Fifty Words for Rain(94)

She shrugged. “A bit of both.”

He lifted her chin so that she was forced to look into his eyes. His touch was familiar and, this time, nonthreatening. He wasn’t the giant he’d once been to her.

“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered. “If you allow me . . . I will keep you safe. I loved Akira like a brother. I loved you too, even if I was—” He broke off. “You were right about me. I was jealous, I was fatally jealous. I wanted your light. I wanted your adoration, I wanted you and I didn’t know how else to . . . I’m sorry, Nori.”

Against all odds, she felt a rising sympathy for him—the only person who had known Akira as she had, regardless of what else he was.

“There’s no need for this,” she told him gently. “It’s okay.”

“So it can be just as it was,” he demanded. “But better.”

She shook her head, a sad smile tugging at her lips. “It can never be as it was, William. I’m not the same girl.”

He lifted her up and spun her around.

“I’ll fix you. I love you.”

She felt the tears come. They were rare now, and they came from a place inside her she thought had already died long ago.

“Oh, William. You can’t.”

He kissed her tearstained cheeks, then her nose, then her lips. The last one set her teeth on edge.

“Watch me.”

“Will, stop.”

“Marry me. Be mine.”

And there it was.

She felt, as if it were fresh, the pain of a night in another garden, a world away, a lifetime ago. She pulled away.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Nonsense,” he scoffed. “Of course you can. I don’t care what anyone says, my family can all be damned. And we know Alice will support us—once she gets over the shock.”

“That’s not why.”

He drew back to look at her. “Then why, little love?”

“I . . .”

“Don’t you care for me?”

She closed her eyes. “I did. Once. But, Will, I already told you before—”

“Hush. We just need to get accustomed to each other again. So marry me.”

“I will never marry,” she said quietly. “I will never have children.”

He accepted this without a fight. “Fine, then. Convention be damned as well. Just stay with me.”

Nori took a deep breath. “Will. I don’t want you. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to keep opening this wound. Please leave me alone.”

Will staggered backwards. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m asking you nicely. If you don’t, I’ll tell Alice the truth.”

He glowered at her. “Tell her what? That you threw yourself at me? Shamelessly sneaking into the music room at night to see me? That you paraded yourself in front of me like those whores in your brothel?”

She didn’t shrink before his anger.

“I was an innocent,” she said, very low. “And I wanted someone like you—someone like I thought you were—to love me. And you twisted it. You can’t twist it now. I’m not weak anymore.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Don’t belittle me,” she hissed at him. “The scales fell from my eyes long ago.”

He switched tactics. She could see it now—the very moment that he decided to be charming.

“Ah, love. Let’s not fight.”

“We aren’t fighting,” she said clearly. “You’re leaving.”

His eyes went cold, though he was still smiling. “Why did you come to see me, then? In Paris? If you wanted nothing from me?”

She hesitated, and he pounced.

“Just give me a chance to make you happy,” he insisted. “Can’t you do that? For old times’ sake, for him, can’t you do that? He would have wanted you to be happy.”

He took her hands and pulled her close. “Nori?”

“I want to be happy,” she managed. Her heart was pounding.

“So stay with me.”

She shook her head. “Will, there’s nothing you can say to change my mind. This isn’t a negotiation, or a game you can find a way to win. This is no.”

He looked dumbfounded. He took a step towards her, and she took a step back.

“Nori?” he said again, in that pitiful way that let her know that beneath it all, there was a spoiled child who couldn’t bear to be refused. “Nori?”

She drew herself up to her full height. “Goodbye, Will.”

He didn’t say anything. He just lowered his head and walked away.



Bath, England

August 1964

Alice’s belly was curved like a fat cauldron as she neared full term. Nori helped her friend as much as she could now, as Alice was tired most of the time. She spent most of the day sleeping.

The summer estate in Bath was large and beautiful, having been mostly unchanged since the sixteenth century. It sat on a large patch of land bordering a clear lake.

Nori felt more at home here than she did in bustling London.

Escaping the city had been a good decision for them all. George had been unable to come but sent little gifts and tokens for his wife and daughters every week.