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‘Not really...and it isn’t rented. I’m actually buying it,’ Dee told him casually. ‘It’s a good investment. Dad is helping me. I haven’t made my mind up yet, but I may keep it on even when I’ve finished my degree course. The rental I could get will cover the mortgage and the running costs, and property prices are rising at the moment, so... In fact, I think it could be an idea to buy a few more, but to do that I’d have to ask Dad to let me break into my trust fund and I’m not sure—’
‘Your trust fund?’ Hugo gave her a sharp look. ‘Now you’re scaring me. That sounds like pretty serious money.’
Dee stopped walking to look uncertainly at him. She didn’t normally speak so unguardedly to people about her personal background, but she felt so relaxed with him, and besides, he had talked about his days at public school and his own background, so she had assumed that his parents were financially well off.
Now it seemed she had been wrong.
‘My family is land-rich but money-poor,’ he told her dryly, correctly interpreting the questioning uncertainty in her eyes. ‘They’re rich in family connections and the ability to trace the family tree back to the Norman Conquest. There is money—yes—but it doesn’t run to providing each of us with our own private trust funds...’
‘Oh, but my father did that because without him I’d be on my own,’ Dee protested, anxious to defuse what she feared was going to become a thorny issue between them.
‘Yes, I can understand that,’ Hugo responded gently. ‘If you were mine I would want to protect and safeguard you too. I’m just surprised that he allowed you to come to university. From the sound of it I imagine he would have preferred to have you privately educated at home.’
Dee gave him a quick look, warily conscious of the irony beneath the seemingly sympathetic words.
‘Perhaps he is a little bit old-fashioned,’ she responded with quiet dignity, all her protective instincts coming to the fore as she sensed Hugo’s unspoken criticism of the father she loved so much. ‘But I would much rather have a father like that—a father I can look up to and admire...and trust, a man of...of compassion and...and honour...of integrity—than someone...’
Her voice became suspended with emotion at the thought that she and Hugo might already be on the verge of a quarrel, but immediately Hugo soothed her, gently stroking her hand as he apologised. ‘I’m sorry... I shouldn’t have implied... I guess I’m just jealous...’ he told her whimsically. ‘And not just of your trust fund...’
Of course that made her laugh, as he had intended it would, and she was secretly pleased he kept on holding her hand as they walked down the street together.
He hadn’t said exactly where they were going, but Lexminster was a relatively compact city, and after the revelation about her trust fund she was reluctant to suggest that they could take her car to their destination.
Later, when she discovered the cavalier attitude Hugo had to driving-he had learned to drive in an ancient Land Rover on his grandfather’s estate and further honed his ‘skill’ driving across the dry, mud-scarred ribbed and ridged empty riverbeds of the drought-ridden area where he had done his voluntary work—she would be glad she had not been subjected to it on their first date.
It was a late November evening, with just a warning that frost might be in the air later. The autumn had been fine and dry, and the leaves were still at the delicious stage of rustling pleasurably beneath one’s feet when walked on, their scent evocative and slightly pungent on the clear air as they walked down the tree-lined main street of the city.
The restaurant Hugo had chosen was a small Italian family-run place, down a narrow side street, and Dee fell in love with it and the family who owned and ran it the moment they walked in.
They greeted Hugo like a member of the family, Luigi, the burly grey-haired patron, punching him genially on the shoulder and then wincing in mock pain and shaking his arm.
‘He is built like an ox...like a bull,’ he amended, with a laughing look in Dee’s direction.
Of course she blushed, and of course Bella, his wife, tutted and protested that Luigi was embarrassing her, smothering Dee with warmly maternal concern and protection as she assured her that she was not to take any notice of Luigi’s poor attempt at humour.
‘What? You mean to say that you do not think of me as a bull?’ Hugo teased Bella, lifting his arm and tensing his muscles in a mock display of male strength.
‘Aha, it is not the size of this muscle here that counts,’ Luigi warned him. ‘Is that not so, cara?’ he asked his outraged wife.
Dee listened to their byplay with a mixture of delight and self-consciousness. Luigi was barely her own height, and Bella was even smaller, both of them plump and round and very obviously well and happily married. So much so that it was impossible for Dee to take offence at Luigi’s references to Hugo’s sexual machismo. He was as proud of him as though Hugo had been his own son, as proud of Hugo’s maleness as though it had been his own, and it was a simple and honest pride, with nothing offensive or prurient about it.
‘She is bella, very bella,’ he told Hugo approvingly, after he had subjected Dee to a thorough and very malely appreciative visual inspection, his eyes twinkling as he made this report to Hugo.
‘She is indeed, and she is my bella,’ Hugo retorted warningly.
It was the start of one of the most magical evenings of Dee’s life.
She ate and drank with an appetite that was totally unfamiliar to her. Hugo, she noticed, whilst he enjoyed his food and his wine, was careful not to drink too much nor to allow her to do so, and she acknowledged that she loved his protective attitude towards her. It made her feel so...so safe, so cherished...so loved.
So loved.
There was no doubt in Dee’s mind that she was in love. She had been in love from the moment Hugo had picked her up off the gravel, she suspected, and it was the most intoxicating, the most exciting, the most life-enhancing emotion she had ever experienced.
It was late when they left the restaurant. The promised frost had become reality, sparkling on the ground and the trees, vaporising their breath as Dee gave a small gasp at the cold shock of it against her face.
‘It’s so cold,’ she protested as she huddled deeper into her coat.
‘Mmm... Come here, then,’ Hugo told her, wrapping his arm around her as he drew her as close as he could to his own body.
