’t get fatigued. I’ve never told anyone this, but I don’t need to use the studio winch on blocks of marble anymore. If I can get my arms around them, I can pick them up. And, if I hurt myself, I heal so fast it’s unnatural. Just like you do.”
“Wow. I’m not angry. I’m impressed.”
I truly was. And scared. Smithy scrutinised me, anticipating a comment. When I failed to speak, he beckoned me closer. He slid the robe from my shoulder and prised the padding from the injury, his fingers caressing my skin in delicious spirals. His face was close enough to mine that I could taste the powdered sugar on his breath.
“Perfectly healed. Not a scratch.”
He readjusted the robe and tossed the bandage into my bin by my dresser. The disappointment when he moved away was surprisingly intense. It was disconcerting how yearning for his touch dominated anything else, especially considering the creepiness invading my days evidently infected his too. He misinterpreted my frown.
“That’s just the start of it. Be patient with me, Winnie. I’m better at sketching stuff than describing it with words. Telling you this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” He rifled his hair. “It probably started around the time you left, so slowly in the beginning I barely noticed. I know it sounds crazy, but I think it’s all connected. My tattoos began to fade and no amount of touch-up brought them back. The ink just failed to stick.” He shrugged. “And dye wouldn’t take to my hair anymore.”
How could there be more? Hadn’t there been enough?
“The first time I obliterated my parkour buddies on a run was the morning after I had the earliest vision of you. A year ago at school in Europe.” His eyes explored my face. Unable to digest his words, I remained stubbornly blank and he hurried on. “One night as I was falling asleep, this amazingly clear image of you leaving the grounds of an Austrian castle came to mind. I’ve never seen anyone more forlorn. I honestly thought about hopping on a plane and coming to take you home.”
The pain of those memories stirred awake. After the first year of abject despair at boarding school, I accepted once and for all I was there until the end of my education. It took some time for my coping skills to kick in. In the here and now, I’d lost my appetite, even for cake, and placed the half-eaten Danish on the saucer in my lap.
“Pathetic, huh?”
“No.” He grabbed my hand, holding fast. “You had a special place when it got too much, the hassling and the bitchiness. The loneliness. That git Jenkins treating you as though you were mentally retrograde. What a muppet. If only he had a clue how you spent your free hours.”
I clung to that aspect of his story because it was the only part I understood. I’d found my sanctuary through desperation. When the weather herded students indoors like so many cattle in a pen, outside of the Academy became my only escape. The sympathy etched on Smithy’s lovely face made me feel even more pitiful, no matter how much he denied it.
“I’ve never seen anyone wear so many clothes.”
“I detest the cold.”
“You’d been hauled over the coals by your bungling principal for something.” He stared off, as though looking into my past. “You trundled from the school and headed up the mountain. I guessed it was the change of seasons, winter forming patches of snow on the ground and ice crystals hanging from the trees in the forest. It was rough going and I worried that you’d slip. But you never did.
“It was the weirdest thing, Bear. It was so real! I could hear you breathing and smell the pine resin, hear the calls of migrating birds overhead, feel the frigid air on my skin. Or maybe I was feeling it on yours, who knows? I spent a lot of time thinking my drink was spiked at dinner. I can tell you what you were wearing, how your hair was, even name your perfume. It was like I was there with you. Booze dulled the reception, if that’s what you’d call it, so I stopped drinking in the months after.”
I blinked in surprise – funny how this last titbit snared my focus, perhaps because everything else was too enormous and slippery to grasp. “You gave up drinking because of me?”
“I gave up drinking for you.” He smiled tenderly and removed my neglected breakfast plate to my nightstand, tucking the sheets about me and getting comfortable on his side, his head propped on an elbow facing me.
“You came to a rocky outcrop that sat high over the valley. The view was spectacular. It looked like a Christmas card, the little village below was all snow-covered roofs and flickering lights. It’s where you did most of your thinking, perched on that rock. Over time you brought a thermos and music with you, sometimes food or a book, and it seemed to me that finding your place signalled the turning point in your depression. What happened? Why did you change?”
It felt odd to be the object of such interest. No one usually asked me questions about myself. I answered uncertainly, hoping I didn’t sound as self-absorbed as all those kids at the Academy who rattled on blindly, as if their yawn-worthy lives deserved the Nobel Prize for fascinating.
“I decided not to be a victim. Bea says we belong to each other despite the miles between us. It’s true. I’ve always been loved and treated as special. I came to feel sorry for some of the kids around me, raised by a series of nannies. Their parents viewed them like trendy collectable trinkets or worse, runners in a boasting marathon. They were far more alone and alienated than me. All their acting out was just attention seeking, trying to fill the void.”
“That’s big of you, Winnie. I saw those kids. A couple of them made Hannibal Lecter seem tame. That Mallory, what a hellhound. But watching you handle them …” He beamed, clutching my hand harder and bending to brush his lips across my knuckles. “Ingenious guerrilla warfare,” he murmured.
My cheeks prickled and I knew they were the same shade as a stop sign. “I should have found better ways to deal with bullies than by retaliating with their own weapons.” I gently extracted my hand. “I’m the worst hypocrite.”
His stubborn expression said he didn’t agree and he snatched my hand back. His eyes twinkled with respect and my blush deepened.
“On weekends you trekked by train or bus to libraries, museums, art galleries. I topped Art in the HSC because of the things you showed me. You shopped and went sightseeing, to obscure little places off the usual tourist maps. I got to travel Europe without even leaving my lounge room. The judge worried I had a neurological condition or a drug addiction. I could sit still for hours staring into space, watching you. He’d come home sometimes and I hadn’t even bothered to turn on the lights.”
“So you’ve been stalking me?”
He smiled. “Never even set foot in the same country as you. But you did have a stalker over there. You weren’t alone, Winnie. You were never alone.”
“Oh, what?” I scoffed. It was easy for him to say, while he’d been over here in the sunshine with friends, family and the freedom to be who he was. I placed his hand over my heart, my tone mocking. “You were with me here, the whole time?”
He laughed and scooted closer. “As much as I wanted to be, no. Not quite, anyway.” His face fell. “He was. I guess for the entire two years, shadowing you wherever you went. I was so envious that he got to be near you—”
“What are you talking about? Who got to be near me?” Please, not that Seth character. He was a recent affliction.
“Hugo. Sipping short black coffees and reading the Afrikaner, while you traipsed up and down Italian alleys. Up a tree with binoculars when you went running in the woods. Flitting from statue to statue in the Louvre, like some crappy secret agent in a B-grade film. Need I go on?”
So that explained how Bird was familiar with Hugo. My mouth hung open, this new disclosure the height of … annoyance. Yes, that was the emotion – extreme irritation. Relentless eyes spying on me! I was used to being monitored at home, but I believed I’d gained a modicum of privacy at boarding school, of all places. I was tired of being wrong.
“Well, this has been a lovely little chat,” I said, my temper rising. “We’ve discovered that spying on me is not just a favourite pastime of my guardians. You watch me. Hugo watches me. And you watch Hugo watching me. How do any of you get anything done?” I glared at Smith, feeling horribly violated. “And what perspective do you see me from, Smith? In the mirror?” Dare I ask? “In the shower?”
“No. I’ve never seen you indecent! Not counting this morning’s exceptional outfit.” He grinned, but dropped it hastily at my scowl. “Mostly I look outwards, as though through your eyes. If I want to, I can pan around and see your surrounds.”
“That includes me.”
“But—”
I wasn’t appeased by his protests of innocence. “I just have to take your word for it? That you’ve never peeked.” It felt as though he’d pawed through my underwear drawer or spy-holed my bathroom.
Smith struggled to explain. “Okay. I could if I chose to. But I don’t and I won’t. I swear, Winnie. I’ve only ever seen you do things that make me realise how incredible you are. How self-contained, independent and brave. You never back down. You’re not afraid of people who aim to intimidate.”
“Flattery is not going to distract me. I want your blood promise you haven’t peeked, nor will you ever!”
We hadn’t made such a pledge since our early teens, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the highest show of loyalty and honesty I could think of. Even so, I wasn’t certain I trusted him. The memory of Tiffany yesterday morning kept flashing my mind, telling me how ‘hot’ things got, even though her word was as valued as spent toilet paper. But this new Smithy was a person I’d only recently met, and the force of my feelings for him had me out of sorts and mixed up.
And now, our relationship was completely unbalanced and not in my favour. He knew everything about me from these past two years, yet I knew almost nothing about what he’d been doing. Maybe he was in cahoots with Hugo, who told him about my loser existence at boarding school. But that explanation depended upon mutual communication and the dislike Smith had for him was real, or I was a normal person.
In the last few days, the ground supporting my orderly, manageable world had turned to quicksand. My own perceptions and judgements were totally unfaithful.
How could I rely on anyone else’s?
