Princess Dottie

Chapter Two

“I'm afraid you have to go now,” Dottie said. “I'm locking up.” “Can't I help you clear away to atone for my crime?”

“Crime?”

“I'm the awkward Mr. Holsson,” he confessed.

“Oh heck!” She clasped her hand over her mouth, looking so much like a guilty child that he had to laugh. “Me and my big gob! I'm always doing it.”

“Don't worry. I won't tell anyone if you don't.”

“I'm not usually this disorganized.”

“It's not your fault if nobody told you.”

“Thanks. That's nice of you. Just give me a minute and I'll be over there to make you comfortable.”

Randolph felt that nothing short of a miracle could make him comfortable in this nightmarish place, but he held his tongue. He was growing to like Dottie.

She was loudmouthed, over-the-top and totally unsuitable to be a queen, but she had a rough good nature that appealed to him, and her ability to laugh in the face of her dreary life touched his heart.

She was just finishing the cashing up. “This is supposed to be Jack's job,” she sighed.

“But tonight he's giving you a wide berth,” Randolph reminded her. “That way you can't complain about his 'high crimes and misdemeanors'.”

“His whaters?” Dottie asked, her eyes on the till.

“His failure to pass on the message.”

“Oh, I see. Why not say so in English?”

“It is English,” Randolph said, suppressing a desire to tear his hair.

“Not where I come from.”

He drew a long breath. It was her language, wasn't it? If he could speak it, why couldn't she?

But he abandoned the subject as fruitless. “Since this is partly my fault, why don't you let me help you clear up?” he suggested.

She agreed to this readily, and within a few minutes they had finished. She vanished into a little room at the rear to remove her waitress uniform, and returned in a blouse that looked faded from much washing, and shorts that revealed a pair of dazzling legs.

He had a sudden aching memory of his much loved but erratic father, a “leg man” and proud of it. Gazing at Dottie's shining pins Randolph wondered if he had more in common with his wayward parent than he'd suspected.

She locked up, turned out the lights and together they went next door, where, despite Jack's promise about a porter, Randolph's bags were still standing in the hall where he'd left them. It was a measure of how far he'd traveled in the past hour that this didn't surprise him.

Room 7 came as a nasty shock. With his first step he had to hold onto the door frame as a loose floorboard wobbled underfoot. The wallpaper was a sludgy green that suggested it had been chosen to hide stains, the mattress seemed to be stuffed with cabbages. The curtains were too small for the window, and the drawers beside the bed didn't shut properly.

An inarticulate sound behind Randolph made him turn to see a pile of sheets and blankets walking around on Dottie's legs. He guided her inside and removed the top layer, unblocking her view.

“Sorry,” she said, dumping everything on the bed. “The furniture's a bit…a bit…”

“Yes, it is,” Randolph said with feeling.

“Jack buys it secondhand, you see. Never mind. It's clean, I see to that.”

“I believe you. Let me help you make up the bed.”

This wasn't a success, except that his efforts reduced Dottie to tears of laughter. “I'll do it,” she said when she'd recovered. “It'll be quicker.”

She proceeded to attack the bed in a wild frenzy of efficiency, punching seven bells out of the pillows until they took on some sort of shape.

“I still feel I should atone for making your life difficult,” he said. “Let me take you for a meal.”

“But you've just had a meal.”

He looked at her.

“No, I suppose not,” she sighed. “You didn't really touch it, did you? But you don't have to-”

“I should like to. Please.” When she hesitated he added shamelessly, “Just think of Brenda making up to your fiancé.”

“Right,” she said, setting her chin firmly. “Let's go.”

At his suggestion she used his mobile to call a cab to collect them in Hanver Street.

“Why Hanver Street?” he asked. “Is this a pedestrians only area?”

“No, but cabs don't like coming here because of all the one-way streets,” she explained as they stepped outside. “Hanver Street is just on the other side of Hanver Park.”

The little park was at the end of the road. A tiny place, just a stretch of greenery, a few swings and a little wood, it was an unexpected delight in this dingy neighborhood. It lay on a gentle slope, and as they descended the broad steps Randolph's attention was taken by two figures on the grass verge. They wore black jeans and sweaters. Their hair was completely covered by black woolly hats, and their faces were painted dead-white. Silent and mysterious, they were gravely miming a little scene. Their manner was gentle, and occasionally they smiled at the odd passerby who stopped to regard them. They might have been young men or young women. It was impossible to tell.

Randolph took out some coins, but the two performers threw up their hands in horror, seeming genuinely shocked.

“You don't want money?” Randolph asked.

As one, they laid their right hands over their hearts and bowed graciously, as if to say that it was their pleasure to give. Randolph was charmed. He would have watched them longer but Dottie had seen their cab at the far gate, and seized his hand.

Her eyes widened when he gave the driver their destination.

“I can't go to The Majestic,” she said, scandalized. “It's posher than the Ritz. I've never been anywhere like that before.”

“Then it's time you did.”

“Don't be daft, I can't go like this.”

“Get in,” he said, taking her arm and urging her into the cab.

It swept them away from the dreary surroundings and off to central London, where the store windows shone and the restaurants glittered. Dottie pressed her nose to the window, eyes shining in a way that made Randolph wonder how often she had any kind of treat.

He'd discovered so many new things that day that he regarded his horizons as fully enlarged, and was beginning to think there was no more for him to learn.

He was wrong.

The Majestic offered him an experience that he'd never known before and if he never knew it again until his last day on earth it would still be too soon.

As they pulled up before the luxurious restaurant the cab door was opened by a doorman in an extravagant livery. He bowed, his face wreathed in obsequious smiles that vanished when he saw Dottie.

“I am very sorry, sir,” he said, addressing Randolph as if Dottie wasn't there, “the restaurant has a dress code. Ladies must wear skirts.”

The habit of years made Randolph say impatiently, “Nonsense.”

“I'm afraid the rule cannot be broken, sir.”

Only a lifetime of thinking before he spoke stopped him announcing who he was. Prince Randolph went where he pleased and restaurant owners groveled for his patronage. Now he was being told that he wasn't good enough, or rather, his friend wasn't good enough. The sight of Dottie's face gave him a nasty shock. She was smiling, but not in her normal joyous way. This smile had a forced brightness that told him she was hurt.

He was suddenly full of anger but it was directed at himself. She'd tried to warn him and he'd ridden roughshod over her.

“Come on,” he said, taking her arm gently. “This place doesn't suit our requirements. We'll find somewhere better, that does.”

That made the doorman swell like a turkey.

Dottie walked along the street in silence. Randolph was about to say something comforting when she began to laugh. “His face!”

“It was worth seeing,” he admitted. He was thinking of some women he knew who would have said, “I told you so,” and sulked until they thought he'd been punished enough.

Being offended was the last thing on Dottie's mind. She was in seventh heaven, enjoying the first fun outing she'd had in years. She recalled the last time she'd been in London's glamorous West End, as a child, when Grandad had brought her to see Santa Claus in one of the stores.

This felt much the same. The way her companion had whisked her away and brought her to this glittering street gave him much in common with Santa. Of course he was young for the part, and far too handsome, but she clung to the analogy because it left her free to admire him without feeling guilty about Mike.

They found somewhere a little farther along, different from The Majestic in every way except for its prices, which were even higher. This was an emporium of nouvelle cuisine, bright, modern, chic, sexy.

“All right for us to come in?” Randolph asked the man in jeans and shirt leaning against the door.

“You got the bread, man?” He indicated the exorbitant prices.

“He's got the bread,” Dottie said, seeing Randolph's baffled expression.

“Bread?” he asked as they made their way to the table.

“Money.” A horrid thought struck her. “You have got the bread, haven't you?”

“I think I can manage a loaf or two.”

The waiter led them to a table by the window, through which they could catch a glimpse of the River Thames. He pulled out a chair for Dottie, who seemed disconcerted.

“I can't sit down,” she protested to Randolph. “He's holding it too far away.”

“Just sit,” he advised. “Trust him, he'll move it into place as your legs bend.”

She tried, and seemed relieved when she landed safely.

“Obviously you don't know the story of the Empress Eugenie,” Randolph said, amused.

“Who was she?”

“She lived in the middle of the nineteenth century, and married the French emperor Napoleon III. But she was a parvenu.”

“A what?”

“An upstart. She wasn't born royal. She had to learn. In her memoirs she told how she and her husband once shared a box at the opera with Queen Victoria, and when they sat down she looked behind her to see the chair. But Victoria didn't look back. She knew the chair would be in place, because for her it always had been. Eugenie said that was when she understood the difference between a true royal like Victoria, and a parvenu like herself.”

“I know how she feels,” Dottie said. “Life's always waiting to kick the chair away. Now me, I'd just fall straight on my ass.”

Randolph winced.

“You sound like Brenda,” Dottie continued. “She's got a thing about royalty. Just now she keeps on talking about Elluria and how they've lost their king 'cos he's illegitimate, or some such thing.”

“How did she know that?” Randolph asked quickly.

“This magazine she reads, Royal Secrets. All the dirt.”

And the magazine would certainly have contained a picture of himself, he realized. He could only be grateful for the plastic palm in the café that had prevented Brenda from seeing him well enough to blow his cover.

“Do you also read Royal Secrets?” he asked apprehensively.

“Not me. Well, it's all cobblers, isn't it?”

“Cobblers?” he asked, his eyes starting to glaze.

“Rubbish. Royalty! Who needs it these days?”

“What about the British royal family?”

“Oh look, I don't mean them any harm,” Dottie explained hurriedly. “I don't want to see them exterminated or anything-just pensioned off.”

The waiter was hovering expectantly. After study ing the menu with bafflement Dottie accepted Randolph's suggestion that he order for her.

“Do you have any preference about wine?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“A half of beer will do me,” she said.

“I'm not sure that they do beer. How about-?” He named a French wine, not telling her that it cost nearly one hundred pounds a bottle, and Dottie smiled and said she guessed that would do.

When the food arrived she made slow progress because she seemed unable to talk without gesticulating, and her hands were seldom free to eat. But after a while she seemed to be enjoying herself.

“You're not English are you?” she said between mouthfuls. “You've got a funny voice. No, I mean-not funny exactly…”

“It's all right,” he said, rescuing her. “I do have an accent.” He tried to sound casual. “Actually, I come from Elluria.”

“What, that place we were just talking about?”

“The very same.”

“Cor! Fancy that!” She giggled. “You're not royal, are you?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I'm not.”

It was true, he told his conscience. It had been true for several weeks now.

“I don't know anything about Elluria,” she admitted. “Not even where it is.”

“It's in the center of Europe. It's quite small, about three million people. The traditional language is German, but everyone speaks English as well because it's the language of trade and tourism, and these are important to us.”

“Is that why you're here?”

“In a sense. You might say that I've come on a fact-finding expedition.”

“But why Wenford? Why The Grand? You're completely out of place there.”

“Thank you.”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. I speak first and think later. Always have, and I guess I always will. Too late to change now.”

“Don't you think you could try?” Randolph ventured.

She gave a worried little frown. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, speaking first and thinking later is charming in a young woman, but there are times and situations when it could be damaging.”

“You mean when I'm an ugly old battle-ax?” she asked cheerfully, spreading her hands wide and forcing a waiter to swerve around her.

“I can't imagine that you could ever be ugly,” he said truthfully.

“But a battle-ax, right? Mike says it's like being with a dictator sometimes.”

“And you don't mind him saying things like that?”

She chuckled. “Oh, if he steps out of line I just give him a long, lingering kiss, and then he forgets everything else.”

That was wise of her, he thought. A kiss from those lips wouldn't just be about sex. It would be about laughter and sunshine, wine, sweetness and all the good things of life.

“Guys never give me any trouble,” she added blithely.

“You give them all long, lingering kisses?” he asked, startled.

“No need. A smile usually does it. But you're quite right. The day'll come when they're not trying to get me into bed-”

“Would you mind keeping your voice down?” he begged, conscious of the waiter just behind her.

“And then I'll have to watch my mouth,” she finished.

He reddened. “That's not really what I said.”

“Well, it's what you meant by 'damaging.' Me coming out with something daft isn't going to damage anyone but me, now is it? Kingdoms aren't going to rise and fall because Dottie Hebden opened her big gob-”

“Aren't they?” he murmured grimly.

“-and that's lucky because she's always blurting out something stupid. A really daft cow, that's what everyone says. Well, Mike doesn't say it because he doesn't dare but…oh heck, I'm sorry!”

“It's perfectly all right,” said the waiter, rubbing himself down. Carried away by her own eloquence, Dottie had made a wildly expansive gesture right across his path. He'd gone straight into it before he could stop, with disastrous consequences to the artistic creation in his hands.

A wail from behind him indicated that the chef had arrived on the scene, and it wasn't all right with him. “My masterpiece,” he moaned, regarding the mess on the floor.

“I shall naturally pay for any damage,” Randolph declared with a touch of loftiness. It was maddening to have this interruption when he was getting a glimpse into Dottie's mind, even though what he found there made him deeply apprehensive.

“Damage? Damage?” shrilled the chef. “It took me an hour to get it perfect. Do you really think that you can-?”

“I never think,” Dottie said penitently. “Oh, I'm so sorry. How could you ever forgive me?”

She'd risen from the table and taken the chef's hands in hers, smiling up into his eyes. He was a foot taller, so that Randolph was able to see straight over Dottie's head, and observe the precise effect she was having on the man. From avenging angel to trembling jelly in three seconds flat, he thought in admiration. The chef was almost burbling, assuring her that there would be no further trouble, she wasn't to worry herself…

“That was very clever,” he said when they were alone again. “How long did it take you to perfect it?”

“Hey, c'mon, I wasn't being cynical.” Her tone suggested a crime.

“Be fair. You were just boasting about how you could reduce Mike to a quivering wreck any time you liked-”

“I was not boasting,” she said firmly. “Mike loves me, which is why it works.”

“With him, maybe, but what about the others? 'A smile usually does it,' is what you said. You knew exactly what you were up to just then, Dottie.”

“Oh well.” She gave a wicked chuckle. “I didn't do badly, did I?”

“No, they're not even going to charge for the 'masterpiece' you ruined. One flash of your eyes and he buckled at the knees.”

“But that's not being cynical,” she said earnestly. “That's being nice to people. I did spoil his master piece, so I just said sorry and…and…that's all there was to it.”

She meant it, he realized. Dottie might talk about playing off her tricks, but the truth was she preferred being nice to people. The smile sprang from her kindness and honesty, which was why it was dynamite.

Encouraged by Randolph, Dottie chatted about her family, which seemed almost nonexistent. Neither her parents nor her grandparents were still alive, and he gathered that she'd been alone since she was sixteen. She told this part of the tale without conscious pathos. She'd fended for herself and survived with her humor intact. No big deal.

She knew how to tell a funny story, and a woman who could do that had never been part of Randolph's experience. All the strains and tensions of his life seemed to fall away as he rocked with laughter at her description of her grandmother coping with her grandfather's numerous flirtations.

“'Course she knew he loved her really, and she loved him, but she was always chucking pans at him, and if she really thought he'd blotted his copybook she'd be after him like a ferret up a drainpipe.”

“Pardon me?” he said, startled. “Ferret? Drainpipe?” These too, were outside his experience.

“Sorry. Don't suppose you've ever seen a ferret, have you?”

“No,” he said thankfully.

“Grandpa wanted to keep some, as pets, but Grandma said over her dead body, and he said not to tempt him.”

She finished the meal with an exotic ice cream and another glass of wine.

“It's my third,” she said guiltily. “Ought I?”

“Wine as good as this can be drunk safely,” he assured her. “And I promise you're quite safe with me.”

“No funny business?”

“No funny business.”

The word, “pity,” flitted through her head and was gone before she could be sure it had ever been there. The man across the table was regarding her with kindly amusement. His eyes were warm and suddenly she felt as though the two of them were the only people left in the world. She wondered why she hadn't realized before just how handsome he was.

She seemed to see him more clearly than before, and it occurred to her that he was two different men. He had the body of an athlete, broad shouldered, tall and powerful, as though his whole frame had been made hard and taut by a life in the outdoors. His hands were a rare combination of size and grace, as though he could hold anything in them, with no appearance of effort.

Yet his face told a different story. It was lean, almost austere, with fine features and dark, expressive eyes: the face of a thinker, a scholar, perhaps a poet. This was something Dottie had never seen in her life before, yet she recognized it at once, and felt a faint stir of response.

Then she laughed at herself. What could she do with a man like this? A man she couldn't read.

“Are you a soldier?” she asked impulsively.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just…something about you,” she said helplessly. Life in a family with a small vocabulary hadn't left her equipped for this. ventured

“I did a stint in the army,” he said truthfully. It had been part of his training.

“But not anymore? I mean, you didn't want to make a career of it?”

“No, but it's not impossible that I might return,” he said with a wry grimace. She made no answer and he saw a vague look in her eyes, as though she had gone into a trance. “Dottie?”

She came back to earth. She'd been watching his mouth, the way the lips moved against each other as he spoke, or used them expressively.

“Yes?”

“What were you thinking?”

“That this is the best night out I've ever had.”

“Doesn't Mike take you out?”

“Yes, we go dog racing sometimes. It's great.”

“What do you want, Dottie?” he asked suddenly. “I mean, out of life.”

“But you know what I want. I'm going to marry Mike and we're going to have the garage.”

“And live happily ever after,” he finished wryly. “Nothing else?”

“Lots of kids.”

“But don't you ever want to soar into the heavens?”

“In an airplane? With me it was always boats.”

“How do you mean?”

“Grandpa used to take me to see the River Thames. I loved it. I watched the boats and thought about faraway places.” She glanced through the window to where the river flowed, shining under the shore lights and those from the occasional boat.

“Why don't you show me?” Randolph suggested, signaling to the waiter.

In minutes they were outside, making their way toward the water. It was quiet along the embankment, and they could hear the soft lap of the water. For a while Dottie had nothing to say, until at last she rested her arms against the stone ledge overlooking the river with a sigh of deep contentment.

“I didn't really mean soaring in an airplane, Dottie,” Randolph said, taking up the thread of their previous conversation. “I meant, inside you.”

“People don't soar in Wenford,” she said with a faint sigh. “It's not a soaring sort of place.”

“But what about the 'faraway' you mentioned? What about the lands of your dreams? Don't you ever have dreams? You've got your café and your garage mechanic, and that's it?”

“You're having a go at poor Mike, aren't you? Look, I know he's not the answer to every maiden's prayer-”

“That depends what you think the maiden was praying for,” he said wryly.

She gave a choke of laughter. “Well, this maiden was praying for someone who was kind and good-natured, and who'd let her look after him.”

“That's what you like? Looking after people?”

“Of course,” she said, sounding surprised, as though it was a matter of course. “It's wonderful to be needed. I used to think-”

“Go on,” he said when she stopped.

“You mustn't laugh.”

“I promise.”

“Well, at first I wanted to be an actress. But then I used to think I'd like to be a children's nurse.”

“Why would I laugh at that?”

“Well, honestly! Me! I'm too dumb. I never passed any exams at school. In fact I never took any. There was just me and Grandpa by then and he was always sick so I bunked off school.”

“But that doesn't mean you're dumb, just caring. If there'd been someone to care for you, you'd have done well.”

“I did have someone to care for me,” she said firmly. “Grandpa loved me. It's just that things got on top of him a bit. Anyway, I couldn't be a nurse. It's not in my stars.”

“You read horoscopes?”

“No, not that sort of stars.” In a sudden expansive gesture she flung a hand up to the night sky. “Fate,” she said dramatically. “Destiny. There's a niche waiting for you somewhere in the world, that only you can fill.”

He'd once thought the same. His niche had been clear, and he was well prepared for it. But then it had turned out not to be his at all. “That's a dangerous doctrine,” he said somberly.

She sighed and went back to gazing over the water. “You're right. It's not good to dream too much. It's better to be a realist.”

“Maybe reality will turn out to be stranger than you think,” he murmured.

She looked at him. “You sound as though that meant something particular.”

“Nothing special,” he said hastily, trying to make his face and voice blank so that his pain wouldn't show. Mostly he kept that pain under stern control, but this disconcerting young woman had touched a nerve.

A cab rumbled by and he hailed it. “Let's go back,” he said.

The lamps were still on in Hanver Park, and as they climbed the broad steps Randolph became aware of something very curious. But for themselves the park was empty, yet the two mime artists were still there, earnestly gesticulating, oblivious to the fact that nobody was watching them. They seemed completely happy in a world of their own, where no audience was needed.

They stopped to watch. The entertainers continued in serene silence, their white faces ghostly under the lamps. After a while Randolph looked away from them, to Dottie.

She was entranced, oblivious to him, her eyes gleaming with the colored lamps, her lips parted in a half smile of delight. He wondered when he'd last been so happily unselfconscious, but he couldn't remember it. Perhaps never.

Dottie's radiant innocence was like a blow to his heart. She was so candid and trusting, so sure the rest of the world was as honest as herself. How could she realize that the man with her was the serpent in Eden, plotting to destroy her happiness? He would take everything away, first the world in which she was at ease, then the lover who meant so much to her. And in their place he offered wealth, grandeur and a kind of power-all of which, Randolph was increasingly convinced, would mean nothing to her.

She looked up at him suddenly. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing. Nothing's the matter.”

“Yes it is. You were thinking about something that made you sad.”

Her shrewdness caught him off guard and for a moment he floundered.

“Is it me?” she asked. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No Dottie,” he said gently. “You've done nothing wrong. You've been delightful, all evening.”

The two artists had stopped miming and were watching them intently, looking from him to her, and back.

“Yeah, well, I gave you a laugh, anyway.”

“More than that,” he said seriously. “I think you're one of the nicest people I've ever known.”

A soft breeze had sprung up, making her hair drift about her face. Randolph couldn't take his eyes from her.

“It's been a lovely, lovely evening,” she sighed. “Like magic.”

“Yes. A kind of magic. That's just what it was.”

Dottie became aware of the anxious gaze from the two white faces. “What's up with you two?”

“I think they want me to kiss you,” Randolph said, and putting his fingers under her chin, he lifted it and bent his head.

He made no attempt to put his arms around her, and his lips barely touched hers. It wasn't passion that she felt in him, but tenderness, a continuation of the enchantment that had pervaded the whole evening. When he lifted his head he saw that she was smiling. He smiled back, then, turning to the two mimes he said, “Thank you.”

Their response was to jump for joy, dancing around Dottie and Randolph. He took some money out and again tried to give it to them. “Won't you let me show my gratitude?”

But, as before, they shook their heads. Then they turned and ran away, hand in hand, until they vanished into the darkness of the trees.

“Why did you thank them?” Dottie asked, speaking as in a dream.

“Because without them I wouldn't have dared to kiss you.”

“I'm glad they wouldn't take money,” Dottie said. “That would have spoiled it somehow.”

“Yes,” he said, in quick appreciation. “It would.”

Dottie didn't say anything, but stood looking at him in unutterable content. This was part of the glory of the whole evening. It was as though time had been suspended for a few hours. Later it would start again and she would become her real self once more. But nothing would be quite the same.

They wandered on out of the park until they reached the hotel, which was in darkness.

“Got your key?” she asked.

“Later. I'm walking you home.”

“It's only two streets away.”

“A gentleman doesn't let a lady walk home alone.”

And the spell could last a little longer, she thought happily. They walked the two streets in silence and stopped outside a shabby brick house, three floors high.

“Good night, Dottie. Thank you for a lovely evening.”

“It should be me thanking you. I've never-” she laughed and sought for words. “I've just never…just never…”

“Never drunk white burgundy?” he said, smiling. “Never eaten nouvelle cuisine?”

“Never talked like that,” she said. “It was nice to fly.”

“Don't you want to keep on flying?”

She shook her head. “But it was nice to do it once.”

“You're so certain that it will never happen again?”

He thought for a moment that she would answer, but then she backed off like someone who'd seen danger. “I've got a real life to live. You can't do that flying.”

“But-”

“I have to go in now,” she said hurriedly. “Good night.” She ran up the short path to the front door.

“Good night,” he said regretfully and turned away. But before he'd gone more than a few steps she called out to him. “Yes?” he said hopefully.

“Don't forget to miss a step as you go into your room. Otherwise you'll hit the wobbly floorboard.”

“I'll remember.”

“Have a good night, and I'll bring you a real English breakfast in the morning.”

“Thank you,” he said, trying to conceal his feelings at the prospect of this treat. “Good night.”

Just before she went to sleep Dottie spoke to a photo of Mike that she kept by her bed. She often did this, and not for the world would she have admitted that it could be more rewarding than talking to the real man.

“It was just a meal-not an actual date or anything-a bit like being taken out when you were a kid. It's not like I fancied him. Well, maybe just a bit…all right, a lot. Okay, Okay, so he kissed me.

And I wouldn't have minded if he'd done it again. But you're the one I love. Honest. Anyway, what were you up to with Bren?”

She turned out the light.