Wedding Tiers (17 page)

My knees begin to buckle…

‘Oh hell!’ he exclaimed, catching me and lowering me onto the bed—but when I pulled him down with me he came, unresisting.

For a minute, propping himself up with an elbow either side of my head, he looked at me with his wry, slightly lopsided smile. ‘Libby was wrong:
I’m
the one who needs looking after tonight, not you!’

Then he kissed me and if he meant it as a farewell before resisting my clearly inferior charms, it didn’t stay that way.

Soon it wasn’t just the wine making my head swim and, if I thought of Ben at all, it was only that this would somehow teach him a lesson…

I woke late the next morning with a thumping head, a furry tongue and naked apart from a pair of lacy-topped hold-up stockings and a dented and battered rosebud wreath. And, while my head felt the worse for wear, my body seemed to be in a state of languorous bliss…

My mobile was playing an insistent minuet somewhere downstairs and outside I could hear the clanking of the henfood bucket as Harry made his way up the garden.

For a moment yesterday was a complete and merciful blank—and then a series of appalling recollections began to flash disjointedly across my mind. The wedding reception—Noah—me…
Had
I? Had
we—
and
twice?.

‘Oh, my God!’ I groaned, and turned over quicker than my head could take. But there was nothing unexpected next to me,
other than a glass of water, two aspirins and a note on top of the bedside table.

Across the room my crumpled velvet dress hung limply over the back of a chair, like a half-drowned survivor. My bra and pants lay in a heap on the floor near the bed, as if flung hastily aside…which they probably had been, and by my own, wanton hands.

Snatching the aspirins, I downed them with one gulp of water, then lay back with my eyes shut and the note clutched in my hand. Then, when I could focus well enough, I read it. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but whatever it was, this casual little missive wasn’t really it.

He’d scrawled his phone number down at the bottom of the page too, evidently as an afterthought. It didn’t sound like he expected to hear from me again; this was just a polite ‘thanks very much and goodbye’ note.

If he’d left at midnight, he must have amazing recuperative powers! But, of course, although it had been dark when we came back to the cottage yesterday, it had still only been late afternoon, really. He’d probably woken up after a couple of hours, refreshed by a little nap, and decided to go back to the party!

I lay there, with the aspirin subduing my headache to a dull throbbing and my faculties slowly coming back to life, as if someone was wandering through my brain plugging in the synapses one by one. Once I was capable of any kind of rational
thought, I had to admit to myself that the peapod wine, on top of everything else I had drunk, had stripped my inhibitions to the point where I had made all the running and pretty well dragged Noah into bed with me. I couldn’t blame him for anything that happened after that.

In fact, the aspirin, water and note were a kind thought, and also, I did seem to recall that he’d attempted to resist me—and even stopped at a crucial point to ask if it was OK—so there you are, it was all my own fault.

Only now, in the cold light of day, it felt totally reprehensible and slutty of me, when I had always loved, and just had my heart broken by, Ben. But a tiny little part of me—presumably the newly discovered slutty bit—would really,
really
like Noah to come back and do it all over again!

I repressed that thought firmly and, instead, wondered if anyone would guess what had happened. But perhaps we hadn’t been missed, because a lot of people would have departed just after the bride and groom and it would mainly have been the younger ones who stayed on as long as the music played and there was food and drink to be had.

Oh, I so
hoped
no one knew anything about it!

When I came downstairs, I discovered that Noah had also, just like my own personal house elf, tidied away the used glasses into the sink and placed the empty wine bottles in a neat row on the worktop by the range, before letting himself out. Both the range and the stove in the living room were banked up and gently glowing and the cottage was warm.

The missed call on my mobile had been Ben, just about the last person in the world I wanted to talk to right then. His was the number to come up on the house phone too, when I checked, but there was no message on either.

I opened the front door onto a lovely bright world that hurt my eyes, for a very thin layer of pure white snow lay everywhere, like professionally applied frosting on a cake. It must have fallen
after Noah departed last night, for there were no footprints leading from my door. I’d like to think I imagined the whole thing, but evidence is against me. And how, having released my inner slut, am I ever going to get her back into the box? Last night was totally different from anything I’d ever experienced with Ben, especially lately, when he must have been exhausted by his activities elsewhere, and I don’t remember making love with him being so full of laughter and…well,
tenderness
, I suppose.

And actually, I suppose it
is
flattering that a man like Noah couldn’t resist me. Once he got going, he certainly seemed to give the proceedings his all…

Now my headache has abated, I am having trouble keeping the smile off my face.

I think I’m going to sign the pledge and go teetotal…when I’ve finished up our current alcohol stock, which could take a while, though I’m giving my liver a break for the moment, to recover.

I went next door later to sort and date the eggs, and chat to Harry about the wedding and the party, just as if I hadn’t got a great big guilty secret, plus the rosy glow of someone who has spent a large part of the previous night making passionate love with a random man. Though I suppose that Rob Rafferty would have been even more random.

But Harry, at least, had noticed nothing odd about my disappearance last night. He’d just assumed I’d had enough and gone home, and since the house was in darkness when he returned after gallantly walking the Grace sisters back to Poona Place (though the other way round would have made more sense), I had gone to bed.

Which I certainly had. I’m sure I blushed when he said that.

Gina, who seemed to have taken rather a fancy to him at the reception, had already been across this morning to chat and had
told him that the party didn’t finish until she and Maria finally went to the Old Barn and pulled the plugs on the Mummers, about one in the morning.

‘She said that actor, Rob Rafferty—the one who sang with the Mummers—was flirting with you, our Josie.’

I blushed again. ‘Oh, yes, but it didn’t mean anything. I expect he flirts with every woman he meets.’

‘That’s what Gina said. Just so long as you didn’t take him seriously, because he’s not your type, lass.’

‘I don’t think I’ve got a type any more, Harry, but if I had, he wouldn’t be it,’ I assured him. I’d been flattered by his interest and he was rather gorgeous, but in a scary, out-of-my-league way.

Mind you, I’d have thought the same about Noah before last night.

When I’d done the eggs I took Mac out for a long walk, to make up for the day before and to clear my head. And, if truth be told, to find out if there was any gossip.

But the cold must have kept people indoors, for I didn’t see anyone to talk to, not even one of the Graces.

Ben finally got me while I was in the shed, checking over the stored fruit, but I suppose I couldn’t avoid his calls for ever.

‘At last! I’ve been trying to get you all day!’

‘Yes, I know,’ I said shortly, ‘but I’ve been busy.’

‘And
I called you last night, Josie—and some man answered,’ he said accusingly.

My heart stopped beating for a moment. Then I said cautiously, ‘A
man?.
What time was this?’

‘Late—about midnight, or maybe slightly after. I couldn’t sleep and I thought I’d just give you a ring and see how the wedding went, and how you were and—’

‘You phoned me in the middle of the night?’

‘I was missing you. But when this man answered, I was so
surprised I didn’t say anything and he put the phone down. And then I tried the landline, and no one picked up at all. Who was it, Josie? Are you seeing someone else?’ he demanded.

‘Not really, it was just some strange man I picked up off the street for a good time. What do you think?’

There was silence and then he sighed. ‘Sorry, of course you wouldn’t have a man there with you! I must have got the wrong number the first time,’ he said, as though it was totally out of the question that anyone would be interested in me, apart from him.

Little did he know…My stomach got the hot, churning feeling that letting my mind wander to thoughts of Noah seemed to engender and I hauled it back firmly.

‘The first time you rang, it must have been a wrong number and the second time probably the right one. But the reception party didn’t end until the early hours. The Mummers of Invention kept on playing until Gina and Maria came out and unplugged them,’ I said, which was the truth—except that I hadn’t actually been there by then.

‘Of course. I’m sorry, I suppose I got hold of the wrong end of the stick and was jealous.’

‘Ben, you wouldn’t have any right to feel jealous even if I held orgies every night of the week. What I do is none of your business any more.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he said, laughing. ‘I know my Josie!’

‘Not any more you don’t—and I’m not your Josie. So, did you just phone me up to check if I’d picked up some hunk at the reception, or was there another reason?’

‘Well, actually, I’m in Camden, unpacking all the stuff that came down from the studio and there’s a bit of a smell, as though a mouse had got into something and died there. Did you notice anything?’

‘No, but you’ve always had a problem with mice trying to move into the studio in autumn,’ I pointed out. ‘It smelled
fine when I packed your paints into some boxes I got from Neville’s.’

‘Yes, thanks for doing that,’ he said hastily. ‘I expect it got in afterwards and the smell will go off eventually. I’ve opened all the windows.’

He lowered his voice tenderly. ‘Josie, I really do miss you and I know finding out about Olivia was a shock. Throwing me out was an overreaction, though, because we can work things out, really we can! I still love you, you know that? I think I must have been mad to have an affair with her when I’ve got you, but now I’ve come to my senses and—’

‘You’ve made your bed, and now you’ll have to lie on it, Ben, because with a baby on the way you have responsibilities, haven’t you? And at least
you
have the comfort of knowing
I
was the barren one.’

‘Oh, Josie, don’t!’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

‘You won’t get the chance, Ben. Have you told your parents yet? They’ll be delighted we’ve broken up, and adore Olivia. She’s rich, well connected and ideally placed to further your career. She might be a bit long in the tooth, but obviously she can still give them the grandchildren I never managed. When’s the wedding?’

‘Only in Olivia’s head—and my parents’, now they know the baby’s on the way,’ he said, sounding harassed. ‘But you know what I think about marriage, Josie. Anyway, if I was going to marry anyone it would be—’

‘Just don’t say it, Ben Richards! You wouldn’t even marry me to make Granny happy, because you said it was against your principles, so now it’s way too late to change your mind. Just get on with your new life and forget you ever had another.’

‘But Olivia was using me! She desperately wanted a baby before it was too late, but if I’d known that—’

‘Look, I
don’t care.
Nothing’s the same any more and I just want to cut you right out of my life, as if you never existed!’

‘That’s a bit harsh—and I know, deep down, you don’t really
mean it. We’re soul mates, we belong together. Just because I went off the rails a bit, it doesn’t mean—’

‘You didn’t just go off the rails, you crashed the train!’

‘Well…OK then, but I keep saying how sorry I am.’

I cut him off when he changed the subject and started asking me how the wedding went, as if he’d missed it because he’d been unavoidably delayed somewhere. But the cottage was empty of him, as was the studio—swept clean by the removal men, down to the kettle and coffee cups in the little kitchen lean-to.

You couldn’t take away the memories that sneaked in when you least expected them, though, even if they were now tarnished and overlaid with betrayal.

Perhaps
I
was a bit tarnished and overlaid now too? But it didn’t really feel that way, for my night with Noah had given me a growing sense of something that was harder to define. Confidence that other men might find me attractive? Release? The capability to move on? I certainly didn’t feel cold, hollow and shivery any more, so it seemed to have been a cathartic experience. Perhaps I should thank him. And if he’d released my inner slut as well as awoken me from my frozen limbo, at least I needn’t feel guilty, because I was a single woman. I would just look on the experience like a dose of highly strange but very effective medicine and put it behind me.

I’d automatically resumed unwrapping and checking the stored apples while thinking all this over, but now my hands stilled. Medicine had made me think of the herbal remedy, and from there, to remembering Libby’s mother’s comments at the reception, when she was drunk (and so was I). She seemed to have been implying some sort of connection between herself and Tim’s father, but surely not…

I frowned, trying to recall her exact words, then decided I was reading more into it than there was. Gloria’s conversation was always full of innuendo. She was simply made that way.

* * *