Echoes of Love (25 page)

‘S
O COME ON,
’ M
IA SAID A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER, AFTER
Anna had hugged her and handed over her birthday present.
‘Where is he? Let’s see this new man.’

‘Don’t tell me he’s not here,’ Lauren added.

‘Maybe that’s no bad thing,’ Shannon ventured nervously. ‘Maybe Anna’s decided to come on her own.’

Anna laughed. ‘He’s just parking the car.’

‘Before he comes, can I have a quick word?’ Shannon looked unusually anxious as she dragged Anna to one side. ‘About Hugo, I mean I know you’re keen and everything but .
. .’

‘But what?’ Anna asked, smiling to herself.

‘OK, you’re not going to like this,’ Shannon said. ‘But I’m your friend and friends tell it like it is. You know the guy I told you about? Toby?’

Anna nodded.

‘We’re together,’ Shannon grinned. ‘He’s over there – I’ll introduce you in a minute.’

‘That’s wonderful!’ Anna hugged her, glancing across at a sandy-haired boy who was adjusting the speakers on the music system. ‘I’m so pleased – but
what’s that got to do with Hugo?’

‘Toby knows Hugo,’ she said. ‘Anna, he’s got history.’

‘Haven’t we all?’ Anna shrugged.

‘Look, last week Toby was at a cricket club party, and Hugo was there, getting very drunk.’

‘Guys do sometimes,’ Anna remarked, stringing her along. ‘That doesn’t make them bad people!’

‘Yeah, well, he happened to be drunk enough to regale everyone at the bar with the story of how he nicked money off a bunch of mates at a house party in Lyme Regis and –

This time, Anna’s reaction was totally genuine. She stared at Shannon in horror. ‘Oh my God. I don’t believe it.’

‘So, I had to tell you,’ Shannon said. ‘You do understand? It’s because I care about you. I’d hate to see you hooked up with someone who didn’t deserve
you.’

‘That’s OK then,’ Anna laughed, peering out of the front door and beckoning wildly. Grabbing Felix by the hand, she dragged him into the hall.

‘You remember Felix, don’t you?’ she asked her friends with a wicked grin. ‘My boyfriend?’

‘You’re back together?’ Lauren gasped.

‘Anna, you shady lady! Why didn’t you tell me? This is so so cool,’ Shannon said, laughing.

‘I thought – I mean . . . oh this is so romantic,’ Mia sighed.

Felix grinned and put his arm round Anna, pulling her towards him.

‘And you won’t believe what Shannon’s just told me about Hugo!’ Anna said.

‘That he’s a complete sham, a fake and a total waste of space, perhaps?’ Felix asked dryly.

‘How did you know?’ Shannon and Anna asked simultaneously.

‘When the girl I love suddenly hooks up with a guy that I’m deeply suspicious about, I make it my business to discover what’s going on.’

‘That,’ said Mia, ‘is so totally romantic.’

‘Mia, if you say that one more time, I’ll slap you,’ Lauren muttered.

‘But what made you suspicious? I mean, you hardly know him,’ Anna reasoned.

‘That afternoon at Sula’s house, before we went down to the garden, Hugo barged into my room, right?’ Felix explained. ‘I didn’t think anything of it – he
said he’d got in a muddle. But then Jamie happened to let slip that he’d found him in his room, and then Louisa said he nearly caught her in her . . . Well, anyway, I got to thinking. I
mean – there were only five bedrooms, for God’s sake. How many mistakes can you make?’

‘You think he was checking out what was what?’ Anna asked.

Felix sighed. ‘Yes, except that I didn’t work that out till I was halfway home,’ he admitted. ‘I was so taken up with Louisa and feeling guilty about the
accident.’

‘Guilty?’ Shannon asked. ‘How come?’

‘Felix thinks if he hadn’t gone on about how Meryl Streep looked on the posters of
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
, she wouldn’t have started showing off, and
wouldn’t have fallen in,’ Anna sighed.

‘Rubbish,’ Shannon said in her down to earth way. ‘Anyway, is that why you went to Eastbourne? To confront the Horrible Hugo?’

‘No,’ Felix said. ‘I went to Eastbourne to find Anna and beg for another chance! And you know what? It took all my charms but I finally persuaded her.’

‘
You
persuaded
me
?’ Anna teased back, and then looked serious for a moment. ‘No one is ever going to persuade me to do anything ever again – not unless
it’s something I want.’

She squeezed Felix’s hand and looked up at him lovingly.

‘And you, Felix Wentworth, are what I really, really want.’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book would never have been finished had it not been for the help, encouragement and knowledge of a whole bunch of wonderful people.

My thanks go to John Leach (YO, May ’96) for his unending patience and detailed information about life in the Royal Marines; to Dr Chris Winfield for his insights into life in a war zone;
to Caroline Davis and Pippa Kirby for being so passionate about
Persuasion
; to Sally Bird for tea and gluten free cake when things got tough; to Lorraine Bewley and Year 9 at Northampton
School for Girls for inventing Wild Chicks and to a whole host of members of the Scattered Authors’ Society for their humour, encouragement and common sense.

As usual, I am hugely indebted to Ruth Williams and Brenda Gardner of Piccadilly Press for curtailing my inappropriate flights of fancy, and to my long suffering agent, Jane Judd, who copes with
my neuroses on an ongoing basis.