The Night Book (10 page)

Seb began walking towards its ancient oak door, framed by blue wisteria that clustered in long, tumbling drapes on either side.

He was going to see about a room for the night.

Five miles behind him, Meriel was conducting her own inner conversation.

It had begun almost as soon as she slipped away from the party, discreetly following a little while behind Seb. She drove between the same hedgerows that occasionally parted to offer glimpses of
the gleaming river below.

Unlike Seb, Meriel made no attempt to deceive herself.

‘What are you
doing
?’ she muttered for the third or fourth time. ‘What
do
you think you’re doing, Meriel Kidd?’

She beat a rapid tattoo with her fingers on the steering wheel before answering her own question.

‘I’ll bloody well tell you. Playing with fire, that’s what.’

She could not remember feeling so conflicted and confused.

And aroused.

Twice she stamped on the Mercedes’ brakes and skidded to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road. She
must
turn around.
Now.
This was complete madness.

But both times, instead of making a three-point turn and heading back the way she’d come, she somehow found herself driving on towards her assignation. She felt her willpower evaporating
as swiftly as that morning’s mist had done.

She
must
give herself some space to think.

Meriel spotted an open gate up ahead on her left, with a farm track leading into the field behind it. She braked hard again and swung her car through the narrow gap, pulling up just inside.

Old-fashioned hayricks and bales dotted the meadow that lay in front of her, with dozens of rooks clustering on the yellow stooks and feeding among the stubble below.

Her father had loved rooks; Meriel remembered him telling her they were probably the most intelligent of British birds.

So here’s Daddy again, she thought as she switched off the engine. Twice in one day. Maybe he’s trying to get through to me, tell me what to do.

She smiled ruefully to herself and once more spoke aloud. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Meriel – you’re on your own. You’ll have to work this one out for
yourself.’

She settled back in her seat and, as accurately and calmly as she could, replayed her conversation at the party with Seb.

When she’d caught sight of him, staring at her with the strangest look on his face, a warm thrill had at once flooded her entire body. She couldn’t help wondering
if the radiance might be in some way visible to others. She felt suffused in soft, golden light.

Then he was walking quickly towards her, and the sensation faded just a little.

He reached her side and they stared at each other for a moment. Then both of them spoke at the same time, in the same words.

‘But I thought you weren’t here!’

They laughed together, and Seb – unselfconsciously, unthinkingly – leaned in to kiss Meriel’s cheek. It was only the second time they’d made physical contact; the first
was when he had shaken her hand outside the radio station nine days before. She experienced the same quiver that she had then, but managed to disguise it by quickly returning the kiss.

‘Seb . . . hello. What a lovely surprise. I didn’t see your car when I arrived just now. I thought . . . well . . .’

‘I got here late,’ Seb explained. ‘I was on a story. A wild-goose chase as things turned out. When I arrived the parking goons made me stick my car round the side. I reckon the
reason was that they didn’t want a heap of junk spoiling the motor show out there. I counted at least three Porsches.’

He hesitated before asking her: ‘Have you come with your husband?’

It was almost imperceptible, but he noticed her flinch.

‘No. Cameron decided . . . not to come. He said he had some contracts to go over. Something about a deadline on Monday. I came on my own.’

He tried not to look pleased.

‘Right. And you got here late, like me.’

‘Yes. I had to stop in Keswick for . . . for a while. Then I pulled over along the way to look at the views and I lost track of time. I’d forgotten how beautiful the Eden Valley is.
No wonder they named it after Paradise.’

He laughed, and they considered each other in silence. The moments lengthened.

‘Well, this is very odd,’ he said at last, smiling at her.

‘What is?’

‘Standing here together not talking but feeling . . . well, totally OK with it. This is only the second time we’ve seen each other but it seems I’ve known you for . . . well, I
don’t know how long. Ages. For ever. It’s weird, I don’t feel I have to make any effort to make conversation with you. Sorry, does that sound mad?’

Meriel shook her head. ‘Not at all. I know exactly what you mean. I’m feeling it, too. Perhaps we knew each other in a previous existence.’

‘Oh please, don’t tell me you believe in any of that rubbish.’

She laughed. ‘No, not really. It’s just that earlier today I found myself thinking of my late father. When I stopped to look at Paradise, as it were. It left me feeling a bit
thoughtful, that’s all.’

‘Mmm.’ Seb looked around them. ‘Over there,’ he said suddenly, nodding towards the river. ‘There’s a table come free – that one by the jetty, a bit
apart from all the others. Why don’t we sit down and get to know each other properly?’

‘I’d like that.’

Seb elaborately offered her his arm, bowing theatrically from the waist as she took it. Meriel dropped a mock curtsey in return, the tassels on her dress bobbing and swaying in sympathy.

‘So very formal, Mr Richmond.’

‘So incredibly desirable, Miss Kidd.’ Seb’s smile was instantly replaced by a look of anguish and he pressed his free hand to his forehead.

‘Christ, I’m
really
sorry, Meriel. That was completely out of order. I should never have said it; I don’t know what I was thinking. I just—’

She squeezed his arm reassuringly against her side and smiled up at him.

‘Don’t be silly. It was a lovely thing to say. In fact, you’re rather lovely yourself.’

There had been few pauses in their conversation after that, Meriel reflected now as she stared, unseeing, at the rooks foraging in the field in front of her. Seb had brought
them a couple of glasses of champagne and they’d spent the next hour telling each other the stories of their lives. They were so obviously engrossed in each other that the other guests
instinctively left them alone, and neither Seb nor Meriel noticed that the party was winding down around them, and that they were among the last there.

The more they talked, the more she liked him. Oh, never mind
liked
him: she was falling for him, she knew that. It wasn’t just that he was ridiculously attractive, he struck her
as being wise ahead of his years. Seb’s days on newspapers had given him an insight into how the world worked, she decided, without making him cynical. He was funny and well informed and
interesting and charming.

He was totally irresistible.

And, she was about to discover, formidably direct.

‘So, now I know all about your doctor father and English teacher mother,’ he said eventually. ‘
You
know about my journo dad and happy-to-be-at-home mum. We’ve
swapped our best school stories, and how you got started on magazines, and me with the local rag.

‘I’ve told you about my girlfriends and you’ve told me about your boyfriends. But you know what, Meriel?’

She suddenly knew what was coming. Damn.
Damn.

‘You’ve barely said a word about your husband. I know he’s a guy called Cameron, I know he’s a hotshot businessman. You’ve told me that much, although I knew it
already from the articles I’ve read about you, which also, by the way, never fail to inform me what a perfect marriage you have.’

‘We do.’

‘Bullshit.’

Meriel stood up.

‘I think I should go.’

‘Really?
I
think you should stay.’

‘You can’t talk about my marriage like that. You don’t know a thing about it.’

Seb had not taken his eyes from hers.

‘Meriel, listen to me. I may be a cack-handed, green-as-grass, bumbling broadcaster, but I’m a bloody good reporter.
Bloody
good. I have a nose for a story, always have had.
I can read people. I can
see
them.’

‘Oh really? That’s quite a gift. What do you see now?’

‘I see a lot of pain and confusion. I see a beautiful young woman whose marriage to a much older man is anything
but
perfect. You can hardly bring yourself to speak his name, for
Christ’s sake. And just look at the way you’re behaving right this second, Meriel. If you loved the guy you’d be laughing in my face, quoting me a dozen examples of wedded bliss
to prove how wrong I am. Instead, you’ve disconnected, pulled the plug, threatened to leave.’

She stared blankly down at him. ‘I
am
leaving.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t, Meriel . . . Please sit down again. Please.’

‘Why? What’s the point? Even if you’re right, what possible difference could you make to anything?’

Seb looked around them. There was no one near.

He reached out and touched her fingertips with his own. She shivered.

‘All the difference in the world. Because this is a classic
coup de foudre
, can’t you see that? A bolt of lightning. We’ve both been struck. When I saw you earlier,
and you turned and saw me, it happened. You know it did. Both our lives changed this afternoon.’

Her eyes widened and, after a long moment, she sank back down into her chair, still staring at him. Finally she dropped her eyes. It was a surrender.

‘All right. All right, Seb. So what are we going to do about it? Just what exactly are we going to do?’

‘We’re going to start by getting out of here. Come on.’

Meriel started the engine and reversed back out into the lane. If she turned left, she’d be back at Cathedral Crag in no more than forty-five minutes. If she turned
right, she’d be with Seb in less than five.

She’d already made her decision.

As things turned out, they didn’t trouble themselves with supper.

Seb was sitting in the bar nursing a half of bitter when he heard the door that led to the pub’s beer garden open behind him. He knew straight away that it was her; the sudden change in
the barman’s expression told him that. The guy looked stunned, like he’d just been whacked over the head and was seeing stars.

Seb turned around and looked at her. She was backlit by the setting sun. The tassels of her lace dress rippled in the evening breeze, casting long, fluttering shadows across the flagstoned floor
towards him.

‘Hello, Meriel.’

‘Hello, Seb.’

‘You took your time.’ He said it with a smile, sliding off the bar stool and reaching for the little tray which held the gin and tonic he’d ordered for her half an hour before.
He put his beer next to it. ‘Shall we take these outside?’

‘If you like.’

The barman looked crestfallen.

There were only two other people in the little garden, a couple in their mid-thirties. They were deep in conversation and didn’t even glance in their direction.

Seb set down the tray onto a wooden picnic table and touched Meriel’s elbow as she was about to sit down.

‘No; wait . . . come round here.’

He led her to the far side of a gnarled apple tree that grew close beside a weather-worn, mellowed old brick wall. Now they were completely hidden from view.

He slipped both arms around her and pulled her firmly to him. She rested one hand on his shoulder and then, just as she had imagined that afternoon when she was sitting daydreaming in the sun,
she slid the other around the back of his neck and pushed her fingers into his hair.

My God, thought Meriel. It’s happening. It’s actually happening.

They gazed steadily at each other for several moments. Seb lifted one hand and softly stroked her cheek. At last he spoke.

‘I’d started to think you’d changed your mind.’

‘I nearly did.’

‘What happened?’

She gave a tiny shrug. ‘I’m not sure. I think . . . I think I’ve decided to put my faith in you.’

He traced a finger around her mouth. ‘Meriel, I promise you won’t be sorry.’

She laughed softly.

‘I might be, if you don’t hurry up and kiss me.’

After that there’d really been nothing else to do but go to the room. Seb had secured the inn’s sole four-poster bedroom. Meriel was delighted when she saw the
old-style velvet drapes hanging on all four sides of the bed.

‘We can pull them closed around us while we . . . when we . . . it’ll be like being in our own enclosed, separate world! Oh, I
love
this place, Seb. How clever of you to
think of it.’

He turned from locking the door behind them, laughing as he crossed the room to wrap her in his arms again.

She began laughing too. ‘What’s funny? Tell me!’

‘You. When you make up your mind, you make up your mind, don’t you? You look happier and more relaxed than I’ve seen you all day. And even more beautiful, if that’s
possible. Now please stop laughing, Miss Kidd. I want to kiss you properly.’

‘What, you mean outside just now wasn’t kissing me properly?’

He pushed her gently backwards onto the bed.

‘Ask me that question again an hour from now.’

Meriel shuddered and arched her back again. They had been making love for longer than she had ever thought was possible. As she subsided once more, the back of one hand pressed
to her mouth and the fingers of the other tightly gripping Seb’s hair as it brushed her belly, she felt him finally relax. After a few moments he moved back up the bed to lie, trembling
slightly, full-length beside her. Gradually their breathing slowed and he turned her face towards him.

‘You’re absolutely beautiful.’ He kissed her and then fell back again, passing one hand across his eyes before staring up at the ceiling.

‘Jesus, Meriel, that was . . . I don’t know . . . like nothing I’ve ever experienced. You’re incredible.’