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Seb must have felt her arm tense. He glanced over her shoulder, a smile cracking his face for the first time that day.
‘Noah!’
Sophie had no choice but to accompany Seb and Dominic to receive the heartfelt condolences of Noah’s parents, Geoff and Julie Drake. They shook hands with Seb and Dominic and then turned to hug her to their chests with such compassion that she had to swallow down hard not to open the firmly sealed floodgates. She knew the last thing her aunt would have wanted was for her to be a tear-strewn wreck. She managed a weak smile of appreciation, muttered how grateful she was for their words of genuine comfort, and was keen to move away before Noah took his father’s place and enveloped her in his own embrace.
‘Geoff, Julie, I think Noah and Sophie could do with a little space,’ announced Seb, his eyes lingering on Noah’s as he guided his best friend’s parents out of the churchyard.
‘Oh, no, Seb, I…’
Sophie hadn’t intended to meet Noah’s gentle, silver-grey eyes. When she did, her heart dropped like a stone down a well before bouncing straight back up again, lodging somewhere between her chest and her throat. Her knees weakened under the strain of her swirling emotions as she drank in his familiar features.
Nothing about him had changed; he was still the teenage boy she had given her heart to. He still spoke with his west country accent, unlike her, who’d worked hard at eradicating it. He still wore his sandy-blond hair on the long side and favoured the designer-stubble look. The smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose remained, reminding Sophie of the time they had spent one scorchingly hot summer lying amongst the wheat in a farmer’s field when she had counted every single one and had declared there to be one hundred and thirty-two. He’d asked for a recount before grabbing her by the wrists and smiling into her eyes to tell her he was joking. It was the first time he’d told her he loved her.
‘Soph, I’m so sorry about your Aunt Claire. I know how much she meant to you. She was a wonderful lady. When Seb called to tell me about the funeral, I grabbed the first flight back to the UK.’ His smile was a peace offering.
‘Thanks, Noah.’
He reached out his fingers and gently touched the back of her hand. ‘If there is anything I can do to help ease your pain, I want you to know that I’m here for you. I will always be your friend.’
Tears amassed on her lower lashes, but she could think of nothing to say. They weren’t the same people they had been four years ago. They led totally different lives. Yet, after all this time she was still unable to view Noah as just a friend. He had ensnared her heart and refused to return it. Now she realisedthat it would hurt too much to maintain the civility required to sustain even friendly relations.
A lone tear trickled down her cheek and Noah reached over to brush it away with his thumb. His lips parted as he cupped her chin and lifted her face to his.
‘Soph, I want you to know—’
‘Don’t, Noah. I can’t do this. Not today.’
A cloud of regret passed across his handsome features, but he respected her request. ‘Okay, but we do need to talk. I’ve got a break in my commitments at the moment, and I’m back home for a few weeks. How long are you home for? That’s if you still call Somersby home.’
They had reached the village green opposite Gingerberry Yarns, the haberdashery shop her aunt had owned and run with the help of Delia. ‘It’s the Cotswolds’ cosiest little wool shop,’ Delia was forever quoting as her catchphrase. It had certainly been the place Sophie had spent her happiest times and its contents had nurtured her passion for all things woolly and had inspired her to follow her dream of a career in fashion.
‘The will is being read tomorrow,’ said Sophie, unable to prevent the crack in her voice. ‘I’ve promised Seb and Dominic that I’d go to the solicitors with them, although I don’t know why they need me there. Then I’m heading back to London. The announcement is being made on Monday.’
‘What announcement?’
Sophie cursed her lapse in concentration. The last thing she wanted was for Noah to know about her submission to Lilac Verbois’s wedding gown competition. She knew he’d tell her that his band had been booked to perform at the evening reception and she didn’t think she could take any more trauma that day. The Razorclaws and their music would be forever linked withNoah’s betrayal. All she needed to do was get through tomorrow, then she could leave Somersby and eradicate the risk of bumping into Noah again.
‘Oh, just something to do with the boutique. Bye, Noah.’
Before Noah could say anything else, she turned her back on him and strode away, jumping into the back seat of one of the limousines waiting to take the mourners to the wake at her aunt’s house in Cranbury.
Noah was a spectre from her past and she had to make sure he stayed there.
Chapter Five
‘May I start by expressing my sincere condolences and thanking you all for coming today. I’m Gordon Braithwaite, senior partner here at Braithwaite, Cobbs, and Fisher. We’re proud to have handled all of John and Claire Garside’s legal affairs over the years.’
Sophie cast her eyes around the room. It wasn’t what she had been expecting at all. She had envisaged the boardroom of her aunt and uncle’s solicitor’s office to be lined with mahogany bookcases crammed with weighty, leather-bound, legalistic tomes and the faint smell of dusty parchment fighting for supremacy with the aroma of wax furniture polish like the venue – straight out of a Dickensian novel – that she had reluctantly attended for the reading of her parents’ wills after the car crash.
She wondered briefly why solicitors bothered with the charade when there was only one beneficiary – she was an only child – or in the case of Seb and Dom, only two members of the family remaining. However, here she was, a scant eighteen years later, being invited to listen once again to the monotone drone of a probate lawyer as he read through the terms of her aunt’s will, but this time she sat, along with her cousins, in what was essentially a glass cube.
The view from the window was picturesque, looking straight out onto a neatly maintained village green complete with well-populated duck pond, and surrounded by a profusion of pink-flowering cherry trees. On the other side of the manicured greenwas the popular pub, the Dancing Duck, as well as a French bistro – Bistro Angélique – that drew diners from all over the area, and even from as far afield as Bristol and Oxford. Her aunt and uncle had adored Cranbury, and the sense of community it engendered, frequently declaring it to be one of the UK’s happiest places to live.
She dragged her attention back to the room, surprised to see that Mr Braithwaite was looking over his tortoiseshell spectacles at her with an expectant expression on his face. Seb and Dominic were smiling.
‘Erm, sorry, I was just admiring the view.’
‘Yes, Miss Henshaw, I have to agree with you, and I think it’s at its most beautiful this time of the year.’
