One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [85]
‘You’ve sold your soul!’ I told him gleefully.
‘Didn’t take much persuading,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘Although I still do legal aid.’
‘For the sake of your conscience,’ I retorted, ‘which was always huge.’
He laughed. ‘Which was always huge.’
As his laughter faded, his gaze across the table grew steady; fond.
‘And what about you, Hattie? Fill me in from where we left off. What happened next?’
I told him about Croatia, about my own conscience, how I’d felt I had to go there. I told him about Kit, and about coming home with Seffy. He listened intently, his eyes never leaving my face.
‘So now he’s what – fourteen?’
‘Fifteen. And gorgeous. You should see him.’
‘Oh, I’ve heard. My niece is very communicative on the subject.’
‘Your niece?’
‘Cassie.’
‘Oh, yes of course.’ I blanched, startled. I knew Seffy and Cassie had met at a dance, but…
‘I think they’re quite good friends in a Facebook kind of way, which is nice, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed after a moment, still taken aback. ‘It is.’ But I was hurt he knew more than me. Unsettled generally.
‘How is Letty?’ I asked, changing the subject.
He sighed, leaned back in his seat. ‘Not good. Since Dominic died, she and the bottle have become inseparable.’
‘Since before Dominic died,’ I corrected quietly.
He frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’
I let it go. I knew so. Knew the marriage wasn’t happy, hadn’t been for some time; had witnessed her drinking when I went down to the country when she was pregnant. I knew Dom worried about it, had talked to me often about it, blamed himself for being away too much. But I wasn’t going to go into that now. Wasn’t going to rain on the Forbes marriage any more than I had already.
‘And Cassie gets scared being alone with her.’
‘I’m not surprised. That’s not funny for a teenager.’
‘So I’m trying to persuade Letty to sell up. Buy something smaller in London, where I can keep an eye on her, and where Cassie can be amongst friends and near me, not isolated in that house.’
‘Oh. Well, you should know you’ve been cast as the baddie, locally. Trying to prise a poor widow from her house, her capital.’
‘Bollocks. I want Cassie to have some money, before Letty drinks it all. And I want Letty to get proper help, go to AA, make friends, get a job perhaps. Not fester in that remote farmhouse drinking herself to death because she’s lonely.’
I regarded him across the table. A good man. An honourable man. Always had been. A steady hand on the tiller. Yes, I’d missed his steer in my life. I felt an ache of regret.
‘And now you’re getting married,’ I said lightly, apropos of nothing.
He held my gaze, which admittedly might have had something challenging in it. Inclined his head in acceptance of this fact, but said nothing.
‘You’ve left it late?’
He threw back his head and laughed. A sudden, throaty, lusty roar I remembered of old.
‘I like that! You haven’t managed it at all!’
‘Ah, but I’ve had baggage,’ I grinned. ‘I’m an unmarried mother, remember? Tarred and feathered.’ I made a cross with my fingers as if to ward off vampires, and anything else.
‘Ah, yes, Seffy. Your Good Excuse.’
He did know me well. But I wasn’t deflected so easily.
‘What’s your excuse, Hal?’
He shifted in his chair and his eyes darted into his wine for a moment. Then came up to meet mine.
‘Let’s just say I never got round to it.’
‘But you’re getting round to it now.’
‘Yes, I am now.’
‘After how long?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘How long have you been going out together?’
‘Oh. A few years.’
‘Right. And engaged?’
‘For three.’
‘Three years! Why so long?
He looked uncomfortable. ‘We were going to get married last year, but her father died. So we put it off.’
‘Oh, OK.’
‘And then I had a big litigation case in Paris, which took me away for four months, so the wedding was put on the back burner again.’ He shrugged. ‘Just one of those things.’
I nodded, but it occurred to me to wonder why one couldn’t pop back