Kiss in the Dark (4 page)

“Jase?”

I open the box, and gasp. Inside is a pendant on a fine silver chain. It’s a silver circle, with a blue stone fixed in a silver setting to the top of the circle, the whole thing about an inch and a half in diameter. The stone is an aquamarine, the same color as my eyes. I pick up the pendant by the chain and it dangles in the air, the stone catching the light and glittering brightly, the color of the Mediterranean Sea a little out from the coast, before it darkens to the depths of the ocean: a bright, clear, beautiful blue.

I can’t speak. I just stare at it for what feels like hours. And then I lift my head to look at Jase, my whole heart in my eyes.

“It was my mum’s,” he says gruffly. “She never took it with her when she left. I dunno why. I found it in her room. I thought for ages she’d come back for it, but she never did.”

Jase’s mum walked out on him and his dad when he was young. It’s pretty sad. She doesn’t even live that far away, just a few villages over, but he barely ever sees her.

“My gran threw out all Mum’s things after a while, but I kept a couple of ’em, just to remind me of her,” Jase says. “Hid ’em in my room, because Gran would’ve chucked ’em out if she’d found ’em. I was going through it all the other day, and this really made me think of you.”

I know now why he’s frowning: it’s hard for him to talk about his mum at the best of times. And this is even harder, because it’s giving up a dream he had: that she’d come back to see the son she left behind.

“I hope you don’t mind that it’s sort of secondhand,” he says, looking at me intently, trying to read my reaction. “But it’s so perfect for you—your eyes, it’s just the same color.”

“Aquamarine,” I say, smiling at him, trying very hard not to cry at the same time. “It’s an aquamarine.”

“Do you like it?” His bright eyes are worried now. “I was going to give it to you for Christmas, but we hadn’t been … I mean, we weren’t, you know …” He clears his throat again.

I know exactly what he means. I agonized for ages about whether I should give him a Christmas present too, but I wasn’t sure what our status was, and I was terrified of putting him off by making him think I was too keen. Also, what I really wanted to give him was a pair of Ducati motorcycle gloves I’d seen in a Sunday magazine, which I knew he would love, but they cost a fortune. Not a problem for me with my trust fund, but it might have been overwhelming for Jase, reminding him of the huge differential between his spending power and mine.

We just exchanged cards in the end, and then Jase went off on Boxing Day, straight after Christmas, on a fortnight-long skiing trip he’d had planned with friends for months, so I had plenty of time on my own to mope around, bored and restless, with Taylor off in the U.S. on holiday with her family. I was nervous that Jase might meet someone else skiing in France, some gorgeous French girl with the sexy bedroom eyes and unwashed hair all French girls seemed to have in films, but he rang me as soon as he got back. For the past three weeks we’ve been seeing more and more of each other.

“And then I was going to wait for Valentine’s Day, but I just couldn’t hold out any longer,” he confesses, blushing a little. “Every time I saw you, I wanted to give it to you. Oh, no, Scarlett, don’t cry. Jesus.”

“Who’s the cappuccino for, then?” the waitress says brightly, setting the tray down on the table. “Oh, what a pretty necklace! Aren’t you a lucky girl?”

I nod violently, completely incapable of speech.

“The cappuccino’s for her.” Jase looks absolutely panic-stricken at the prospect of my breaking into tears and blubbing all over the waitress. I manage a sort of laugh, because his expression’s so funny, but it comes out as a gulp, and the waitress smiles understandingly as she puts the cappuccino down in front of me.

“So the caffe latte must be for your boyfriend,” she says, sliding it over to him. “There you go, dear. And two slices of chocolate cake.”

The chocolate cake looks amazing. Three layers, each sandwiched with thick, rich chocolate icing, and a generous dollop of whipped cream on top.

“I love it,” I finally manage to say to Jase, looking back down as the waitress retreats.

“It does look really good,” he agrees.

“No!” I’m grinning now. “The necklace, you idiot, not the cake!”

He’s grinning back, his golden eyes shining.

“Hey, if you’re going to call me an idiot, I’ll have to take that back.”

He makes a playful grab for the box, but I whisk it out of his reach.

“No way. It wouldn’t look as good on you,” I point out.

He looks wistful.

“Aren’t you going to put it on?” he asks.

“Cake first,” I say, suddenly craving sugar and coffee and chocolate to distract me from the rush of powerful emotions surging through me.

Also, I know that if I put on the necklace and look at myself I really will burst into tears, and there’s no way Jase or I want that to happen in the middle of Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe. I think he gets what I’m trying to communicate, because he nods and reaches for his coffee cup.

The cake is absolutely delicious, even better than it looks, and the sugar hits the spot so successfully that I forget to be ladylike and not stuff my face in front of a boy. Instead, I shovel it in like a steam train driver heaving coal into the engine, so fast and furiously that I don’t immediately notice that Jase isn’t eating. It’s only when I look up, my mouth unattractively full, that I realize he’s frozen with his fork halfway on its way to the plate.

“Whaa?” I say, my mouth glued up with the icing.

He nods sharply to my right shoulder. Still chewing, I swivel around.

My aunt Gwen’s standing there, just behind the side of the booth.

And she’s glaring so hard at both of us it looks as if her eyes are going to pop out of their sockets.

CUTTING OUR LOSSES

Aunt Gwen is not an attractive woman. I often speculate that one of the reasons my grandmother doesn’t treat her as well as she might is that unlike me, Aunt Gwen doesn’t have the classic Wakefield looks. She’s sandy in coloring, with pale to nonexistent eyebrows and lashes, and sparse, frizzy ginger hair. Her skin is blotchy and red—her bathroom’s full of lotions and homeopathic remedies, none of which seems to make the slightest difference—and though her eyes are blue, they’re not the bright Wakefield aquamarine, but so watery and washed-out they’re almost colorless.

But the worst part of Aunt Gwen’s appearance, unfortunately, is the way her eyes bulge out like gobstoppers. She has a medical condition that makes her eyeballs protrude from their sockets; the younger girls at school call her Miss Froggy. And whenever she gets cross, her eyes bug out even farther. When I was little, one of my recurring nightmares was that Aunt Gwen would get so angry with me that her eyeballs would actually pop out from their sockets and drop, squashily, onto the floor.

Right now, they’re bulging out so far that I immediately revert to my childhood state and stare at them in terror, willing them to stay where they are.

“Scarlett!” she says furiously. “What are you doing?”

I swallow my cake and take a deep breath, letting it go down so I don’t choke, taking the time to swiftly review the school rules in my mind: no, I honestly can’t think of a single one I’m breaking by being out on a Sunday afternoon in a tea shop with Jase. So why on earth is she acting like this?

“I’m having a coffee,” I say eventually, feeling my brow furrow in puzzlement at her attitude. “With a friend, on Sunday, when I’m allowed to leave school from ten to seven. That’s the rule, isn’t it?”

Jase, hearing my voice sharpening, gives me a kick under the table to tell me to cool it.

“And who is this friend?” she demands, staring at Jase. Though I’m sure she knows the answer already.

“This is Jase Barnes, Aunt Gwen,” I say, unable to keep the impatience out of my voice. “You must’ve seen him around the grounds tons of times. He’s Mr. Barnes’s son, he does a lot of the gardening and—”

“And who gave you permission to come out with him?” she interrupts.

I don’t know what’s going on, but this is way over the line.

“I don’t need permission,” I snap, and this time when Jase kicks me, I kick him right back. “Believe me, I know what the rules are for sixth-formers, okay? I can go out with my friends on weekday afternoons and on Sundays, and I only need to check with a member of staff if I’m going beyond Wakefield or the surrounding villages.”

Of course, this rule was actually made to avoid sixth-formers’ having to clear it with their form teacher every time they’re taken out to lunch by their families. But what Jase and I are doing is totally covered by the letter of the law, if maybe not the spirit.

I can see Aunt Gwen knows I’m right by the frustrated expression on her face. She looks past me now, at Jase. She’s like a monster in a horror film turning, slowly, to survey its prey, her buggy, washed-out eyes swelling as if they’re going to completely take over her face.

“Does your father know you’re out with Scarlett, young man?” she says nastily.

Jase’s eyes widen at the question, and though he opens his mouth to speak, no words emerge.

“I knew it!” Aunt Gwen says triumphantly. “I knew your father wouldn’t approve of this!”

“Excuse me, Aunt Gwen,” I break in frantically, seeing Jase cowering nervously under her attack, “but this is so not your business! I’m allowed to be out, and Jase is eighteen, which means he’s an adult and doesn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to do anything. You’re making an awful scene about nothing at all.”

I fix Jase with a stare, silently imploring him to be strong, not to back down just because Aunt Gwen is a Wakefield. It’s horribly clear to me that if we don’t stand our ground now, we’ll be in real trouble trying to see each other in the future.

“We’re in a coffee shop, for goodness’ sake,” I continue, getting crosser and crosser by the second. “We’re eating cake. I mean, if you’d caught us getting drunk and messing around behind Wakefield village cricket pavilion …”

Jase stares at me in surprise. How sheltered does he think I am? I mean, everyone knows where the wilder kids in the village hang out!

“… then yeah, you could have a go at us. But this?” I gesture around Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe, with its ornamental brasses hung on the walls, its gingham curtains and white lace doilies on the cake stands. “I’d have thought you’d be thankful this is where I come with my boyfriend,” I finish.

It must be the use of the word boyfriend that sends her into overdrive. The next thing I know, her hand is gripping my arm, tight as a vise, digging into my skin so sharply that I find myself rising in my seat to ease the pain of her fingers.

“Ow!” I yell.

“You’re coming back to school with me right now,” Aunt Gwen hisses, a bubble of saliva collecting in the side of her mouth.

“I will not! I don’t have to be back till seven.”

Aunt Gwen might have a surprisingly powerful grip for a geography and math teacher, but if there’s one thing gymnastics gives you, it’s strong hands—all that landing on them and swinging off bars. I grab her wrist with my other hand and wrench it off my arm so violently that she staggers back. Sometimes, I actually don’t know my own strength.

“Scarlett,” Jase says quickly as I start to sit down in the booth again. “Go back with her. It’s not worth it.”

My heart thuds. He’s giving in. “You don’t mean that. I’m allowed to be out with you.”

Aunt Gwen, slinging the strap of her handbag over her shoulder, approaches us again, a martial light in her horrible eyes.

“Seriously. She won’t leave us in peace now anyway. We might as well cut our losses,” he says resignedly.

Our hands meet across the table, mine clinging to his.

“This is mad,” I say miserably.

“I know.” He squeezes my hand tight. “I’ll find a way to see you later, okay?” he says in a low voice. “But now …”

He jerks his head again at Aunt Gwen. I rise reluctantly, sliding out of the booth, and take the box containing the pendant, which I slip into my jeans pocket.

“Don’t you dare touch me again,” I say to her between gritted teeth.

I stalk out of the coffee shop, pulling on my jacket. The waitress who brought our coffee and cake holds the door open for me, tutting, a sympathetic light in her eyes.

“Shame,” I hear her say to another waitress as the door swings shut. “Such a nice young couple. Weren’t doing any harm, were they?”

“You are to stay away from Jase Barnes from now on,” Aunt Gwen commands as she unlocks the car. “Do you hear me?”

“Oh, I heard you,” I say, dangerously angry. “What I’m not hearing is why.”

“A Barnes and a Wakefield?” She gets in and starts the engine. “Completely socially unacceptable. What on earth do you think Mother would say?”

“I don’t know,” I reply as the car squeals away from the curb. Aunt Gwen is so worked up that she hasn’t even looked in the mirrors before pulling out into the street. She’s lucky this is a Sunday, with very little traffic on the roads. “Why don’t we ask her?”

“What?” Aunt Gwen snaps.

“Why don’t we ask Grandma? She’ll be in her rooms. We could go and find her as soon as we get back to school.”

It’s a risk, I know. What if my grandmother agrees with Aunt Gwen? If she officially bans me from seeing Jase, he and I are really in trouble. It’s she who pays his dad’s salary and owns his dad’s tied cottage. We couldn’t ignore an edict from my grandmother.

But somehow, I don’t think she’s the kind of snob who’d make the same objection Aunt Gwen had just raised.

“We are not going to tell Mother a word about this,” Aunt Gwen snips. “We are never going to mention the subject again. You have things easy at the moment, Scarlett. I let you live your own life and go your own way. I don’t make you do much of anything around the house, or set curfews on you, or police your movements.”

She drags at the wheel so hard on a turn that the car slews over too far and almost hits the curb.

“But if you disobey me,” she continues, “everything will change. Mother, for whatever reason of her own, decided you were going to live with me, and that means I have control over you. Believe me, you don’t want me to start exercising that control. I could make your life utterly and completely miserable if I wanted to.”

Aunt Gwen has a scary reputation at Wakefield Hall. Taylor, who has her for geography, reports back regularly about Aunt Gwen’s tirades; she’s reduced more than a few girls to tears in class. The thought of how bad she could make things for me, if she chooses to, chills my blood. I still want to stand up to her, tell her that she can’t decide who I go out with, and that her objection to Jase is nothing more than pathetic, old-fashioned snobbery.

But what would that achieve, Scarlett? says a small voice inside my head. You’d just start a war with her, and she’s got all the power. You have to live with her till you finish school. That’s a whole year and a half.

Tell her what she wants to hear. Buy yourself some time to think this over.

“Okay, Aunt Gwen,” I say sullenly.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I’ll stay away from Jase,” I mumble.

“You’d better, young lady,” she says malevolently. “If you know what’s good for you.”

Ugh. Aunt Gwen is not exactly the gracious winner our games teachers are always lecturing us to be.

We’re passing through the high iron gates of Wakefield Hall now. Aunt Gwen veers immediately to the right, bringing the car to a halt in front of the gatehouse.

I jump out almost before the car stops.

“I’m going to the library,” I say, slamming the car door shut behind me.

“Remember what I’ve told you,” she calls after me. “There’ll be no sneaking off to see that boy as soon as my back is turned. You live in my house, you obey my rules.”

I bite my tongue so hard the tip swells up like a sponge.

The better part of valor is discretion, I tell myself. We’re doing Henry IV, Parts One and Two, for English A-Level, and our teacher has pointed this out as a really good quote to use in exam essays, because it isn’t actually the same as people think it is: everyone says “Discretion is the better part of valor” instead. It means exactly the same, of course, but getting it right wins you brownie points in an exam.

Besides, it’s a good quote. It means, more or less: Don’t pick a fight you’re probably not going to win.

Though of course, it’s said by Falstaff, who’s a big fat coward.

I hate running away from the fight with Aunt Gwen. It makes me feel like a big fat coward. I hate that she’s dragged me away from my lovely afternoon out with Jase. I hate her so much I can taste it in my mouth like bitter medicine.

Striding into the Hall and up the main staircase, I head toward my grandmother’s suite of rooms. I know I’ll find her in her sitting room at this time of day, sipping Lapsang souchong and eating the wafer-thin almond tuile she allows herself at teatime. I pound down the corridor, my hand tight around the little wooden box in the pocket of my jeans. It’s a physical reminder that Jase cares about me and wants us to be a couple as much as I do; it gives me strength and courage.

And I tell myself too that neither Aunt Gwen nor Mr. Barnes is exactly a model of perfect mental health or Zenlike balance. The two people objecting so strenuously to my and Jase’s being together are, frankly, out of all the adults I know, the ones I least respect; they’re angry, irrational, and they can’t control themselves like adults are supposed to. Plus, they both seem incapable of having successful long-term relationships. Aunt Gwen, in all the years I remember, has never had a boyfriend (or a girlfriend), and Mr. Barnes, according to Jase, hasn’t been with anyone since Jase’s mother left him when Jase was barely six years old.

So how on earth are they remotely qualified to judge me and Jase as a couple, especially since we’re doing absolutely nothing wrong?

I’m telling myself all this, bravely, as I stop in front of the door to my grandmother’s—Lady Wakefield’s—suite of rooms.

Sod discretion, I’m thinking angrily. This just isn’t fair. Aunt Gwen’s gone too far. If I let her lay down the law to me like this, what will she stop me doing next? I have to stop this now, before this goes any further.

And with this resolution, I raise my hand to knock on the door.

Only to have it swing open, away from me, and find myself staring straight at Mr. Barnes’s red, swollen nose and flowering gin-blossom cheeks.