Page 31 of The Last Casterglass

“Okay.” She put her hand in her pockets and rocked back on her heels, waiting for something more. What had prompted this unexpected visit? Her father was smiling but Seph thought he looked a little uncomfortable as he glanced around her workshop.

“This is all quite remarkable,” he said as he strolled slowly around. “I’ve seen your pieces in the gift shop, of course, and the garden, and I’ve been most impressed. But I should have come in here sooner, I think.” He gave her a small smile that was touched with sorrow and felt, strangely, like an apology. An apology Seph had no idea what to do with.

“It’s okay. I know you’re busy.”

“Not that busy.” Her father let out a little sigh as he turned to face her. “I fear we might have neglected you, Persephone, over the years. Not intentionally, of course, but all the same.” He shook his head slowly while Seph tried not to gape. Part of her wanted to sneer,you think. While another part, Oliver-style, wanted to assure him it was all okay, she’d been fine all along. She’d never seen her father look so…sad. She didn’t like it.

“Have we?” he asked, meeting her stunned gaze directly. “I know you’re a grown woman now, but when you were younger. Did you feel…” he swallowed “…abandoned?”

“Not…abandoned.” Seph turned to her lathe, needlessly running a rag along its gleaming surface, just to have something to do. “Not quite.”

Her father sighed again, more heavily this time. “I was afraid of that.”

Her throat was getting thick as she squared her shoulders. “What’s brought this on, anyway?” she asked.

“I suppose when you get to be my great age you start to look back on your life and re-evaluate,” her father explained slowly. “And, admittedly, your siblings had something to say about their own situations.”

“They did?” She hadn’t realised anyone else had any real issues. But why, she wondered now, should she have assumed she was the only one? They’d all grown up at Casterglass, had had to deal with the castle’s quirks, along with those of her parents. Admittedly, Althea, Olivia, and Sam had all had each other in a way she never had, but maybe they hadn’t been as together as she’d thought. Maybe they’d had their own private struggles.

“We all have scars, I think,” her father said. “It’s part of the human condition. But it grieves me to think I may have had some part in causing yours.”

Seph shook her head out of instinct, although she wasn’t sure why. She was glad her father was saying this, but it also felt like too little, too late. Where had he or her mother been when she’d felt so lonely as a child, a teen? All the years of her childhood, basically fending for herself, from schooling to meals to endless school holidays on her own, kicking around the castle? Not that she’d ever said she wanted anything different. Not that she’d ever even complained.

“Your mother and I have been unorthodox in our parenting,” her father continued. “Sometimes deliberately, to go against the grain, but sometimes out of—well, carelessness, I suppose. You always seemed so self-sufficient, even as a youngster, but you were still a child. Talking to your siblings has made me realise that I needed to talk to you, as well, and apologise for any hurts we might have caused.” He looked at her seriously, then, so seriously and directly that Seph felt tears pooling in her eyes, thickening in her throat. She could not speak.

“Forgive me, Seph?” her father said quietly. “And your mother too? If we’ve hurt you? And notif, really.Whenwe hurt you. Out of own thoughtlessness or selfishness.”

Somehow, she managed to nod. Her father smiled, and then he put his arms around her in a gentle hug. Seph breathed in the familiar smell of him—leather and pipe tobacco and soil from his pottering about among his orchids. She closed her eyes and leaned into the hug in a way she never had before. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who could be different, she thought as she eased back, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. She wasn’t the only one who could try.

Chapter Twelve

“Oliver, this isfantastic.”

Oliver tried not to beam too much as Althea clicked on the web pages he’d added to the castle’s site. “Pick your own apples…cider making…even toddler craft sessions with apple printing and apple play dough! I didn’t even know there was such a thing.” She looked up, shaking her head in admiring wonder. “You’ve thought of everything.”

“Well…” It had only taken a couple of clicks on Google, but he appreciated the admiration.

“Do you think the orchard will be ready for this autumn?” she asked. “Open for business?”

“Um, hopefully?” He was intending to prune them in January, via another YouTube tutorial, but by February he was hoping to be back at Pembury, with his uncle having made a decision. Autumn felt like a long time away.

“You’ve really been brilliant these last few weeks,” Althea told him. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“It was no trouble,” Oliver assured her, even though it occasionally had been.

It was mid-December, and only a week until Althea and John’s wedding. As she’d become more involved—and stressed by—all the preparations, Oliver had taken over more and more of the daily running and admin. He’d liked feeling useful, as well as in charge, and since it was winter there wasn’t too much to do, so he’d been able to organise her office as well as work on the website. He’d also made sure to file any invoice or bill as soon as it came in.

Yes, there had been a few annoyances, especially when she dumped some urgent bit of business in his lap at five minutes to five, but he’d managed. He’d even found the time in between jobs to stop and see Seph; he’d fallen into the habit of bringing her a coffee—a double-shot latte, her favourite—every afternoon. They’d sit in her workshop and chat for twenty minutes or so, before they both got back to work. It had never been about anything too serious, more a bit of joking and teasing, along with a rather epic and cutthroat Wordle competition. She’d got today’s word in an impressive three, while Oliver had only managed four. All in all, he thought, it had been remarkably pleasant. More than pleasant, if he was honest.

Yesterday Seph had, rather shyly, confessed she was starting to work on another sculpture. “Just sketching,” she’d said quickly. “Nothing in actual wood yet. But I don’t think I would have thought of it on my own, so thank you for putting the idea in my head.”

“I think you would have at some point,” Oliver had replied. “But I’m glad to have been a help. I hope you’re going to dedicate it to me when it’s finished?” he’d teased, and she’d given a little laugh.

“Maybe.”

They’d smiled at each other, and the moment had spun out a little long, as had been happening more and more frequently. There was an awareness growing between them, at least on Oliver’s side. He wasn’t sure whether Seph was having the same experience, but he found himself noticing things about her that drove him crazy, in an entirely wonderful way—the four freckles on her nose, and the way her golden curls clung to the back of her neck. How, when she stretched, her back always cracked, and she’d let out a little grimacing laugh before dropping her arms. When she was thinking, she scratched her nose, and when she was embarrassed, she lowered her gaze, so her lashes swept her cheeks. Yes, he’d spent a lot of time surreptitiously studying her. At least he hoped it was surreptitious.

“You know,” Althea said, bringing him back to the present, “if you felt like it, you could stay on for a while. We could pay you a wage—not much, I admit, but something. You could work through the next year to get the orchard going? Be my right-hand man?” She smiled hopefully while Oliver simply stared, flummoxed.