‘I think it’s time we got up.’
‘Not even the birds are up yet.’ She looked incredibly young. How was it that he had never noticed that before? True she was younger than most of his ex girlfriends, but even so she looked light years less hard and experienced. Lawyers and barristers and investment bankers, he concluded, showed the stress of their jobs in their faces even when those faces appeared flawless. ‘Are you still hankering after him?’ If he took off without a backward glance, Pierre could just imagine the sort of man he had been. Irresponsible, one of those so-called free spirits who drifted where the wind happened to take them, probably had ambled off to find his spiritual nirvana somewhere in Tibet only to bump into a similarly woolly headed creature along the way. The man had probably had a beard and wore sandals in winter. The image of Georgie with someone like that was suitably satisfying.#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
‘What did he do? What was his job? Did he have one?’
‘Of course he had a job, Pierre! He was in his final year at university and went on to become a journalist. In fact, he left to cover a piece on global warming and the effects in Australia and just…found someone else out there…We still keep in touch now and again by email…’
‘If you were that much in love with the man, why didn’t you go with him?’ Pierre, admittedly a little rattled by the fact that she had fallen for a guy with both feet planted firmly on the ground, was in like a shot.
‘Because…’ Because the thought had been too scary, because the relationship was already beginning to raise more questions than it answered, because her safety was in Devon and she had been loath to cut the apron strings, just as Pierre had said even if he had been taking pot-shots in the dark, trying to piece her together because there was nothing better to do just at this moment. ‘Because I still had my university career to get through,’ Georgie told him flatly. She could have added that she had taken away one very important lesson from the experience. People left and, when it came to men, she would make sure she fell in love with a man she could depend on, a man who didn’t leave. She made as if to get out of the bed but Pierre beat her to it, even though it was damned cold because the central heating hadn’t as yet been timed to kick in. His mother couldn’t possibly be counting pennies-he provided her with enough money to keep the heating on full whack every day of the year if the desire so took her—but she was economical from habit. He just hadn’t realised the effects until he pulled on his jumper, rubbing his hands together to keep warm.
‘No need to run away, Georgie,’ he drawled, slinging on his trousers, watching her watching him and sensing her embarrassment even though he had been wearing more than he would have worn on a beach.
‘I wasn’t about to run away,’ Georgie lied, riveted by the sight of him getting dressed.
‘I’ll switch the heating on. This place is like a freezer. What’s Didi playing at?’
Georgie heard herself mumble something but she was too busy watching him as he lounged indolently by the door to think coherently. There was something very real and yet very unreal about the situation. The sooner he headed downstairs to work, she thought, flustered, the better off she would be.
She flopped back onto her pillow the minute he had left the room.
It was later than she had first imagined. Nearly seven o’clock and already, in the space of only a short while, beginning to grow lighter. Without it looking fishy, she could conceivably start getting dressed and be out of the house by eight to feed the chickens and start working on some of the costumes, then maybe pop over later in the morning, perhaps stay for lunch. Didi knew that she was very busy with school activities. Christmas was just around the corner and there was always a flurry of things that needed doing before the school holidays began. She had made sure to warn her that there would be bits of the weekend when she would have to disappear. Tactfully, she had omitted to mention just what these bits were and how often they would occur.
But for the moment…
She hurried down to the bathroom, as quietly as she could, so that she could wash her face and swish her mouth with toothpaste, in the absence of a toothbrush. She wondered whether she should start carrying a little holdall every time she stepped foot out of her house, working on the assumption that she would inevitably end up stranded wherever she went and would therefore need a change of clothes, a toothbrush and some make-up.
It would be back into the clothes she had worn the evening before, face scrubbed clean, her blonde hair loosely gathered into a pony-tail.#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#