Page 50 of Infamous

It had all been perfectly safe when Eddie had known exactly what it was for –practice, they had simply beenpractising– but she had to face the fact that it had started to feel like something else, something unfamiliar, somethingmore, and it scared the life out of her.

She laughed awkwardly and gently pushed Rose away.

‘What are you doing, you mad goose?’

‘Oh,’ Rose said, going very still. ‘I just thought .?.?.’

‘It might get a little .?.?. confusing, don’t you think,’ Eddie said haltingly. ‘If we continue with this kissing business? Not to say I didn’t have a good time, Rose, but .?.?. I think we’ve had plenty of practice by now. I don’t want things between us to become .?.?. complicated.’

She thought she was making quite a convincing point, but Rose didn’t reply for a very long time.

‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘You are right, of course. We wouldn’t want things to get complicated.’

Chapter Eighteen

Rose was even quieter than usual at breakfast the next day. Eddie sat down at the opposite end of the table, and found herself laughing a little too loudly at Valentine’s jokes to compensate for how out of sorts she felt. The wind had picked up and seemed to be working itself into a tantrum, howling despondently through the upper reaches of the house. Fine sprays of rain kept sporadically and violently hitting the window, making them all jump.

Eddie was very aware of the fact that Nash was carrying her manuscript around the place, reading as he walked. She entered the library, thinking of doing some work there, found him leaning against a shelf, pages in hand, and immediately turned and walked right back out, her face scarlet and her heart lurking somewhere around her ankles. She was in a state of intense agitation all afternoon, trying and failing to read in the South Parlour, standing listlessly in the armoury staring at a wall full of ornamental knives, and had just resolved to stomp down to the shore and let the rain pound at her for a bit when Nash appeared at her shoulder and said, very ominously, ‘Come.’

She followed him into the drawing room, which was empty. He sat down at the pianoforte and immediately started tapping out a tune with little skill as Eddie pulled up the nearest armchair.

‘I finished it,’ he said, not looking up from the keys.

‘And?’ said Eddie, in agony.

He laughed. ‘Your protagonist Delilah isn’t very fair on the coarser sex.’

‘Oh,’ said Eddie. ‘No, I suppose not. But her husbandisvery horrible, before she accidentally murders him.’

‘Mmm,’ said Nash, playing a fiddly little trill. ‘It is very funny, Edie. I can hear your voice in it, and you do make me laugh. But .?.?. do you think itshouldbe funny?’

‘What do you mean?’

Nash shrugged. ‘I mean .?.?.Ilike it, of course. But I can already hear what my editor will say – that there’s not really room for everything you’re trying to do. Either it’s a searing commentary on a woman’s place in society,orit’s a funny little dark comedy about a lady bumping off her unfortunate husband. Either will shock and astound, but both together .?.?.’

‘Well,’ said Eddie, feeling choked with disappointment. ‘That’s just .?.?. that’s how I write. I don’t really know of any other way to do it. I do not think that just because it’s light and funny sometimes, that means it can’t have something to say .?.?. If anything, that might make what it’s saying more palatable .?.?.’

‘Do you want to be palatable, or do you want to be great?’

This silenced her. She was feeling embarrassingly wounded, and tried to shake it off; he’d said helikedit, after all. He was just offering her constructive criticism – a precious commodity from somebody as talented and decorated as Nash Nicholson.

Nash seemed to notice that her feelings had been bruised; he stopped playing the pianoforte and reached for her shoulder to give it a bracing little shake.

‘The first critique is always the hardest, Edie. I think you’re enormously talented, I always knew you would be, I have a nose for these things. I just think .?.?. it would hardly be friendly of me to tell you to waste your time on something that isn’t your best work, would it? Not when you have it in you to be a serious writer.’

Eddie smiled weakly at him.

‘You’re right, of course. Sorry, I don’t know why I’m .?.?. especially when .?.?. Well, it was so kind of you to read it at all.’

‘Nonsense, you could not have kept me from it. If you’d barred me from reading it, you’d have found me sneaking into your room late one night to search for it in my stockinged feet.’

Eddie laughed unconvincingly. Nash glanced up at the window and then got abruptly to his feet.

‘Come on, Miss Miller. I spy a gap in the rain. Let’s sneak out of here and go for a ramble and talk about the illustrious career you have ahead of you.’

They found Juno curled up in the entrance hall on one of Nash’s coats, which had fallen from its hook; he dusted it off, swearing at her half-heartedly, and slung it over his shoulders. The dog burst out of the door when he opened it and loped across the lawn, looking as thrilled as she seemed capable of being, nose to the ground and tail wagging slowly at the grey sky.

‘That’s better,’ Nash said, politely ignoring the fact that his dog was now urinating with vigour. ‘I can’t think in there. Doesn’t matter how high the ceilings are, they still make everything come to an abrupt stop.’