Chapter Seventeen
They stayed at Mistingham Manor until nine o’clock, dancing and eating and drinking, celebrating with the newly married, deliriously happy couple.
Then Imogen, Birdie and Dexter sneaked out, Dexter giving a sleepy Lucy a piggyback, Imogen carrying a conked-out Artichoke.
Dexter had brought a huge, duvet-like puffa coat for Lucy, which covered her almost top to toe and warded off the cold of a November’s night.
‘Have my jacket,’ Dexter said, as they stepped outside and the chill bit against Imogen’s skin so she shivered.
‘You can’t walk home in shirtsleeves. I’ve got a jacket, and I’ve already borrowed yours enough today.’
‘Have you indeed?’ Birdie wrapped her own coat around her. It looked more like a cloak, in a deep, forest-green velvet, with a hood, and a hem that skimmed along the ground.
Imogen and Dexter exchanged a furtive glance. She thought their absence had been missed in the happy chaos of the wedding reception, but Birdie missed nothing.
‘Felix took us to see his lake fort,’ Imogen explained, and Birdie nodded knowingly, as if that was a normal sentence.
‘It was cold, but not as cold as it is now.’ She tipped her head up to the sky, where a gazillion stars twinkled, the ultimate frosting to accompany Sophie and Harry’s wedding. ‘God, you don’t get this in London.’
Artichoke chirruped from inside her jacket, the two of them sharing warmth.
‘Lots of things here that you don’t get in London,’ Dexter said, then stifled a yawn.
‘What time do you have to be up for the bakery tomorrow?’ Imogen asked.
‘Not until seven on a Sunday. We open at nine.’
‘I hope you’re planning on making extra cheese and bacon pastries,’ Birdie said, ‘considering they’re the ultimate hangover cure.’
‘I hope you haven’t been spreading that fib around the village,’ Dexter said. ‘A fry-up at the hotel will be much more popular.’
‘You and Winnie will both be busy then,’ Birdie said.
Mistingham was quiet, most people either still at the wedding or having left hours ago, and the streetlights’ glow fell in puddles on parked cars and pavements.
The hotel was lit up like a Christmas tree, and there was a slight crunch beneath their footsteps, a frost that could have been sent down by the stars.
Imogen was awash with contentment, two glasses of champagne and quite a lot of crab the perfect ratio for satisfaction.
Except she knew it wasn’t the food or drink that had made her happy, and that was a disastrous realization when this was a temporary hideout, and at some point she would have to face her real life, and all the disasters she’d set off inside it.
Dexter and Lucy’s house was behind the bakery, one of the more modern town houses that had been built using flint, mimicking the older style. They reached it before they got to Birdie’s.
‘Do you want me to bring Artichoke in?’ Imogen asked, while Dexter fished in his pocket for his keys.
‘Sure.’ He unlocked the door and Imogen followed him into a small hallway. She couldn’t see much, and Dexter didn’t turn on the light because Lucy was asleep, draped over his shoulder. It felt intimate, being in his house in the dark.
‘Here you go.’ She held Artichoke out, and Dexter gathered the puppy against him. ‘Sure you’re OK with them both?’
‘I’m used to it.’ She could just make out his smile in the gloom. ‘Thank you for today.’
‘Thank you. I had a lot of fun.’
‘I’ll wait to hear which scene we’re doing.’
‘I’ll have a think,’ she whispered. Then, because he was weighed down with sleeping daughters and dogs, she reached up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, her lips brushing against his stubble.
His aftershave still lingered, spicy and delicious, and Imogen wished he was carrying her upstairs to bed.
She was glad it was too dark for him to see her blush. ‘Night, Dexter.’
‘Goodnight, Imogen.’
She hurried back outside to Birdie, and slipped her arm through her gran’s as Dexter gently shut the door.
‘You had a good time, then?’ Birdie said.
‘The very best time.’
Birdie didn’t say anything, just tightened her arm in a squeeze of solidarity. Imogen tried not to think about how wise her gran was; how much she would have deduced from that walk alone.
She woke on Sunday morning, a little after ten, the smells of frying bacon and coffee wafting up the stairs, her feet aching from all the walking and dancing, her cheeks sore from laughing.
She hadn’t had too much champagne so her head was clear, and she closed her eyes and replayed the highlights, most of which included Dexter and the lake, the fact that he’d let her see his sadness, the feel of his warm jacket over her legs.
When they’d got back to the reception the party was in full swing, and they’d joined Lucy in some energetic, inexpert dancing that involved a lot of disco moves from the Eighties that Imogen only knew because she’d watched vintage episodes of Top of the Pops.
‘Imogen!’ Birdie called up the stairs. ‘Breakfast!’
‘Down in ten,’ she shouted back.
Breakfast was bacon sandwiches using Dexter’s thick, seeded sourdough, with mustard and ketchup and a huge mug of coffee.
‘You look happy,’ Birdie observed.
‘Who wouldn’t be, with this breakfast?’
Birdie took a bite of her bacon sandwich and, when she’d finished, said, ‘Is it breakfast, or is it something to do with the fact that several people saw you and Dexter leaving the reception, holding hands?’
‘Felix bullied us into seeing his lake fort, I told you.’
‘Did he also insist you hold hands?’
‘He did, actually,’ Imogen said, because she didn’t know how else to get out of it.
Birdie narrowed her eyes. ‘You really like him, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. Who wouldn’t? But it’s too soon, and too complicated—’
‘Too soon because you still love Edmund?’
The way she said it, Imogen could tell her gran had sussed her out.
Probably the moment she turned up on her doorstep.
‘Shall I make us a roast today?’ She focused hard on the table.
‘You’ve been looking after me since I arrived unannounced.
The least I can do is make myself more useful than I have been. ’
‘There are some veggies in the garden you can use. We’ll go and harvest them after this, and I can remind you that your feelings are legitimate, whatever they are.
If you don’t follow your heart, if you’re conforming for the comfort or satisfaction of someone else, then you’ll never be truly happy. ’
Imogen nodded, but didn’t answer.
‘Do you want to ask Dexter and Lucy to lunch?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her chest tightened at the thought.
People were already talking, and maybe it hadn’t been the wisest thing to skip out of Mistingham Manor holding hands, but they hadn’t actually been skipping – Dexter had been upset – and after they’d come back, they had avoided dancing to any of the slower tracks together.
Imogen and Lucy had danced to ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’’ by the Scissor Sisters, and when ‘Chasing Cars’ came on she’d crooned it to Artichoke, while dad and daughter engaged in a very ropey waltz.
It had been a lot of fun, and she and Dexter were just friends.
Friends who had almost kissed and were planning to do a scene together at the Christmas event.
‘I think Lucy has football this morning,’ Imogen said, relieved to have remembered that. ‘They’ll probably be doing football things after – and Dexter’s at the bakery, isn’t he? At least for a bit, so …’
Birdie put her hand over Imogen’s. ‘I didn’t mean to fluster you.
You’ve had such a tumultuous time recently, and now you’ve stepped away, given yourself a chance for some perspective.
I don’t want you to miss out on any opportunities, to go racing back to London before you’re ready because you think other people won’t approve. ’
‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’m …’ but she didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
‘Let’s go and harvest those sprouts and carrots,’ Birdie said soothingly.
‘Excellent. Choosing what to put in my roast is the only decision I’m capable of making right now.’