Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Griff: "Besides, London is too big for me. I would get horribly lost and end up run over by a carriage."

Ben: "That has already happened and you were in the village square."

(B & G conversation on the topic of London 2 years prior)

The next morning he realised two things. First, there was a pungent smell of jasmine mingling with the tantalising odour of baked goods and it was probably the cause of his awakening, if the insistent growling of his stomach was anything to go by. Second, the bed he had fallen asleep in was empty and he knew for a fact that he had crawled in beside Amy last night.

Oliver forced his eyes open, the edges of his world blurring. It took a moment for his brain to calibrate the brightness of the room and locate the spectacles he had lost, but once he did he managed a heavy sigh and sat up.

He always did like Griff's room. It was comfortable and brimming with memories from their childhood. There were sketches and paintings on the wall she had completed of the surrounding orchards and natural forests, various knickknacks and memorabilia that she had allotted sentimental value to, including a few items he had given her from London and his trips abroad. There was a music box from France on her small vanity, a Delftware plate which hung on her wall and a pair of intricately painted castanets from Spain that she kept on her small bookshelf. There were other gifts he had given her throughout the years that were not so readily on display, including an embroidered set of silken handkerchiefs with the wording Griff embroidered in each corner- one of which she had bestowed to him for good luck. It was a strange quirk of hers to relinquish luck and good fortune to any item she deemed special. In his possession currently he held one of her handkerchiefs, a button, a shilling, and a silk ribbon. Griff had made him swear not to dispose any of these items, sure that if he did his life would be rife with aleatory.

Whether it held true or not, and her personal little artefacts were indeed bestowing him with tides of good favour, Oliver would never know, but it amused him greatly whenever she did bequeath him with these gifts and then attempt to rationalise the logic behind each one.

Other than the menagerie of personal affects about her chambers, she had very little else and very little space otherwise. He swung his legs out the bed and his eyes caught the note she had left him on her pillow. Curiously, he picked it up:

Get OUT!

He sighed, knowing the window would be his only exit this morning. Judging by the light streaming through the panes, it was quite late... and he knew Amy well enough to ascertain that she had already been up for a few hours, tending to various activities around the cottage. He hoped to God that one of them was securing Henivieve back in her coop.

Cursing all poultry and vowing to eat chicken for lunch and dinner that day, he shoved his feet into his boots and tackled the next problem- exiting.

He would have to traverse back down the awning and the sill directly under Amy's window. Her cottage was isolated enough from the village that despite the lateness of the hour, his unceremonious exit would not be noted hopefully, unless Lucas Townsend was making a hazy and disorientated amble from whichever orchard tree he had found solace under that night.

Regardless, he was quick enough to minimise the risk and threw open her window. Anyway, Heather- Amy's mother- occupied the lower level of the cottage, her joints ailing her now in her old age. The poor dear was unable to endure the short climb up the stairs of late and had opted to receive her private chambers on the lower level of the cottage where she could shuffle unhindered. This made it easier over the last few years to sneak into Amy's room and while away an evening, and sometimes he was not under duress to do so.