Promoted: to Wife and Mother

CHAPTER NINE

‘FORtwo years?’

Perdita winced at the incredulity in Ed’s voice. ‘That’s the reality of being involved with a single father,’ she said, feeling defensive as she always did when she talked about Nick. ‘I told myself that I had to accept it. I mean, it was right that he should put his children first. I wouldn’t want to be involved with a man who didn’t put his children first and take his responsibilities as a father seriously.

‘The trouble was that those responsibilities took up so much of his attention that there was none left over to deal with his responsibilities as half of a relationship,’ she went on after a pause. ‘There never seemed to be a time when it could just be about the two of us, and I began to resent the fact that I was the only one he didn’t think he had to make an effort for.’

‘He was taking you for granted, in fact?’

‘Yes,’ she said bleakly. It had taken her so long to get over Nick that it was depressing to even remember those days. ‘It sounds pathetic when I talk about it now, but you need to understand how much I loved Nick. I couldn’t imagine life without him, and so I bent over backwards to be accommodating. I tried to be understanding, and I completely accepted that his children came as part of the package, as it were, so I did my best to help make life easier for him.’

Perdita flushed, still faintly humiliated by the memory of how abject she had been. ‘I used to cook and clean and make cakes and do all that sort of stuff in the hope that Nick would start to think of me as a real part of his life but, instead of appreciating me, I think he just took it for granted that I’d always be there doing what was needed. He didn’t have to do anything to keep me there. I think he thought that letting me love him was all he needed to do-and I let him get away with that for too long.’

Ed was puzzled. Perdita seemed such a strong personality, and her face was full of character; it was hard to imagine her diminished by her love for this Nick, who sounded deeply selfish and complacent to Ed.

‘You’ve never struck me as a doormat type,’ he commented and she flushed.

‘I wasn’t myself. I was trying to be somebody else, somebody I thought Nick would want, but all I did was make a fool of myself. I was always waiting for things to improve, for Nick to be less stressed, for his job to settle down, for his wife to be less vindictive, but, after two years, I realised none of that was ever going to happen.’

‘So what was the point when you realised you’d had enough?’

‘My father died very suddenly a couple of years ago,’ she told him. ‘It was a terrible shock. He was always so…Well, anyway,’ she said briskly before she let the memories get the better of her. ‘My mother’s always had a very strong personality too, but she was distraught and it took my brothers a couple of days to get there.’

‘So you were holding it all together?’ Ed knew exactly how it felt to be the one who couldn’t let go, the one everyone else relied on to get them through the grief and the pain.

‘Well…yes…I suppose so,’ Perdita remembered. ‘I had to be strong for my mother, but I really wanted Nick to be there for me.’ Pain filled the expressive brown eyes before she looked away. ‘I asked him to come for the funeral. I told him I needed him but…’

‘He let you do it on your own,’ said Ed in a dangerously flat voice as she trailed off, and she nodded miserably.

‘His ex-wife wanted to go out and had asked him to have the kids that day and he didn’t feel that he could say no.’

Ed looked at Perdita’s averted face and swallowed the angry words that he really wanted to say. She didn’t need him to tell her what she already knew. How could Nick not have been there for her when she’d needed him so badly?

‘That must have hurt a lot,’ he said quietly instead.

‘Yes,’ she agreed on a long sigh, still unable to meet his eyes. The worst thing about remembering that time was how humiliated she had felt. People had kept asking where Nick was, and she had had to make excuses for him, when all she had wanted to do was to shout and to scream.

Drawing a breath, she forced a smile. Not a very good one, but still, a smile. ‘It made me realise that he might say that he loved me, but he didn’t really. Or at least he didn’t love me enough. Certainly not enough to show me that he did, or to think about what I needed for once, rather than about what he wanted and needed.’

‘Why did you put up with him for so long?’ Ed couldn’t help asking, brows drawn together in a ferocious scowl.

‘Because I loved him,’ Perdita said simply, turning her dark eyes to look at him directly at last. ‘When I was with him, it all made sense. It was only when I was on my own that I realised that I was making myself a fool for not standing up for what I needed, but I was always terrified of losing him. If I thought about life without him, I’d panic. I couldn’t even bear to imagine it. So every time I’d persuade myself that he loved me really and if I just hung on everything would be OK.

‘After Dad died, I knew I couldn’t go on like that. I made myself give Nick an ultimatum. If he wasn’t prepared to take me into account, I would leave him.’

Ed tried to imagine how he would feel if Perdita told him that. If he had been used to living with her, loving her, and she told him it was over. It had been hard enough when she had refused to see him again after that one kiss.

‘What did Nick say?’

‘He said it wasn’t fair of me to put pressure on him, and that he was too stressed to cope with my problems on top of everything else.’ Perdita’s voice was empty of all expression and Ed gave a snort of disgust.

‘In other words, it was all your fault?’

‘Quite,’ she said. ‘I told him that if he thought of me as a stress, then he’d be better off without me, and I walked away. But it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,’ she confessed, remembering the anguish she had endured. ‘The year after that was the bleakest of my life.

‘I know it sounds dramatic, but I really did think my heart was literally broken, I had such a terrible pain inside me here.’ She pressed her hand against her chest as if she could still feel that raw grief. ‘I couldn’t even stand upright properly, the pain was so bad. I don’t know what I’d have done if it hadn’t been for Millie. She’s the one who got me through it.’

‘Is that why you moved back to Ellsborough?’

‘Partly,’ she admitted. ‘I was concerned about how Mum would cope, but I hoped that a change of scene would make it easier to get over Nick too.’

‘And did it?’

‘I think it was probably easier than it would have been if I’d still been in London. I met Nick through work originally, so there was always a risk that I would bump into him again if I’d stayed, but moving made the break harder in some ways too. I had no memories of him in Ellsborough, no hope, nothing to hang on to at all. I just had to start all over again.’

There was a silence. Ed drank his wine, thinking about what Perdita had told him. ‘Is that why you won’t consider a relationship with me?’ he asked at last. ‘Because you think I’m like Nick?’

Perdita shook her head. ‘No, Ed. You’re nothing like Nick. But you do have children, and you do have to put them first. It was a long time before I could think clearly after I left Nick but, when I did, I decided that I was never going to put myself in that position again.’ She paused, wondering how to make him understand. ‘I want someone who’ll put me first for a change,’ she said. ‘I would never ask you to put me before your kids, Ed. It wouldn’t be fair of me and you wouldn’t be able to do it.’

‘So you’re only prepared to get involved with a childless man?’ Ed’s voice was unconsciously hard.

‘And there’s not that many of them around when you get to your forties-or, at least, not the kind of man you’d want to have a relationship with, I know!’ Perdita managed another smile, a better one this time. ‘But I’ve faced up to that. I can grow old disgracefully on my own, if need be. I don’t need a man to make my life worth living.’

She hesitated. ‘There’s no point in me pretending that I don’t find you attractive, Ed,’ she said and his head jerked up, the grey eyes alight with an expression that made her heart lurch. ‘I do,’ she told him. ‘But I know what would happen if we got together. We’d go out and Cassie would need a lift, or Tom would need support or Lauren would have forgotten her key…and I’d start to feel resentful, and that would be terrible. Or I might fall in love with you, and my heart won’t stand being broken again. I won’t let that happen. I…I can’t be more than a friend.’

Ed nodded slowly. There was no point in trying to argue with her and, in any case, how could he ask her to take that risk? And she was probably right. His children were demanding in ways they would never recognise. Of course there would be evenings that would be interrupted. Ed himself didn’t think that was a reason not to try, but he recognised that Perdita had suffered so much after Nick that she was afraid to try again.

It was strange to think of a woman as brave and as confident as Perdita being afraid, but Ed could see how much it had cost her to tell him about Nick. This wasn’t just a little something she felt awkward or embarrassed about. The determination not to find herself in that situation again was part of her now.

‘Friends it is,’ he said after a moment and mustered a smile. ‘At least, if we’re friends, I’ll see you. I’ve missed you,’ he confessed.

Perdita’s throat was aching with unshed tears and she swallowed. ‘I’ve missed you too,’ she said unsteadily.

‘So,’ Ed said, determinedly jolly after a tiny pause, ‘Millie and Grace tell me the launch party is going ahead in a couple of weeks. Will you be coming?’

‘If my mother is well enough,’ said Perdita, who had heard all about the plans for the party from Millie. ‘It sounds like it will be a good night.’

A party sounded fun and, God knew, she could do with some of that.

She had almost resigned herself to not being able to go but, as the days passed, her mother recovered her appetite and began to seem so much stronger and so much more like her old self that the doctor talked about the right antibiotics kicking in at last, and Perdita began to think that it might be possible to leave her mother alone at night again.

‘Go!’ Helen James ordered, making shooing motions with her hands when Perdita talked tentatively about going back to her flat that evening. ‘You’re making me feel like an old woman, fidgeting over me the whole time. I’m perfectly fine.’

Perdita didn’t believe that, but it did seem that her mother would be happy to be left overnight, and there was no doubt that it felt wonderful to let herself into the blissful solitude of her own flat once more.

For the first hour or so she really enjoyed herself. She stood on her balcony and watched the river, breathing in the cool, damp air and relishing the quiet. She poured herself a gin and tonic and ran a deep bath. She lay stretched out on her squashy, comfortable sofa and listened to the silence. Her mother always had the television on in the background nowadays and the constant sound had driven Perdita mad. Now she was alone at last and could listen to whatever she liked.

Bliss.

Except that after a while, she began to feel…well, restless. Padding into the kitchen on her bare feet, Perdita looked in her larder cupboard for something to eat. The best she could find was a tin of soup, which she opened without enthusiasm and poured into a saucepan.

A tin of soup for one. How sad was that?

She had wanted to be on her own again, Perdita reminded herself. She had longed to come back to her own flat and have time to herself. It was perverse to stand here waiting for the soup to heat up and feel wistful as she remembered the evening before. She had gone over to Ed’s house when her mother was happily tucked up in bed and watching the television and had taught them all how to make a cheese sauce.

It had been a surprisingly successful evening. In spite of some initial moaning and groaning, particularly from Tom and Cassie, all three of the kids had had a go and the final result had met with unqualified approval.

‘I wish you could come and cook every night,’ Lauren said, scraping out the dish. ‘It’s not that you’re that bad, Dad,’ she added kindly. ‘But you’ve got to admit that the same old things get a bit boring after a while. It would be more interesting if Perdita were here.’

‘Sadly for us, Perdita has her own life,’ Ed said evenly. ‘She’s got better things to do than cook for us.’

Did she, though? Perdita wondered glumly as she watched the soup obstinately refusing to come to the boil. At least last night had been fun. Even Tom had come out of his shell and there had been some lively discussions and a lot of laughter, punctuated with a few spats and more than a little shouting on Cassie’s part, which had had Perdita and Ed exchanging amused glances.

Yes, it had been a good evening, and Perdita had been sorry to say goodnight and leave them all behind in the warm, chaotic house with the sound of raised voices and clashing music and thunderous footsteps on the stairs.

At least she and Ed were friends again, she reassured herself. It was as if a huge, black cloud had lifted, knowing that she didn’t have to be careful any more, that she could go round whenever she liked. There would be no misunderstandings now. She had told Ed about Nick and he had accepted that friends was as much as they were ever going to be.

Being friends was the perfect situation, Perdita decided. No tension, no yearning, no need to touch or feel or taste. Just enjoying each other’s company. Just friends. Perfect.

So why, she wondered as she poured soup for one into a mug, didn’t it feel perfect?

Perdita saw Ed as soon as she walked into the party. He was in a group with Grace and when she saw him smile she felt the familiar longing clench at the base of her spine.

She had never realised that being friends could be so difficult. It had been fine at first. Perdita still thought about how much she had enjoyed the evening she had spent teaching the Merricks how to cook, and she had assumed that things would be settled between them after that.

Only they weren’t. It wasn’t that anything was said. Ed had obviously accepted her point of view and never introduced anything into the conversation that might be construed as pressure to make her change her mind. Perdita herself was always careful to keep things strictly impersonal.

But there was too much left unsaid. Perdita had yet to convince her body that being just good friends with Ed was enough. He only had to turn his head or smile and every cell in her body started pulsating with a terrible awareness of him. No matter how sternly Perdita commanded her heart to stay firmly in place, the moment Ed walked into the room it would be off, turning handsprings and ricocheting off her ribs until she was breathless and dizzy.

And worse was the insistent buzzing feeling beneath her skin, the one that said, Forget friends, put your hand on his thigh, press your lips to his throat, tear off his clothes and kiss him all over-go on, you know you want to, until Perdita was quivering and fizzing with tension.

Trying not to show it was exhausting. Torn between needing to see him and not wanting Ed to know how much, Perdita became increasingly grouchy and on edge. It was so tiring having to be careful the whole time. She had to be careful not to touch him, even by accident, careful not to look directly in his eyes in case he saw how much she really wanted to touch him. She had to be careful to think about Nick and how much she had suffered. Careful not to remember how good it had felt when Ed had kissed her.

It was getting to the point where Perdita was beginning to wonder if it would be easier in the long run not to be friends at all. Between feeling tense about Ed and worrying about her mother, she seemed unable to relax at all, and she had even contemplated backing out of the party to launch the garden project-until Millie had got wind of her reluctance and informed her that, short of being carted off to hospital in an ambulance, she was most certainly going to attend.

‘Your mum’s much better-you told me that yourself-so don’t even think of that as an excuse!’ she told Perdita roundly. ‘You need a night off. How long is it since you dressed up and had a good time?’ she demanded. ‘Besides, I need you to chat up potential sponsors and tell them how brilliant the project is.’ Millie glanced at her friend. ‘Ed’ll be there,’ she added, studiedly casual.

‘I know.’ Faced with some very uncomfortable questioning about why exactly she didn’t want to go, Perdita gave in and promised that she would turn up.

So here she was, standing at the entrance in a scarlet sheath dress that she had worn for Dutch courage and a pair of high-heeled strappy sandals that Millie always referred to with mocking coyness as her ‘make love to me’ shoes.

‘You look fantastic!’ Millie grabbed her before holding her at arm’s length so that she could study her critically. ‘That colour is so good on you.’ She sighed enviously. ‘There won’t be a man here who’ll be able to keep his eyes off you!’

‘Come on, Millie, I’m forty. You know we’re invisible now!’

‘No way are you invisible in that dress,’ said Millie with a frank look. ‘Or in those shoes, come to that. Who are you wearing them for?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Perdita stiffly.

‘Ed?’

The hateful colour rose in Perdita’s cheeks. ‘Of course not! I’ve told you, we’re just friends.’

But why was he standing so close to Grace?

‘I’m glad you said that.’ Millie leant forward confidentially. ‘I did want to check it was OK with you before I put my seduction plan into operation.’

‘What seduction plan?’

‘The seduction of Edward Merrick!’ She struck a dramatic pose and Perdita’s eyes narrowed.

‘What?’

Millie opened her eyes, all innocence. ‘Well, you did say I was welcome to him,’ she reminded Perdita. ‘You’re always going on about how you and he are just good friends, so I thought I might as well have a go.’ She glanced at her friend to check her reaction. ‘Of course, Grace is probably in with a better chance than me. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’

She was. Perdita looked over to where Grace was standing next to Ed. She was laughing and her eyes looked huge and luminous in her pale face. A cold hand closed about Perdita’s heart.

Millie watched her expression with some satisfaction. You didn’t need to be an old friend to see that Perdita didn’t like what she saw at all.

‘Of course, I can’t compete with Grace in the looks department, but it’s possible he might prefer somebody with a Good Sense Of Humour. What do you think?’ she asked Perdita. ‘Am I in with a chance? I mean, you’re his friend, you must know what he likes.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ snapped Perdita. ‘I’m going to get a drink,’ she told Millie and stalked away, unaware that her friend was grinning as she watched her go.

Passing a waitress circulating with a tray of drinks, Perdita snatched a glass and practically downed it in one before she could feel her fingers uncurling. The truth was that she hated the idea of Ed getting together with either Millie or Grace.

Maybe that would be the answer, though? She considered the matter. Surely it would change things if she knew that he was involved with someone else? Perhaps that was what she needed to stop thinking about him like this. Perhaps then they really could be friends if she knew that the only thing standing between them being anything else was more than her strength of will.

In fact, thought Perdita, downing the rest of her glass, what she really needed was to get involved with someone else herself. Yes, that was it! Helping herself to another glass, she put on her best smile and proceeded to mingle with a vengeance.

She wasn’t actually expecting to meet anyone. As she had told Millie, she was getting used to the fact that women over forty were practically invisible, and the room was full of much younger and prettier women. Still, it was gratifying to see appreciation warm the eyes of more than one man, and to discover that, even though she had passed the dreaded four-oh milestone, she could still flirt and be flirted with.

And it was even more gratifying to glance towards Ed and see that he was losing his famous calm and beginning to look positively thunderous.

The closer his brows drew together, the more Perdita flirted, unable to decide whether she was enjoying herself or feeling wretched. The strain was taking its toll on her, though. She was standing chatting with rather forced animation to the director of a local building contractor when she glanced over his shoulder and found herself looking straight into grey eyes she would have recognised anywhere, and something inside her unlocked. It was like being snapped back into consciousness out of a dream.

What was she doing? She looked back at her companion. He seemed a perfectly nice, attractive, friendly man, and in other circumstances she might have enjoyed talking to him, but this was now and she didn’t want to be with him. She only wanted to be with Ed.

Meeting his gaze once more, Perdita had the strangest sensation that the world was receding behind an invisible barrier. The party continued, people were talking and laughing and lifting their glasses, but the sound was muffled, distant, and there was nothing real but Ed and the expression in his eyes, which had sharpened to a new intensity as she looked back at him.

Then he was pushing his way through the crowds towards her. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to her puzzled companion as Perdita stood numbly watching him. ‘I just need a word with Perdita outside.’

Taking her hand, he practically dragged her to the entrance, where a knot of smokers had escaped and were puffing desperately on their cigarettes. Ed muttered under his breath at finding yet more people around and strode round to the shadows at the side of the old building, Perdita stumbling unresisting after him. Barely out of sight of the smokers, he stopped abruptly and, without a word, pressed her up against the brick wall and kissed her.

It was a furious kiss. His hands were hard, his lips demanding, but Perdita met him halfway, kissing him back as if she were equally angry at the time they had wasted, time they could have been kissing like this. There wasn’t even token resistance in her response, only a dazzling explosion of relief that she was in his arms at last, that she could kiss him again, hold him again, run her hands over his back and feel that he was real and warm and solid.

Gasping his name, she blizzarded kisses along his jaw when they broke for breath and Ed gave a shaky laugh.

‘God, Perdita, what have you done to me?’ he asked in a voice ragged with desire. ‘I’m too old to be losing control like this!’

He held her face between his palms. ‘You’re driving me mad,’ he told her between kisses. ‘I can’t do this any more, I can’t just be friends…’

‘I know…I know…’ she whispered, her lips pressing hungrily against his throat.

Ed gave a great sigh and rested his forehead against hers. ‘What are we going to do?’ he asked despairingly. ‘I can’t get rid of my kids, Perdita, but I can’t stand not being able to touch you either…I haven’t known what to do with myself these last couple of weeks, and tonight…tonight Millie was the last straw.’

‘Millie?’ Perdita drew back and looked at him with a puzzled frown.

‘I think she did it deliberately,’ he told her. ‘Whenever I turned round, there she was, pointing out how fantastic you look and how pleased she is that you’re starting to show an interest in men again after being so hurt by Nick, and had I noticed how men were looking at you?’ Ed gave a bark of mirthless laughter. ‘Of course I’d noticed! It seemed like I was the only one who had to treat you like a friend, and then you looked straight at me and I just snapped…It’s a very long time since I’ve been reduced to dragging a woman out of a party so that I could kiss her!’

Perdita couldn’t help smiling. ‘Millie’s been playing a dark game,’ she said. ‘She told me that she was going to try and seduce you, and no doubt she could see perfectly well that I didn’t like that idea at all!’

‘She certainly didn’t try any seduction. She was too busy needling me about you.’ Ed’s smile faded as he twined her dark hair around his fingers so he could hold her head still and look deep into her eyes.

‘What are we going to do? I know why you don’t want to get involved with a father, Perdita, but there’s more than friendship between us, you know there is.’

‘Yes.’ Perdita met his gaze squarely. She couldn’t pretend now. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘So…?’

She drew a deep breath. ‘So I think we should get it out of our systems.’

‘Get what exactly out of our systems?’ he asked.

‘The physical thing…sex,’ she clarified with a hint of defiance as he raised his brows in mockery of her coyness. Her eyes were suddenly very direct. ‘I want you, Ed. I want you very badly. I’ve wanted you since that kiss down by the river, probably before, but…’

‘You’re still scared in case I’m like Nick?’ Ed finished for her.

‘I’m scared in case any relationship we might have turned out to be like the one I had with Nick,’ she corrected him carefully. ‘But maybe we could make it easier on ourselves by not trying to have a proper relationship. By not thinking about commitment or forever. By just enjoying the physical attraction between us while it lasts, and not having any expectations beyond that.’

Ed’s expression was impossible to read. ‘So you’d like an affair?’

‘Don’t you think it would work? Maybe if we got sex out of the way we could be friends after all,’ Perdita suggested hopefully, and he half-smiled.

‘I’m not sure it’ll be as easy as that.’

‘We could try,’ she said, willing him to agree. Putting her palms flat against his chest, she slid her hands up and around his neck. ‘Don’t you want to try?’ she whispered, and closed her eyes in relief as she felt Ed’s arms go round her to pull her hard against him.

‘Is that your best offer?’

She smiled. ‘For now.’

‘In that case, I’ll take it,’ said Ed, and then his mouth came down on hers once more and there was no more talking for a very, very long time.

Having an affair proved much harder to organise than either of them had imagined. Ed had to take Tom home from the party that night, Perdita felt that she ought to check on her mother every day, Lauren needed to be ferried to and from some netball match, Cassie wanted a friend to sleep over…

‘This is hopeless,’ said Ed. ‘Let’s go away for a weekend, where there will just be the two of us.’

Perdita gnawed her bottom lip, desperately tempted but uncertain. ‘I don’t think I can leave Mum alone that long. I know she has carers during the day, but there are still the evenings…’

‘Couldn’t you arrange for someone to drop in?’ he asked. ‘It would just be for a couple of nights.’

‘I suppose I could ask Betty.’ Perdita thought of her mother’s old friend, who was always offering to help. She felt a little awkward about asking, but Betty was delighted.

‘It’s time you had a break, Perdita,’ she said when Perdita mentioned the idea. ‘You’ll be no good to your mother otherwise. She’ll be fine with me.’

‘That’s Mum sorted,’ Perdita reported to Ed. ‘What about the kids?’

‘Cassie would say that they’re old enough to be left, but I don’t trust them,’ said Ed, resigned. ‘There would be a party the moment I’d turned the corner at the end of the road, and God knows what state the house would be in when I got back. Besides, Lauren is only just fourteen,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask my sister if she’ll come and keep an eye on them for the weekend.’

‘Won’t she want to know why you’re going away without the children?’

‘If I know Joanna, she’ll guess exactly why the moment I open my mouth,’ Ed said wryly. ‘She’s been pushing me to get a life for a year or so now, so she’ll be delighted.’

It was frustrating having to wait until the weekend, but Perdita told herself that made it a proper affair. This was just how it should be, a time away from their normal responsibilities. She tried not to look forward to the weekend too much, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was one huge smile, from the dopey grin on her face to the smallest fibre of her body, swelling and soaring with happiness, fizzing with anticipation and excitement. Over the last few years nothing ever seemed to have worked out the way it should have done, but maybe this time, just once, it would…

When she had been with Nick, the weekends they had planned had so often had to be cancelled at the last minute, and Perdita braced herself for the phone call, but no, Ed picked her up from her flat as agreed on Friday evening and drove up to a pub in the Yorkshire Dales where he had booked a room for two nights. There was no crisis, no urgent message telling them to turn round. Perdita hardly dared to let herself believe that it was really going to happen until Ed drove into the car park behind the pub.

The King’s Arms was an attractive old stone building and the pub was famous for its good food. Its spectacular location made it popular with walkers too, and the bar was crowded as they went inside. Not that Perdita noticed much about it. She was zinging with anticipation and her throat was so dry that she could hardly thank the fresh-faced girl who showed them to their room.

The first thing she saw was the bed. The big, wide, inviting double bed where she would be sleeping with Ed at last.

‘The restaurant’s very busy tonight,’ the girl was saying. ‘Would you like me to reserve you a table for later?’

‘Er…yes,’ said Ed, who couldn’t take his eyes off Perdita and just wished the girl would go.

‘Will nine o’clock be all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘We’ll see you downstairs later, then,’ she said with a smile and-at last-went out, closing the door behind her and leaving them alone.

There was silence in the room.

Perdita cleared her throat. ‘What a lovely room.’

Not wanting to look at the bed-and really, there was very little else to look at-she walked over to the window, which looked out over a shallow, stony river to darkness beyond. The curtains hadn’t yet been drawn and she fingered the tieback uneasily. The idea of sleeping with Ed had seemed so easy before, but now that they were here, alone, her anticipation and excitement was curdling rapidly into a bad attack of nerves. She was suddenly remembering that she was forty and it was a long time since she had taken her clothes off in front of a man.

Ed came to stand beside her and they both looked out into the darkness. ‘It’s been a long time for me too,’ he said, as if he had read her mind. ‘Do you want to wait? We could go and have a drink and a meal and then see how you feel, if you like.’

Perdita took one last look at the river and then turned to face him. Placing her hands flat against his chest, she smiled and shook her head. ‘I think we’ve waited long enough,’ she said.