‘You’ve shaved it off!’
Rufus shrugged and looked embarrassed, as if he hadn’t expected her to notice.
‘I’ve been meaning to for ages. When I woke up this morning I just thought today’s the day.’
‘You look so different.’ Dulcie examined his face from all angles.
Carefully casual, Rufus said, ‘Different better or different worse?’
She was lost for words. The answer was neither, his face looked ... well, naked.
But this was no time to dither. Feeling horribly responsible — because all this stuff about having done the deed this morning was clearly untrue — Dulcie reached up and touched his pink, baby-smooth jaw.
‘Much, much better. It’s brilliant. I love it. Really.’
Rufus flushed with pleasure. Dulcie, congratulating herself on having got away with it, grabbed his hand and dragged him into the plush crimson foyer.
‘Come on, we’ll be late. You don’t want anything to eat, do you?’ This as they sped past the popcorn and bags of sweets. ‘I can’t stand people stuffing their faces in cinemas; they always sound like pigs at a trough.’
Rufus, a secret popcorn addict, was already reaching into his pocket. He promptly let the wallet drop. He was out on a date with Dulcie and that was all that mattered.
‘Nor me.’
‘I just wanted to see this with my own eyes,’ said Liza at eight forty-five the next morning.
‘You and the rest of the world,’ Dulcie muttered, clearing the table and signalling Liza’s order for coffee and a bacon roll to Rufus as he headed back to the kitchen.
‘I thought he had a beard.’
Briefly, Dulcie said, ‘He did.’
Rufus emerged a couple of minutes later with Liza’s breakfast. The bacon, he assured her, was locally cured and free range; it had come from a happy pig.
‘He seems nice,’ Liza observed when he had gone.
‘He is.’ Dulcie whipped out her order pad as another table clicked their fingers at her. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to deal with this lot.’
‘You could do worse,’ said Liza.
Dulcie, shiny-faced and with the harassed air of someone rushed off their feet for the last two hours, said, ‘What, than Rufus?’ She grinned as she moved off. ‘Oh yeah, he’s really my type.’
Dulcie probably wasn’t Rufus’s type either, Liza decided twenty minutes later, but that hadn’t stopped him developing a massive crush on her.
‘Of course I’m serious,’ she repeated patiently, amazed that Dulcie could have remained so blithely unaware of the situation. What was she, blind? ‘Look at the way he looks at you. He fancies you rotten.’
Dulcie’s heart sank. Damn, she hated it when that happened. Being fancied rotten was only fun when it was mutual. ‘I thought we were just good friends.’
Sorrowfully, Liza shook her head.
‘You told him you weren’t wild about beards, didn’t you?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Think about it. If some just- goodfriend said it to you, would you shave your beard oft?’
When Eddie and Arthur appeared in the courtyard at ten thirty, Pru was already waiting in the Jag. She was wearing a sage-green cotton shirt, a narrow black skirt and black sandals. And, Eddie noticed at once, the diamond earrings from Liam.
He felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. He’d behaved like an idiot on Saturday. Whatever Pru was getting up to was her own affair, even if it was with Liam.
It’s none of my business, Eddie told himself fiercely. They’re both free agents, they can do as they like.
He watched Pru emptying the ashtray of sweet wrappers and thought, I’d never have a chance with her anyway.
Arthur leapt into the car, woofing with delight and burying his nose frantically in Pru’s handful of wrappers in search of any remaining trace of chocolate.
Eddie shoved Arthur over into the back seat. He decided to come straight to the point.
‘Look, I’m sorry I was a moody sod. Saturday was a bad day. Can we forget it happened?’
Pru looked relieved.
‘I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’
Bloody stupid, maybe. But not wrong.
Forgiving him instantly, Pru smiled. ‘Unlike you, you mean.’
‘What?’ Eddie protested when she held up the sweet wrappers. ‘Are you saying I’m not allowed to eat?’
‘I’m saying you’re not allowed to drive.’
He looked suitably abashed.
‘Just practising for when I get my licence back.’
Pru made up her mind at that precise moment. The tentative plan she had formulated during her stay at Dulcie’s had ground to an abrupt halt on Saturday when Eddie had gone weird on her.
