‘Well, you’re clearly good at your job, and you said yourself you love it. So why the sabbatical?’
‘Oh, well, you know.’ She shrugged and nibbled on her lip in that way that he was discovering meant that she was nervous. Excellent. When he’d thought that something didn’t add up he’d been right.
‘I needed some time out. Stress. Boredom. That sort of thing.’
Matt didn’t believe that for a second. Her whole demeanour had changed and if pushed he’d have said she looked downright shifty. ‘You don’t seem the type to suffer from stress or boredom.’
‘Then I guess it’s working.’
Hmm. Never mind. He’d get to the bottom of her sabbatical soon enough. ‘How long have you lived in Little Somerford?’
She visibly relaxed. ‘A couple of months.’
‘And before that?’
‘London. Born and bred.’
‘Do you miss it?’
‘Bits.’
‘Which bits?’
‘The theatres. My friends.’
Matt tilted his head. ‘You must be what … late twenties?’
‘Early thirties,’ she said cagily, her eyes narrowing.
‘And you move from the bright lights of London and a good job to hole up in a remote village in the country. Why?’
Laura studied her feet. ‘I fancied a change of scenery.’
‘During your sabbatical?’ he said dryly.
‘Exactly.’
‘Aren’t you quite young to take a sabbatical?’
Her head shot up and her eyes flashed. ‘What’s with this obsession with my sabbatical?’
Matt lifted his shoulders and gave her a smile. ‘I’m just interested.’
Laura frowned. ‘You should meet my friend Kate.’
‘Why?’
‘You both have persistence in spades,’ she said darkly. ‘You’d get on like a house on fire.’
Matt grinned. ‘Persistence is useful in my line of work.’
‘I’d call it nosiness.’
‘That’s useful, too. Bit risky, though, I’d have thought, to take a sabbatical at such a relatively early stage in your career.’
Laura let out an exasperated sigh and then threw her hands up. ‘Fine,’ she said, glaring at him. ‘I didn’t exactly choose to take a sabbatical. I was made redundant.’
‘Ah,’ Matt said, his mouth curving into a triumphant smile.
‘There were cutbacks in government spending. Projects were axed. Heads rolled. Mine was one of them.’
‘Ouch.’ Whoever had employed her had been idiots for letting her go. But their loss, his gain. Or rather Sassania’s gain, he amended swiftly.
She stared at him for a second, then blinked. ‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘But actually, not as ouch now as it was at the time.’ She gave him a quick smile. ‘In fact with the benefit of hindsight I ought to have sent them a big bunch of flowers to say thank you.’
‘Why?’ Matt wished she wouldn’t do that blinking thing. It made him lose his train of thought. The colour of her eyes was so deep, so intense that when the blue disappeared he thought it a shame, yet when it reappeared his head swam and he wished she’d kept her eyes shut.
‘If I hadn’t been made redundant, I wouldn’t have been free to take on this.’ She waved an arm in the direction of the palace. ‘I have ex-colleagues who would give their eye teeth to be here.’
Matt dragged his attention back to the conversation and hmmed. He doubted any of them would have her dedication or enthusiasm. ‘That explains the “sabbatical”,’ he said, ‘but why leave London?’
The wince was tiny but he caught it and something stabbed him in the chest. ‘London gets a trifle dull after a while, don’t you find?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ She frowned. And then shrugged. ‘Well, each to their own.’
Barriers were springing up all around her telling him to back off. But as she’d pointed out, he was persistent.
‘I don’t buy it,’ he said, deceptively mildly.
‘Tough.’
Matt leaned forwards. ‘Tell me.’
‘No.’
But she was wavering.
‘Maybe I can help.’
‘You already did,’ she said, and then went bright red.
‘How?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘If it involves me it does matter.’
‘Let’s just say I met you at a time when my self-esteem wasn’t exactly sky-high.’
‘And I boosted it?’
‘Something like that,’ she muttered.
‘You used me.’ Matt sat back and wondered whether he was hurt or amused.
Her gaze flew to his. ‘No. Of course not.’
Oh, she was terrible at lying. He didn’t say anything, just lifted an eyebrow and stared at her until her cheeks went even redder.
‘Well, maybe just a little bit.’ She screwed up her eyes as if not wanting to see his reaction.
She needn’t have worried. He had no complaints. ‘Charming,’ he said mildly, folding his arms over his chest and grinning. ‘I’m devastated.’
Her eyes flew open in shock and then she relaxed and returned his grin. ‘I can tell.’
‘Nevertheless, I think you owe me an explanation.’
‘I don’t see why. Can you honestly say you didn’t use me?’
‘This isn’t about me.’
Laura nodded and took a deep breath. ‘OK, fine. The day I was made redundant I got home early to find my boyfriend at the time with his secretary. In our bed.’
‘Ah.’
‘I know. Tacky, or what? They’d been having an affair for three months, would you believe, and I hadn’t a clue. I’d rented my flat out when I moved in with him and, what with three being a bit of a crowd, I couldn’t exactly stick around. So I trawled through the websites of a number of rental agencies and found the cottage in Little Somerford and I left.’
‘What a jerk.’ The hammering urge to hunt her ex-boyfriend down and pummel the living daylights out of him thumped Matt in the chest, taking him completely by surprise.
She blinked. ‘Well, yes. But I guess he wasn’t wholly to blame.’
‘Seems to me that that kind of behaviour is inexcusable,’ he muttered, wondering exactly where such a violent reaction had come from.
She bit her lip. ‘True, but I was too easygoing, too easy to please. Too afraid of confrontation. I let him get away with too much. I let him walk all over me.’ She shrugged.
Easy-going? Afraid of confrontation? Matt nearly fell off his chair. That didn’t sound like the Laura he knew. Since the moment he’d met her she’d been feisty,