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“Darling Tag, sometimes these things just don’t work out. You’ll be happy for me, won’t you?”
“Yeah, of course, Ralphie. She’s lovely.”
Taggie thinks she might scream. Or cry. Or hurl her half-drunk glass of champagne on Ralphie’s stupid silk shirt and throttle him with his own necktie, for good measure.
Because there’s a ring on Georgiana’s finger that looks just like the one she pointed out on an idle walk last Christmas down the High Street, a casual, only slightly calculated oh, that’s pretty slipping through her lips and past Ralphie’s commitment-phobic defenses. Not quickly enough, it seems. Or maybe it was never commitment he feared, but who he was committing with.
Successful Georgiana. Beautiful Georgiana. Never-once-late-on-her-rent Georgiana. She’s-just-a-friend-don’t-be-so-paranoid-Agatha Georgiana.
She swallows her bitterness and pastes on a peppermint-coated smile, all teeth and dead eyes, to appease Ralphie. Knows he won’t bother to peer at her any closer— he only sees what he wants to. Ralphie pats her cheek, entirely satisfied with himself, and turns to leave, back inside the party, the restaurant that Taggie helped build.
Taggie doesn’t fall apart beautifully, like a heroine in a movie. A gentle dab at lash extensions, a pretty sniffle or two, cheeks rosy in the soft glow of fairy lights.
Taggie breaks.
It’s like when she was eight, and Mummy and Daddy told her they were moving to London. Away from the rolling green hills that had raised her, the whinnying of horses and fields of clover and warm sunshine.
It’s like the first time she stuttered over her words at school and realized she wasn’t normal. Pamphlets exchanging hands, the sterile lights of a waiting room. D-y-s-l-e-x-i-a written in her shaky hand because she couldn’t spell most things, but at least now she knew why.
It’s free falling in the worst way, the ground miles off and her hands scrabbling for purchase on something, but there’s nothing in reach.
She finds the house swap site by accident. Idly perusing properties in the country, like she’s want to do when red wine makes her head fuzzy and Gertrude has made off with the last of the cheese tray. The tears have long since dried up, her mascara dried and caky beneath her eyes, but the alcohol makes her livid. Furious at Ralphie, sure, but mostly at herself, for devoting years eighteen through twenty two to a man who couldn’t even remember her fucking birthday.
Later, the details are hazy, but it goes something like this: Taggie finds a delightfully quaint storybook property in the Cotswolds and sends an email to a lovely girl called Perdita who jumps on her offer of a three week-long Christmas swap. The run-up to Christmas Eve, a tidy little plot of time where she can pretend that her life hasn’t blown up spectacularly in her own face. She checks that her parents haven’t texted her about holiday plans (they haven’t; whether they’ve forgotten her entirely or finally gave up the pretense of a functional family unit, she’s unsure) and presses the bright green book button before she has a chance to think of a million reasons how this could go wrong.
“We’re spending the run up to Christmas at some place called The Priory, Gertie!” Taggie hiccups, turning around her laptop screen for the dog’s benefit. “Isn’t it lovely?”
But Gertrude just gives a long, drawn-out sigh, and goes back to gnawing on a hunk of sharp cheddar.
“It’s perfectly safe, Lizzie, I promise,” Taggie says for the fifth (or maybe twentieth) time. She squints against the bright afternoon sun, almost blinded by how it sparkles against the freshly fallen snow. “I’ll be home in time for Christmas dinner. And no, I haven’t spoken with Mummy and Daddy, last I heard they were vacationing in Greece— fucking hell!”
Taggie slams on her breaks, the Mini giving an awful squeal of protest, and narrowly avoids scraping the side of a sleek black Mercedes that comes flying around a blind corner. The driver doesn’t even slow down, and the windows are tinted so dark that the middle finger Taggie throws up hardly feels satisfying at all.
“Taggie? What happened?” Panic shoots Lizzie’s voice an octave higher.
She fumbles for her phone, horrible images of Lizzie calling in the entire Cotchester police force flashing through her mind. “I’m fine! Some prick just nearly ran me off the road, is all.”
“Do be careful, my darling,” Lizzie says anxiously. Taggie can picture her wringing her hands, and has a pang of longing for the little cottage she spent many happy days of childhood in, her mother’s oldest friend sitting patiently beside her as she worked through tear-stained homework pages and sounded out words that looked like fuzzy squiggles.
It all seemed easier, then. When grown up was still a fairytale and the prince didn’t decide midway through the story that you weren’t his happy ending, after all. And she knows Lizzie would let her stay in a heartbeat, but she needs this—the time away where she can forget.
“I’m nearly there, Lizzie,” Taggie says, slowing to squint at the nearing roadsigns. Penscombe. “Yeah, I’ll call you later. Love you.”
She nearly passes the house, hitting the breaks again as the shape of a faded, crooked mailbox emerges from behind the trees. The gravel drive is long and winding and completely, utterly worth it.
“Wow,” she breathes, peering through the windscreen at the massive stone structure. “Gertie, it’s a fucking castle.”
And it’s not— not even a little bit. But there’s a certain magic about it all the same. Stained glass windows and an honest-to-God turret, stone walls that look like they’ve been standing for centuries. She had to look it up: priory. An old monastery or nunnery, a place of refuge and religion for those that dwell inside. She’s after one of those things.
Because Ralphie had the nerve to text her after she left the party, want to grab dinner soon? :) xx like he hadn’t given the life she’d fought tooth and nail to build to someone else. The worst part of all is, she almost said yes. Folding herself into smaller and smaller pieces until nothing remains, here lies Taggie O’Hara: not much to see here.
But then she saw the advertisement, and December in the countryside didn’t sound so bad, not when her only other option was spending half the month on her sofa, refreshing Ralphie’s Instagram feed endlessly and waiting for either of her parents to remember she exists.
And it’s not Ireland, but it feels like a homecoming all the same.
Thump.
Taggie freezes, a handful of popcorn halfway to her mouth as Gertrude lets out a loud yelp, tearing off of the sofa and scrabbling across the hardwood floor.
“Open up, I know you’re home!” A voice, distinctly male. Another dull thump, like a fist, or maybe a forehead, thudding against the wooden frame. “Christ, it’s fucking cold out.”
Briefly, she considers phoning someone. But then whoever is pounding out a rhythm on the door that sounds suspiciously like “Last Christmas” might hear her, and the only person she knows in this part of the country is, presumably, sitting in her own flat at this very moment.
Squaring her shoulders, Taggie tries to muster some sort of authority, even as she wobbles, feeling every drop of the near-empty bottle of wine currently wedged between a sofa cushion and a shaggy throw pillow. After a second’s hesitation, she arms herself with a fireplace poker that still has a price tag from an antique shop and creeps toward the door.
Dimly, she wonders if being axe-murdered by a crazed madman violates her and Perdita’s contract.
Outside, the man is still speaking. “Perdita, I’m freezing my bloody bollocks off—”
She throws the door open, poker held aloft awkwardly, like she’s not quite sure what to do with it (and she isn’t; why hadn’t a rolling pin been in reach?) The man stumbles half a step forward then rights himself, the rest of his sentence lost to the look of surprise flitting across his face.
And it starts like this: a wry twist of a sin-soaked smile and skin that glows golden in the light leaking out from the hallway, illuminating jet-black hair threaded with silver and warm, hazel eyes. There’s a rush of pink across her cheeks that she’s helpless to fight against, even as she wishes desperately she’d worn something other than her brother’s tattered university jumper and frilly, polka dot pyjama trousers.
“You are certainly not one of my daughter’s friends,” he says slowly, looking her up and down. A candy cane hangs loose between his lips, dropping to the ground when he offers her another grin. He doesn’t even seem to notice. “No, I’d have remembered you.”
And the thing is, she knows men like him. The kind that thinks he’s a gift-wrapped delight, the sort of man their overworked, underpaid waitress would love nothing more than to spend her entire evening flirting with. She’s become a master of laughing prettily and tilting her head in all the right ways. It happens less now in the kitchens, but occasionally one of Ralphie’s wealthier clients will want to meet the chef and she’s expected to preen at his side, gritting her teeth until her jaw aches when she’s downgraded from sous chef to my girlfriend Agatha.
She should say something witty. Or scathing. Or simply slam the door in his face. Anything besides blinking at him a little dumbly, overcome by the peculiar feeling that this is a moment. One that begs to be remembered. And against her better judgement, she smiles.
“No, I’m not,” she says, and almost leaves it at that. But she’s curious, now, and emboldened by the alcohol that makes her limbs loose and light. “Perdita and I swapped houses until the twenty fourth. It’s, um, self-preservation on my end, you could call it.”
The man’s eyebrows flick skywards. “S’pose she did text me about that a few nights ago. I didn’t think she was actually serious about the whole thing… Listen, do you mind if I come in and warm up? I live just across the valley, and the car got stuck in a snowdrift halfway up the road.”
She gives a little sniff, catching the whiff of booze clinging to his breath. “Did it get stuck, or did you crash? I’m not in the business of aiding wanted men.”
“You can put me in handcuffs, darling, if it makes you feel better.” He holds his hands out solemnly, palm up. She tries very, very hard not to focus on how big they are compared to her own.
Tries, and ultimately fails. Because there’s so much of him, the hint of a sculpted chest peeking through the collar of his shirt, the top two buttons undone. Long, strong legs encased in a pair of expensive-looking trousers caked in snow. Shoulders that she has the mad desire to reach out and squeeze.
Taggie takes a step back before she does something truly stupid, like proposition him right here and now.
“Perdita didn’t mention you,” she says, which is rather silly, because her and Perdita’s interactions consisted of a flurry of surface-level emails and one forty five second phone call in which Perdita sounded like she was calling from the bottom of the ocean.
She formulates her next email in her head. Hi, Perdita. Hope the hot water is treating you well. The taps can be a bit tricky. Have you seen any shows? Oh, and why didn’t you mention that your unreasonably attractive father lives across the valley?
“I’d gathered as much,” he says wryly. “Were you planning on bashing my head in with that thing?”
Taggie looks down, halfway surprised to see the fire poker still in her hand. She hurriedly shoves it behind her back. “I mean, you can’t blame me, can you? I’m out in the country and some lunatic comes pounding on the door at half-eleven!”
The man scrubs a hand over his jaw, leaning on the doorframe. He still towers over her, long and lean with each shift of muscle. If she had to guess, she’d think he was an athlete in some former life. Before wrinkles tugged at the corners of his eyes, more pronounced as he lays another lazy grin on her that makes her blush an even more embarrassing pink.
“Some lunatic, am I? Hell of a thing to accuse your new neighbor of.”
“Well, what am I meant to call you? I don’t even know your name.”
He holds out a hand, not teasing this time. And it’s hardly her fault that she leans closer, gaze dropping to his mouth. “Rupert Campbell-Black. I would say this is my daughter’s house, but seeing as it’s my name on the deed, I don’t suppose that’s quite right.”
Only a little mortified, Taggie moves forward to grasp his hand, a surprise oomph leaving her lips as she slips on the icy threshold. Rupert catches her easily, a hand on each elbow, squeezing gently before setting her upright again. Handling her carefully, like she might break beneath his touch. She stutters out an apology, wondering if it’s possible to drown herself in a snowdrift.
“I— I’m Agatha O’Hara. Taggie. Um, would you like to come in? I mean, it’s your house, but also, I think I signed a contract? I don’t really know how this works.”
She’s babbling, twisting her hands nervously as Gertrude peers out from between her legs, sniffing suspiciously at their visitor. And he even smells expensive, a rich, woody cologne that she halfway (and a tad pathetically) hopes has transferred to her own jumper.
“Mind if I put on the kettle?” She jumps halfway out of her skin at the pressure of his hand on her waist, gently pushing her back inside the house and towards the warmth of the sitting room. “Go, sit. I know my way around, angel.”
She does as she’s told, fidgeting all the while. And she absolutely does not think about how long it’s been since someone else has made her a cup of tea, teetering on the edge of just drunk enough to start crying on Perdita’s sofa.
“How do you take it?” Rupert calls. “Sugar, milk?”
“Er, a splash of milk is fine.”
There’s silence for a moment, and then Rupert appears in the doorway, lips pursed. “Is that how you actually take it, or is this a polite dormouse routine?”
“I— you’re assuming a lot, aren’t you?” Taggie splutters, but Rupert doesn’t budge. She sighs in defeat, staring at a point just over his head and trying to block out the smug grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Lazy and indulgent, the picture of ease as he leans against the wall, hands in his pockets. “A splash of milk and a teaspoon of honey, then.”
“Coming right up, Taggie O’Hara.”
He says her name like he means it, a precise twist of syllables that betrays none of the anxiety running through her own veins, like he’s sure of every move he’s ever made. Like this moment, right now, is going exactly as he planned it.
Part of her wonders what that’s like. The other, calculating how many poor decisions she’d have to make to keep him here longer. Because the company is nice, the large, drafty house already a shade warmer from his presence alone. But she has the funny feeling he’s just like that. Shining so brightly, so sure of himself, that the snow melts where he stands.
Ridiculous, stupid thoughts. But she gets a little poetic when she’s half-drunk, more like her father with a bottle in her hand than she’d care to admit. Something like grief stirs in her chest, that this might be the only way she feels like her father’s daughter. Like O’Hara is just a surname she’s slipped on for size.
But before she can travel too far down that road, back to doctor’s offices and severe case of dyslexia, to Ralphie and the naive belief that this is what I’ve been searching for, Rupert returns with a mismatched set of teacups balanced precariously in one hand. He sets them on the coffee table, bending down to scratch Gertrude’s head.
“Look at you,” he coos. “I’d have brought some biscuits if I knew I was going to be meeting such a lovely girl tonight.”
He meets her eyes over Gertrude’s head, and the smile she’s been holding back blooms in full force, growing wider as he stands, knees creaking loudly. Settling next to her on the sofa, he drapes an arm across the back, fingertips lightly grazing her shoulder. The room is quiet, save for the crackling of the fire and Gertrude’s snuffles as she settles herself in a plush armchair.
It all happens rather quickly after that.
Taggie manages two sips of her tea before she’s halfway in Rupert’s lap, arms thrown around his neck as his lips descend on hers. She’s not quite sure if she clambers on top of him or he pulls her in. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. A hand fists in her hair, anchoring her against him as he kisses her, slow and deep. Like they have all the time in the world.
He’s a warm body, she tells herself. And she deserves this. No strings attached, no memories that feel like anchors at her waist.
“Just one night,” Taggie sighs, head dropping back as Rupert’s lips descend on her neck, sucking at the tender spot just below her jaw. “And then you’ll go back to— to whatever old wealthy men do, and I’ll go back to London.”
“Old, am I?” Rupert huffs out a laugh, the words a vibration against her skin that makes her toes curl. He nips teasingly at her throat. “Christ, angel. I won’t be in danger of developing an ego with you around.”
There’s a retort dancing on the tip of her tongue, but she looses it as he tugs the old, tattered jumper over her head, a groan rumbling deep in his chest when he realizes she’s not wearing anything underneath.
“You’re trying to kill me,” he mumbles, dropping his head between her breasts. “I’m going to have a fucking heart attack.”
“In my defense,” she gasps, finding her voice. “I didn’t expect to be seeing anyone. And you’re not really helping the oldallegations, are you?”
“You do have a smart mouth” Rupert kisses her again, and she swears there’s heat in every touch. He pulls back just far enough to catch her eye, her own desire reflected back in pools of warm, rich hazel. “Christ, you are lovely.”
She ignores the twinge in her chest at his words. How earnest he sounds when he says them, like this man—this stranger—has seen the sum of her, and doesn’t find her wanting.
“Should we— do you want to go upstairs?” Taggie breathes, uncertain.
Because she’s never done this part before, taking what she wants. Ralphie was just something that happened, a friend of Patrick’s for most of her childhood until something seemed to click. But even then, he pulled when she pushed, texts unanswered and phone calls not returned, Mum’s voice telling her not to be naive, Taggie. She’d been so pleased when he called her after culinary school, the job offer dangled in front of her like a carrot to a horse. Take that, she’d wanted to tell her mother. I’ve done something right after all.
Slowly, she becomes aware of Rupert’s fingers tracing shapes on her spine. “Are you sure?”
An out, if she wants it.
“Of course. ”
He nods, just a slight dip of his chin, and tugs her to her feet. Leading the way upstairs, because he knows this house— it’s his. She winces, offering up a silent apology to Perdita. Rupert takes a left, though, away from the primary bedroom, shouldering open the door of a guest room she’d only peeked into while exploring that afternoon.
In the darkness, she watches Rupert shuck off his clothing, faintly illuminated by the moonlight sneaking in through a crack in the curtains. He folds each article methodically, creating a little stack on the floor as Taggie hovers uncertainly in the doorway.
“Come here, darling,” Rupert says, voice low. He spreads his arms wide, inviting her in. Inside the circle of his embrace, Taggie stretches up on her toes, chasing his mouth and the promise of forgetting that each kiss holds.
And it’s more than heat, the feeling that courses through her with each swipe of his tongue against hers, the quick and clever fingers undoing the tie on her pyjama bottoms and pushing them down her legs. It’s a blue-white flame, a burning. Hands that know where to touch, the first press of his thumb on her clit and fingers slipping through the mess of her, taking each thrust of her hips in stride, letting her take and take and take until she’s a writhing, gasping thing beneath him.
She comes with his name on her lips. Rupert whispered with more intensity, more intimacy, than she should allow. But it feels right here in the darkness, liquor on both of their breath, the snow falling fast and thick outside.
And then he kisses her, languid and lazy. “Christ, you’re pretty like this,” he murmurs against her lips. “Spread your legs, honey. That’s a girl.”
“You talk so much,” she breathes, but she does it anyway. No trace of self-consciousness lingers as she opens her thighs, letting him see her, wet and warm and utterly obscene as he lowers himself over her.
And she’s not sure how she feels about God anymore—hasn’t for a long time—but she thinks there might be something to religion as slowly, inch by inch, Rupert sinks into her, words of praise that have the cadence of prayers groaned into the crook of her neck. Every movement is measured, each rock of his hips designed to tug another gasp or moan from her throat. He moves in a way that intimates experience. The years that carve little creases into the corners of his eyes and paint streaks of grey at his temples.
And it shouldn’t add to the thrill, fucking a man old enough to be her father, but it does. Brings her crashing, a free fall of tongue and teeth a deep, shuddering groan as Rupert follows her over the edge and catches her at the bottom, arms bracketed on either side of her face.
She doesn’t ask him to stay, but he does anyway. Wrapping an arm across her chest, pressing a kiss to her sweaty temple.
“That was fun.”
She rolls over so they’re nose to nose. “I still might kick you out,” she warns. “Let you try and dig your way out of a snowdrift.”
Rupert grins, hooking a leg over hers. She won’t think about how nicely they fit like this, a couple of puzzle pieces snapped together. “Goodnight, Agatha.”
And it is. Maybe it’s the wine, or the pleasant ache between her legs, but the first time in days, Taggie sleeps soundly, cradled in the arms of a stranger.
Rupert rises just as she becomes aware of the daylight casting the room in a wash of gold, the slight whisper of sheets against skin her only clue that he’s up and moving around. Blearily, she watches him step into his trousers and shrug on a sweater, hair mussed from her insistent tugs as he’d—
“If you keep looking at me like that I’m not going to make it out of this room.”
Caught in the act. But she can’t bring herself to feel embarrassed, not when she stretches, cat-like, the sheet slipping off of her shoulders and Rupert’s eyes darken as he takes in the sight of her, skin flushed pink from spending the night burrowed into his side. He stalks to her side of the bed, teasing fingers tracing the outline of her lips, trailing down her neck, brushing against the curve of her breast. She shifts, fire coiling in her belly again, and brings his hand between her thighs. Lets him feel how much she wants him still, telling herself it doesn’t count as a new day yet, the sun barely peeking over the horizon.
Just one night.
His face is briefly illuminated by blue light, checking the time, she guesses. She won’t let herself consider the alternative. That there’s someone waiting for him at home, pacing the floor as she sends text after text, all unread. Perdita’s mother?
But then Rupert’s thumb is pressing on her clit, a slow, steady circle that makes her twitch against the hand he fits against her hip, holding her in place. She forgets logic, forgets reason entirely, as he leans over to kiss her, the clothes he’d just put on abandoned again on the hardwood floor.
It’s even better sober. She’ll remember each moment of this with vivid clarity, the way he drapes himself across her body, propped on his elbows so he can look at her unashamedly, you’re such a pretty thing whispered against her belly as he works his way to her cunt. Taking her apart with his tongue before he slides inside her, an agonizingly slow roll of his hips that has her clawing at his back like she might anchor herself to him.
It’s better sober, but also worse. Because she feels the absence of him more acutely than the night before, the bed cold and too big without him and the soft snores she’d fallen asleep listening to.
She shrugs on his button-down, knees pulled to her chest, as Rupert redresses. It’s a neat, tidy ending. A ribbon wrapped around a lovely little story she’ll tuck into her back pocket and save for a rainy day. Did I ever tell you about the time the gorgeous father of my house swap stopped by and we hooked up?
He leaves with a kiss brushed against the corner of her jaw, a whispered you know where to find me that does more for her own ego than she’d care to admit. A bit of the ribbon unraveled, the knot loose enough that it might come undone, if she tugs on it a little more.
Taggie watches him amble down the drive through the bedroom window until he disappears into the tree line. A few minutes later, she spots a plume of smoke rising from one of the chimneys at the estate across the valley. And it’s nice, even if she never sees him again, to know that he’s there. That for one night she’d been wanted in a way that’s entirely uncomplicated.
She turns away from the window, letting the curtain fall and hiding Rupert’s home from view.
Taggie thinks about calling him. All of these old houses still seem to have landlines, and Perdita has a list of phone numbers scrawled on a post-it on the fridge. Dad and a series of digits Taggie carefully punches into the set on a particularly weak-willed evening, only to slam it back down before the line can connect.
Two days pass. She and Gertrude fall into something of a routine. An early morning walk as soon as the sun wakes them, following a hoof-trodden path through the woods. Eggs, toast and coffee at the kitchen table, leaving her phone tangled in the sheets upstairs.
Her phone that stays dark. Caitlin and Lizzie check in daily, photos of London’s grey skyline and the Christmas crafts that Lizzie’s daughter and son have started bringing home from school. She offers snapshots of Gertrude in the woods, her nose covered in snow as she snuffles along the path, fighting the plaid sweater Taggie wrestles her into before each walk. All mentions of Ralphie are carefully avoided, like a precariously teetering house of cards. One wrong move and it all collapses.
Until, of course, her mother reaches out. Taggie glances at the long string of unanswered messages she herself has sent over the last few months, the wall of blue how are you and what’s your schedule for the next month and do you want me to pay the electric at the flat? Finally, there are two messages in grey from just that morning.
Won’t make it home for Xmas. Hope you and Ralphie have a lovely week. XO Mum (and Dad)
Taggie’s always believed her father’s promotion at the BBC was the best thing for her parents’ marriage, and the worst for their family. Because they fight less now, always off on trips around the continent, Declan in the field and Maud swishing through each new city like it’s hers for the taking. A new beginning for a decades-old marriage, except they seem to have forgotten that they can’t erase the three children born in the middle.
Which is why her mother has no idea that Ralphie broke up with her three months ago during the dying days of summer. That her career seems to be growing stagnant before it’s hardly begun. That she’s fled the city in an effort to hold onto her sanity.
“Gertie, love, we’re going for a walk!” Taggie calls, shucking on her wellies and coat as Gertrude stretches and yawns.
She leaves her phone on the kitchen table, her mother’s message unanswered.
It’s the warmest day she’s experienced so far, the sun shining brightly in a clear, cloudless sky. The latest round of snow is slowly starting to melt, but she’s already seen that more has been forecasted for the end of the week. Gertrude happily trods through the puddles of melty slush, barking joyfully at the sparrows and cardinals that make a mad dash from their trees when they pass underneath. She tilts her face towards the sky, soaking in the sun. It’s idyllic: cold but not miserable, just enough sun that her cheeks have turned pink beneath a bright blue bobble hat.
Until a black lab comes barreling out of the trees and into her legs, knocking Taggie straight into a puddle.
“Oh, fuck!” She hisses, wincing as the icy water spills into her boots, soaking through her thick wool socks almost instantly. The dog’s tail thumps against her legs as he licks her cheek, halfway trying to clamber into her lap. “But you’re gorgeous! What are you doing out here all by yourself?”
“Unfortunately, he’s about as well-behaved as his master,” a voice calls, and then Rupert strides around the corner, Gertrude circling him hopefully. He pulls a biscuit from his pocket and offers it to her. “Beaver, off!”
Beaver just looks at Rupert, wags his tail, and goes back to snuffling at Taggie’s jacket. Rupert sighs, striding over and reaching out a hand. Taggie stares at him a moment too long. It’s actually quite unfair that both times they’ve met, now, she’s been a bit of a disaster. But Rupert’s hand is solid and warm in her own, and he doesn’t let go even after he’s hauled her to her feet.
“Thanks,” Taggie huffs, trying to brush some of the mud from her jeans. She only succeeds in smearing it further into the denim. “I promise I’m not usually like this. Carrying around fireplace pokers and covered in mud.”
“Well that’s a bit disappointing. I’m starting to like running into you like this. Adds a little intrigue to the day,” Rupert teases. He lets go of her hand just long enough to shrug out of his own coat. “And makes you, by far, the most interesting woman I’ve met. Here.”
Taggie takes a step backwards, rolling her eyes. Because this man can’t be real. Making her see stars and offering her his coat and smiling at her like he knows every thought running through her mind. There must be something horribly wrong with him. A criminal record or taboo fetish, something that makes him human.
“Don’t be silly,” she says, a brow flicking up as Rupert opens his mouth to protest. “It’s hardly a ten minute walk back to the house, I’ll be fine.”
“Let me drive you back,” he insists. “It was my bloody dog that knocked you over. Figure it’s the least I can do.”
“Last I heard, you’d buried your car in a snowbank.”
“That’s the brilliant thing about snow, angel. It melts.”
They stare at each other, in a silent stand-off, until Gertrude and Beaver let out twin barks and tear off in the direction Rupert came from, kicking up snow behind them. Rupert’s face splits into a knowing grin as he jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “They’ll be halfway back to Penscombe. It’d be a bit of a waste, me just giving Gertrude a lift.”
“Bloody mother hen,” Taggie grumbles, intentionally sidestepping the coat Rupert’s still holding out. “I’m not inviting you in this time. I meant what I said— just one night.”
His laughter cuts through the cold, warming her from the inside out. “I promise to behave myself.”
They walk in silence, but unusually, Taggie doesn’t feel the need to fill it. To perform, to be dazzling, to prove she’s worthy of the heavy gaze that always seem to be on her when she peeks over at Rupert. It’s a leftover habit from childhood; never the daughter her parents wanted, never someone they could make sense of. Her father read Yeats and broke stories that changed lives. Her mother was an actress, a commanding force in every room.
And Taggie? Taggie dreams in rosemary and salt, in the sweet summer tang of blueberries and flaky, crisp layers of puff pastry. Her world starts and ends in a kitchen, her soul pressed between the pages of her grandmother’s handwritten cookbooks. They’ve never understood it; but then again, they never really tried.
Taggie follows Rupert through a break in the trees, blinking up at Penscombe Manor with wide eyes. The Priory is a crumbling shack by comparison. “This is… Wow.”
“Excessive,” Rupert says simply. “I inherited it all with the last name. I keep a yard down that way,” he points in the direction of a sloping hill, past the beautifully manicured gardens. “Might’ve sold it all off if it weren’t for that.”
She can tell he doesn’t mean it, though, as the dogs come running to greet them, several others trailing behind Beaver. His eyes go soft, posture relaxing, a man who knows that he’s home. She’s not sure she’s felt that way since Ireland.
“What is it again you do for a living?” Taggie asks, knowing perfectly well he never said the last time they met. There wasn’t much time for talking then, anyway. “Are you just… Professionally rich?”
“I was a show jumper for nearly twenty years. Got a gold medal and a permanently twinged shoulder to show for it,” he says, so casually she could almost believe he’s joking. “Now, that’s Blue, Nimrod, Goldie, Moose,” Rupert rattles off, abruptly changing the subject. He points out each dog as they circle Taggie, sniffing her intently.
“Moose?” She echoes, looking pointedly at the dappled dachshund. She lets him snuffle at her hand, giggling when he lets out a yelp and throws his tiny body at her.
“That was my...” He coughs. “Er, not my first choice. I think it suits him, though. He’s more destructive than any dog five times his size. Bloody little monster.” His words are softened, though, as he scoops up the pup and nestles him close to his chest.
Something in her chest lets loose at the sight, a sort of hollow aching she won’t examine too closely. Instead, she clears her throat, nodding towards the direction he’d pointed in earlier. “So, a ride? I think my socks are frozen solid.”
“Let me get you something dry to wear?” Rupert offers, frowning at the immediate shake of her head. “At least let me attempt to be a gentleman, Taggie.”
“I think that ship sailed after you took my top off,” she says, trying for casual, but Rupert tips his head back on a laugh, the sound ringing out bright and clear in the brisk morning.
““You don’t do that often, do you?” He asks. The gravel crunches under their feet, punctuating his words. “The one night stand thing,” he clarifies, taking note of her confusion.
“I… Was it obvious?” Her face flushes, immediately replaying the night in her mind. He seemed to enjoy it, and he’d stayed, hadn’t he? But maybe he’d just been polite, her desperate desire to forget like a flashing red light above her head.
“No, no. You just seem to be trying very hard not to bring it up,” he nudges her shoulder, still grinning, eyes crinkling and face smug. “It’s cute. Very proper of you.”
“And let me guess, you spend all your nights running around the countryside, knocking on unsuspecting women’s doors. How many times have you used that snowdrift line?”
“If you’ll recall, I did think I was just dropping in on my daughter. I had no idea she’d gone off and traded lives with a poker-wielding angel.”
Taggie snorts. “Angel is a bit much, isn’t it?”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
They stop outside a large garage, Rupert bending to lift the door. She’s thankful for the distraction, because it all started feeling a little too real again. Making her lose sight of why she’d imposed a just one night rule in the first place, the slight brush of Rupert’s arm against her own, the deep, throaty timbre of his laugh.
He leads her down a row of truly ridiculous cars, stopping in front of a shiny black Mercedes. She squints at it, trying to place it. And then—
“Oh my God!” Taggie gasps, whirling on Rupert and stabbing a finger into his chest. “You were the prick that nearly ran me off the road!”
Rupert’s gaze flicks down to her hand and back up again, amusement written in the quirk of his brow. “You really are bent on making me out to be some raving lunatic, aren’t you?”
“It was my first day here! I was driving in and all of the sudden this maniac in a fancy car came flying around a blind curve.” Rupert’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline, a flicker of recognition sparking in his gaze. “Actually, I might be changing my mind about the ride.”
He yanks the passenger door open, gesturing for her to get in. “Oh, just wait until I get you into the Aston,” Rupert murmurs, and she inhales sharply as he leans over to fuss with the seatbelt. He leans back, grinning. “Sorry, the seatbelt sticks. But that blush of yours is quite pretty too, angel.”
“Oh, fuck off,” she mutters, but she’s off-kilter again, made even worse as Rupert lifts Gertrude into the back seat, cooing at her quietly.
The drive is short, barely three minutes from door to door.
“What are you doing?” Taggie ask, suspicious.
He rolls his eyes, that infuriating, reckless smile still in place. “I’m walking you to the door, Agatha.”
“I’m still not inviting you in.”
Three minutes later, she’s straddling Rupert’s lap on the first floor landing. This time she can’t keep her eyes off of the ring on his pinky, how cold it feels when he cups her neck with his hand, drawing her into another searing kiss.
“This doesn’t count,” she mutters, shivering as his hands slide up her bare thighs, warm and solid. She feels breakable like this, vulnerable and spread open and wanting him so badly it aches. “I— I was cold.”
“Sure, sweetheart,” Rupert agrees easily, slotting his lips over hers again. “Just warming you up, is all.”
After that, he keeps finding excuses to come over, and she keeps letting him.
Later, she’ll think it’s odd that he never invited her in to Penscombe. Because she’d been kidding herself, acting like they weren’t on a course bound straight for this moment from the instant their paths crossed in the woods, all sweaty limbs and kiss-bitten lips and tousled hair. But she doesn’t push him, simply accepts the gentle hands sliding her jeans back up her legs and doing up the buttons.
He collects his keys and phone and slips another biscuit from his pocket for Gertrude. And he’s nearly to the car by the time she scrambles to her feet, racing for the laundry basket and out the door.
“Oh, wait!” Taggie calls, waving the wrinkled button-down like a flag. She’s tried to give it back every time he’s come to the Priory, but something always gets in the way. His hands, his lips, that stupid, infuriating smile. “I still have your shirt!”
“Keep it,” Rupert replies easily, turning to walk backwards and sliding his hands into his pockets. “It looked better on you, anyway.”
“So what’s your story, Taggie O’Hara?” Rupert’s propped on an elbow, all tanned skin and corded muscle, the sheet thrown over the lower half of his body like some work by one of the old masters.
She mirrors his pose, teeth sinking into her lower lip as she bites back a smile. “A classic case of absent father and emotionally reserved mother, I’m afraid. I didn’t live up to the version of me they had in their heads. Probably why I was so quick to jump into bed with you. I’m a psychologist’s wet dream.”
Rupert laughs, reaching over and tucking back a strand of hair that’s come loose from her plait. “I can’t tell if I should be flattered or horrified.”
She shrugs, ignoring how a trail of warmth follows the path his fingers take, the way he lingers for a moment too long on the curve of her cheek. “It’s a boring story. Not much more to it than that.”
But her nonchalance doesn’t seem to land right. An edge of insecurity in her voice, or maybe she just wears her emotions that clearly. Either way, Rupert frowns. “You do that a lot. Sell yourself short. I… looked you up. You’re something of a brilliant chef.”
Taggie’s mouth falls open in a perfect o. “You Googled me?”
Never mind she was tempted to do the same, but resisted, trying to keep a tidy set of walls still standing between them. (She’s failed miserably, clearly. Just one night and all).
“You’re the one who insists we interact like strangers. Can you blame me for being curious?”
Taggie flops back onto the pillow, her face on fire. She’s not sure why it rankles her, only that this is the fifth—or is it sixth?—time they’ve been in bed together (he insisted Beaver led him to the house on the hunt for Gertrude, and she pretended to believe him) and it’s beginning to feel like moremoremore.
“A few days ago,” she begins, fighting to keep her voice even. “You asked me if I did this a lot. Do you?”
A pause. And then: “Yeah, I do.”
She doesn’t press him any further. She’d assumed as much; gorgeous and older, an Olympian with more money than she could even fathom. Jealousy is an unwelcome guest, but it creeps through her veins all the same.
Taggie rolls over, catching Rupert looking at her warily. Whatever he finds in her face, though, makes him relax and lean over to press a kiss to her bare collarbone. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “Crossed a line, I s’pose.”
He apologizes like someone who’s not used to doing it. Like he’s spent a lifetime taking what he wants, unapologetic, decades of wealth and excess and power hung around his neck like medals before she was even born. His eyes are more green than brown in the afternoon light.
And she shouldn’t know that. Shouldn’t want to know that he likes a cigarette after sex, or that he has a sweet tooth and never says no to a biscuit. But she does.
“It’s okay,” Taggie says, and she doesn’t think she’s lying. “I guess I’m curious, too.”
It tastes like a confession, leaving a pleasant ache in the back of her throat. And Rupert grins—slow and lazy, intention written into every syllable of her name as he draws it out, Taggie whispered against her throat as he parts her thighs with his knee.
It feels like surrender, fisting her hand in his hair and kissing him. Like she’s doing the exact opposite of what she promised herself, just one night tossed out the window and into the snow.
“Got another date lined up after this?”
She’s feeling brave, sprawled across the sofa in one of Rupert’s sweaters, a black and white Christmas film on the telly. They’re drinking hot cocoa the way her grandmother used to make it, with a splash of vanilla and sprinkling of cinnamon on top.
And she doesn’t mean to ask him, but it slips out anyway as he laces up his boots, shrugging on a chore coat and gathering his keys and wallet. Because she can tell he’s going somewhere, a schedule she’s not privy to dragging him to his feet and out of their nest of blankets. Rupert only hesitates for a moment, but it’s long enough that she sees it. The shuttering of his eyes, the slight twist of his mouth. Whatever he says next is a lie.
“I’m meeting a breeder at Penscombe,” he says, pressing a swift kiss to the corner of her mouth. “See you around, angel.”
Taggie smiles weakly and watches the rest of the film in silence. Because, against her better judgement, Rupert has become a habit she can’t shake. She’s not sure how it happens, only that his name is in her phone underneath a photo of him cuddling Gertrude to his chest, and she bakes him a roly poly after he mentions it’s his favorite dessert. He calls it the best he’s ever had, a compliment she won’t look at too closely, the uneven thumping of her heart a warning in itself.
She goes home in two weeks. Back to London, back to a restaurant job that still might launch her into something. To avoiding Ralphie and Georgiana and gritting her teeth, to wandering through a quiet flat that still doesn’t have art on the walls.
And God, she’s tired of being so small.
“We’re going to Penscombe,” Taggie announces, waiting for Gertrude to stretch and yawn noisily. She decided long ago that talking to her dog like she’s a person is absolutely not a sign of madness. “Come on, gorgeous.”
Because she’s tired of waiting. For Rupert to call, for her life to change. For something to happen.
She suits up like she’s preparing for war. Gloves, hat, scarf, two pairs of wool socks. Anxiety is a live wire beneath her skin, the fear of action, of pushing too far. He’s hiding something; she tells herself it’s better to know now and save them the trouble of an ugly ending. Three weeks, she’s beginning to realize, is just long enough to patch together plaster and watch it break again.
Penscombe is awash in color, golden lamplight spilling out across the lawn. It’s even prettier in early evening, shadow-kissed and glowing, something out of an old, sepia-toned movie. The door opens before she even has a chance to knock, still halfway across the drive and tugging Gertrude away from a tennis ball partially buried in the snow.
“Taggie?” Rupert says, and it’s different than how he usually says it. Apprehensive, a little unwelcoming. “Is everything alright?”
Closer now, she realizes his disheveled he looks. Hair standing on end, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, what she thinks might be a slash of green paint across his thigh.
“Hi.” She shuffles her weight from foot to foot, not sure what to do with all of her frenetic energy now that she’s here. She plows ahead, hoping she finds a point along the way. “I was just, um, out, and I thought I’d stop by--”
Two things happen rather quickly. The first, Taggie catches glimpse of a pair of bright pink wellies on the floor behind Rupert, laying on their sides like they’d just been kicked off by a pair of small feet. The second, a loud, insistent voice calls, “Daddy! The timer is beeping!”
And it becomes clear almost immediately. What he’d been hiding, why he didn’t want her to come over. She’d halfway guessed it that first day, and she knew Perdita existed; she’d rented her bloody house.
“You’re married,” Taggie says, eying the offending pair of wellies like they might leap up and bite at her ankles. “God, I feel so stupid, of course you’re fucking married—”
She turns on her heel, embarrassment and shame pooling hot in her stomach. You’ll be happy for me, won’t you? Another misjudgment, another mistake.
“Taggie, no,” Rupert jogs to catch up with her, wincing as he lands in a puddle of slush. It’s this small, humanizing gesture that makes her stop. Makes her soft, too. “I— fuck, I was married, but she died, five years ago.”
She freezes. “God. I really should have Googled you,” she breathes, trying for a shaky laugh that comes out more like a sob. “I’m— I’m so sorry. Please, go back to your dinner.”
But he doesn’t move. Just keeps standing there, hand outstretched, like he’s not quite sure what to do with her. She isn’t, either.
“I… Don’t typically bring them into it.” Them. More than one. “Of course, everyone local knows, but I keep them out of the way. My in-laws live in the next village over. They help out.”
“So you can carry on affairs with all the local wives?” She succeeds in drawing a smile from him.
“Something like that,” he admits. “Honestly, things don’t typically progress far enough for it to be a concern. Tab and Marcus, they’re… I wasn’t around for Perdita. Didn’t know she bloody existed until she was sixteen. But I’ve done alright with those two.”
And she’s about to tell him that it’s okay. That she doesn’t quite understand, that her head’s spinning just a little bit, but she’d like to try.
But then there’s a loud cough, and a small, dark-headed girl wearing a set of fairy wings and a tiara pokes her head out the front door. “Daddy, Marcus said you burned the pie.”
“Oh, fuck— I mean, shit—” Rupert glances back and forth between Taggie and his daughter. “Tabitha, don’t repeat that to Grandmum. Taggie, just... Stay here?”
She’s still feeling soft, her stiff, cold limbs unthawing as Rupert moves back to the door and tucks Tabitha to his side, a hand carding through her hair. “You know, I am a chef,” she begins, watching Rupert carefully. “I could take a look? See if it can be saved?”
“Taggie, you really don’t have to—”
But Tabitha pushes past him, marching out into the snow and tugging on Taggie’s hand. “Daddy’s not very good at this. I’m six, but Mrs. B says I’m prob’ly better than him at lots of stuff.”
“Is that so?” She says weakly, shooting Rupert a slightly bewildered expression over her shoulder. But to her surprise, he hasn’t moved, staring at her and Tabitha with something horribly gentle melting the tension between his brows and relaxing the stiff lines of his shoulders.
Penscombe is far grander than the Priory. Crown molding and artwork she’s positive he didn’t pick up from Primark, end tables with intricately-carved legs and fresh flowers and sofa cushions that look so expensive she’s scared to brush past them. Tabitha kicks one of the cushions out of her path, still dragging Taggie along behind her. Gertrude trots ahead, leading the pack.
“Marcus! She’s here to help us fix Daddy’s pie,” Tabitha shouts. Then, turning back to Taggie, “Well, it’s not really Daddy’s pie, Mrs. B made it before she left for the weekend. What’s your name again? I’m Tabitha.”
“Er, I’m Taggie. I’m renting—borrowing, I guess—your sister’s house until Christmas Eve.” She slips on an oven mitt and cracks open the stove, fanning out black smoke. “Rupert, I’m afraid it’s indelible. I mean, inedible.”
She flushes automatically, braced for the correction, the slight scoff that sounds like her mother’s voice and the heavy sigh of her father. But it doesn’t come. Instead, Rupert sidles up next to her and places a hand on her arm. Not squeezing, but holding her there. An apology and a thank you, she thinks, all in one.
“You don’t have to stay, Taggie,” Rupert murmurs. But the thumb he softly runs over the inside of her wrist says otherwise. “You can take one of the cars. I’ll come pick it up in the morning.”
But she gently extricates herself from his hold, reaching down to adjust Tabitha’s crooked fairy wings. “There you are. Now, how do fairy queens feel about cheese toasties? They were mine and my sister’s favorite growing up.”
Marcus who’d been hovering near the sink, gives her a small smile. “I love toasties.” He’s fair skin and freckled, the complete opposite of Tabitha. He must take after their mother, she realizes.
“Are you here to try and take Daddy’s money? Perdie says we’ve got to keep an eye on him ‘cause he’s too old to have any sense,” Tabitha says baldly, eyes narrowed as she looks Taggie up and down, suddenly suspicious. “Perdie’s usually right about these sorts of things.”
Taggie nearly chokes on air. “Um, no, I’m— I mean—” But Tabitha’s face is small and severe, entirely serious beneath an off-center crown. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
She looks to Rupert for— she’s not sure. Confirmation? Absolution? But he nods, and yet it feels much more complicated than that.
“Tabby, don’t be terrible!” Marcus chimes in, coming to stand closer to Taggie. “She’s a bit of a P-E-S-T. I think you’re very nice.”
“I like her too!” Tabitha shouts, jumping to her other side and tugging insistently on her hand again. “Will you stay for dinner, Taggie, please?”
There are two sets of pleading eyes on her, two ways this can go.
“Of course I will,” she sighs, telling herself it’s just to spare them the disappointment, to spare Rupert a ribbing from the woman she assumes is his housekeeper, Mrs. B.
“Right, let’s back up, give our esteemed chef some space to work,” Rupert says, eyes bright. He scoops Tabitha into his arms, tossing her over his shoulder while she shrieks and laughs.
And against her better judgement, she falls in love.
With the questions Tabitha hurls at her, barely a breath spared for a bite of her toasty, chewing with such a ferocity that Rupert has to remind her several times to slow down before she chokes. What do you do for work and why are you in Perdie’s house and can we come visit please, one after the other until Taggie’s cheeks hurt from smiling. And Marcus is his own kind of lovely; soft in all of the places Tabitha is brash, telling Taggie it’s his favorite toastie in the world with a small, bashful smile that turns him into an echo of his father.
It makes her think of when Caitlin was small. Except they dined on stovetop ramen instead of beef bourguignon until Taggie realized she could really cook, dragging a rickety kitchen chair across their linoleum floor to get to the tallest cabinets and reaching for her grandmother’s old cookbooks where they sat collecting dust on a high, forgotten shelf.
Tabitha and Marcus insist she sits in between them at the table, both vying for her attention in that way children who have been loved so completely do. Rupert insists they leave the washing up for later, all but dragging her out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, where Tabitha proceeds to show Taggie every single one of her Barbie dolls. Marcus practices on the piano, plinking out a slowed-down version of “White Christmas.” But she doesn’t feel like an interloper, like she’s somewhere she shouldn’t be.
Rupert is different with his children. Softer, more careful. It reminds her a little bit of those quiet hours they’ve spent alone in her darkened bedroom, measuring the minutes on his inhales and exhales.
Barbie in hand, she feels fingers on the back of her neck. Rupert’s voice is low and warm next to her ear. “Thank you, angel.”
And she aches for something she can’t name. For a home that smells like clove and nutmeg, a twinkly Christmas tree and stockings hung crookedly on the mantle. A life that isn’t too big or too small but just right. One that’s made for her.
She waits downstairs while Rupert puts the children to bed, her eyes drawn to the frames lined up on the mantle. A much-younger Rupert astride a horse, mud-stained and gripping his shoulder with a wild grin on his face. Tabitha and Marcus through the years, tiny infants to round-faced toddlers to the children she met tonight. Perdita, as blonde and beautiful as her profile photo on the house-swap site. And a woman with auburn hair and bright blue eyes that disappears when Tabitha is still an infant.
“Helen,” Rupert says quietly from behind her. She heard him coming, the soft snick of doors closing upstairs and bare feet padding across the carpet. “I was an awful husband to her.”
“Awful how?”
He sighs and picks up one of the frames. Marcus in the middle of a giggle, holding his mother’s face with both of his toddler hands. “We got married when we found out she was pregnant with Marcus. We both came from wealthy families, it was the right thing to do. But we weren’t ever truly happy. I… was unfaithful. And we argued incessantly. And then she got sick, and none of it really seemed to matter all that much anymore.”
Taggie nods, finally tearing her eyes away from the photographs. “I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.”
“It was,” he says simply. “We’ve managed alright. Tab and Marcus, they’re the best thing I’ve done. I’m afraid I can’t take that much credit with Perdita.”
“They’re lovely. Even Perdita, in her emails. I’m…” But she trails off, not sure where to go next. I’m glad I met you— all of you. I’m terrified by how easy this feels.
But Rupert doesn’t let the silence linger for long. And it’s nice, listening to him talk, the whole story spilling out slowly, then all at once. The hasty marriage and Marcus, then finding out about Perdita, the result of a drunken night in university. The fractures spreading like spiderwebs along the foundation of their marriage, Tabitha a plaster on the wound. The diagnosis and bright hospital lights and two small children blinking up at him solemnly. The realization that their worlds were falling apart, and it was his job to hold them together.
They lapse into silence, the sounds of the house settling for the evening quieting Taggie’s mind. The dogs snuffling and snorting, Marcus creeping downstairs for a glass of water at half-ten. And when Rupert slides his hands beneath her legs and sweeps her into his arms, she lets him. Hiding a smile against his shoulder, giggling at his grumbled bloody knees as he climbs the stairs.
Rupert is reading Horse & Hound when she comes out of the bathroom wearing one of his old t-shirts. Reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and pyjama bottoms slung low on his hips, so domestic she nearly stops in her tracks. But then he glances over at her, gaze snagging on the short hem of his t-shirt, and though her thighs still ache she can feel it again, the want creeping through her veins.
There had been no talk of her staying, just a simple I’ll find you something to sleep in and a lamp flicked on on the other side of the bed.
“Right,” Taggie says, slipping beneath the heavy duvet. Almost unconsciously, she reaches across the pillows and tangles their fingers together. “What do you want to know?”
The rest is unspoken. About me, about my life. All of the things that will make this hurt more when it ends.
“Let’s start with everything, and see where that gets us,” he says. Closing the magazine and tossing it on the nightstand, his full attention laying her bare.
And God, she’s in danger. But she leaps anyway, Ireland and her parents, Ralphie and the ring that was never hers, raising a sister that feels more like a daughter.
She jokes that she needs a therapist. He says that he does, too. And maybe it should feel strange, that the closest she’s felt to another person in years is a man nearly twenty years her senior. A widower, a father, a self-admitted playboy.
It’s the first time she wonders if it’s always supposed to be this easy. Someone she likes to talk to, that makes her laugh easily and often. That maybe, she’s been choosing wrong all these years.
When she finds herself teetering on the edge of too much too far too soon she thinks of Ralphie, pressing on the stubborn, blue-black bruise he’s marked her with.
It helps, mostly. Until she’s laying alone in Perdita’s spare room, a small turret at the top of a set of winding stairs, and catches a glimpse of lights flicking on at Penscombe.
She could call him. Ask to come over, let him sneak her upstairs past the children like a pair of guilty teenagers, laughter smothered into their palms. Leave before daylights starts its steady crawl through the valley, keep to the edges of darkness.
Taggie waits. And waits. And almost reaches for her phone, just as Penscombe goes dark.
She learns the rhythm of their lives quickly. When she can text Rupert and expect an answer and when he’s tied up with baths and bedtimes. And she stops being able to pretend that it’s just sex, not when she opens the door on a Sunday morning to a six foot tall Norway Spruce and one vaguely disheveled, terribly pleased with himself former Olympian.
“What the hell is that?”
“What does it look like?” Rupert puffs, heaving the tree over the threshold. “It’s a Christmas tree. Tabitha was so disturbed to hear that you didn’t have one that she threw the mother of all tantrums until we went out to the farm this morning.”
Taggie smothers a laugh into her palm as Rupert grinds out another expletive. She’d spent the previous afternoon at Penscombe again, ostensibly to borrow Rupert’s superior kitchen to try out a new tart recipe that had come to her the night before. She baked the tarts, then ate half of them with Marcus, Tabitha, and Rupert around the kitchen island.
“There’s a stand in the boot. Grab it for me, angel?”
And she does. There are also, she learns, two bags of baubles, a thousand lights, and a strand of tinsel. All neatly wrapped in brown paper and twine, all price tags removed so she can’t bemoan how much he’s spent on a tree that won’t even see Christmas day.
“I’m leaving on Christmas Eve,” she reminds him for the tenth time, sliding a hook through a glittery gold bauble. The words taste sour on her tongue. “This is ludic—” she searches for the ending of the word, a jumble of consonant and syllables in her head. And Rupert stays quiet, letting her take her time. “Ludicrous.”
“I dare you to tell that to my six year old,” Rupert says, unwrapping another bundle. “Ah. It’s veered a bit horse-themed. Tabitha’s obsessed at the moment, and I’m hoping it sticks. I found a pony for her last spring.”
“Training the next generation of show jumpers?” Taggie picks up the felted horse decoration on top of the pile, smiling softly as she turns it over in her hand. “My grandparents had horses. One that looked just like this, actually. A Palomino called Posey.”
When she glances up, it’s to find Rupert’s eyes already on her. Gaze soft and a little too knowing, baubles forgotten as he wraps a hand around her elbow, tugging her close.
“Come and see the stables tomorrow,” he murmurs, brushing a pine needle from her hair. Their fingers are slightly sticky with tree sap, clothes coated in glitter and trailing tinsel with each step. “I’d love to show you around.”
There’s a glimmer of a schoolboy’s excitement beneath his words, and for just a moment, she lets herself picture it. A ridiculous, fairytale world where she makes a home in the Cotswolds. A restaurant, or maybe private catering. The dreams she’d whispered in the dark, cheeks burning against Rupert’s silk pillowcases. No more sad beige apartments and ex-boyfriends and lonely Christmas Eves.
She indulges the fantasy, then lets it go. Remembers what it’s like to tie herself with a bit of frayed string to another person’s side, losing years, losing herself, before it snapped.
Taggie draws back from Rupert just enough to kiss him soundly, then presses herself against him like she might anchor them in this moment. A perfect snow globe she can carry in her pocket back to London.
Their boots crunch through the snow, thawed and refrozen overnight. Taggie leans slightly into the cover of Rupert’s arms as the barn comes into view, a massive brick structure with a sloping roof that’s almost as impressive as Penscombe itself. There’s a large wreath hung on the sliding doors, jingle bells clanging as Rupert heaves them open.
Taggie inhales deeply, the sweet smell of hay taking her back in time to green hills and freshly-baked bread cooling on the windowsill. Rupert seems to relax fully around the horses, settling into easy chatter about classifications and lineage while she follows him around, offering sugar cubes from his pockets while he pretends to look the other way.
“Did you ride much growing up?” Rupert asks, pausing in front of Rocky’s stall. She remembers him from one of Rupert’s stories, the horse that carried him through the Olympics with a dislocated shoulder.
“I did,” she hedges. “Mum and Dad didn’t care much for it—they really didn’t have the time—but my grandparents had a hobby farm. It was… It was my favorite place in the world.”
“You miss them,” he says simply. Not a question. Like he can sense the old ache in her bones, the way London’s never quite fit right, like a too-tight coat stretched over her shoulder blades.
“We went to church when I was small,” she says quietly. “Mummy and Daddy gave being good Catholics a go for a while. They’d get frustrated with me, though, when I couldn’t read the hymns, or memorize my prayers. Eventually, my Granny and Granda started keeping me. Caitlin and Patrick, they’d be all dressed up in their shiny shoes with their hair parted all nice, and I’d get dropped at Granny’s in my dungarees.”
Rupert’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t interrupt her, simply fishing another sugar cube from his pocket and handing it to her. She holds her palm out flat, letting Rocky snuffle against her palm, his whiskers tickling her wrist.
“I… I had a lot of guilt about it at first? Like I’d failed God, or something. I think Granny noticed, too. She started sending me off to the stables with Granda to keep me busy. He… he said being out with the horses was his own kind of church. That he wasn’t sure if he believed in God, but he did believe in how alive the forest felt when he rode through it in the springtime, and how gentle it turned in the winter. It just felt easy. Like I didn’t have to try and be someone.” Taggie swallows hard, fighting back the icy tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. But before they can fall, Rupert’s hand is there, gently wiping them away.
“Riding kept me alive after Helen. Still does some days, if I’m honest,” he shrugs with a half-smile that feels like sharing a secret. “And for what it’s worth, I do like you very much, just as you are. Red nose and all.”
He taps her wind-chapped nose with his thumb before cupping her jaw, tilting her face upwards. A kiss pressed to each eyelid, the corner of her chin, her nose, her lips. Like he’s memorizing the curves and contours of her. She tastes Ireland in her throat and hears her grandfather’s voice in her head, you’ll find your place, my girl.
“Yeah? I like you too,” she teases, ducking her chin to hide a watery smile.
He asks her in the middle of the afternoon while the children are at school over a cup of tea, a casual do you think you’ll ever get married that makes her choke, spluttering while Rupert hides a smile behind his hand.
“I think I’m swearing off the whole thing. Love, marriage, all of it,” she rasps, eyes watering.
Rupert’s brows tug together. “You’re a little young for that, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just… seen enough, you know? It hasn’t worked out all that well for my parents, why should I expect any different?” She shrugs, and it suddenly feels less like a joke, the air between them charged, on the edge of something they can’t take back.
“Awfully cynical,” he says lightly.
“Or is it realistic?” She counters.
“Well, you’ll always be the best holiday I’ve had in Rutshire.”
Something in her chest catches.
Because God, she likes him. Thinks she could maybe like him forever. And admitting it to herself is scary enough; it’s worse, knowing that he can undoubtedly see it written clearly on her face. That he’s been letting her work slowly to this conclusion on her own, a skittish foal tempted in from the pasture.
It’s easier to rise from the table and settle herself on his lap, sinking into the warmth of him as his hands land on her hips. Easier to drag her lips across his jaw, curling her fingers in his hair and tugging in that way he likes.
They don’t make it upstairs. Collapsing on the sitting room sofa, Taggie climbing into his lap and desperately reaching for his belt buckle, an early goodbye written into the fabric of every brush of skin, each bead of sweat clinging to their bodies. Two people who have learned the language of the other and speak it fluently, muscle memory and intuition and a bone-deep knowing.
The call comes early in the morning. Half-eight and she’s still half-asleep, staring at her phone like the letters might rearrange themselves into something new.
But they don’t. And it’s Ralphie’s voice on the other end of the line, chattering away like they’re in the middle of a conversation. She used to think it was charming,
“Taggie, gorgeous, how have you been? We’ve missed you horribly. I’ve missed you horribly. Just ask Sharon, I’ve been moping around the kitchen for the better part of two weeks,” he says brightly, and she can hear the familiar sounds of the restaurant coming alive in the background, the clattering of pots and pans and rumbling voices of the line cooks. “Left us in a bit of a lurch, but we’ve managed. The New Year’s menu is coming along nicely—”
“Ralphie, why are you calling me?” Taggie says abruptly, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
The line goes quiet, then: “She doesn’t understand me like you, Tag.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“I want you to come back. Here, home.” Ralphie sounds hopeful, and she can picture him so clearly: bouncing on the balls of his feet in his chef’s whites, running a hand through his hair. But it’s like looking through a frost-covered window, a slice of life she’s forgotten how to live.
“I am coming home,” she replies evenly. “In a couple of days, actually. Everything’s on my leave notice. So if that’s it—”
And she very nearly hangs up the phone, but Ralphie keeps talking, oblivious to her discomfort. “No, Tag, listen. I’ve been speaking with our investors and, well, I think we have a plan.”
She listens, and doesn’t tell a soul. Not Lizzie or Caitlin, though they’ll find out sooner rather than later. And not Rupert, who picks her up late that afternoon and pretends not to notice the hollowness of her smile, brows tightening as he kisses her temple and holds the car door open.
“Everything alright, angel?”
“Just fine,” Taggie answers, going for another attempt at a smile. “Just tired.”
Rupert refuses to let her cook, insisting she seems a bit peaky, and instead orders takeaway from a local Italian restaurant that leaves them all stuffed full of rich, creamy pasta and salty bread. They pile into the sitting room, Taggie half-asleep with her head on Rupert’s shoulder, listening to Marcus and Tabitha squabble over whose turn it is to let the dogs out.
“After Christmas, do you want to go ice skating with us? Daddy promised he’d take us this year,” Tabitha says, wide brown eyes earnest and hopeful.
Taggie freezes. Feels Rupert breath catch beneath her, a live wire of tension humming between them.
“That’ll be nice, won’t it?” She says, trying for lightness. But she hears the thin, reedy edge in her own voice.
And it’s the first time neither of them engage in the usual back-and-forth, the I really should go while still twisted in the sheets, you’ll freeze out there spoken against her skin. Pretending like they don’t notice the hours ticking by, the shadows growing long across the darkening valley.
Instead, Rupert drives her home after Mrs Bodkin arrives with the week’s shopping. Walks her to the door and drops a chaste kiss to her chapped lips, goodnight angel said with an aching familiarity that settles somewhere deep n her chest. She wonders what they would look like to an outsider, if they’d see lovers on a first date, promising to call later with their hearts beating in their throats and palms sweating.
Her keys are in the deadbolt when Rupert’s footsteps stop. When he calls out her name, just Taggie, like it’s the answer to a question he’s been asking for years.
“I think I’m in love with you,” he says, hands in his pockets, wind-mussed and heartbreaking and not hers to keep. “And I think you know it, too.”
There’s a heartbeat that seems to last a lifetime.
“I told you I came here as a sort of self-preservation,” she says shakily. She takes a deep breath, letting her heart rate settle and head clear before she peers up at Rupert through her lashes. It’s better like this. Safer. “And I meant it. I don’t think I’ll survive another heartbreak.”
She sounds braver than she feels. Because it’s like letting him see the soft underbelly of her, the pieces she never meant to share. The hurt she ran from in London, the agony of loving and never being loved in return.
“Taggie, hold on—”
“Ralphie called,” she says dully, cutting across him. “He asked me to come back. They’re opening another location for the restaurant in the spring and he wants me to run it.”
He’d been so adamant, so enthusiastic on the phone. It’s everything she’s ever wanted, all wrapped up in a bow.
And yet.
Rupert, to her surprise, barks out a short, bitter laugh. “Of course he fucking does. Got the slightest inclination that you might be finally doing something for yourself and he’s scrambling. I hope you told him where to shove it.”
“It’s a fantastic opportunity, Rupert. I’d be stupid not to take it.”
She feels defensive, on edge. Not for Ralphie, but for herself. Because Rupert’s staring at her like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. And it reminds a little too much of her parents’ disbelief when she dropped out of uni, the wide-eyed, almost pitying glance they’d shared.
“So that’s it, then? You play house in the country for a few weeks and go scurrying back to that bloody weasel the second he comes sniffing around again?”
She can tell he’s fighting to keep his voice even, but there’s something raw about it all the same. The night air is too cold, burning as she breathes it in. “I’m not running back to his bed, if that’s what you’re implying. Do you really think so little of me?”
“No, Taggie,” Rupert says tiredly. “I think too much of you. Constantly. When I’m with the horses, with the children, when I’m trying to sleep. And I’m not just saying this because you’re leaving, before you try that one. This makes sense. We make sense.”
“There is no we, Rupert. You’ve known me less than a month. This is— it’s not real life. These kinds of things just don’t happen.” She’s desperate for him to see it the way she does. That it’s easier to snip the cord before fire can catch it. “What was it you said? I’m the best time you’ve had in Rutshire?”
He looks like he’s going to argue with her, but she sees the moment the fight leaves him. Instead he smiles, sad and a little misty-eyed. “Still mean it. Every word.”
“Goodnight, Rupert.”
And it ends the way it began: on a doorstep in the bitter cold, snow falling softly onto their shoulders. Taggie shuts the door, and realizes, as she waits for his taillights to disappear down the drive, that she hasn’t saved herself at all. Last time, she broke.
This time, though? She shatters.
Rupert doesn’t call again, but neither does Taggie. Her last days in the Cotswolds are quiet, curled up in her bed with Gertrude, avoiding the sitting room and the Christmas tree with its mocking, twinkling lights.
As she drives away on Christmas Eve, she feels like she’s leaving something integral behind. Like all the poetry’s been leached out of her. But there’s a new contract in her inbox, and a half-dozen text messages from Lizzie, and it’s almost enough to make her believe she’s doing the right thing.
Christmas is a hollow ache in her chest. Because her flat feels small and strange, now, London’s skyline a heavy, oppressive hand bearing down on her spine. She meets Ralphie at the new restaurant location on the twenty sixth, accepting an awkward, one-armed hug and ducking out of the way to avoid a kiss.
“Look at you! Merry Christmas, darling. Sorry I didn’t have time to find you a present,” he pushes open the door, not letting go of her hand. “Now, time for a tour, I think. Here’s where we’ll put the hostess stand, and this is the waiting area…”
He leads her through the building, sketching out what the space will look like with a exuberance and confidence that’s always brought him luck. With women, with investors, with contractors who cut him deals that he’s more than happy to boast about.
“And here we are! The kitchen. Oh, Sharon, I didn’t think you’d be here.” The catering manager, Sharon, sits at the stainless steel prep counter, flipping through a date book. Her gaze immediately zeros in on Ralphie and Taggie’s entwined hands. “Taggie’s just arrived. I thought I’d show her around.”
“Right,” Sharon drawls, eyes narrowed. “And where’s Georgiana this morning? I thought you were taking off to drive to see her folks for a late Christmas.”
Taggie freezes, her hand falling out of Ralphie’s suddenly-limp, clammy hold. “And I thought you broke up.”
Ralphie, half-petrified, shoots Sharon a nasty glare. “I— I never did say that, Taggie darling, did I? These things are complicated, you know. Takes some time to—”
He’s spluttering, face turning beet-red as Taggie puts the pieces together. “God, you really did just want to keep me on the back burner, didn’t you? And I can’t believe I fell for it again.”
She marches over to the prep sink and fishes a glass from the sudsy water, filling it from the tap. It isn’t champagne, and he’s not wearing his best suit, but it still feels terribly satisfying to dump the glass over Ralphie’s head like she should have at that party, all those weeks ago.
“I quit, by the way,” she adds as an afterthought, shoving the glass into Ralphie’s chest. “And maybe I’ll give Georgiana a ring, too.”
“Already on it!” Sharon says cheerily. “She’s spitting mad, Ralphie. Seems that she was under the impression you had a dentist appointment.”
She leaves the restaurant to the sound of Ralphie’s splutters, letting the door slam shut behind her with a decisive snap. The sun is shining brightly, and she doesn’t have a job, but it all seems rather insignificant when she checks her phone and sees a handful of texts from an unknown number.
Don’t know what happened with you and my dad (ew but fine) but he’s been miserable for days. Pls help
Also I left a pair of earrings at your flat if you decide to come snog my dad can you bring them
Oh this is Perdita MacLeod. AKA dad matchmaker apparently
And Taggie sits down on the sidewalk, mindless of the icy cold soaking through her pants, and calls Perdita.
She doesn’t hear anything at first besides a cacophony of voices and childish shrieks and screams. Then: “Taggie, is that you? Hold on a moment, it’s a bloody madhouse at my Mum’s--” a door slams shut, silence falling over the line. “Hi, Taggie. Nice to sort-of meet you. I’ll cut to the chase: you in love with my father, or do I need to have him committed?”
Taggie laughs a little tearily, wiping her cheeks with her palm. “Yeah, I am. I’d have liked to tell him first, but I think he already knows.”
Saying it out loud isn’t so scary, she finds. Not as scary as looking into Ralphie’s eyes and realizing she’s been making all the wrong choices. That the one time she’d found something good, she’d been too scared to take it with both hands. Making the leap, yes, but not trusting that someone would be there to catch her.
That that someone is Rupert, and he’d been trying to tell so that last night, but she’d been too afraid to listen.
“Perfect. If you find my earrings, can you bring them by? They— Mum, alright, alright. Yes, she’s the flat swap. I’ve got to go, Taggie. See you soon, I hope!”
And there’s only one thing left to do. Taggie calls an Uber, not looking back as the restaurant fades from view. She packs an optimistic weekend back and fishes Perdita’s earrings out from beneath the sofa (she doesn’t want to know how or why they ended up there) and looks around the flat once more before calling for Gertrude.
“Come on, my love, do you want to go see Rupert?”
Her ears perk up, tail wagging madly as she scrambles towards the door, like he might be waiting on the other side. Taggie only can hope he’s just as happy to see them again.
She should have rehearsed something on the drive in. Memorized a bit of poetry (it would have been shit; words get even more scrambled when she’s flustered) or recorded a speech on her phone. Bought a bunch of flowers, chocolates, something besides grip the wheel at ten and two and listen to the same Spotify playlist over and over again. Sad Girl Energy, it’s called, like she doesn’t have enough problems as it is.
Penscombe is just as she left it, with the addition of a massive snowman wearing a pair of fairy wings and a tiara in the front garden. The children should be at their grandparents house still, but nevertheless she prepares for the possibility of Rupert turning her away.
But when her car pulls into the drive and the front door slings open, Rupert’s face breaks into a smile that could blot out the sun. And she feels silly for even thinking it, because the expression he wears can only be described as relief.
She throws the car into park, fumbling with her seatbelt and nearly slipping on the icy pavement as she practically leaps out of the car. But Rupert’s there to catch her, because of course he is. Strong, steady arms encircling her own, a squeeze on her elbows as she regains her balance.
“I quit my job. I was miserable. I hate London, and working my ass off with nothing to show for it and— I like you, Rupert,” Taggie says all of this very quickly, barely pausing to draw in a deep breath. “So annoyingly, stupidly, much.”
“Took you long enough,” he says, a smirk tugging at his lips. She stands on her toes and kisses the corner of his mouth, just because she can. “And I’ve been thinking about what you said, about us not knowing each other. I don’t think that’s true, actually.”
“Oh?”
“I know your middle name is Maeve, after your grandmother. I know that besides her, your mother’s friend Lizzie is your favorite person in the world. I know that when you were seven you ate so many mince pies at Christmas that you were sick for three days. I know that your favorite color is green, and you think there’s some sort of magic in sunrises, and that you’re possibly the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met.”
She thinks he might go on. Keep listing out everything she’s ever told him, every wine-kissed confession and whispered secret, every story that no one else has cared to listen to.
“I don’t care,” she says, half-sobbing. At Rupert’s stifled laughter, she continues on, fingers threaded in his hair. “I mean, of course I care—that’s lovely—but we’ll have ages to learn that stuff. I know you didn’t ask, but just maybe— would you like to spend New Year’s with me?”
He waits for her to finish, tripping over her words and stumbling through half-coherent sentences. And then he takes her face in his hands like he did down at the stables, his eyes bright. “Yeah, angel, I would.”
He kisses her like he might never get the chance to again. Like she’s something holy in his hands, pushing her back against the car door and cupping her neck. On and on until her cheeks are warm and pink, traces of her tinted chapstick lingering at the corners of Rupert’s mouth.
“Oh, and I think I love you,” Taggie adds, pressing her forehead to Rupert’s. She breathes in the scent of him and nearly starts crying again; pine and smoke and home.
He huffs out a laugh, lips ghosting over her own before he pulls away, eyes on the distance roadway. “I think the children are home. If you want to make your escape, now’s the time to do it.”
Taggie turns, still enveloped in Rupert’s arms, and spots Tabitha and Marcus hanging half out of the backseat windows, waving wildly and beaming. “Taggie’s back! I told you so, Marcus!” Tabitha shrieks.
“No,” Taggie murmurs. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
