Page 31 of A Sky Painted Gold

My mouth falls open. “I—” I begin, but the word is a wheeze. “I don’t think you should be talking to me about my writing.”

“That reminds me,” Robert says, and he stands and goes to the sideboard, where he opens a drawer. He pulls something from inside and comes around the table to place it carefully next to my elbow before returning to his seat.

I stare at the object by my side. My eyes flicker to his face and his expression is hard to read. Sitting next to my elbow is a thin blue notebook. I don’t need to open it to know that it’s the one I lost, the one that contains several chapters of Lady Amelia’s Revenge. I don’t know what to say.

“Thank you,” I manage. “For returning it, I mean, not for reading it.” My voice is as icy as I can make it.

Robert, at least, has the good grace to look a little guilty. “I really am sorry about that,” he says, and then he frowns. “Not that I read it, but if I gave the impression I was making fun of you.”

It’s a strange sort of apology. “You’re not sorry you read it?”

He shrugs. “You left it behind and I found it,” he says. “I didn’t know what it was,” he continues, “so I … read it.”

“So you read it?” I repeat again. My conversation is not exactly sparkling, but I’m finding it hard to think straight. I realize now that my crossness has been replaced by something else. I so desperately want him to say he liked it.

He nods, and holds his thumb and finger apart. “I only read a little. Not all of it.”

“Right,” I say, trying to ignore the pang of disappointment that I feel. “Right.”

“And I stopped reading as soon as I realized what it was,” Robert continues. “I’m not one to pry in other people’s private affairs.”

“Oh,” I say, and my voice sounds a little hollow. “Well, good.” I run my fingers over the blue notebook.

“Mmm.” He sips at his coffee indifferently. “Although if I’m being completely honest, I should say that I stopped reading almost as soon as I realized what it was.”

“Almost?” My voice is dangerous. “What does that mean?”

“It means I thought it was interesting,” he says, lifting his newspaper and disappearing behind it. “So I might have kept reading for a page or two.” He knows that I want to talk to him about it, the beast. He’s going to make me ask him what he thought of it, but I won’t, I won’t. I screw my hands up into two trembling fists.

“Do you know?” I say after a moment, and I’m surprised to find that my breathing is uneven. “I would very much like to screw your stupid newspaper into a ball right now.”

“I’m sure you would,” he says politely.

I sit blinking at the plate of food in front of me. I lift my cup of tea to my lips and realize that it is empty, so I place it carefully back on to the saucer. I take a deep breath. I can’t help myself. “You thought it was interesting?” I ask finally, and my voice sounds thin and reedy.

He lowers the newspaper. “Actually, I could hardly stand to put it down,” he says. “But I did.” He picks up the paper again, and his voice drifts pointedly from behind it. “Because it was the polite thing to do.”

I sit stunned for a moment. He couldn’t put it down. Those simple words are a gift. Something in his matter-of-factness is more convincing than any string of superlatives would be. Aside from Alice, no one has read any of Lady Amelia’s Revenge, or any of my writing really. Sharing it feels like sharing a part of myself – an impossibly tender, fragile part of myself that might not recover if it was broken. And I can’t quite believe that the person I am sharing it with is Robert Cardew.

I’m glad the newspaper is between us so that I can’t see his face. I know my own expression probably gives away my every emotion. Tentatively, I place my hand on the blue notebook and push it towards him.

“Perhaps you should keep reading, then,” I say, trying to keep my voice offhand even as the blood is pounding in my ears. “If you really want to.”

The notebook sits for a second on the table between us. It feels as though I have offered up my throat to a man with a knife. Robert slowly reaches across and his fingers close around the book. He tucks it carefully into his jacket. “Thank you,” he says. “I’d like that. Is there any more?”

“There will be,” I say. “Perhaps.”

I release the breath that I was holding and help myself to another pastry. They are buttery and flaky and delicate … almost as good as something that Midge would make. It must be because I am distracted, my mind still trying to absorb the idea that he liked my writing, that I inform Robert of the fact.

“And who is Midge?” he asks.

I swallow another mouthful. “Midge is my mother,” I say, and then, to fill the quiet that follows this pronouncement, I find myself telling him a story about the time Gerald the car broke down and had to be towed back to the farm by Mr Cobbett’s big shire horse while Freya sat in the back wearing a hastily assembled newspaper crown and waving at people like the queen. When we finally got home we had accidentally amassed a bit of a parade behind us. Midge shrugged, flung open the kitchen doors and threw one of the best parties Penlyn had ever seen.

The story makes me laugh, and I look up to see that Robert is smiling. A real, proper smile. My teacup clatters in its saucer. It’s extraordinary what a difference that smile makes to his face. He looks so young and lit up. I find that some of my earlier crossness has melted away and, in fact, I’m feeling quite in charity with him.

“What’s the matter?” Robert asks.

“Oh … nothing,” I say nonchalantly. “I’m just not sure I’ve seen you smile properly before. You should do it more often, it suits you.”