“That’s not true,” he sputtered. “If I had known, if I had just…” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I loved you, Fern,” he said when he raised his head again.Loved. Past tense.She pressed her palm to her chest as her heart shattered. “If you had told me, I would have understood.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me! How could you possibly understand—”
“You didn’t trust me to understand?” He ran his hands roughly through his hair and shook his head in disbelief. “I threw myself at your sister, like afool, and you let me, youencouragedme. You distracted me from my work, making me focus onyou, thinking we were helping each other when you were using me!”
“Alex,” she howled, “I was scared, I wanted—”
“You wanted Oxford.” Alex’s voice was harsh, rougher than she had ever heard it. “And you manipulated me, and your sister, and your parents to get what you wanted. You hurt the people who loved you most in the world.” Alex pressed his fist to his mouth, his shoulders curled. When he met her eyes again, he looked gutted. “I would have forgiven you, you know.”
“Then forgive me now.” Fern stepped forward and reached to touch his cheek, but Alex turned his head away.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice flat. “If you couldn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth, then I can’t trust you either.”
Frustration and fear melded into a white-hot heat in her throat. “Do you truly not see your culpability in this?Youcould have told Rose you kissed me, and how you felt something for me, long before now.Youcould have ended things, instead of keeping us both while you made up your mind. It didn’t have to go this far. You were using her for your career, just as I used you.”
He flinched before curling his lip. “You admit you used me, then.”
She threw her arms wide. “Yes, I did, but I had no idea it would turn intothis!”
“I didn’t either!” he shot back. “I had no intention of falling in love, in letting my entire life become confused and—and awreck.” His chest heaved as he watched her, his eyes glistening. “I had aplan, Fern. I had everything figured out. And now I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
“I’ll help you, we’ll find something—”
“I don’t want your help!” Fern’s knees trembled as his words echoed in her mind. “I don’t want your help,” Alex repeated, his voice shaking as he shook his head.
“I’m so sorry,” Fern whispered, but Alex walked towards the door.
He turned to face her at the threshold. “You’re not what I thought you were, Fern. I—I need to go.”
“Please don’t—” Fern reached out, but Alex pulled away.
“No, I can’t—” He drew in a heaving breath. “I need to think about this. I don’t—I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Chapter 31
Athickcloakoffog laid over Birmingham, obscuring the spires of St. Martin in the Bull Ring Cathedral and dampening the sounds of the busy streets. Coal dust choked the late afternoon air from the myriad trains and chimneys spewing the byproducts of industrial advancement into the lungs of its residents. Alex’s mother’s modest brick home in Shard End, one of dozens tightly packed in a neat row, had always been distinguishable by its brilliant yellow door, the color of the daffodils she so loved. Now, after three years without his father to care for it, the wood more closely resembled dried mustard.
“I’ll have to paint it for her,” Alex muttered to himself. “Or find someone to do it.” When Alex left Birmingham after his father’s death, he put his inheritance in a trust to cover his mother’s expenses. But Mrs. Catherine Carroway lived frugally, insisting on doing her own housework and cooking, despite Alex having secured a housekeeper and caretaker years ago. The woman was deeply proud and even more stubborn, qualities Alex inherited in spades.
The wooden door, its frame also badly in need of repair, opened before he had the opportunity to knock. Alex embraced his mother’s petite frame, noticing she seemed slighter than when he saw her in Oxford last Christmas, her shoulder blades prominent under her light wool dress. Her dark brown hair, streaked heavily with silver, was pulled back under a linen cap, allowing Alex to see her brilliant blue eyes, etched by deep lines.It’s been far too long, he scolded himself.
Wordlessly she led him into the kitchen. The Carroways were not a particularly garrulous bunch, and neither spoke until they were seated at a scarred table with strong tea and biscuits in front of them. “It’s been too long, Alex,” Catherine said with a wan smile.
Alex’s smilefelt awkward from lack of use. While he strongly resembled his father, his mother joked that he shared her brain. “It has, Mum. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to be sorry. You’ve been busy and I’m getting along well.” Alex gazed at the bookcases lining the walls opposite the cabinets. When their family expanded out of the apartment above the print shop, their library expanded as well, spilling past its designated walls and onto shelves in the bedrooms, kitchen, and even the pantry. The classic novels his father favored were completely untouched, as though they served as a memorial to his life.
“How is Mrs. Bell working out?”
Catherine raised and dropped one shoulder as she sipped her tea. “I give her the afternoons off, and the weekends. I don’t need much and she has a grandson at home now to look after.”
Alex sighed. “But I pay her to stay all day during the week, and Saturday. She should be cleaning and cooking for you.”
“But I don’t need it,” she insisted. “Without the shop, I need something to fill my days.”
“Mum, you do not need to work anymore.”
“But I like to.” Deep lines creased the edges of her mouth, evidence of many years of smiling and perhaps the recent years of tears. Alex had been away so long, he could not be certain.
