Dorran hadn’t returned. She knew he didn’t want her worrying about him, but ignoring the impulse was impossible.
She stepped back into the hallway, where the air felt still and stale. Dust particles floated around her, suspended like sediment in a soup. The house might have felt lively, even comforting, when it was full—but at that moment, it reminded her of an old animal lying in the snow as it gasped its last breaths. Wind and hail had torn its tiles off. The window frames would go next, rotted by water and age. The stones would be the last to crumble. But time was unforgiving. It would never stop eating away at the house, chipping it down, year by year, century by century, until it had erased it from existence.
An unseen door groaned as it moved in the wind. Clare pulled her jacket’s collar a little higher and hurried towards the stairs. If Dorran could withstand the bleakness that seeped out of the building’s walls, he was a more resilient person than she was.
She thought she remembered the way to the kitchen, but she became lost somehow and found herself in a parlour. Even swallowed by gloom, the room was dripping in opulence. Chairs, little tables, and brushed rugs had been arranged so perfectly that to disturb them felt borderline sacrilegious. Clare backed out of the room and tried again. A sliver of yellow light under a door gave her a clue, and she followed it through the empty hallway to the kitchen.
Dorran wasn’t there, but he’d lit the fire and put a pot on the stove. Another bunch of dried herbs had been taken down from the hook above the kitchen bench and left, half-chopped, on a board. A moist red sheet of paper told Clare he’d added frozen meat to the soup.
He’d used a candle to light the room, and shadows clung to the space. Clare moved slowly as she approached the pot. The stove had been left on a low heat, but the soup had already boiled and was splattering against its lid, so she turned it off. As the bubbling noise faded, she began to hear ragged breathing coming from the back of the room.
Clare moved towards the noise, slowly and cautiously. The breathing was interrupted by a quiet hiss, like air being sucked through clenched teeth. It came from behind a small wooden door set into the back wall, not far from the fireplace. The door had been left ajar. Clare swallowed then reached for it, her fingertips nudging the wood to slide it open.
Chapter Fifteen
The room was small and stacked with shelves, most of them empty. Dorran sat on a chair below the single lightbulb. His jackets and shirt were draped over the nearest shelf. He held a damp cloth, which was tinged with red. He shot Clare a tense glance then looked away.
Clare pressed a hand to her mouth. His back was a mottle of bruises. Angry reds mixed with dark purples, as though an artist had thrown fistfuls of paint across the canvas. Blood trickled from one of the marks below his shoulder blade, where the impact had broken the skin. She knew he’d taken the brunt of the hailstones, but she hadn’t expected the damage to be so bad.
Clare lowered her hand. Dorran wouldn’t meet her eyes. Bizarrely, she had the sense that he was ashamed.
“You should have said something,” she whispered.
“It’s fine.” He picked a dry towel off the shelf and slung it over his shoulders to hide the marks. “It is not as bad as it looks.”
“I don’t believe that.” The bowl of hot water beside him was stained pink. “Dorran, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he repeated. “I’ve had worse.”
Those words sent a chill running through Clare. She wrapped her arms around her chest and tried to swallow through the lump in her throat. “From your mother?”
His face twitched. He still wouldn’t look at her. “When I was a child. Not recently.”
She didn’t know what to say. His posture was tense, as though he were trying to shrink away from her. He didn’t want to be pitied. He didn’t want to be seen when he was vulnerable. But she couldn’t leave him.
“Here.” She stepped forwards and carefully touched his fingers to ease the wet cloth out of them. “I’ll help with the ones on your back where you can’t reach.”
“You don’t need to worry. I can look after myself.”
“I know. But you’ve done so much for me. Trust has to go both ways, doesn’t it?”
He finally met her eyes. It only lasted for a second before he turned away again, but the look was full of crushing loneliness and stifled longing. He stopped arguing. Clare’s heart ached for him as she rested against the nearest shelf and pulled the towel away from his back. She hated how angry the bruises looked. They had to hurt every time he moved. She dipped the cloth in the hot water and pressed it against one of the marks. He sucked in a sharp breath, and she pulled back. “Sorry!”
“It’s fine.” The tension was dissipating, and he actually laughed. “Don’t worry about hurting me. I just need to get them cleaned.”
She returned the cloth, moving more carefully this time. With a tentative dab followed by a soft press, Clare cleaned up the flecks of dried blood and grime from around the cuts.
While she worked, she glanced across the back of Dorran’s head. His dark hair was tousled, and clumps stuck together. She couldn’t tell if it was from melting snow or blood. “Did any hit your head?”
“No.”
She tried running her fingers across the back of his skull, but he flinched away. Clare bit her lip. “If you have a concussion—”
“I don’t. I promise you. The worst I have is bruising.”
She didn’t know if she could trust him to tell her the truth. He rested his arm on the shelf and tilted his head down while she worked lower on his back.
He’s not used to being looked after. His whole life has been spent trying to appear stronger than he actually is.
“Dorran…” She swallowed and flipped the cloth to a clean patch. “After this is over—after the snow melts, and we can get in touch with the outside world—I’d like you to come with me.”
His head lifted.
“I don’t have a large house. Nothing like this. But it’s big enough for two people to share. We’ve done all right here, just the two of us, haven’t we? So if you want to—if you wouldn’t mind—I hope you’ll come and stay with me.”
Her left hand rested on his shoulder, and she felt a shiver travel through him. He took a breath as though he were about to reply, but he didn’t speak. Clare waited. She wished she could see his face, but he resolutely—almost deliberately—faced away from her.
When he spoke, his voice was tight. “I am sorry. I cannot accept your offer.”
“Oh.” Embarrassed heat rushed over her face. “Right. Sorry. That was really presumptuous of me—”
He took a breath. “No. It’s not that. You…” He tilted his head back to stare at the wood ceiling, and after a moment, he continued in a steadier, calmer voice. “There is more at stake here than my wishes.”
Clare carefully moved to a new patch of raw skin. Her pulse felt like something alive, jumping through her veins. “What do you mean?”
“Every choice has consequences. Mine especially.”
She frowned. “Are you worried about your family looking for you? My house is rural. We can stay quiet. They can’t find you if they don’t know where to look.”
He turned and wrapped her hands in his. Drips of water ran from the cloth and trickled between their fingers. Even though his eyes looked sad, Dorran was smiling. “You care too much. I am grateful. But once the snow clears, you will leave, and I will stay. That is just the way it has to be.”