Tuesday, 15th December 2009
On Tuesday, they manage a walk home after choir. Derek has brought his car, perhaps in the hope of giving her a lift, but she politely declines, saying she'd rather walk as Al has already offered to see her to her door. She smiles at him apologetically, saying, "It's such a lovely December evening."
Harry is all charm and good humour as they walk with Jim and Diana initially until they separate by the post office on the corner of Bridge Street and continue along alone. For a second, she experiences a overwhelming mixture of worry, excitement, and fear, but it passes soon enough when, without missing a beat, he keeps up the pleasant conversation until they reach her door.
"Coffee?" she asks softly before she can lose her nerve. She's spent a lot of time thinking about it, these last few days, and she's decided that they can't continue ignoring their double lives and that they really should talk about choir and their legends and work and how they should navigate all this.
"Thank you," he replies, smiling broadly.
She opens the door and steps aside to let him in, and that's when she thinks she spies Derek's car drive past. She frowns, looking up at Harry to see if he's noticed, but he doesn't give any indication that he has, so she quickly dismisses the notion. She probably just imagined it. Still. It makes her feel a little uneasy. Her interactions with Derek have started to acquire an edge since Harry joined the choir that wasn't there before and she doesn't like it.
"Tea? Coffee? Whiskey?" she asks, having hung up her coat and turned to watch him do the same.
"Whiskey sounds wonderful if you have it." He smiles in the easy way Al has and she can't help wondering if he's planning to keep up the pretence all evening despite the fact that they're alone now.
"I do and I think you might even approve of the label."
She turns towards the kitchen and feels him follow her and stop somewhere behind her as she walks to the sink, washes her hands, and reaches into one cupboard for the glasses and another for the whiskey bottle.
"Talisker," he says in surprise. "Not my usual, but a fine choice. Thank you."
"I like trying different ones," she confesses, picking up the glasses and indicating the door. "Shall we go through to the sitting room?"
He nods and steps aside, allowing her to lead the way through to the other room, where she sets down the glasses and bottle on the small coffee table and turns on the lamp by the settee.
"Please take a seat," she prompts when she turns around and finds him still standing.
He moves closer and sits in the armchair, only to frown and get up again, reach behind him and pull out a book that's slipped between the cushions. "Your usual seat?" he asks with a fond smile.
"Yes," she confesses, "but please take it. I'm fine on the sofa."
So he sits down and reaches forward, placing the tome on the table and reaching for the bottle, pouring them each a decent measure of whiskey.
"Thanks," she says, leaning forward to take her glass as he corks the bottle, bringing it to her lips, and taking a small sip of the liquid.
He simply smiles and takes a sip of his own drink, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs and giving her a long speculative look. "Shakespeare's Sonnets," he says eventually. "Bit of light reading?"
She smiles at the teasing tone of his voice. "Indeed. It was either that or Ovid."
He chuckles and takes another sip of his drink, her eyes following the progress of his glass to his lips, distracted by the way he purses them together when he swallows – such gorgeous, sensual lips. She tries to recall what they taste like, what they felt like against her own when she'd kissed him on that cold morning by the Thames, but she can't quite recapture the feeling; it's been too long and it had been George's lips that had become familiar in the meantime.
"I wouldn't have pegged you for a whiskey fan," he murmurs as he lowers his glass, the sudden heat in his eyes suggesting he's noticed her scrutiny.
She drops her gaze quickly and takes a fortifying sip before she smiles into her glass, remembering her first few attempts to enjoy the fiery liquid whilst away, her determination to learn to like it – for him, for the memories and the taste of it on his lips, and her need to hold onto some part of him – a splash of heaven from home.
"It helped on the cold nights abroad," she confesses softly.
His gaze is still warm, but tender too now, when she looks up. "It helps with cold nights at home too, I assure you," he replies, equally softly, voice a little husky with emotion.
He's trying to tell her that he'd missed her too, but an image of George flashes through her mind and with it the guilt, so she lowers her gaze again and says firmly, "Once I got to Cyprus, however, it was really too hot for whiskey." She doesn't dare lift her gaze and cannot see the effect her words have on him. She hopes she hasn't hurt him, and yet, at the same time, she rather hopes that she has. George had been a good man and doesn't deserve such disloyalty from her. She'd mourned Harry far longer than four months and they'd barely even been dating! He shouldn't be tempting her like this and she shouldn't be so close to succumbing to that temptation.
"A kind soul, beautiful mind, angelic voice – tell me, Grace, how is it that you're still single?"
She draws in a sharp breath, eyes darting up to his, anger flaring in her, but his gaze is steady and direct and he does not shy away from her.
"Ah," he says instead. "I've hit a nerve. Forgive me. I don't wish to pry."
She sees what he's doing. He's staying in character and attempting to keep her there too, hoping perhaps that they can make some progress where they haven't managed before as Harry and Ruth, boss and employee. In character, they are equals and he is married and unthreatening, not to mention open and rather charming. It's confusing, yet liberating too, and annoyingly tempting and exciting.
"Not everyone wants to get married," she fires back, hating that she sounds defensive.
"True, but I see deep sorrow in your eyes, Grace, and I suspect that your story is one of lost love, not an indifference to marriage."
He's trying to help her, she realises with a grudging return of the warmth she feels for him. He's trying to give her an opportunity to talk about what happened.
Dare she take it?
She looks up at him to find his gaze has softened, beseeching her almost to trust in him as she did before, to open up to him as she never has. He'd talked to her of Grand Tours and practically admitted that he'd dreamt that she would be the one to accompany him, but she had never opened up enough to share her own dreams of travel to exotic places – far more exotic than the capitals of Europe. Yet here he is, presenting her with a perfect opportunity to unburden herself and, at the same time, giving himself the plausibility of denial. If she talks about George in character as Grace, not only will it make it marginally easier, but it will also allow them both to claim it was merely a backstory for her legend – Harry will not have to report any of it as her boss, and if his hand is ever forced, she can deny it. Clever man!
"It is a recent loss if I'm not mistaken," he prompts gently. "It must have been someone special."
"He was," she whispers softly, staring into her drink as a picture of George laughing fills her mind and heart. "He was a good man. He was lovely." She feels tears gather in her eyes, remembering him. "It's all my fault. He was killed because of me."
He doesn't reply to this statement, perhaps knowing the futility of arguing with her, perhaps sensing that he shouldn't interrupt the flow of her words, her thoughts, her grief.
"He had a son – a beautiful, little boy." She continues, surprised to find how much she wants to unburden herself, how much she needs to talk about it. "I hadn't thought I could fall in love again. After leaving here, it rather felt like my life was over. But it's beautiful in Cyprus. It's warm and sunny, the cicadas serenade you in the summer, the sea... I felt at peace there. Like I could stop running. And he was charming, kind, he made me laugh. And Nico, he was a wonderful child. We'd not been together that long – just a few months. I'd only just moved in with them." The tears gathering in her eyes are sliding down her cheeks faster than she can wipe them away. She's not cried for them since the day Nico left and it's impossible to stem the flow of her grief now though she tries.
She feels his hand grasp her glass gently and pull it out of her grasp, replacing it with a soft, white cloth – his handkerchief – so she does the obvious thing and brings it to her eyes, wiping away tears as fresh ones form and slide down her cheeks, their flow increasing, her shoulders beginning to shake with suppressed sobs. "Sorry," she whispers, trying and failing to control her reaction to speaking about George and Nico, for the first time, and the life she left behind in Cyprus. It had truly been a beautiful life – elegant and simple and joyful. What had started off as a legend in her mind, had turned into a full, fulfilling life, in its own way, despite the lies she'd told by necessity, despite the fact that poor George had never really known her.
"He was," she murmurs brokenly between her sobs, "so... angry with me, when he found out. 'Truth is an end in itself. It requires no other justification,' he told me. And I never... we never got the chance to talk before..." but she can no longer continue speaking as whatever tenuous grip she still has on her emotions snaps and she breaks down completely.
It's only vaguely that she registers him sit down beside her, but when he gently guides her into his arms, she doesn't resist. If anything, she clings to his warmth and the solid feel of him against her, the anchor she so desperately needs in the storm of her raging emotions.
"That's it, Ruth," he murmurs, his voice low and warm. "Good girl. Let it all out. I'm here. I've got you. Let go. Just let go."
And she does, pouring out her grief while he holds her, settling into the cushions behind him and gathering her close, his hands rubbing her back, murmuring words of encouragement and reassurance until, finally, her tears slow, her sobs subside, and she's left an emotional wreck in his arms.
She doesn't move for the longest time, unable to let go of the solid feel of him, his warmth, the gentle touch of his hands, the comfort of being held again after so long without someone's arms around her. But eventually, she can reasonably delay no more and she has to pull out of his arms, apologising. "Sorry. I didn't mean to do that."
"It's alright," he replies, watching her with tender eyes. "It's one of my best features, you know – broad shoulders to cry on."
She tries for a smile, appreciating his attempt to put her at ease, but drops her gaze almost immediately, feeling acutely embarrassed. She feels lighter after sharing her grief and having a good cry about it, but she's also painfully aware of whom she's shared it with, of their convoluted history, of Harry's regard for her, of the complicated dynamics of their relationship in the past, of the role Harry played in her loss of George, of the torch he continues to carry for her, of the fact that he's still her boss, of her own mixed feelings towards him.
"Sweet tea," he says, perhaps sensing her discomfort. "That's what you need." And as she watches him get up and cross the room towards the kitchen, she can't help wondering if he realises that he'd said those exact words to her just before Cotterdam, can't help the way the memories come flooding back, the pain of their separation, the regret of never having given them a chance before it was too late and she was ripped from his side by fate and her own deep love for him. It had been so simple with George. Why has it always been so complicated with Harry?