The Keeper of Lost Things(48)

Back in the main house, they found Grace alone.

“Where’s Portia?” Bomber asked.

“Taken herself back to London in high dudgeon, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Grace. “I tried to reason with her, but . . .” She shrugged sadly.

“I don’t understand how she can behave so appallingly.”

Grace glanced over to where Godfrey was chatting to Eunice to make sure that he was out of earshot.

“I think I can.” Grace took Bomber’s arm and led him over to the sofa.

“I remember when she was very young.” She sighed sadly, summoning the memory of her small daughter, with a gap-toothed smile and uneven pigtails. “She always was her daddy’s little girl.”

Bomber took her hand and squeezed it.

“And now she’s losing him,” Grace continued, “and perhaps for the first time in her adult life, she is faced with something that her money can’t fix. Her heart is breaking and she can do nothing about it.”

“Except hurt those who love her,” replied Bomber crossly.

Grace patted his knee.

“She simply doesn’t know how to cope. She left here in floods of tears, having called her darling Daddy a wicked old trout.”

Bomber gave his mother a hug.

“Never mind, Ma, you’ve always got your ‘precious bloody son.’”

Just as they were leaving, Godfrey beckoned Eunice over to his side.

“A word in your ear.” He winked conspiratorially at her and lowered his voice.

“Pretty damn sure that woman was my daughter. But there have to be some consolations for having this ruddy awful disease.”





CHAPTER 31


According to Sunshine, Laura had had Freddy on a “sleepover.” But Laura had not had Freddy on a sleepover. She had slept with him, in the same bed, but she had not slept with him. Laura smiled to herself at how peculiarly British it was; using the same words for different meanings but still not actually saying what you mean. Sex. She had not had sex with Freddy. Yet. There. In the space of a few sentences she had gone from innuendo to intercourse!

On Christmas night, she and Freddy had danced and drunk champagne and talked. And talked and talked. She had told him all about school and tray cloths and Vince. She told him about the baby she had lost, and he had held her close, and she told him about the short stories that she had written and he laughed until he cried. He had told her about his ex-fiancée, Heather—a recruitment consultant who wanted marriage and children, and he didn’t. At least, not with her. He had also told her why he had sold his small IT consultancy (much to Heather’s consternation and the final wheel to fall off their relationship) to become a gardener. He got sick of watching the world through a window instead of living outside in it. Laura finally told him about Graham and their disastrous date, and after some hesitation and another glass of champagne, she even told him about the kiss.

He grinned.

“Well, at least you haven’t rushed upstairs yet to swill your mouth out, so I’ll take that as a good sign. And I hope you kept that dress!”

He was quiet for a moment. “I was too embarrassed to kiss a girl until I was seventeen because of this,” he said, lightly touching the scar that ran onto his mouth. “I was born with a cleft lip, and the surgeon’s needlework wasn’t the neatest…”

Laura leaned forward and kissed him softly on the mouth.

“Well, it certainly doesn’t seem to hamper your technique now.”

Freddy told her all about Felicity; a blind date set up by a woman whose garden he’d been working on for several years. She swore they’d get on “like a house on fire.” They didn’t, but Felicity was one of the woman’s closest friends, so Freddy carried on seeing her while trying to work out a dignified escape route.

“One night, I couldn’t face any more of her bragging and braying and calling me bloody Freddo, so I just stood her up. Not very dignified, I know, but damned effective, as it turned out. I lost my client, but it was worth it.”

Finally, when Freddy and Laura had run out of words, they took comfort in each other’s arms, sleeping furled around one another like petals in a bud.

They slept in the guest bedroom next to Therese’s old room. The day Laura woke to find the drawers emptied onto the floor, she had moved her things into the room next door. She wasn’t afraid, exactly. Or perhaps she was, a little. She had a horrible feeling that there was, if not a specter, then an uninvited guest at her feast. A soup spoon was missing; one of the table legs was too short; one of the champagne cocktails was flat; one of the second violins was sharp. A sliver of disharmony jangled Padua, and Laura had no idea what she should do to restore peace. Carrot would never go into Therese’s bedroom, but he was perfectly happy to abandon his place by the fire on Christmas night to nestle at their feet on the bed where Freddy and Laura slept.

When Sunshine found out about the “sleepover” she wanted to know all the details. Whose pajamas did Freddy wear; how did he clean his teeth without his toothbrush; did he snore? And did they kiss? Freddy told her that he had borrowed one of Laura’s nighties, cleaned his teeth with soap and a flannel, and no, he didn’t snore, but Laura did enough to rattle the windows. And yes. They had kissed. Sunshine wanted to know if Freddy was any better at kissing now and he told her that he’d been having lessons. Laura had never seen Sunshine laugh so hard, but how much of it she believed was difficult to guess. How much of it she would repeat when she got home wasn’t.