Love: Classified (25 page)

     “What about Fiona?”
I bit out before I could stop myself. I pushed his cock away and he rolled off me and lay beside me, holding my shoulders as if to stop me running away again. But the insecurity was still there and I said, “She seemed particularly interested in you.”

    
“I’ve never slept with Fiona,” he said. “Not that she hasn’t tried to tempt me. Often. Even though she called herself a friend of Vanessa. She isn’t my type. You saw me avoiding her talons. She’s too predatory, too sure of herself.”

    
“This means something, us being together like this, doesn’t it?” I asked.

     “Would I have asked you to marry me if it didn’t?”

     “Did you think I was a slut, after that first time we made love? Was I too easy?”

     He laughed. “No way. You avoided me for four whole weeks before that. I tried so many times to seduce you but you played hard to get, waiting until I was asleep before you came to bed, leaving all your clothes on. And I was pretty battered and bruised
for the first few days in York and thought my helplessness might have turned you off.”

     “I loved it. I think it made me feel more confident about your body,” I said, snuggling into him and taking his balls in my hand.

     As his erection throbbed between us I said, “I’m sorry I hurt you by going off like that.”

     “It’s forgotten,” he promised, “On one condition.”

     “What’s that?”

     “That you don’t make too much nose when I do this to you,” he murmured, burying his head between my legs.

     He licked and sucked me to a gentle, utterly satisfying climax before supporting himself over me and masturbating until he’d given me another necklace. Pearls.

Later, when we were lying, sated, on his mattress, he said, “Do you remember the ruins of the coaching inn we found, on our first day?”

     “Mmm,” I said, snuggling closer.

     “It’s ours, if we want it.”

     “What do you mean?” I asked, my drowsiness gone.

     “I saw Mrs Smart quite often after you’d gone. She came to talk to us both one day and when she discovered you’d left I think she was worried I’d starve so she kept coming to see me with food. Anyway, she said she remembered we’d both liked it and said it was a shame you’d gone because she wanted us both to have it. I think she and Dr Jenkins cooked up a scheme to attract us to the town because they’re so short of doctors.”

     In my mind, I could see myself and Magnus in wicker cha
irs on the shady verandah of the cottage we’d built. The setting sun, glowing through stained glass windows, threw lozenges of colour onto the polished floor boards. The vine was heavy with grapes and from the greenly shooting almond tree twins flew laughing through the air on a swing.

     “Penny for your thoughts,” he whispered, running his tongue around the whorls of my ear.

     And this time I told him.

E
pilogue

Jake gave Virginia away on her wedding day. Daisy was the mistress of ceremonies, Peta the matron of honour, Bree the flower girl and Fergus the page boy. Josie did all the readings and Danny took the photos. Josh drove Virginia and her retinue to church. Fiona, Beryl and Colin did the catering but not one dish contained mutton. The mare rescued during the storm pulled the wedding carriage. Five months later, Dr Jenkins and Magnus delivered the Winchester twins. Mrs Smart was their godmother.

     When the twins were a year old, Virginia and Magnus left them with Daisy and Fergus
, along with the pets, Barney and Maggie, and the chooks, and went on their honeymoon – to China or Elsewhere.