The words were out of her mouth before she realised she was asking the question. She knew she was in no position to judge Charlotte or anyone. She knew she was in no position to make anyone justify their actions of their activities with other people. It didn’t matter how many people Charlotte slept with, and whether she slept with them all at the same time, or if she did them one after the other.
No one, Trudy thought, was in a position to judge someone else.
The people who believed they were in such a position were the same ones who had been making her life a misery for deciding there was something wrong with her being in a relationship with a man of Bill’s age. Nevertheless, because the behaviour was so completely out of character for Charlotte, Trudy heard herself ask the question for a second time.
‘Why were you doing it with them?’
‘There are three possible answers to that question,’ Charlotte admitted. ‘The most obvious answer is: I was drunk and vulnerable.’
Trudy nodded. This was what she had thought. ‘How drunk?’
‘So drunk that my liver still hurts.’
Trudy whistled. She figured Charlotte was exaggerating. But she understood the exaggeration was only being used to make a point. ‘That sounds like you were seriously drunk. What was one of the other possible answers?’
‘I’m stupid,’ Charlotte said quickly. ‘I’m stupid and I do stupid things.’
Her cheeks reddened as though she feared this might actually be the real reason. Trudy winced in sympathy, unhappy at seeing her friend suffering so unnecessarily.
‘What’s the real answer?’ Trudy asked.
There was a moment’s silence. Then in a rush, Charlotte said, ‘I think I love Donny.’
The words didn’t come as a shock to Trudy. Charlotte had been besotted with Donny since they first met. She hung on his every word. Her gaze followed him whenever he was in a room. She laughed at his weakest jokes. She made him cups of tea on a morning. She brought extra food and drink into Eldorado because it was either something Donny had said he liked, or because it was something she had discovered that was so exorbitantly expensive she believed Donny and his epicurean appetites needed to savour the experience.
Trudy had known about Charlotte’s infatuation with Donny since the three of them first moved in together. She had also known that Donny had no interest in Charlotte.
‘You shouldn’t be doing things like that to yourself,’ Trudy said.
‘I wasn’t doing things to myself,’ Charlotte said glumly. ‘I was doing them with Donny.’
They stood close enough in the centre of the forest so they could talk without shouting but there remained some distance between them. Trudy thought, even if they had been standing shoulder-to-shoulder, there would still have been a substantial amount of distance between them.
She wanted to go over and embrace her friend and tell her that things would work out for the best. It didn’t matter that their friendship had been strained. It didn’t matter that things had been said. Charlotte had been Trudy’s best friend since their first day at university. Charlotte had cared for Trudy when she had been stricken with miserable colds during the winter holidays and Trudy had cared for Charlotte when the pair of them had overindulged on occasional binge nights at Stanzas so that both their livers hurt. They were friends and she believed that friendship was far more resilient than a silly argument.
‘You shouldn’t be doing things like that with Donny,’ Trudy repeated quietly. ‘It’s not right for you.’
‘What would you know?’
‘I know it works OK for Daryl. She’s happy to play hide the sausage with Donny and anyone else that falls into her bed. I know it works OK for Gemma. Gemma Hadfield has always had a reputation. Don’t you remember what Wendy used to call her?’
Charlotte nodded. Because Gemma’s parents owned the Hadfield Hotel, Wendy, possessing the cruellest and most scathing wit of their year, had taken to calling Gemma the Hadfield Ho.
Charlotte lowered her gaze as though flinching from that shared memory. ‘That name wasn’t far wrong,’ she agreed. ‘Gemma doesn’t say no to much.’
‘But Daryl and Gemma are experts at playing games that you don’t want to play,’ Trudy said earnestly. She wanted to bridge the gap that had grown between them and take her friend’s hand but she knew that Charlotte had to make the first move. ‘Daryl and Gemma are playing games that you’ve never wanted to play.’
Charlotte blushed and looked away. ‘You don’t know that.’
‘That set-up works fine for Daryl and Gemma. They’re happy to be in these open relationships. But you’re not going to be happy with anything less than one hundred per cent monogamy.’
‘I won’t be happy with anything less than one hundred per cent Donny.’
‘There are other men out there.’
‘Like you’d know,’ Charlotte sneered. ‘You’ve had to settle for a man who’s old enough to –’
Trudy raised her hand and cut off the words before the comment could properly spoil their friendship. ‘There’s an age difference between me and Bill,’ she agreed. ‘Whilst it might not be what most people perceive as an ideal relationship, I think it’s honest to say that we’re not hurting anyone with what we do and we’re both happy with the relationship.’
Charlotte had the good grace to blush and then look away.
The morning song in the forest was now louder and made busier by trills from chaffinches and sparrows. The light had shifted so, instead of the glade being immersed in shadows, the greys were shifting to greens and the browns were becoming auburn. When Trudy took a breath she could detect the cold earthy scent of the woods waking.
‘You asked me to join you on the quad killer,’ Trudy reminded Charlotte. ‘Are we going to run? Or was there something else?’
‘Please do me one favour. Please come back to Sweet Temptation.’
‘I can’t.’ Trudy drew a deep breath and tried to calmly remember all the wrongs Donny had done to her over the past few days. ‘I can’t work with Donny. He’s crossed a line on this. He’s crossed too many lines. He tried to ruin my relationship with Bill –’
‘He was just jealous. Donny always goes over the top.’
‘He bribed a policeman to put Bill in jail.’
‘I’ll speak with him and make sure he doesn’t try and cause any more problems at Boui-Boui.’
‘He paid for someone to try and stab Bill.’
Charlotte blinked at her. Her expression was so surprised it was almost as though she had been slapped. ‘Donny really did that?’
‘He confessed it to me the other day,’ Trudy said.
It pained her to make the admission because she knew there was nothing she could do about it. Donny had bribed a police officer and paid a man to stab Bill. She couldn’t take the matter to the police because it was merely her word against Donny’s. She didn’t want to take the matter to Bill because it would likely make his legal situation more complex if there were allegations of police bribery.
‘I had no idea he’d gone so far.’ Charlotte lowered her gaze. She nodded quietly as though they’d come to an agreement. ‘I’ll have a word with Daddy’s legal team,’ she said. ‘I’ll get Donny out of Sweet Temptation. If you agree to come back it will just be you and me.’
Charlotte was close to tears as she sobbed the words out. She glanced meekly up from beneath the brim of her baseball cap. Her eyes, red from tears and regret, looked manic with the severity of her pleading. ‘Please, Trudy,’ she moaned. ‘Please reconsider. We need you at Sweet Temptation. The three of us had such high hopes for this company when we were in university. Surely, now we’ve graduated, we can see this dream through to the end? Surely you can give this one last try, for the sake of old times?’
Trudy sighed heavily.
‘Donny will definitely be out?’
‘Definitely.’
‘I’ll ask Bill for his thoughts on the matter.’
Charlotte moved forwa
rd and embraced her. ‘Thank you, Trudy. I knew you’d see sense about this.’
Trudy didn’t know if she had seen sense. But it felt good to have Charlotte back in her arms and know that the temporary rift in their friendship was moving some way towards being healed. The only potential hurdle she could see now was getting Bill to agree that it would be a good idea for her to be involved with Sweet Temptation.
Chapter 32
She went home via the market and selected two pieces of boned and rolled sirloin. She contemplated visiting Finlay West to see if she could again bump into Imogen and casually ask the woman why she had chosen to name her child Bill. Admittedly, it wasn’t an uncommon name. Trudy suspected that the name William and its derivatives would have been perennially popular choices since the days of Shakespeare. But if there was some other reason, Trudy figured she could casually coo over the baby, again tell Imogen what a handsome child she had, and then ask why she’d picked that particular name for him.
She didn’t bother.
Finlay West’s spice shop was at the far end of the market and it was too early in the morning for any but the hardiest retailers to be open. More importantly, if she had really suspected anything had ever occurred between William Hart and Imogen, Trudy would have broached the matter with Bill himself rather than trying to tackle the problem like a TV detective.
Pausing only to pick up a bottle of twenty-five-year-old Chivas Regal as a gift for him, she secreted her stash in Boui-Boui’s kitchens and then hurried back to the cottage to fire up the espresso machine and begin breakfast.
‘You start the day far too early,’ Bill grumbled. ‘You’re like an insomniac on caffeine. What have you got against sleeping?’
‘A wise man once told me that life is too short to waste a single moment.’
He kissed her. His lips were unshaved and scratchy. The sensation was delicious to the point of being arousing. ‘He sounds like a very wise man. I hope you fucked him in exchange for his words of wisdom.’
‘Several times,’ she admitted. ‘I’m hoping to do him again, tonight, if he’s not working.’
‘You’re working tonight,’ Bill reminded her. ‘You’re the sous at Boui-Boui, remember?’
She had laughed and told him that she did remember.
‘I’m sure we’ll find time to be together after your shift,’ he promised.
They shared breakfast – toast and coffee – and then he explained that he needed to spend a day in the city with his agent, a couple of reporters and his legal counsel. He asked her if she would be able to work with Aliceon and organise the reopening of Boui-Boui for that evening. Trudy agreed on the condition he would dine with her when he got back.
‘What are you cooking?’
‘Sirloin. Boned and rolled.’
‘It’s a date.’
Despite her doubts, it was easy enough to work with Aliceon. Trudy told herself they had already worked together for one evening on the night that Bill was arrested. Admittedly the mood of that evening had been one of wartime camaraderie where everyone pitched in to weather a common adversary. But, considering the chaotic atmosphere of the kitchens at Boui-Boui, she thought it was not unreasonable to assume that every night at the restaurant demanded an attitude of team spirit and self-sacrifice.
As a maître d’, Aliceon was competent and knew what she was doing without the hindrance of Trudy’s input. She ran the restaurant’s front of house with military efficiency and she didn’t interfere with Trudy’s control over activities in Boui-Boui’s kitchens. When they did have to communicate, Trudy was happy to defer to Aliceon’s wisdom and experience on most of the issues that arose.
It was close to the end of the evening when Bill returned to the restaurant.
He looked weary. There was a tiredness around his eyes. The corners of his mouth seemed heavier than when she had kissed him farewell that morning. But there was also a sense of accomplishment about him. His shoulders were squared and she could see a glint of a smile shining in his eyes.
They embraced briefly in the head chef’s office.
It was late in the evening. The last of the restaurant’s meals had been served and now there was only the night’s clean-down to complete before the day was completed.
‘How’s Boui-Boui been?’ After extricating himself from her embrace, he graced her with an uninspiring peck on the cheek.
Trudy had hoped he could have shown more intimacy but she figured there would be time for that, and more, later. She told him the highlights of the evening from the kitchen, explaining that Aliceon had been looking after front of house and assuring him that there had been no major problems in his absence.
‘I’ve got to prepare our meal,’ she explained.
She left Bill to chat in the office with Aliceon whilst she busied herself with the sirloin and a blackberry posset she had been preparing in Kali’s patisserie. Later, as Aliceon bade the night’s final customers a goodnight, Trudy organised for Nikki to remain on duty so the waitress could serve the meal in the civilised fashion of a couple dining at Boui-Boui.
They sat together at table thirteen.
‘How did things go in the city?’
He shrugged. If she hadn’t known better, Trudy would have thought he looked embarrassed by the question. ‘My agent is good,’ Hart admitted. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d say he organised this whole turn of events so he could make more of a profit from me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s got pilots for two or three TV shows lined up for me.’
‘What’s a pilot?’
‘I’m not sure. I think it’s something to do with first episodes or trial episodes.’
Trudy nodded as though that made sense. She had heard the expression before. It had never really meant anything and seemed like one of those phrases used by the glamorous people connected with television. Did that mean Bill was about to become one of those glamorous people?
‘I have a book coming out in the next month or so.’
She blinked. ‘I didn’t know you’d written a book.’
He shook his head sourly. ‘I’ve been trying to get my agent to sell a collection of my favourite recipes for a decade or more. No one wanted to know until this week. Now, they’d buy my old laundry list if it was available.’
‘That’s great news.’
Bill didn’t look like a man delivering great news. ‘I’ll also be spending the next three months on the road.’
She arched an eyebrow.
‘I’ll be doing the talk show circuit. I’ll be on radio interviews. I’ll be doing a couple of demonstrations of how to present a perfectly rolled and boned sirloin.’
‘You must show me how to do that sometime,’ she murmured as she cut a slice of her own sirloin and placed it in her mouth. She studied him silently as she chewed.
‘I’ll hand that recipe back on the day you return my recipe for blueberry muffins.’
They considered each other for a moment and then both laughed.
‘So when does your jet-setting new lifestyle begin?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow I’m getting things in order here. The day after, I’ll be back in the city. I’m doing exclusive interviews with four tabloids and two of the broadsheets. Apparently I’m now the culinary columnist for one of the more right-wing papers.’
Again, Trudy found his simple sentence raised so many questions. Was it possible to do a series of exclusive interviews? How could someone with Bill’s northern, and extremely left-wing politics, write for a right-wing newspaper? And how did someone get a job as a culinary columnist without showing any desire to write for a newspaper? Instead of addressing any of those issues, she chose to ask the most important question.
‘You’ll be back here for the weekend, won’t you?’
‘No. I’ll be back here on a flying visit in a fortnight. Then I’ll be off for another month.’
She was momentarily speechless.
‘My agent’s booked me into a Londo
n hotel so I’m convenient for the interviews. The first two pilots are being rehearsed and recorded over three consecutive days. The third one will be done next week. In the meantime I’m expected to appear on a couple of chat shows to promote the new book and the concept of the –’
Trudy had stopped hearing the words.
She had finally found the man of her dreams. She had finally decided to make a commitment to him. Now he was leaving her for a fortnight without even taking her feelings into account. When he did return he would then shoot off to disappear for a further month, at least.
‘I’ll be unhappy,’ she told him. She shook her head and scowled as she realised that was an understatement. ‘I’ll be very unhappy.’
He considered this for a moment as he devoured another piece of sirloin.
He snapped his fingers for Nikki and, when she appeared, he produced a twenty pound note from his wallet and told her to go home.
‘She hasn’t served the blackberry posset yet.’
‘I can take a blackberry posset out of my own kitchen.’ He paused and said, ‘Nikki, before you leave, could you bring me a wooden spatula, please?’
Trudy could read his thoughts.
She glared angrily at him displeased that he could act in such an inappropriate and indiscreet fashion. Bill made no indication that he understood her silent accusation. With a theatrical display of feigned innocence he continued to eat his meal.
Nikki returned with a spatula.
She was wearing her coat and looked set to go home for the night. If she had any idea why Bill had asked for the cooking implement she showed no indication. She wished them both a good night and then disappeared through the door.
‘What’s that for?’ Trudy asked.
‘What do you think it’s for?’ he returned.
‘Don’t think you’re going to use that on me.’
‘This is to address your unhappiness.’
She frowned. It felt like he wasn’t taking her unhappiness seriously. When he raised the spatula and told her to bend over she considered refusing. The spanking stuff was fun and sexually exciting but she didn’t feel it was an appropriate way to address her feelings of hurt and upset about the development of his career taking precedence over their relationship.
A Taste of Passion Page 21
