Читать книгу New Beginnings at The Chatsfield - Фиона Харпер - Страница 7

Chapter Three

‘You don’t look as if you are having a very good time.’

I look up from my glass of Scotch to find a man sitting on the bar stool next to me. He is looking at me. Not in a sleazy way, but with guarded curiosity. I prepare to say that I’m fine, that I’m just a bit tired, but the words never leave my lips. I just haven’t got the energy to lie any more, and this man doesn’t know me. I don’t have to pretend that Gareth’s actions haven’t made me feel like a fragile piece of confetti trodden onto the bottom of somebody’s shoe.

He nods at the circus of movement and enjoyment on the dance floor and raises his eyebrows.

‘Probably because my life has gone down the toilet,’ I say matter-of-factly. ‘I don’t belong here, anyway. I crashed this wedding.’

His expression doesn’t change but I spot a glimmer of amusement in his eyes as I slam my tumbler back down on the bar and signal for the bartender to keep ‘em coming.

I look at my companion. He is older than I am but I can’t tell by how much. He has thick dark hair that might wave if it were allowed to grow longer, and there is a speckling of grey not only at the temples but in the cowlick on his forehead. He isn’t handsome. Not in the pretty, chiselled way Mel and Vikki like their men—his nose is too strong and his eyes too deep-set—but there is something about him. I’m surprised he’s bothered to stop and talk to me. There are much better pickings on the dance floor—including Mel and Vikki.

For a moment he doesn’t say anything, just absorbs my answer, then he also signals to the bartender, while pushing my empty tumbler away from me. ‘There’s only one thing for heartache,’ he says completely seriously.

I realise he has a slight accent. Mediterranean, maybe. Spanish?

He leans forward and gives instructions to the bartender, who places two large goblets in front of each of us and fills them with a dark, fragrant red wine. ‘Try it,’ he tells me and I hesitantly reach out and take hold of the glass, allow myself a tiny sip. It tastes amazing, of berries and plums and vanilla, and it feels like velvet on my tongue.

‘What is it?’ I ask, already yearning for more.

‘Malbec,’ he says, ‘2006 vintage. That was a wonderful year.’

‘You know about wine?’ I take another sip. It’s even better second time around. I can taste spices and rich fruit and a hundred other things I’m not sophisticated enough to identify.

He smiles and his serious eyes light up. My tummy warms. I tell myself it’s the wine.

‘It is my passion,’ he says. I think that only someone who looks and sounds like him can get away with saying something like that. On an English man it would sound either ridiculous or insincere. I like his honesty. I have forgotten men can be so honest.

Not that Gareth is a cad. He didn’t lie to me. It was the truth he hid that brought me here today, seeking a cure for my heartache in a bottle of exquisite Malbec. The truth that he didn’t love me enough to marry me. I have discovered that truth omitted can be every bit as damaging as all-out deception.

I turn and face the bar, stare without focusing at the smooth wooden surface. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘You’re right about the wine. I think it will do very nicely.’ I wait for him to leave.

But he doesn’t leave. I feel him there—warm, tangible—barely two feet away. He also doesn’t chatter. When I sneak a sideways look at him, he is staring at his wine very much the same way I have been.

He turns his head, finds me looking at him. I speak to cover up my very English awkwardness. ‘How did you know?’ I ask. ‘About the Malbec…?’

He blinks slowly, considering my question. ‘Because I work in the wine industry, like my family before me for three generations. Things like this get passed down from father to son. Not just the technical aspects of making a good wine, but it’s less…tangible…secrets.’