“In that case, I’d love to.” Audrey found that once again, she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.
* * *
Dinner out had never been so much fun. They ate shellfish with their fingers, Audrey leaning forward and laughing, giddy with excitement, surrounded in a vague alcoholic haze, which did, she was relieved to discover, get better over dinner. Brooks ordered a bottle of champagne, but Audrey didn’t touch her glass, watching him demolish the bottle, not the slightest bit the worse for wear, before moving on to wine.
“Black Irish,” he confessed, halfway through the meal. “It’s the blood. Same with my father and grandfather. We don’t get drunk. This? Alcohol? Mother’s milk to us.”
“I’m impressed,” said Audrey, thinking fleetingly of her staid husband and his one vodka gimlet before a meal, with perhaps a shared half bottle during dinner. She had never seen Richard drunk, and although Brooks was not drunk, he was looser than he was earlier, funnier, more exuberant, although perhaps, she thought, we are both more relaxed as we are getting to know each other.
“So how is life in England?” Brooks asked.
“Are you asking me how life is in England or how married life is?”
A grin spread on his face as he sat back, his hands in the air. “Okay. You got me. How is married life? We’ve talked about everything under the sun except that.”
“I know.” She paused. How would she answer this? “Well. Married life is…” Audrey had no idea what to say. “It’s fine,” she said lamely. “Good.”
“Good? That’s it? What’s your husband like?”
“He’s very good-looking,” she said, which was about the nicest thing she could think of to say about him. “And he’s a good person. I think.”
Brooks raised an eyebrow. “You think?”
Audrey visibly deflated. Sick of pretending everything was fine, sick of pretending to be happy, sick of being the downtrodden wife, she looked Brooks in the eye and took a deep breath. “He’s pompous. And cold. And distant. And I’ve never been so lonely in my life.”
They looked at each other in shock. And Audrey started to laugh. Peals of laughter, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had no idea why she was laughing, only that she couldn’t stop. Until she felt Brooks taking her hand and holding it gently, and when she looked at him he was not laughing with her. In his eyes she saw empathy, and kindness, and a longing that she instantly recognized; she felt the same way.
This excitement cannot turn into anything more, she told herself, excusing herself to go to the bathroom, seeing her bright eyes in the mirror. It is just a lovely new friendship. Whatever is going on here—and it was clear to her by that time that they both had feelings that could be dangerous—it cannot lead to anything.
They were the last to leave. As they walked up the street, Audrey still slightly unsteady on her feet, brushing shoulders with Brooks, bumping into him every few steps, their hands sliding together, as her fingers intertwined with his, neither of them looking at each other, neither of them saying a word.
I shouldn’t be doing this, she thought, feeling his thumb rub her hand, her breath almost stopping. But she couldn’t remove her hand, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything other than relish the feeling of her hand in his.
And when they reached Aunt Judith’s, and he turned and pulled her in, placed his hands on the side of her face and gazed into her eyes, his head moving closer and closer as her heart threatened to leap out of her body, she still couldn’t say anything, couldn’t think of anything other than his mouth landing on hers.
And when he took her by the hand and led her not up the garden path to Aunt Judith’s but next door, through the gate and up the path to his house, when he stood before her in the living room, lifted the tunic over her head, traced his fingers down the side of her neck, over her breasts, hooked them into her panties, leaving her naked and yearning, still she couldn’t speak.
“Audrey,” he whispered, scooping her up and carrying her to his bedroom, laying her on the bed as every nerve and fiber in her body jumped and tingled, as if electricity were coursing through her.
And still she didn’t speak.
However she imagined he would look naked, it could not possibly have been as good as how he felt. His skin was warm, his lips so