The Love Letter (13 page)

She could feel the solid pads of his fingers warm and firm around her palm, the short square nails brushing against the soft undersides of her wrists. She’d been the one to finally help him stop biting them, she remembered, rewarding every nibble-free week with more and more outlandish treats, largely based around carnal pleasures. The night he had finally been able to run a smooth set of nails along her naked spine from coccyx to nape had been a great victory. Her hand pressed involuntarily against his as the memory lingered, and in turn his grip tightened.

Would it really be such an act? She wondered. Perhaps it was what they both wanted?

‘There’s no beginning, there’ll be no end,’ she breathed aloud.

‘That’s not Eliot.’

‘Wet Wet Wet.’ She shook her head, laughing softly as she stared out to sea again, heart hammering. ‘Do you remember when we first came up here?’

‘With bottles of liqueur stolen from your parents’ drinks cabinets. It’s a wonder we even got back alive.’

‘No, before that; my father brought us all here bird watching that first summer you came to Farcombe. Ros got vertigo and refused to come back out. You were really kind and comforted her. I remember thinking how nice you were for a boy.’

‘I’ve always been nice for a boy.’

‘What you’re suggesting isn’t a very nice thing to do to Kizzy.’

He removed his hand from hers and stared at his nails, she could see the habitual urge to bite was still there, then he began tapping them against his lower lip. ‘Kizzy needs careful handling, but she’ll want what’s best for the family and for Farcombe. That’s her great strength. I’m not so sure about Con-man.’

‘Conrad.’ She rubbed her face fretfully.

‘Things a bit fragile between you two?’ he asked; did she detect hope in his voice?

‘We trust each other,’ she said smoothly, not trusting anything right now. ‘He doesn’t care what I do down here as long as you and I get Gordon Lapis on the Farcombe Festival programme.’

There was a long pause. Byron whined again, edging towards the entrance.

‘Gordon Lapis as in Ptolemy Finch?’

Legs nodded. ‘Let’s not talk about it now.’

‘Au contraire;
I want to talk about Gordon Lapis very much.’

Legs was fighting the urge to cry once more. Thinking about bloody Gordon and his stop-start messages and illogical demands was guaranteed to tip her over the edge. At least here on the cliffs she had no mobile reception at last and so was safe from his missives. But not safe from Francis and such a deep pang of déjà vu,
she could taste, smell, feel, see and hear it. She’d always teased him about the phrase ‘au contraire’ which he’d borrowed from Hector as a teenager and never managed to shake.

As she reluctantly explained the Gordon situation, she studied his hands again, so different from Conrad’s broad, tanned ones that could crush a palm in a handshake and yet excite her body like nothing else with their touch. Francis’s fingers were long and slender. As so often they were tapping nervously like a pianist dreaming of a Rachmaninov solo, drumming on his frayed jeans knee which itself was bobbing up and down. He’d never been able to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time unless he was absorbed in a book.

And as soon as he heard what she had been sent to Farcombe to propose, he looked as though he was about to take off and fly out around the cove.

‘This is absolutely wonderful!’ he laughed. ‘It’s just what the festival needs. Think of the income!’

Legs turned to him in surprise. It wasn’t the reaction she had expected, but nothing at Farcombe was turning out to be as she’d expected. ‘The selection committee turned us down flat,’ she reminded him.

‘I’ll just have to convince Poppy to overrule them. Kizzy will back her up.’

‘She’s on the committee?’ No wonder she was a headline act.

‘Her mother is Yolande Hawkes,’ he admitted sheepishly. Poppy Protheroe’s long-time best friend and arts-festival crony Yolande ‘Bird of Prey’ Hawkes was another turban-wearing harridan who championed obscure artists and was now the festival’s director. ‘Poppy’s her godmother.’

‘Good to know nepotism still rules round here,’ she muttered, eyeing him with mounting mistrust. If it was unlike the Francis she knew to suggest faking a romance to restore family order, it was even less like him to make such a political match, no doubt orchestrated by his stepmother herself.

He was soon confirming her suspicions: ‘Poppy believes Kizzy embodies the spirit of Farcombe. She was the one to encourage Kizzy to take her poetry more seriously; then Poppy put her on the committee last year, and she embraced the festival psyche totally.’

Including embracing the heir to the estate, Legs thought murderously, appalled by how painfully jealous she felt. Biting her tongue was impossible, although she redirected her anger onto Poppy.

‘Talk about Cupid and Psyche,’ she fumed. ‘Your stepmother’s so bloody manipulative!’

Hearing his old ally give a familiar war cry, Francis let his guard slip for a moment: ‘Godchildren rank higher than stepchildren around here,’ he agreed bitterly.

‘It’s so bloody corrupt, I hate it,’ she huffed in support.

Francis was quick to recover. ‘Actually, Kizzy does know her stuff; she has a double first from Goldsmiths, and worked at Tate Modern for two years, plus jobs in picture research and publishing.’

‘Easily bored, is she?’ Legs sniped.

‘She’s a clever girl,’ he said carefully. ‘She’s made some positive changes.’

‘By putting her own work centre stage?’

‘It’s very good. The
Observer
called her “a Stevie Smith for the Ecstasy generation”.’

‘Not raving, but drowning,’ Legs sneered, which he pointedly ignored, conciliatory face back in place. She wanted to rage some more, but forced herself to stay practical. ‘What makes you think Kizzy is going to recommend Gordon’s big stunt to the Farcombe committee when you’re proposing you and I stage a romantic reconciliation right under her nose?’

‘Trust me, she’ll be on side.’

She shook her head in confusion, standing up abruptly and wandering towards the clifftop arch, hugging herself. ‘She must love you very much if she’d be prepared to do that.’

He followed her, ‘But are you prepared to do it?’ The question
was so heavily loaded she stepped back, almost tripping. He caught her arm, searching her face for an answer.

She found she couldn’t speak, the lump in her throat stealing away her voice.

‘Please agree, Legs,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m only asking you to make believe, not make love.’

‘And will we all live happily ever after?’

A nervous smile touched his mouth. ‘Either that or we’ll wake up and realise it’s just been a terrible dream.’

Looking at his handsome, earnest face, Legs knew with absolute certainty that there was something he wasn’t telling her.

But before she could reply, they heard a high-pitched doggy yelp from the cliffs outside and Francis let out a wail of consternation, ‘Byron’s gone over! Hell! Kizzy will never forgive me if I lose him,’ he wailed, belting out onto the precipice.

‘Unforgivable to let the dog run off, but she’ll forgive you pretending to get back together with the ex,’ Legs muttered before going in pursuit.

The lame little terrier must have been stalking seagulls and lost his footing, as he was now scrabbling to keep a grip on the lip of the cliff, eyes boggling. Francis scrambled after him, sending down a shower of small rocks and scree.

‘Be careful!’ Legs gasped, realising how close to falling he was.

‘Come here, you little rat,’ he growled, edging along a rocky outcrop. But before he could reach the terrier, Byron let out an alarmed yap and disappeared over the cliff completely.

‘No!’ Legs wailed as Francis launched after him, now dangling over the edge so that all she could see were his legs and the soles of his desert boots. ‘Have you caught him?’

‘He’s fallen onto a ledge,’ he called back, voice straining with effort. ‘I can’t … quite … reach him.’ The legs disappeared even more, the toes of his desert boots providing the only security clamping him to the cliff.

Legs jumped forward to grab his ankles, which were hairy and
sinewy. He had odd socks on, she noticed, amazed to feel a great groundswell of tenderness bursting out of her. She wanted to lay her cheek against those strong calves and kiss their dusting of blond hairs. But now was not the time, as bigger stones fell and more of the cliff edge crumbled away beneath Francis’s stretching torso. She could see the foam leaping like greedy tongues as the waves lashed the rocks far below.

Byron had stopped barking and was whimpering now, genuinely terrified.

‘Come here!’ Francis demanded in frustration.

‘Have you tried calling him rather than shouting at him?’ Legs suggested.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Come here you little bastard!’

He sounded just like his father. Legs took her right hand from his ankle.

‘What are you doing?’ he squawked.

‘Searching for chocolate.’ Legs rifled her pockets for a trusty corner of Green & Black’s, softened in the heat beneath its foil.

‘Now is not the time for a snack, Legs,’ he snapped.

Ignoring him, she crept forwards and stretched her arm alongside his, which meant practically lying on top of him as they dangled off the cliff together. ‘Let’s try bribing him with this. And before you say anything, I know chocolate is bad for dogs, but I’m fresh out of Bonios.’

She could just make out the tip of Byron’s nose as he cowered in a small hollow beneath their rocky platform.

‘Here, little fellow – you’ll be OK,’ she soothed. ‘Come on, little Ron. Come and have some choc.’

The nose twitched, sniffed and craned forwards.

In a flash, Francis’s long fingers hooked their way beneath his neckerchief, took a handful of neck scruff and hauled him to safety. The chocolate tumbled into the sea below as dog and rescuers rolled away from the edge to safety, laughing and barking with overjoyed relief.

‘Thank goodness for that,’ Francis exclaimed, looking at Legs over his shoulder with an expression that almost made her fall off the cliff herself. His glittering blue eyes matched the bright patches of sky behind him. He was her teenage crush once more. ‘What a tragedy to die before I could tell you how great it is to see you.’

Legs felt her breath catch.

There was something giddily familiar about lying side by side on the heathery grass staring up at the sky and listening to the waves behind them. As if by habit, both Francis and Legs turned their faces to one another, so close that their noses were almost touching.

Even though he was still clutching an overexcited dog, Francis stretched forwards and kissed her, long lashes lowered over his blue eyes.

It was just the briefest of gestures, as modest as a Disney prince leaning down into the casket to touch his lips against Sleeping Beauty’s rosebud mouth, but Legs felt as though the cliff had crumbled and given way after all as her body spun around on its axis and her head lightened to thin air.

‘Wow.’ Francis pulled away. ‘This is going to be very, very complicated, isn’t it?’

Gazing up at him, realising that his eyes were in fact more pure cobalt than the sky, Legs knew she had come home.

In simpatico, Francis cupped a hand on her cheek. ‘Where are you staying?’

She couldn’t answer, not really caring while she was lying beneath him like this. Staying here in the heather six inches from the precipice sounded good to her right now.

His thumb traced the bone of her jaw. ‘You can’t possibly stay at Spywood. Come to the hall.’

At last, Legs felt the reassuring blade of guilt against her throat as she twisted her face away from his fingers. ‘Will Kizzy be there?’

‘Of course she will; she lives there.’

His no-nonsense answer made her roll deftly away from beneath him and kneel up, straightening her clothes and rubbing her flushed
face, horrified at what she’d just let happen and how Conrad would react if he knew. ‘I have other plans. We can talk again later. I have to be somewhere.’ She made a show of looking at her watch, realising too late that she had left it on the edge of the sink in the Ealing basement flat, along with her favourite earrings. She stared blankly at the blue veins running from palm to inner arm for a moment, amazed to find that she could actually see the pulse beating there, a little pressure pad jittering up and down horribly fast.

Francis laughed affectionately. ‘You always forget to wear your watch.’ He reached out for her wrist, but she snatched it away.

‘I live for the moment, remember? You always said that was the ultimate example of bad timekeeping. Let’s text. You always said that was the ultimate example of …’

He took the cue, ‘Bad haiku.’

Nodding, she scrambled upright and fled, realising that being one year removed from the thirteen years they’d been a couple was barely enough to stop the love and regret inside melting and boiling to reach flashpoint.

Francis was right; this was going to be very complicated.