Searching For Captain Wentworth (22 page)

‘I’m well, busy
with the exhibition, of course.’

There was an
awkward silence, a feature that seemed to be
increasingly prominent in our conversations. Josh
smiled. He
looked as if he
might say something else, but then scratched
absently at his cheek.

‘Right … well,
I’m just going to the library,’ I said, tugging
my bag up to my shoulder.

‘Oh, I see. I’m
just out on a lunch break.’

I made a move to
go and he spoke again putting out his hand,
touching my sleeve.

‘I’d love it if
you’d join me. Would you come? I really need
to ask you something, a favour. It would mean a
lot.’

It was
impossible to refuse him, and I felt I ought to at least
try and prove my innocence. He was being so nice
and I must
admit, I’d been
feeling a bit lonely. I was also more than a little
intrigued so I found myself accepting. I could
always do my
research later.

‘C’mon, we’ll go
to the pub. It’s such a nice day, we can sit
outside.’

My heart sank at
the idea of going to the pub, but when we
walked inside together Lara was very well behaved.
Her face
betrayed no
symptoms of suggestion and there wasn’t even so
much as a raised eyebrow as she took our order.
That is, until Josh
left me for a
moment to talk to a neighbour. I tried to avoid
speaking to her and looked the other way pretending
I was
interested in
something on the opposite side of the bar. Lara was
pulling a pint, her eyes on the glass, but I knew
as soon as I saw the
biting of
her curling lips, that she was struggling to keep herself
from smiling.

‘So, I hear
you’ve met Josh at last,’ she said, glancing up at
me with a mischievous grin.

I could only
give her a look that I felt expressed total
nonchalance on my part. ‘Yes, I have.’

‘I wondered why
I’d not seen you for a while,’ she said. ‘I
understand from him you’ve been enjoying cosy
suppers together,
that you’ve
cooked for him. Is that right?’

I don’t know
what made me smile then, but she was being so
daft and conspiratorial about everything. ‘It’s not
like that,’ I
protested,
shaking my head. ‘Josh and I are just friends. No. We’re
merely acquaintances. We hardly know one another,
we’ve only
really just
met.’

‘Does time alone
determine how well you know someone or
whether you fall in love with them? Seven years wouldn’t be
enough for some people to know each other and seven
days are
more than enough
for others. Martin and I were in love after a
week, I certainly didn’t know him.’

‘Isn’t that
seven days or years stuff from
Sense and
Sensibility
?’ I asked.

Lara grinned.
‘It might be.’

‘Well, be that
as it may, I am not in love with Josh. We are not
in the process of knowing one another in any way.
He’s probably
just returning
the favour of the one, single supper that I cooked for
him.’

Lara raised her
eyebrows at that and lowered her voice. ‘Well,
he hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you walked in.
He might be
talking to
someone else, but he certainly isn’t paying them much
attention.’

I don’t know why
I turned round, but I did and she was right.
Josh was staring at me, really looking me up and
down, but he was
talking all the
time. Not about me, that was clear and I don’t think
he even realized he was staring or that I was
looking at him. It was
unnerving
and all I could think was that I must have a huge grease
spot or worse down my front. He suddenly caught my
eye as I
smoothed down my
top. His eyes followed my hands and back
again to my face. I was mortified. He would only
think I was trying
to give him the
eye or something equally, hideously suggestive. If
only I could go home.

Josh came back
over to the bar then, picked up our drinks and
smiled. ‘Shall we sit outside?’

We settled
ourselves opposite one another on a bench-table in
the little patch outside, where the profusely
stuffed hanging baskets
considerably
cheered up the view of the disparate backs of the
houses down Pulteney Street. One of the fascinating
things about
Bath’s
architecture is how the rear of buildings differ so much,
rambling all over the place, quite unlike their
neat, classical fronts.
Well,
they held a particular fascination for me now. I didn’t know
where else to look. It was becoming apparent that
Josh’s eyes were
now studying my
face, but I couldn’t spend all afternoon looking at
Pulteney Street. Our eyes met.

‘I hope you
don’t mind me saying so, Sophie, but you do look
very lovely today.’

How could I
mind? Wouldn’t anyone love to be told that they
looked very lovely? Even if something about the way
he said the
words reminded
me so much of Charles. The thought and everything connected with Charles seemed
like a recollection to a
dream I’d
once had sitting here in my modern world. The
frustrating thing about this double life I was
leading was that one
blotted
out the other with alarming rapidity. Those feelings that I’d
never really travelled backwards or forwards
through time and that
it was
all part of some trick being played by my mind were rising
again.

I muttered my
thanks and took a large gulp from the glass of
iced white wine I was drinking.

‘How’s the
exhibition coming along?’

‘It’s going
really well. Actually, I was going to ask you
something, but I’m not sure you’d really be
interested.’

The April
sunshine suddenly felt unseasonably hot. I felt a
trickle, like a teardrop of liquid slide down my
spine.

‘Oh? Ask away.’

‘There’s to be a
launch party.’

He’s going to
ask me if I’ll waitress or something, hang coats,
I thought, wondering how on earth I’d be able to
get out of it.

‘It’s a party
for the exhibition. I wondered if you’d like to
come.’

My first
instinct was to summon up some excuse, but then I
thought that wouldn’t be very fair of me. I wanted
to see the
exhibition and
perhaps I’d meet some new people. I didn’t feel like
meeting anyone, to be honest, but I’d spent too
many years reading
magazines
telling lonely women how to improve their social life.
Even knowing that people only talk to the people
they know at a
party, wouldn’t
shift the idea that I might meet someone just as
lonely who could cheer me up.

I couldn’t help
the picture of Lucas and Lily surfacing in my
mind. The moment when I’d realized that the two
people I trusted
most in the world
had betrayed me flashed before my eyes. I’d
blamed myself at the time, thought the fault lay
with me and I’d felt
compassion
for their plight even as I’d witnessed her slender arms
clinging to his tanned body, both of them locked
together in the
writhing throes
of passion. I was feeling really awful now. London
beckoned.

‘Yes, I’d love
to,’ I lied, and then thought about how I seemed
to spend most of my time not being very truthful,
either to myself
or to anyone
else.

‘I thought you’d
like to see the portrait in situ amongst all the
other exhibits and see it being admired, as surely
it will be. And
besides, there
is to be another surprise, something I’ve not told you
about.’

‘Oh, what is
it?’ I was immediately intrigued.

‘I told you;
it’s a surprise. My lips are sealed, even if you do
agree to come. Will you? I’d love you to be there.’

I nodded with as
much enthusiasm as I could muster. ‘That’s
really kind, Josh.’

The sun suddenly
felt very hot, triggering a whole box of
reminiscences I’d thought were safely buried. I
remembered last
April on a day
like this one, when I’d thought Lucas and I were so
in love. Memories of lying amongst a carpet of
bluebells wrapped
in one another’s
arms were so sharp; I could smell the heady
perfume of the violet bells. But visions of Lucas
and Lily blotted
out the sea of
blue, replaced by an ocean of billowing white sheets.
He was kissing her tenderly, just as he used to
kiss me.

‘Sophie, I know
it’s none of my business, but you seem really
sad.’

‘I’m fine,
really,’ I said, until I noted the look of concern on
his face and the kindness in his dark-fringed eyes.
I felt tears
pricking behind
my eyelids. What on earth was the matter with me?

A tear rolled
down my cheek to collect in the corner of my mouth.
I licked the salt away and brushed at my cheek.

‘You look as if
someone just broke your heart.’

He was being so
lovely it was impossible to stop the
floodgates from opening. The tears really flowed then. I couldn’t
do anything to stop them. Josh jumped up from his
side of the
bench and came
rushing over to mine, fetching out a tissue to dab
softly at my damp face.

‘Do you want to
talk about it?’

I shook my head
and willed myself to stop. I certainly didn’t
want to talk about it and I didn’t want to think
about it any more.
Besides, however
I was feeling, it was a little ungracious of me to
accept Josh’s invitation to lunch and then cry all
over him. If it
wasn’t too late,
I knew I’d have to do something about that. He
proffered the tissue, which I took, blowing my nose
as discreetly as
I could before
donning my sunglasses so that no one could see how
red my eyes were. I felt his arm steal round my
shoulders pulling
me gently
towards him and it was such a natural, empathetic
gesture, that I found myself leaning into him,
nestling my head just
against
the base of his neck where it met his collar bone in a pillow
of firm, smooth flesh. I shut my eyes and felt the
tender touch of
his arm about
me, his chin resting lightly on the top of my head
with those corkscrew curls flickering in the breeze
like stolen
kisses about my
cheek. I felt the pulse in his neck like a tiny
heartbeat. His striped tee shirt smelt freshly
laundered, a hint of
something
tropical, creamy coconut meeting a touch of citrus on
his skin like chocolate melting with lime.

I might have
known that Lara would choose that moment to
bring out our lunch. I sat up promptly, like a
teenager who’s just
been discovered
by her mother in the act of kissing her boyfriend.

‘Two Caesar
salads with chips to share,’ she said. I knew she
was looking at me, but I couldn’t raise my eyes
from the table. ‘Can
I get you
anything else?’

I couldn’t
speak, Josh answered for us both in the negative and
as soon as she’d gone we picked up our knives and
forks. Sensing
an air of awkwardness
between us, I wished I hadn’t broken down
or let myself lie all over Josh. He’d really think
I was throwing
myself at him
now. And, I also knew I would have to start a
conversation if I was going to get this whole
outing back on any
sort of
comfortable footing. I contemplated a chip on my fork and
put it down again.

‘So, what
happens now with your work?’

‘Well, I’ve got
a few weeks to finalize the exhibition, but then
after the launch I’ll be a free agent. I suppose I
shall have to start
looking around
for another job.’

‘Will you be
wanting more exhibitions to do?’

‘I’ll take
whatever interests me, to be honest. Something
usually turns up. Though lately, I must admit, I’m
getting a bit fed
up with this
nomadic lifestyle. I sometimes think how nice it would
be to have a permanent job, nine to five. To wake
up in the same
bed, in the same
flat for more than six months together would be
something of a luxury.’