He turned to her. ‘Do you remember the first time we met?’
Sarah sipped her port. ‘Vaguely.’ This was far from true. She would carry with her for ever the memory of that afternoon, of seeing Leo for the first time across the lawn at a Pembroke College garden party. The chemistry, the attraction, had been instant. She had been twenty, and Leo had seemed to her excitingly sophisticated and – it had to be admitted – pretty old at forty-one. Mutual desire had kindled after just twenty minutes of conversation, and after that each simply wanted to get the other into bed as fast as possible. They had left the garden party, escaped in Leo’s car to his house, and had finished up having sex in the garage, too overcome by lust to get as far as the house, let alone Leo’s bed. The hours that had followed, once they reached his bed, were a long tangle of mutual pleasure, the details admittedly indistinct. But for some reason the events later in the evening were imprinted on her mind: stepping barefoot into the darkness of the garden, trailing a rug across the cool grass, sitting cross-legged, waiting for Leo to bring out wine and the only food he could find – cold cocktail sausages and a punnet of strawberries. It was the summer solstice, the day had been long and full of heat, and the glimmer of morning lay just behind the darkly fragrant night as they lay there, eating, drinking, talking, kissing, making love. It sounded romantic, but in fact it hadn’t been. Exciting, erotic, intensely pleasurable, but both of them had been too self-aware and self-absorbed to give anything of themselves. She had stayed the next day, and the day after that, and eventually for the entire summer, a mutually satisfactory arrangement for both of them. It enabled Sarah to escape London and the limitations of living with her father, and enjoy the pleasures of a life in Leo’s enchanting country house, which he had only recently bought, while Leo had someone to look after the place while he was in London, and oversee the builders during the renovations, and to cook when he came down at the weekends. Sex was a fringe benefit for both of them, long, intensely pleasurable hours of it. The idyll had only come to an end when Leo introduced into the household a young man he had picked up in the village pub, James. The threesome lasted a couple of weeks, and then it had all gone disastrously wrong. Still, it had been a glorious summer while it lasted.
‘Maybe we could repeat our great escape,’ said Leo.
‘What? Get in your car and drive all the way to Oxfordshire?’
‘Not that part. Just slipping away on our own. You could come back to my place for a drink. Unless there’s somewhere else you have to be.’
‘No, nowhere I need to be. Toby’s away. In fact, he’s away for the entire weekend.’ She paused. ‘I’m good to go, if you are. But I’d better say hello to my father first.’
‘Right. I’ll join you outside shortly.’
Leo watched her as she made her way down the table towards her father. He felt fixated by his need for her, tantalised and tormented by the idea that now, after all their casual sexual encounters down the years, he might not be able to have her. He relished the uncertainty. How much sweeter, how much more exciting success would be, if he achieved it.
Sir Vivian rose to greet his daughter, excusing himself from his fellows.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to come tonight? I would have been happy to bring you,’ he reproached her, accepting her gentle kiss on his cheek. ‘I thought you didn’t care for formal occasions at the Inn.’
‘I don’t usually. But I could hardly turn down an invitation from Leo Davies. He’s a silk in the chambers where I did my pupillage.’
‘I know very well who he is, and frankly I could wish you weren’t with him.’
Sarah laughed. ‘What on earth are you on about?’
‘He doesn’t have the most salubrious of reputations.’
‘Really, Daddy, you shouldn’t listen to gossip. He’s clever and he’s fun, and he’s been a good friend to me, one way and another. Besides, you see fit to invite him to your annual bash.’
‘Hmph. I can’t imagine Toby would be best pleased if he knew you were out with some other man.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, give us both a little credit. He does know. Anyway, he’s in Scotland for the weekend. Now, lovely to see you, aged parent, but I have to be off.’ She gave him another light kiss.
Twenty minutes later Leo’s Aston Martin pulled into Carlyle Square.
‘When did you move out of Belgravia?’ asked Sarah, as they crossed the street to his house.
‘About four years ago. I wanted somewhere with a garden for Oliver.’ Leo unlocked the door and put on the lights. Sarah followed him into the living room. ‘Make yourself comfortable. I’ll fix us both a drink. What would you like?’