But nothing was for ever and after a few minutes her eyelids flickered. He saw the moment of confusion as she surfaced, then the smile as she realised where she was.
A smile that faded when she saw him and, embarrassed at being caught sleeping, struggled to sit up. ‘Oh, Lord, please tell me I wasn’t drooling.’
‘Hardly at all,’ he reassured her, getting up and placing a cup on the table beside her. ‘And you snore really quietly.’
‘Really? At home the neighbours complain.’
‘Oh, well, I was being kind…’ He offered her a plate of some home-made biscuits he’d found as she laughed. Teasing her could be fun…‘Have one of these.’
‘Mrs Kennedy’s cure-alls? Who could resist?’
‘Not me,’ he said, taking one himself. Then, as it melted in his mouth, ‘I can see how they got their name. Maybe she should market them? A whole rang of Longbourne Court Originals?’
‘With a picture of the house on the wrapper? Perfect for the nostalgia market. Except, of course, that there won’t be Longbourne Court for much longer. Longbourne Conference Centre Originals doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?’
He didn’t immediately answer. And, when he did, he didn’t answer the question she’d asked.
‘When you asked me if I bought the house for Candy, I may have left you with the wrong impression.’
The words just tumbled out. He hadn’t known he was going to say them. Only that they were true.
‘You always intended to convert it?’
‘No!’ He shook his head. ‘No. I told myself I was buying it for her. The ultimate wedding present. But when I walked into the house, it was like walking into the dream I’d always had of what a family home should be like. There were old wax jackets hanging in the mud room. Wellington boots that looked as if somebody had just kicked them off. Every rug looked as if the dog had been sleeping there just a moment before.’
‘And all the furniture in “country house” condition. In other words, tatty,’ Sylvie said.
‘Comfortable. Homely. Lived in.’
‘It’s certainly that.’
‘Candy would have wanted to change everything, wouldn’t she? Get some fancy designer in from London to rip it all out and start from scratch.’
‘Probably. It scarcely matters now, does it?’ She lifted a brow but, when he didn’t respond, subsided back into the comfort of the chair. ‘This is total bliss,’ she said, nibbling on the biscuit. ‘Every winter Sunday afternoon of childhood rolled into one.’ Then, glancing at him, ‘Is it raining?’
‘Raining?’
‘Your hair seems to be dripping down your collar.’
‘Oh, that. It’s nothing. I missed the kettle and the water squirted up at me,’ he lied.
‘And only got your hair?’ That eyebrow was working overtime. ‘How did you get so lucky? When that happens to me, I always get it full in the face and chest.’
‘Well, as you’ve already noticed, I’ve got a damp collar, if that helps.’
‘You think I’m that heartless? Come closer to the fire or you’ll catch a chill.’
He didn’t need a second invitation but took another biscuit and settled on the rug with his back propped up against the chair on the far side of the fireplace.
‘Tell me about your winter Sundays, Sylvie.’
‘I’d much rather hear about yours.’
‘No, believe me, you wouldn’t. They are definitely nothing to get nostalgic over.’ Then, because he didn’t even want to think about them, ‘Come on. I want everything, from the brown bread and butter to three choices of cake.’
‘We never had three choices of cake!’ she declared in mock outrage. ‘According to my mother, only spoilt children had three kinds of cake.’
‘I’ll bet you had toasted teacakes. Or was it muffins?’
‘Crumpets. It was always crumpets,’ she said, still resisting him. ‘I will have your story.’
‘You’ll be sorry if you do.’ But for just a moment he was tempted by something in her eyes. Tempted to unburden himself, share every painful moment. But he knew that, once he’d done that, she’d own him, he’d be tied to her for ever, while she belonged to someone else.
‘Did you toast them on one of those long toasting forks in front of the fire?’ he asked.
And, finally, she let it go with a laugh.
‘Oh, right. I remember you, Tom McFarlane. You were the grubby urchin with your face pressed up against the window-pane.’
Her laughter was infectious. ‘I wish, but I was running wild, scavenging in Docklands while you were still on training wheels. But if I had been standing at the window, you’d have invited me in, wouldn’t you? Five or six years old, a little blonde angel, you’d have given me your bread and honey and your Marmite soldiers and a big slice of cherry cake.’
Then, unable to keep up the self-mocking pretence another minute, he reached for a log, using it to stir the fire into life before tossing it into the heart of the flames, giving himself a moment or two to recover. He added a second log, then, his smile firmly in place, he risked another glance.
‘You’d have defied your father, even when he threatened to chase me off with his shotgun.’
Charmed by this imagined image of a family gathered around the fire at teatime, he’d meant only to tease, but in an instant her smile faded to a look of such sadness that if he’d had a heart to break it would have shattered at her feet.
‘You’d have been quite safe from my father, Tom. He was never at home on Sunday afternoon. It was always tea for two.’
Beneath her calm delivery he sensed pain and, remembering how swiftly she’d cut her father out of his role at her wedding this morning, a world of betrayal. A little girl should be able to count on her father. Look up to him. That she hadn’t, she didn’t, could only mean one thing.
‘He was having an affair?’
‘My mother must have known, realised the truth very soon after the big society wedding, but she protected me. Protected him.’ She looked away, into the depths of the fire. ‘She loved him, you see.’
It took him a minute, but he got there. ‘Your father was gay?’
‘Still is,’ she said. ‘A fact that I only learned when his own father died, at which point he stopped pretending to be the perfect husband and father and went with his lover to live on one of the Greek islands, despite the fact that my mother had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. He didn’t care what anyone else thought. It was only his father whose feelings he cared about.’
‘If she loved him, Sylvie, I’m sure your mother was glad that he was finally able to be himself.’
‘She said that, but she needed him. It was cruel to leave her.’
‘Are you sure it wasn’t actually a relief for her too? When you’re sick you need all your energy just to survive.’
She swallowed. Just shook her head.
‘Do you ever see him?’ he persisted. And when silence answered that question, ‘Does he want to see you?’
She gave an awkward little shrug. ‘He sends birthday and Christmas cards through the family solicitor. I return them unopened.’
‘No…’
Touched on the raw, the word escaped him. She did that to him. Loosed emotions, stirred memories. Now she was looking at him, her beautiful forehead puckered in a tiny frown, waiting for him to continue, and he closed out the bleak memories-this was not about him.
‘He doesn’t know he’s going to be a grandfather in a few months?’ he asked. ‘Are you waiting for him to read an announcement in
Or had he, too, read about it in
There had been a moment then, when the idea of coming home had seemed so utterly pointless that he
