He was the one who’d written poetry. This had been his scene. She’d gone along because that was what they did. Sean-and-Ellie. Ellie-and-Sean. Started writing her historical romance because-well, she’d had to do something. No one, least of all Sean, had ever taken it seriously…
‘I’m sorry,’ Diana said, to someone who’d followed her in. ‘The library is closed. Late night is tomorrow.’
‘Thanks, but I’ve just come to pick up Ellie.’
Ellie half turned, happier to see Ben Faulkner than she would have believed possible a couple of hours ago. There was no way she could sit in the pub with these people tonight and not feel a complete fraud.
‘Good timing, Doc,’ she said. Then, ‘I’ll have to give the pub a miss tonight, Diana. Tell Lucy and Gary that I’m green with envy, will you?’
‘I will,’ she said, her look speculative, as if trying to work out how someone with so little to offer in the way of looks, style and career prospects had managed to pull someone so fanciable. Clocking all the details so that she could tell the rest of the group. ‘See you next month, then?’
‘Work permitting,’ she said, knowing that she wouldn’t go. Couldn’t go. She hadn’t actually lied, but by not telling the truth she’d cut herself off from them. Cut herself off from her past.
Too miserable to think, she allowed Ben to help her down the steps, across the pavement. He must have remembered the inelegant way she’d flopped into the seat, and this time he supported her, lowering her in gently- no doubt thinking of his springs or suspension or whatever it was that men worried about when it came to their precious cars.
She tugged on the seat belt, glancing back as it refused to budge.
‘Gently,’ Ben said, sliding behind the wheel and then, when ‘gently’ wouldn’t do it, ‘Leave it to me!’ And he reached across to pull it smoothly over her body, giving Ellie a dizzying close-up of his profile, a whiff of undiluted masculinity, before he fitted it into the clip.
‘It’s a bit temperamental,’he said, catching her look, misunderstanding it.
‘It’s old; it’s entitled to be cranky,’ she said.
‘True. So what’s your excuse?’
‘None of your damn business.’ She was tired, irritable, and at that moment she didn’t like herself very much. Which apparently made two of them. ‘I did tell you I’d get a lift.’
‘Next time,’ he replied coldly, ‘I’ll listen.’
‘Believe me,’ she snapped back, ‘I don’t plan to do this again any time soon.’ And it wasn’t the knee she was referring to.
‘No?’ He did not appear to be convinced.
‘No.’ Then, ‘Oh, look, I’m sorry. I’ve had the kind of evening I’ll be glad to forget, but that’s no reason to take it out on you.’He didn’t answer. ‘Or your car,’ she added.
He turned to her, his face creased not with irritation but concern. ‘Is the leg painful? We could go straight to A &E if you think it needs professional treatment?’
‘No. It held up better than I deserved for mistreating it so badly. I hardly felt a twinge. You did a good job, Doc. Ben,’ she corrected hurriedly, and, because she’d been at best tetchy, at worst downright rude, ‘I’m grateful for the lift, truly. I’ll be glad to get home.’ Realising that was probably not what he wanted to hear, ‘How about you? Any long-term damage?’
‘I’ll live.’ He glanced across at her. ‘Why do you do this, Ellie? Waitress, clean, caretake? You’re obviously an intelligent woman-’
‘Despite my deplorable taste in fiction?’
‘We all have our weaknesses.’
Ellie didn’t consider her love of nineteenth-century literature a weakness, but since there was no likelihood of changing Ben Faulkner’s mind she said, ‘True. So what’s yours?’
He glanced at her. ‘Do you always say the first thing that comes into your head?’
‘Usually,’ she admitted.
‘And you’ve managed to live how long? Twenty-four, twenty-five years without coming to serious harm?’
‘It’s very rude to ask a woman her age.’ Then, ‘Twenty-six years, actually.’
‘Twenty-six? Amazing.’
‘I know. I’m very well preserved.’ No wonder Mrs Cochrane thought she’d been married before the ink on her A-level certificates was dry. ‘All that beeswax in the furniture polish, no doubt.’
‘I meant it’s amazing that you’ve survived unscathed.’
She lifted one shoulder a fraction. ‘No one reaches my age unscathed,’ she said. The wounds might not show, but they went deep.
Fortunately, he thought she was talking about her knee, and said, ‘Can’t you find a less painful way of keeping body and soul together?’
‘If you think teaching a class of thirteen-year-olds to appreciate the Classics is not painful, you should try it some time.’
‘You’re a teacher?’
‘Not any more. Now I’m a writer.’ Then, because he didn’t seem unduly impressed-and why should he be?-she added, ‘That was the local Writers’ Circle meeting I missed tonight.’
‘And you missed it for the pleasure of carrying heavy trays of drinks because you couldn’t let your friend down?’He glanced across at her. ‘What does she do for you?’
‘She employs me. Even writers have to eat.’
‘Actually, until you’re earning a living from writing, I’d suggest that you’re a waitress.’
‘That’s like saying Vincent van Gogh wasn’t a painter because he didn’t make a living from his work. Not that I’m comparing myself with him,’ she added quickly. Then, because it was clear he was not convinced, ‘Besides, I’m not unpublished. Far from it. I’ve had articles published. Short stories. I’ll have you know…’
Just in time she caught her runaway mouth.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ He glanced across at her. She shrugged. ‘If you must know, I’ve written a novel.’
Well, she had to say something.
‘Would I have read it?’
‘It’s being considered by an agent…’ that would be agent number eleven ‘…at this very moment.’
‘Then the answer is no. I imagine it’s a romance?’ he said. And she could have sworn she saw him finally crack a smile.
‘What’s wrong with romance?’ she demanded. That was definitely not the smile she was looking for. ‘Jane Austen wrote romance.’
‘So she did. And your beloved Emily Bronte. Brooding, arrogant men, brought to their knees by strong-minded young women.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
‘But unlikely.’
‘Not that unlikely.’ Ben Faulkner had a pretty good line in disdain himself. ‘I felled you without even trying.’
‘I had always assumed, in romantic terms, the felling to be metaphorical,’ he said.
‘It is. Pity. The other way is so much quicker.’ Then, hurriedly, ‘Not that it was intentional.’ She was quite happy to see him on his feet if he’d only let her stay on in his house. There was tons of room, after all, and she earned her keep. Besides, he was bound to be going away again soon…
‘Can’t you write and teach?’ he asked, clearly no more anxious than her to prolong that line of thought.
‘You’ve been talking to my father, haven’t you?’
‘Is that what he thinks?’
‘Pretty much. Of course he helped finance me through four years of university, and has every right to expect me to put my education to the purpose for which it was intended. Teaching, as he never tires of telling me, is the perfect job for a woman.’
‘A career that fits around family ties? That’s a touch patronising.’
‘He’d say he was being realistic. The hours, nine to three-thirty, and the long holidays would, according to him, give me plenty of time to write in my spare time.’
And he thought
‘Fathers, patronising or not, tend to have the best interests of their offspring at heart.’ He glanced at her. ‘He
