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СКАЧАТЬ be able to eat even a fraction of what was on the table.

      ‘Bloody hell, Justin, what a spread!’ She immediately rather regretted not saying ‘gadzooks’ or ‘upon my word’, rather than ‘bloody hell’. It was that sort of place.

      ‘We’ll let the champagne sit for a moment, shall we?’ Holly nodded. She couldn’t help thinking that he looked completely at home in these fine surroundings. He gave her a smile. ‘I’m sorry for the interruption. I was asking you about your mother.’

      Holly had been doing a lot of thinking about her mother over the past couple of weeks. As she heard more and more about her lovely, generous father who had apparently been adored by all around him, the suspicion had started to form in her mind that maybe her mother had lied to her about him – all her life. It was a difficult concept to handle. Her mum had been there for her all through her life and she owed her so much. She had certainly been an inflexible character and they hadn’t always got on, but there had never been any doubt as to the love they bore for each other. The idea that Holly had been deliberately tricked into hating her own father by her mother stuck in the throat. She looked at Justin across the monumental pile of food on the table and did her best to be objective.

      ‘I loved my mum, you know. She brought me up single-handed and it can’t have been easy.’ She caught his eye. ‘And I was a real pain all the way through school. It was easy for me to blame it all on my not having a dad, but other girls were in the same boat and they didn’t rebel half as much as I did.’ She saw the disbelief on his face. ‘It’s true; I may sound like Alice in Wonderland now, but I was Attila the Hun for a good few years.’

      ‘I see you more as Sleeping Beauty.’ He was smiling, doing his best to put her at her ease after inadvertently opening a potential can of worms with his question.

      ‘Are you trying to imply that I look dozy?’ She managed a smile in return. ‘If my dad did try to contact me, and my mum didn’t tell me about it, I know it must have been because she wanted to protect me. Rightly or wrongly, she was convinced he was a bad lot and a bad influence, so she did her best to shut him out of both our lives. It seems harsh when you look at it from his point of view, but she must have had her reasons.’

      He was looking more serious now. ‘Break-ups are tough, especially when there are children involved. I’m only glad my wife and I didn’t have kids.’

      Her eyes inadvertently slid down to his wedding ring. ‘You were married?’

      ‘For ten years. Still am, just. I suppose it’ll have to go to the lawyers any day now.’

      ‘I’m so sorry.’

      He shrugged, but she could see the effort it cost him to look nonchalant. ‘I think I’ve got over the worst of it, but it came as a real shock at the time.’ He pulled himself together and pointed towards the food. ‘Hungry?’

      Holly filed away the information that the separation had, by the sound of it, been caused by his wife, rather than by him. Somehow, she had rather assumed that a handsome man like him might have been the guilty party. And there was no doubt at all that he was a handsome man; handsome, sophisticated and urbane. She looked back across the table, liking what she saw, and that wasn’t just the food. At the same time she found herself wondering, not for the first time, just what this was. Was it a date? Was he trying to get over his wife’s departure and move on with another woman? Or was he simply taking her out for tea because she was the daughter of one of his father’s best friends? Or was it neither of those things? She decided the best thing to do was to concentrate on the feast laid out in front of her. She gave him a smile.

      ‘I don’t really know where to start. I’m afraid I’m a high tea virgin. Is there an etiquette to this sort of thing? You know, scones first, éclairs afterwards or something like that?’

      He was smiling again. ‘Just dig in, I think. Of course, there is a bit of debate over whether you put the cream on your scone before the jam or vice versa, but I’m not a purist. Eat what you want, how you want, and in the order you want. Now, let’s have some champagne.’ As he reached for the bottle, the wine waiter materialised from behind a nearby Christmas decoration, filled both glasses and then disappeared as silently as he had come. Holly nodded appreciatively, reflecting to herself that rural Devon was surprisingly sophisticated, as was her companion.

      Holly raised her glass towards Justin. ‘Thank you for a very special afternoon out, Justin. Cheers.’ She leant forward and clinked her glass against his over the top of the chocolate éclairs.

      ‘And thank you, Holly, for being such a charming guest.’ All terribly formal, but then so was he and here, in these surroundings, it seemed appropriate.

      The meal, for that was what it was, rather than a mid-afternoon snack, lasted almost an hour. During that time they talked a lot and she learnt more about her father. She also heard Justin refer repeatedly to his wife and the fact that she had gone off. He also told Holly about his hobby of sailing and his love of the islands of the Aegean and, after her third glass of champagne, Holly found herself imagining him on the deck of a fine yacht, clad only in a pair of shorts, with her lying in the sun beside him in her skimpiest bikini. It was an alluring picture.

      It was pitch dark by the time they left. As they got into the car, she reached across and touched his arm. ‘Thank you, Justin. That was amazing.’

      ‘Thank you, Holly. We always used to love coming here.’ She noted his use of the first person plural and knew he must still be thinking of his wife. And, from his tone, he clearly still had feelings for her, in spite of her deciding to leave him. The image of the yacht and the bikini dissolved as she realised she would do well to treat this afternoon as tea with a friend, rather than anything with any romantic involvement. Handsome and charming he most certainly was, but you didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that he was still missing his wife.

      When they got back to her house, he jumped out of the car and came round to open the car door for her. She swung her legs out and slid down to the ground.

      ‘Thank you again, Justin. That was a real treat.’

      ‘You’re very welcome. Bye, Holly.’

      She kissed him on both cheeks and waited as he turned the big vehicle and set off up the road again until the tail lights finally disappeared round the corner after the green. Her mind was working overtime. She had enjoyed being with him immensely. The plush surroundings of the Castle had reminded her of similar episodes she had enjoyed with previous boyfriends in wildly expensive London clubs and restaurants. She had always enjoyed dressing up in her smartest clothes – particularly, she admitted to herself, her best shoes – and she had loved the glitter and opulence of that sort of place. Now, standing outside a granite cottage in a little Devon village with a faint, but unmistakable smell of cow shit in the air, she started to question her previous life. Were places like the Castle or men like Justin what she really wanted? Was all that maybe a bit phoney? And anyway, she thought to herself, it was looking pretty clear that Justin still hadn’t got over his wife so, even if she had wanted to take things further with him, that wasn’t likely to happen.

      A strangled half howl, half whine from the other side of the front door interrupted her train of thought. She found herself smiling as she reached for her keys.

      ‘Sorry, Stirling. I forgot you were there. I’m coming.’

      That evening she didn’t have any dinner. She was so full from the high tea that, after a short walk with Stirling, who had behaved himself impeccably in her absence, she went upstairs and carried on with the task of clearing her father’s СКАЧАТЬ