Tying the knot... or not?

~10~

Theo didn't get out of bed for two days.
He hoped she'd call or just turn up on his doorstep in her usual carefree manner - even if it was only to return an article of clothing she'd borrowed from him - just so he could see her again.
God, he missed her.
But he knew she wasn't coming back. She didn't love him - not enough to fight for him anyway. She'd made that clear.
He actually ached inside from the misery of it.
Finally, on the third day, he pulled himself together and got up and took a shower, barely feeling the stinging hot water on his numbed skin.
He'd just got himself dressed and padded downstairs to make himself an extra-strong cup of coffee when there was a loud knock at the door.
His heart leapt into his throat, making the pounding in his head from two days' worth of caffeine deprivation double in intensity, as he pictured Emily's beautiful, remorseful face in his mind.
Racing to the door, he yanked it open - only to have his stomach sink to the floor at the sight of his mother standing on the doorstep.
She frowned at him, apparently surprised by his appearance. 'Theo? Are you all right?'
The very last thing he wanted was to have to explain himself to his mother.
'Are you and Emily engaged?' his mother asked, her brow arched and the look in her eyes intent.
He folded his arms across his chest. 'No.'
She frowned and her face seemed to fall a little.
Odd.
'Then why did it say that in the newspaper?' she asked tersely.
'Because there was a miscommunication.'
'A what?'
'They misreported it, Mother.'
'Right.' She nodded once, then gave him an expectant look. 'Well, aren't you going to let me in?'
He sighed. But he couldn't very well turn her away from her own house.
'Yes. Come in. I was about to make some coffee. Would you like some?'
'I'll take a tea, darling. I don't touch coffee. It gives me a headache, remember?'
'Yes, of course.'
She was giving him a headache.
In the kitchen she accepted her drink with a grateful nod and took a sip before turning her attention on him again.
'So where is Emily now?'
'London, I guess. I don't know. We're not involved any more.'
He was surprised to see his mother's face drop again. 'Why ever not?'
'You saw the article, Mother. She didn't think you'd be too keen on having her join the family.'
She shook her head as if trying to clear it. 'I don't understand.'
He lost patience with her. 'Look, I know you don't think she's good enough to further the Berkeley family line, or some such rubbish, but I don't want anyone else. Sell the house, if that's what you want. I don't care any more. There are one too many bad memories here now anyway.'
Her expression was confused. 'I'm not going to sell the house, Theo, it belongs to you.'
'No, it doesn't.'
'Not yet - legally, at least - but I've decided to sign it over to you. This silly feud between us has gone on too long.'
He stared at her, trying to process what she'd just said. 'You're selling me the house?'
'I'm giving it to you.'
He let out an involuntary huff of surprise. 'Why?'
'Because it belongs to you and you belong to it. I never much enjoyed living here - I prefer more modern buildings - but I know that you love it here.'
He shook his head wearily. 'It won't make a difference to anything. Emily doesn't want me.'
'Are you sure?'
He slammed his coffee mug down on the table, feeling the burning liquid slop over his hand but not caring. 'You can't fix this, Mother, so don't even bother trying. This is one problem you can't buy your way out of.'
Getting up, he marched out of the house and over to the workshop, turning on all the machines and finding a strange kind of peace in the grinding and whirring noise of their engines.
He was so angry.
He'd been punishing himself all these years for things he'd not been able to predict or control - and for what?
To be alone and miserable still.
He'd held everyone at a safe distance from him until Emily had shaken it out of him - but look what had happened.
Once again, he'd found himself willing to give up everything - something he'd sworn never to do again - but it hadn't been enough.
He'd still lost the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Sighing, he slumped down against the wall, putting his head in his hands.
It was over. She wasn't coming back.
He just needed to find a way to live without her now.
Emily was busily scrubbing the doors of her dining room, just for something banal to do to take her mind off the incessant loop of sadness and anger and loneliness swirling through her head, when there was a ring on her doorbell.
Dumping the cloth in the bucket of water, she went to the door, fully expecting to have to turn away a determined salesperson - only to find Theo's mother standing there, looking completely incongruous, somehow; the epitome of a fish out of water. The woman was far too genteel to be standing in the middle of a busy London street.
'Francesca! How did you find me?' Surely the woman hadn't tracked her down here just to tell her to leave her son alone?
Francesca gave a small cough behind her hand before speaking. 'Theo's housekeeper found your address out for me - she didn't need much persuasion to help. Apparently, she really likes you and thinks you're a good match for Theo.'
She patted down her immaculate hair and raised an eyebrow.
'She told him that you'd lent her something and she wanted to post it back.' Her expression levelled out until she looked almost contrite. 'I couldn't ask him directly. I think he might have thrown me out of a window if I had.'
She gave a terse smile. The woman clearly found it difficult to tell a joke. What a curse that must be.
'What can I do for you, Francesca?' Emily asked, pulling herself together now she'd got over the shock of seeing Theo's mother on her doorstep.
'I wonder whether I could come in and talk to you? I have a few things I need to tell you.'
She frowned. 'About Theo?'
'Yes. And about me.'
Nodding slowly, wondering what the hell she was about to be told and accepting that she didn't have the strength to refuse to hear it, she backed up so the woman could walk into her hallway. She realised that any link with Theo at this point was better than the nothing she'd been living with since she'd walked away from him.
'Come into the living room,' she said, leading the way.
Francesca walked over to one of her sofas and positioned herself daintily on the edge of it, waiting for Emily to sit down opposite before she began speaking.
'I heard that your mother passed away. I wanted to offer my greatest sympathies,' she said, her eyes soft and kind.
'Thank you.' Emily was taken aback by the woman's opening gambit. She'd expected nothing less than a severe dressing-down.
'So your mother didn't go to school in France, then?' Francesca asked, with a meaningful look in her eye.
Ah, so here it came...
'No.'
'She went to a boarding school here, didn't she? My old school?'
'Yes.'
'I thought so.'
She moved back on the sofa a little and crossed her legs, as if settling in for a comfy chat.
'I knew your mother at school. Not well, but I always liked her. She was really kind to me once. I was being bullied and she told them off in no uncertain terms. They never bothered me again. Even back then it was clear she suffered from malaise at times, though.'
She shook her head and smiled sadly.
Emily felt a strange weight lifting from her, as if Francesca's version of her mother somehow rounded out all the other memories she had of her. The ones of when they had laughed and played and had fun together. Before she'd got sad and had flown into unpredictable violent rages, and taken to her bed a lot.
'I knew I recognised you from somewhere,' Francesca continued, apparently unaware of the intensity of the sorrow she'd caused to flood through Emily's whole body. 'You're very much like your mother. You have the same mannerisms. The same hair and eyes.'
'Yeah, I heard that a lot when I was young. Before she...' Emily paused, realising she no longer had to reel out the lie that had almost become the truth in her mind over the years. 'Before she was committed.'
Francesca nodded, seemingly accepting the confession without any kind of difficulty. 'Theo is very much like me in many ways,' she said, raising her eyebrows and pursing her lips. 'It's not surprising we butt heads all the time.'
Emily smiled sadly at her, trying not to dwell on how she butted heads with Theo too because it only made the sorrow intensify.
'I suppose that's why we never got on too well when he was younger. I'm guessing he told you about the woman he got mixed up with right after Hugo's death? And the wild behaviour he indulged in afterwards?'
Her gaze locked with Emily's and she saw regret there.
'Yes. He did tell me a bit about that.'
'The thing you have to know, Emily, is that I knew what that Lauren woman was doing the first time I met her, and I so desperately wanted to save him from the pain of what was about to happen. Unfortunately, in my grief at losing Hugo, I didn't handle things too well.'
'No. That's what Theo told me,' she said, knowing there was no point in trying to placate the woman.
Francesca huffed out a sigh and looked down at her perfectly manicured fingernails. 'She latched on to Theo after Hugo's funeral. I could see her for what she was right away: a gold-digger. I was suspicious about how quickly she appeared after Hugo's death and fell for him. I love my son dearly, but as I'm sure you've noticed he can be a little hard to get to know. He was always like that - reserved. He had good friends, and he got on famously with his brother, but he was usually wary of people he didn't know because of his family background. So I hired a private detective to check up on her and he came back with some worrying information. A previous very short marriage and debt. Lots of debt. I did what any good mother would do for her son. I tested her with the threat of taking away his money and she failed. He had a narrow escape.'
Emily was shocked by the extent of the trouble the woman had gone to. But then maybe that was par for the course when you were part of a titled family with a large estate and bank balance.
'Does Theo know about what the private detective found out?'
Francesca sighed. 'I tried to tell him at the time but he blanked me. I think he didn't want to believe it was true. He was in love with her. Or he thought he was.'
'Yeah, it's very easy to be taken in by people when you're young and trusting,' Emily muttered.
Francesca clasped her hands together, as if asking for forgiveness for what she was about to say.
'I feel dreadful about what happened with Lauren, but I'm not sorry she left him. Clearly, she was manipulative. After we warned her off, she came back to Theo's father and me and asked for a pay-off. Said she'd leave Theo alone if we gave her money.'
Emily frowned. 'She came to you? Theo thinks you offered her money.'
'No. That's not how it happened.' Francesca sighed and shook her head. 'Poor Theo. His pride was understandably damaged, of course, but it was for the best. Not that he ever saw it that way. He's been torturing me all these years - first of all with the wild behaviour he indulged in for a time after it happened, then with his determination not to get seriously involved with anyone again.'
Francesca looked at Emily with such a wretched expression it made her chest constrict in sympathy.
'I didn't just lose one son, Emily, I lost two,' she said, her voice now choked with emotion.
Emily instinctively reached out and put her hand on Francesca's. 'That must have been hard for you.'
'It was. Truly awful. He blamed me, of course, for Lauren leaving, and he still hasn't forgiven me.'
'Perhaps that's because of the baby,' she said, giving the woman a mindful frown.
Francesca's eyes widened in shock. 'What baby?' she gasped.
Emily's jaw dropped in surprise. 'You didn't know? Lauren was pregnant and she had an abortion once you'd paid her off.'
'I didn't know. Theo never told me. Oh, goodness.' Francesca buried her head in her hands and stared at the floor in shock. 'My poor Theo. I never would have - what did I do?'
Emily leant forward and rubbed her shoulder, really feeling for the woman now. There had been more than one victim in the Berkeley family too.
If only they'd all talked to each other more.
'It's not your fault, Francesca. How could you have known if they didn't tell you?'
'No wonder he wouldn't speak to me for so long after it happened. It took until after his father's death, a few years ago, before he'd give me more than a few cursory words of information about what he was doing. I suppose I always expected great things from him and put him under a lot of pressure to conform to that. The whole nobility thing can be both a blessing and a curse. I thought maybe that was why he avoided me for so long.'
She sighed and swiped away a tear from under her eye.
'I probably shouldn't have agreed to let him live in the house after I moved out. It only seemed to make him more reclusive. That's why I made all those ridiculous threats about selling the place - to try and make things right. I thought a threat of losing the house was the way to shake him up a little and pull him out of that stubborn funk. To get him to fight for something that meant something to him. I guess it worked after all, because that something turned out to be you.'
She turned her gaze on Emily and gave her a hopeful smile.
'Look, Francesca⁠-'
'I'm giving him the house, Emily. Now he has you to share it with.'
She stared at the woman in shock, her head spinning with the sudden turn in conversation. 'It wouldn't work out with us. I'm not a good person. I'm selfish and irresponsible.'
'Rubbish! You're a wonderful person and you're going to make my son very happy. And he'll make you happy too, if you let him.' She put a reassuring hand on Emily's arm. 'Don't be afraid. He'll love and protect you ferociously.'
Francesca's approval made Emily heady with exhilaration as she realised she was finally being accepted into a family with genuine warmth and love. In fact, if she allowed herself to trust that Theo could really, truly love her - and judging by the way he'd taken care of her recently, she felt deep down that he could, if she let him - then she'd be gaining a mother at the same time as reconciling with the love of her life.
Francesca clearly felt she hadn't quite won her over yet, though, because she smiled and tipped her head in contrition. 'Look, I'm sorry I was so unfriendly when we first met. I suspected you might just be a friend of his - putting on a show for my benefit so that I'd leave him alone. But when I saw the two of you together, I knew that couldn't be right. There's this powerful intensity between you that I've never witnessed in him before. Whenever you're in the same room he can't keep his eyes off you.'
Emily knew it was time to fess up. It would be cruel and wrong to keep Francesca in the dark about their manipulative little plan any longer. Especially after she'd just been so honest with her.
'It was a show, Francesca. I'd only met Theo the day before you met me. I wanted my best friend to be allowed to have her wedding at your house and at that point I was prepared to do anything to make it happen.'
Francesca laughed quietly. 'Well, you could have fooled me - in fact, you did. I never would have guessed you weren't both totally infatuated with each other. The air seemed to hum around you.'
'That would have been our exasperation with each other.'
Francesca shook her head. 'No. It was definitely something else. Something powerful. And there's no exasperation now, am I right?'
'Well, I don't know about that. He can be really pig-headed when he wants to be. As can I.'
'That's why you're so good for him. It takes a special woman to handle someone as complex as Theo. Before he met you, it was as if he was deliberately choosing women who wouldn't challenge him. They were never going to last long.' She sighed. 'Lauren well and truly damaged his confidence.'
Emily stared at the floor, her heart racing. 'I'm afraid I might damage him even more, though. I'm not an easy person to live with. I'm wild and impetuous and frustrating and self-centred.'
'He loves you, Emily. He loves all those things about you. I can see it in him. He's not allowed anyone else to get close to him again after what happened with Lauren, but you've brought him out of his shell. Please don't give up on him.'
Emily looked up into the other woman's eyes. 'I thought you wouldn't want me involved in your family after you found out about my mother. And her illness.'
Francesca's expression was one of horror. 'Of course not! What do you take me for?'
Emily shrugged, feeling the stiffness in her tense shoulders. 'I don't know. I've had to live with this thing hanging over me for so long I think I've lost all perspective on it.'
'Well, that's understandable, but you can't let it run your life any more - you're stronger than that, Emily. I know you are.'
'Maybe.'
'And you love Theo?' Francesca asked gently.
Emily thought about how she felt when she was with him. How comforted and excited and inspired. How he'd taken care of her when she'd needed him the most, even though he was furious with her for using him to try and keep her job. And she'd been cruel to him. A cruelty that he'd never deserved. Then she thought about how miserable she'd be if she never got to hold and kiss him or laugh with him again.
'Yes. I love him,' she said, not even bothering to battle back the tears that finally welled in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks.
'Then go and tell him,' Francesca said firmly.
She nodded and smiled, her whole body hot with a mixture of excitement and nerves.
'Yes. I think I will.'
Theo was in his workshop again.
In fact, he'd hardly left it since his mother had appeared to let him know the house was now his to do with what he wanted. He could even go back to holding wedding receptions here now without fear of reprisals, if he chose to, but the thought of it only depressed him.
Everything seemed flat and grey since Emily had walked away from him - as if she'd taken the light and colour with her - and he was having trouble summoning the energy to do anything but lose himself in his work.
He was just finishing off some welding on a new device he'd invented, to help a woman who'd lost an arm in a car accident to carry heavy things around the house, when he noticed in his peripheral vision that someone was standing in the doorway to the workshop.
He blinked hard, still seeing stars from the welding, until his vision cleared and he realised that the figure belonged to someone familiar. Someone so familiar it made his heart thump hard in his chest.
Emily.
He stared at her, wondering whether he was actually hallucinating. 'You came back,' he finally managed to get past the sudden tension in his throat.
'I did. It seems I couldn't stay away,' she said, moving into the room towards him.
'Why are you here?'
'For you. I came back for you.'
He just kept staring at her, barely able to believe what he was hearing. He'd thought he'd lost her for good - that the newspaper article and his mother's supposed wrath had been just a good excuse for her to leave without giving him a way back to her. To keep him at arm's length forever.
'I need to warn you, though: I'm not going to be easy to live with. I need a lot of attention. A lot.'
He couldn't help but let out a huff of pained laughter. 'Yes, I noticed that.'
She nodded slowly and made her way over to him, stopping a foot away, still keeping a small distance between them.
'I just wanted to be adored, Theo, for so many years, and I thought being in the public eye would fill that need. But it never did. Not the way I wanted it to, anyway. It made me more egoistic, more self-centred, and I found myself doing more and more outrageous things to get attention. After a while I lost all sense of what was and wasn't reasonable behaviour. I'm talking about using people and casting them off before they could get too close. Not the sex, though. I'll never apologise for enjoying sex,' she said, flipping him a tentative grin.
He smiled and rolled his eyes in jest.
'Anyway,' she said, shrugging a shoulder. 'It seems that all that narcissistic behaviour well and truly came back to haunt me, and I was terrified about it affecting you too, knowing you as I do now.'
He frowned and shook his head. 'You know, you're the best thing that ever happened to me. You forced me to stop hiding, and experience life again. I wouldn't be half the person I am now if I hadn't met you. I finally started living again.'
She dropped her gaze. 'I want to deserve you, Theo. I want to be the woman to make you happy. I'm just afraid I'll fail and hurt you, and that's the last thing I want to do.' Looking up, she locked her gaze with his again, her expression open and sincere and her bottom lip trembling slightly. 'Because I love you. I'm in love with you.'
Stepping forward to close the gap between them, he cupped her face in his hands, drawing her forward and kissing her hard, attempting to relay his utter joy at hearing those words as relief poured through him.
It seemed he might have succeeded, because when he drew away from her again her eyes were bright with tears and happiness.
'I'm willing to risk anything if it means I get to have you, Emily Applegate. Because I love you too,' he said, looking deep into her incredible golden eyes and feeling the connection with her deep in his soul.
'We're a proper pair, the two of us,' she said, her voice thick with emotion.
'That's exactly what we are - a pair. Two halves of a whole.'
She grinned and raised both eyebrows. 'There's a dirty joke in there somewhere.'
'Let's leave it for another time,' he said with a good-humoured frown, pulling her in for another kiss.
There would be plenty of time for jokes later.