‘Like that!’ She flew a finger to his face. ‘You’re making fun of me now.’
He placed a hand in his trouser pocket, leaning to say in her ear, ‘Have you ever thought you might take yourself a bit too seriously?’
‘Hmm . . . Strange thing to say to someone you don’t even know! Why am I sensing that you and I don’t have two minutes of normal conversation in us?’ She was always more comfortable being sparky. She pretended to look around the room, bored.
He was observing her, sportily, yet warily. Like someone considering jumping off a cliff, but wondering if the water really was as deep as people said it was. ‘Why is your glass empty, by the way? Ah! I know! You’re the one they said was uptight about alcohol! Takes herself too seriously, is a bit high and mighty, stands in the corner, has no friends. I remember. That’s why you’re giving me no choice but to come and rescue you from yourself. Because I’m gallant like that.’
She snuffled a small laugh.
The music was a tune no one seemed to like. The dance floor had emptied. Eddy hadn’t yet serenaded her with ‘Be My Baby’. The song he was supposed to be singing to the newlyweds until he changed his tack and tried to woo her with his terrible voice that really wasn’t a terrible voice; it was mainly the episode that was terrible. This monumental embarrassment was to come later. As were so many things she had no idea about.
He got her another drink. ‘For the lady.’ He handed her a goblet of Babycham. ‘And a brandy in it for good measure. To loosen you up.’ He smiled. ‘Go on, Evelyn. Live dangerously for once.’
She had a nettling old uncle who always used to say something like that. ‘How do you know I don’t live dangerously all the time?’ she asked, taking a sip and finding it blow-your-head-off strong, but she was determined not to flinch. She’d have knocked back the entire glass to prove a point.
‘I don’t know. You’re all a bit Roman Holiday, aren’t you? A bit Audrey.’ He was scrutinising her. She felt his eyes saw nothing but her.
Her jaw dropped open. She was aware of the girls beside them, watching them. She searched for a comeback, but it was too late.
She had noticed that, after the photographs, he had undone his top button and cast off his bow tie. She was sure he wasn’t deliberately trying to look dashing and dreamy, but he was succeeding regardless. His shoulders were practically making contact with the walls. He was unfairly fit and handsome. She couldn’t work out whether his skin was dark, or his shirt was ultra-white; it was hard to say in the frosted party lighting. But his eyes were piercing sapphires. It made him hard to look at – and hard not to look at. It was a challenge that was completely foreign to her. With most men, she ended up looking at them witheringly and walking by.
The music changed. Eddy snatched her hand. ‘Okay, we’re dancing.’
She practically coughed up bubbles. Before she could protest, he was hauling her on to the dance floor. She recognised the minimal, lullaby-like strum of Roy Orbison’s acoustic guitar – ‘In Dreams’, a recent chart-topper – and barely managed to offload her glass on to a high-top table as she flew past it, powerfully conscious of his fingers clasped around her small hand.
‘Okay, we’re dancing?’ she mocked. ‘Is that common for, Would you care to have this dance?’
She was aware of the girls still watching them. It was ironic that she’d come to the wedding knowing only Elizabeth and had somehow managed to snag the best man.
‘It’s caveman for, I have to have my arms around you or I’m going to go mad.’
Roy started singing about closing his eyes and drifting into the magic night, and Eddy took her in his arms, and she chuckled. Despite wanting to maintain the stroppy act, she was failing with every try. In his arms, she was on air, weightless, gliding like a bird. Their feet fell into a spry rhythm that unfolded with the song’s suspenseful, pervading tempo. Eddy’s ad-libbed dance steps were a brave cross between a tango, a waltz and a foxtrot, but somehow, together, they worked the floor like two people who had spent a lifetime dancing together. ‘Good heavens, you’re such an exhibitionist!’ she scolded when she sensed him laying it on a little for his female fan club.
‘That must be why I want to kiss you.’ His chest bore closer, his face moving in.
She gasped.
‘Don’t worry. I’m saving that for later.’
A tiny part of her had the nerve to be disappointed.