Chapter 24

Candy had closed the door of Lord Wooster's study room with a heavy heart. The night that was supposed to be the last whistle on her old life she had enough of and the beginning of her new life, as light and intoxicating as the bubbles in a glass of champagne was getting from bad to worse.

First, it was the sudden appearance of Terry back in her life. The timing of this encounter had unsettled her deep down to her core. Like a tectonic shift, had moved her whole reality to another plane which she had to get to grips with and fast. He had said he was in London on holidays but the coincidence was...she had a hard time to think it was truly a coincidence. She had struggled to put Terry behind her, in the life she had decided to close the door to, and in all honestly, she had never thought of him actually remembering her after all that time. There was no sign from him whatsoever in ten years. If she only knew...

Then Christian, the man who changed her life around, who had pushed her to face her feelings, past and new, wasn't there with her. He had showed her what it was to live in the moment and had made her heart feel light. Like the sweet smelling smoke that came out of their hash pipe after enjoying each other's bodies, he had disappeared and all the lightness she felt, dissipated into thin air.

The man she saw outside the Gallery, who had insisted of talking to Christian, reminded her of those goons who had chased her outside that East End pub, the London Apprentice. He had a heavy cockney accent and an appearance that would make a lot of folk eager to hurry their steps if they were to cross paths with that guy on a dim lit night street. She already was aware Christian knew people from all walks of life. She remembered him drinking at that pub. The way he had intervened the night they met and had fought off those guys, he didn't really look fazed by them or what they represented.

What did that guy outside the Whitechapel gallery want Christian for? And how important that something was for Christian's face to darken and leave as fast as he did, leaving her and Archie to make an appearance without him at the party which was thrown for his work! By God, she felt shivers up her spine.

It was a desperate attempt of hers to phone Christian's flat. The chances would have been slim for him to be there, but she hoped. Mostly, she had wanted to hear his warm voice, telling her that everything was fine. Before turning at the end of the corridor to step down the staircase that would take her back into the joyous dancing crowd, she pulled her compact out of her silver purse. Examined her face. Two lines stood between her finely arched eyebrows. All her worry hid in those furrowed eyebrows. She took a deep breath and let a long exhale. She had to trust Christian was all right. Explanations would come later. She patted a thin layer of powder over the freckles on her nose and cheeks and reapplied her red lipstick. She heard clapping. The song had come to an end.

She turned and stood for a moment at the top of the staircase. The cloud over the green valleys of her eyes didn't match the effervescence of the crowd below that particular night. She bit her lip in an unconscious attempt to bring her mind back to the party. She thought she saw Archie waving and broke a wide enough smile before starting to walk down the stairs.

A nostalgic waltz started playing. The irony she thought. Just when her mind was gazing to the past, prompted by that particular song, she saw Terry approaching the staircase, making his way through the dancing couples. Sweat prickled her skin and her heart raced inside her ribcage as her eyes followed his handsome figure. He had locked her eyes so, she had to stop moving when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Care to dance with me...Rose...?", she heard his smooth voice asking her as he extended his hand towards her. As if hypnotised, she laid her hand into his, and let him lead her on a quieter spot on the floor. Their bodies came close together as they started moving to the song. She could feel the intense charge filling the little space between them. Enough to feel the sparks the closer they got. Absurd, it surely was, but that's how she felt. She could swear voltage was coursing through her body just by holding onto Terry.

"Your leg?", Candy lifted her eyes to meet his, the moment she remembered he was carrying a walking cane with him at the gallery.

"My leg?", he asked back as if he was taken out of a trance. The satin material of her dress felt paper thin under his fingertips. He struggled to control his thoughts.

"You had a cane if I correctly recall...", she asked again, drawing her eyebrows together.

He smiled while staring at her worried face. "Oh! That!" he exclaimed. He had completely forgotten about the cane. Not only had he realised he must have left it at the pub he had stopped by to have a few drinks, but also he had forgotten about the his recovering foot all together. The feverish anticipation he felt running in his veins, the thought of seeing her again, having had a moment to himself after the initial shock, must have been a much more efficient pain killer than the pills the good doc had prescribed him. His face took an air of mock martyrdom.

"I think I can survive a dance...or two...without it...," he said and his eyes smiled. "Don't worry you head with such things Freckles." he added in a quieter tone and closed that little gap of space between them.

To the sound of that name and the physical sensation of her body on his, Candy lowered her head. The rush of the blood on her cheeks would be more than obvious for him to see.

"I am sorry for before," she heard him confess.

It was very sweet of him to admit he had been a downright jerk at the gallery but it didn't help calm Candy inside. She was a walking live wire with her body responding in ways she didn't expect just by dancing intimately with him, the man she hadn't exchanged even a telegram for more than a decade. Never mind how many years of this decade, she had her mind filled by the thoughts of him. In fact, sensing the vulnerability in his voice, made it even worse. No matter how difficult he could be when he behaved like an arrogant prick and he did that in an astonishingly superb way, at least then she knew how to handle him, how to react. A sweet Terry however, a confessing one as such? Like warm spring air, made everything alive. All her feelings were magnified, and more difficult to handle.

Her only response was to speak of his name, the sound of which felt so strange to her ears. She had forgotten how his name sounded when she said it out loud. It was almost as if it wasn't her when she said it.

"You've changed...I've changed...we're not seventeen anymore", he continued, taking a cue from the song to which lyrics they were dancing. His whisper caressed her ear. Her cheeks were burning. In absolute contrast from when he appeared out of nowhere inside the gallery, turning everything upside down like a summer tropical storm, behaving like a jilted lover, now he sounded so smooth like butter could slide off him.

His last remark brought their dance on a summer's day by the Scottish loch in her mind. Their first kiss. Terry had kept his feelings so well hidden up until that sudden kiss, just like in the gallery, they had scared her with their intensity. Candy had almost stopped dancing just to pinch herself. Was he there for real? Could all that be a dream?

"Terry...can we not bring up our past now?", she asked him with hesitation. She didn't want to sound off putting but that evening, with everything that had taken place and still were unravelling, she had started feeling overwhelmed. She turned her head up and stared in his eyes, forgetting where she was for a flash in time, the way they drew her in, keeping her inside their blue waters. Did he look hurt over her wish not to start digging into their past? She couldn't tell. They hadn't moved away from her stare.

"Of course," he said, breaking the spell. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean too...", he responded. Her hand felt so delicate into his. He had to tread with care. Inside his mind, he called himself a klutz for sounding too eager to remind her of what they had.

"Don't be...", Candy managed to say before her words floated away as he decided of no more words and swirled her around the dance floor, holding her waist tight.

It was too late for Candy however. When silence fell between them, she found herself inside a perfect storm. Everything conspired to it. The nostalgic lyrics of love and youth, the fact she was dancing in his arms, their body contact, his smell of soap, crisp cotton and tobacco, the warmth of his fingers on her waist. She felt lightheaded.

Blinded by memories, all she could see around her were the waters of the lake. The late afternoon light flickering on its ripples. They were dancing to the tune of the rustling oak leaves above them. The grass whispering under the wind. They were swirling about. The book of Romeo and Juliet was left open on the blanket. Its pages of love and anguish were flapping like summer moths close to a fire, when everything suddenly stopped. And all she remembers is his lips on hers. Their softness. Never something so soft and tender has such power and force. Unlocked everything she felt for him. The perfect storm. Her eyes glazed to the memory. She realised the music had stopped. Everyone was clapping and Terry's questioning stare was on her.

"Candy?" he asked.

She smiled and could feel her face as hot as it used to be when she was daydreaming about him in front of the fireplace in Pony's kitchen.

"I am sorry Terry...it's just...", she started explaining but then she stopped. To admit to him that his presence had unsettled her to the depths of her being would perhaps open a whole other can of worms, she decided not to do it. Instead she would try to keep things simple and cheerful. Once she'd go home, she would have time to think everything through and most of all her reaction. She hadn't done anything untoward, but inside her she felt guilt. Christian had disappeared and all she thought about was when Terry kissed her when they were teenagers.

He didn't press her to go on because he knew. While he held her in his arms, he knew she was thinking of their dance. He gazed at her travelling eyes, reaching for their past. He was there with her. Never had forgotten the taste of her lips on his. It had taken him all the courage he could gather. It was the one and only time he had let his guard down at that age when he felt the whole world was his enemy. Abandoned and abused by a fake family he despised, Candy had become his everything, his obsession. His life had found meaning with her in it. All that he pushed inside that kiss. No matter how many times he had read the great Bard's works and had learned them by heart, he would never be able to speak of tenderness and love in such way to Candy. Not at that age. He still had lacked the confidence. He took a step back and flinched to the throbbing pain on his left ankle.

"You're in pain!" Candy exclaimed.

He protested that it was nothing but the look on her face didn't let him get his own this time.

"Let's go to sit down", she added and started walking next to him through the crowd. "Archie is here, you know," she turned to see him and smiled.

"I know. I already have spoken to him" he turned and said, surprising her to hear that.

"You two have always a way of finding each other when I'm not around". He knew her comment was a reference from back to their college days when more often than not, she would appear in the college grounds out of nowhere to find them fighting. They never disclosed the reason of their fights to her. As far as Candy was concerned even to this day, they could have been fighting because he was an Englishman and Archie was a Yank.

"Well this time my dear, we were quite civil to one another", he said with his stare having met Archie's from a distance.

"I would hope so", she teased him before yelling Archie's name.