‘There’s an old friend here of yours that you simply must meet, darling.’ Their hostess was talking to Jon now, holding on to his arm in a way that made Sophy’s fingers curl into tiny talons.
‘Roy, over here a minute, darling,’ she called to her husband, and Sophy watched the burly fair-haired man detach himself from a small group.
He looked older than Jon although Sophy recognised that they must be around the same age, clever hazel eyes studying her gravely as he shook her hand.
‘So you are Jon’s wife? You’re a lucky man, Jon, she’s lovely.’
‘Hey enough of that,’ Andrea threatened lightly, punching him on the arm. ‘Just remember you are married to me...’
‘Ah, you’re jealous.’ They were simply playing a game...but Jon could have said the same words to her and they would have been all too true.
‘I think you’ll find you know most of the people here,’ Roy was saying to Jon. ‘What can I get you to drink?’
‘Get him a drink later, love,’ Andrea interrupted. ‘Jon, there’s a very special friend of yours here tonight. An old flame,’ she added, winking at Sophy, as though to show it was still a game, but Sophy could feel herself tense. Jon had tensed too, his jaw hardening fractionally, his eyes closing slightly, such minor changes, that she suspected only she was aware of what they portended.
‘Oh...?’ He wasn’t giving anything away in his voice either, Sophy recognised, watching him frown in the hesitant mild manner she had once thought typified the man himself and which she was now coming to know was simply a form of camouflage. What was Jon protecting himself from? Her mouth felt dry, her body tensing almost to the point of pain.
‘Yes... Lorraine. You must remember her, Jon. Heavens, you and she were an item for a couple of terms at least. She used to be absolutely crazy about you.’
‘But Jon managed to resist all her wiles, didn’t you, my friend?’ Roy was chuckling, ignoring his wife’s frown. ‘Just as well too, otherwise Lorraine would have had you neatly trapped in matrimony and then I would never have been able to meet this lovely lady.’ He kissed Sophy’s fingers gallantly as he spoke.
‘We were all a little in love with Jon when he was at university,’ Andrea told Sophy with a small smile. ‘He was so different from the other under-grads, far more sophisticated and just that little bit withdrawn. It made him seem very exciting and out of reach...challengingly so, I’m afraid. We used to chase after him quite unfairly. All you wanted to do was to be left alone to get on with your work, didn’t you, darling?’ she added to Jon.
Roy laughed. ‘Says you,’ he teased his wife. ‘How do you think he got that jaded, world-weary air you found so tantalising in the first place? It certainly wasn’t by sitting up burning the midnight oil over his books!’
Jon looked distinctly uncomfortable. He tugged at his bow tie as though it were strangling him, but this time Sophy was not deceived. He was not really embarrassed. He was simply pretending he was. If she looked at his eyes, they were cool and faintly aloof, not embarrassed at all.
‘Well you must come and say hello to Lorraine or she’ll never forgive me,’ Andrea insisted, drawing Jon away from Roy and Sophy.
Silently, Sophy watched them go.
‘You mustn’t mind my wife.’ Roy sounded kind and faintly uncomfortable. ‘She’s right when she said that most of the girls in our crowd had a thing about Jon. Poor guy, he was forced to live like a hermit in the end, just to get rid of them. In those days girls had just discovered sex,’ he told Sophy with a grin. ‘It was a difficult time for us men, being the pursued instead of the pursuers.’
‘I’m sure,’ Sophy agreed copying his bantering mood. ‘It must have been hell.’
Roy was easy to talk to but that didn’t stop her glance following Jon’s dark head, watching it bend towards the blonde woman he had stopped beside. Andrea drifted off and left them, Roy was still talking and she must have been making the right responses but inside she was tormented by jealousy. What were they saying? Was this perhaps the one love of Jon’s life? She ached to be with them; to hear what was being said, and was given her chance when someone else came up to talk to Roy. She walked unsteadily away, moving towards Jon. He turned as she reached him, surprise and something else—anger perhaps—flickering across his face.