I watched him leave, waved to him as he disappeared through the flying gravel, the haze of the mellow afternoon, and then I walked back through the glowing roses, smiling, languorous, wanting to stretch myself in the scented air like a cat, sleekly purring. And in the doorway my mother was waiting, smiling too.
‘I see you left him no appetite for tea,’ she said. ‘Ah well – you will be going home, then, tomorrow?’
And walking past her, my smile growing, spreading from my lips until my whole body seemed to be smiling, I told her, ‘ Yes, I suppose I may go home tomorrow – unless, of course, you would care to lend me your carriage, in which case – perhaps – I think I will go tonight.’
Copyright
First published in 1980 by Macdonald Futura
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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Copyright © Brenda Jagger 1980
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