“I must say,” she adds, “You don’t seem very surprised.”
Is it too late to adopt an “oh, no!” face?
“About your brother staying? I guess it’s like you said, he’s an honourable man.” And I’m just a thirsty bird. And together, we seem to have no restraint. But maybe that’s the key to getting through these next few weeks unscathed, my heart and my hoohaa intact. Keep away from him, I mean—throw myself into my work and hide out the rest of the time. My mind begins to process how beginning by calling into the village’s equivalent of a 7/11 on the way back from the school run. I’ll pick up a cheap electric kettle and some ramen. I mean, it’s not like the atmosphere in the kitchen is the same as it was before Alexander arrived. If I’m there less, there will be less awkwardness. That’s not to say I can’t liberate a few supplies from there. I can survive mostly on food that doesn’t need to be cooked. I mean, I like ramen. And cake. And bread. I can throw in a little fruit just to be sure I don’t get scurvy. Oh, and coffee. I’ll need to grab a jar of Nescafe today, too.
“Sandy told me you and he met earlier this year.” Her words are careful, as though she doesn’t want to pry but can’t help herself. Resisting the urge to fidget under her gaze, I reach for a china tray from the mantlepiece. I put it down after a quick examination. It seems pretty old.
“On his fortieth birthday.”
I almost swallow my tongue. He turned forty that night? I mean, I knew it was his birthday but, forty? That means there are sixteen years between us. Sixteen! Well, nearer fifteen, I guess. I read somewhere that there are seventeen years between George Clooney and Amal. And Jay Z is more than a decade older than Beyoncé. Argh! Why am I thinking this? It’s not like Alexander and I are going to have a happily ever after. No matter what he says. Plus, Bey and Amal have their stuff together—their own careers and their own money. If Alexander and I were in a relationship for real, people would label me gold-digging ho.
The duke and the girl from Mookatill.
What a joke. People would surely laugh all the way from the Highlands to my little buttphuck nowhere home.
A finger of dread pokes at my chest because I’ve had enough labels for one lifetime. I don’t want to be the nanny he once had, and I don’t want to find my name in the press. But these are wasted thoughts—he’s not serious about me at all. He might want more than a quick screw in the kitchen, but that doesn’t mean anything.
“It created quite a stir when he didn’t turn up,” she adds lightly. “His friends were furious, not least because he was reading their messages and ignoring them. Then afterwards, he wouldn’t say where he’d been. But there was a lightness in him in the following weeks. I’d catch him smiling to himself when he thought no one was looking. I’d hoped he’d met someone, but then, he went back to his usual self again.”
I can feel her watching me carefully as I digest her words like a cookie you don’t need but can’t resist anyway. A minute on the lips and a lifetime on the hips, as Nana used to say. And though Alexander says he wants more than a moment, he’s not looking for a lifetime either.
Isla can’t be looking for a positive reaction from me. For hope or pleasure. I’m not the right woman to be on his arm. She must know that.
“When you came to us, I had no idea you knew Sandy.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say with a twist to my lips because we’ve already been over this. But one thing I’m certain of, if I’d turned up and said I’d slept with her brother, I’m sure I’d have been back at the train station pretty darn quick. It’s nice that she seems to like me. That she’s comfortable talking about her family problems with me, but that doesn’t mean anything. And that’s something I need to keep reminding myself.
“I had no idea who he was,” I murmur, feeling like she’s waiting for an explanation as I drop my butt to the arm of one of the hearthside padded chairs. “I know he’s a good man because he was a gentleman that night.” A gentleman of no ordinary standing. “He helped get me out of an awkward encounter when he could’ve quite easily left me.” My eyes find hers, and I wonder what she sees there. “It was a night I won’t ever forget, but I wouldn’t have come here if I’d know I’d see him again because some things aren’t meant to be real.”