Page 114 of The Importance of Being Emma
He skidded to a halt within two feet of me, his breath coming in gasps, great shuddering gasps. ‘I heard — the news — and I had to come.’ When he’d steadied himself, he went on, ‘I can see how upset you are about Churchill—’
‘Churchill?’
‘I mean Flynn,’ he said quietly, ‘and Jane. Come here.’
He gathered me to him, held me tight. I was soaked to the skin and my teeth were chattering, but I could have stayed there for ever, my face pressed against his chest, breathing his scent, listening to the thud-thud of his heart.
But I couldn’t stay there for ever, because he didn’t belong to me. For the first time in my life, I, Emma Woodhouse, wanted to be somebody else: Harriet Smith, chav. I blinked back more tears.
Then I heard him muttering to himself. ‘The wanker doesn’t know when he’s well off . . . and to let you find out like that . . . I’ve a good mind to go to the Lakes and beat him to pulp . . . ’
‘Mark?’ It came out as little more than a croak.
‘Yes?’ He held me away from him, his eyes bleak as they searched my tear-streaked face.
‘What are you on about? Who are you going to beat to pulp?’ I shivered, partly from the cold, partly from his words.
He folded me in his arms again. ‘That bastard Churchill, who else?’
I laid my damp cheek against his damp shirt, now totally confused. He was meant to be on his way to India with Harriet; yet here he was behaving as if he was insanely jealous of Flynn — after denying any feelings at all for Saint Jane of Highbury!
‘For God’s sake, if Flynn wants Jane, good luck to him,’ I said, in a choked voice.
My cheek rose and fell as he let out a long sigh. Several times he seemed about to speak, but stopped himself. I said nothing; it was enough to be this close for a few minutes more.
Then, at last, he broke the silence and it was his turn to sound choked. ‘You’re too generous, he doesn’t deserve you, my darling. He’ll never deserve you, ever.’
Hang on, Flynn deservingme? Mydarling?
I stifled a hysterical giggle. ‘Mark, have you been taking too many of those malaria tablets?’
His arms tightened round me. ‘This isn’t a joke, just tell me what you want me to do to him and I’ll do it.’
‘But I don’t want you to do anything to him.’
He held me away from him, his eyes wide with disbelief. ‘You can’t possibly want to go through with the engagement afterthis!’
I stared up at him. ‘What engagement?’
‘He wanted to give you the ring on Christmas Day, I saw the little box.’
I frowned, trying to remember . . . ‘Oh that, it wasn’t a ring, it was some very expensive earrings that he pretended he’d bought for me, just to impress Kate and Tom. But I wouldn’t accept them, even before he told me they were really for someone else. He must have meant Jane, although at the time I thought they were for—’ I stopped myself just in time from saying Harriet’s name. But it reminded me that Mark had a new person in his life. I twisted out of his arms and turned away.
He seized me by the shoulders, forcing me to look at him. ‘Engagement or no engagement, there was something going on between you,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Whenever I saw you together, he couldn’t keep his hands off you.’
I gave a weary laugh. ‘Don’t you see? That was all a game, to fool people — especially Stella, if she sent her spies round. And to make Jane so jealous that, in the end, she’d make up her mind about him for once and for all. God knows he’s the sort that would flirt with a block of wood, I was just a more convincing alternative. And I’m ashamed to say I never suspected a thing, I even played along, most of the time—’
‘I’ll say you played along, you were in his arms just the other night, at Donwell!’
‘I needed a hug, that’s all,’ I said indignantly, looking straight at him. ‘Look, I admit I fancied him to begin with, I’ve been dying to meet him for years, but I soon realised that he wasn’t the man of my dreams. Quite the opposite. He’s good fun but, like you said, he’s a wanker.’ I stared down at my soaked trainers. ‘So you certainly don’t have to beat him to pulp for my sake, but I can see that you might want to for Jane’s.’ Then I remembered the agony of seeing Harriet wrapped round Mark in the taxi. But my agony couldn’t compare to hers if she ever discovered that he was secretly in love with Jane. Poor, trusting Harriet . . .
I added bitterly, ‘Although that wouldn’t be very fair to Harriet, would it?’
He tilted my face gently upwards, his fingers warm on my ice-cold skin. ‘What on earth are you getting at? Wait a minute, you don’t honestly think—’
I wrenched myself from his grasp. ‘I’ll never understand what you see in her, you’d have been better off with Jane. At leastshewouldn’t have plastered herself all over you in a taxi, in the middle of Highbury high street! Still, whatever gives you your kicks, I suppose.’
And then he laughed; the bastard threw back his head and laughed, while I stood there in the pouring rain, feeling cold and wet and utterly alone.
