Jill Mansell - Mixed doubles

‘Do what?’

There were drops of rain on Kit’s eyelashes. He looked ridiculously handsome and very serious.

‘Marry you.’

‘Oh God, no! It was only supposed to be a joke.’ Liza pulled a face. ‘Don’t take any notice of them ... we don’t have to get married!’

‘Actually, we do. And not because your friends think we should.’ He paused and lifted a strand of Liza’s wet blonde hair out of her eyes. ‘Because I do.’

‘But – but we could just live together!’

‘Why?’ said Kit. ‘Don’t you want to marry me?’

Liza stared at him. What a question. Lowering her gaze, she studied the lapels of his dark suit instead. This was easier, since they didn’t stare unnervingly back.

The look on her face told Kit everything he needed to know. He smiled; she hadn’t kicked up nearly as much of a fuss as he’d thought she would.

‘So that’s it. All settled,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘December all right with you?’

Dulcie had been chatting to Terry Lambert for several minutes before she realised who he was.

‘I’ve got it now. You’re the one who persuaded Pru to have her ears done.’

‘Well, in a manner of speaking.’ Terry looked amused. ‘I wouldn’t like to claim sole responsibility. We in the legal profession prefer to avoid that if we can.’

Of course, he was a solicitor, remembered Dulcie. He had handled Pru’s divorce.

‘Isn’t dealing with endless marriage break-ups depressing?’ she asked.

‘Not necessarily. It isn’t all slanging matches and squabbling over who gets the Monopoly set.

Some couples manage to stay on good terms, which always helps.’ He smiled. ‘A bit of civility goes a long way.’

As she gazed across the room at Patrick and Claire, Dulcie realised it was time to prove she could be civil too. As civil as Patrick was to me when I told him our marriage was over, she thought sadly. Patrick hadn’t argued or punched her or started shouting about money; he had simply moved out.

Dulcie wondered if it had been easy for him to stay civil because he hadn’t felt that much for her anyway.

Imagining that this was true made her want to cry. Hastily she pulled herself together.

Either way, it’s my turn to do the decent thing, Dulcie realised. Patrick hasn’t put the pressure on, but that’s just the way he is. And he’s with Claire now. Of course it’s what he wants.

As Terry offered to refill her glass, she tried not to look at his nose. He seemed charming, and he had organised Pru’s divorce from Phil with admirable speed and minimum fuss.

‘Maybe I could come and see you at your office,’ Dulcie said casually.

Terry didn’t seem surprised, he just reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. His brief smile as he passed her one of his business cards was sympathetic.

‘You want a divorce as well?’

No, but my husband does, thought Dulcie with an ache in her chest like homesickness. And under the circumstances it seems the least I can do.

Chapter 48

The next morning Liza had to be up early. She had an appointment with her publishing editor in London at ten and a restaurant in Windsor to review at one thirty. To save time, she was wearing her frump gear and wig.

‘You remind me of someone I got chatted up by yesterday,’ said Kit, taking a bite out of Liza’s toast as he squeezed past her in the kitchen. ‘Old dear with a walking stick, kept nicking stuff from the buffet.’

‘Marjorie.’ Liza nodded and shoved the rest of the toast into his mouth; she was already running late. ‘She told me if she was fifty years younger she’d give me a run for my money. You wouldn’t believe the comments she made about your bum.’

‘That’s me,’ said Kit with a broad grin. ‘Irresistible to older women.’ He grabbed Liza around the waist as she tried to rush past him. ‘Hang on, I haven’t had a kiss yet from my future wife.’

Liza, who was on her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth, kept her lips clamped together.

‘Was that it?’ Kit looked appalled. ‘If that’s how you kiss future husbands, forget it.’

He leaned against the door frame and watched her brushing her teeth.

‘I want to see a dramatic improvement in kissing technique by this evening,’ he warned.

‘Who would you like me to practise on, my gay editor?’ Liza spoke through a mouthful of toothpaste.

Kit grinned.

‘Practise on the back of your hand. Dulcie told me yesterday it’s what you used to do when you were eleven.’

‘We all did!’ Liza looked indignant. ‘Why, what did you practise on?’

The grin broadened.

‘Girls.’

From the radio in the kitchen came the sound of the eight o’clock pips. Liza groaned and brushed faster.

‘God, I love the way your bottom wriggles when you do that.’

The toothbrush clattered into the basin. Liza wiped her mouth on a towel, grabbed her coat and bag from the hall and almost fell over putting on her shoes.

‘I’m late late late.’ Whirling around, she planted a speedof-light kiss on Kit’s face, missing his mouth by an inch. "Bye. Back by six.’

As she raced out to the car, almost sending a pensioner flying, Kit stood in the doorway and yelled, ‘What is it with you call girls nowadays? That was another crap kiss.’

Leo Berenger was at his desk when Kit turned up at nine for their meeting with a new firm of architects. The plans for the latest Berenger development, on the outskirts of Oxford, were already well underway. Leo had been studying the proposed drawings for a selection of four- and five-bedroomed Tudor-style properties since before breakfast and was impatient to bounce several ideas off his son before the architects arrived.

The last thing he needed to hear was Liza Lawson’s name.

‘No, no.’ The impatient wave of his arm swept several drawings to the floor. Dammit, hadn’t Kit got that woman out of his system yet? ‘I don’t want to meet her. Why the hell should I?’

Kit shrugged. He hadn’t seriously expected any other reaction.

‘No reason. We’re getting married, that’s all.’

Leo Berenger didn’t go in for double-takes. Yelling ‘You’regetting what?’ wasn’t his style. He simply shook his head and leaned back in his chair, his expression grim.

‘When?’

‘December.’

‘If you do, you’re a bloody fool.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Kit. ‘I think I’m bloody lucky.’

‘I suppose she’s pregnant.’

‘No.’

‘So what’s she after, a share of all this when I kick the bucket?’ This time his irritated gesture encompassed the view from the windows, the offices occupying the whole of the top floor, the house itself. ‘Because I tell you now, she’ll have a bloody long wait.’

‘Dad.’ Wearily, Kit picked up the scattered drawings. Argument or no argument, the architects who had produced them would be here at any minute. ‘This has nothing to do with your money. I love Liza and I’m going to marry her.’

‘And nothing I say will make a blind bit of difference, I suppose.’

Was this his father’s way of acknowledging and finally accepting the situation? Kit wasn’t sure; all he knew was there needn’t be a rift between them.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Kit smiled slightly and said, ‘No. I’ll marry her anyway.’

He got no smile in return. The expression on Leo’s face was one of undiluted disgust.

‘Go on then, do it. Make your own mistakes, see if I care.’ He leaned forward in his chair and jabbed a solid finger at his son for emphasis. ‘Just don’t ever ask me again if I want to meet her.’

The meeting was over by eleven. Relieved, Kit saw the architects to their car. When he returned to the office, his father was barking instructions down the phone to one of the contractors, swigging black coffee and chewing his way irritably through a pack of Rennies.