applause when he finished was as rapturous as it had been for the choir, and way beyond anything I had expected. I rose from my seat, propelled by pride, heedless of the fact that no one else was giving a standing ovation until Daisy yanked me back down.
‘He was great,’ Daisy said, with undisguised surprise. ‘He made me want to buy the book, and Lord knows there have been times when I thought I might go insane if I heard the name Alice Hornby again.’
‘You’re a philistine. She is the world’s greatest writer.’
‘Don’t waste your breath on me. I won’t read anything unless it has a glossy cover and celebrity interviews.’ She looked over at Leo, who had now joined Clark. They were talking, heads bent close together, tightly bound to each other even though they weren’t touching. ‘He’s changed. He looks …’ She screwed up her eyes, studying him. ‘Free.’
That was it, exactly. Perhaps because Daisy hadn’t seen Leo for a few months, the alteration was obvious to her. Leo did look free: free of care, free of pretence, free of being someone he was not. Free of me. Our stars had been aligned for so long; but his had now risen to a height that seemed well beyond my reach.
A performance poet came next, entertaining us in a traditional Lancashire dialect, followed by a popular local folk band, before supper was served – Lancashire hotpot, served with pickled red cabbage, which was simple but delicious. I was one of the last to be served, distracted by talking to the bookshop owner who had previously promised to attend, and by that time many of the guests had wandered outside to enjoy their food. Carrying my plate of steaming hotpot, I headed the same way, trying to find Daisy. She was never easy to spot in a crowd, but I located her at last, talking to a tall blond man who had his back to me. His head was tilted down towards her, exposing a stretch of tanned skin between the collar of his shirt and his exceptionally neat hairline – a perfect horizontal line that my finger itched to trace. I must have drunk more than I thought, because as I stared at his neck, my lips tingled with an inexplicable urge to taste that warm skin.
Heat raced through my blood, carrying with it the echo of a long-forgotten memory. My feet wouldn’t move, either forwards or backwards. And then Daisy glanced in my direction, waved, and her companion turned and smiled. My lungs seized with horror, shame, and sheer wrongness as I realised that the stranger who had stirred the unfamiliar desire, reminded me of the passion that I had chosen to live without, wasn’t a stranger at all. It was my brother-in-law, Ethan.
In my frantic haste to return to the barn, I crashed into a man in the doorway, sending a lump of red cabbage somersaulting onto his pale shirt. Efficient and capable? I had never felt less.
‘Mary?’ The man took hold of my arm and steadied me. It was Owen. I hadn’t known he was coming tonight. He smiled and I relaxed. ‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen the proverbial ghost.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, fighting to return to normal. ‘Look at your shirt.’ I picked off a clinging shred of cabbage. A pink stain remained. ‘I have something that will get that out, if you let me have it.’
‘Now? You’d like me to take my shirt off here?’
‘No, of course not …’ It took me a moment to realise he was joking.
‘Don’t worry. I can wash my own shirt.’
‘Can you?’ Leo had never touched a washing machine, as far as I knew.
‘Shall we start again?’ Owen let go of my arm. ‘Hello, Mary, it’s good to see you. Come and sit down and eat your hotpot.’
There was something so gloriously mundane about that sentence, that I let him steer me over to some empty chairs. He chatted about Lucilla and school, and the brilliance of the rock choir, while I picked at my food. I thought I’d lost my appetite, but Owen was such restful, easy company that my plate soon emptied. He took if off me and stood up.
‘Another wine or would you like a coffee?’
‘Wine, please.’
He threaded his way to the bar, squeezing past people with polite diffidence. There was something solidly reassuring about his broad back and sturdy waist. Light brown hair lapped over his collar; no sliver of exposed neck there to catch women unawares. Panic fluttered in my chest. It hadn’t been Ethan, surely? He was in New York. Audrey had mentioned him yesterday, doing something or other in New York. He wasn’t supposed to be in the country until July, so he couldn’t be here, right now, at Foxwood Farm, and I couldn’t be fantasising about his neck. It was impossible, and it was wrong. Unnatural. Undesirable. Undesirable desire. I was in danger of becoming hysterical.
‘This isn’t what I had in mind when I suggested we should have a drink together,’ Owen said, handing over my wine. ‘We’re under scrutiny.’
‘Are we?’ I looked around, expecting to see Daisy watching, but instead found Leo gazing our way.
‘Your ex-husband?’ Owen indicated Leo, and I nodded, unable to say the word that would acknowledge that ‘ex’. ‘You’re still on good terms?’
‘Yes. We’ll always be friends.’
‘Friends?’ I frowned, unable to read Owen’s tone, and wary of making a wrong assumption about what he was asking. This was a whole new world to me: men had only ever been men, not potential boyfriends or partners. I didn’t know the rules of this game, or understand the language in which it was played. Owen helped me out. ‘I’m a simple soul, Mary. I like you. I don’t like complications. If it may prove to be a temporary split …’
‘It won’t.’ No one could see Clark and Leo together and have any doubts about that.
‘And that other man?’
I turned to where Owen indicated, assuming he was referring to Clark. My stomach heaved, and not in reaction to the hotpot. It was Ethan. Ethan was here, tonight, in Stoneybrook, not in New York. So that reaction earlier had been to Ethan … I applied my mental blinkers, shutting out that thought.
‘Ethan. Leo’s brother.’
‘I suppose it will take time for them to accept you have separate lives now.’ Not just them. I smiled, an automatic rather than meaningful gesture, but Owen leant forward. ‘Are you still up for that drink? Perhaps without the minders?’
Even I couldn’t misunderstand that. I hesitated, feeling as if the room had fallen silent, and every pair of eyes and ears were waiting for my response – including mine. My gaze wandered over Owen’s face, past honest brown eyes, a straightforward smile, and on to a delightfully ordinary neck.
‘Yes. What about Tuesday?’
‘Are you trying to get squiffy, Mary Black? The music isn’t that bad.’
Warm breath blew against my ear, and I turned to face Ethan. He still wore the smile of the thirteen-year-old boy I had first met: confident, cheeky, effortless.
‘I love the music. The arrangements are amazing.’
A trio of young men were playing jazzed-up versions of old Lancashire songs with extraordinary energy and vigour. It was a mesmerising performance, and had drawn in most of the people who had remained outside after supper. I had been queuing at the bar when they started, and had been too entranced to move away.
‘The
