‘Here. Take this.’ She grabbed his hand, yanking open his fingers, and he looked down, his lungs seizing.
She had given him her wedding ring.
‘You wanted a divorce. You can have one.’
‘I don’t want that. I want you. I love you.’
‘You don’t know what love is. You used me. You manipulated me. Just like my father did. You twisted the facts to suit your agenda. Never mind about Oscar. You let me believe I was doing a good thing, that I was bringing comfort to a dying man. But all this time, it was about a castle? About money? Don’t you dare tell me that’s love.’
‘I have to, because it’s true.’
She snatched up her bag, her face pale and taut. ‘Love. Lies. Truth. Nothing you say means anything. Here. This is yours too.’ Her fingers fumbled with the clasp of the bracelet and then she tossed it to him.
‘My father gave it to you.’
‘Because you lied to him.’
‘Dulcie, wait.’ He made to grab her arm, but she was running now, out of the door and into the corridor.
She cannoned into a trolley laden with towels and cleaning products and then she was running again.
‘Sorry.’ Ettore righted the trolley for the startled-looking maid, but when he got to the end of the corridor, Dulcie had already disappeared.
Chapter Ten
‘APINT OFFERRYMAN’S, a rum and Coke and a couple of packets of cheese and onion crisps, please, love. Can you put it on my tab? The name’s Anderson.’
‘Of course.’
Smiling, Dulcie selected a pint glass and angled it at forty-five degrees directly under the tap, straightening the glass as she poured.
This was her second shift at the Crown and Gown, and she was still checking off the steps of pint-pouring as she went. But there was something calming in the process, and she felt a small uptick of satisfaction as the beer separated to form a creamy head.
Right now, she would take her wins where she could.
It had taken almost six hours to get back to England from Paris. Somehow, she’d managed to flag down a taxi to take her to the airport, but even the thought of walking into Charles de Gaulle had made her want to burst into tears and she’d made the driver turn around and return to the city.
She must have looked pretty unhinged, clutching her passport like an amulet because the driver had suggested she take a train instead, and he had dropped her at Gare du Nord.
There were no tickets for the first train leaving so she had to wait for the next one and that hour seemed like the longest of her life, and she couldn’t relax or even sit down until she was safely on the train and the sprawl of Paris was replaced by countryside.
It was too late to get a train back to Cambridge. Instead she booked into a hotel near St Pancras. She was so strung out and emotional she thought she would never sleep but when she curled up on the bed, her eyes shut and she woke up nine hours later, still fully clothed with the familiar, pale London light flooding the room.
She stayed there for two more nights, buying food and eating it in the room, watching the city wake and then return to darkness. She slept a lot, mainly because sleep anaesthetised the pain. But each time she woke, Ettore was the first thing she thought about.
And it hurt. Everything ached and she understood then why Oscar drank and took drugs. But it was thinking about Oscar that pulled her back from the cliff-edge. Because he needed her, and she needed him.
She needed Ettore too, and she missed him like an amputated limb. Missed him so much that it was easier just to stay another night. But when dawn rose again, she checked out. In that liminal space between Puglia and Cambridge, she could slow time, pretend to herself that she was travelling but never actually reaching her destination, like Sofia or Holly Golightly. Because then she would have to admit that it was over with Ettore.
But they were done. She knew that now.
And she had done enough pretending.
It was time to start living for real. To make some changes, because she wasn’t the same woman now.
She glanced around the pub. Most people were enjoying their drinks and the sunshine in the garden that stretched back to the Cam, the river that meandered through the city and had given it its name. The pub itself was cool and quiet, in contrast to the inside of her head.
But some of that noise was starting, finally, to fade a little.
