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‘On the contrary. I’ll have you know I was raised on Gilbert and Sullivan,’ Jago retorted, walking across to draw the curtains. ‘Dad was a leading light with the local operatic society, and I even had a couple of walk-ons in the chorus myself.’
She shook her head as she lit the lamps standing on small tables behind the sofas. ‘I can’t imagine it.’
His brows lifted. ‘You think I was born with a guitar in one hand and some groupie in the other? Not a bit of it. Any more than your father came into the world in a clerical collar, clutching a Bible.’
‘That’s certainly true.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘My mother told me that when they first met, he was one of the lads. And yet she wasn’t really surprised when he told her he was going to be ordained.’
‘No.’ He looked up at the photograph on the mantelpiece and she remembered finding him studying it on his first visit to the Vicarage. ‘I don’t suppose she was easily fazed.’ He paused. ‘What did she want for you, Octavia?’
She said slowly, ‘We never really discussed it, although I know she was pleased when I got my place at University. I suppose she thought, as I did, that we’d have plenty of time to talk as friends, and not just mother and daughter.’
His voice was quiet. ‘It should have happened.’
Then the music began for Act Two, and Tavy, her throat tightening uncontrollably, hurriedly turned her attention back to romantic and class entanglements in the Royal Navy, and their preposterous but delightful resolution.
When it was over, she turned to him, smiling. ‘That was lovely. Just what I needed.’ She glanced at her watch and hesitated. ‘I usually have hot chocolate at this time of night. Would you...?’
‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘The nanny I mentioned believed in milky drinks at bedtime. They always seemed to have skin on them, and it’s taken me years to escape from their memory.’
She said, ‘Then I’ll see about your room...’
‘Not necessary.’ He indicated the sofa he’d been occupying. ‘I’ll sleep here. Just a blanket and a pillow will be fine.’
‘But making up the spare bed would be no trouble.’
He said gently, but very definitely, ‘However, I’d prefer to stay down here. I’ll probably watch American cop shows for a while.’
‘Yes,’ she said, slowly. ‘Of course. Just as you wish.’
She went up to the spare room, took the thin quilt and a pillow from the bed, and carried them down to the sitting room.
Jago had turned off one of the lamps and the whole room seemed to have shrunk to the small oval illumined by the other. It was something that must have happened a thousand times before, Tavy thought, but never with this kind of disturbing intimacy.
She said quickly, ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right like this. Is there anything else I can get you?’
‘Not a thing. It’s all fine.’ His smile was swift. Almost perfunctory. ‘Now go and get a good night’s sleep. And stop worrying.’
She left closing the door behind her, and went to the kitchen. She set a pan on the hob, got the milk from the fridge and took down the tin of chocolate powder from its shelf.
Then stood, staring at them, aware of the passage of time only by the heavy beat of her pulses.
It occurred to her that she had not been completely honest with Jago just now, when she said she had not discussed her future with her mother.
She remembered asking her once if she had always planned to be a Vicar’s wife, and Mrs Denison’s soft, joyous burst of laughter.
‘No, it was the last thing in the world I had in mind,’ she’d returned frankly. ‘And a commitment everyone said I should consider long and hard. But you see, darling, I knew from the first your father was the only man I ever would love and my wish to spend my life with him outweighed anything else.
‘And that’s the kind of certainty I hope for you, Tavy,’ she added seriously. ‘For you to meet someone and know that you want to belong to him alone, for ever. Don’t settle for anything less, my dearest.’
Tavy put everything neatly back in its place, switched off the light and crossed to the stairs, certain at last about what she was going to do.
Him alone, said the heat in her blood and the fever in her mind. Him alone—even though it can’t be for ever. Even if it’s just one night...
CHAPTER TWELVE
