Chapter Text
Mornings at the Priory possessed an odd sense of holiness. It didn’t escape Taggie that actual nuns supposedly inhabited her family’s home once upon a time, but it was difficult to imagine devout modest women walking the same halls her mother was wont to galivant down in feathery lingerie wailing ballads from West End shows she starred in when she first left drama school.
But in the mornings, often the loudest sound was that of sunlight bearing down on the bay windows of Taggie’s bedroom. Dust glittering in the air and the towering pines lining the drive up to their front door welcomed in the breeze off the meadows. Thin pale yellow curtains curled and relaxed in response to the chilly draft.
Taggie never had the time or encouragement to believe in God, but with mornings like this, she felt that some other force was at work.
What she did believe in, with utmost certainty, was that wherever the O’Hara’s went a series of undignified and unholy events were sure to follow. Taggie understood this deeply; her childhood an endless barrage of embarrassing and impolite moments written and directed by her larger than life parents. She usually thought herself a victim or even exempt from the O’Hara mess, but after last night, she may have to consider herself complicit.
Taggie stretched out her arms and blinked up at the cracked plaster ceiling above her bed. She had barely slept, repeatedly cycling through every sensation she could piece together from her moment with Rupert in the kitchen.Currently, she was stuck on the first touch; the light brush of his fingertips crawling around her hips to gently rest on her stomach. The way his hands had made her feel so precious and wanted.
She flipped over and buried her face in a pillow. Was she participating in an affair by kissing Rupert? Was she no better than her mother? The kiss was life-altering and completely confusing because now she had so many feelings and the object of them was far away, thinking or doing who knows what.
When she first pulled back from Rupert’s kiss it wasn’t because she wanted to ever stop kissing him, it was just that she couldn’t believe it was happening. Now, lying in her bed, she was kicking herself for ever moving away from him. She should have been greedy and pressed every inch of herself into him for as long as possible.
In the end, it didn’t matter because they were interrupted before the tornado of emotions between them could manifest in words or, more likely, another desperate kiss. Just as Rupert opened his mouth to speak, Declan drunkenly burst into the kitchen mid-diatribe about quality entertainment and the waning ethics in journalism.
He buttoned up when he saw Rupert and Taggie, slipping into a performance of the only fatherly role he knew how to play: the bullishly protective patriarch.
“Is he bothering you, Tag?” He narrowed his gaze at Rupert, wary but not wary enough to toss out any accusations. And besides, Rupert and Taggie had a whole kitchen table between them by the time inebriated Declan was fully aware of his surroundings.
“It’s fine, Daddy.” Taggie circled the table, giving Rupert a wide berth. She approached her father with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “We were talking about Venturer.”
“Alright then.” Declan pulled his daughter in for a defensive hug, patting her shoulders and mumbling how he was proud to be her father.
Taggie heard Rupert cough and comment that he was heading out for the evening. Every cell of her being begged her to turn and go with him, or to at least connect with his eyes and affirm that their kiss was as important, as vital, as she had felt it to be. She untangled herself from her father but Rupert had slipped away before she could catch him.
After Rupert’s unceremonious departure, Taggie assumed her role as Declan’s handler for the evening. Caitlin had buggered off with a bottle from the liquor cabinet and was up to who knows what with her rag tag group of local teens and Maud was long gone. Even if she were around, her mother was not one to harness Declan on his drunken warpaths. She was more likely to disappear into cupboards and coat rooms with strange men.
Taggie followed her father around the party in a fugue state. In her daze, Taggie was not dwelling on her mother’s abandonment, she was thinking, spiraling really, about what would happen next with Rupert. Or, more likely, what wouldn’t happen.
Rupert was trapped with Cameron. Taggie wasn’t dishonest in her response to his plea; she would never ask him to abandon what he was fighting for, especially if that fight was also for her father’s livelihood.
Still, a part of her suspected that Cameron was only so crucial to Venturer’s success because Rupert had made her to be. Rupert enjoyed the game of sex, seduction, and power with the gorgeous and indomitable Cameron Cook. Taggie overheard many conversations where Rupert boasted how tightly he had Cameron wrapped around his finger. She saw the proud glint in his eyes when he reported the more lurid details of his seduction to her father.
Around two in the morning, while her father goaded her sort-of boyfriend Seb into a fistfight out in the garden over her virtue or something similar, Taggie slowly sipped her second glass of wine and leaned against a dusty bookshelf. Left with her thoughts, and without Rupert or even Lizzie to calm her nerves, she stewed.
Taggie couldn’t picture a version of her life where her love for Rupert would survive his games with Cameron. She was not built for that kind of thing.
Most days, when Rupert smiled at her, or rearranged his day to be with her, or gave presents to her dog, she felt that he was the only person’s love she wanted. It wasn’t just that he was changing- he was - it was that who he was underneath it all from the beginning was deserving of her love. In terms of years around the sun, Taggie hardly knew him, but she could see him so clearly. It was the political Venturer game that clouded everything. However, the feeling of his hands on her body was a strong contender to wipe the sky blue.
For the first time ever, after bidding Seb a stilted kiss-less goodbye and pushing Declan into his unmade bed, Taggie ignored the destroyed house and retired to her room without looking back once at the mess.
From there, the tossing and turning continued until the sun’s rays could not be ignored. Taggie knew that she had to get up and start baking or doing something with her hands or the day was going to escape her completely. She could easily waste away for hours in daydreams of Rupert.
To her surprise, when she finally stumbled downstairs in a t-shirt and overalls, she was met with her father shuffling about the kitchen.
Taggie squinted. Was he washing a pan? Has hell frozen over?
“What are you doing, Daddy?” Taggie tiptoed to him like a keeper approaching a restless tiger at the zoo.
“I am making breakfast for my family.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“I am not an invalid, Agatha.”
Taggie quietly watched Declan struggle to light the stove. Maybe it was cruel to abandon him in this moment, even if it was something as silly as an omelet, but she was sleep-deprived, lovesick, and utterly defeated.
When Declan cracked an egg, shell and all, directly onto the sizzling pan, Taggie stood and snatched her corduroy patchwork jacket off the coat rack.
The ice in hell was now a puddle. No O'Hara miracles today.
“I’m going for a walk.”
She was out the door before she could hear Declan's reply.
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