‘Don’t be daft. Your days of buying clothes from charity shops and bread from the reduced shelf in the supermarket are over now, darling.’ Jasper looked around to catch the eye of the waiter, then turned back to her and rubbed his hands together as if in anticipation. ‘Just a few hours left of singlegirldom before Kits gets home and you become a full-time fiancée. Planning any wild parties?’
‘I’m saving that for when he gets back, in about …’ Sophie checked the time on her phone ‘… twenty-eight hours. Let’s see … they’re five hours ahead of us, so he should be just finishing his last shift about now.’
Jasper must have caught the note of anxiety in her voice because he covered her hand with his. ‘Don’t think about it,’ he said firmly. ‘You’ve done brilliantly—I’d have gone out of my mind with worry if it had been Sergio out there, dicing with death every day. You’re very brave.’
‘Hardly, compared to Kit.’ Her throat dried and she looked down at the menu as the waiter made his way towards them. She tried to picture Kit now—hot, dirty, exhausted. For five months he had been looking after a battalion of men, putting
their needs above his own. She wanted him home so she could look after him.
Amongst other things.
‘Soph?’
‘What? Oh, sorry.’ Realising the waiter’s pen was poised for her to give her order, Sophie asked for a Salade Niçoise, which was the first thing that caught her eye. Scribbling it down, the waiter moved away, his slim hips swaying as he wove through the tables.
‘Kit’s used to it,’ Jasper said absently, watching him go. ‘He’s been doing it for years. How is he, anyway?’
‘Oh … you know … he sounds OK,’ she lied vaguely. ‘But I want to hear about you. Are you and Sergio all packed and ready to hit tinseltown?’
Jasper leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands over his face. ‘The packing’s ongoing, but, believe me, I have never been more ready for anything in my life. After everything that’s happened in the last six months—Dad dying, the whole coming-out thing, Alnburgh turning out to be mine and not Kit’s—I can’t wait to get on that plane and just leave it all behind. I intend to spend the next three months lying by the pool drinking cocktails while Sergio’s at work.’
‘If I didn’t know you better I’d say you were ruthlessly attempting to make me wild with envy.’
‘Rumbled.’ Jasper grinned as the waiter arrived, his tray held high. ‘Is it working?’
‘Nope.’ The waiter placed a large gin and tonic clinking with ice in front of her. ‘The pool and the cocktails sound lovely, but honestly for the first time in my life I have no desire to be anywhere other than here. Well, not here, obviously,’ she said, nodding towards one of Covent Garden’s famous street performers, ‘since there’s only so long I could watch a poncey out-of-work actor juggle with knives. But at home. With Kit.’
Jasper eyed her narrowly, tapping his pursed lips thoughtfully with a finger.
‘I’m thinking alien abduction. I know there should be a more logical explanation for this complete character transformation from the girl who still has a phone on pay-as-you-go because a contract is too much commitment, to the woman whose idea of excitement is …’ he waved a dismissive hand ‘… pegging out washing or something, but I just can’t think what it could be …’
‘Love,’ Sophie said simply, taking a mouthful of gin. ‘And maybe, having been on the move constantly all my life, I’m just ready to stay still now.’ She glanced at him guiltily. ‘I keep sneaking into furniture shops to look at sofas and I’ve developed a terrible obsession with paint colour charts. I suppose I just want a home.’
‘Well, Kit’s pad in one of Chelsea’s most desirable garden squares isn’t a bad start on the property ladder,’ Jasper said, scooping up crab pâté on a piece of rye bread. ‘Better than Alnburgh, anyway. You had a narrow escape there.’
‘You can say that again. So, are you planning to move in when you get back from LA, then?’
Jasper grimaced. ‘God, no. The windswept Northumberland coast is hardly the hub of the film industry and I can’t exactly see Sergio walking down to the village shop and asking Mrs Watts for foie gras and the latest copy of Empire magazine.’
Taking another mouthful of gin, Sophie hid a smile. He was right; Sergio had shown up in Alnburgh for Ralph’s funeral and it had been like seeing a parrot at the North Pole.
‘So what will happen to it?’ She speared an olive from her salad. Curiously, she cared much more about the future of Alnburgh Castle now there was no question of it involving Kit or her. She’d been so miserable there when she’d gone up to stay with Jasper last winter that the thought of actually living within its cold stone walls was enough to bring her out in goosebumps. But now that possibility had been removed,
and sitting in the sunshine in the middle of Covent Garden, she could feel a sort of abstract affection for the place.
‘I don’t know.’ Jasper sighed again. ‘The legal situation is utterly incomprehensible and the finances are worse. It’s such a bloody mess—I still can’t forgive Dad for dropping a bombshell like that in his will. The fact that Kit isn’t his natural son is just a technicality—he was brought up at Alnburgh and he’s taken responsibility for the place almost single-handed for the last fifteen years. I guess that if I’m gutted by the way things have turned out, it must be even worse for him. Has he mentioned it in his letters or anything?’
Not meeting his eye, Sophie shook her head.
‘No, he hasn’t mentioned it.’
The fact was he hadn’t mentioned anything much. Before he went he’d warned her that phone calls were frustrating and best avoided so she hadn’t expected him to ring, but she couldn’t help being a bit disappointed that he hadn’t. She had written to him several times a week—long letters, full of news and silly anecdotes and how much she was missing him. His replies had been infrequent, short and impersonal, and had left her feeling more lonely than if he hadn’t written at all.
‘I just hope he doesn’t hate me too much, that’s all,’ Jasper said unhappily. ‘Alnburgh meant everything to him.’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s not your fault that Kit’s mother disappeared with another man when he was just a little boy, is it? And anyway, it’s all in the past now, and, as my barking-mad mother would say, everything happens for a reason. If Kit was the heir there’d be absolutely no chance I’d be marrying him. He’d need a horsey wife who came complete with her own heirloom tiara and a three-year guarantee to produce a son. I’d fail on all counts.’
Her tone was flippant, but her smile stiffened slightly as she said the bit about the son. Jasper didn’t seem to notice.
‘You come closer than Sergio. You’d both look good in a
tiara, but you certainly have the edge when it comes to bearing heirs.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’
It was no good. To her shame both her voice and her smile cracked and she had to press her hand to her mouth. Across the table Jasper looked horrified.
‘Soph?
