‘End of the month. The weekend after harvest festival.’
‘Weekend after? Well, if you want to marry her that much, go ahead. But if I were you, I’d get a special license. Marry her before harvest festival.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’ll still be alive then.’
‘What the …?’
‘Suggest it to her. Go on. See what she says.’
Adam emptied the bitter dregs of his over-lemony water on to the grass.
‘You aren’t jealous, are you?’
‘As a matter of fact, I am. Why wouldn’t I be, Adam? I love you, after all. But you don’t love me, so there’s an end to it.’
She turned and walked away. Adam looked after her. Something urged him to follow her, to apologise, or plead, or … That curious pull she had. He fought it until she was out of the beer garden and out of sight.
He looked back at Sebastian and Kasia’s table. Evie was no longer there. He scanned the garden, searching for her among the knots of drinkers and laughers, smokers and jokers. She was nowhere to be seen.
He strode over to Sebastian.
‘Where did Evie go?’
Sebastian shrugged.
‘You’ll need to keep tabs on her better than that,’ he said maliciously. ‘She’s gone with the wind, that one.’
The words were an echo of her mother’s warning. Warnings everywhere today. Should he heed them? He was past that now.
He went inside, ducking under the lintel of the low door, pushing through the crush of drinkers, careless of their pints spilling over the rims of the glasses as he shoved. In the lounge bar, no sign of her either. At the foot of the stairs, he was assaulted with a horrible memory of the time she’d been up there with Trevelyan.
No, she wouldn’t be up there now. She wouldn’t. She knew she belonged to him.
Perhaps she had gone back to the vicarage. He crossed the lane hurriedly and ran through the lych gate, calling her name. Then he stopped. He could hear something. It was coming from the church porch.
Heavy breathing, panting, grunting. Someone was having sex right in the doorway of the church.
Recoiling in disgust, but filled with righteous anger, Adam marched up the path towards St Jude’s. The first thing he saw was a hairy male backside, flexing as it thrust, jeans around ankles. A pair of shapely brown legs was wrapped around the man’s waist. The shoes. Those shoes. Those scarlet high heels.
‘No,’ he shouted, lurching forwards. ‘No, you can’t.’
He saw dark curls spilling back, crimson nails clinging to the man’s shoulders.
‘Get off her!’ he screamed, but the man paid no attention at all, intent on his fucking.
Adam felt as if he were in one of those nightmares where your voice won’t come out, however hard you try to yell. It seemed that neither of them could or would hear him.
He tried one last time.
‘Evie!’
She began to gasp and keen.
‘Oh fuck, yes,’ she wailed, hanging on to the man for dear life. ‘Fuck yes, I’m coming, lover. Give it to me.’
The man pistoned hard and then roared.