Chapter Sixteen #2
‘Small, chaotic, perfect. We got married on the village green, on a spring day that was dry but ridiculously windy. Rae wore her grandmother’s veil and it got blown off by the wind, and Ermin chased it all the way down Perpendicular Street.
Our flower arch – our one extravagance because Rae loved spring flowers – nearly toppled over, but then shed its petals throughout the ceremony, so we had this constant stream of confetti. ’
‘It sounds wonderful,’ Imogen managed, her throat clogging up.
‘Then we went to the Blossom Bough and got drunk on champagne and cider. We were both twenty-two, still so young, and we talked about me taking over the bakery, which had been closed for three years by then – Rae had just started as a teacher at the primary school – and about the three kids we would have, and how we’d stay here for ever.
And I still – Rae’s here, we scattered her ashes on the beach, but—’
‘Oh, Dexter, I’m so sorry.’ Imogen stopped and tugged his arm, forcing him to look at her. His expression was raw, his curls loosened by the wind. She reached up and pushed his hair out of his eyes.
‘I am OK, mostly. I wasn’t for a long time, and I wonder how much damage I did to Lucy, when—’
‘None,’ Imogen said firmly. ‘You looked after her when you were both grieving, dealing with something incomprehensible. You look after her all day, every day, and she’s …
I mean, I don’t know a lot about kids, but she’s completely brilliant, and she seems genuinely happy and settled.
’ She thought of her chat with Lucy, how concerned she was about her dad, the love that so clearly flowed between them.
‘I think so,’ Dexter said. ‘But sometimes – a lot of the time – I have no idea what I’m doing. ’
‘Who does, honestly? I think you do. I think …’
‘What?’ He searched her face.
‘I think you’re great,’ Imogen said, going for the understatement of her life, and then, because she was an idiot, she punched him gently on the arm like they were bros.
Dexter’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and she was glad she’d amused him at least.
‘Baaaaaaaaaaaaah.’
‘Uh oh.’ Dexter finally looked away from her. ‘We took our attention off the goat.’
‘Where is he leading us?’ They started walking again, and her question was answered as they emerged from the trees and, ahead of them, cordoned off by a low fence, was a lake. ‘Goodness! What is that?’
‘That’s Felix’s goat fort,’ Dexter said, and burst out laughing. ‘A new addition to the estate. I hadn’t seen it until now.’
‘A goat fort?’ In the middle of the lake, which kept distracting Imogen because it perfectly reflected the sky, there was a tiny island, and on top of that there was a wooden structure that looked more like a hut than a fort.
A walkway ran from the bank to the island, like the kind you got at nature reserves to stop you sinking into the marsh. ‘Harry built this for him?’
As they watched, Felix jumped the low fence and, turning to look at them, trotted up to the walkway and then clopped along it.
‘Better watch out for trolls!’ Imogen called, but Felix was unperturbed.
‘I thought he was joking. We were in the pub, and …’ Dexter shook his head.
‘What’s the story? I need to know.’
He pointed to a bench further around the lake and, keeping the goat in their sights, they made their way to it, finding a gate in the fence they could push open. They sat on the bench, and Imogen pulled her jacket more tightly around her.
‘Do you want mine too?’ Dexter asked.
‘Double jacket?’
‘It’s November.’ He shrugged out of his navy jacket and draped it over Imogen’s knees. The warmth enveloped her immediately.
‘Thank you.’ She failed to resist staring at the white shirt clinging to Dexter’s strong shoulders, his arms that were nicely, not overly, muscled.
She turned her attention to Felix, who had reached his fort and climbed onto the roof, so he could survey his kingdom.
‘This is a ridiculous thing. You realize that, right? I thought Harry was sensible.’
‘He is marshmallow when it comes to that goat. And Sophie,’ Dexter added. ‘So, the story. Last winter, when Sophie and Harry were starting to show an interest in each other—’
‘Sounds a bit clinical, like they’re cows or something.’
‘Fine.’ Dexter huffed. ‘When Sophie and Harry were making come-to-bed eyes at each other, Sophie came here one day and found Harry half in and half out of the lake. Felix had swum to the island, then he couldn’t swim back.
He was tangled in some weeds, and Harry and Sophie embarked on this dramatic rescue mission, which involved them wading in and getting covered in mud, almost getting hypothermia.
’ Dexter laughed. ‘You can see why we have a WhatsApp group.’
‘Then why have they encouraged him coming to the lake?’
‘I think it’s more that he’s going to come here whether they like it or not, so they’ve made it safe for him. Goats are sure-footed, so the walkway is ideal, but it doesn’t stop him being stubborn. If he decides he’s not leaving his fort without human intervention, then …’
‘We’ll have to be Indiana Jones and rescue him?’
‘That’s probably why he wanted us to come. He has a damsel-in-distress kink.’
Imogen stared at Dexter, wondering if she’d heard him properly, then started laughing. She doubled over at the waist, pressing her nose into the soft fabric of his jacket, inhaling his warm, sandalwood scent.
‘What?’ Dexter asked. His barely suppressed laughter was shaking his voice.
‘A goat with a damsel-in-distress kink? That is a sentence I never thought I’d hear.
Ever. In my whole life.’ She imagined phoning Edmund, telling him what she was getting up to, and it set off another round of giggles.
Soon Dexter broke, and their laughter floated up to the blue sky, Felix bleating from his rooftop.
Eventually, Imogen’s laughter faded and she sat up straight, her cheeks rosy without the champagne buzz she’d expected to have by now. It was more of a buzz sitting next to Dexter, just the two of them together.
‘Your sonnet was perfect,’ Dexter said, once the quiet had settled over them like snow. ‘I think that’s such a skill, being able to recite something from memory, and so well that you have everyone captivated.’
‘I’ve had some practice over the years. It felt good, doing it for Sophie and Harry. That sonnet’s a bit obvious, I wanted to find a passage from the book I’m reading, but—’
‘What’s that?’
‘Northanger Abbey. Someone left a beautiful edition for me at Birdie’s house.’
Dexter narrowed his eyes. ‘With a postcard? From The Secret Bookshop?’
‘Yes! Birdie said some people got books like that last Christmas.’
‘Yeah, Sophie did. And Jason and Simon. I don’t think they ever worked out who sent them, though. A Christmas mystery.’
‘I’m honoured to be included. And I love it – I hadn’t read it before, but it’s funny and romantic. It has some great scenes, and this whole gothic house thing going on, but I couldn’t find a long enough passage that seemed wedding appropriate.’
‘I’ve never read it. I read thrillers, mostly, and Lucy is obsessed with Romantasy, which is challenging because there seems to be a new, epic series out every five minutes and she wants them all – to read on her Kindle and then have the special editions for her bookshelf.
Working out which ones are suitable for her, and which ones are—’
‘Full of filthy sex?’ Imogen said with a grin.
Dexter looked at her, and suddenly she wanted to strip off her jacket and his, because she was too hot. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at her like that.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Full of filthy sex.’
‘You need a book consultant.’ The words rasped out like she smoked cigarettes on a loop.
Dexter rubbed his forehead. ‘I need something. Anyway. I don’t know Northanger Abbey, but it sounds like it’s appropriate for Mistingham, if it’s got a gothic house vibe.’
‘We should do it for the Christmas play thing!’
‘What?’ Dexter said with a laugh.
‘You and me. We should perform a scene from it for Mistingham’s Christmas event.’
Dexter went still. ‘You’re staying here for Christmas? I know you said you weren’t ready to go home, but I thought you would be going back to London in time for Christmas. Your fiancé …’
‘Ex-fiancé,’ Imogen said. ‘I have officially called it off with him.’
‘You have?’ Dexter said it so quietly she only just heard him.
‘I’m not a rebel, Dexter. I always follow the rules.
But I was prepared to run away from our wedding, mess up people’s lives and cost my family a whole lot of money.
I didn’t do what was expected of me, and it made me realize what I’d known deep down for a while.
I tried so hard to do the right thing, but I was standing there, on my dad’s arm, and there were all these expectant people.
The dress had cost more than anything else I’d ever owned, and it was for one day that would lead to a life I wasn’t sure I wanted. ’
‘You did the right thing for you,’ Dexter said.
Imogen nodded. ‘I overheard Edmund and my dad discussing it, the morning before the wedding. How great our marriage would be for Dad’s law firm.’
‘What?’ Dexter leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and turned to look at her.
‘I’d been feeling … uneasy. It had been building for months.
Everything that should have filled me with delight, designing invitations and wedding dress shopping and looking at venues, I just had this low, bubbling undercurrent of dread.
But the closer it got, the more I realized backing out would be a big deal.
Then, the day before, my dad came round to drop off something at our flat, and I was due to get my nails done but I was running late. They thought I’d left already.’
‘What did they say?’ Dexter sounded calm, but there was something underneath his words, a dark undercurrent, that Imogen didn’t dwell on.