Page 4 of The Last Casterglass
“I just filled it,” he told her, keeping his tone bright. “It should still be hot.”
In reply Seph switched the kettle on, with a loud click. Oliver blinked. Stupid to feel like turning on a kettle was something of a rebuff, and yet…was it?
“What do you do around Casterglass?” he asked, reaching for his tea. “From what I learned last night, everyone seems to have their own area of responsibility.”
She turned around to face him, leaning against the counter and folding her arms as the kettle, having boiled, clicked off almost instantly, which gave Oliver a small, perverse, and rather childish sort of pleasure.
“I run the woodworking shop,” she stated, and then turned around again to make her tea. Oliver watched her, wondering if she was like this with everyone, or if it was just him.
“I look forward to seeing it,” he said, wishing he didn’t sound quite so…enthusiastic. It was a habit he had learned in childhood, to overcompensate for his uncle’s silences. He turned just the tiniest bit manic, hyper-friendly, ridiculous. It had not been a good look in primary school, and it wasn’t now, either.
Seph was giving him a rather disbelieving look, which made him explain, a bit stiffly, “Althea mentioned that I’d be spending time with each area of the estate’s interests. So I suppose I’ll make it to woodworking at some point.”
She snorted—actually snorted—and then dumped her teabag into the sink before striding back outside without a word. Goodgrief. Oliver’s irritation at such behaviour warred with a needling hurt he told himself to dismiss. Persephone Penryn clearly had the attitude problem, not him. He’d try to steer clear of her as much as he could, and get to know some of the other dozen or so people who seemed to be living on site.
And he’d start by doing what Althea had said, and exploring the estate—making sure to avoid the woodworking shop, of course.
*
Seph gritted herteeth, fighting a flush of mortification as she strode as quickly as she could from the kitchen, back to the safety of her shop. She’d handledthatbadly. Really badly, if the shocked expression on Oliver’s face was anything to go by. He probably thought she was unbelievably rude, not to mention pathetically lacking in social skills. Both, she thought dispiritedly, were true, although it wasn’t just a lack of social skills that had made her be so abrupt with Oliver Belhaven; it had been fear. It was always fear, not that she’d ever admit it to anyone.
She was afraid of actually trying with someone and being rebuffed. Rejected. She’d had enough of that to last a lifetime, and so over the years it had become easier not to try, with anyone. A few people had managed to breach her defences—John Braithwaite being one, when he’d let her help out with the farm as a moody teenager. But with most people Seph knew, her default was to act like she didn’t care, because the more she acted like she didn’t, the easier she could convince herself it was true. And now it basically was…sort of, except too often things still hurt, even if she tried not to let them.
Anyway, Oliver Belhaven was a random stranger who would be gone in three months, so she reallydidn’tcare what he thought. Right? Except last night he’d seemed so—well, like Alice had said,cute. In an endearing way, weirdly lovably eager to please, and yet also…undeniably fit. There was that, Seph couldn’t deny.
When it came to romance, her experience with the opposite sex was next to nil, and yet she’d still noticed. The floppy dark hair. The bright green eyes twinkling behind wire-rimmed glasses. The body, that even in boring button-down shirts and cords had looked lean and well-muscled. Yes, she’d definitely noticed, even if she’d done her best to act as if she hadn’t, as if she couldn’t care less, which she couldn’t, of course, because…well. There was absolutely no point thinking about Oliver Belhaven that way. She had made just about the worst impression she could have, and that was probably a mercy. He’d certainly steer clear of her now. A fact that should bring relief—and did—along with a tiny, irritating, needling disappointment.
Seph pushed that feeling away as she shut the door of her shop and reached for her safety goggles, determined to lose herself in her work for a good few hours—and not think of Oliver Belhaven once.
*
By eleven o’clockher muscles were aching, her face flecked with sawdust, as she turned off the lathe, took off her safety goggles, and gave a long, languorous stretch. The flower box was finished, and it looked good, if she did say so herself. She put her hands to the small of her back as she peered out the window of her shop at the courtyard that was still swathed in gloom, although the downpour of earlier had downgraded to a mizzling drizzle. Still it was—as it always was in November, as well as about nine other months of the year—cold, wet, and grey.
She wondered what Oliver Belhaven thought of the good old Cumbrian weather, and then was annoyed at herself for immediately going there. She hadn’t thought of him once while working, absorbed in the smooth flow of wood underneath her hands, but the minute she’d stopped, her brain inevitably went to that place. Why? Just because he was a good-looking guy? Admittedly she hadn’t come across many of those, stuck at Casterglass for her entire life.
Letting out a groan of frustration at her own thoughts, Seph decided to take a break and grab a coffee from the café across the courtyard. Her brother Sam’s girlfriend Rose had transformed it into a cosy and welcoming space, with leather sofas and shelves full of books, plus a full menu of cakes and pastries, as well as some truly delicious coffee. Since it was November, the café was closed but Seph had learned to operate the espresso machine—not all that different from a lathe, if you looked at it a certain way. One big piece of machinery was very much like another.
She stepped into the empty café, flicking on the lights before turning to the espresso machine. The sound of the machine was loud in the stillness of the empty café, and as she waited for the coffee to brew, she felt a sudden, familiar sweep of homesickness—a feeling that came over her at unexpected times, in quiet, solitary moments, like being lost in a fog, or carried away on a tide. How could you be homesick when you were already home? Seph wondered, far from the first time, and yet she knew she was.
Homesick not so much for a place, but for a feeling or maybe a situation. Forsomething, and she hadn’t yet figured out what it was. The Germans had a word for it, she’d learned—sehnsucht, defined as a wistful longing for a place or time, an indefinable yearning or desire. More and more Seph found herself experiencing this, like an ache that ran right through her, which left her feeling emptier than before and yet longing to be filled, and she didn’t know how to make it go away.
Shaking her head at such foolishly fanciful thoughts, she poured the foamed milk on top of her espresso and added her usual three sugars. She’d get back to work and stop indulging these stupid emotions. She didn’t know why she’d turned so fanciful all of a sudden. It was definitely out of character.
She turned off the machine and the lights and then headed back to the comfort and safety of her workshop—only to stop stock-still in the doorway, in complete and horrified disbelief, at the sight of Oliver Belhaven nosing around her things, completely unashamed of his unabashed prying.
He was wandering around her shop, touching her tools, inspecting her pieces, as if he had every right to be there. As she stood there, utterly shocked, she saw with an icy sort of incredulity that he was lifting a dustsheet from a sculpture tucked away in the back corner of the shop—one that was not for sale or public consumption. She watched as he ran his hand down the side of it—Out of the Wild, her most private, personal piece; one she could hardly bear to look at herself, because it felt so revealing.
Her whole body was trembling and yet she could not make herself speak. Standing there, without him even seeing her, she felt utterly exposed, as if she were stark naked. Oliver turned then, a look of surprise on his face, as if he hadn’t expected her to show up in her own workshop.
“Oh, hello! I was just having a look around. This is quite nice—what do you call it?”
He ran his hand down the length ofOut of the Wildagain, and Seph had the unsettling sensation that he’d just touched her. Intimately. Unasked, unwanted, like an assault.
For another few seconds she couldn’t speak. She was holding her coffee cup so tightly that the hot liquid had sloshed out, burning her hand. She felt stripped down, laid bare, her most intimate self unbearably scrutinised…and he didn’t even seem to realise it, which was both a relief and even more of an affront. How could he expose her like this and not evenknow?
“Get—out,” she finally managed to squeeze out of her constricted throat. Oliver looked startled, then bemused.
“Sorry, should I not have come in? I did knock—”