Like someone moving slowly in a dream, she shook her head, trying to disperse it, forcing herself to get out of the car and lock it.
Her shopping didn’t take her long, and she was finished in plenty of time to get to the office where she had arranged to meet Jon. So much time in fact that when she found herself studying an attractive lemon sundress in a shop window, she gave in to the temptation to go inside and try it on.
It fitted her perfectly, enhancing the golden gleam of her skin and bringing out the red highlights in her hair. Tiny shoe-string straps tied on her shoulders in provocative bows, a broad stiffened belt emphasising the narrowness of her waist, before the skirt flared out over a slightly stiffened underskirt.
‘It might have been made for you,’ the assistant said, truthfully.
‘I’ll take it...’ Sophy took a deep breath, ‘and I’ll keep it on...’
The other girl’s eyes twinkled. ‘Mmm...well I certainly think he’ll appreciate it, whoever he is.’
‘My husband.’ The admission was made almost before she was aware of it and angry colour flooded her skin. Of course she wasn’t buying this dress for Jon’s benefit! She was buying it because it was cool and she was hot...and besides it was time she had some pretty things and...
Impatiently she waited for the girl to take her cheque and put her things into a bag, regretting now her impulsive decision to wear the dress but too embarrassed to do anything about it.
She found Jon waiting for her when she got to the office. He opened the door for her and, as the strong midday sunlight fell on his face, she realised he looked tired. Lines of strain harshened the shape of his mouth and for some reason he looked almost unfamiliar; harder, more male. As though she were seeing him properly for the first time Sophy stared at him, confused. He in turn was studying her, looking at her with such an air of open appraisal that the sundress, so pretty and cool in the shop, now seemed somehow provocative and dangerous.
‘It’s such a hot day I thought we’d eat at the Mill.’
The restaurant he named was on the river and very popular. Sophy doubted that they would be able to get a table but she was anxious to escape the tense atmosphere of the small office. It seemed to be stifling her. It must be the heat, she thought dizzily as they went outside but even in the fresh air the tension remained.
In the narrow streets the heat was like a thick blanket, clogging her throat when she tried to breathe. Far too acutely conscious of Jon at her side, she started to walk faster, arriving at the car hot and out of breath. In contrast Jon looked cool and lazily at ease. But was he? Some sixth sense made her study him more closely. A tiny pulse flickered unevenly under his skin. This constraint between them was a new thing, and one she did not know how to handle. Almost overnight Jon had turned from a kind, unthreatening man whom she liked very much and was fond of in a sisterly fashion, into a stranger, for whom her feelings were anything but sisterly.
Her face burned as she remembered his laconic accusation the previous evening. She had goaded him deliberately, she recognised that now. She wanted him to react physically to her comments but not because of Chris. All the feelings she had been fighting so hard to suppress flooded through her as she started the car. Why did she have to discover them now, when it was too late? Why had she not realised before their marriage that she was vulnerable to Jon’s attraction? Was it because they were married that she was seeing him in this new light?
The questions buzzed in her tired brain like swarming wasps, making her stall the car and have to restart it, whilst Jon sat silently at her side.
To her surprise he had booked a table for them at the Mill. Not outside where everyone else seemed to be eating but in the dim coolness of the mill itself. Once a working flour mill, the building had been enterprisingly converted into a restaurant some years ago. Recently it had been taken over by a young couple with an enthusiasm for wholesome natural food, which was attractively presented.
Sophy ordered unenthusiastically, knowing that she was far too wrought up to enjoy her meal. Her throat seemed to have closed to an aching tightness, her whole body in the grip of an unfamiliar tension. She wanted to be with Jon and yet she didn’t. Being alone with him made her feel nervous and on edge. Something she had never experienced in his company before, but a feeling she was familiar with nevertheless. She had experienced it every time she had dated a man she liked and whom she had thought might help her to overcome the stigma that Chris had labelled her with. It was the utmost stupidity to want Jon physically, she told herself despairingly, and it was not even as though he wanted her.