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‘Why?’ Liz studied his face. She could see he was struggling with something difficult. ‘Why does it matter what I think?’
‘Because I don’t want you to think I’m a monster,’ Ben sighed. ‘Because you mean a lot to me. More than I’ve told you.’
Liz’s heart quickened as Ben took her hand.
‘I’m listening,’ she said, trying to keep some composure in her voice.
‘All right.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The first thing you should know is that I loved Alice. And I would never hurt her.’
Liz said nothing.
‘We met as teenagers. She lived in the village. One summer, I was home from school. I met her in one of the fields outside the village. It was near her family’s farm. I was there, looking for dragonflies and moths, because I was… a massive nerd, I suppose. Still am.’
Liz allowed him a smile.
‘You are, when it comes to nature. I’ve noticed that.’
‘Yeah. Well, I pretty much fell in love with her straightaway. She was beautiful, and she understood me in a way that no one else ever had. My dad always wanted me to be something else, you know? More like him. He hoped boarding school would change me, but it didn’t. I was never good enough for him.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Alice wasn’t like them. We…’ He chuckled, remembering. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter. We were in love, anyway. When I was old enough, I asked her to marry me. Dad disapproved. But we did it anyway. I was eighteen, she was twenty.’
‘Did your dad ever approve of Alice?’ Liz leaned in to him a little.
‘Yeah. We lived at the family house, where I live now. Dad was tough, but he wouldn’t let us go homeless, and there was no room for us at Alice’s family’s farm. Over time, he got fond of Alice and he forgave me. I think, anyway.’
‘So, what happened? It all sounds okay so far.’ Liz frowned.
‘What happened was that Alice had always said she didn’t want children. Remember that we were pretty young when we got married anyway; it’s reasonable that a girl of twenty doesn’t want a family just yet. But time went on and she got to thirty and she still didn’t want any kids. She was happy just with me, she said.’ He raised his eyebrow. ‘But then, she fell for someone else. I don’t know why. Maybe I wasn’t enough for her.’ He swallowed.
‘Anyway. The long and short of it is that she got pregnant by this guy, who then left her. I was pretty angry, as you can imagine.’ He let out a long breath. ‘But I still loved her. And I’d do anything to keep her. When Dad found out, too, he told me that there was no way in hell that he was going to allow his grandchild be brought up by someone else, so I went to Alice and I told her I’d still support her, and I’d bring the child up as my own.’
‘Oh, my goodness! Ben!’ Liz was aghast. ‘I can’t believe that! It’s…’ She struggled to think of something to say. ‘It’s like something from one of those terrible TV talk shows!’
‘Yeah. It’s right up there.’ He nodded. ‘DNA test on national TV territory.’
‘So, what happened then? Simon said that you threw her out when she was pregnant.’
‘I might’ve known Simon would be behind all this,’ Ben muttered, darkly. ‘He’s always been jealous of me inheriting the distillery. I think he’s always thought he could do a better job of running things than me. He’s probably right, too. And he was fond of Alice. I always thought he liked her. Maybe he would have asked her out if I hadn’t been there.’
‘Well, anyway,’ Liz prompted him. ‘What happened?’
‘She refused. She said she couldn’t bear to be with me a moment longer, and she didn’t want her child to grow up a Douglas. She went off to try and make it work with the baby’s father, and I didn’t see her again, not for years, until recently. I didn’t tell anyone what had really happened because I was ashamed. She’d cheated on me, left me, and she didn’t even love me enough to let me bring the baby up. Another man’s baby, at that.’
‘Oh, Ben. I’m so sorry.’ Liz wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug; hugging Ben felt completely natural, like she should always have been hugging him. Before, she’d been so guarded around him, but that feeling had disappeared. ‘That’s horrible. I’m so sorry it happened to you.’
‘It’s in the past. I didn’t tell you so that you’d feel sorry for me,’ Ben said, quietly, hugging her back. ‘I wanted to explain, since you asked me about it last night. And I could see you were so upset about the miscarriage, and everything you’d been through. I just couldn’t stand the thought that you’d think… I don’t know. That I would knowingly hurt any woman, but especially do anything as heinous as what Simon said I did.’
‘I understand,’ Liz replied, hugely relieved. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’m just sorry I walked out. I should have explained to you then, but I was angry with myself.’ Ben let go of her and took both of her hands instead. ‘There’s something else.’
‘What?’
‘Last night you said you thought I wanted to leave the company. Because I keep having to go out. I know I’ve been terrible – missing meetings, being unreliable. The thing is that Alice has been back in touch with me recently. And…’ he took in a deep breath, ‘she needed my help.’
‘She … she’d had the baby, but it had been taken away by social services. It’s – she says it was a girl, that’s all I know – it was taken up for adoption. Alice… had a kind of breakdown. She was always fragile, when I knew her. When I was younger, I thought I could be the one to keep her together. I took a kind of pride in that idea, I suppose.’ Ben sighed, and ran his hand over his face. ‘Pride goes before a fall, though, doesn’t it?’
‘What kind of breakdown?’ Liz could see the worry etched in Ben’s face, and she kicked herself for not seeing it earlier. Of course Ben wasn’t off playing golf, being the irresponsible person she had thought he was. He had been suffering, worrying all this time, and she hadn’t known or helped him.
‘Some kind of dissociative episode. That’s what the doctor called it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, she’s in a place where they can look after her. At least I feel that I can help her that one way.’
