by Julia James
Anatole glanced at her. ‘That sounds like you had a need for escapism,’ he ventured, hoping she might say more.
It was good that she was starting to open up to him—to talk about her own life, herself, and Georgy’s mother, too. He wanted to go on drawing her out. It was a sign that she was really starting to trust him, and he needed her to do that. The changes to her life he was imposing on her were so fundamental he did not want her shying away from them, panicking about what she was agreeing to do—bringing Georgy out to Greece and settling him there. So the more she confided in him, the more that trust would grow.
Lyn gave a little sigh. ‘Yes, I suppose it was escapism, really. I remember that sometimes after that holiday, when things were particularly grim at home, I used to let myself fantasise that Lindy and I had run away to live in one of those lovely seaside houses on the beach—far away from the stress and strain of coping with Mum and all that went with her...’
‘Was it so difficult when you were growing up?’ he asked, his voice sympathetic.
She made a face. ‘Well, I know many children have it loads, loads worse! But even so...for Lindy and me it was—well, difficult. That word you used fits the description.’ She took a breath. ‘Looking back, I can see that Mum probably suffered from depression. But whether it came from inside her, or whether it was because she couldn’t really make a relationship last, I don’t know. She’d have downers and take off for the pub, drown her sorrows. It’s why I ended up more or less bringing up Lindy myself.’ Her voice changed. Softened. ‘Not that it wasn’t a joy to do so. Lindy was always so sweet, so loving! And she had an infectious sense of humour—she could always set me laughing to cheer me up.’
Anatole saw a reminiscent smile cross her expression. ‘What is it?’ he probed. He let his gaze dwell on how, when she smiled, it lifted her features, lighting up her clear eyes and curving her tender mouth to show pearl-like teeth.
How could I ever have thought her unremarkable? If her sister had half her appeal Marcos must have been lost!
But, much as he might want to indulge himself in gazing at how her lovely smile enhanced the beauty that her makeover had revealed to him, he focused on her answer.
‘The caravan park we stayed at was in a place called the Witterings,’ Lyn explained. ‘It’s a pair of villages—East Wittering and West Wittering—and Lindy found the names hilarious! She only had to say them out loud and she fell into fits of giggles—and set me laughing too.’
There was fondness in her voice, and her expression had softened even more, but Anatole could see that faraway look in her eyes again—a shadow of the sadness that haunted her, at knowing her sister had barely made it into adulthood.
Let alone lived long enough to raise the child they were now caring for...
‘We can go and visit there some time,’ he said. ‘If you would like?’
Lyn lifted her face to his. ‘Can we? Oh, that would be lovely! I would love Georgy to know the place where his mother was happy as a child!’
He felt a spear of emotion go through him. As she gazed at him, her face alight, something moved inside him. He, too, longed for Georgy to know the beach by his grandfather’s house, where he and Marcos had played as boys.
‘We shall definitely do it,’ he said decisively. ‘Too far, alas, to include it in today’s excursion, but we’ll find an opportunity another day.’
He started walking again, and Lyn fell into stride beside him.
She must not let herself be endlessly sad for Lindy, she knew that—knew that her beloved sister would not want it. Would want, instead, for Lyn to do everything within her power to ensure the son she hadn’t been able to look after herself had the very best future possible!
Her eyes went to the man walking beside her. A stranger he might be, but with each day he was becoming less so—and, like her, he wanted only one thing: that Georgy should be kept safe, safe with them, not given to others to raise. And if that meant carrying out this extraordinary and unlikely plan of making a marriage between them, then she would see it through!
Marrying Anatole is the way I can keep Georgy safe with me—that’s all I have to focus on!
Yet even as she repeated her mantra to herself she stole a glance sideways and felt her breath give a little catch that was nothing to do with the exertion of walking along these high, windswept downs and everything to do with the way she wanted to gaze and gaze at the compelling profile of the man beside her. At the way the wind was ruffling his sable hair, the way the sweep of his long lashes framed those sloe-dark eyes of his...and the way his long, strong legs strode effortlessly across the close-cropped turf, his hands curled around the chubby legs of Georgy, borne aloft on his wide shoulders.
He is just so incredible-looking!
The words burned in her consciousness and so too did the realisation that today—just as yesterday—she was finally looking like the kind of female a man like him would be seen with. Her style of looks might be quite different from Lindy’s blonde prettiness, but she would have been lying if she had not accepted that with her new hairstyle, her new make-up and her beautiful new clothes she drew his approbation.
The transformation he had wrought in her appearance was just one more of the good things he was doing for her!
A sense of wellbeing infused in her and she heard scraps of poetry floating through her head as they walked the iconic landscape. The chalk Downs that ran along the southern coast of England plunged into the sea further east at Dover, and the peerless White Cliffs that defined the country. It was a landscape that had been celebrated a hundred years ago by one of England’s most patriotic poets, Rudyard Kipling.
‘“The Weald is good, the Downs are best—I’ll give you the run of ’em, East to West,”’ she exclaimed.
Anatole threw her an enquiring look and then his glance went down to her upturned face. Colour was flagged in her cheeks as the breeze crept up the steep scarp slope from the glittering Channel beyond. It lifted her hair from her face, and her eyes were shining as clear as the air they breathed. She seemed more alive than he had ever seen her. Vivid and vital.
And so very lovely.
A thought slid into his head. A thought that had been building for some time now. Ever since she’d walked out of the beauty salon and blown him away with the transformation in her looks. A thought that, once there, he could not banish. Found he did not want to banish. Wanted, instead, to savour...
Because why not? Why not do what he suddenly realised he very, very much wanted to do?
Why not, indeed?
He strode onward. Life seemed very good.
* * *
‘What would you like to order for dinner?’ Anatole enquired solicitously, strolling into the kitchen where Lyn was warming Georgy’s bedtime milk.
‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I’d prefer something light. That cream tea we tucked into was very filling!’
They’d found an olde-worlde teashop in an olde-worlde Sussex village to round off the day before setting off back to London, and Anatole found himself remembering the way she’d licked a tiny smear of cream from her lip with the tip of her tongue. He’d found it very engaging.
She was speaking again, and he made himself focus.
‘If you want,’ she ventured, her tone tentative, ‘I could just knock up something simple for us both. Pasta or an omelette—something like that.’
His eyes smiled. ‘Pasta sounds good. But I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘No trouble,’ she assured him.
‘In exchange, I’ll get Georgy off to sleep,’ he volunteered.
‘Thank you.’ She smiled too.
He took the bottle from her and headed off.
She watched him go. It was so...contradictory. That was the only word she could find. On the one hand she felt so much easier
now in his company. So much more relaxed. Yet on the other hand, since her makeover, ‘relaxed’ was the last thing she felt!
She felt as if a current of electricity were buzzing through her all the time—a current that soared whenever she saw him or he came near to her.
She took a breath. Well, hopefully, once they’d both got used to her new look it would dissipate—just as her initial stiltedness had.
It had better...
She gave her head a little shake and determinedly yanked open the door of the huge double fridge that occupied a sizeable space in the palatial kitchen. There were several bags of fresh pasta, as well as cream, eggs, butter and smoked salmon. A pot of fresh basil graced the windowsill by the sink, and she busied herself snipping at the fragrant leaves. By the time she had measured out the pasta, whisked some eggs, beaten cream in and chopped up the salmon, Anatole strolled back into the kitchen.
‘Out like a light,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We clearly exhausted him today!’ He crossed over to stand beside Lyn. ‘Mmm...’ he inspected her handiwork. ‘Looking good.’ He wandered across to the temperature controlled wine cabinet and extracted a bottle. ‘I think this should wash it down nicely,’ he said.
His mood was good. Very good. They’d had a good day out, Georgy had had fun, and he’d repaid their efforts by falling swiftly and soundly asleep. That left the evening to him and Lyn.
Yes, definitely a good day.
‘You OK with eating in here?’ he enquired.
‘Yes, of course,’ she assured him.
The breakfast bar was huge—plenty of room to dine at it. She heard him open the wine and got on with boiling a kettle of water to cook the pasta. Outside, the night sky was dark, but in the kitchen it felt cosy and companionable, warm and friendly.
Happiness filled her.
I didn’t realise how lonely I’ve been since Lindy died...
But she was not lonely now. She had Anatole to be with.
Yet even as she thought that she felt a pang go through her. How long would they be together? This time next year it might very well all be over. His grandfather might have succumbed to his cancer, Georgy’s adoption might be finally approved, and she and Anatole might have their mutually agreed divorce underway.
Somehow the thought chilled her.
‘Why so sad?’ Anatole’s voice was kindly. ‘Are you thinking of your sister?’
‘Yes,’ she lied. She poured boiling water into the pasta pan and fed in the spaghetti as it came back to the boil. She did not want to look at Anatole. Did not want to let her eyes feast on him.
He isn’t mine—he never will be. That’s what I have to remember. The only thing I must remember.
Not the way her eyes followed him wherever he went. Not the way her breath caught when he smiled at her. Not the way she felt her pulse quicken when he came near her.
Not the way his face was imprinted on her mind, day and night...
‘Then let us drink to her—and to my cousin, too.’
He slipped onto one of the high stools that flanked the kitchen bar. One of the ceiling spotlights caught the glint of pale gold in his glass as he lifted it, proffering the other one to Lyn as she took her place opposite him. They toasted their lost ones silently, each thinking their own thoughts about those they had loved who had died so tragically young.
‘He wasn’t all bad, you know—Marcos,’ Anatole found himself saying. ‘I know he treated your sister badly, but—well, I’ve come up with an explanation. It won’t make you forgive him, but maybe you’ll think of him a little less harshly.’
He looked across at Lyn.
‘I think the reason he ignored your sister when she wrote to him is that he thought Timon would insist on him marrying her once he knew your sister was carrying his great-grandchild. Marcos was only twenty-five—and a young twenty-five at that. He wanted fun and no responsibilities. Timon encouraged him in that. He’d spent ten years trying to compensate Marcos for losing his parents at sixteen. A bad age to lose them. I think that learning that your sister was pregnant scared Marcos. Made him hide from it—hope it would all just go away.’
He looked at Lyn.
‘I think that, had he not been killed, he would have faced up to his responsibilities. He’d have come to me and told me first, I’m sure, and I would have helped him deal with it. Got him to make contact with Lindy. I believe,’ he finished slowly, ‘had your sister not died, he would have asked her to marry him. Made a family with her and Georgy just as she dreamed he would.’ He paused again. ‘He was a decent kid inside.’
Lyn heard him speak, felt her sympathy rising.
‘It’s all so sad,’ she said. She was feeling choked. ‘Just so sad.’
She felt her hand being taken, gently squeezed. ‘Yes, it is. Sad and tragic and dreadful, and a hideous waste of young lives, their future stolen from them.’
She felt tears spring in her eyes. Felt Anatole’s finger graze across her cheekbone, brushing them away. Felt his sympathy towards her.
‘I hope they’re happy together now, somehow. In that mysterious realm beyond mortal life. I hope,’ he said, ‘they’re looking down at us and knowing their child is safe, his future assured.’
She nodded, blinking away her tears. He patted her hand and then, glancing at the stove, got up to drain the cooked pasta. She got to her feet as well, and busied herself stirring in the creamy concoction she’d prepared. She heaped it into wide pasta bowls and placed them on the bar. Her tears were gone now. Lindy was at peace and so, she hoped, was the man she’d fallen in love with. Who might one day, had they lived, have come to love her back.
Who knew? Who knew the mysteries of the heart? Who knew what life and fate and circumstance could do?
As she took her place opposite Anatole, letting her eyes savour him as they always did, she felt her heart swell.
Not with hope, for that would be impossible, but with a yearning that she could not still.
Anatole broke the moment and got to his feet. ‘You forgot the parmesan,’ he said, and went to fetch it from the fridge.
It was such a simple meal, Lyn knew, but it was the most enjoyable she’d yet shared with Anatole. Despite her assurance that she was not very hungry she put away a good portion of pasta, and when Anatole extracted a tub of American ice cream from the freezer she did not disdain that either.
‘Let’s go next door,’ he said, and led the way with the ice cream, leaving her to bring through the coffee tray.
She felt more relaxed than she had ever felt with him. The wine she’d drunk had helped, and it seemed to be giving her a very pleasant buzz in her veins. Carefully she set down the coffee tray and lowered herself onto the sofa beside Anatole as he indicated she should, taking one of the two long spoons he was holding out. He’d wrapped the ice cream carton in a teatowel, to make it easier to hold.
Sharing ice cream, Lyn swiftly discovered, meant getting a lot more up close and personal with Anatole than she’d initially realised. Digging into frozen ice cream was also, she discovered, enormously good fun when done in the right spirit.
‘That lump of cookie dough is definitely mine!’ Anatole informed her with mock severity. ‘You had the last one!’
A giggle escaped her, and she made herself busy to focus on a hunk of chocolate in the icy mix.
‘What would make this even more decadent,’ Anatole observed, ‘would be to pour a liqueur over it.’
‘Or golden syrup,’ contributed Lyn. ‘Lindy and I used to do that as kids. The syrup goes really hard—it’s great!’ She stabbed at another bit of embedded cookie dough.
Finally, when they’d both OD’d on ice cream, they abandoned the carton and Lyn poured out the coffee. As she leant back, curling her legs underneath her into her usual posture, after handing Anatole’s cup to him, she realised that his arm
was stretched out along the back of the sofa. She could feel the warmth of his sleeve at the nape of her neck.
I ought to move further away from him, she thought. But she didn’t. She just went on sitting there, feeling the heavy warmth of his arm behind her, sipping at her milky coffee.
‘What’s on TV?’ Anatole asked.
Lyn clicked it on with the remote. The channel opened on one of her favourites—an old-fashioned, retro detective series, set back in the 1950s, just starting up.
She felt the arm behind her neck drape lower around her shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice what he’d done, and for the life of her Lyn could not alter her position. She felt herself relax, so that her shoulder was almost nestled against him.
It felt good. It felt good to be almost snuggled up against him like this on the sofa, warm and well-fed, relaxed and rested.
Very good.
Another programme came on—this time a history show about the classical world. They watched with interest, Anatole contributing a little and Lyn listening avidly. He read out the Greek inscriptions on the monuments on show and translated them.
‘Do you think you could face learning Greek?’ he asked Lyn.
‘I’ll give it a go,’ she said. ‘The different alphabet will be a challenge, though.’
‘It will come to you, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll arrange lessons for you when we get there. Speaking of which,’ he continued, ‘it could be sooner than we think. The latest from the lawyers is that there’s no objection to Georgy coming abroad with us, so his passport can be issued. We’ll fly out as soon as we’ve got it.’
For a moment Lyn’s eyes were veiled, her expression troubled and unsure. The reality of taking Georgy to Greece was hitting her. It would be soon now—very soon.
Anatole saw her doubts—saw the flicker of unease in her expression. He knew she was remembering her old fears about letting Georgy out of the UK to visit his father’s family.
‘It will be all right,’ he said. ‘I promise you. Trust me.’