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Sam had also noticed. ‘I think Fran’s father died last year,’ he said, meeting her eyes. ‘This reminds her, that’s all.’
Fran was touched that he had remembered, and grateful when he created a diversion by opening another bottle of champagne which had been made in the year of his mother’s birth.
He also insisted that she sit down and join them for the meal.
‘Oh, Sam, I can’t!’
‘Oh, Fran, you can!’
‘It’s supposed to be a family occasion—’
‘It’s also supposed to be a celebration! At least having you there will stop the evening degenerating into a predictable cycle of sibling arguments! And besides, what else are you supposed to do—sit out in the scullery, like Cinderella?’
‘But you haven’t got a scullery!’
‘Well, then, that decides it! You must sit with us.’
She giggled. Had the champagne made her feel this light-hearted?
The meal went perfectly, except for the carrots being very slightly underdone, but as Fran pointed out these days it was considered trendy to serve them almost raw!
The pièce de résistance was the birthday cake itself, and Helen Lockhart got quite teary-eyed when Sam carried it through, this time, on Fran’s insistence.
‘But it looks just like me!’ cried Mrs. Lockhart, in delight, and then shrugged. ‘Or rather, me as I used to look.’
‘You still look pretty good to me!’ said Sam gallantly and they all clinked their glasses together.
It was midnight when Helen Lockhart and her daughters went off to bed, leaving Sam to help Fran to clear away. When she straightened up from stacking the dishwasher, it was to find him standing on the other side of the kitchen, staring at her intently.
‘You’re very quiet,’ he remarked.
‘It’s been a long day.’ But she had been thinking about the fiancée who had died. The woman who had lovingly embroidered the cushion and the sunflowers. It was a harsh thing to have happened to him. What would he say if she asked him about it?
He nodded. ‘A very long day,’ he echoed, still watching her, almost obsessively. There was something different about her tonight. Some extra dimension to her. Something in her eyes he had not seen there before. A strand of hair had escaped from the tight topknot, and had floated down to dangle around the long, pure line of her neck, destroying the ordered symmetry of her hair. He longed to reach out and stroke it away. ‘Go to bed, Fran,’ he told her softly. ‘I’ll finish up in here.’
She looked up at him, unable to hold back any longer. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you had a fiancée?’
He stilled. ‘Who told you about my fiancée?’ he asked eventually.
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘Maddy, I suppose?’
‘Does it matter who told me?’
‘Very loyal of you, Fran,’ he observed wryly. ‘I suppose it doesn’t, no.’
‘You never talk about it?’
‘No, not really. I don’t see the point most of the time.’
‘Too painful?’
He nodded. ‘Something like that.’ But he saw in her eyes something more than the snooping kind of curiosity, which was what he normally encountered. He sighed. ‘The pain has mostly gone now—the not telling bit is habit more than anything.’
‘I wasn’t planning on asking you any more questions—’
‘I know you weren’t. And that’s probably why I’m talking to you about it.’ He flicked her an astute look. ‘Though maybe you don’t want to hear?’
