Wild Rose. – Chapter 10

Chapter 10 — Boundaries Broken

Morning light slanted through the kitchen blinds, catching on the papers she had spread across the table. Rose sat cross-legged in her chair, hair still wild from sleep, a mug of tea cooling beside her. The chest was open again, its contents carefully ordered in neat little piles, though her heart gave a thud every time her eyes landed on the map.

Five acres. Not one. Not a strip. Five.

The deed was clear as day, even if the ink had faded to the colour of old bruises. The orchard, the strip beyond, and the rolling patch of pasture where Bledwynn’s sheep had been happily chewing their cud — all marked as belonging to the farm. Her farm now. The codicil at the back made it plainer still: land to pass to Edmond on his twenty-fifth birthday. But Edmond had been taken, given a new name, a new family. The birthday had come and gone without a whisper.

Her hand pressed flat to the paper. “Well,” she said to the empty kitchen, “that’s going to rattle the chapel bake sale.”

Later, in the shop, she felt it. The air thickening around her, voices cutting off too soon. Bledwynn’s cousin at the till gave her exact change without a smile. Elsie’s sister made a point of rearranging the apple stand while Rose passed, head bowed as though apples might leap into sin at any moment. Rose walked out with bread, milk, and a certainty: word was already moving faster than her footsteps.

Back at the farm she stacked the groceries, muttering at the kettle to hurry. She had just settled when tyres crunched up the lane. For a beat her stomach clenched — Bledwynn himself, pitchfork in hand? She peered through the curtain.

Not Bledwynn. Tom.

The Waitrose man with the eyes like mischief under restraint, climbing from his car with a carrier bag dangling as if he were delivering treasure. He saw her in the window and lifted the bag in salute.

“I thought you might be running low,” he called as she opened the door. “Brought biscuits. Proper ones, not the cardboard you get here.”

Rose laughed before she meant to. “You do realise you’re bribing a woman with digestive biscuits?”

“Not just digestives.” He leaned closer, lowered his voice as if confessing a sin. “Chocolate Hobnobs.”

It was ridiculous, and it was perfect. She let him in. They made tea, they talked — about nothing, about everything, about how small villages swallow secrets whole. His hand brushed hers when he passed the sugar. The air seemed to thrum.

By the time evening had deepened to violet, they were outside, the orchard casting long shadows. The bonnet of her old car sat cool beneath them, metal humming faintly from the day’s sun. He kissed her once, softly, as though asking. Then again, as though answering.

The third kiss scattered the rest.

Rose clutched at his shirt, breathless, amazed by the flood rising through her — not dutiful, not tired, not routine. This was hunger met with hunger. She had half a thought to protest that she was too old, too sore, too something, but the thought broke apart when his hand slid along her hip and she arched to meet him.

They made love there in the orchard, against the bonnet, the ash tree rattling in approval or warning, she didn’t care which. Her laughter startled her as much as her moan — laughter at the sheer wildness of it, of her, of this body that remembered joy like it had only been waiting for permission.

After, she lay with her head on his shoulder, the bonnet still warm beneath them, breath mingling in the night air. She could see the farmhouse window glowing faintly, the papers spread inside like a second kind of proof. Proof of land. Proof of love once hidden. Proof, too, that her life was not over but beginning again.

Tom kissed her temple. “You look astonished.”

“I am,” she admitted, voice low. “I didn’t know I could feel this wonderful again.”

The orchard hushed around them, the ash settling back into silence. Rose smiled, small and fierce, and closed her eyes.