Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [109]
But now Freddie hadn’t come home. And when he was home he’d taken to whistling in the mornings as he got ready for work. Worse, he’d taken to singing while he was in the shower— Freddie, singing, for God’s sake— and he always chose the same damn song, which was driving her bonkers anyway. It was that bloody call to arms from Les Misérables and Manette knew if she had to hear “the blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!” one more time, she might water the meadows of the bathroom with Freddie’s blood.
Only, she wouldn’t. Not Freddie. She would never hurt Freddie.
She went to his office at work. He’d removed his jacket and was bent over his desk in his crisp white shirt and his red necktie with the ducklings on it, and he was reviewing a massive set of computer printouts. More investigation into the books, preparatory to stepping into Ian’s job should her father offer it to him. If he had any sense, he would.
She said from the doorway, “So how was Scorpio?”
Freddie looked up. His expression told her he had no idea what she was talking about but he reckoned it was zodiac signs.
She said, “The nightclub? Where you and the latest date were meeting?”
He said, “Oh! Scorpio.” He laid the printout on his neat-as-a-pin desk. “We didn’t go in, actually. We met at the door.”
“Good Lord, Freddie. Was it directly to bed after that? You’re a sly one.”
He blushed. Manette wondered at what point in their marriage she’d stopped noticing how often he blushed and how the colour washed across his cheeks from his ears after making his ears go completely red at the tips. She also wondered when it was she’d stopped admiring how nicely his ears lay against his head like perfect shells.
He laughed. “No, no,” he said. “But everyone going inside the place looked round nineteen years old and most of them were dressed like the cast of Rocky Horror Picture Show. So we went for a meal at a wine bar. Rigatoni puttanesca. It wasn’t very good. Rather heavy on the putta and light on the nesca as things turned out.” He smiled at his own silly joke and added in his usual appealingly honest fashion, “I didn’t come up with that. Sarah did.”
“That’s her name? Sarah?” At least, Manette thought, it wasn’t another shrub. She’d rather been expecting Ivy or June-short-for-Juniper as his second foray into Internet dating. But of course, ivy wasn’t a shrub, was it? More like a vine. So … She shook herself mentally. What was going on inside her head? She said, “And?” although she didn’t actually want to know. “Are there grisly details? I have no life, as you well know, so I’m taking the opportunity for vicarious excitement.” She sauntered into his office and sat in the chair next to his desk.
He blushed, more deeply this time. “I don’t like to kiss and tell,” he said.
“But you did it, didn’t you?”
“‘Did it’? What kind of term is ‘did it’?”
She cocked her head and sent him a meaningful look. “Freddie…”
“Well, yes. I mean, I explained all that to you: how things are these days. You know. When people go out together. So, well … yes, we did.”
“More than once?” She hated herself for asking, but suddenly she had to know. And the reason she had to know was that in all the years they’d been together— even when they’d been twenty years old and hot for each other during the six months that they had actually been hot for