‘Come on, we’re out of here.’ Liam grabbed her by the arm and yanked her towards the door.

‘Dulcie, where are you going?’ shouted Rufus from the kitchen doorway, but she was already outside.

The gleaming red Lamborghini was parked across the entrance to Rufus’s garage. For all Liam’s obsession with exercise, he never parked his car an inch further away from his destination than was humanly possible.

Imelda was still struggling into her seat when Dulcie launched the contents of the stock pot through the open passenger door.

A tidal wave of garlicky ratatouille shot everywhere, drenching the inside of the car. It looked, Dulcie realised, pleased with the effect, like John Travolta’s famous accident in Pulp Fiction.

And oh, how Liam loved his precious Lamborghini. Almost as much, Dulcie thought happily, as he loved himself.

‘My car!’ howled Liam, clawing lumps of courgette and tomato out of his hair. ‘My fucking car.

You bitch!’

‘Never mind your car,’ Imelda screamed, ‘what about my dress?’ Her voice rose another octave.

‘It’s a Galliano!’

‘You’re blocking a garage,’ said Dulcie. She pointed to the No Parking sign Rufus had pinned up only last week. ‘I’d move if I were you. Before you get clamped.’

‘Sorry about the ratatouille,’ she told Rufus, dumping the empty stock pot in the sink and running the taps.

‘Lucky it wasn’t hot.’

Dulcie pushed her sleeves up and began scrubbing the pot clean.

‘I wish it bloody had been.’

She was white-faced and shaking. Rufus’s heart went out to her; he knew how awful she must be feeling. When his wife had left him for the bank manager he would have given anything to have flung a pot of ratatouille in their faces. He just hadn’t had the nerve.

When he saw the tears sliding down Dulcie’s face, Rufus didn’t hesitate. Crossing the kitchen, he put his arms around her, as he had dreamed of doing for so long.

‘There, there.’ He patted Dulcie’s heaving back as if she were a child. ‘Don’t let them upset you.

You deserve better than him.’

As he murmured the soothing words, Rufus wondered if they were a mistake. A naturally modest man, it felt odd to be telling Dulcie she deserved someone better when what he really meant was: someone like me.

On the other hand, when was he likely to get another opportunity like this? Dulcie was a woman in distress, in desperate need of comfort, and he wanted nothing more than to be the one providing it.

His heart raced. Maybe, thought Rufus, this is fate .. . ‘Whmmph,’ gasped Dulcie as his mouth fastened eagerly and unexpectedly on hers. She tried to pull away but it was a real sink plunger of a kiss. Rufus was giving it his all.

‘Oh, Dulcie,’ he breathed, when he at last came up for air.

He clutched her joyfully to his Fair Isle chest. ‘Forget Liam!

I’d never cheat on you. I’ll make you happy, I swear!’ Oh dear.

Carefully Dulcie extricated herself from his grip. Rufus was panting like a boisterous St Bernard and he had sampled the ratatouille at regular intervals during the making of it. The great wafts of garlic he was breathing all over her were strong enough to strip paint.

‘I wasn’t crying because I was upset.’ It was hard to talk, Dulcie discovered, when you were trying to hold your own breath. ‘I was just so ... so mad.’

‘Because he left you.’ Fervently, Rufus’s eyes searched her stricken face. ‘But Dulcie, I wouldn’t leave you. I’d never do anything to hurt you.’

This was awful. Dulcie, who couldn’t tell him the real reason she had snapped, wiped her wet hands on her jeans and tried again.

‘I don’t want to hurt you either,’ she said gently, ‘but Rufus, it wouldn’t work. I’m sorry.’

‘Why? Why wouldn’t it work?’ Having finally plucked up the courage to declare himself, Rufus found the prospect of rejection unbearable. ‘We could be so good together. A great team.

Dammit, Dulcie, I’ll make it work!’

Dulcie wondered what was going on beyond the kitchen door. Fifteen astonished customers had been left out there to fend for themselves for the last ten minutes.

‘Table two are still waiting for their vegeburgers.’

‘Sod table two,’ Rufus declared frantically. ‘And bugger the vegeburgers. Tell me why you think it wouldn’t work.’

She knew he wouldn’t understand if she tried to tell him he was just too nice. Unhappily Dulcie cast around for another reason, one he couldn’t argue with.

‘Okay.’ Keeping her head down, she gazed at the frayed holes in her jeans. ‘If you must know, I’m in love with my husband.’

‘But your marriage is over.’ Rufus looked bemused. ‘You told me he’s found someone else.’

Dulcie nodded.

‘Oh, he has. And it’s all my own fault, I know that. But I can’t help the way I feel. I still love him.’

As she said it, she realised with a sickening jolt that it was the truth.

Chapter 47

The morning of Pru and Eddie’s wedding dawned grey and cold. By midday, thunder was rattling around a charcoal sky. When the storm finally broke, halfway through the register office ceremony, the sound of rain on the windows was like gunfire, almost drowning out the solemn words of the registrar as he conducted the ceremony.

But nothing could dim the joyousness of the occasion. It was the happiest day of Pru’s life, and it showed.

‘Look at her,’ Liza murmured. ‘Can you believe this is the same girl who last New Year’s Eve was so desperate to stay married to Phil?’

Dulcie smiled and nodded, because if anyone deserved happiness it was Pru, but inwardly she winced at the memory of that night. Was she the same girl who had so blithely announced that all she wanted was a divorce?

‘Don’t forget your resolution.’ She nudged Liza. ‘You’re next.’

‘Next to what?’ said Kit when the service was over and they were splashing their way across the car park. ‘What were you two whispering about in there?’

‘Don’t say Liza hasn’t told you.’ Dulcie grinned, ignoring the jab in her back from Liza’s umbrella. ‘Her New Year’s resolution was to get married. Once a spinster reaches a certain age, you see, she starts to panic and get a bit desperate.’

‘Thanks a lot,’ said Liza.

‘And since it’s October now,’ Dulcie pulled a face, ‘I’d watch out if I were you. If you’re not careful you could end up being It.’

* * *

Dulcie was putting on a brave face but the wedding reception – at Brunton Manor, where else? –

was something of a trial. When Pru, making up her guest list the other week, had said longingly,

‘It’s a shame, I would like to have invited Patrick,’ Dulcie had felt obliged to do the decent thing.

Acting as though the outburst with Liza had never happened, as if it really couldn’t matter less, she’d replied, ‘Don’t be daft, if you want him, you invite him. And Claire too.’ Her intestines were frantically tying themselves into reef knots but she gave Pru a bright smile. ‘It’s fine with me.’

Delighted, Pru had added Patrick and Claire to her list. She sucked her pen for a bit then added tentatively, ‘How about Liam?’

Dulcie gave her a meaningful look.

‘Don’t push it.’

When Dulcie left the reception in full flow and pushed open the door to the ladies’ loo, she came face to face with Imelda.

‘Oh great,’ Imelda drawled, ‘it’s the madwoman.’

Dulcie took comfort from the fact that at least this time she was wearing a short navy-blue silk dress and full going-to-awedding make-up. She had also had her hair cut. Imelda, on the other hand, had clearly just come off the squash court and was looking decidedly sweaty and dishevelled.

‘Don’t get mad, get even. That’s my motto.’

‘Ah, but who won in the end?’ Imelda looked triumphant. ‘I’ve got Liam.’

Witch.

Dulcie had been determined to maintain an air of dignified calm, but her nerves were terribly on edge. Before she knew it she heard herself saying silkily, ‘I know, aren’t you lucky? Tell me, when he’s screwing you, does he still count the number of press-ups under his breath?’

The cloakroom door had opened behind her. Dulcie just had time to watch with pleasure as bright spots of colourappeared in Imelda’s cheeks – so he did! – before a hand clutched her arm.

‘Dulcie, there you are! Quick, they’re about to cut the cake!’

‘Thanks,’ muttered Dulcie when they were safely out of the cloakroom.

‘My pleasure.’ Claire Berenger’s grey eyes sparkled. ‘Not that you looked as if you needed rescuing, but I thought it might be a good moment to leave.’

Awkwardly, wishing she wasn’t so nice, Dulcie returned her smile.

‘I’m glad you did. Are they really cutting the cake?’

‘No. And I’m still dying for a pee. Come on, let’s find another loo,’ Claire said companionably,

‘then we’ll get ourselves a drink.’

In a daze of happiness, Pru watched the guests milling around her. Eddie’s mother-in-law, Edna Peverell, had been too frail to leave the nursing home but upon hearing about the wedding, and with characteristic bluntness, her irascible fellow resident Marjorie Hickman had announced to Eddie on his next visit to Elmlea that she would be delighted to come instead.

‘Told you he fancied you,’ she had announced, waving her walking stick at Pru as she hobbled into the ballroom, resplendent in an emerald-green ruffled blouse and ankle-length tweed skirt.

‘Said he’d got the hots for you, didn’t I? Good grief, child, what’s happened to your ears? When did you get those done?’

Pru, who was wearing her hair up, started to laugh. ‘What is the old bird on about?’ hissed Eddie, perplexed. Pru shrugged.

‘I’m wearing earrings. Maybe she thinks I’ve had them pierced.’

‘And if you’ve got any more of those saucy books,’ Marjorie declared in a loud voice, ‘bring ‘em with you on your next visit.’