Cate ate her tiramisù as quickly as was decent, keen to leave the resplendent dining room for the cosier library. Nunzia ushered them down the long corridor and held open the heavy door. Cate sat on a high leather armchair, glad she was wearing heels so her feet could just touch the floor.
‘You look like you’re sitting on a throne.’ Phil laughed. He didn’t sit down, wandering around the room whilst they waited for the coffee to appear, running a hand over the wooden carvings, screwing up his eyes to see the details on a tapestry, peering at a table lamp.
Nunzia put down a tray, dimmed a lamp and glided from the room.
At last, Phil sat down on a matching chair. ‘Just the two of us. I thought it would never happen! Oh, Cate, I’m so glad not to be spending another night on my own. I was hopeless without you, I felt like old Ted with his face pressed up against the window when there’s no one at home.’
Cate frowned. It was so out of character for Phil to gush like this. Was he feeling guilty for something he’d done when they were apart? No, Lucy had to be wrong. Phil wouldn’t play away. But something was making him more emotional than usual.
‘Ted must be missing us,’ she said. ‘I’m glad the TV company has been sending us some updates. He looks happy enough, but who knows what’s going through his doggy head.’
‘Ted will be fine. Now get off that huge chair and come and squeeze up with me; there’s room for two on this.’
She clambered down, kicked off her heels and squeezed on next to Phil, between the arm of the chair and his familiar body. She snuggled into him, resting her head in the crook of his neck, inhaling his cologne, the smell of his skin. They were in a fancy palazzo hundreds of miles from the old vicarage, but now it felt like home.
‘Tell me everything,’ he said. ‘All about your trip to the Guggenheim Collection, and you didn’t tell me much about Burano; did you get to the Lace Museum? I’m so glad about you meeting Natalie again; it must have been so much fun doing those things together.’
‘Yes, it was.’ Cate was glad he couldn’t see her face. She so much wanted to tell him about her fruitless trip to find Mum but she knew he’d urge her to try again and she just couldn’t face it. ‘The Guggenheim collection was amazing,’ she said instead.
‘Not my thing but I’m glad you liked it. Did you see the Kandinsky?’
‘You remembered! He’s one of my favourites.’
He twirled a strand of her hair around his finger. ‘Of course I remember.’
She twisted around in the chair, slipped her arm around the back of his shoulders, looked into his grey-blue eyes. Could she risk telling him about what Nat had said? They could laugh together at the absurdity of it all. But how could he carry on filming with a smile on his face knowing what he was accused of? He might even demand they go back home and she couldn’t let him sacrifice the publicity opportunity for the business he’d poured his heart and soul into because of Nat’s groundless accusations. But there was something she could ask him, something that might set her mind at rest.
She planted a kiss on his lips. ‘I missed you. It got me thinking… about Kiran.’
‘Kiran? Our neighbour?’ He repeated her name without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Why her?’
‘I was thinking she must get lonely when her husband goes away on those business trips of his. Maybe we shouldn’t just have dinner with the two of them; maybe sometimes, we should invite her over.’
‘That’s kind of you. Why not? Even better, why don’t you and her go out for a coffee or lunch or something? She could probably do with a friend and… maybe, tell me if I’m speaking out of turn, but I know you see Lucy and some of the others from time to time but I’ve got the feeling that if they weren’t wives of my friends, you probably wouldn’t see them at all.’
‘So, you’re happy for me to spend more time with Kiran.’
‘Of course, why wouldn’t I be?’ He pecked her on the nose.
‘No reason.’ She laughed with relief.
‘What’s funny?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all… I love you, Phil.’
‘I love you too, you daft old sausage. I don’t know about you but I’m getting cramp squashed up in this chair. Shall we go and stretch out somewhere more comfortable?’
‘Are you thinking of that huge great bed of ours? Did you see the painted cherubs and grapes on the headboard? They’re incredible.’
‘It’s not the cherubs I’m thinking about.’ He gave her a cheeky grin.
Cate slipped down from the chair. ‘Come on then, what are we waiting for?’
* * *
Phil rinsed his toothbrush and put it back in the silver-plated tumbler. The edge of the bed where Cate lay was just visible in the corner of the bathroom mirror above the pair of his and hers basins. His wife’s long, smooth legs poked out between the two edges of a sumptuous, velvety robe identical to the one he was now wearing. Cate was humming to herself, a habit he never pointed out in case it made her self-conscious.
He ran a hand over his jaw; he’d shaved that morning and being pale, he didn’t get much of a five o’clock shadow.
