Shrewd brown eyes surveyed Lucy as she sat down.
‘You look tired, and I’m not surprised. Your uncle was telling me the other day that things haven’t been too easy for you since your father died.’
‘Oh they haven’t been too bad. There were one or two bumpy patches but we’re over them now.’
‘Umm… You’ve got your stepmother and the children living with you I believe?’
Lucy’s sensitive ears caught the faintly critical note skilfully hidden within the words, and automatically defended her father’s actions.
‘Fanny isn’t really emotionally capable of handling things alone at the moment…’
Looking at the finely-drawn features of the girl seated opposite her, Beverley Francis wondered a little at the thoughtlessness of a father who burdened a young woman with the welfare of his second wife and family. She had two stepchildren of her own—both married with families now—two girls whom she got on with very well indeed, but who by no stretch of her imagination could she see willingly taking on the role Lucy had been obliged to adopt.
‘Look, I’ve booked our table for one o’clock,’ she told Lucy, glancing at her watch. ‘Shall we go straight there and discuss everything over lunch?’
When Lucy agreed, she got up, collecting her handbag and a small notebook.
The purpose of Lucy’s visit wasn’t mentioned again until they had been served with their main course, the conversation over their first course having been confined to Lucy’s uncle and their days together at Oxford.
‘We’re really delighted with what you’ve done so far,’ Beverley told Lucy without preamble, watching the tension ease out of her face. ‘You do have a genuine natural flair for writing, Lucy. Of course there’s a certain amount of smoothing out to be done, but nothing too drastic, and I can certainly tell you that we want to go ahead and publish. How much work have you done on the next book?’
‘A lot of research, but very little else. I know what I’m going to put in it, and what main line the story will take, but I’m still mulling over the peripheral stuff—how much or how little I expand on the more remote family connections.’
Beverley listened closely whilst Lucy outlined her ideas for her second novel, interrupting occasionally to make a suggestion and to skilfully lead Lucy down by-lanes that hadn’t previously occurred to her.
By the time they had finished their lunch, Lucy felt fired with a new enthusiasm to get back to her work. It had suffered during her father’s illness and since then she had been too caught up with family affairs to give it the concentration it required—she had even begun to feel reluctant to go on at all. But now all that was banished and she was full of eagerness to get back to work. When she said as much to Beverley, the latter laughed.
‘That’s what good editors are for—to inspire their writers, not depress them.’
They had talked over the minor points Beverley wanted to raise on her existing manuscript and when she eventually left the office midway through the afternoon, Lucy felt buoyed up and exultant. The re-writing work required was minimal—a smoothing off process rather than anything else, as Beverley had intimated, which she was confident she could have done within the time limit Beverley had set.
It was late afternoon before she got to the station, but luckily she didn’t have long to wait for a train. As she got on to it she glanced rather guiltily at the glossy carrier over her arm. The silk suit she had seen in a Bond Street window had proved too much temptation to resist, the way the fabric clung to her body bringing vividly to mind her erotic imaginings of the night before. She would wear it tonight—for Saul.
The adrenalin which had pumped through her veins all afternoon increased its speed as the train slowed down for her station. She got out, her heart thudding furiously as she headed for her car.
‘Lucy!’
Delight shocked through her as she recognised Saul’s voice. He was striding towards her, almost grinning at her, his smile so wide while she stood like someone transfixed and waiting for him to reach her.
‘I thought I’d come and pick you up—just in case you’d forgotten about our date.’
Forgotten? Her mouth curled into a smile at the absurdity of the thought. She had her own car parked only yards away and as she looked across at it, she regained enough sanity to ask breathlessly, ‘But how did you know what train I’d be on?’
Saul laughed, his voice faintly self-mocking as he drawled, ‘I didn’t, so I’ve met each one.’
The curve of his mouth invited her to share his amusement, but she couldn’t. She was too overwhelmed. Tears stung her eyes, her throat closing up with a mixture of delight and anguish. It had been years since anyone had cared enough about her to do such a thing—in fact the last person she could remember doing so was her mother.