‘It’s not an effort. I have enjoyed our little expeditions.’
‘Have you?’
‘Why would you think otherwise?’
‘I can’t tell, sometimes, whether you really are enjoying something or simply acting as if you are. You’re very adept at it.’
He released her hand, taken aback by this. He knew that it had been an act that he put on every moment of the day, but it had become so easy for him to be with her that he didn’t have to think, most of the time, about how to behave. When he disappeared into himself as he did occasionally, Phoebe rarely remarked upon it, allowing him to pretend she hadn’t noticed. And then there were the moments when he became so caught up in the act that he fooled himself into thinking that what he was feeling was real. Wanting to kiss her. To touch her. To hold her. Imagining that her touch could bring him back to life.
It seemed to him that he paid for such foolishness with his nightmares which, though less frequent, had taken a new turning. His usual reaching dream had ceded precedence to another, more sinister scenario in which he wandered the corridors of some sort of hospital or asylum opening door after door on to empty rooms. He was as desperate in this nightmare as in his other dream to find something, as overwhelmed with grief and guilt when he awoke. And there was the same high-pitched wailing too, which jolted him awake when it stopped. He had always assumed that his reaching dream had something to do with his mind’s distorted memory of his accident, but this dream, which he’d had again last night, made no sense at all.
Phoebe folded up the stack of papers and wandered off to the window to gaze out at the rain-drenched street. She thought he was having another blank moment, Owen realised, and was giving him time to recover. He joined her at the window, where she was tracing the path of a particularly plump raindrop with her finger. She wore her hair in a simple knot on top of her head, her copper curls trailing down over her shoulder. Her gown of dark blue wool was trimmed with a ruffle of white lace leaving the long line of her nape exposed. She didn’t wear perfume, but smelled of lemon soap. Before his accident, he’d have put his arm around her waist and drawn her back against him. Her hair would have tickled his chin. Or he’d have buried his nose in the warm, soft skin of her nape, his hands sliding up from her waist to cup her breasts. She’d press the soft rump of her bottom against him, and she’d feel that he was hard, and then she’d twist around in his arms, her mouth curved into a sensual smile, and she’d kiss him.
Phoebe turned around, bumping into him, and Owen instinctively caught her.
‘I didn’t realise you were so close,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry.’
She smiled up at him, shaking her head. ‘What for?’
He made to let her go, but she caught his hand. ‘Do you ever take these off?’
Completely thrown, still half-caught up in their imagined embrace, he shook his head. ‘Only when I go to bed.’
‘Wouldn’t they benefit from a little air now and then?’
‘The scars are healed.’ He snatched his hand away.
‘Alexander, Eloise’s husband, calls her painfully observant, and she is, but it’s a trait we all three sisters have to a degree. We notice everything.’ She coloured. ‘I have no right to comment on your behaviour. You are coping admirably with something which would defeat most people, including me.’
‘Am I? By acting out a part?’
Phoebe sighed. ‘To be honest, I feel like a bit of a fraud myself. Maybe Estelle was right after all when she said that I should stick to cooking for friends and family. The last time in Paris—when we argued—that’s what she told me. She finds the idea of me cooking for complete strangers incomprehensible.’
‘She aspires to be a musician. Surely that involves playing for complete strangers?’
‘It’s not the same thing. That would be a performance, my cooking...’
‘Is also a sort of performance,’ Owen said, ‘with you taking the roles of both the conductor and the composer. Think of the entire meal as a symphony or an opera.’
‘With the amuse-bouche as the overture, and the dessert as the finale.’
‘And as many acts or courses in between as you care to compose. You are as much an artiste as your twin, Phoebe.’
‘You are very good at making me feel better. But Estelle is the genuinely talented one, I’m merely well practised.’
‘You are certainly well practised at denigrating yourself,’ Owen exclaimed, exasperated. ‘You readily admit that you were stifled by your sisters’ over-protectiveness. So much so, that you fled all the way to Paris.’
‘I did not say that!’
‘Not in so many words, but it’s what you did, Phoebe. Yet despite the fact that you don’t want to wear the label they’ve attached to you, you never question their rather humble opinion of your considerable talents.’
‘Every time we discuss my family, I feel as if you are undermining all I know about them.’
‘I am questioning your assumption that you were at the end of the queue when it came to handing out talent.’ Owen sighed. ‘All I want is for you to start believing in yourself. It pains me, how easily you fall prey to self-doubt.’
‘But it’s hardly surprising is it, after what Pascal said and did?’
‘If your family hadn’t already eroded your fragile confidence, it wouldn’t have been so easy for him. I know you won’t hear a bad word said about your sisters, especially not your twin, but please, Phoebe, just think about what I’ve said. You underestimate yourself. As to your restaurant—do you remember what I said, about taking a step at a time? Never mind what it will look like, who will frequent it or where it will be. Think about the most important element.’
‘The food?’
‘Precisely. What food do you want to cook? And in order to establish that, you need to know what ingredients are to hand, don’t you, what is available, what the quality is like?’
‘Yes. You’re right.’
‘Which means a visit to London’s markets is long overdue, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, but even I know it wouldn’t be proper for me to go myself. I suppose I could ask Murray?’
‘You could, I’m sure he’d be delighted to accompany you, but why not ask your husband instead?’
‘Owen!’ Phoebe’s eyes lit up, but almost immediately her smile faded. ‘No, it’s too much to ask.’
‘Then don’t ask. I shall offer. Would you like to accompany me to the fruit and vegetable market at Covent Garden early tomorrow morning?’
‘Truly? It will involve a good deal of walking about.’
‘I am sure I can manage.’
‘It’s true, I have noticed...’ She covered her mouth, her eyes wide. ‘Sorry.’
‘You may as well say it now.’
‘I have noticed that you seem to be in less pain of late, and you’re certainly walking much more freely. I was wondering if you had restarted the exercises your doctor prescribed?’
It was ridiculous to be flattered by this, but he was, and he had been working extremely hard, though he wasn’t yet prepared to admit it. ‘Not as such,’ Owen said, which was true. ‘So, tomorrow morning then?’
‘Will we take the carriage?’
It was a relatively short walk, no more than twenty minutes, half an hour at a saunter, but Owen wasn’t convinced he could manage that quite yet, not if he was going to be trailing around the market stalls too, so he nodded reluctantly.
‘Are you sure—that you want to go, I mean? I would much prefer you to accompany me than Murray.’
‘From you, that is a very great compliment.’
Phoebe laughed. ‘Why would I not prefer the company of my very attractive husband to his bluff and craggy Scots chef? I am not the only one who underestimates themselves.’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘Then
we will make it our business to bolster each other’s confidence.’ Her hand crept up to his cheek. Her fingers fluttered over it, caressing the line of his jaw, before she blushed and snatched her hand away. ‘Talking of Murray, I had better go and discuss the menus for the rest of the week with him. He is overly fond of spices. I’m surprised he has not tried to serve us porridge with chilli pepper.’
* * *
The door closed behind her, and Owen sat back down at the table, pouring himself a cup of cold coffee. His muscles ached from his gymnastics this morning, but it was the pleasant ache resulting from hard work, not over-taxed injuries, save for the dragging pain in his hip, and even that was easing. If only he’d thought to return to his own regime earlier in his recuperation. He took a sip of coffee, grimaced and put it to one side. He’d been following doctor’s orders not to take risks. Besides, he’d had no incentive to follow such a punishing schedule until Phoebe came back into his life. It was Phoebe who had inspired him, Phoebe who had, metaphorically, given him the much-needed kick up the backside.
And now his body was recovering in more ways than one. Desire had been absent from his life for so long, he had hardly recognised it when it had flared a minute ago. He allowed himself a moment of pure, sweet, unutterable relief, at this evidence that his accident had not wholly unmanned him. But it was short-lived, for there was no way in hell he could do anything about it. It was a sign that he was improving, physically, that was all, and really, he should have been expecting it. Phoebe was a very beautiful, extremely sensual woman. She had been the last woman he had found himself wanting, prior to his accident. It was no coincidence that she should be the first. After. What’s more, she found him attractive. She admitted it freely enough, though that was most likely because she knew—because he’d told her—that nothing could come of it.
And nothing could. Though he couldn’t quite bring himself to wish he was still numb, this new development was a poisoned chalice, for the only outcome could be frustration, where before there had been indifference. Owen peeled off his gloves, forcing himself to study the backs of his hands, the fretwork of scarring, the pale pink colour of the tenderest skin, the hard callouses where the worst blisters had been, the permanently swollen middle knuckle. Flexing his fingers, he reminded himself that he’d been lucky that the damage had not been more extensive. They were ugly, they looked to him like the hands of an old man, but it wasn’t vanity that kept them covered. It was fear.
He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, but it made a cold sweat break out on his back simply looking at his hands. Something too awful to bear lurked beyond the black wall of his memory, something that made him want to curl up on himself. Something terrible had happened and it had somehow been his fault. He could feel it building now, exactly the same feeling that he awoke with after his night sweats, an agony of grief and guilt.
He was attracted to his wife, but he dare not allow himself even the indulgence of imagining what it would be like to make love to her. Whatever had happened that day of his accident, his every instinct was to keep it walled up behind the emotional dam he had built. To let down his defences, even for the sweet delight of lovemaking, would be to release something that might make an emotional as well as a physical wreck of him.
He would not inflict that creature on Phoebe. Owen pulled his gloves back on. Phoebe was a naturally sensual woman, who probably had no idea of the effect she was having on him. Besides, he reminded himself, she wanted only one thing. Her restaurant. Her dream. He had married her in part to help her realise it. It would be madness to muddy those waters with anything more intimate. And despite his mental turmoil he was not, yet, barking mad.
Chapter Six
At just after five in the morning and in the pitch dark, Phoebe and Owen descended from their town coach on the edge of Covent Garden. Braziers lit up the market and surrounding streets. Housed in a new building, its neo-classical façade of columns and a balustraded second floor facing out on to the piazza, the market was already alive with traders and customers. Dray carts and their horses jostled for space to unload. Wooden crates tossed carelessly down were expertly caught and carted into the market by an endless stream of porters in leather aprons. Horses whinnied, wheels grated on the cobblestones, and men called out greetings, warnings and prices in a cacophony of sound that transported her back to the fresh-produce markets Phoebe had visited in France.
Putting her basket over her arm, she huddled close to Owen, intensely grateful for his presence, quite overwhelmed by the noise and the bustle. ‘It’s even bigger than I had imagined.’
‘There’s even more to it than you can see. It extends into the surrounding streets,’ Owen said, ‘or it used to. I don’t know how much of a difference this new building has made.’
‘You are familiar with the market, then?’
‘I’ve never bought so much as a potato, but I’ve walked home through it in the early hours many times.’
‘When one commercial enterprise is shutting up shop and the other opening?’ Phoebe said with an arch look. ‘I do know, Owen, what other kind of business goes on here. It’s like the Palais Royale in Paris.’ She swept her gaze around the piazza, imagining a very different type of business being transacted in the cloisters where flower sellers were setting up. ‘It even has the look of it, a little. In Paris, you know, courtesans—the more exclusive ones—are very much respected. The most famous of them dined at La Grande Taverne. Their presence was very good for business, for they set the fashion.’
‘I hope you’re not thinking of trying to attract London’s most famous courtesans to your restaurant?’
‘I wouldn’t know who to invite,’ Phoebe said, eyeing him speculatively. ‘Would you?’
‘It makes no difference, because it would be a sure-fire way of ensuring that you failed.’
‘But you said that scandal was good for business.’
‘Yes, but customers who don’t pay their bills are not and neither London’s most notorious courtesans nor their protectors are inclined to do that. They would expect you to be satisfied with the honour of their presence. Now, can we stop discussing Covent Garden ladies and focus on a different sort of fruit which is also ripe for the plucking?’
Phoebe giggled. ‘Yes, I think that would be wise.’
The market hall was enormous and brightly lit, with stalls occupying two storeys built around a huge central area. Phoebe was immediately entranced, her senses swimming with the smells, the colours and the bounty, her brain busy concocting ideas for every single ingredient. Boxes of seasonal greens were stacked high, each vendor vying for trade by calling out the quality and price. Everything, they claimed, was freshly picked that morning, though on closer inspection she could see that the freshest produce was on full display and artfully sprinkled with water to resemble dew, while underneath more wilted specimens lurked, ready to be passed off on the less discerning customers, or those with a smaller purse.
‘I will have to be careful when it comes to my own purchases,’ she said, pointing out this practice to Owen.
‘Once they learn that you are a regular customer and a good one, you’ll find them easier to deal with,’ he replied, frowning. ‘Though I’m not sure that it will be such a good idea for you to do the buying. Have you noticed, it’s nearly all men here?’
‘I expect the housewives come later, as the market winds down, looking for bargains.’
* * *
Phoebe pulled out a notebook and pencil, and began to scribble notes as her basket filled up with samples, muttering about prices, dishes, and comparing what she saw with what she knew of Paris. Owen watched her, delighted to see that her enthusiasm had been rekindled, but not quite so delighted at the notion of her transacting business here on a daily basis. No, she couldn’t possibly come herself. He already knew her too well to suggest that she delegate what she’d see as a vital task, so he would have to think of a strate
gy to ensure that she had an escort.
Adding this to the mental list of tasks he’d already assigned to himself, Owen listened with half an ear to his wife’s essay on the various merits of one variety of carrot over another, careful to keep an interested look on his face. Until he met Phoebe, he’d had no idea there were different varieties, let alone different colours—and though it was always a pleasure to see her enthuse, he had to admit to himself that there was a limit to his interest in this particular subject, and he had reached his at the mention of the rare Scarlet Horn and Long Orange.
As they reached the fruit market, Phoebe’s musings switched to desserts. She was dressed very simply in a long, enveloping cloak over a plain dress, but she had pushed back the hood in her excitement, and she wasn’t wearing a hat. As usual, she was utterly oblivious of the effect her beauty was having, bestowing her generous smile on every trader who offered her a sample from his stall, leaving a trail of dazzled vendors in her wake. They’d be vying for her business, he reckoned, charmed into selling her their best wares at their keenest prices.
‘I’m not much interested in flowers,’ she said, as they reached the end of the fruit market. ‘I think I’ve seen more than enough. My head is brimming with ideas. You’ve been very patient.’
‘It has been a pleasure,’ Owen said.
She chuckled. ‘Half the time you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, but it’s of no consequence since I’ll doubtless repeat myself endlessly over dinner tonight.’
‘Then if you’ve really had enough, we should be able to pick up a hackney cab in Henrietta Street. I didn’t ask our coachman to wait, since I didn’t know how long we’d be.’
‘And how long have we been here?’
Owen consulted his watch. ‘Longer than you think. It’s after seven. Time for breakfast.’
‘I’ve kept you on your feet for more than two hours. I am so sorry. Are you...?’
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