Joss was sitting on the steps of the van when I pulled up. The early-evening sunshine was sporadic, occasionally blanketed by low, thunderously dark clouds, but it was very warm and Joss was in knee-length chino shorts with his linen shirt undone, exposing his chest. His feet were bare and he was reading Keats.
‘Back on the Romantics?’ I said, looking pointedly at the spine.
‘Your favourites and mine,’ he said, shutting the book. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci, to be precise.’
‘“O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?”’ I quoted. He was more tanned than palely loitering, truth be told, but the well-loved words still seemed apposite.
‘“I met a lady in the meads,”’ he replied. ‘“Full beautiful – a faery’s child/Her hair was long, her foot was light,/And her eyes were wild.”’
‘Has she gone now?’ I asked lightly, my foot on the lowest step.
‘No,’ he said, looking up. How he could accuse me of having wild eyes, when his own …
I took the book from his hands and snapped it shut.
‘How are you finding my elfin grot?’ I asked, shoving past him to the open doorway.
He laughed uncertainly and rose to follow me.
‘Grot isn’t far wrong,’ he said. ‘And it’s certainly on an elfin scale.’
I went into the bedroom and threw the bag of linen on to the bare mattress.
‘Right,’ I said, turning to face him. ‘When you’re used to Willingham Hall it is. To me, it looks pretty normal.’
‘How the hell did you and your mother manage in a place like this for all those years? You must have been constantly tripping over each other.’
‘This is actually bigger than her current flat,’ I told him, sarcastically mirroring his aghast look. ‘Yeah. How the other half lives.’
‘Are you my other half then?’ he said in a low voice, leaning on the door frame so I couldn’t get past him.
‘More like my polar opposite,’ I said. ‘Rich versus poor. Idler versus worker.’
‘Man versus woman,’ he said. ‘Dominant versus submissive.’
I swallowed. There was some very buzzy air between us. I could almost hear it crackle.
‘Can I get past, please?’
‘Please, sir,’ he prompted.
‘Yeah, yeah, please, sir.’
He stood aside.
‘I might not have brought bed linen but I didn’t forget my riding crop,’ he said as I passed by. I clenched, hoping he couldn’t see me shut my eyes in a swoony manner. I made it to the living area without collapsing and sat down at the little dining table.
‘I have completed the next stage of the quest,’ he said, coming to sit opposite me. ‘All my test results are clear.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘So, will you tie your ribbon to my lance?’
I laughed, not understanding him at first.
‘Is that some kind of weird bondage practice?’
‘No, you know. Metaphorically. I’m your knightly champion. You’re my lady.’