up and locked her tongue. she found she couldn’t say a word.
Richard searched her face.
‘Why?’ she managed at last. It was not much more than a croak. I’ve got cold feet, she thought, appalled at herself.
Scrupulously, he didn’t touch her. ‘I go to a lot of weddings.’ His voice was reflective. ‘They’re big promises. Heroic. In sickness and health. For richer, for poorer. They stop you dead in your tracks. You think: am I up to this? Can I really promise everything I have to give? And mean it, really mean it?’
‘Everything I have to give,’ Bella repeated slowly.
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s what you want?’
‘Only if it’s mutual.’
Still she hesitated, suspended between everything she’d known up to now and the unpredictable future.
‘Oh, God, Bella it’s the one thing I’m certain of. I can do it with you.’
Still she waited, not quite trusting herself.
His voice suddenly ragged, he said, ‘How can I explain? I want to make you those promises. It just seems right. Not easy exactly, but natural.’
‘Yes,’ she said, her doubts falling away as she recognised the feeling and the strength of it. ‘The next big thing in my life. Our lives.’
He held his breath as if he couldn’t quite believe what she was saying.
Bella leaned into him and kissed him, gravely and deliberately. It was acceptance and a promise, and they both knew it.
‘Yes please, Richard. I would very much like to marry you.’
Afterwards he was in tearing spirits. They bounced down the hillside, with him singing ‘Scotland the Brave’ at the top of his voice. He was all for bursting in on George’s barn and announcing their news at once. But Bella, remembering the Queen’s unhappy glances in her direction, said, ‘No, you have to tell your parents first.’
So he settled for a wild boogie instead.
‘But I’m rubbish at it,’ wailed Bella. ‘I bump into things, you know I do. And I’ve got two left feet.’
But nothing could curb Richard’s enthusiasm. ‘I got you through the Eightsome Reel, didn’t I? Stick with me, baby. You ain’t seen nothing yet.’
The party was in full swing when they ran in, hand in hand. Grace Kelly style, Bella found, worked just as well for dancing in a barn as for reels. George and his team had hung tartan rugs over the walls of what must once have been a cow byre, and there were several glitterballs and a lot of blue lighting. Also a table full of drinks where you could have a simple beer or invent your own cocktail. Mothers had been baking for weeks and there were sausage rolls, sandwiches and a competitive selection of cakes. The dance floor was a patchwork of stone slabs and old floorboards but nobody seemed to care much.
There was no DJ but a local band could, and did, do everything from heavy rock to punk hop. The lead singer did a passable imitation of Springsteen, too.
‘Dance, with you,’ said Richard, not taking no for an answer.
And he was right, she didn’t fall over or kick anything. In fact, it was while an astonished Bella was delivering some eloquent pelvic thrusts to ‘I’m on Fire’ that Richard stopped her dead and said breathlessly, ‘Enough already. I’ve got a bad desire.’
Her smile was blazing. ‘Let’s go.’
The night, as she afterwards told Lottie, should have been torrid. They were both wracked with lust and had been behaving well all evening. And they hadn’t seen each before that for what seemed like a lifetime.
Only it was very difficult to do torrid passion in a house with a frugal central heating system and draughts to make the North Wind slink away, outclassed. After they twice lost the mountainous covers and Bella screamed for the wrong reasons – acute and agonising cramp in her right calf – they collapsed into laughter and put lust on hold.
‘I’ll take you to Barbados,’ promised Richard. He got out of bed and brought her the sapphire kimono that she had left over the back of a chair. He tied a big bow at her waist and then got back into bed, cuddling her up to his chest and tucking the heavyweight blankets round her ears. ‘Or the Sahara.’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’
They were asleep almost at once.
They were awoken by a discreet scratching on the door. Bella came awake to find Richard out of bed, shivering and swearing. She didn’t blame him. She had no idea what time it was, but from the scrap of window she could see where the curtains didn’t meet,