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  ‘Take this. You look like you need it.’

  Anna jumped, startled out of her tumbling thoughts, as organ music swelled and the happy couple shared their first kiss as man and wife before setting off down the aisle to echoing applause.

  It was a voice she would recognise anywhere. Max may not have been the best man, but as the brother of the groom, he was hardly relegated to the cheap seats. The tiny, perfect, white linen handkerchief he offered was typical of her ex-boyfriend – a triumph of style over substance.

  His presence was enough to halt the nascent tears in their tracks and she shook her head. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘You look stunning in that frock,’ he persisted. ‘A perfect elfin beauty.’

  There was a compliment in there somewhere, of course, but Max of all people should know how much she hated comments about her size. In her mind, petite had become a byword for weak; ‘feminine’ code for delicate. She wanted to be seen as strong and accomplished – in mind and in body – not ‘elfin’ or ‘dainty’.

  She turned to face him, half wondering how she would react to seeing him up close and personal for the first time in years. She took a breath and waited for the inevitable landslide of emotion and then paused. Nothing. She felt precisely nothing. A shiver of mild annoyance at best.

  She gave him a relieved smile, no doubt confusing him no end. ‘Well, it’s Kate and Duncan’s special day. Even I could see the logic in a posh frock. I drew the line at heels.’

  They fell into step as they turned to follow the happy couple out of the church, pews emptying at speed as all the guests surged ahead of them.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ said Max quietly. ‘I’d rather like to apologise. Belatedly, I know. But I behaved appallingly.’

  ‘You did,’ Anna agreed.

  He hesitated, presumably unprepared for her to offer no resistance. ‘Well, yes, right – breaking up the way we did, when maybe I’d implied that we had a future together. But we were so young and I wasn’t ready for commitment…’

  ‘Oh, Max. You really haven’t a clue, have you?’

  ‘Well, yes, obviously. I was there too, Anna. I saw how upset you were.’ The colour was rising up Max’s neck, a sure sign he felt off balance.

  Anna stopped walking and turned to face him. ‘I was “upset” as you put it, Max, because you stole the basis for my dissertation,’ she said calmly. ‘You couldn’t think of something for yourself, because you were permanently hung-over and lazy, so you took my idea and submitted it. Early. Not a last-minute panic, but early. I believe you’d call that premeditated. Or is it “with malice aforethought”? You’re the lawyer.’

  ‘But our break-up? When I left—?’

  She shrugged, this conversation proving surprisingly cathartic. ‘You already broke my heart when you claimed my work as your own. And then made it worse, frankly, by making an utter hash of a brilliant idea.’ She turned to walk away and he caught her arm.

  ‘It’s always about the books and the theories with you, isn’t it?’ he said nastily, clearly piqued by her revelation and abandoning all pretence of contrition.

  ‘Books never let you down,’ Anna said simply, removing his hand from her arm with the best look of utter disdain she could muster, ignoring her racing heart at the ferocity of his words. For a man like Max, the golden boy, to dent his pride was the only way for him to register emotion. If only she’d realised that years ago.

  She swept away from him, swallowed into the crowd, pressing her hand against her chest and forcing herself to breathe. No matter her protestations, Kate had been absolutely right: if you needed to be strong, looking fabulous while you did it was an excellent head start.

  * * *

  ‘Anna! You’re here!’

  She felt herself being subsumed into friendship groups of old, friends who had simply fallen off her radar one by one as she moved from place to place.

  ‘You sly vixen, where on earth have you been hiding?’

  ‘Glorious dress!’

  ‘Can you believe it? Kate and Duncan are married!’

  ‘How the devil are you?’

  The words bounced around her. Effusive greetings and rhetorical questions punctuated by the string quartet’s allegros.

  ‘Hi,’ she said simply, being pulled into yet another embrace. Had she been to more weddings, more family gatherings, then perhaps she wouldn’t have worried as much. These were hardly the soul-searching conversations they’d shared as students, awake until dawn, finding their feet in the transition to the adult world. This was small talk. And small talk she could do.

  In fact, over the years, Anna had become adept at painting a picture of her life: her nomadic profession cast in a rosy glow of stunning architecture and travel opportunities. The odd funny anecdote about Park Lane Persian pussycats with foie gras addictions and suicidal tendencies and she was good to go.

  ‘You’re so lucky,’ breathed Sarah, one of Kate’s childhood friends. ‘You can follow your feet and never get bored.’ She cast a glance at her florid husband who was waxing lyrical about the state of pork futures and sighed. ‘And are all the houses just glorious? I’ll bet they are, aren’t they? I mean, you’d hardly pay for a house-sitter for some crappy flat in Clerkenwell.’

  Anna shook her head. ‘You’d be surprised. Sometimes it’s more about the pets. For me as well. I try and keep an open mind, but if there’s a beautiful Irish wolfhound or one of those miniature wire-haired dachshunds in the mix, then all my desires for waterfall showers and slipper baths tend to come in a poor second.’

  ‘Do you ever have a snoop?’ Sarah whispered, slightly the worse for wear on raspberry Bellinis and agog with curiosity.

  ‘Nope,’ said Anna firmly. That wasn’t even a matter to joke about.

  ‘Really?’ said Kate, stepping into their conversation and tucking her arm around Anna’s waist. ‘Aren’t you even tempted? Just a teensy bit?’

  ‘Really, truly not,’ Anna replied in earnest, forgetting for a moment that this was a social occasion, a time for tall tales and fun. ‘I can’t think of anything worse, can you? They’re entrusting me with their home and their pets, stepping into their lives for weeks sometimes. I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘I would,’ said Kate firmly. ‘I couldn’t resist. It would be like a history project, piecing together how their life worked, whose photos are out on the mantelpiece and whose are hidden away.’

  Anna could feel that they were veering into dangerous territory. She certainly didn’t want to get caught up talking about the non-disclosure agreements she was asked to sign from time to time. The high-profile husbands who no longer shared the marital bedroom, the variety and quantity of prescription meds in a headlining barrister’s medicine cab-inet – really the list went on… It was no coincidence that the keyword search used most frequently on the website was ‘discretion’ and according to her reviews, discretion was something that Anna offered in spades. Most likely because even when she came to an event like this – and that in itself was once in a blue moon – she made a point of driving home.

  One glass of champagne was always her limit.

  One glass of anything. Always.

  ‘Of course, the same doesn’t apply to their books!’ she joked. ‘I can never resist a good library.’

  She could have kicked herself. How to kill a chat. She knew all too well that nobody wanted to talk about first editions or leather-bound classics anymore. They wanted scandal and dirt and the feeling of knowing something that they shouldn’t. The scoop.

  There was a momentary awkward pause and then Sarah laughed. ‘Me too, Anna. I may never judge you by your shoes, but I can’t help getting the measure of a person from their bookshelf. Now, Kate did tell me that you’d been working on some secret manuscript. And that this whole house-sitting fandango was your way of planning your life around books. Is that true, then? Are you going to tell us what it’s about?’

  ‘Oh good luck with that!’ Kate cut in. ‘I’ve been a
sking her for years and she’s annoyingly tight-lipped about the whole project.’

  Sarah reached into her clutch bag and pulled out a business card. ‘Well, when you do want to talk about it, call me. I’m not a commissioning editor yet, but I will be one day.’

  Anna glanced down at the card, careful to conceal the surprise on her face. Assistant Editor at Papyrus Publishing was no small achievement in itself. ‘Thank you, Sarah,’ she said simply instead. ‘But please don’t hold your breath.’

  ‘I knew you two would get along!’ crowed Kate happily, snaffling a canapé from the circulating tray. ‘And if anyone can persuade you to talk about your novel it’s Sarah. Don’t let the whole ditsy thing distract you; she has killer literary instincts. She’ll be running Papyrus one day, I promise you.’

  ‘From your lips to God’s ears,’ said Sarah with a smile. A smile that slipped firmly off her face as she realised what her husband was doing on the other side of the room.

  Anna followed her gaze to see half of the men in the marquee lining up shots and Kate’s face drop accordingly.

  ‘Leave it with me,’ Sarah said, laying a hand on Kate’s arm reassuringly. ‘I won’t let the rugby club antics ruin your day.’ She sighed and held up her hand, her own freshly minted wedding ring catching the light. ‘It’s too late for us, Anna, but think long and hard before you get one of these. Mine’s turning me into a total killjoy. I didn’t realise that being a wife meant being his mother too.’

  As she walked away, Anna felt Kate tense beside her. Even with her own loving family as a template for married life, it seemed that her best friend was taking a leap of faith. She glanced over and saw Kate’s parents ecstatically entertaining their own friends, their eyes returning constantly to their beautiful daughter on her special day.

  When it came to having a template to follow, Anna knew that hers was a cautionary tale at best. How on earth did she know what choices to make when she had no clear idea of the destination? How fitting, then, that she chose to spend time trying on different lives for size…

  Kate sniffed and leaned in to hug her tightly. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Pod,’ she said, slightly emotional and with her bridal tiara no longer perfectly central. ‘It really wouldn’t have been the same without you. And I’m so bloody glad that dress fit too! Can you even imagine?’

  Anna leaned into the embrace, trying not to let herself feel jealous. Not of Kate for being the first in their group to take the plunge, but of Duncan. He got to live with Kate, dig in for box set marathons with her, travel with her… All the things that Anna had truly treasured in her friendship with Kate over the years, she was now committed to sharing with Duncan. Officially.

  Duncan was no longer a passing fancy; he was permanently part of the picture. And as much as Anna loved him and his bumbling, affectionate ways, she couldn’t deny that it changed the dynamic when he was there.

  ‘If it all goes to shit, I’m moving in with you by the way,’ mumbled Kate into her hair, still holding on tightly, having apparently now bypassed ecstatic with the second flute of champagne and swung round to poignant and overemotional.

  ‘Wherever I am,’ Anna agreed. ‘There’ll always be a place for you.’

  Kate pulled back, one hand on each shoulder, and looked straight into her eyes unflinchingly. ‘But you are happy, aren’t you, Pod? All this hoofing around, never in the same place twice? I want you to be happy.’

  Anna nodded, the assurances Kate was looking for sticking in her throat. ‘It’s going to be fine,’ she said in the end, falling back on her standby motto for life.

  ‘Will you know it when you see it, do you think?’ Kate asked, tilting her head to one side as she considered her own question, the tiny pearl tiara listing still further.

  ‘Will I know what?’ Anna asked, wondering if her friend could actually read her mind.

  ‘The place you want to stay,’ said Kate. ‘The place you want to call home?’

  Chapter 5

  Oxford, 2019

  In Anna’s experience of grand parties and celebrations, limited though it was, things always took a turn for the worse once the port and cheese came out. Whether it was that frozen moment of indecision about which direction the decanter should be passed (left, she was almost certain it was left) or whether she might accidentally cut the ‘nose’ off the brie with the wrong knife… Either way, she felt exposed.

  Smiling weakly as she hefted the cut glass clockwise to the chap on her left, she watched the cloying, sticky port slosh up the side, climbing down slowly.

  ‘No port for you, Anna?’ he asked, eyeing the veritable forest of pristine glasses in front of her. One for each course.

  ‘I’m driving,’ she said simply, hoping that, now they were officially grown-ups, that line might carry enough weight to see off further questioning.

  He raised a rakish eyebrow. ‘And I can’t tempt you to an impromptu overnight?’

  Anna shook her head, trying not to laugh at the brazen cheek of the man. He’d barely made the effort to make conversation through dinner, unless one counted regaling her with tales of his prowess on the rugby field and a brief but intense quiz about whether she made ‘a decent living with this house-sitting malarkey’. As seduction techniques went, it was one she was all too familiar with.

  ‘Come on,’ he said confidingly. ‘Let’s grab a bottle of fizz and explore the maze.’

  ‘The maze?’ Of course there was a bloody maze, thought Anna irritably. Along with the ice sculptures and the vintage Morgan and the party favours scattered liberally (expensively) across every table. In fact, if she didn’t have direct line of sight to the bride, couldn’t see with her own two eyes that this was in fact Kate’s wedding, her Kate, bluestocking, overachieving Kate’s wedding then she wouldn’t have believed it.

  All too easily she was struck again by the notion of loss. Of their friendship slipping through her fingers as coupley dinner parties and talk of mortgages and nurseries and school fees filled Kate’s life in the space where Anna had been. She swallowed hard.

  To love someone was to risk losing them, she’d always known that.

  Had always seen that.

  But with Kate, with their student house on the Cowley Road in Oxford, Anna had felt brave enough to take the risk and open her heart, if not her baggage.

  Emotional and material.

  ‘You okay there, Anna?’

  What was his name? Anna shrugged away her dinner companion’s lingering touch to her arm with irritation. Annoyed with herself that after two hours of admittedly one-sided conversation, she couldn’t quite recall that salient fact. ‘I might head off actually.’

  She was tired. Tired of smiling. Tired of pretending to be someone she wasn’t, sitting here in her silk dress, surrounded by acquaintances, all of whom were desperate to prove their success and net worth to each other. It was as though the decade since graduation had barely changed the landscape at all, merely the budget.

  ‘Wilson, Wilson… I knew that name rang a bell. Do you know, Anna, I think I met your father in court the other week? Grey-haired chap?’

  Anna froze. Her legs suddenly unable to support her as she sank back into her gilded chair. It wasn’t that it was impossible; after all, who knew where he was? Who even knew what he looked like… But the notion of him standing in the dock being questioned by this young upstart was enough to make the single glass of champagne in Anna’s stomach turn to acid.

  ‘Yes. He was rather inspirational, actually. Not many barristers so open-minded in their approach. I was just there for my six, but impressive stuff.’ He leaned in closer. ‘I might hit you up for a personal introduction, darling.’

  Anna breathed out slowly. Wilson was a common enough name. No need to illuminate Rupert – that’s what he was called – that the Graham Wilson on her birth certificate would never knowingly have been on the right side of the law.

  It was possibly the only gift she’d received of any value from her parents: an ambiguous
name.

  Anna Wilson could be anyone, from anywhere; equally unremarkable in the Benefits Centre as the quadrangles of Oxford University. Posh Annas were aplenty, as were their grafting counterparts born without the proverbial silver spoon.

  ‘Not my father, I’m afraid,’ she said quietly, watching the interest in his eyes fade, clearly wondering how quickly he could shift his attention to the girl on his left, to make sure that his night wasn’t a complete bust.

  She caught Kate’s eye across the marquee and blew her a kiss, knowing that she was hampered by acres of tulle and the top table stretching away from her on either side. All she could think about was getting back to the manor, taking off this dress and snuggling into bed with Angus and Betty. She wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight and there’d be none of the awkward disappointment that she would undoubtedly have encountered with Rupert the next morning.

  Really, she thought, as she edged her way discreetly between the tables, there was very little in her life that couldn’t be improved by a decent cup of coffee, an engrossing book and a little canine companionship. Even if it occasionally broke her heart a little to say goodbye to her furry friends, knowing that she was just a temporary fixture in their lives was nothing new.

  * * *

  ‘Pod! Wait up!’

  Anna stalled the engine of her ancient Mini at the sight illuminated by her headlights. She pushed open the door and stepped out in her bare feet. ‘You can’t run away; you’re the bride,’ she said to Kate, who was walking towards her as fast as her fancy red-soled bridal shoes would allow.

  ‘I’m not running away. You are,’ Kate called, as the distance between them closed. ‘Again.’

  Anna smiled and drew her into a hug. ‘I’m just ready for my bed, that’s all.’

  Kate frowned, the emotion of the day, coupled with barely a bite to eat as she’d been so on parade and no shortage of fizz, made her normally lightning-fast acuity somewhat sluggish. ‘Why?’ she managed in the end. ‘I’m only getting married once, Pod, no matter what my mother might say about starter marriages. Stay and celebrate with me?’