Page 46 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
Because it was dark, it was hard to make out the beautiful and quite rugged scenery that surrounded Bath, which Sophy recalled sat in a basin with hills on all sides. But as they got nearer and nearer to the town centre, the old buildings made of Bath Stone looked gloriously buttery in the glow of the streetlights. Even though it was the twenty-first century and there were roads and cars and takeaways and all the accoutrements of modern living, there was always something a bit magical about coming to a place so steeped in history as Bath.
Charles stopped talking as he navigated up a very, very steep hill and then parked. ‘This is us.’
Sophy peered out of the window at a row of terrace houses all crammed together, but she couldn’t make out much more than that until they got out of the car. While Charles retrieved their bags, she looked up at the yellow stone houses, each one of them with a gaily painted front door.
Charles unlatched the gate of number twenty-three, which had a mint green door and matching hanging baskets.
‘A friend of mine works in Bath, at the Fashion Museum that you so cruelly maligned, but spends the weekends in London, and is very generous about lending his house out to passing pals,’ Charles said as he adroitly retrieved a set of keys from one of the hanging baskets.
‘You have very useful friends,’ Sophy noted with a pang, because so many of her friends had actually been couple friends and, since she and Egan had split up, she was very much the odd one out. She’d even been unceremoniously removed from a couple of WhatsApp groups.
Thank goodness for Cress and thank goodness for Charles, her newest friend, Sophy thought as she followed him into the narrow little house. The interior was charming, with more mint green wood panelling in the hall, the floorboards painted white. Charles took her down some stairs into a kitchen-cum-reception room with a scrubbed farmhouse pine kitchen table and an old-fashioned dresser painted cream and crammed full of vintage china, bunting pinned to the floating shelves, which were home to jars of brightly coloured ingredients and a set of lilac Le Creuset pans. The whole effect was charming and colourful and eclectic.
‘This is lovely,’ Sophy said. It was so different to the flat she’d shared with Egan, which had been a symphony of greys and creams and, Sophy now suspected, had absolute zero personality.
‘There are two guest rooms upstairs,’ Charles said casually, which put paid to Sophy’s fevered fantasies about there only being one bedand possibly a freak snowstorm that would strand them for days. ‘But we should probably have something to eat first. Are you hungry?’
There was no point being coy about it. It was nearly nine o’clock and a long, long time since her lunchtime tuna baguette. Sophy was already pulling out her phone to fire up Deliveroo. ‘We’ll get a takeaway. My treat,’ she said firmly, because Charles had refused all her offers to go half on petrol money. ‘What do you fancy?’
They decided on pizza, debated the various toppings, then, when it arrived – chicken and pesto for Sophy, truffle and goat’s cheese for Charles – they all but inhaled it while they watched a true crime documentary on Netflix. Just when Sophy thought that she might have Charles figured out, he always managed to surprise her. He had layers. So many layers and she wanted to unpeel them all.
But that wasn’t going to happen, especially not tonight when it was half past ten and she kept yawning so hard it was a wonder that she didn’t dislocate her jaw each time.
She followed Charles, who insisted on carrying her holdall too, up a narrow and very steep staircase, past the first floor and up into the converted attic. ‘I thought you’d be more comfortable up here and you get your own en suite,’ he said, opening the door to a pretty room in the eaves, papered in the most extravagantly flowered manner so it was like stepping into a spring meadow.
‘But you’ve been driving so you deserve the most comfy room,’ Sophy said.
‘I also deserve a room that I can stand up in,’ he demurred, pointing at the sloping ceilings. ‘I’d get some sleep if I were you. We have a really early start tomorrow.’
Sophy stiffened all her facial muscles so she wouldn’t scowl. Her Sunday morning lie-ins were sacrosanct. Egan had always gone to the gym on Sunday mornings, so she’d only surface in time to just makeit to the local Côte before they stopped serving brunch at two o’clock. She’d also spent the last few weeks training Caroline not to disturb her before at least eleven.
God knew how she was going to manage on a sheep station when they got up before cockcrow. Though would a sheep station have cockerels? She’d ask her grandparents next time they spoke.
Now, Sophy tried to look bright and up for anything as she asked, ‘How early is really early?’
‘Seven,’ Charles stated as if it were an absolute fact and that the early start was non-negotiable.
Sophy brushed against Charles as she navigated the narrow doorway. Just that incidental touch was enough to send a shiver through her.
She turned round to say goodnight, only to find that Charles had taken a step into the room to put her bag down and so they were suddenly standing so close to each other, only a whisper could have come between them.
Charles’s eyes were dark but his mouth curved into a smile as he lifted his hand so he could run his fingers through a strand of Sophy’s hair.
‘You usually have it tied up,’ he murmured. ‘I like it loose. It suits you.’
Sophy didn’t know what to say. All she knew was that if she leaned forward just a couple of centimetres, stood on her tiptoes, she’d be in the perfect position to kiss the smile right off Charles’s face.
If he would give her just a sign; some indication that she was more his fancy than his fixer-upper; but Charles just blinked slowly, then stopped threading his fingers through her hair to hold it up to the light.
Then he took a very definite step back and Sophy was so relieved that she hadn’t made an absolute idiot of herself. Charles being Charles would have lether down gently, but it would have ruined their trip before it had even started.
He cleared his throat. ‘So, yes, seven, tomorrow morning.’
Nothing like the reminder of their early Sunday start to cool Sophy’s heated thoughts. ‘Getting up at seven or leaving at seven?’
‘Leaving at seven,’ Charles said in the same implacable tone, then he pressed his lips together as if he were trying hard not to laugh, though there was nothing funny about having to get up way before seven on a Sunday morning.
‘It better be worth it,’ Sophy grumbled, all thoughts of seduction very definitely gone now. ‘And it better not be church.’
