Chapter 12

12

There was something about Andrew's seed storage shed—if shed was the word one could use for a building half the size of a barn, with one southern wall fully glassed in to provide light and warmth to seedlings not ready to be planted until the last danger of frost had passed—that released all the tension he'd been holding for the last few days.

He had unhooked the waterwheel-driven incandescent light that morning in favor of natural light. Here in the sunshine spangling through the window, there was no care so large nor burden so heavy that it could not slip away when he rubbed dirt between thumb and forefinger, feeling the loam of good soil.

His yard-long bean seedlings continued to grow, stretching another set of leaves toward the window. It was still too cold at night to plant them, but maybe in a few days he might start hardening them out. It was foolish, but the long beans felt like hope. So long as they were doing well, they seemed to be a promise from the universe. Andrew had managed the impossible: he'd put Lily off. Now all he had to do was accomplish the same with regard to his half-brother. And wasn't he already doing that? Alan had insisted he would arrive today, but he had grumpily accepted Andrew's change of date when he'd responded by letter.

Everything wasn't falling apart. Andrew wasn't losing his home. Nothing needed to change.

He would be allowed to stay in Wedgeford. He would get to see people cry out in wonder when they saw the long beans growing for the first time; he would listen to them murmur to themselves in anticipation of the harvest.

He had only a little while longer to wait until the danger of frost finally passed, plant the long beans, let them go to seed…

This was how things worked out, he told himself as he measured the height of the long beans. One step at a time. It was like creating soil: one could, he supposed, take poor dirt and try to make it grow things immediately.

"Andrew?" The quiet query came from the door, and he looked up from his seedlings to see Lily standing in the door.

He found a genuine smile taking over his face. "Lily!" This was so much better—to not feel that hint of worry at the sight of her, to not have to wonder how she was going to try to make him an earl. "I'm so glad to see you. Are you here to get starts for your garden? It's not quite time for the beans, but?—"

"I, um." She looked at him for a long time, and he found himself, in turn, unable to take his eyes from her.

There was just something about Lily. There always had been. There was something about her, though, especially today. There was a color in her cheeks that seemed both defiant and delicate at the same time. Her eyes were bright like the first morning's light. It felt as if something restrained in her was uncoiling.

He pressed his hands together, suppressing the well of want that rose up in him at the thought of Lily having emotions about him.

His eyes flickered to her lips when her tongue darted out.

"Lily?"

"Starts for my garden," she repeated. Her eyes did not leave his. "Why not?"

"Excellent." He glanced at the notebook before him, before closing it carefully and setting it next to its compatriots on the shelf. He felt a moment of shame—the logbook he'd stolen from her was hidden in the cubby behind them, a slight hint of the binding barely visible above the tops of the books.

She'd have no way of knowing what it was. He stood and walked her over to where his starts were. They stood on tables, arrayed so as to maximize the sunshine they received through the window.

"New spring vegetables," he told her. "I believe Letta has already started some greens and scallions."

"Carrots, too," Lily said. "We've been foraging for the rest of our greens."

"In another week, I think it will be warm enough to sow the peas and beans directly in the ground. And then I have these beauties." He waved a hand at the plants in paper pots. "Cucumbers, aubergine, tomatoes…"

Something seemed to be troubling her. Her forehead wrinkled; she didn't seem to focus on the plants as he named them.

"Is anything the matter?" he asked.

She shook her head slowly.

"Well…" If she wasn't going to tell him, maybe she needed something to cheer her up. And Andrew had just the thing. He took a step toward her. "Can I let you in on a secret?"

The reaction was immediate. Her eyes grew luminous. Her mouth went from a compressed line to a small smile. "Any secret you want! Please." She bit her lip. "I promise I will not tell a soul."

"All right." He gestured her to the far end of the room, then lightly tapped the clay pots where his long bean seedlings were thriving. "These are specially made. You cannot tell anyone. Swear it."

"I swear." She said those words fervently.

He leaned in and whispered. "These are yard-long bean seedlings."

He waited for her surprise, her joy. And, to her credit, she did seem extremely surprised. Her eyebrows scrunched down and faint pink spots rose on her cheeks.

"Long beans?" Her voice sounded high and reedy, almost incredulous. "Your secret is— long beans?"

"My pride and joy," he confessed. The little starts were not yet stretching out tendrils for a trellis to climb. "I have been wanting to grow these in Wedgeford for an age."

She seemed flabbergasted. She opened her mouth, then closed it. She gripped her arms tightly about herself, then let go.

"You don't seem excited."

She looked down her torso, then back up to him, as if ascertaining her own emotional state. "Don't I?"

"Do you…" It was unthinkable. But perhaps… Perhaps… "Do you not like long beans, then?"

A look of baffled incredulity rose on her face. "I love long beans."

"That's good, then." The conversation felt wrong.

"The long beans are not the issue," she told him.

"They aren't? But they're all I've been thinking about for months."

"I'm sure," Lily said gravely, "you've had not one other thought in your head."

"Ha." He rubbed his hair. "Maybe a few others. But it's just so nice to have someone to confide in, other than my mother. I had Kai make me these pots, and I didn't even tell him why."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "It is nice to be confided in. Don't mind me. I'm just…" Her shoulders heaved. "Trying." Another heave. "To be patient. Keep talking. I do want to hear."

"You see," Andrew said, having been given that much permission, "it's a matter of geometric progression and timing. I went through the calendar three times before I realized I needed an extra two weeks at the start of the growing season to get a full harvest out of these few seedlings this year. I could have waited until next, but I confess. I didn't want to."

"I also hate waiting." She shook her head. "How does that relate to clay pots?"

"Bean seedlings have delicate roots. They don't like to be transplanted. The usual paper ones would tear the roots. But these pots are designed so that one can lift a clay disc at the bottom out by means of a wire. No roots disturbed!"

She seemed more and more confused. "You invented a kind of pot? For yard-long beans?"

Now that he was telling her what he'd done, he wanted her to know all of it. "That's not the only thing I invented." He went to the window at the end. "Did you ever think to ask why there were curtains in the shed?"

"N…no?"

Andrew drew them dramatically, then remembered, as the room was plunged into darkness, that he'd moved the trace that sent water to his wheel.

"Wait here a moment," he said.

"But I can barely see."

"That will change."

He raced outside and set the board in place that sent water down the little run. The wheel started turning. He could imagine Lily's delight as the incandescent lights in the shed came on and jogged swiftly back.

He was right. Lily stood in the shed, dumbstruck, turning round and round. She'd moved away from the seedlings. Now she stood next to his workbench, turning round and round in the golden light in a daze.

"Well?" He put his hands in his pockets, grinning.

"Andrew." She sounded awed. "Are those electric lights in Wedgeford? And nobody knows?"

"I told you I had secrets," Andrew said smugly. "It's all about geometric progression. I need the growing season to be two weeks longer so that we can harvest all the long beans this November. I have been planning and planning and planning and nobody knows yet. Except you. And my mother, I suppose."

The sparkle, the dazzlement that he'd expected when he told her about the long beans was finally in her eyes. She was looking at him as if seeing him anew, as if she could finally see past the veneer of jokes that he left in his wake, as if she could finally see him.

Andrew had never wanted accolades. He'd never desired to be respected or admired as a sober member of the community. All he'd ever wanted was this: to bring people together in the place where they had gathered, dispersed thousands of miles from their places of birth, and to make it feel like home.

Now Lily was looking at him with a light in her eyes. Literally: the incandescent bulbs behind him reflected a pale gold stripe across the dark of her pupils.

"Every time," Lily said solemnly. "Every time I think I am angry with you, I find out something like this—something that makes it impossible for me to forget, despite everything, how attractive you are."

Those words seemed impossible. Angry? Why was she angry? Despite everything? What had he done? But those paled next to attractive.

"Attractive?" He almost felt shy. "You mean, ah, in the general, friendly sense, I take it?" Why was his heart pounding? It didn't matter what her answer was; he couldn't do anything about it.

Somehow, though, that had been the wrong thing to say. The light in her eyes dimmed. Probably because she turned away to look at his journals.

"No." Her response came out smooth as shadow in the glare of electric lighting. "I am tired of holding back what I think just so you can be comfortable. I mean it physically."

It hit him like a blow of lust.

She turned her head to glare at him over her shoulder. "I mean it carnally."

He was going to perish with heat at the sound of those syllables: carnally. For the remainder of his days, he would remember the shape her lips made saying that word. He was going to imagine them doing more than speaking for nights on end.

"Lily." His voice felt husky. "I…I can't…"

"Yes, yes." Her words turned brusque. She turned fully away from him once more, examining the binding of his journals rather than look him in the eyes. "I know. I know you don't think of me as anything but a friend. I know I'm too me and we won't?—"

"Oh, codswallop." Andrew found himself closing the distance between them in five swift strides. "Absolute codswallop. You can't possibly think I don't burn for you."

She whirled around. "For me?"

"For you," he affirmed. "For everything about you. For the cleverness of your mind and the strength of your determination." He reached out and touched his fingers to her cheek. "For the beauty of your smile. The brilliance of your eyes."

"But…" She just looked baffled. "Not once. You've never said a thing."

"I keep thinking about you. About your breasts, about your thighs. There's not a part of you I haven't wanted to defile. I have not dared mention it. If I did, you'd surely realize what an absolute beast I am about it."

"Andrew?"

Her chin was in his hands. Her breath was warm; he was close enough to feel it whispering against his mouth. He was practically shaking with the need he'd been suppressing. He let his thumb trace the line of her jaw, let her cheek fall into his palm. He leaned in, close enough to taste.

"It has been seven years," he breathed, "since I had a kiss from you, and in all that time I have not lived."

Her breath grazed his lips; he leaned in without intending to do so. Or, perhaps, he intended it with his entire being, compelled by a want that he'd been suppressing his entire life.

Soon—shortly—he'd have to figure out how to take this all back. How to fit who he was allowed to be into a life jarred loose by giving voice to his hidden desires.

Soon, but not now. Now there was Lily to kiss.

She leaned into him, too. The first brush of her lips felt like the glow of incandescent light after a lifetime of darkness: like the first sun-warmed strawberry of the season. She opened to him like a bud, and then there was no room for thinking of what was to come.

There was only Lily, only the feel of her hands gripping his arms, the touch of her lips. The barest brush of her tongue against his, and he was gone, gone, gone. This was right. It was necessary. She angled her head, and then he could taste the sweet of her mouth, the slide of her tongue. He could feel the heave of her breath.

He was going to have to tell her they couldn't do this. He was going to have to say it was unwise. He was going to have to lie to her again, and he didn't want to do it.

Andrew kissed the woman he needed with more ferocity. Surely that would make the press of reality fade into the distance.

She was perfect in his arms, and he never wanted to let go. This was such a bad idea. Andrew knew it deep in his soul; he refused to acknowledge it, when she was here and kissing him. She tasted like sunshine and sweetness, and he'd been wanting to kiss her for ages. He'd wanted to kiss her the moment she'd shown up in his garden talking about logbooks; he'd wanted to kiss her on the train to Dover. He wanted to kiss her always, and it was never allowed.

Before that sentiment could take hold, she wrapped an arm around him and all thoughts of should or maybe fled.

He had never not wanted Lily, not really. She'd always been lodged in his heart. He wrapped her up in his arms and she followed enthusiastically. He knew where this session ended—in heartbreak and lies—but like any song where he knew the ending, the tune was so catchy he couldn't help but sing the chorus.

"Lily," he murmured. "Lily. I have so much I should say."

"Mmm? Such as?"

He kissed her neck. She gasped in response, her whole body arching into his.

He should stop. He should be rational, but his cock was hard in his trousers and Lily was here, close enough to press her hips against his solid length. That seemed more important than anything his brain could come up with. Perhaps Andrew would never have another rational thought in his life.

She hopped up to sit on his workbench. That seemed like a brilliant (possibly a terrible) idea. Like this, he could come even closer. He could step between her legs. Her skirts hiked up; his hand met her stockinged calf, and he could not help himself from pressing forward, from grinding his pelvis into her hips, chest to chest, mouth to mouth.

Lily. This was Lily, and he needed her.

She set a hand on his chest and pushed.

He let him shove her back in a daze of desire. God, she was perfect—her features made sharper in the false Edisonian light. His hips twitched once, yearning.

"Andrew?" She sounded unsure, somehow, and Lily was rarely unsure. She seemed vulnerable and that seemed even more out of place. "Before we do anything more. You said you had much to tell me."

Andrew knew what he had to say. We can't do this. I can't care for you like this. We must just be friends; nothing else.

He couldn't bring himself to say the words. Not now. Not standing between her legs, with his body on fire from her kisses. Maybe that made him a bad person, but…not now. He couldn't say it now, not with the woman of his dreams twined around him.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Nothing? I very much think there is something you should say."

He reached for his last shred of control. "I mean…" He wrestled it into place. "You are right. There is a thing I must say. This cannot happen."

Her nostrils flared in anger. She turned to face the shelf behind her—the shelf containing his journals. The journals behind which he'd hidden the stolen logbook.

Andrew's mouth dried. "Um."

With unerring aim, as if she knew already what was concealed there, she reached behind the volumes. Her hand landed on the logbook that he'd stolen from her house. From the drawer filled with her underthings and her pornographic books.

His lust-filled brain experienced a terrifying moment that felt like falling from a high cliff, the wind around him filled with voices screaming "what?" and "oh, shite?" as the ground rose to meet him.

She held up the book. Her eyes were filled not with want, but hurt. Frost had come after spring sunshine; all his hopes were falling to ice and death.

"Nothing," she said scornfully. "That's what you have to say to me? Nothing but ‘this cannot happen?'"

"Lily." He had no idea what to tell her.

"You're absolutely right," she hissed at him. "If you can't tell me the truth for once, it's never happening."

So saying, she hefted the logbook in the air, and before he could so much as raise a finger, she smacked him with it on the head.