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turn down your invite, as friendly as it was,” Rose said, unable to hide her amusement. “And you are quite funny, although probably not in the way that you intended.”
    “Ouch!” Ted grinned, holding his hands over his heart. “OK, I can take rejection. For now. But for the record, you look like a girl to me, Rose. So, you want to see Albie, right?”
    “Yes, please,” Rose said, her heart rate picking up as she looked around her. Unconsciously her fingers closed around the phone in her jeans pocket. Richard might be trying to phone her now; he might be trying to find out where she’d gone, if she’d told anyone. He’d be so angry, so frustrated that she wasn’t within his reach, so furious that he’d lost control of the situation, and of her. And, oddly, it gave Rose a sense of real discomfort knowing that she was somewhere in the world where Richard could not reach her. He’d been there every day of her life since she was eighteen years old. And yet now here she was, standing in this pub, hundreds of miles away from her husband, hoping to make contact with the only man she had ever met in her life, albeit fleetingly, who’d made her feel . . . so much.
    “Nice to meet you, Rose.” Albie, who was an athletic-looking man in his late middle age, and not at all what Rose expected from a village landlord, extended his hand across the bar.
    “Did Jenny text you too?” Rose smiled, taking his hand.
    “She’s not been this excited since Mrs. Harkness’s au pair got knocked up by Mr. Harkness,” Albie told her with a wry smile. “Poor old Jenny, she lives for news in a place where almost nothing ever happens.”
    “Except to you,” Rose said. “An art dealer walks in off the street and gives you ten thousand pounds?”
    “Well, he didn’t give it to me. He got my painting in return, which was worth a lot more than ten grand.”
    “Were you upset,” Rose asked him, “when you heard how much he sold it for?”
    Albie shook his head, “Frasier—that’s the dealer—called me up when it sold. Gave me another five, a finder’s fee. He offered, I never asked for it. And I thought, well, you can’t say fairer than that, can you?”
    Rose’s heart leapt at the sound of Frasier’s name so casually dropped into the conversation. She attempted to collect herself.
    “No . . . so do you have his number, Frasier’s? His contact details, I mean.”
    “I do.” Albie nodded, crossing his arms.
    “Well, she wants you to give it her, you old fool,” Ted said, rolling his eyes at Rose.
    “Oh, right, of course. Wait there a minute, love.”
    Albie had to duck to make it under the low threshold that led to whatever room lay beyond the bar.
    “So what’s this Frasier got that I haven’t?” Ted said casually, leaning a little closer to Rose. “You know, apart from tons of money and a flash car. Oh, and hair that looks like it gets done in a salon, darling.”
    “You know him?” Rose asked, intrigued.
    “He comes in,” Ted said with a shrug. “Listen, I’ve seen him and I’ve seen me, and I’m thinking if you want a holiday romance, then I’m your best bet. I’m younger, I’ve got more stamina, you see.”
    “You’re hilarious.” Rose laughed, finding it easy to warm to the young man who seemed intent on mischief, his eyes dancing with suppressed laughter. “Life around here must bevery dull if you have to throw yourself at old ladies like me. Or is that how you get extra tips?”
    “I work under the basic delusion that I am irresistible to all women.” Ted grinned at her. “I won’t lie, it mostly leads to disappointment, but I’m a glass-half-full sort of bloke. And you are not old. You are very pretty.”
    “Do you mind?” Rose snapped, turning her face away from him, feeling suddenly acutely uncomfortable under his gaze, trained by years of disapproval to shy away from any kind of male attention.
    “Sorry!” Ted apologized, caught off guard by her discomfort. “I didn’t