Read Chapter 31: The Truth is Softly Spoken

The rain had eased by the time Imogen reached the boathouse, but the sea was still grey and restless, chewing at the rocks below. She found Toby on the upper deck, sitting on an upturned crate, a mug of coffee cooling in his hands. The childhood photograph lay on the boards beside him, face-up, two sandy-haired figures grinning at a camera neither of them could remember.

“You’re up early,” she said, stepping over the threshold. The wood creaked under her boots. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

Toby shook his head. “Haven’t really tried. There’s too much in my head.” He gestured at the photo. “I found this in her bedside drawer. She’d kept it under a stack of hymn books. I didn’t even know she had it.”

Imogen sat on the crate beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. “I remember that day. The church fete. You dared me to climb the oak by the lychgate and I got my dress caught on a branch.”

“And I had to climb up and unpick it while Mrs. Penhaligon shouted at us both.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “You cried, but only after you got down. Never in front of anyone.”

“I was always good at that.” She looked at her hands. “Hiding what I felt.”

The smile faded. Toby turned the mug in his hands, studying the steam. “Immy, can I ask you something? And I want you to answer honestly, not because you think it’s what I need to hear.”

“I don’t do that anymore.”

“Good.” He set the mug down. “When we were kids—when you used to come over to our house, or when we’d walk home from school together—what did you think of us? Me, Mum, Dad, the whole noisy mess of it?”

Imogen’s throat tightened. She’d spent years building walls around that question, and he’d just knocked on the door. “I was jealous,” she said quietly. “Not in a mean way. I just—I used to watch you from my bedroom window. Your house had lights on in every room. There was always someone laughing, or arguing, or cooking. The radio playing. Doors slamming. It felt… alive.” She paused. “My house was quiet. My parents were quiet. The inn was quiet. I thought that was just how things were. Until I saw your family and realised that some people got to live in colour.”

Toby didn’t speak for a long moment. When he did, his voice was rough. “I used to look up at your window too. You’d be there, reading or drawing, and I’d think—she’s so far away. Like she’s on a different planet and I’m just down here hoping she’ll look at me.”

“I always looked at you.” The words came out before she could stop them. “I just thought you didn’t see me.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a worn leather wallet, cracked at the seams. His fingers moved to a hidden compartment at the back, and he slid out a folded piece of paper, creased and softened from years of handling.

“I’ve carried this since I was eleven,” he said, opening it carefully.

Imogen took it with trembling hands. It was a drawing—a child’s drawing, all wobbly lines and too-bright colours. A crude house with a red roof, a stick figure boy standing outside, and a smiling sun in the corner. In the bottom right, written in unsteady pencil: *For Toby, from Immy. A house with a big door so you always have somewhere to come in.*

She stared at it until her vision blurred. “You kept this? All this time?”

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever carried with me through every move. Every flat. Every dark day.” He laughed, soft and self-deprecating. “When I got the call about Mum, I drove down from London with this still in my pocket. I didn’t even realise. It’s like I don’t know how to be anywhere without it.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. “I drew that the summer before my parents took me away. I was so angry at them for leaving Cornwall that I forgot I’d ever made it.” She traced the shaky lines. “Do you know what I remember about that day? You gave me a biscuit from your pocket and told me it was a magic biscuit, and if I ate it I’d never cry again.”

“Did it work?”

“No. I cried anyway. But I kept the wrapper for years.” She smiled through the tears. “It was just a biscuit. But you made it feel like a promise.”

Toby shifted on his crate, turning to face her fully. The grey light off the water caught the lines around his eyes, the new weariness his mother’s death had carved there. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said slowly, “about what comes next. For me, for you, for both of us.” He paused, his thumb tracing circles on her knuckles. “I’m not very good at romantic gestures. You know that. I once tried to write you a poem when we were sixteen and it was so bad I buried it in the garden.”

“I found it,” she said. “Two years later, when I was digging up potatoes with Gran. It was about a lighthouse and a shipwreck.”

“God, you were always going to find it.” He shook his head. “So I’m not going to make a speech. I’m just going to ask you something.” He looked at her, steady and unblinking. “Will you stay? Not for the summer. Not until the money runs out. Stay. With me. At the inn. Build something here that neither of us has ever had.”

Imogen’s breath caught. The words hung in the air between them, as real and solid as the wood beneath her feet. And yet.

“Toby, I—” She pulled her hand back gently. “I want to. A part of me has wanted to since I got off the train that first day. But I can’t just decide on a feeling. I’m an architect. I plan. I measure. I check the load-bearing walls.” She laughed, hollow. “I watched my parents drift apart because neither of them had a plan. I won’t do that to us.”

His face flickered, hurt and understanding fighting for purchase. “I’m not asking for forever tonight. I’m asking for a chance. A real one. Not stolen moments between repair work and buried letters.”

“I know. And I want that chance.” She pressed her palm to her chest. “But I need something concrete. A timeline. A future I can see on paper. I need to know what we’re building before I can commit to living in it.”

Toby was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. “All right. Then let me give you something concrete.” He stood, stepping to the edge of the deck, looking out at the churning water. “The boathouse. I’ve been drafting plans for a restaurant—small, seasonal, using local catch. It would take a year to build out, maybe two to break even. But it would be mine. Ours, if you want to be part of it.” He turned back. “That’s the plan. That’s the future I’m asking you to consider. Not a fairy tale. Just a solid foundation.”

Imogen looked past him, at the inn visible on the cliff between the rain-swollen clouds. Its windows were dark, but she knew every room—the one where Morna had hidden her secrets, the attic where Dorothea’s letters waited, the kitchen where Mary had wept with joy. She had come here to sell it. To run. To escape.

“I don’t know if I can,” she said softly. “But I’m not saying no.”

Toby’s shoulders loosened. “That’s more than I had this morning.” He picked up the childhood photograph and held it out to her. “Why don’t you keep this? For now. Consider it a first draft of the plan.”

She took it. The paper was warm from his hand. She looked at the two children in the frame—so certain of each other, so unaware of everything waiting for them. She didn’t recognise that girl anymore. But she wanted to.

“Toby,” she said, as he turned to gather his mug, “what happened between your mother and mine? Why did our families stop speaking?”

He froze. “I don’t know. Mum never said.” A shadow crossed his face. “But she kept that photo for a reason. And your grandmother kept her secrets for a reason.” He looked at her, and something shifted in his gaze. “Maybe it’s time we found out why.”