Love & Freedom (5 page)

Before she could escape, he reappeared right in front of her, almost tripping over the splayed wooden legs of the lounger. ‘Hell!’ His breath was coming just about quickly enough to show he’d been running. ‘What are you doing there?’

‘I rented the place.’ She forced herself to speak calmly, thinking hard about not thinking about wet T-shirts.

He smiled. ‘Sorry – I suppose I expected you to be indoors. Clarissa sent me to see if you’re over the sunburn.’

‘Boy. Does she always take her landlady act so seriously?’

He shifted from leg to leg, keeping his muscles warm. ‘How are landladies meant to act?’

She considered. ‘Aloof.’

‘In Eastingdean? You must be joking. Nobody’s aloof in case they miss something interesting. So, you’re enjoying the better weather?’

‘Much better than the rai–’ She faltered.

‘Yeah, the rain. Probably best to forget about the last time it rained.’ He bounced on the thick soles of his running shoes, fiddling with his watch, and she was certain it was to hide the laughter in his dark eyes.

But if he was prepared to pretend amnesia, then she was glad to do the same. ‘I saw a lot of runners on the Undercliff Walk, yesterday. Looks great to run by the ocean on such a lovely morning.’

‘It is, I do it most days. Want to run with me?’ He kept his legs moving, his denim-blue sports pants moulding and clinging to well-muscled thighs.

She sat up, exhilarated by the idea of a run. ‘Will you wait, while I put on my running gear?’

‘Sunblock would be good, too. This is for you, by the way.’ He took out a small white envelope. ‘When you sent the money for the groceries, you overpaid by ten pounds.’

‘Oh.’ She flushed. ‘I thought I ought to include something for your trouble. Don’t you do that, here?’

His eyes danced. ‘We don’t tip friends – but thanks. You get changed and I’ll jog around out here to keep warm.’

She ran indoors, dropping the envelope in the kitchen. She couldn’t make him take a tip if he didn’t want it but she wished he would.

Pulling on sweatpants and a long-sleeved sweatshirt and slathering her face and neck with sun block, she hooked on a navy-blue New York Yankees baseball cap, swinging her hair in a ponytail through the gap at the back. When she stepped outside he was jogging up the terrace steps, looking cool and breathing evenly.

‘I’ll keep moving while you stretch.’ He pivoted on the top step and jogged down.

Right. Stretches. Although she ran regularly, back home, she’d never really bothered with the stretching part; she just began slowly and let her muscles warm that way. But, hey, if he took running that seriously
 
… She bent slowly, rolling her spine up and down three times, then completed a few lunges and twists. A couple of hamstring stretches against the brick wall and she was done.

‘OK. Let’s hit the beach.’ She trotted down the steps behind him.

He set off to the nearest set of pedestrian lights, running slowly on the spot until the traffic stopped, then leading the way over the road and down the first set of concrete steps, all the way down to the Undercliff Walk.

‘Whoo! This is great,’ she called, falling into an easy stride beside him between the stony beach and the rising chalk cliffs, sucking in the salt air. The sun kissed every ripple in the ocean and the traffic noise from the road above was whipped away by the wind. The day was fresh and new, and loping gently at her side was a man who, she was ready to admit to herself, could make her heart rate gallop without a running shoe in sight.

‘Ready to pick it up?’ Martyn accelerated smoothly and his long legs began to carry him effortlessly and rapidly away from her.

‘No way!’ She laughed, the tightness of her legs making her wish she’d warmed up more thoroughly. ‘You’re a hell of a lot taller – than – I – am.’ Her breathing became disobedient and she slowed to let it kick back into rhythm.

He circled to let her catch up. ‘Sorry, Pocketsize Woman.’ He didn’t look sorry. His eyes glittered with fun as he began to skip. ‘Come on! You must be able to keep up with me now.’

‘It would be easier to keep up with a kangaroo!’ Her breathing went all to hell again as she began to laugh at the expressions on the faces of passersby as he bounced along at a pace that still had her running pretty hard. But she found her flow after the first half-mile and when Martyn gave up skipping and settled back down to run she began to enjoy the rhythmic pat-pat-pat of their feet on the concrete. The sun, the dancing sea and the fluttering breeze combined to inflate a balloon of happiness in her chest, a glad-to-be-alive, glad-to-be-here-and-not-dealing-with-all-the-crap-in-Connecticut feeling.

Martyn’s respiratory rate still seemed about half that of hers but she was running fluidly, taking time out to watch the waves running up over those millions and millions of little round stones, and it didn’t seem long before they reached the slope up to Rottingdean, the White Horse Hotel peering down from the top.

Martyn made for the steep steps curving up beside the slope, past the wall studded with big pebbles, just like the walls of the cute little houses she’d learned were called flint cottages. Gritting her teeth against the aches in her thighs and knots in her calves, Honor ran up behind him. At the top he turned and jogged back down past the cushions of wildflowers that studded the corners of each step. Heart rate and breathing getting jerky, Honor followed. Up, down; up, down. Her legs began to burn. Then he jumped down on to the beach and began to run back the way they’d come, but on the stones.

‘You’re kidding me,’ Honor said under her breath. She pounded back across the concrete while he ran a couple of hundred yards on the incredibly shifting surface. Her legs got heavier. Unappreciative now of the dancing ocean, the beach and even the way that the undulating crest to the white cliffs brought the road above into view, buses looking like toys, her breath rasped and she tried to tug up her sweatshirt’s long sleeves.

Her attention was diverted when Martyn jumped fluidly back up on to the concrete, reached over his shoulders with both hands and, without breaking stride, pulled his top off, baring his upper body to the sun. He cantered on, his top bunched in his hand.

‘That’s a cheat,’ she gasped.

He turned his head and grinned. ‘I don’t mind if you take yours off.’

She snorted, which interrupted her breathing again and made him laugh, and wished she’d worn a running bra, so that she could have. And then she let herself drop just a half-step behind so that she could watch him as he loped easily along.

She had to blink.

None of the gym-freak’s overdevelopment marred his body, but every tautly defined muscle was visible beneath his skin. So many muscles, all rolling in perfect harmony. He was a running sculpture, a perfect specimen. Jessamine, who wallowed in lovely romantic novels, would have called him a force of nature; Honor thought him more a work of art.

But even being in the presence of live art couldn’t take Honor’s mind off the way her legs were turning to string. She gave a silent groan as Martyn turned for the steep steps up the cliff to the road. She would have preferred one of the slopes on the last lap towards home. But, whooping in great lungfuls of air, she made it up.

She nearly cried when he turned and skipped down again. Womanfully, she gave chase, refusing to let him see how unfit she’d let herself get. Maybe hitting thirty should have been a clue that she needed to step up her running and her dance classes, but her hours at VPV Finance had got longer and longer as she’d battled the shrinking of her client list. Not normally good at knowing when to quit, that’s when she’d asked Vic if he wanted her to be the staff member he had to ‘lose’ in that financial year.

And Vic had said yes so fast, Honor had been crushed. But she’d hung on to negotiate a generous severance package in lieu of notice. And, right there, was when she’d decided: Get away, Honor.

Pounding around a corner, she followed Martyn up a ramp into an underpass, their footsteps echoing
blam blam blam
. Over a path and car park and suddenly they were into a lush green park, a valley between ribs in the landscape. The residences of Saltdean rose in tiers like spectators at a football match.

She salvaged enough breath to call, ‘Wow!’

People trekked through the park towards them, following the paved way on the floor of the valley, carrying backpacks or lunch boxes. Surely Martyn must slow up? Or risk scattering people like bowling pins. Her legs thanked him in advance.

But, ‘This way,’ he threw over his shoulder. And, to her horror, he set off up the slope on the right of the valley.

Once more, she thought she might cry.

And then she thought she might quit.

But she set off after him, knees throbbing, thighs aching, breath burning. Then he turned at the top and she saw that he was going to zig-zag the whole damned way along the sloping side of the grassy park. Her legs gave. Which pretty much meant the rest of her had to give, too.

Gasping for breath, she flopped to her knees and twisted on to her back, wafting the waist of her sweatshirt to let in blessed cool air, legs trembling like jello. Jelly. She was in England and this English rat bastard had driven her to this, so they must be trembling like jelly.

He returned, laughter finally making him breathe hard. ‘I thought you were never going to give up. You ran way farther than I thought you could.’ He took both her hands, pulling. ‘You have to cool down and stretch or you’re going to be too stiff to move.’

She whimpered. ‘Stiff is OK. Stiff is good.’ But she let him drag her up and they jogged slowly down the grassy slope, towards a skateboard park and along flat ground. They slowed and slowed until at last they were walking. He shrugged back into his sweatshirt and linked his arm through hers. ‘Five minutes walking, stretches, then I’ll buy you a smoothie.’

She groaned at the delicious prospect of something thick and cold easing her throat. But the burn did leave her calves as she walked and even her knees firmed up. The stretches he made her do were more comprehensive than the ones she’d sketched at the bungalow but, at last, he let her lie down on the slope in the dappled shade of a tree whilst he went to the kiosk beside the play park.

Pressing an orange-and-passion-fruit smoothie into her hand, he dropped down beside her. ‘I really shouldn’t have let you run like that. I knew within about thirty seconds of leaving your place that you were unfit. I just wondered how long it would be before you admitted it.’

‘I hate you,’ she managed, taking tiny sips and trying to hold the liquid at the back of her throat to ease the burn. ‘Every time I found a rhythm, you ran me up steps or up a hill.’

He sucked his straw, his breathing almost even already. His hair blew back from his face and a morning shadow hollowed his cheeks. ‘Works on the glutes.’

Her chest was still heaving. ‘That’s how you got that butt, huh? I guess mine could use the work.’

A spark ignited in his eyes. ‘I think I would have noticed.’

She changed the subject. ‘How are your sisters?’

‘Zoë and Clarissa? They’re the ones you’ve met. I have Nicola and Beverley, too.’

‘Four sisters! Poor you. Any brothers?’

‘Nope. Mum just had girls until–’ He drank instead of completing his sentence, the dull orange liquid sinking slowly in the bottle.

‘So you were raised in a houseful of women?’

He laughed. ‘It made me strong. They were all so bloody bossy I had to stand up for myself.’

‘I thought Zoë was a little
 
…
decisive
, when you called her for me but Clarissa
 
…! She takes “decisive” to a whole new level. Was your mom the same way?’

He grinned between sips. Then sighed. ‘I might as well tell you, as it might help you not to put your foot in it with your landlady. And there’s always somebody in Eastingdean ready to rake up ancient history because the Mayfairs are official gossip fodder. Thing is, those I call my sisters – well, none of them are.’

Honor levered herself on to her elbow. ‘Were you fostered?’

He shook his head. ‘It sounds really Catherine Cookson, but Clarissa’s my natural mother. She had me when she was sixteen so the other three are really my aunts and the person I’ve always called “Mum” was my grandmother. “Dad” was actually my grandfather.’

Honor hid her surprise. ‘I’ve heard about that situation. I guess that the arrangement made things
 
… easier on Clarissa.’

‘Expect so. I tagged on to the end of the family and Clarissa carried on with her life, her education and her youth. It saved me being a complete embarrassment.’

Honor sensed he was waiting for her reaction. ‘Your Mum-Gran was pretty generous.’ She tried to say the English ‘Mum’ naturally but it sounded totally fake.

His eyes softened. ‘She was wonderful. She and Dad are gone now and I miss them. They didn’t want Clarissa to suffer for a moment’s wildness, the kind other girls got away with.’ He paused. ‘I remember the day that Mum explained it all to me. It was a hell of a shock – but then nothing seemed to change. Maybe there had been some idea that Clarissa would take me over at some unspecified future date, perhaps when she was in a settled relationship. But she didn’t get married until I was at uni.’