Bet Your Life (6 page)

“I’ll try to find somewhere legal to leave Miss Lemon. If I can’t, I’ll come back in five.”

“We’ll meet you outside.”

I dodged through the crowds outside the station, looking around in case Ella had come out to find us, but there was no sign of her. It was a small station. It couldn’t be that hard to track her down. In fact, the hard part was not falling on my face on the way. As soon as I got inside the station itself, I tripped over a suitcase and then bounced off a man wearing a giant backpack; I don’t think he was even aware of it. At last I spotted Ella standing in a corner near the ticket barrier. She was looking very London, with skinny jeans, a little curvy blazer, and high-heeled boots. I suddenly felt like a total scruff in comparison. I was back in my old green parka since my coat was on the critical list, my boots were muddy, my jeans had a rip in the knee, and she’d never seen me with short hair. I’d basically gone native, and for a moment I wondered if she would mind.

Then again, Ella was one of my oldest friends.

“Hello, stranger.”

“Jess!” She threw her arms around me. “Oh. My. God. I can’t believe it! Look at your
hair
!”

“Thank for coming.” I hugged her, breathing in Chanel Mademoiselle. “I warned you.”

“It really suits you.” She leaned back so she could look. “I mean, it’s a huge change and your hair was amazing when it was long, but I think it’s good to have a new look now and then. Experiment. And you’d never have had the nerve to do it without good reason, so it was really
lucky
.”

It was friend logic—not what most people think of as logic, but very comforting all the same. I pulled at the ends of my hair, trying to make it longer.

“I’m getting used to it. It takes much less time to wash.”

“You see? Practical benefits too.” She grinned at me and I hugged her again.

“I’ve missed you.”

“You mean you haven’t replaced me? Or Lauren?”

“How would that even be possible? How is Lauren, anyway?”

“She’s fine. She’s definitely coming down with me next time. She’s dying to see you. And Port Sentinel.” Ella was looking around like a visitor to a safari park. “This is … different.”

“Different is the word.” I looked at her doubtfully. “I hope you’ll like it.”

“Jess, I’m going to have a blast.” She linked arms with me. “Now, where are all these hot men you keep promising me?”

“Not here just at this moment.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Ella purred, looking past me. “Who’s that guy? The one who’s staring at us?”

I turned to see and laughed. “That’s just Hugo. He must have managed to get a parking space.”

“That’s your cousin.”

“Yeah.”

Ella was blushing. She leaned closer to me so she could whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me he was really cute?”

I stared at him. He was now leaning against the wall, arms folded, glowering at a woman who was trying to get past him with a giant wheelie suitcase. If I was being kind, he was lean. Truthfully, he was lanky. Straight dark eyebrows. Untidy dark hair. The mocking smile when he wasn’t being hostile. “Cute?”

“Yeah. Totally.”

“Fortunately for me, because he
is
my cousin, I don’t see it.” I pulled her toward him. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”

I’d been missing Ella ever since I left London and I’d been looking forward to her visit for weeks, but it took about two minutes for me to feel as if I was surplus to requirements. She was totally smitten with Hugo, at first sight, and I didn’t know if he’d noticed or not but he was being
very
nice. I wouldn’t have expected him to carry her bag to the car, for instance, or hold the door open for her. Or insist on taking us for a tour of Port Sentinel before we returned to the house.

I sat in the back and Ella turned round in her seat to talk to me now and then, but mostly she concentrated on what Hugo was saying about the sights. After twenty minutes or so, I became restive.

“Is there much more of this, Hugo?”

“Every visitor to Port Sentinel needs to see the view from Wrecker’s Point.”

“I’ve never seen the view from Wrecker’s Point, and I’ve been living here for months.”

“Then you’ve been missing out.”

So we took in the view from Wrecker’s Point, a cliff just outside town where the rocks stuck out in a long jagged line that had snagged countless ships in its time. Nowadays there was a buoy marking the safe channel beyond it, and an official tourist trail on the cliffs, with information boards and benches and an ice-cream van. It was busy there too, the bright sunshine making everyone feel as if summer wasn’t totally done and dusted. It wasn’t all that warm, in fact, but we got ice creams anyway, because it was Ella’s holiday and that was what you did on holiday. We walked along the cliff path, reading about stormy nights and drowning sailors. There was nothing like a bit of tragedy to add to your innocent touristy enjoyment. No one else seemed to find it incongruous, even Hugo, who was usually ready to mock any kind of hypocrisy. He was strolling along beside Ella, not even complaining about the children rushing up and down the path or the elderly walkers who were causing major delays in front of us.

I walked a few paces behind them, glad to be left to my own thoughts. I absolutely knew for certain that it was not the sort of place you would ever find Will, but I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder to see if he was around. Every dark head made me catch my breath.
Ridiculous
.

A voice right behind me made me jump. “Ex-
cuse
me.”

When I turned, I saw Ruth Pritchard, one of the cleverest girls in my class. She was small, with long dark curly hair and hostile eyes. She had very white teeth and reminded me of a ferret. On a good day she was unpleasant. Today looked like a bad day. Her face was pale, her eyes puffy and red. She was looking at the ground, not at me.

“Sorry, Ruth,” I said, moving to one side to let her pass. It was as if I hadn’t spoken. She steamed past me, right up behind Ella and Hugo, where she repeated her line. Ella jumped a mile. Hugo gave her a sardonic look and stepped aside with a flourish. Again, Ruth ignored it and carried on. Her head was down. She was wearing black from head to toe, her legs spindly in thick tights. In the sunshine she looked strangely out of place, like a black beetle forced out into daylight against its will. Ella looked back to where I was standing watching, and rolled her eyes. I grinned, but didn’t close the gap between us. I was fairly sure she and Hugo didn’t mind.

We walked all the way to the end of the trail, where Ruth was sitting on a bench, staring out to sea. Her shoulders were hunched as if she was trying to hide. I felt no urge to ask her if she was all right, shamefully. She just wasn’t that nice. When I’d started at school, the only thing that had concerned her about me was whether I was clever. I did all right academically, but she was far better than me. She had been very glad that I wasn’t a threat to her position at the top of the class.

At Ella’s request, we stopped to take some pictures. Hugo managed to look away or pull a strange face in every one she took of him, and I couldn’t work out if it was deliberate or not. Knowing him, he was trying to avoid being featured on Ella’s Facebook page. And knowing her, that was exactly what she had in mind for the pictures.

“My face is beginning to ache,” I said as Ella angled her phone to try to get all three of us in the same shot.

“Stop complaining.”

“Is it going to be like this all week? Only I’m going to need to start training.”

“Hugo, why are you squinting?” Ella wailed.

“That’s just my face. Look, I’m not going to ruin any more of your pictures.” He sounded genuinely bored now. “I’ll see you two back at the car. Don’t hurry. Try to get a shot of Jess looking human, if you can.”

“Jess was not the problem,” I said, watching him walk away. “Jess is not even the point of these pictures.”

He was too far away to hear, but Ella shushed me anyway.

“I just want a record of what happens this week, so I can remember every bit. Also, I promised Lauren.”

“Fine,” I said, resigned. “But I wouldn’t focus too much on Hugo. I don’t think he’s going to be your best souvenir.”

Ella put down her phone. “He doesn’t like me?”

“Oh no, I’m sure he does. But he’s tricky.”

“Tricky.”

“Hard to read.”

“I don’t mind that.”

“He’s a cynic. And an intellectual snob.”

“My type.”

“Your last boyfriend couldn’t read.”

“He could,” Ella said calmly. “He just chose not to.”

“Seriously, there are lots of really attractive boys around Port Sentinel. I don’t want you to think Hugo is the best that’s on offer.”

Ella busied herself with putting her phone away. “You make it sound like I’m here to cruise for boys. I came to see you.”

“I know.”

“I’ve missed you. And you are crap at e-mails.”

“I wrote to you a lot,” I said, wounded.

“Yeah, but about your job and redecorating your room. Not about the important stuff. Not about family. Or that guy.”

“That guy.”

“The one you were seeing in the summer.”

I felt the tension radiate through my jaw as I clenched my teeth. I made myself relax. “There was nothing to tell you. It ended.”

“And you shut down.” Ella pulled her sunglasses down from the top of her head. “Don’t think we didn’t notice.”

“I didn’t want to talk about it,” I admitted.
I
don’t
want to talk about it
. “Look, I had a bad breakup.
Another
bad break-up. Hey, at least he didn’t cheat on me.”

“You see, I didn’t know that. You haven’t told us what happened.”

“Another time.”

“Jess!”

“It would take too long to go through it now.” The wind had picked up and my eyes were watering. Because of the wind that was blowing in my eyes. No other reason. “We should get back to Hugo.”

“He’s a big boy. He’ll survive.”

“He might be missing you.”

“Oh, ha ha.” She put her bag on her shoulder. “Now I can cross Wrecker’s Point off my list of things to see.”

“What else is on there?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She grinned. “But Hugo has made me very keen indeed to meet the rest of your long-lost family.”

*   *   *

The Leonards as a family always reminded me of a flock of starlings. Before they could settle down to anything, they had to flit about exhausting themselves. Hugo disappeared as soon as we got back to Sandhayes. Petra and Tom were both out, Petra with Beth and Tom playing football. I helped Ella to unpack and showed her the sights of the house and garden, which took most of the rest of the day as it was really an excuse for a good old gossip about everyone I’d left behind in London. It wasn’t until evening—and the rain—came and dinner was ready that all three of my cousins came in to roost, arriving in the kitchen as Tilly and Jack put the last dishes on the table. Mum slipped in after them, pale and tired from her day in the gallery.

“Ella, how lovely to see you.”

“Hi, Mrs. Tennant.” Ella waved shyly from her place at the end of the table, beside me. She had a single sister, so the sheer level of noise generated by Hugo, Petra, and Tom bickering with their parents was enough to make her mute. It had taken me ages to get used to it.

“Did you have a nice time today?”

Ella nodded. “We went to Wrecker’s Point.”

“Oh, lovely. I took some pictures there a while ago. It’s very dramatic when the wind is from the west.”

“Not much wind today,” I said. “Just sunny. But cold.”

“Wimp.” Hugo helped himself to water. “It was fine.”

“Were you there too?” Mum asked, her eyes round with surprise. “I wouldn’t have thought—”

Ella was blushing and Hugo had a scowl on his face. The one thing that was sure to put him off was attention from his family.

“It was so busy,” I said loudly, drowning out Mum’s soft voice. “So many tourists in town. You don’t count, Ella, obviously.”

“Spoken like a true local,” Tilly said with a grin. “Were you busy today, Molly?”

“Ye-es. I mean, we had lots of visitors.” Mum looked worried, which was her usual expression when it came to the gallery. “I didn’t sell anything. Nick sold a pair of pictures to a nice German couple. The little landscapes.”

Tilly nodded. “I saw them last week. Very commercial.”

“They weren’t very expensive.” Mum chewed her lip. “I can’t imagine that Nick’s breaking even at the moment. And I don’t really know why he employed me.”

I did. It was as a favor to evil Dan Henderson, who was more than keen to keep my mother in Port Sentinel. If Mum didn’t know that, I wasn’t going to tell her. I wanted to stay too. But I would have given a lot to know what Dan had on Nick that made him give Mum a job that was barely worthy of the name. Especially when she was so
bad
at it.

Mum was still talking. “There isn’t enough work for the two of us—we keep tripping over each other. I’m useless at selling. I really think I should quit.”

With the exception of Ella, I think every single person around the table said, “No!” at the same time.

“You can’t quit,” I said. “We need some money to live on.”

“You’d never get another job here at this time of year. We’re coming into the off-season. No one is hiring.” Jack, the voice of reason. He was a builder and the offseason was his busy time, as all the hotels and guesthouses rushed to get work done while the tourists were elsewhere. Port Sentinel would be battening down the hatches for winter all too soon.

“You’re still learning the ropes. Nick is a good businessman,” Tilly said. “If he didn’t need you, he wouldn’t employ you.”

“Don’t go back to London, please,” Petra said, her eyes already brimming. “If you leave the gallery, you’ll leave here too. I know it.”

“And you have your photography to think about.” Hugo looked around the table, where everyone had fallen silent from sheer surprise. “I don’t know why you’re all staring at me. I care about Aunt Molly’s career. She’s good. She should get to pursue it.”

Spoken like a true Leonard. If he’d thought she wasn’t any good, he’d have said that too.