Barefoot Bride

by Jessica Hart

  Belatedly sensing a certain tension in the air, she looked from one to the other. ‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Alice forced a smile. ‘I was just inviting Lily round for tea one day.’

  ‘What a lovely idea!’ Beth clapped her hands together and beamed at Will. ‘Come tomorrow!’

  Will could feel himself being swept along by the force of her enthusiasm and tried to dig in his heels before it all got out of hand. ‘I’m sure you’ll have had enough visitors by then,’ he temporised while he thought up a better excuse.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Beth briskly. ‘I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to anyone today. You know what it’s like at a party. You’re always saying hello or goodbye or making sure everyone’s got a drink. It would be lovely to see you and Lily tomorrow. Otherwise it’ll all feel like an awful anticlimax, and we’ll get scratchy with each other. At least, if you come, Roger and Alice will have to behave.’ She laughed merrily. ‘It’s not as if you’ll be working on a Sunday, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Will had to admit.

  ‘And Lily needs to make friends for when you’re not there,’ Beth reminded him.

  ‘I’ve brought a nanny out from England,’ said Will, irritated by the implication that he hadn’t given any thought to child-care arrangements. What did they think? That he was planning to go off to work and leave Lily alone in the house every day?

  ‘Oh, you should have brought her along today.’ Beth was blithely unaware of his exasperation, but Alice was keeping a carefully neutral expression, Will noticed. She would know exactly how he was feeling.

  ‘It’s her day off,’ he said, forcing a more pleasant note into his voice. It wasn’t Beth’s fault that Alice was able to unsettle him just by standing there and saying nothing. ‘She wanted to go snorkelling.’

  ‘Well, bring her tomorrow,’ Beth instructed. ‘Then she’ll know where we are, and she and Lily can come again when you’re at work.’

  Will glanced back at Lily. She had lifted her head and was watching the adults talking. Her face was brighter than he had seen it, he thought, and his heart twisted.

  I like talking to Alice, she had said. He couldn’t refuse her just because he remembered talking to Alice himself. And what would be the harm, after all? He didn’t have to have anything to do with Alice. He could just have tea and then let Dee take over the social side of things.

  ‘All right,’ he succumbed, and was rewarded by a flash of something close to gratitude in Lily’s eyes. ‘Thank you, we’d like to come.’

  Alice disliked Dee, Lily’s nanny, on sight. What had Will been thinking of, hiring someone quite so young and silly to look after his daughter? Or had he been thinking more about what a pretty girl she was? How long her legs were, how sparkling her blue eyes, how soft the blonde hair she tossed back from her face as she giggled?

  Lily was subdued, and Will positively morose, but Dee made up for both of them with her inane chatter-and he had called her superficial! Alice listened in disbelief as Dee rambled on about her family and her friends, and what a good time she had had learning how to snorkel the day before.

  As far as Alice could tell, she had absolutely nothing in common with Will or Lily. It was hard to imagine anyone less suited to dealing with a quiet, withdrawn child, she thought disapprovingly. Still, if Dee’s particular brand of silliness was what Will wanted to come home to in the evening, that was his business. She was only thinking about Lily.

  Unable to bear Dee’s inanities any longer, Alice leant over to Lily. ‘Would you like to come and see my shoes?’ she whispered as Dee talked on, and Lily nodded. She took the hand Alice held out quite willingly and trotted beside her to the bedroom, where a selection of Alice’s favourite shoes had been spread out on the bed.

  ‘Which ones do you like best?’ Alice asked, after Lily had examined them all seriously.

  After much thought, Lily selected pair of black high heels with peep toes and floppy bows covered in polka dots.

  ‘Good choice,’ said Alice approvingly. ‘They’re my favourites too. Why don’t you try them on?’ she added, and watched as Lily slipped her small feet into the shoes and turned to look at herself in the mirror.

  ‘Wait!’ Alice rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a diaphanous sarong. Tying it round the little girl, she draped some pearls over her and added her favourite straw hat with its wide brim. ‘There!’

  She stood back to admire the effect, delighted by the look on Lily’s face as she studied her reflection. The sullen expression was gone and, animated, the piquant face looked positively pretty beneath the hat.

  Will would like to see her like this, Alice thought. ‘Let’s show the others,’ she suggested casually.

  Biting her lip as she concentrated on her balance, Lily teetered down the corridor. ‘May I introduce Miss Lily Paxman?’ Alice announced grandly as she flung open the door.

  There was a chorus of oohs and aahs, and a broad smile spread across Lily’s face. Alice happened to glance at Will just then, and the expression in his eyes as he watched his daughter smile brought a lump to her throat. She would never be able to accuse Will of not caring about Lily now.

  Feeling as if she had intruded on a very private moment, she looked away and caught Roger’s eye.

  ‘OK?’ he mouthed.

  Alice nodded and went over to stand next to him, leaving Beth and Dee exclaiming over Lily. Dee, in particular, was going completely over the top with her compliments. Probably trying to impress Will, Alice thought sourly. Too bad Dee didn’t know that Will didn’t go in for gushing sentimentality.

  At least, he never used to. He had changed so much that for all Alice knew sweet, fluffy women were just his type nowadays. He certainly didn’t have much time for sharp, astringent ones, that was for sure.

  Without quite being aware of it, Alice sighed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Roger.

  ‘Oh…nothing.’

  Not wanting to look at Will, Alice watched Beth instead. ‘She’s fantastic with kids, isn’t she?’ she said, and Roger’s smile twisted as his eyes rested on his wife.

  ‘She loves children.’

  Roger and Beth had never talked much about their inability to conceive, but Alice knew how much having a baby would mean to both of them. She tucked her hand through Roger’s arm and leant against him, offering wordless comfort. ‘It must be hard for her at times like this,’ she said quietly. ‘For you, too.’

  ‘It’s just that you can’t help imagining what it would be like if it was your own child dressing up…’ Roger trailed off, and Alice hugged his arm closer in silent sympathy. He and Beth were both so easy-going and good-humoured that it was easy to forget that they had their own problems to deal with.

  On the other side of the room, Will watched Alice standing close to Roger and frowned. Only a moment ago he had been feeling grateful to her. Lily’s smile might not have been meant just for him, but still it had warmed his heart, and it was down to Alice, he knew. She had been able to connect with his daughter in a way that eluded him.

  But, when he looked at her to try and indicate his gratitude somehow, he saw that she wasn’t even aware of Lily any more. Instead she was leaning against Roger, her arm tucked through his and her head on his shoulder. It was a very intimate pose.

  Too intimate for a man whose wife was only a few feet away.

  Will glanced at Beth, who was smiling at Lily as she adjusted her hat. She seemed unaware of Roger and Alice over by the window, but Will had noticed a fleeting expression of sadness in her face more than once now, and he wondered how much Beth knew, or guessed, about her husband’s feelings for Alice.

  It was a long time since he and Roger had shared that drunken evening, but Will had never forgotten the look in Roger’s eyes as he confessed the truth. He couldn’t remember where Alice had been, but Roger had just split up with yet another girlfriend, and Will had been deputed to help him drown his sorrows and provide a shoulder to cr
y on.

  ‘I don’t want him to be alone,’ Alice had said. She’d always been very protective of Roger, which was ironic in its own way, Will reflected.

  It had been very late and very dark when Will had helped a reeling Roger home at last. He had never known if Roger had meant to tell him that all the other girls were just an attempt to disguise how he felt about Alice, or if the next day he had even remembered the truth he had blurted out. Neither of them had ever mentioned it again, but Will couldn’t shake the memory of the bleakness in Roger’s face.

  ‘I’m just her friend,’ he had said, slurring his words. ‘I’ll only ever be her friend.’

  Had Roger decided to settle for second best with Beth? Will hoped not. He liked Roger’s wife. She deserved better than that.

  What was Alice doing, snuggled up to Roger like that? Will scowled. Did she know how Roger felt about her? Had she guessed?

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Right,’ she had told him with that bright, brittle smile he hated. Easy to see how Roger might fill that role for her. He was kind, loyal, funny, the rock Alice had fallen back on more than once. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine the scales falling from her eyes as friendship turned to love…

  But Alice wouldn’t do that to Beth, would she? Will’s frown deepened. The old Alice would never do anything to hurt her friends, but what did he know of her now? The old Alice wouldn’t have stood that close to Roger, either.

  She would have been standing close to him, leaning against him, touching him.

  Will pushed the thought aside and got abruptly to his feet. ‘It think it’s time we went,’ he said.

  ‘What did you think of Dee?’ Beth asked Alice when Will had chivvied a disappointed Lily and Dee out to the car.

  ‘Not much,’ said Alice, unimpressed. She felt oddly disgruntled. It wasn’t that she had wanted to see Will, but he could have stayed a bit longer instead of rushing them off like that. It wasn’t very fair on Lily. ‘She tries too hard. You can tell she’s desperate to impress Will.’

  Beth looked at her strangely. ‘You can?’

  ‘Well, it’s a classic, isn’t it?’ Alice sniffed. ‘Child, nanny, single father…alone together on a tropical island…Of course she’s going to fall for him!’

  ‘It’s interesting you should say that,’ said Beth. ‘I wouldn’t have said that she was the slightest bit interested in Will. He’s too old for her.’

  ‘Old?’ repeated Alice, outraged. ‘He’s not old! He’s only thirty-five!’

  ‘I expect that seems old to Dee,’ said Beth, choosing not to comment on how well Alice remembered Will’s age. ‘She can’t be much more than twenty. I’d say she was much more impressed by that hunk who taught her how to snorkel yesterday. Didn’t you hear her going on about him?’

  ‘No.’ Alice frowned. She wasn’t as openly friendly as Beth, and had frankly tuned out most of Dee’s prattling. She wasn’t quite ready to believe that Dee had no interest in Will, either. He might be a bit older, but Dee could hardly have failed to notice that he was an attractive man-any more than Will would have missed the fact that she was young and very pretty. One could accuse Will of being lots of things, but unobservant wasn’t one of them.

  ‘I don’t know how Will could possibly have thought she would make a suitable nanny,’ she said crossly.

  Beth laughed. ‘Nannies aren’t buxom old ladies in mob caps any more, you know! Dee is young and friendly and enthusiastic. I expect Will thought she would be fun for Lily to have around.’

  ‘Or fun for him to have around?’ suggested Alice, her voice laced with vinegar. ‘You’re not going to tell me he didn’t clock those long legs and that body when he interviewed her?’

  ‘She’s certainly a very pretty girl,’ Beth agreed equably. ‘But it wasn’t Dee he was watching today, and it wasn’t Dee he couldn’t take his eyes off yesterday.’

  Alice, who had prowling restlessly around the room, stopped and stared at Beth, who smiled blandly back.

  ‘I don’t think you need to worry about Dee,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not worried about Dee,’ snapped Alice, severely ruffled. ‘Will can do what he likes. I don’t care. We don’t even like each other any more.’

  ‘Ah.’ Beth nodded understandingly. ‘Right. That’ll be why you both spent the entire time watching each other when you thought the other one wasn’t looking.’ She paused. ‘I think there’s still a real connection between you.’

  Alice flushed. ‘There’s no connection,’ she insisted. ‘Not any more.’

  And there wasn’t, she reminded herself repeatedly over the next few days. Will had hardly spoken to her at the tea, and she certainly hadn’t been aware of him watching her. Whenever she’d happened to glance at him-and it wasn’t that often, no matter what Beth had said-he’d seemed intent on talking to Roger or Beth, or watching Lily and Dee. If he’d even noticed that she was in the room, he’d hidden it extremely well, she thought grouchily.

  There certainly hadn’t been any opportunity for her to tell him that she was sorry for her tactless comments at the party.

  Not that Will would care whether she apologised or not. He had made it very clear how he felt about her now. Beth’s idea of a connection between them was ludicrous, Alice thought more than once over the next week, refusing each time to consider why the realisation should make her feel so bleak. Any sense of connectedness that had once existed between her and Will had been broken long ago, and there was no hope of repairing it now.

  And she wouldn’t want to, even if it had been possible, Alice reminded herself firmly. She hadn’t been lying when she had told Will that this time in St Bonaventure was her chance to think about what she really wanted out of life. Redundancy and Tony’s rejection had brought her to a crossroads, and, if the last miserable few months had taught her anything, it was that she needed to look forward, not back.

  There was no point in hankering after the past or what had been. Of all the options that lay open to her now, the one route she wouldn’t take was the one she had already travelled. She had to make her own future, and that certainly didn’t include resurrecting old relationships that had been doomed in the first place.

  No, she was going to have a good time while she was here, Alice decided, and then she was going to go home and rebuild her life so that it was bigger and better than before. She would get herself a really good job. She might even sell her flat, and make a fresh start somewhere new where memories weren’t lurking behind every door, waiting to ambush her when her resistance was low.

  And she would do it all by herself. She wasn’t going to rely on anyone else to make her happy this time. The only way to be sure was to do it alone.

  In spite of all her resolutions, Alice found her mind wandering to Will uncomfortably often over the next few days. Having been catapulted back into her life without warning, Will had disappeared again so completely, it left Alice feeling mildly disorientated.

  Had that really been Will standing there, after all these years? Sometimes she wondered if she had dreamt the entire episode, but she knew that she hadn’t made up Lily. That guarded little face with the clouded dark eyes were all too vivid in her memory. Alice hoped that she was adjusting to her new life and learning to trust Will. She kept thinking about the look in his eyes when he had seen his daughter smiling, and every time it brought a lump to her throat.

  She would have liked to be able to help them understand each other, but then she would remind herself that they didn’t need her help. They had Dee, and no doubt they were already well on the way to being a happy little family.

  Alice imagined Will going home every night to Dee, who would already know how he liked his tea-strong and black. By now she would know that he hated eggs, and his gestures would be becoming familiar to her. She would recognize how he rubbed his hand over his face when he was tired, how amusement would light the grey eyes and lift the corner of his mouth.

  Oh, yes, Lily and Will would be fine without Alice. They didn’t ne
ed her when they had Dee.

  Which left her free to enjoy her holiday.

  She should have been delighted at the prospect, but instead Alice felt scratchy and increasingly restless as the days passed. She had longed and longed for a few weeks doing absolutely nothing in the sunshine, but the truth was that she was getting a bit bored of sitting by the pool all day.

  Beth had a full social agenda, and Alice was included in all the invitations, but there were only so many coffee mornings and lunches at the club that she could take. All that gossip and moaning about maids, school fees, how hard it was to get bacon or a decent gin and tonic! Beth was so open and friendly that she was welcome anywhere, but Alice knew that her own brand of acerbity went down rather less well.

  In spite of having grown up overseas, she had never come across the expat lifestyle like this before. Her parents would never have dreamed of joining a club with other expatriates. They didn’t care about air-conditioning or supermarkets, and chose to live in remote tribal villages where they could be ‘close to the people’, a phrase that still made Alice nearly as uncomfortable as a lunch with some of Beth’s fellow wives.

  Why was it she never seemed to fit in anywhere? Alice wondered glumly. All she had ever wanted was to belong somewhere, but the only place she felt really at home was work. At least this break had taught her one thing, and that was how important her career was to her. Will might think her superficial, but at least she was prepared to go out and do a proper job, not sit around smiling all day like Dee.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come?’ Roger asked her the following Sunday. He and Beth were off to yet another barbecue, where they would meet all the people who had come to their barbecue the previous weekend, and Alice had opted out. ‘Will might be there. They’re bound to have invited everybody.’

  If Will had wanted to see her, he knew where she lived. Alice had spent far too much of the week wondering if he would think about dropping round some time, and she was thoroughly disgusted with herself for being disappointed when he hadn’t. She certainly wasn’t about to go chasing after him at some party now!