by Pippa Croft
‘When’s Emma going back to school?’ I ask as he butters another piece of toast.
‘Tomorrow. She has to get back into her work for her exams. She’s missed too much already but she’s bright. Too bright …’ He smiles. ‘I hope she can settle down for the rest of this term and there’s no more drama. I don’t think I can handle running to and from the school on top of everything else, and Emma needs some peace and quiet, if that’s possible.’
I smile, but mentally I’m crossing my fingers, hoping that Henry Favell will keep away from Emma while she’s at school. I wish she hadn’t told me she was seeing him again. It’s something I really don’t want to deal with.
‘More toast before I eat the lot?’ He pushes the rack towards me.
‘No thanks.’ My appetite is sated and anyway, the pangs of guilt are stirring again at my promise to Emma.
‘Alexander?’
He dollops marmalade on his toast and looks at me with mock seriousness. ‘Yes, Lauren?’
‘Do you really think Emma will be OK when she goes back to school?’
‘I don’t know, but the staff are going to keep a close eye on her and she has to get her head down again sooner or later.’ I sip my tea as he spreads the marmalade and goes on. ‘Thanks for being there for the funeral. You’ve made quite an impression on her.’
‘Really? I didn’t do anything.’
‘You listened to her, which is everything. She really needed someone from outside the family to talk to.’
I force another smile and drink my tea while he demolishes the toast in a few bites. When he’s finished, he sits back, with a sigh of relief. He looks, if not happy, then at least calm. I decide not to add to his worries by telling him about Emma, but to respect her privacy and hope things will settle down.
‘Are you OK?’
He rests his hand on mine.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Just thinking about all the work I have to catch up on.’
‘That’s my fault.’ He rubs his thumb over the top of my hand and then his expression darkens. He pushes the edge of my sweater further up my wrist.
‘What’s this?’
The bluey tinge of a bruise is clearly visible.
‘It’s nothing.’
‘You didn’t have those marks last night.’ His voice is hard.
I put my hand in my lap, lost for words because it’s pointless to lie to him.
‘Did I do it?’ he snaps.
‘Let’s just say I didn’t tie myself up for a bit of nocturnal fun!’
‘Oh Christ.’ His voice is low now, edged with something like panic.
‘You didn’t know you were doing it.’
‘That’s no excuse,’ he says quietly. ‘Has it happened before?’
‘The nightmares or you lashing out?’
‘Both.’
I take a deep mental breath. ‘You’ve had the dreams a couple of times while you’ve been sleeping with me, but I think you know that. Things have gotten pretty animated but nothing as rough as last night. I just happen not to have got in the way before.’
The silence seems to stretch on and on before he murmurs, ‘What did I do?’
‘I was standing by your bed, looking at your watch, and you grabbed my wrist and cried out. You kept saying you were sorry and it wasn’t your fault but you wouldn’t let go for a while.’
His fingers move to the strap of his watch as I speak and from the look on his face, there’s a battle raging inside his mind.
I touch his arm. ‘Hey, I’m fine and you could cut yourself some slack after what you’ve gone through the past couple of weeks …’
‘Once again, I can only apologize. It won’t happen again,’ he says in a voice that’s turned so icily polite, you’d think I was someone he’d accidentally bumped into on the pavement. ‘Come on, let’s get you back to Oxford,’ he says abruptly. ‘I’ve taken up far too much of your time already. I’m keeping you from your work.’
‘You are but I don’t have to leave right this minute!’
He snaps to attention so fast you’d think his commanding officer just entered the room. ‘You’ve been put to enough trouble. I’ll get Robert to have the car sent round while you pack.’
Chapter Six
I’ve spent the past few days since I’ve been back at Wyckham in my room or the library trying to catch up with the work I’ve missed. Falconbury seems like another country and another age. Alexander disappeared off somewhere while I packed but finally turned up to carry my bags downstairs. He tried to joke about how little stuff I had this time and I went along with the charade, teasing him about being strong enough to manage my vanity case. Inside, however, I had very mixed feelings about the abrupt way in which he’d brushed off my sympathy and practically bundled me out of the house, even though I knew I absolutely had to get back to college.
He saw me off with a brief kiss and a promise to call me, before General Hunt’s Bentley – Alexander’s Bentley now, I guess – whisked me down the drive and back to college. Was I disappointed that Alexander didn’t drive me back to Wyckham himself? Not really; he has a lot to do and I can understand that. Was I upset that he slapped down my attempt to play nicely? Actually, numbness had become my main feeling by the time the car purred up to the Lodge. It’s probably self-preservation because the truth is I do need to try to focus on my work and make the most of a term that’s already whizzing by – in no time I’ll be halfway through my time at Oxford and there’s still so much I want to do and experience.
It troubles me, too, that I’ve become embroiled in Alexander’s life again against all my better judgement and that all our old issues are still there, lying like rocks beneath the surface.
It’s Thursday morning now, and I’ve just staggered out of a bruising tutorial with Professor Rafe, during which he picked apart my vacation essay like Kay Scarpetta dissecting a corpse, looking for evidence of my intellectual shortcomings.
Immy is sheltering from the rain under the porch outside the JCR when I dash down the steps after my tute, hoping to avoid another chilly deluge. She pulls a face when I skitter under the porch.
‘My God, you look like you’ve seen a zombie.’
‘It’s worse than that. I just finished my tute with Rafe and now I feel like my brain has been taken apart.’
‘Did he keep his hands to himself?’
‘Yes, but he said something about being “extra hard on me now I’d found my feet”. I don’t think it was a euphemism.’
Immy screws up her face. ‘Eww. He’s such a perv. Did you see he’d made the paper this week? Cherwell’s “Hot Don” of the month.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘Nope. I don’t know what some of the undergrads see in him.’
‘Top grades?’
‘That’s mean, Lauren, and I thought you were such a nice girl.’ She laughs.
‘I’ve never been a nice girl.’ And I’m definitely not one now, I think, not since fate threw Alexander Hunt into my path. Not that I fought very hard to avoid him, not hard enough anyway …
She grins. ‘Glad to hear it. Now that’s over, shall we get out of this place? If you don’t tell me the latest between you and Alexander, I think my brain will explode.’
‘Do I have any choice?’
‘None whatsoever.’
I laugh and as it’s nearly lunchtime, we head out of the Lodge into the real world. The quads of Wyckham insulate you from the rest of the world, and while Oxford is hardly the metropolis, the buzz of the traffic and bustle of its streets, even in January, always strikes me after the cocooned hush of the college. Sometimes, that timeless charm can be soothing, but it can also be claustrophobic.
I button up my funnel-neck jacket and we scoot down New College Lane to the High. A few minutes later, the heat from dozens of bodies hits us from the inside of an ancient cafe on the corner of Queen’s Lane. There’s one tiny table vacant, wedged into a corner.
‘Get that,’ she barks above the din of c
hatter. ‘I’ll see if they have anything organic and innocent for you.’
There’s no time to shoot back a riposte because a couple of rugby players have opened the door behind me and are eyeing up the table. The smell of the Turkish coffee is incredible but I’ve maxed out on caffeine over the past few days to keep me going through my essay crisis. Immy returns from the counter with a satisfied smile on her face and shortly after the wait staff bring a couple of hot spiced-apple drinks that have my nose twitching in delight.
‘So, it’s all on again?’
‘Oh hell, I don’t know what I’ve got myself into,’ I sigh.
Thinking back to the way I was bundled out of Falconbury, I’m even less sure what we are up to, though I have had a couple of texts.
She shakes her head. ‘Well, never mind the whole flowers and roses thing; have you at least shagged him again?’
My face heats up and it’s not the steam from the spiced apple.
She laughs. ‘I’ll take that as a yes. I told you you’d miss the sex and I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the onslaught for long but I never dreamed it would take something like this to get you two back together. Poor Alexander; whatever I think of him, he’s had a horrible time.’
‘He needed some comfort. What’s a girl to do?’ I try to make light of a horribly difficult situation.
Immy follows my lead. ‘Best therapy there is,’ she says with a grin, before getting back to business. ‘Was the funeral horrendous?’ she asks, screwing up her nose.
‘Are they ever anything else when someone dies pretty young? The general was only in his early fifties.’
‘I must admit the Hunts have had a crap time.’ She quotes Oscar Wilde: ‘ “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness.” ’
‘I know, and Alexander is poor old Emma’s guardian now.’
She winces. ‘Poor both of them – he’s only twenty-five. What a responsibility.’
‘I know and she’s going to be quite something to handle I think! I do like her but Alexander seems to think I can be some kind of big sister to her and I don’t have the qualifications or the experience, and I’m just not sure I want to get tangled up in all of this just now. I’m not sure it’ll do any of us any favours in the long run.’
‘Oh God, don’t ask me for any tips. George and I used to fight like cat and dog and although I love him to pieces, we only get on better now because we’re not in the same county most of the time. I know Emma can be a handful; George went to the same prep school and they’ve still got a few friends in common. It’s not going to be an easy time for either of them.’
‘She’s hard to fathom out. Half the time she acts like a little girl and the other half, it’s like dealing with some kind of teenage Machiavelli. Tell me what I did to deserve running into the Hunts.’ Make that literally running into one of them. My senses stir into life at the memory of my first encounter with Alexander in the cloisters. He was arrogant, magnificent, maddening … ‘Arghh!’ I drag myself back to the present and remember something I meant to ask Immy.
‘Immy … do you know a guy called Henry Favell?’
‘Henry? Yes, I know him. He went to Eton with Alexander. He wasn’t at the funeral, was he? I didn’t think Alexander and he got on.’
‘That’s the impression I got at the hunt ball, and he wasn’t at the funeral, but I’m pretty sure his parents were. However, I think he gets on just fine with Emma. According to her, they’re seeing each other.’
Her eyes widen. ‘You’re joking? He’s got to be about ten years older than her. Does Alexander know?’
‘No. Henry had started to see Emma last summer but Alexander found out and got Rupert to warn him off. After the funeral, Emma decided to go all confessional and told me she’s started seeing him again. She says she’s in love with him.’
‘Oh. My. God. Poor deluded girl. Are you going to tell Alexander?’
‘No. Or … maybe. I decided not to for now, but I don’t know what to do. Emma made me swear not to say anything but I know Alexander will go postal if he finds out I knew and kept it to myself. I’m not entirely sure that Emma won’t tell him herself and drop me in it. What do you think?’ I ask, agonized.
‘Do you want me to make sure he hears by other means?’
‘Jeez, no!’
‘It would get you off the hook.’
‘But Emma would be devastated and probably blame me. I’m really not sure who else she’s told except me.’
‘OK.’ She makes a zipping motion. ‘These are sealed, but what a pain for you. When’s Alexander coming back to college? He must have so much to do.’
‘I’m not sure. I think he’ll be back this weekend but I have no idea what will happen long term. He’s trying to do some work at home but he’s got the lawyers to deal with and a lot of stuff to sort out relating to the running of the estate. I’m not totally sure he’ll finish his master’s.’
‘Really? That’s tough,’ Immy says with a sigh. ‘What about the army?’
‘He thinks he might have to leave that too,’ I say, miserably.
‘Oh dear.’ Immy’s face falls as she sees my own. ‘Although that may not be a bad thing, you know …’ she adds softly.
‘In his book, it’s the end of the world.’
‘Poor Alexander, but where does this leave the two of you?’
I shrug. ‘God knows. I know I should get right out of this for my own sanity, but I’m not sure it’s going to be as easy as that.’
She shakes her head. ‘He asked you to go to his father’s funeral. I’d say you were right about that.’
We make small talk while the waiter arrives with a BLT for Immy and a Moroccan chicken salad for me. Afterwards, I tell Immy more about the wake and we talk about Immy’s boyfriend Skandar and some of our plans for the coming term. Immy’s determined to get her head down for her Geography Finals (I’ve heard that one before) and I’ve decided to sign up for a new term of contemporary dance classes. By the time lunch is over, I have to admit I’m feeling more relaxed than I have for ages, maybe even since the middle few weeks of last term, when Alexander and I first started seeing each other. I feel the familiar kick of desire for him as we pull on our coats and walk out of the door into the High.
‘Can I just pop into Ghost before we go home? I’ve seen a gorgeous dress in the sale.’ Immy’s voice is wheedling and there’s no way I’m going to pass up the opportunity to shop. There are some cute and quirky fashion stores along the High.
‘However, before we do shop, I need to pop into the OUP first to pick up a textbook I ordered,’ she grimaces.
‘Sure. That’s fine. I’ll take a look in the new accessories boutique that opened last term.’
So we cross the road and while Immy goes into the bookstore, I wait outside on the pretext of browsing in the shop’s window display. The truth is my attention has been claimed by the people coming and going through the Lodge of St Nicholas’s College, aka St Nick’s, which is only a few yards away. St Nick’s is Scott’s college and he’s studying for a master’s in Water Policy there, when he can spare the time from his rowing. He’s hoping to make it into the final eight of the Boat Race crew. He lives in Washington and is a cousin of my ex, Todd. Half expecting to see him emerge from the St Nick’s Lodge, I feel a pang of guilt. I didn’t return his call while I was in Washington and wrote him a card promising to be in touch when I got back to Oxford.
My feet seem to take me towards the Lodge, while I debate whether I should do the old-fashioned thing and drop a note in his pigeonhole. He was so lovely to me after I ran away from Falconbury the morning after the hunt ball. He found me wandering the meadows, not knowing what to do with myself, while I waited for the car to take me to Heathrow. I can’t forget how kind he was, how warm and safe being in his arms felt … and to my surprise, I can’t quite forget that kiss either. It wasn’t quite as intoxicating as my kisses with Alexander, but I know that my life would be eas
ier with a man like Scott, that’s for sure.
‘Lauren?’
‘Immy. Sorry.’
‘I thought you were going to take a look inside that new boutique or has St Nick’s opened a Kate Spade franchise?’
Immy has found me lolling outside St Nick’s. ‘I decided to pop a note in someone’s pigeonhole.’
‘Does this have anything to do with the mystery man?’
‘Might do.’
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea, running with the hare and the hounds, as they say.’
The hunting allusion is so apt, and Immy knows it, that we both laugh. ‘If there really was anything going on between me and Scott, then it would be dangerous, but he’s a good friend – a very good friend – and he was kind to me when I needed someone. I owe him.’
‘Never a good position to be in,’ she says wryly.
‘I know … but … let’s just pop inside and I’ll send him a quick note.’ It feels a more personal means of contact but also less furtive than a text or email. I pull myself up. ‘There’s nothing going on and anyway, I won’t allow Alexander to control my life and who I want to see. I’m not some naive ingénue. Come on.’
So I march determinedly into the Lodge with Immy in tow. The more I think about it, the more I feel I want to and should keep up my friendship with Scott. He made me laugh when Alexander made me cry, and I’m not one of those girls in books who lets some alpha guy dictate their life choices. No man is ever going to do that. No matter how amazing he makes me feel in bed, or how many butterflies he stirs every time I see him, or how dangerous and exciting every moment with him is.
‘Got a pen?’