Free The Beach Hut Next Door by Veronica Henry Page B

after all, and would have been trained in feigning undivided interest. Yet the way they had laughed at the same things, and the way he was happy to contradict and argue with her – in a teasing way, not a high-handed way – implied to her there was a mutual attraction. But Elodie was an ingénue. She really had no knowledge of the games men and women played between them.
    Her mother, of course, would be able to guide her. Her mother would know the signs. But Lillie was perched on the edge of a golden velvet armchair, describing something to Roger, her hands drawing pictures in the air, her hair slipping from its chignon, her eyes alive. She was oblivious to her daughter’s need for advice.
    ‘Be bold,’ Elodie told herself. ‘You have to make it happen.’
    Where she had got this courage from, she had no idea, but she had a staunch heart, and she still wasn’t afraid. What was the point in running away from the momentous? Surely you had to do everything in your power to draw it to you?
    She picked up the glass of wine she hadn’t finished from dinner. She looked across to Jolyon and caught his eye. Then she turned and walked out of the French doors and onto the terrace. The night was still and warm and smelt brackish: the tide was out and the trace of drying seaweed tinged the air. The moon hung in the sky, as pale and lustrous as the largest pearl on the necklace her mother had lent her. She could feel it on her skin. She could feel everything on her skin.
    Even his presence. She heard his footsteps behind her. She wasn’t going to turn. She bit her lip with the anticipation, smiling to herself. He stood right behind her. She felt his hand on her waist. She breathed in, revelling in his touch, a touch that told her everything she needed to know, then leaned back until she was nestled into him.
    ‘Shall we go for a walk?’ he asked, his voice low.
    ‘Yes.’
    She put her glass down on the balustrade. Then she slipped her hand into his. Together they walked down the stone steps and across the lawn. She knew the grown-ups in the drawing room would have a perfect view of them if they chose to look out, but she didn’t care. Everyone, after all, had to start somewhere. And her mother, for one, would be cheering her on.
    Without a word, they made their way down the cliff path, swishing through the marram grass, the sand beneath them giving way so their steps got faster and faster until they fell in a laughing tangle onto the beach.
    It had a special magic at night. A softness, like a cashmere blanket; the sound of the waves as soothing as a lullaby; the darkness leaving all other senses heightened. They left their shoes at the bottom of the cliff path, their feet sinking into the cool damp.
    ‘I’ve never felt like this before,’ whispered Jolyon, and part of Elodie wanted to press him further, ask him what he had felt with other girls; find out why she was different, what it was he was feeling. Common sense told her, however, that this would be wrong, and so instead she stopped in her tracks, turned to him, went up onto her tiptoes and slid her arms around his neck.
    ‘Neither have I,’ she breathed. ‘Neither have I.’
    And the next thing she knew, she understood why it was that people bothered kissing.

    The rest of the summer was perfection. It was as if God had snapped the final piece of the jigsaw he was doing into place. Jukes’s Groceries became Lewis and Jukes. Desmond drew up a masterplan for the stores, and he and Jeanie and Jolyon spent the weeks implementing his vision, travelling to each of the stores in turn. No one was quite sure of Roger’s role in all of this, but he seemed to have his own affairs to attend to.
    They all reconvened at The Grey House at the weekends. Elodie found the days of the week without Jolyon endless, and lived in a fever of excitement until she heard his bike roar through the drive on a Friday lunchtime. Eventually Roger would reappear, then Jeanie and Desmond, and