Page 7 of The Last Casterglass
She reached the top of the fell and breathed in deep. Above her the sky, now a deep, bright blue, stretched away endlessly. In the distance the sea glinted, ruffled with white waves, and seagulls circled and squawked overhead. Here she couldn’t even see Casterglass Castle; the Scots pines fringing the rhododendrons were taller than its towers. All she could see was wood, sea, and sky, and it made her feel free. Strong. She could go back there and handle Oliver Belhaven and whatever else came her way, without freaking out or getting weirdly emotional. Shewould.
The sky was starting to darken at its edges, like the edges of a parchment curling up, and she realised she must have been walking for hours. She started down the fell, knowing full well how dangerous it was to be up there when dusk came, even for someone as experienced as herself.
When she’d turned eighteen, she’d started volunteering with Mountain Rescue; John did it, as well, and he had encouraged her to join. While she hadn’t been called out all that often, she had enjoyed feeling helpful and capable, assisting climbers, usually city dwellers who had underestimated the power of nature, who had become stuck, lost, or both. The camaraderie had been nice too; most of the other volunteers were men, older than herself, and they’d had a matey yet paternal attitude that Seph had been comfortable with. She’d stopped, though, last year, when Althea had come back and Casterglass looked like it would take all her time.
It was another hour before she was at the icehouse, claiming her sculpture, and then heading back to the workshop with it tucked under her arm. She opened the door cautiously, half-expecting Oliver to be snooping yet again, but of course he wasn’t. It wasn’t until she’d put her sculpture back where it belonged that she realised he had been in her workshop, after all.
On the stool by the door there was a massive fudge brownie wrapped in wax paper and a note, her name on the envelope, in an elegant scrawl.
Feeling both curious and apprehensive, Seph slipped the single piece of paper from the envelope.
Dear Seph, I’m so sorry for violating the privacy of your workshop. I could say I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing but that wouldn’t really be true. In all honesty, I was curious, and I wanted to know more about you, so I looked. And what I saw, I really, really liked, even if I wasn’t meant to see it. Although liked isn’t actually the right word—I was moved, because there was something so raw and powerful and really rather wonderful about it. Maybe that’s too much information for you right now, but all this to say I really am sorry, and I hope I can make it up to you—and not just with this brownie. Maybe a coffee in town? Oliver
Seph read through the note twice before she slowly lowered it, staring into space. She really hadn’t expectedthat—and she had no idea how to respond. Her mind still spinning, she reached for the brownie, unwrapped it from its paper, and took a massive bite.
Oliver Belhaven was full of surprises, it seemed, and really rather alarming—and strangely exciting—ones.
Chapter Four
“So we’ll startwith the boring stuff, and get it out of the way first.”
Althea gave Oliver a bracing, rather beady-eyed smile, which he did his best to return genially, although the truth was, he wasn’t entirely feeling it. He’d spent six hours yesterday closeted with Althea in her office while she went through the endless minutiae of running Casterglass, and while it was, for the most part, quite interesting, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Seph and wondering how to apologise.
When Althea had finally released him, his mind full of paperwork, he’d decided a note was the way to go, along with some small, innocuous token of his regard. Flowers felt too romantic and so he’d settled on a brownie, driving all the way to Broughton-in-Furness—he hadn’t realisedquitehow remote Casterglass actually was—to pick one up from a bakery there—the fudgiest, squidgiest one he could find, not that he even knew Seph liked that kind. Maybe she didn’t like brownies at all. Maybe she was gluten-free, or allergic to chocolate, or something like that. Considering his luck so far, she probably was. He could picture her already, fuming as she thrust the brownie towards him.
How dare you give me a brownie!
The image almost made him smile, except that it actually seemed possible.
And what about the note? He’d meant to write something brief and easy—Sorry, Seph!and leave it at that—but when he’d begun writing a whole bunch of other stuff had come out. He’d tried to temper the blatant outpouring of emotion with a more casual offer of coffee—although maybe it didn’t come across as casual; maybe she thought it was a date. A prospect that he realised both pleased and worried him, in just about equal measure, because maybe it sort of was. Or was he crazy? He barely knew this woman. She most likely near-on despised him. He wasn’t sure he evenlikedher, full stop.
And yet…
“Oliver? Hello? Are you listening?”
Oliver forced his mind back to Althea and her explanation of why she was going to start him off with the most boring aspect of the business—filing her mountains of paperwork. So everything else he got to do would seem interesting, he supposed, but it would have been nice to have something to whet his appetite just alittlemore. She’d mentioned getting him involved in marketing, maintaining their website, running the café, helping out on the campsite… Any of those would have been better than sitting in this broom cupboard cum office dealing with old bills.
“Yes, sorry, sorry, I’m listening.” He gave Althea a bright smile. “Filing. Brilliant. Yes. Always good to get that out of the way first, see where you are. Clean desk, clean mind, and all that.”
He stopped abruptly as Althea gave him a rather narrowed look before reaching for a high stack of bills and invoices. “You can start with these.”
Seph hadn’t said anything about the brownie at dinner, Oliver reflected a bit glumly as he started on the pile of papers. Althea had disappeared to do something more important, which at least left him alone with his thoughts—and alotof papers. Her filing system was very neatly labelled, but it soon became apparent that she didn’t actually ever file anything. The hanging folders in the impressive oak cabinets were practically empty, so Oliver had nearly a year of paperwork to painstakingly go through, which was most likely why she’d given him the unenviable task.
It gave him time to think, at least, and recall that at dinner last night Seph had neither studiously avoided him nor made any effort to meet his gaze, offer a smile of acknowledgement,anything. She’d basically acted as if he wasn’t even on her radar, which he probably wasn’t. She in all likelihood hadn’t given him a single thought, thrown the brownie in the bin, and the note as well, before turning back to her lathe.
He really needed to stop obsessing about this, Oliver decided. He wasn’t even sure he liked Seph as aperson, never mind anything more significant. She was grumpy and sullen and, frankly, downright rude. He knew he had a tendency to want people to like him, probably harking back to his childhood abandonment issues—he didn’t need therapy to realise that much—but couldn’t he manage without sulky Seph’s regard?
Then he thought of John’s advice—give her the benefit of the doubt, if you can. And be patient with her.
And that made him wonder. Quite a bit. What sort of difficult time had Seph had? And just how difficult had it been? What, really, made her the way she was—seemingly ready to lash out at anyone and everyone, out of defence, perhaps, or maybe fear? And what was it about him that made him want to know so badly?
Oliver supposed, being something of an underdog himself, he had a sympathy for those who seemed to be in similar circumstances—although in reality he and Seph were absolute chalk and cheese. He was an overcompensating people-pleaser and she was…not. But he still wanted to know what she thought about the brownie—and the note. Definitely the note.
And yet, nearly twenty-four hours after he’d tiptoed into her workshop, making sure not to snoop or touch anything—leaving it right by the door so she’d know he hadn’t—he’d had not a word. Not even a glance.
And that was okay, Oliver told himself as he filed a paid invoice for roof slates from October of thirteen months ago in its appropriate folder. Because he hadn’t given her the brownie—or even the note—to extract something from her, or make her feel she owed him something. At least, notmuch. It was hard to be completely noble and self-sacrificing, but he was trying. Sort of.
And so really, he shouldn’t expect her to say anything at all. He should just be cool with having done the right thing, and move on, totally chill. Too bad that wasn’t really his personality. Instead he was slotting papers into folders and obsessing about a woman who probably couldn’t care less. Sadly.