CHAPTER TWELVE
THE RINK IN FRONT of Belfort Castle glowed with fairy lights as the afternoon dwindled.
Nik parked the SUV and waited for the girls to organise themselves.
On the drive Fleur, buckled up in the back in her child’s seat, chattered nonstop about various skating adventures she’d had. From the sounds of it she was the local Edbury skating queen.
‘Great, so she’ll be okay on the ice?’ Nik queried as they approached the boardwalk where they could sit down and put on their skates.
The ice rink was swarming with couples and family groups.
‘Fleur’s never been skating,’ said Sybella with a small smile.
‘Okay, then what was the story about winning the race and her friend tripping up and breaking her wrist?’
‘Fleur likes to make things up and they usually involve her friend Xanthe breaking something.’ Sybella stood up, getting her balance. ‘She has an active imagination. I don’t discourage it.’
Fleur was dancing up to them now, wanting her mother to put her skates on.
He circled Sybella and Fleur on the rink, keeping an eye on the other skaters as Fleur continually took spills. For the first time in his life he wasn’t entirely sure of his role here, but when Fleur toppled for the umpteenth time he leaned in and scooped her up before her bottom hit the ice.
She looked up at him with those big violet eyes, solemn as a church hymnal at this unexpected development, but as he set her on her feet again she kept hold of his hands and let him glide her along the ice. Sybella glided along behind them, applauding Fleur’s achievement at actually staying upright, and exchanged a smile with him.
It didn’t take long for Fleur to begin to flag and it was time to take her off the ice. She greeted his suggestion they go in search of hot chocolate happily enough.
They were standing a few yards from where Fleur was lined up to hand over the money to the lady behind the counter when he said without thinking it through, ‘Poor guy.’
Sybella was so busy going over what today had held and what it might mean, she was delayed in processing what Nik had said.
‘Who?’ She looked up at him, aware he’d slid his hand around her waist while she’d been watching Fleur. ‘Nik?’ She raised her eyes to his.
‘Poor guy, your Simon, not getting to enjoy any of this.’ He looked into her eyes as he said it and Sybella knew then he wasn’t going to tiptoe around the memory of her husband.
Thank God.
‘But that doesn’t mean you and Fleur can’t enjoy it,’ he said, proving he understood a great deal more than she was probably comfortable with.
Unaccountably a flood of hot, messy tears hit the backs of Sybella’s eyes and scalded her face before she could even think to blink them away, and then she was tucked up in his arms, her face, her whole body out of the elements and safe, warm, protected.
‘If it were me,’ he said in a deep voice, ‘I would want this. I would want the two of you to have this. It’s okay to move forward, Sybella.’
She nodded her head resolutely against his chest, relief making her a little light-headed. Then she tilted up her chin. ‘Why are you doing all of this with us?’
He shook his head at the inanity of the question. ‘Because you’ve let me.’ Then he fitted his mouth to hers and she felt it to her toes.
When she floated back up to take in air there was a stillness about Nik that warned her something wasn’t right. He was looking over her shoulder.
Sybella turned around.
Fleur was looking up at them, clutching her change.
‘What are you doing to my mummy?’
* * *
Later in the early evening, as she drove her daughter round to her grandparents, Sybella acknowledged Nik had handled her immediate descent into panic mode with considerable sangfroid, keeping his hand firmly around her waist and making Fleur see it was all right for him to show her mother affection.
It wasn’t as if Fleur hadn’t seen her grandparents being affectionate with one another, or Aunty Meg locked in a kiss with the odd boyfriend, all of which Fleur ignored with the lofty disregard of someone who was five and a half. But it was different when it was her mother.
Sybella understood. What surprised her was Nik had understood it better. He’d also handled it better. She’d underestimated him.
Fleur had picked up on what Nik had told her—I want to kiss your mama because she’s so nice—and when she’d seen Sybella in her frock and heels tonight she’d confided, ‘I think Nik will want to kiss you again, Mummy.’