There was so much at stake that Kelsey knew she had to go on. ‘It’s not only your dad I thought you deserved to meet; there’s others too. You might have half-brothers, nephews as well. You could have a whole family if we’re right about Blythe having Wagstaff’s child in the sixties…’ Her voice broke when she saw his anger. Now she really was afraid.
Jonathan was deathly pale and shaking from his shoulders to his knees. ‘These are people’s lives you’re interfering in!’
‘I know, I’m sorry,’ Kelsey said unsteadily. ‘I thought you might like the idea once you had time to get used to it. You could double your family in an instant…’
Jonathan made a grab for his coat and threw it on before angrily pulling on his scarf.
‘I only wanted to increase my family byone persontoday and it wasn’t with the addition of some old soak who didn’t want me when I was a child. What am I going to tell Mom? How is she supposed to take this? We had nothing growing up, you know?Nothing!’ He yelled the last word, making the women flinch. Kelsey grabbed for his hand. He dodged away, knocking the bedside cabinet and sending books and photo frames tumbling to the floor.
‘I’ll take the car back to the hire place now, then I’ll get a cab to the airport. I can’t even look at you two now.’
‘Jonathan, I’m sorry,’ Kelsey cried out as the door closed behind him.
The friends turned to face one another wordlessly, Kelsey distraught, Mirren wiping away tears and reaching for her mobile.
‘I’ll try to call Adrian again, find out what he’s up to.’ She had the phone to her ear, listening to it ring straight to voicemail.
‘How can you trust him, Mirren? When he stitched up Jonathan and Peony like that? His article – hislies– were responsible for keeping me and Jonathan apart all summer. What do you even know about this guy, Mirren?’
She hung up and let the phone slide to her side. ‘I thought I knew him.’
Kelsey slumped onto the bed, reaching to the ground to pick up the framed picture of her and Jonathan taken at Norma’s wedding in September when they were grinning and doe-eyed in love. A little velvet box she’d never seen before lay amongst the mess on the floor, it caught her eye and she grabbed for it, flicking open the top.
Gold bands entwined in an Elizabethan love knot and dotted with tiny faceted sapphires sparkled in the artificial lights of the bedsit. Her voice shook. ‘He was going topropose?’
‘Oh my God, what?’ Mirren seemed to forget that Jonathan had stormed out seconds before, momentarily wrapped up in the revelation that her best friend had come so close to getting engaged. ‘Surely, that’s a sign he’ll be back any minute now, once he’s cooled off a bit?’ she enthused. ‘Wow, it’s so beautiful, Kelse!’
Kelsey looked at Mirren, incredulous, and snapped the box shut. ‘Please, just leave.’
‘But…’ Mirren was going to argue, but the look on Kelsey’s face – of fury and heartache – frightened her, so she quietly closed the door behind her, while Kelsey strained her ears to listen to the sound of Jonathan’s hire car pulling away from St.Ninian’s Close.
When she was alone, Kelsey doubled up as if in pain and wept over the beautiful engagement ring Jonathan had abandoned in his haste to get away from her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang’
(Sonnet 73)
The phone call home that night hadn’t helped at all. Mari had tried to soothe her daughter, who was frantic and shaking with great sobbing convulsions as she told her the news.
‘He dropped a ring on the floor when he raced out, Mum. An engagement ring.’
Mari hadn’t been as surprised as Kelsey expected.
‘Kelse, love, on Christmas Day when we were doing the dishes together Jonathan asked me if he could propose to you.’
‘He did? That’s so like him.’
‘And he asked your grandad. He even asked Calum.’
His respect for her family’s wishes made the discovery hurt all the more. ‘That’s why Jonathan was so jumpy on Christmas night, he was nervous about asking? And that’s why he was so keen to come to Scotland to meet you all!’
