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Emily shook her head. ‘I can’t carry a tune at all, I’m afraid. I got tossed out of music class. And I can’t memorise a poem to save my life. I am the despair of our literature teachers.’ She felt a pang that there was something she could not, after all, excel at, when other classes came so easily. ‘I guess it must be marriage for me after all.’
She felt a gentle touch on her hand, and, startled, she glanced down to see Chris’s fingers over hers. His touch was warm, tingling, delightful. She looked up at him to see his cut-glass handsome face was serious, watchful, even more beautiful than ever. For just that one instant, she thought he might actually see her.
‘Some bloke will be so lucky, Em,’ he said softly. ‘And he had better work bloody hard to make you happy.’
Emily didn’t even notice the cursing, she was too lost in his eyes. Like drowning in endless blue. She felt like someone in one of the novels Diana loved so much, caught in moments that felt out of time, sparkling, delicate, perfect. His expression changed as he looked at her, darkened.
She was drawn closer to him, unable to turn away, as if invisible, unbreakable bonds tied them together. As if in a hazy, warm dream, she felt Chris’s arms come around her, drawing her so close nothing could come between them. Emily found herself longing to seize the moment, to make it her own and never forget it.
She looped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes, inhaling the warm scent of him, of fresh air, clean linen, faint lemony cologne, of Chris himself. It made her feel dizzy, giddy, like too much champagne.
She gently touched his cheek. He moaned a low, hoarse sound, and his lips claimed hers at last. She met his kiss with everything she had, all the emotion locked away inside her. It wasn’t a gentle kiss, as surely first kisses usually were, but one filled with heat, desperation, need. She wanted it to go on and on for ever.
A burst of laughter nearby broke into Emily’s dream and she pulled back from Chris’s embrace, hot and cold all at the same time. Flustered and panicked, and full of a strange, bursting—joy. Had she just kissed Chris Blakely? Where had such a fantastical thing come from?
She stared up at him in astonishment. He looked just as shocked as she did, a dull red flush over his sharp cheekbones. His eyes closed and he shook his head, an appalled expression spreading over his face.
Appalled? At the thought of kissing her? Had she been that bad at it? Emily suddenly felt so disgusted with herself.
‘Em,’ he said, his voice tight and strangled, so unlike his usual joking self. ‘I’m so very sorry. What a rotten thing...’
Emily wanted to hear no more. She couldn’t stand that something which had been, only a moment before, strange and wondrous and almost beautiful, had become something rotten to him. She jumped to her feet and backed away, trying not to scrub at her lips with her hand, to erase the memory of his touch. To try to erase those awful feelings.
Surely those London chorus girls he knew would never be such ninnies over a mere kiss. ‘Don’t think anything of it,’ she said, trying to laugh. To her own ears, she sounded high-pitched and frantic, like an ingénue on the melodrama stage. ‘How silly we are today! I must be getting back to the school.’
He stood up beside her, his hair tousled, his eyes wide. He held out his hand. ‘Emily, please...’
Her own eyes were starting to film over, making the sparkling water of the pond hazy, and she would rather throw herself into its depths before she let him see her cry. Before she would let anyone see her cry.
She whirled around and ran back down the path, ignoring the sound of her name as Chris called after her. She scrubbed furiously at her eyes and pasted a fierce smile on her lips. No one could suspect what a fool she had been.
Diana and Alex ran towards her as she came closer to the house. They both looked a little worried and Emily knew she couldn’t fool them entirely as to her emotional turmoil. They were her best friends and a smiling façade couldn’t quite conceal her thoughts from them.
But neither would they ever pry. All three of them would wait patiently until one had a confidence to share.
Emily knew this was one confidence she would never share, even with her friends.
