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“Don’t try Kellen. Do or do not. There is no try,” I say in a deep voice.
“Not Star Wars, still?” He flashes me a small smile.
I break into a massive grin and start to chuckle. He looks a bit dazed at that and shakes his head as if to clear it. I take the chance to say, “I know we’ve just come together again after a long time, but I want to work with you. For James. He told me this afternoon about what you told him. That you didn’t know.” He goes to open his mouth and I put my hands up to stop him. “I believe you didn’t know, but they did.”
He drops his head as my words register, and sighs, “My parents.”
I nod, knowing he needs to hear it all even if he says he believes me. “I went to the house in London with James, once when he was first born, and again when he was about four years old. You’d gone to university the first time and the second time you’d gotten married to the love of your life and your wife was pregnant.” My voice is getting thinner and thinner. “They threw us out, Kellen. Literally. I was thrown down the steps outside that fucking house and told not to come back. We were liars and what would they want with a bastard child? Your mother was vile. Wouldn’t even look at him the first time. The second time, he was so like you it was ridiculous. Your Dad stared the whole time. But I still got thrown out. Broke my arm. Jackson went with me that time, was waiting outside for me. I swear to god if he’d gotten hold of that doorman, he would have killed him.
“They told me not to go, the boys. But I ignored them. Thought if your family saw him they couldn’t refuse to acknowledge him. I didn’t want or need anything, and when I think about it now, I don’t even know why I went.”
I shake my head at him. “Your mother told me you knew, you always had. That you weren’t interested. You'd married the love of your life and you had a ‘proper’ family on the way. I vowed on that day I would never go back there again. You knew and you weren’t interested—I got the message loud and clear. I thought your mother might lie, but I didn’t think your Dad would have gone along with it. So, when he did, I believed them.”
I’m hanging onto my tears now, averting my eyes from Kellen in an attempt not to break down. I’m trying to be rational, but must be failing spectacularly because he pulls me towards him and wraps his arms around me.
“I didn’t know,” he says. “And I didn’t marry the love of my life. I don’t have a ‘proper’ family. I told James about my wife, and no doubt you already knew what happened to her. The fallout was all over the internet, or tabloids, take your pick. I never would have sent you away. I never would have turned my back on James. Ever. You know about the wife, the many women that came after, the relationships. What you don’t know though, Evie, is about the children.”
I start to pull away and he tightens his arms around me, moving his head even closer, so no one but me can hear him.
“When I was at university, I got a girl pregnant. Seems to be my go to.” I feel his regretful smile against my cheek. “She wasn’t my girlfriend, she was an early groupie of sorts. Used to follow us round the band circuits we played at university. She was a bit obsessed with me, and just before I finished university at twenty-one years old, she told me she was pregnant, it was mine, and what was I going to do about it.” His fingertips brush my hand, telegraphing his thoughts—t should have been me asking that. Not her. He looks down, then resumes talking.
“Obviously I was going to stick by her, her family were acquaintances of Dad’s. Well-to-do sorts. I’m sure you can imagine; Oxford is full of them. The band was just starting to blow up, and I didn’t want to leave it and go to work on the estate.”
“Or do the London circuit?” I query. He shakes his head again.
“I agreed to marry her if she stayed home in London and Yorkshire. I’d travel with the band, try and get that cracking. Everyone was happy with that, to a certain point, so I married her. Caroline.”
He pauses, closing his eyes.”Everything about that wedding was wrong. Wrong place—Yorkshire, wrong person—not you. All the way to that fucking church, all I saw was you. It was as if you were there telling me not to do it. I even thought I heard you shout my name. I actually looked around for you. Horrific.”
“You thought you were doing the right thing, standing by her.”
“I never should have been in that position. I should have been standing with you, and James, both of you, us, a family.”
I close my eyes. What can I say? I left. And the guilt is starting to eat away at me. He carries on. I can imagine now that’s started reliving it all he needs to see it through.
“Three weeks later, she miscarried. She was sixteen weeks pregnant. I was away with the band, stuck out in America. She was home with my mother. No explanations, no reason, unexplained. As you can imagine, we were all devastated.”
I tear up at his expression, putting myself in his position, knowing how a loss like that would affect you.
“Time went on and she didn’t want to travel with me, even though money or pregnancy were not an issue. I wanted us to try to build a marriage and a relationship, tried everything. But it became very clear we were not really that close. You might think it cold, but I married her because she was pregnant and it got me what I wanted—to be able to travel and pursue my music.” He stops to look at my face. “You’d have come with me. We could have been on the road with James. It would have been an adventure for you.” I cast a small smile at him, nodding. I would have gone everywhere with him. He sighs again, as if he can see us all on the road, and then goes on.
“I tried to make things work over the next year. She got pregnant again, got to about fifteen weeks, then miscarried. By now, both our mental states were trashed, but for different reasons. I didn’t see a point in going on. We weren’t compatible. And although I was upset about the baby, I wasn’t sure it would have helped our relationship had she given birth.”
He’s watching my face, likely waiting for a sign I’ve heard enough. Or maybe too much. When I say nothing, he asks, “Do you want me to go on? It’s not a nice tale.”
I nod at him, unsmiling, and lean in to gently kiss his cheek. “I saw some headlines, even though I was trying to avoid you.”
He closes his eyes, sinking back into the images his mind is conjuring up.
“She was desperate for us to carry on, desperate to have a baby with ‘Marcus Russell, up-and-coming singer’, to have a baby with ‘Viscount Hamilton’.” He sounds bitter at this point. I can hear his mother in the back of his mind. The Russell legacy must be upheld at any cost. Even his.
“I have no idea how, but four months after the last miscarriage, she was pregnant again. I was distraught. I lived each day waiting for a phone call to say my baby had died. I knew it was coming, Evie, I knew it. No one was listening to what I wanted. My family and hers started the merry go round of how wonderful, etc. I wanted to wait until twenty weeks to announce anything, but again, no one listened to me. Sixteen weeks, I got that dreaded call. She was in hospital and there was nothing they could do. I was numb. Everyone ran around Caroline, who was not faring well at all, as you can imagine. No one looked at me. No one saw how, after every call, I had died a bit along with those babies. No one in my family cared how I felt.”
He stops, his eyes totally dead now. “The day I buried my third baby, I decided there would be no more children for me. None. I would never father a child, clearly I couldn’t anyway. Or that’s what I thought. I would make it clear to her and our families, no kids.” He brushes the tears from my cheeks, leaning forwards and kissing them gently. “No tears, Evie. Let me finish, baby.”
I grab his hand and bring his fingers to my mouth. Gently kissing his fingertips, pulling him closer to me.
“I told Caroline there would be no more children. I couldn’t cope with the threat of miscarriage. I couldn’t handle another loss. I said I would carry on with the marriage in name only, and tried to make that work over time. But she continued to push for a full marriage. I knew our relationship was over, but both our families muscled in, added to the happily ever after charade. Ramping up the pressure on me to stop living my rock star lifestyle. But we were living separate lives. I was, in my view, a single man, with no family or ties.” He stops to take in a deep breath, his voice dropping to a growl.
