Page 29 of Tamed By a Passionate Lady
He knew, in that moment, that was where he wanted to live. That was where he needed to be. He would sell up entirely, and buy a house there. Leave the city and its awful memories far behind.
He loved Liverpool. He would always love it, but he could not live there anymore.
There was something else. Another reason he needed to leave. It wasn’t just the deaths of his mother and father. He had lost something else – someone else – and the loss was so great it felt like a constant, dull ache in his chest. But he simply could not remember who or what it was.
The man that had stood next to him in the church was standing next to him again. He had never answered his question about what he was going to do. But suddenly, the answer was crystal clear.
“I am leaving,” he said, in an anguished whisper. “I am leaving all of this far behind.”
The memory shifted and dissolved, once again. And now, he was somewhere far different.
***
He didn’t know how old he was. But as he gazed at the large house before him, he knew that it was home, as Liverpool never would be, again. A large house, along the coastline, in Lancashire.
It was a tall three story house, made of white sandstone, sitting on the top of a cliff. It had many wide windows at the front, from which you could gaze out at the ocean and the cliffs beyond. Surrounding the house was an expansive garden, filled with flowers, fruit trees, and herbs.
He breathed deeply, that salty, seaside air that he had always loved. If he lived here, he could be himself again. If he lived here, he could spend his days as he wanted to. His inheritance was more than enough to purchase the house and land, and live on comfortably, for the rest of his life.
For a moment, a stab of guilt consumed him. He had sold the family business outright, the manufacturing business that had been his father’s pride and joy. It had been necessary. He knew that he could no longer live in Liverpool, and if he had kept the business, he would have had to stay there to oversee it.
His brother Harold was well taken care of, and hadn’t wanted to join Townshend Industries anyway. With his share of the fortune he was going to university, in the south. He would go to Oxford, to study Latin, which had always been his passion. Their father, being a tough Northerner, had never understood his sons’ desires for learning, but then he had opened the genie’s bottle for them by sending them to their exclusive school, an opportunity he had never had himself.
He smiled, gazing at the house. It was perfect. More than perfect. It was so isolated that no one need bother him, ever again. Here, he could study his history books, and take long walks, bird watching. All by himself.
His heart tightened. He knew he was in danger of becoming a recluse, but he no longer cared. He would do anything to escape the memories that haunted him…
“What do you think?” asked a man, in a tall hat, coming up beside him.
He gazed at the estate agent, a man in his early fifties, with greying hair and a slight stoop. The man had driven him out here, from the local village, in his own carriage, to view the house.
“I think that it is perfect,” he replied.
They shook hands. The deal was made.
As they left, he looked back for one last glimpse of it. The tall white house, on the top of the cliff, gazing out at the ocean beyond, as if it were standing sentinel.
He had one last, guilty thought about his father and the lost business. It was his hard work that had given him this opportunity. The family business was gone now.
He took a deep breath. It did not matter. He would never marry, now, and he would have no sons to pass it onto anyway. His life was his, to pursue in any way that he wished.
He would be alone, but that was what he needed. That was what he wanted.
He could not remember why.
***
The memory shifted, dissolving, into nothing. And then, the blackness came back. The endless blackness, where there was nothing, and there was no one.
But suddenly, the voice that he had heard came back, wavering in and out. He still did not recognise the voice, and he could not understand a thing that it was saying. But he knew that it belonged to a woman.
She was speaking in a high, melodious tone, her pace quick, as if the words were rushing out of her mouth in a torrent.
He strained to understand, but he could not. The effort of it was exhausting.
Suddenly, like a bell clanging loudly, he heard something. Four distinct words, within the torrent.
Come back to me.
