A Summer to Remember (16 page)

‘It was Dom—’ she stopped, as if regretting it already.

‘Yes?’ Alex encouraged.

‘Domino.’

Alex spluttered. ‘
Domino
?’

Nina nodded.

‘Oh, that’s so sweet! If only we’d thought of it!’ Olivia giggled. ‘I suppose it was because he was so small.’

‘Oh, Mum!’ Dominic said with a groan.

‘What?’ Olivia continued to giggle. ‘I think it’s lovely.’

‘Olivia, you’re embarrassing him,’ Dudley growled.

‘Domino!’ Alex said with a hearty laugh.

‘Isn’t it cute?’ Olivia smiled, handing the plate of bread around, oblivious to Dominic’s discomfort at the far end of the table. It was then that Nina saw something that nobody else seemed to notice – a brief moment when Dominic and Faye caught each other’s eyes. It was so fleeting, but tiny smiles were exchanged and Nina felt sure that there was warmth within those smiles. Warmth, understanding – and maybe even a little regret at a love having been lost.

Simplicity was the key word, Dominic thought, as he scoured his bare cupboards for ingredients the next day. Pasta with salad would be light enough, and it would mean that he wouldn’t have to go shopping, which in turn meant he could spend more time organising himself and his place. It wouldn’t be quite the spread of the night before, but then, he’d never be able to compete with his mother when it came to home cooking.

For a moment, he rolled his eyes as he remembered last night’s dinner. Alex had apologised afterwards in his effortless way and Dominic had done his best to shrug it off. After dessert, which had been a very large helping of Eton Mess, Nina had helped Olivia to stack the dishwasher and Dominic had hung around the living room in the hope of talking to her at some point. He listened to her silvery laughter coming from the kitchen. She seemed so at home at the mill and it was hard to imagine a life without her there. His mother obviously adored her and his father’s temper had eased ever so slightly since her arrival. Just like when she’d been a babysitter, she was working wonders on them all.

A moment later, he heard her walking down the hallway, with Ziggy by her side.

‘Nina,’ he’d called.

‘Yes?’

‘Can I talk to you?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to give Ziggy a run in the garden.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ he said and the two of them left the house together. The evening had cooled and a lavender sky sewn with bright stars greeted them.

‘It’s a beautiful evening,’ she said.

Dominic nodded and wanted to tell her that she was beautiful, too, but, as ever in her presence, he had become tongue-tied and cripplingly shy.

‘What was it you wanted to talk about?’ she asked him, unclipping Ziggy from his lead and watching as he romped around the garden, stuffing his head in the borders, which Faye took so many hours organising.

‘Well, I—’

‘Gosh,’ Nina suddenly interrupted him. ‘I hope Alex didn’t embarrass you too much at dinner. I can’t apologise enough about that revelation. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘It’s okay,’ he assured her. He hadn’t really minded. It was only Alex’s chiding which had upset him. He didn’t blame Nina. In fact, he’d rather liked being the focus of her attention. He’d been special enough to warrant a nickname, and that had made him smile. And, of course, it was also one up on Alex.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve interrupted you. What were you going to say?’

They walked across the lawn towards a long beech hedge in which was set a wooden gate that had been painted a brilliant turquoise decades ago and was happily flaking into old age. Nina opened it and they walked through into a small walled garden.

‘I love it here,’ she said. ‘It’s so peaceful.’

‘It’s so messy,’ Dominic said. ‘Mum keeps bugging Dad to do something with it.’

‘Perhaps Faye will come up with something wonderful. She’s full of good ideas.’

Dominic didn’t say anything.

‘Dommie – what
did
happen with Faye?’

He merely shook his head. ‘We drifted apart. That was all.’

Nina frowned. ‘Did you two—’

‘Do you mind if we don’t talk about it?’ Dominic said. ‘It’s bad enough that Mum keeps pushing her under my nose.’

‘Okay,’ Nina said, ‘of course.’ But Dominic could see that her eyes were full of curiosity and her mind was full of questions.

‘I don’t want to talk about Faye. I want to talk about you.’

‘Oh,’ Nina said in surprise.

‘I wanted to make sure you’re still okay for dinner tomorrow night.’

‘Oh, yes, I am. Thank you, Dommie.’

He winced inwardly at her use of the name Dommie. He wished she’d call him by his full name now. After all, he wasn’t a little boy in pyjamas any more.

‘Great!’ he said.

‘You Miltons certainly know how to keep a girl well fed,’ she said, grinning up at him.

‘Oh, well, we can do it another time if you prefer,’ he said, feeling himself blush.

‘No, no!’ she said quickly. ‘I was only teasing. Tomorrow would be fine,’ she said, and they watched in amusement as Ziggy leapt over a scraggy box hedge and lifted his leg up against an old scarecrow.

Now, after a day of preparing canvases for his upcoming show, Dominic had a whole evening of Nina’s company to look forward to. Alone. No interruptions and no Alex. But, first of all, he had to clear away some of his work. It was okay to have standing room only when he was on his own, but Nina might not appreciate having to squeeze between rows of paintings and having near-misses with easels and dirty jam jars.

He started to move his canvases until they all leant up against the same wall like some trendy art shop, and gathered up the brushes that were scattered across the floor like kindling. That was when he found them. The Faye canvases. He’d meant to get rid of them, but he just hadn’t had the heart. They’d been painted at sixth form during their last few months together and the naivety of the portraits struck him now. The artist in him was desperate to be rid of them. He should paint over them with something more professional, he told himself, but the young man instinctively knew that that would be wrong.

Dominic gazed at the gentle face looking right out of the canvas at him as if she was in the room with him there and then. Those enormous eyes of hers were so expressive, he thought. And there was that glimmer of a smile playing around her lips, perhaps at a long-forgotten shared joke.

He shook his head. He didn’t have time for this. He placed them behind the small sofa and got back to work, whipping a duster over his chairs, carefully checking for signs of paint. There’d be nothing worse than if Nina sat down and got up with a burnt sienna bottom.

Finally, he stood in the middle of the room to survey the scene. The converted folly might not have been everyone’s idea of the perfect property – for a start, it was about three times as tall as it was wide – but to Dominic, it was perfect. He loved the long, slender windows that allowed the extraordinary East Anglian light to illuminate his work. He adored the bare floorboards that echoed under his shoes and he loved the warmth of the red brick; soft to the eye, but wonderfully gritty to the touch.

He loved the unusual and the quirky, and he sincerely hoped that Nina would love it too.

In her bedroom at the mill, Nina was wishing that she could shake the word
date
from her mind as she got ready before Dominic arrived. It was, yet again, just a simple friendly invitation to dinner. Besides, she was quite determined not to get involved with another man. She really hadn’t thought that Dominic would mention his invitation again after the embarrassing nickname revelation of the night before. Still, she couldn’t dispel the way he’d looked at her as he’d reminded her of her promise in the walled garden; so earnest, so imploring, and she got the distinct feeling that the word
date
would be foremost in his mind, if not her own. But she had definitely sworn off men – that much was clear in her mind. Tonight, she was merely making amends for having been so rude to Dominic when she’d taken off to the pub with Alex, and maybe – just maybe – she’d be able to find out more about Faye. Nina had instantly warmed to Faye the moment she’d met her; she could really feel the girl’s heartache and couldn’t help wondering if it would be possible to bring about a reconciliation between her and Dominic. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that this young couple were meant to be together.

Nina sighed. She knew herself what it was like to be so hopelessly love-struck that everything else in the world seemed trivial. She remembered the first time she’d met Matt. They’d both belonged to the same gym and there’d been a Christmas party one year. She’d seen him before, of course, but she’d always been much too shy to say hello to him and he hadn’t known she’d existed before the incident with the punch. Somebody had knocked into him and he’d crashed right into her, magenta punch spilling all down the front of her dress.

It wasn’t the best of introductions, and it should have been an omen that things wouldn’t work out, but Nina had been lost from that first encounter and, even when she knew that he was no good for her, his hold over her had been unyielding.

For a moment, Nina caught her own gaze in the mirror, and a pair of sad hazel eyes stared back at her. They were eyes that said they still remembered. Eyes that hadn’t been able to close against the truth even though she’d managed to physically run away from it. Matt had tried to contact her, leaving message after message, but Nina had deleted every single one of them, not allowing herself to listen to them after the last abusive one he’d left for her.

Nina blinked hard, dispelling thoughts of past times and emotional crimes, and turned her attention to her meagre wardrobe. She didn’t have many decent dresses, but it wouldn’t be seemly to wear the same dress that she’d worn when she’d gone out with Alex. So, she pulled out a long white dress splashed with vibrant poppies.

Quickly flinging off the neat shirt and cotton trousers she’d worn for work, she hummed lightly as she smoothed the dress down over her body. It felt delicious; like a second skin, but a much cooler one. She turned to the mirror and gasped. Not only did it feel like a second skin, it looked like one, too.

‘Jeans and T-shirt!’ she whistled through clenched teeth.

‘Nina?’ Dominic’s voice called from downstairs. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Er – yes! Just a minute,’ Nina called, looking desperately at the clock and noting that it was only ten to seven. Dominic was more than a little prompt.

Anyway, it was too late to change now so she grabbed a cardigan from the bottom of her bed and hid as much of her body with it as she could.

‘I’ll be down in a moment,’ Nina shouted, flattening her hair against her head and licking her lips to remove a little of their pink gloss. She grabbed her white pumps from under the bed and flung her feet into them. That would tone the overall image down a bit, she thought.

Dominic was in the hall, standing under one of his paintings as if posing for a celebrity magazine article.

‘Hello,’ Nina said, noticing the smart navy shirt and black jeans.

‘Hello,’ he echoed, his eyes wide and full of poppies. ‘I like your dress,’ he smiled. Nina bit her lip. She really should have put her jeans on.

‘Do you?’ she asked, nervously doing up another button of her cardigan.

Dominic nodded. ‘I like your pumps, too.’

‘Oh?’ Nina said, wishing she’d put Wellies on instead.

‘Come on – let’s go,’ he said, opening the door for her like a true gentleman.

Leaving the house, they crossed the bridge and followed the footpath that ran alongside the river. It was a perfect summer’s evening. Swallows dipped and dived along the water and the air hummed with insects. It was warm enough to walk without a cardigan, but Nina thought she’d better keep it on. She wouldn’t want to give Dominic the wrong impression and, if there was a dress to give the wrong impression, then she was wearing it.

He looked nice though, she thought, as they ambled across the field, the sun low on the horizon. His eyes sparkled like dark jewels in the evening sunlight. Faye, she was quite sure, would have swooned.

Nina jolted at the thought as an idea occurred to her. She was going to have to talk to Dominic about Faye.

‘I hope you like pasta,’ Dominic began casually.

‘Oh, yes,’ Nina said, wondering how she could bring the subject of Faye up. It wasn’t going to be easy, slotting the name of an ex-girlfriend into a conversation about pasta. ‘Do you cook a lot?’

‘When I have the time,’ he said.

‘Did you used to cook for Faye?’ she asked. Oh dear. That wasn’t terribly subtle, but it was the best she could do in the circumstances.

Dominic turned to look at Nina, his face clouded over with suspicion, as if he knew she had a hidden agenda. Honestly, she might as well have had her mission tattooed across her forehead, she thought.

‘I wish she’d get a gardening project somewhere else,’ Dominic said quietly. ‘Mum really shouldn’t be encouraging her to spend so much time here. It just isn’t right.’

‘But it would be a hard garden to beat. It’s a lovely place,’ Nina said.

‘You think so?’

‘Of course. Faye obviously likes it.’

Dominic frowned again. ‘I can’t understand why you’re so interested in Faye, Nina!
Must
we always talk about her?’

Yes, Nina thought. ‘‘Course not,’ she said with a light smile, as if she didn’t care one way or another.

‘Come on,’ he said, his stride picking up, scattering a fine cloud of insects from the tall blonde grasses at the side of the path. ‘I’m starving. And I’m banning all conversations about anyone who isn’t you.’

Had Nina thought of Dominic as a potential suitor rather than as an ex-ward, she would have been impressed by his attempts to set the scene for romance. As it was, she saw that he’d made a genuine effort to accommodate a guest in a rather sparsely furnished room.

The Folly had always been an impressive building from the outside, but Nina had never thought of it as having any potential as a home. It was amazing, she thought, how Dominic had transformed it, turning it into something worthy of a feature in a glossy magazine. She grinned at the stacks of canvases leaning precariously against the walls and the rows of bottles and heaps of half-squeezed-out tubes of paint on shelves made from salvaged timber.