display. When they finally reached the hotel, every inch of Alba’s skin was alive with electricity. She felt ready for anything.
But as she stared at the door of room 236, Alba was suddenly petrified she might be faced with a double bed. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t cope with it. She was suddenly and absolutely sure that, were Dr. Skinner to touch her, she’d dissolve into a pile of dust on the floor. When the door opened to reveal twin beds, Alba had let out a tiny, silent sigh of relief. Then the pesky itch of disappointment started to scratch at her heart. For the next forty-eight hours she watched every move her teacher made—waiting for a sign, for a purposeful touch on her thigh. All the while torn between wanting it and fearing it.
—
Albert finally left Inverie in 2008, a few years after the local pub linked up to the Internet and he began spending hours on it, monitoring the Ashby family, every morning typing in Alba’s name. He longed, more than anything in the world, just to see what she looked like. Sometimes the longing took him back to the edge, though he never again fell over it.
It was during one of his first searches that he learned about Lord Ashby’s disappearance, only a year after he’d written that letter. It took every ounce of willpower, loyalty and love not to jump in the next boat, then take a taxi straight to Ashby Hall. Liz was free, alone and available. But she hadn’t written to him. She hadn’t called him back. And so Albert had to accept that, for one reason or another, she didn’t want him anymore.
Lord Ashby’s disappearance meant Albert no longer had to stay in Inverie, but he stayed anyway, out of habit. However, when he finally saw it—the picture of a frowning fifteen-year-old over an article announcing Alba Ashby as the youngest entrant ever to King’s College—he at last left Scotland and moved to Cambridge, skipping Hampshire and the heartbreak of seeing Elizabeth on the way.
He found a flat, a teaching job and a weekend position in a little bookshop opposite Alba’s college. Nearly two months passed before he finally saw her, and it was all Albert could do not to cry out and run to her. But he’d made a promise to Elizabeth and he would keep it. So he watched Alba hurry across the street, half a dozen books clutched to her chest, a tatty black scarf flapping out behind her. And he stared down the street long after she’d gone out of sight.
Over the next four years he came to know her schedule and, fortunately for Albert, his daughter was a person of habit. Every day she went to the library at the same time. Every day she bought her lunch from the same café and ordered the same thing. At the weekends she ate in hall. He always hoped that one weekend she’d wander into the bookshop. And then one Wednesday, a dark day of heavy rain, she finally did. Alba walked through the door, shaking her short hair free of water, and Albert looked up to smile at the new customer. He stared, gripping the counter with white knuckles, while Alba glanced around the shop, breathing it in. After that Albert ignored all the other customers, watching her walk to the section on historical fiction and slip a book about the English Civil War off the shelf. Albert prayed to all the gods he’d ever known that she’d come to the counter and buy the book. Someone smiled down on him, and she did.
“It’s very good,” he said.
“Sorry?” Alba asked, and Albert realized he was whispering.
“The book.” He slid it into a paper bag. “I hear it’s very good.”
“Oh.” Alba handed him a ten-pound note. “Okay.”
Albert took the money, opened the till and gave his daughter her change.
“Thank you.” Alba dropped the coins into her coat pocket and picked the bag up off the counter. “Have you read it?”
Albert shook his head as though this oversight was the biggest regret of his life. “No, sadly not, but I will, tonight, as soon as I finish work.”
“Oh, okay.” Alba looked puzzled.
Albert smiled. He realized he hadn’t stopped smiling since she looked at him. “Have you read A Room with a View?”
“Once.” Alba frowned. “A while ago. Why?”
“Because it’s wonderful, that’s all.” He tried not to stare, he tried to seem normal, nonchalant, but he couldn’t manage it. “Didn’t you think