Libby walked along Hampstead Lane then down from Highgate Village as she had done every week since she and Hugo had started their arrangement. But instead of waiting at the entrance to Highgate Woods, she crossed over Muswell Hill Road and entered the manicured grounds of Southwood Hall.
When Hugo had mentioned a flat, Libby had imagined something like one of the places she used to rent. Ramshackle rooms separated by thin partitions with a shared bathroom down the hall. Nothing like this imposing block built in the grounds of a former mansion, with lush green lawns, perfectly manicured hedges and little paths that invited one to take a stroll. Each brick looked as if it had been polished, the windows sparkled in the evening sun, brass fixtures gleaming.
In his letter, Hugo had told her that he’d be waiting in the lobby. It seemed that, like their first meeting, this too would start in a lobby. A place one passed through to get to somewhere else though Libby wasn’t sure if she were ready for what that somewhere else might be.
All she knew was that Hugo claimed to be in love with her. Probably he meant that he wanted her, but wanting someone, even wanting them quite desperately, wasn’t the same as love.
Want was still enough to make Libby giddy with nerves. Earlier, her voice had been quite shrill when she’d told Millicent and the enthralled old ladies that she was going to the opening night of a play; an old friend in the leading role. How else to explain why she was wearing the dark green crêpe that she’d been married in, primped and painted, hair freshly waved and her small suitcase packed and standing in the hall? ‘There’ll be a party afterwards so I thought it best to kip at my friend’s place in Marylebone. I don’t want to come home at some godforsaken hour and wake everyone up.’
It still wasn’t too late to turn tail and run. Surely Hugo had all the proof he needed for a divorce and though he said he was in love with her, Libby didn’t know how he, how anyone, could love a woman who was damaged goods.
But when she glanced towards the grand double doors of the flats, her nerves gave way to a fizzing, tingling anticipation of seeing Hugo again, his smile, the way his eyes lit up at the sight of her.
Then it was quite easy to put one foot in front of the other and walk up to the doors, which were pulled open before Libby had even tripped up the steps, and Hugo was standing there. Smiling, eyes lit up.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hello.’ She felt inexplicably shy. ‘Have you been waiting long?’
‘Not long. I saw you walking up and down as if you were having second thoughts. Are you nervous?’ he asked and Libby wondered whether he could hear her heart thundering against her breast. ‘I am. Terrified, in actual fact.’
Libby laughed as she let Hugo guide her inside. Her heels clicked across the parquet floor as the porter behind his little desk tipped his cap at her.
Hugo steered her to the lift and they travelled up to the third floor in silence. Then the lift stopped, the doors opened and Hugo took her hand.
‘There really is nothing to be nervous about,’ he said, as if he were reassuring himself too. They walked down a corridor, softly lit wall lights guiding their way to a door at the end.
Hugo fished for the key in his trouser pocket, then hesitated. It was Libby’s turn to squeeze his hand. ‘Shouldn’t there be a private detective lurking around the corner?’ she asked.
‘No, he’ll be outside,’ Hugo said, opening the door. ‘Supposedly, the poor soul will be standing guard all night to catch us sneaking out at daybreak.’
‘He can’t be a very good private detective,’ Libby said, as she stepped past Hugo, into the flat. ‘If I were him, I’d simply bribe the porter to report on our comings and goings. Oh! This is lovely.’
Though they were standing in a hall, she could see directly into a living room that was open and airy with high ceilings and a herringbone wood floor. Two white sofas were placed at right angles to the fireplace, a low glass table in between them.
Hugo smiled indulgently as he followed Libby who gasped at the kitchen with gas oven and grill, and fitted cupboards. The sparkling bathroom, which had hot and cold running water and a shower, which Libby couldn’t resist turning on, though she wished she hadn’t when she was pelted by a violent jet of water.
There was a bedroom too, obviously. Glimpsed through the open door was a huge bed, dressed in an oyster satin comforter and heaped with pillows, more pillows than two people could ever need. Libby averted her eyes and let Hugo take her back to the living room.
It was then that she noticed the Fortnum & Mason hamper, the champagne in a silver bucket.
She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this is all too much. You rented this flat just for tonight?’
‘I took it on a short lease. Landlord’s wife kitted it out, has delusions of being the next Sybil Colefax, apparently,’ Hugo said, which made sense as Libby couldn’t imagine Hugo briefing a decorator on his preference for white sofas or oyster satin bedspreads. Not that Hugo wasn’t personable, charming even, and perfectly capable of getting what he wanted, but he seemed to exist in the bubble that they’d created for themselves. It was only ever the two of them, though it felt as if there was always a shadowy figure dogging their every move. Sometimes it was Hugo’s wife, occasionally it was Freddy, more often it was the huffing and puffing private detective.
‘Is he already outside, the detective, I mean? I didn’t see him as I came in.’ Libby would have darted to the window to peer out, but Hugo caught her hand. ‘What do we need to do?’
‘Let’s not worry about that for now,’ Hugo said. ‘Would you like some champagne?’
Libby said that she would, although she could have done with something stronger to take the edge off. The champagne made her feel as if the bubbles were fizzing under her skin and she kept pleating a fold of her dress over and over again.
Eventually, Hugo stilled her motions by covering her hands with his and they sat on the white sofa, side by side, but quite silent. He hadn’t even taken off his jacket and Libby wondered if he were one of those men who always wore waistcoat, tie, pocket watch, even on the weekends, even when he was messing about with his car engines.
‘We’ll have to kiss.’ Hugo swallowed hard as Libby turned to look at him. ‘At the window. With the light on. The detective, apparently his name is Connolly, has come prepared with binoculars and a camera.’
‘Really? Binoculars?’ Libby wanted to laugh because it was all so ridiculous.
She took another gulp of champagne and glanced over at Hugo. His eyes were darting wildly about the room, the skin around his tightly pursed mouth was white and a tic at his temple pounded away like a jackhammer.
‘Shall we just get it over and done with?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The kiss,’ Hugo said and he closed his eyes as if the thought of kissing Libby was causing him all manner of distress. ‘Shall we?’
He was on his feet and halfway to the window that overlooked the street. Libby couldn’t help but drag her heels a little. A girl liked a little wooing, after all. With a discontent, inward sigh, she cast a practised eye over the scene; the window where Hugo stood, his hands twisting, the harsh glare of the chandelier on the stark white walls.
‘What are you doing?’ Hugo asked impatiently as Libby turned off the overhead light so the lamps on the sideboard provided the room with a soft glow.
‘I’m creating a mood.’ It was as if Libby were back onstage, a director’s voice ordering her to play the seductress. There was a lazy swing to her hips as she walked towards Hugo, her voice a purr. ‘You should take off your jacket.’
Hugo stared at Libby as if she’d come to steal his soul. ‘I should what?’
‘You’re so buttoned up,’ she complained. ‘You don’t look the least bit like a man conducting a scandalous affair.’
Still he goggled at her. Libby supposed his errant wife was the only woman he’d ever been with. That she’d found comfort with another man wasn’t a great testament to Hugo’s skill at lovemaking.
Libby felt sorry for Hugo who’d obviously never known the thrill of making eyes at a stranger, of being held closer than was decent on a crowded dance floor, of kisses snatched in dark corners. All this time, he had been living a half-life. When Libby sidled up to him she could feel his hurried breaths stir her hair.
She put her hand on his chest, felt his heart racing against her palm. ‘It’s just a kiss,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing frightening about a kiss.’
Then she smoothed her hands up to his shoulder, slipped them under his jacket and tugged him free while he stood there mute, at her mercy. She began to unbutton his waistcoat and the detective, Connolly or whatever his name was, had to be getting one hell of a show, Libby thought as she freed the last button.
She took a half step back. ‘That’s better,’ she said with some satisfaction. ‘So, aren’t you going to kiss me then?’
Libby had meant to sound teasing, playful, not challenging, but Hugo twitched, his eyes flashed and then he seized hold of her, one arm clamped around her waist, the other hand tangling in her hair.
He kissed her.
It was a clumsy, artless kiss. As Libby had feared, Hugo didn’t have a clue what to do with a woman. Libby’s hands were trapped between their bodies, neck caught at an awkward angle as Hugo’s mouth ground against hers.
She said a silent prayer, then pushed Hugo away. He stood there, panting, a flush staining his cheeks.
‘Do you think that was enough?’ he asked in a ragged voice then jerked his head in the direction of the window. ‘Shall we have another bash at it?’
‘Have another bash at it?’ Libby echoed sorrowfully. ‘We’re talking about kissing, not hand to hand combat.’
Hugo stiffened instantly. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, not sounding the least bit contrite, but as if she’d wounded him, which was rich when Libby was sure she’d cricked something in her neck that would never right itself.
‘I’m quite happy to kiss you again,’ she said, which wasn’t strictly true. ‘But not like that. Like this…’
She took his hands in hers then reached up to press the mere hint of a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Hugo stiffened even further so it was like trying to seduce a plank of wood. ‘You could pretend I’m someone else, if it would help,’ she murmured. ‘Someone you’d much rather kiss.’
‘I did… I do want to kiss you,’ Hugo mumbled back, his face stained red. Libby had to turn her head to hide her smile. ‘I’m just… I’ve never… well, it all feels so horribly contrived, doesn’t it? Kissing with an audience.’
Libby had kissed in front of packed houses before. There was nothing to it. You simply stared into the eyes of whoever was playing your besotted swain and shut out the rest of the world, the mutterers, the coughers and that one person at every performance who loudly crunched their way through a bag of mint imperials.
Libby gazed deep into Hugo’s eyes, he had lovely eyes, blue as anything, framed by long lashes. He stared back at her and when she finally felt him relax, his hands stopped clutching convulsively at hers, she kissed him. Softly, sweetly, her lips parted. She tugged her hands free so she could caress the back of his neck, curl her fingers in his glossy black hair.
Eventually Hugo kissed her too, cradling Libby’s face in his hands as if she were a thing to be treasured. Gentle, reverent kisses this time. Perhaps a little too gentle, a little too reverent, so Libby opened her mouth and kissed him back in what Hugo would probably call the French manner.
Libby was sure Hugo had stopped worrying about the grubby man outside watching them through binoculars, then Libby stopped worrying too and simply delighted in the feel of being in a man’s arms again. Of kisses that made her quiver and how she wanted to coil herself about Hugo, because he wanted her terribly, she could feel it, and it had been so long since any man had wanted her.
She didn’t even protest when Hugo pulled her away from the window and backed her up against the wall so he could touch her, palm her breasts, her ribs, with a light, ticklish touch that startled a laugh from her.
It was a dance and Libby still remembered all the steps. They moved through the flat, unbuttoning, tugging, peeling away their layers as they went, until they were in the bedroom, on the bed, and Libby hadn’t planned this at all.
Neither had Hugo. Hadn’t been spinning a yarn as an excuse to lure Libby to an empty flat because he parted her legs with hands that shook slightly and stared down at her with an awestruck expression on his face.
‘Are you…? I never expected this. Never dreamt that you might… you would want to…’ Hugo stammered, his words falling over themselves in a way that Libby found terribly endearing. ‘You do want to, don’t you?’
‘I do. I absolutely do,’ Libby said and he settled himself between her thighs and then he was in her, but what she loved most was that he was on her, that heavenly weight of a man in her arms, hard where she was soft, desperate where she was a little removed and so incredibly grateful that Libby was allowing him this.
Afterwards, Hugo held her in his arms and petted her nervously as if she were a skittish kitten.
Much later still, she slipped on the negligee that had been part of her trousseau that she’d taken with her to Brighton and they drank the rest of the champagne, nibbled on cold chicken sandwiches and strawberries from the hamper and much later than that, Hugo took Libby back to bed and made love to her again.
Libby didn’t go back to Hampstead on Saturday morning, because Hugo begged her not to and they kissed again at the window still dressed in their nightclothes for the benefit of the detective and this time it was perfect.
Libby eventually left on Sunday evening, clinging to Hugo as they waited outside for a taxi, stealing one more kiss from him and she couldn’t have cared if every private detective in London was peering at them through binoculars.
As she was driven through the dusky London streets, Libby thought only of Hugo. How he’d become more assured, more adept, a little more arrogant, though she never minded that, as they learned each other’s bodies. The little things, the intimate clues of what it took to make each other gasp, plead for mercy. Libby thought of how she’d climbed on top of Hugo as he sat sprawled on the pristine white sofa and she’d ridden him like that while he mouthed her breasts, muttered invocations into her skin.
Then she thought of the very last time they’d made love, barely an hour before, when Hugo had taken her back to bed and done things that on Friday night he’d never have dreamed he was capable of doing. How she’d trembled and gasped and begged him to stop and to never stop and she’d come quite undone.
In that moment Libby had felt not transported, but frightened, vulnerable, as if she’d shown her hand far too soon. But then Hugo had stroked her skin, the long line of her spine, the curve of her behind, with sure, steady movements and said, ‘I’m not falling in love with you, Libby. I am in love with you. I should be worrying about what a damn mess this all is, but I can’t, because I’m so very glad about this. About being with you.’
All Libby was sure of was that even though she was sore from his lovemaking, her skin reddened and bruised, her lips stinging from his kisses, she still ached for Hugo’s touch. Still wanted more. She could have stayed in his arms for another night, for a week, a month and it still wouldn’t have been long enough.
Was that love? As the taxi sped her closer to Hampstead, the green trees and hedges of the heath a twilight blur outside the window, Libby decided that if it weren’t love then it was close enough.