Her face was flushed. ‘It sounds amazing. But I guess it would have to be for you to want to leave this place so often.’
He gazed down at the chimney stacks of the Hall. Leaving the island, leaving his home, always filled him with sadness. He loved everything about it. But some things were more important than feelings—his or anyone else’s. He’d learned that the hard way.
He hadn’t always felt like that. As a child, his parents’ adoration for each other had seemed like a mythical power. Only watching that power wither away during his mother’s illness had been devastating, and his father’s furious grief almost more so.
He should have realised then that it didn’t matter what you felt or how strongly you felt it—the power of love was no match for cold, hard facts. But he had been young and desperate, and so, driven by an incoherent need to save an ideal, he’d impulsively married a woman he barely knew.
Now he understood that if you wanted to save something—someone—you needed more than feelings. In fact, feelings were just a distraction.
He shrugged. ‘It’s addictive. It demands so much of you. And yet in other ways it’s so fragile. I think that’s what makes it so incredible...unique. There’s nowhere like it.’ He felt her gaze on his face. ‘But you don’t need me to tell you about it. Go and see for yourself.’
‘Me?’
‘Why not? The poles aren’t som
e snow-covered men-only club for boffins or billionaires with frozen beards and thousand-yard stares.’
She burst out laughing. ‘Is that how you see yourself?’
It was disconcerting how much he liked making her laugh. ‘More importantly, is that how you see me?’
The air between them seemed to thicken and he felt his body tense as she bit into her lip.
‘You are a bit intense. But your beard isn’t frozen.’
He shook his head. ‘You know, having you around is doing wonders for my ego.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t think your ego needs bolstering.’ Squinting up at the sky, she sighed. ‘It’s so lovely out here, but I suppose we’d better get back to work.’
For the briefest of moments his disappointment vied with his shock that work had slipped his mind, but then he nodded. ‘Yes, we should.’
Constance had seen them coming and was waiting by the back door.
‘Apparently the storm warning’s been reduced to yellow,’ she said. ‘So, am I right to assume that this will be the last night of your stay with us, Frankie?’
A small silence bled into the hallway as Frankie glanced up not at Constance but at him.
Was it? Was it her last night?
But before he could open his mouth she said quietly, ‘Yes. It’s been lovely, but I have to get back to London and I would have been going back tomorrow, anyway. Nothing’s changed.’
‘No,’ he agreed, holding her gaze. ‘Nothing’s changed at all.’
CHAPTER FIVE
PICKING UP HER LIP-LINER, Frankie stared at herself in the dressing table mirror. So this was it. Her last night at Hadfield Hall.
She couldn’t quite believe it, but from the moment Constance had asked about her plans, time had done another of those contortions, so that in what felt like a matter of seconds the day was over and it was time to dress for dinner.
Her pulse quivered and, breathing out shakily, she gazed over to where her suitcase sat on the bed.
Nothing’s changed.
Throughout the day, her words and Arlo’s response had kept popping into her head. And she was right—they both were. Nothing had changed.
Only it felt as if something had. Actually, it felt as if everything had.
Oh, for goodness’ sake.