The heating engineer came out to get something from his van, and this seemed to spur Lawrence into action. He pulled away, waving a hand out of the window before he turned out of the driveway.
‘All done,’ chirped the engineer from the hallway.
‘Oh, really? We have hot water, then?’
‘Hot, cold, as much as you can handle,’ he said.
‘Fantastic. Thank you. I’ve got your invoice – I’ll have the money transferred this afternoon.’
‘That’s what I like to hear. Good luck with this place.’ He looked around as if he didn’t envy her her new home. ‘I can recommend a good firm of builders if you aren’t fixed up yet.’
‘Oh, thank you, but I think I’ll be fine. I’ll give you a call if I change my mind, though.’
The engineer hefted his toolbox through the front door and left Jenna alone in the house.
Except she wasn’t.
She wanted a bath, but the idea of having one with Leonardo treading the boards above her was too weird. She decided to go up and give him the painting materials and take things from there.
He was painting when she entered the attic, Bowyer the cat curled up on the sleeping bag at his feet.
‘I’ve been to Hobbycraft,’ she said, putting the bag down before hauling herself up through the hatch.
‘No shit?’ he said, turning round and pouncing on the offerings as if he had been Bowyer with a mouse. ‘Fucking A,’ he said, peering inside. ‘I’m right down to my last few drops.’
‘Well, now you’re restocked,’ she said.
‘I’m starving,’ he said. ‘You didn’t go to Tesco on your travels, did you?’
‘Sorry, not yet. I’m going to have a bath then head into town to get some food. Don’t you have anything to eat?’
‘Some stale custard creams and a tin of cold baked beans,’ he said. ‘It’ll do. I was hoping for some fruit and veg, though, before I get scurvy.’
‘I’ll bring you fruit,’ she promised. ‘And, once I’m out of the bath, it’s all yours.’
‘Right. Can I borrow your shampoo?’
She held her breath for a moment. She bought the most expensive beauty products available and she never shared.
‘OK,’ she said, after a beat. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then, shall I? You look as if you’ve got the muse for company anyway.’
‘And the mews,’ he said, looking down at Bowyer.
Hot water was bliss, and so was feeling properly clean after a day of roughing it. She dressed, casually again, and left for town, shouting up to Leonardo before she went.
The Bledburn branch of Marks and Spencer was small, but probably the only ‘nice’ shop in town: one of very few that didn’t have windows either blacked out or plastered in massive sale signs.
She thought, as she walked around the grocery aisles looking for picnicky yet healthy foods, about Lawrence and Leonardo. Lawrence Harville was personable, good company, handsome and wealthy but there was something about him that made her keep her distance. What was it? She simply couldn’t put her finger on it.
On the other hand, Leonardo was terrible on paper – a foul-mouthed fugitive from the wrong side of the tracks, and yet she felt a faith in him, and a trust. She very much wanted him to succeed, and she wanted to be a part of his success. Life had dealt him a bad hand and she was in a position to slip him a few aces. These were strong feelings to be having about a man she had only just met.
Was it a post-traumatic thing? Stress-related?
As much as she told herself to step back, to keep him at arm’s length, she found herself all too soon in the menswear section, buying him underwear and socks and some T-shirts and two pairs of jeans. She had to guess his size but he was about six feet tall and, somewhere inside that baggy, scraggy tracksuit, quite well built. It would be nice to see him clean and scrubbed and – oh, razors – shaved, in decent clothes. In fact, something at the back of her mind told her it would be more than nice.
Ugh, don’t be a cougar! He’s younger than you, late twenties at most.
There was no harm in aesthetic appreciation of a good-looking man, she told herself. As long as she didn’t embarrass herself by blatantly ogling him.