Page 41 of Mirrors of the Past

He turned and looked at her curiously. ‘Just to say what?’

‘Umm. Thank you. For that night in the bar with the drunk guy.’ She paused. ‘I — um — saw you — coming over to me. But, well, I was too embarrassed, I guess, to say anything before now.’ Ugh — how to show someone your vulnerable side! But it was too late, and she found she had to continue. ‘I’m usually pretty good at looking after myself, and he just wouldn’t go away. If my friends hadn’t come in, well, I don’t know what I would have done. Maybe I would have acknowledged you. Pretended you were my boyfriend or something.’ She tried to make a joke of it. ‘And that would have been horrific for us both!’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Ryan after a moment, his cheeks and ears turning pink. ‘Not sure what I would have done had I actually reached your table, to be frank. I was kind of winging it. Wouldn’t have wanted people to think I was your boyfriend, that’s for sure — you were so not my type. You were too . . . cheerful.’ He smiled. He was joking as well, so that was a relief.

Tegan relaxed a little. It actually felt good to be acknowledging that evening now. ‘I just didn’t want to seem like I was helpless,’ she said, ‘but, like I say. Thank you. It’s, um, long overdue.’

‘No problem. I’m — um — glad I could help.’ Ryan flushed bright red, cleared his throat and nodded smartly. He turned away properly, striding out across the grounds in the direction of Pencradoc.

Tegan watched him go, then dashed behind the rose bush to see who was wearing that pink skirt.

But there was nothing and nobody there.

* * *

Ryan kept heading towards the house, not sure what to think. Certainly, he’d been a bit thrown after catching sight of that text message she’d just tapped out — in his head, he was lost in Glasgow, six years ago, still thinking of Tegan as the girl who enjoyed time with her friends, and didn’t take life too seriously. To see her asking her boyfriend a fairly normal question had disconcerted him.

Maybe it was the fact that he’d never envisaged her in anything long term and serious and it was a bit of a culture shock to find out that she had potentially now done that — when he hadn’t had a relationship that had lasted longer than six months, let’s be honest.

Also, he kind of hadn’t expected any thanks about saving her from Drunk Guy after so long, and the fact she had actually noticed him that night was news to him. He knew though, that if he could go back to that moment, he would have done the same again and, had her friends not come in, he would have just kept walking towards her and did whatever he had to do.

He had left the gallery a few days after that night and had never expected to see Tegan again. They’d certainly not hugged or anything on his last day. He’d logged out of the computer, the manager had done some sort of banal speech wishing him well and Tegan had kept working away on her own computer, not looking at him.

Now, he wondered if she had genuinely been struggling to show him her softer, more vulnerable side, and the speech she had just made seemed to suggest that. Perhaps that had stopped her from even taking the slightest interest in his farewells. Cringing, he remembered that he’d picked up his coat and glanced at her, feeling like he maybe should say goodbye; say something to her, anyway. But she just kept tapping away and not looking at him, so he turned and just walked out of the office; and they went their separate ways, never to meet up again.

Or so he thought at the time.

What onearth were you thinking of? he asked himself crossly. Was it so important to maintain that prickly, angry, loner persona, that you couldn’t even say a polite goodbye to a co-worker?

Quite. Absolutelynot the smartest move, old fellow, said a voice nearby.

Ryan stopped in his tracks and stared around him.

He must be imagining it.

Or the legendary ghosts were deciding to throw their opinions in.

Just in case, he hurried up. The grounds felt weird and he felt kind of alone, as if there was a silence that had dropped all around him and the world had become too still for his liking.

Nope. There was the house, and if he hurried he’d get there before his imagination played any more tricks on him.

He took the outside steps two at a time, his long legs making easy work of it, and was soon in the hallway looking at the Grand Staircase.

But even in there, in Pencradoc itself, there was an odd feeling, He blinked and looked around. There was Little Elsie, her marble figure cheerily greeting everyone who visited, but on the wall was a painting of a man. A man with fair hair and grey eyes, where Rose, the duchess, should be.

He stared at the picture, wondering how they had managed to take Rose down and hang this man up — Ellory, that was it, Elsie’s father — in the short time he’d been in the garden with Tegan. At Wheal Mount, it took a whole team of people to do things like that and it wasn’t a five-minute task.

His eyes travelled up the staircase and he felt as if it would be the most natural thing in the world to walk up those stairs and check something was . . . yes. Was where he’d left it.

Because he couldn’t let anyone see what was written there and he couldn’t take the chance of Medora getting her hands on it . . .

He hurried up the stairs, still energised from his race across the moors earlier, and strode along the corridor to his bedroom. He could hear Enyon and Arthur arguing about something in Enyon’s room, a game or a story, or one of the many things they agreed or disagreed on at regular intervals.

He pushed the door open to his room and went over to the desk by the window. He opened the drawer and riffled through the papers. Yes, there it was. Under that picture of her Elsie had given him a while ago. He scanned it again and half smiled. Words on a page. He was better off just burning the damned thing — in fact he thought he might. It was probably the safest option. It wasn’t going to change the outcome of anything.

He carried it over to the fireplace, fully intending to crumple it and toss it among the ashes, but a commotion in the hallway stopped him in his tracks.

‘Let’s ask Laurie for his opinion!’ Enyon was shouting. ‘I’m sure he’ll agree with me!’