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say I’m not entirely happy with the situation. A big press exposé might blow the whole thing apart and give me back my birthright.’
‘Birthright,’ I scoffed. ‘You’re such a little prince.’
‘Do you want this or not?’
‘I suppose so,’ I said, but I wasn’t sure. I wanted – needed – something that would get me off the Village Fete Desk, but this sounded risky and strange.
‘Right. Come into the estate office on Monday morning and we’ll discuss it further.’
‘Why not now?’
‘Are you wearing a wire?’
I burst out laughing.
‘Joss, this isn’t a spy drama! Wearing a wire! For God’s sake!’
He looked discomfited by my mirth, and knocked back his champagne cocktail until he fell into a coughing fit.
I took advantage of it to click off my mobile phone’s ‘Record’ setting in my handbag.
‘So, can you give me a clue?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘I’ll tell you on Monday.’ He paused, looking at me too intently for comfort. ‘You aren’t married or anything, are you?’
‘God forbid. You?’
He shook his head.
‘Came close, last year,’ he said. ‘Until she saw my bank statements and ran a mile.’
‘Oh, dear. Did she break your heart? What a shame.’
If there was more sarcasm than sympathy in my tone, I figured he’d understand.
He looked at me for a long time then, until the waiter came with our starters, forcing him to drop the eye contact. Just as well, because I was starting to feel giddy.
‘You still aren’t over it, are you?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘What happened between us. It still hurts you.’
‘No, it doesn’t. I don’t let it.’ I stabbed at a disc of mozzarella, sloshing it around in its basil jus.
‘If only life were that easy. Life and love. I half hoped you’d have met someone else, settled down, found happiness.’
‘Only half?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, and it was more a breath than a word, floating over the candle flame. ‘Only half.’
‘I did meet someone else. In Hungary. But it didn’t work out.’
He smiled then.
‘Tell me about Hungary. I’ve never been there.’
He had given me the floor and I took it, relieved to have control of a conversation that had almost lurched beyond the boundaries I had set myself. No talking about old times. No recriminations. Definitely no flirting.
He played the perfect gent for the rest of the evening and no more reference was made to our common past.
In the car park, he offered to walk me home, and I had to remind him that I didn’t live at the caravan site any more.
‘I’m in Tylney,’ I said. ‘I drove here tonight.’
‘Oh, is that why you didn’t drink?’
‘No. I didn’t drink because I wanted to keep my head.’
He looked slightly furtive at that, a little guilty.
‘Well, I’ll see you on Monday, at the office,’ he said. He leaned forwards, a little awkwardly, aiming for my cheek, but I dodged out of the way.
‘About nine?’
‘Perfect.’
He didn’t set off for the Hall immediately but watched me get into the car and drive away. I felt the burn of his eyes on me as I belted up and chose a CD to listen to.
Go away, I thought, but at the same time a treacherous second voice chanted, Come back to me.
‘I’ll tell you what, I didn’t realise how dirty posh boys are.’
Minna was full of her escapade at the Hall that next morning after we’d bumped into Joss at the Feathers.
‘Really?’ I said with a yawn, frowning at the wall my hairdrier was plugged into. The electricity kept cutting out and I had an idea that the way the socket was coming away from its moorings might not be helping.
‘God, yeah. Filthy, they are.’
I didn’t want to hear it. If she’d kissed Joss, or gone further with him, I didn’t want to know.
‘It’s all that repression, shut away at Eton. They go wild when they get a sniff of a woman, probably.’
‘Do you think so? Mmm, what a night. Three sexy boys and me in a four-poster bed.’ She was lying full-length on the sofa and she arched her back like a cat.
I had to know. I spat it out.
‘Was Joss one of them?’
‘No, Joss was boring. He went to bed, left us to it with a crate of beer and a multipack of condoms.’
‘And they say romance is dead.’ But my heart leaped up. Joss hadn’t touched Minna. Perhaps gangbanging just wasn’t his scene.
Or perhaps he was gay.
I shouldn’t care, either way.
‘Fuck this piece of shit,’ I fumed, throwing the hairdrier down and wrenching out the plug. ‘I’m going to see your aunt, get her to send the handyman over to fix this socket.’
It was going to be a hot day, the sun already high and so bright that I was a little dazzled as I climbed down the steps from the van.
It seemed like a holy vision, consequently, when Joss pitched up in front of me, illuminated from behind.
‘Am I hallucinating?’ I muttered, a little dismayed to be caught like this, barefoot in towelling shorts and a halter-neck top with my half-dried hair like wild rats’ tails down my back.
‘Lucy. I was just coming to see you,’ he said.
God, he looked like sex on a plate. Snake-hipped in blue jeans and a check shirt, unbuttoned far enough to give a glimpse of dark chest hair.
‘Why?’
He was carrying a small antique-looking book with a tooled leather cover, and he held this out to me.
‘I wanted to give you this. As a token of apology and … perhaps friendship?’
His eyes would put a doe’s to shame and his perfect lips were wet and a little pouty. He was stupidly beautiful. It was ridiculous. Why the hell would he care what I thought of him?
I took the book – Wordsworth’s Lucy poems.
Fuck it. I was doomed.
‘Will you come for a walk with me?’ he asked.
‘You aren’t hung over then?’
‘No, I left them to it. Wanted to keep a clear head so I could come down here and see you …’ He smiled, a little self-consciously, his eyes peering out from lowered lids.
‘Right. That’s … weird.’
‘Is it?’
I nodded.
‘Well, perhaps