by Jenny Kane
Sarah raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as Mathilda pushed her shoulders back and began to walk; giving the world the firm impression that she was a young woman very much in control of herself.
Feeling far from in control however, Mathilda hoped that the brothers would not keep her long, for she feared that if she didn’t sleep soon, she would disgrace herself further.
‘You haven’t eaten much.’
Rob pointed a chopstick towards Grace’s half-full bowl. Although the food was delicious, Grace had been so busy talking through how she imagined Mathilda had got back to Ashby Folville from the market that she hadn’t taken more than a few mouthfuls.
Using her story-telling as her excuse, Grace smiled, covering up that in reality she hadn’t been able to stamp out the persistent mutterings at the back of her head telling her she had to lose two stone, miraculously vanish away her cellulite, and tone her stomach, all preferably by the time she left this restaurant.
As the evening went on, and the realisation that she’d enjoyed herself (and the company) more than she had in years grew stronger, and the smile on Rob’s face got wider, Grace experienced an overwhelming need to escape. To get home, to get away before he suggested they go back to his place.
Not that Grace didn’t want to go back to his place. She did. The idea of being somewhere alone with Rob, where they could experience a great deal more kissing and perhaps a lot more besides, was deliciously appealing. But what if she disappointed him? What if Rob took one look at her ‘lived-in’ frame and ran the other way? It had been so long since anyone but Grace had seen her body. In fact the only other person who’d seen Grace in nothing but underwear for three years was Ashley when she had manoeuvred Grace into her bridesmaid dress; a feat which Grace had no doubt had involved a fair amount of professional blindness on Ashley’s part.
When the waitress took away the plates, and placed a steaming pot of China tea on the table, Grace, determined to remember she was an in control career woman and not an insecure love struck teenager, picked up her handbag and dug out a railway timetable. ‘That was a lovely meal, and I’ve had a great time, but I guess I ought to be sensible and check the train times; I don’t want to miss the last one back.’
Grateful that Rob had the good manners not to mention the disappointment that she wouldn’t be staying overnight that flashed across his face for a nano-second, while being perversely pleased to have seen it there, Grace scanned the timetable.
‘There’s one at 11.30, do you think we’d make it?’
Rob checked his wristwatch, ‘No problem, it’s only 11.’ He gestured for the bill to arrive. ‘You know, I do have a spare bedroom. You are very welcome to use it. I can assure you I would be the perfect host and leave you undisturbed – unless you didn’t want me to, of course. Then I think it’s safe to say I would enjoy giving you a fairly sleepless night.’
Grace turned the colour of beetroot, ‘Well I … it isn’t that I don’t want to, but …’
Placing a hand on hers once more, Rob spoke gently, ‘But it’s been a while, and you haven’t known me long, and you’re an old-fashioned lass at heart. Fourteenth century, even!’
As her cheeks shaded from beetroot to the hue of a bright red radish, Grace didn’t know what to say.
‘Well luckily for you, Dr Harper, I’m a bit of a gentleman on the quiet, and as I have a feeling that you’re a woman who is worth waiting for, then I’ll spare you my protests.’
Still speechless, Grace allowed her gentleman to pass her coat and escort her from the restaurant, all her good intentions of paying half the bill wiped from her head.
As they walked out into the night air, Rob wrapped an arm around Grace’s waist, ‘I think it only fair to warn you, Dr Harper, I may be a gentleman, but I’m not going to be able to wait long. And the only way I am letting you get on that train tonight, is if you promise we can meet up again very soon.’
The blatant lust in his eyes made Grace gulp as she said, ‘I’d love that. Can you come over to Leicester on Friday night? I’ll cook.’
Rob’s expression told Grace the answer to that question was a definite yes, saying as he met her dry lips with one fast, hard kiss, ‘I think you’d better quickly tell me what happens to Mathilda next, or I might forget my resolve and whisk you into the nearest taxi and back to my place anyway!’
Chapter Twenty-one
‘Why the hell did I say I’ll cook?’ Grace muttered to herself as the largely deserted train pulled into Leicester station. She couldn’t stop herself remembering a sitcom she’d once seen, where the female lead had explained to a friend that telling a man you’d cook for them was the same as saying, ‘Let’s have sex and I’ll cater!’
Now she was away from the Chinese restaurant and her nerves began to calm, Grace realised she was hungry after all, and regretted not having eaten more of the delicious food they’d been served. Guilt stabbed her. It had been so lovely, and so much had been wasted. She tried not to think about the inevitable homeless hungry people she’d have to go past once she got off the train and walked through Leicester’s railway station, or about how much the meal must have cost Rob.
Telling herself that her rumbling stomach was her own fault, and that it was a small price to pay for her wastefulness, and might even have the added benefit of not adding to the calories that seem to love living on her hips, Grace wrestled the carriage door open and got off the train.
Grace had never been hung up on her size before. Always in proportion, her eye-catching smile and ample chest had always seemed to cheat any male admirer’s brains into thinking she was slim. Walking through the spookily hushed station, and deciding not to risk walking across Victoria Park on her own so late at night, Grace hailed a taxi with the words, but you’ve never really liked them back before, have you? You’ve never cared if they liked what they saw or not. Until now … running through her head.
The irony of it wasn’t lost on Grace. For the first time she was genuinely interested in a bloke beyond having someone convenient to go to the cinema with, or the occasional bout of sex to break up her general ‘celibate but for her vibrator’ lifestyle. Someone who not only seemed to ‘get’ her, but loved Robin Hood stories, and didn’t seem to think she was weird or borderline insane. But rather than feel excited and thrilled, Grace just felt self-conscious, frumpy, and nervous.
Damn it, woman, you’re a grown up! You’re a professional. So what if you’ve invited him to your home. That doesn’t mean you have to sleep with him!
But I want to … Oh hell, how big an idiot can I possibly be? I … Grace stopped her internal argument with herself as she slid the key into her front door and collapsed upon her sofa. Then her thoughts careered off in a totally different direction. ‘Oh my God! How did this place get into such a mess?’
‘I mean, Daze, how on earth have I lived in this muddle for so long?’ Grace flicked a duster at the television, wondering if she’d be able to reach the cobwebs that hadn’t so much set up home in the corner of her living room ceiling, as had built a small town, complete with high rise blocks and outbuildings.
‘Hang on a minute.’ Daisy was trying not to laugh down the telephone. ‘You are Grace Harper, aren’t you? No one’s come along and replaced you with a doppelganger in the night?’
‘Oh, very funny! I’m not that bad.’
‘Grace, honey, you’re a domestic disaster, but fear not, I love you anyway.’ Daisy did laugh out loud this time, ‘I had hoped that when I called to see how the date went, you wouldn’t answer due to being confined to a duvet somewhere in the Nottingham area.’ Deciding that at least the spiders kept the flies away, Grace left them to it, and took the call from Daisy as a chance to sit down, ‘It was only the first proper date, Daze!’
‘So?’
‘Oh come on, I’m not like that.’
‘We’re all like that, honey, which means something happened to stop you going back with him. And don’t tell me he didn’t want you to, because I won’t be
lieve you.’
‘How can you possibly know that? You’ve never even met Rob.’
‘I know because I know you, and because against all the laws of the universe you actually like this man. This is not something that happens every day. Also it is fate.’
‘Fate?’ Grace sounded incredulous, ‘I don’t believe in fate.’
‘But does fate believe in you?’
‘Don’t go all Freudian on me, Daisy Marks. What do you mean?’
A steady squeaking sound could be heard coming down the line, telling Grace that Daisy hadn’t stopped work for this conversation. She could picture her sitting on the grass in the middle of the guinea pig pen with the little creatures running all over her, pinching grass cuttings from between her fingers.
‘I mean, his name is Robert, for crying out loud! What more do you want?’
‘Thousands of men are called Robert. That doesn’t mean they are perfect for me. That’s like saying you love Marcus because he looks like a guinea pig, which he doesn’t by the way, but you know what I mean.’
Ignoring Grace’s off-kilter comparison, Daisy continued to push her point home. ‘And he’s a history man, and his speciality is the fourteenth century, and he lives in Nottingham! I mean, woman! How perfect do you want it? Added cream and a cherry on top, I suppose?’
Grace’s eyes landed on the bookshelf opposite her. It was crammed from floor to ceiling with Robin Hood DVDs, books, pamphlets, souvenirs, and even a limited edition Lego set of Robin and his Merry Men in a plastic brick-built tree house. She’d been so hung up on her new irrationality about being too big and her house not being fit for any visitors, that it hadn’t occurred to her that she might not actually like Rob for himself at all. Perhaps it was the fact that he was about as close a human being she was ever going to meet to her historical (or not) hero that was the big attraction.
‘Oh hell, Daze, you don’t think I only like him because of the Robin Hood thing do you? What if that’s what it is? That would be awful.’
Daisy rolled her eyes and groaned. Scooping the handful of squeaky fur off her lap, she scrambled to her feet. ‘I was joking, Grace. Come on, you said he was fun, attractive, and you enjoyed his company. That’s why you like Rob. The rest is merely the aforementioned cherry and cream.’
‘But what if he thinks that’s why I like him. And worse than that, what if this is all just a burst of hormones from an obsessed woman who can see forty on the horizon, and whose clock is ticking.’
Striding across the grass to her house, Daisy ran a hand through her hair in exasperation. ‘Right, that’s it. I’m getting on the next train to Leicester. Do not go out.’
By the time Daisy arrived at her house Grace had built up a mini-mountain of newspapers to take for recycling, shoved as many of the books she was in the process of reading onto the bookshelves as possible, and had removed a grey sheen of dust from the skirting boards. In fact Grace had been quite surprised to find they were painted white, and not the cracked cream they’d appeared to be for years.
‘Good heavens, what have you been doing?’ Daisy lifted a hand to wipe a smear of dust from Grace’s cheek.
‘I told you, I’ve been clearing up.’ Grace sank onto her sofa with a sigh. ‘I don’t think I’ve looked at this place through the eyes of a visitor for years. I hadn’t realised how tatty it had become.’
Sitting next to her best friend, Daisy scanned the living room. It was tidier than she’d ever seen it, but with the best will in the world she couldn’t declare it wasn’t tatty. ‘It needs a lick of paint, that’s all.’
Grace frowned, ‘Do you think I have time to do that by Friday?’
‘Only if you don’t go to work?’
‘I suppose I could work part-time this week; that would do it. It does need doing.’
Daisy regarded her in disbelief. ‘I came all this way to talk some sense into you when I could have been mucking out the chickens, and you don’t need me to at all.’
‘What do you mean?’ Grace’s forehead creased in confusion. She had a horrible feeling that her life had blown completely off track, and wasn’t sure whether she liked the sensation or not.
‘Never have I heard you volunteering to sacrifice work time to do something to impress anyone, let alone a bloke.’ Daisy’s face broke into a wide smile, ‘Don’t you see, Grace. This is your chance. I had no plans to meet anyone and live happily ever after, and then it happened. Now it’s your turn.’
‘But weren’t you terrified?’ Grace’s voice was very small, and she found herself thinking about Mathilda and how frightened she had made her as she faced the Folville brothers. That was a very different situation, but … ‘Of course I was. But it’s an excited sort of terrified.’ Daisy looked more closely at her friends face, ‘Have you slept?’
‘Not really, I couldn’t stop thinking.’
‘About your book or about Rob?’
Grace found a smile creeping across her face despite herself, ‘Well, Rob actually.’
Daisy clapped her hands in delight. ‘Oh my God, you’re Olivia de Havilland!’
‘What?’
‘You know, when she played the role of Maid Marian opposite Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood. The bit when she’s talking to her lady-in-waiting after she has met Robin for the first time.’
Beaming, Grace said, ‘Oh yes! She talks about not being able to sleep as “a nice kind of not sleeping,” because she can’t stop thinking about the man she loves.’
‘Exactly.’ Daisy stood up, ‘My Lord, the case for the defence rests. Now, as I’m here, and this place is no more going to get decorated than Kevin Costner will ever make a convincing Robin Hood, we might as well make use of my visit and go and get the dreaded wedding shoe shop over with.’
Reluctant to buy footwear she’d only wear once, but thrilled to have her best friend to talk to, Grace stood up, ‘OK, but on one condition.’
‘Yes, we can go to the cafe and grab a cup of tea first.’
‘Thanks, Daze, you’re a star!’
Collapsing in a heap, holding a shoebox bag each, Daisy and Grace didn’t stop giggling as the waiter laid two menus onto their table.
‘I can’t believe you did that, Daze!’ Grace dropped her new shoes to the floor, and picked a menu. ‘You’re shameless!’ ‘Well, honestly!’ Daisy laughed through her indigence, ‘How thick are some people? How on earth can she have thought that Aberdeen was in Saudi Arabia? I mean; honestly!’
‘I can’t even remember why we were talking about Scotland now anyway.’
‘It was that set of matching tartan shoes and handbag you spotted.’ Daisy picked up her own menu. ‘I think after the double nightmare of shoe shopping and being hit on the head with such startling ignorance I need a glass of wine!’
‘Good plan!’
Having ordered two hefty-sized glasses of Pinot, Grace said, ‘You know, it isn’t funny really. She was only young. Maybe she never did geography at school?’
‘Don’t you go making excuses for her! It was a clear case of all that peroxide leaking into her brain and a diet of reality TV, Geordie Shore and Made in Chelsea. Even if she doesn’t know where in Scotland Aberdeen is, she should have known it is in Scotland, for heaven’s sake. Whatever happened to general knowledge?’
‘Take a swig of that wine, Daze, quick, before you fall off your high horse!’ Grace shook her head, ‘She was happy in her work, that’s all that matters.’
‘Oh, stop being so nice!’ Daisy picked up her menu, and started to giggle again, ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have given her a quick lecture on the layout of the British Isles though.’
‘I’m not sure if she looked more confused than shocked, or more shocked than confused.’
Opening her new box of shoes on her lap, Daisy shook her head ruefully, ‘I’ll say this for her, though, she knows her shoes.’
‘And we don’t! Maybe we should count ourselves lucky she didn’t give us a Jimmy Choo lecture in revenge!’ ‘Who?’ Daisy creased he
r forehead.
Grace pointed her menu at her best friend, ‘See, you don’t know everything either! He’s a shoe designer. Very expensive.’
‘How on earth did you know that? Don’t tell me you’re a secret shoe buff?’
‘Hardly. I’ve heard my students discussing them.’ Grace nodded towards to two ivory satin-covered shoes in Daisy’s lap. ‘They are lovely. What will you do with them afterwards? Seems a shame to only use them once.’
‘I was thinking that. I’ll probably dye them black. How about yours?’
‘I’m not sure. I can’t imagine I’ll need anything with heels again.’
‘Your own wedding perhaps?’ Daisy wriggled her eyebrows mischievously.
‘I am going to ignore that! Now, what are you eating?’
Daisy sighed as she ran her eyes down the menu of tempting choice of pizzas and pasta, ‘I suppose I ought to be careful. I really don’t want to grow out of my wedding dress now that I’ve bought it.’
‘Oh, not you as well!’ Grace groaned, ‘I was hoping you’d talk some sense into me about that, and here I am finding you’re as bad as I am.’
‘What are you talking about?’
As Grace, talking barely above a whisper so only Daisy and not the other customers could hear, launched into her whole worried about Rob seeing her naked confession, her cheeks prickled with dots of embarrassed heat.
Daisy listened carefully until Grace had finished speaking, before saying, ‘So that was why you came home alone. You wanted to stay the night with him, didn’t you?’
‘Oh course I did, he’s lovely, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t more than a little curious to see what he’s like stripped, but … Oh Daze, what if he sees me naked and runs a mile? Petite I’m not!’
‘I tell you what, Grace, let’s meet food halfway until after the wedding. I can’t afford to buy new dresses for either of us. And while neither of us will ever conform to a size 10, I know for a fact that research shows that the majority of men like women with curves rather than stick women, and the best thing we can do is maintain who we are now, rather than getting any bigger or any smaller. After all, the size you are now is the same size you were when Rob first set eyes on you a few weeks ago.’