Page 88 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
Sophy wasn’t sure about that. Caroline answered her phone before the first ring had even ended. ‘You’ve really gone and done it, young lady,’ she screeched.
‘I’m so sorry, Mum. Time just got away with me.’ Sophy pulled a face and Charles, on his way past so she could have some privacy, patted her on the shoulder.
‘Where are you?’ Caroline demanded. ‘Are you on your way home?’
‘I’m in Bloomsbury.’
‘What thehellare you doing in Bloomsbury?’ Caroline hissed through her teeth. ‘Really? Doing things with your fancy man was more important than coming home and packing?’
‘He’s not my fancy man,’ Sophy said and the situation was so awful that she actually felt like giggling because Charles was a man and he was very fancy.
‘You were thinking of just going to Australia in the clothes that you’re standing up in? You don’t even have your passport, Sophy! Have you taken complete leave of your senses?’
‘I really think I have. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ Sophy admitted, but there was no reply, just a muttered exchange, then her mother was replaced with Mike.
‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do,’ he said calmly because Mike was absolutely who you wanted in a crisis. ‘You’re going to go to Heathrow,I’ll send you the details of which terminal, and we’ll meet you there with your luggage.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mike…’
‘Well, if you ever come back from Australia, you’re totally grounded,’ he deadpanned. ‘And if anyone asks you who packed your suitcase, then you’re going to have to lie and pretend that you did it all by yourself. It’s fine. Just as well that we did so many practice packing dry runs.’
‘No need to thank me!’ Caroline shouted in the background.
‘I am very thankful,’ Sophy said. She arranged to meet them at nine, then hung up to see Charles standing in the doorway just as the moka pot started bubbling on the stovetop. ‘It’s all sorted. I’m going to meet them at the airport.’
‘I could come with you if you like,’ Charles said casually.
Sophy did like but she didn’t want their last goodbye to be hurried and harried and with Caroline glowering in the background. She didn’t want to say goodbye at all.
‘If you tell me not to go, then I won’t,’ she heard herself say as Charles turned to look at her as if she’d just spewed ectoplasm from her ears. ‘If you want me to, I’ll stay.’
Charles sighed. Then he stopped fiddling with his tiny espresso cups so he could pull out the stool next to Sophy’s and sit down. ‘I do want you to stay,’ he said. ‘I want it more than anything.’
Relief and disappointment, equal measures of both, washed over Sophy. ‘So that’s that then.’
‘But you’re going to Australia, Sophy,’ he said, taking her hand in his. ‘You’re going to have adventures, you’re going to fall in love with the family that you’ve never met, you might even end up shearing a sheep…’
‘I don’t want to shear a sheep,’ she mumbled, trying to bite back the sobs. ‘I want to go, but I want to stay. I don’t know what I want.’
‘Then I’m deciding for you because we both know that it’s better to regret something that you did do than something you didn’t do,’ Charles said, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on her face.
Sophy squeezed his fingers. ‘What if I regretnotstaying?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You’d still regretnotgoing. And if you come back, and you’re under no obligation to do so, then I’ll be here. I have no plans to be anywhere else.’
‘Then I am going?’
Charles pressed a kiss to her forehead, then got up to fix the coffee. ‘Are you asking me or are you telling me?’
‘I’m going,’ Sophy muttered, more to herself to see how the words sounded. To get used to the idea. ‘Yeah, I am. I’m going.’
‘Good,’ Charles said, because he really was the best; the fanciest of men. ‘Right, so here’s coffee. Is there anything else I can get you?’
‘No, nothing. This is just perfect,’ Sophy said because she had coffee and she had Charles sitting next to her again and she couldn’t think of anything else she wanted for the next fifteen minutes.
Except… ‘Actually, I need shampoo and conditioner. And Charles, you don’t have a single open pore so I know that you must have a highly effective face mask around here somewhere.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
