Page 26 of A Very Happy Easter

“I didn’t know you did bodyguarding,” I whispered to Heath. “Although I’m not surprised, not even a little bit.”

“Blackwood has a training program for idiots like me who aren’t sure what we want to do with our lives. In the beginning, you rotate through the different departments for a month at a time to learn what goes on in every part of the company, and then you specialise.”

“And you can choose two things?”

“I chose investigations, but I scored well in close-quarters protection, so I switch between teams occasionally. Is this where I make a crass and inappropriate joke about guarding your body?”

“Ugh, no. It’s where I ask if you’ve seen The Bodyguard and giggle like a vapid idiot. We should probably look at some paintings.”

I introduced Heath to the Huntingdons as a “friend,” asked after Philomena, and made small talk for a few minutes. Then we set off to explore Angus’s artwork, all thirty-seven pieces of it. Six paintings already had green dots on their frames, signifying they’d been sold.

“It’s very evocative,” I said as we stared at an acrylic-on-canvas named Unsolitude. A shrouded woman sat at a computer, surrounded by clouds of colour. It was the least gloomy piece we’d looked at. “Quite striking.” I desperately tried to remember my prep school art classes. “A mix of Goya and Hockney.”

Heath tilted his head to one side. “But why is she eating her arm?”

“It’s a metaphor for a life consumed by social media,” Angus said from behind us. I turned to see him standing there in a floor-length, sleeveless white tunic with a stand-up collar. Clumpy platform boots covered in buckles added three inches to his height, and he looked up at Heath through round-framed glasses. “Time spent in front of a screen at the cost of pieces of oneself.”

That did make a weird kind of sense. “Profound. Yes, I’ll buy this one.”

Angus looked pleased. “You will? That’s splendid.”

“There’s always room in my life for art. How’s the show going?”

“Really good. Excellent.” He leaned in, once again the shy boy I’d grown up with. “I worried nobody would come.”

“Oh, you needn’t have.” His mother had been rallying the troops for months. “Forgive my manners; this is Heath. Heath, this is my third-cousin Angus. He’s been painting for as long as I can remember. Angus, could you tell us about some of the other pieces?”

“Of course, of course.”

Just like that, the attention was off my non-relationship. Angus walked us around the gallery, explaining his techniques and the inspiration behind each painting, and when we bumped into Uncle Dennis, he was more interested in Forever Rogue than whether or not I was dating Heath. Apparently, the horse was with “a good trainer, has a lot of winners.”

We discussed the weather, Vocare, the London property market, Emily Brigstock’s new restaurant—she was breaking boundaries with fusion cooking, yada yada yada—and the pros and cons of sailing yachts. By nine thirty, I’d paid five figures for the painting, drunk three glasses of orange juice, and eaten half my body weight in canapés. It was time to slide away.

“Exit stage left,” I whispered to Heath as we neared the door.

“Don’t you need to say goodbye to people?”

“If I do that, we’ll still be here in the morning.”

“Fair enough. Call for the car before you go outside.”

“I already texted Jerilyn five minutes ago.”

“Don’t go out until she arrives.”

“You’re not working tonight.”

“Sorry, old habits die hard.”

True, and I secretly liked his protective side. I didn’t worry when I was with Heath.

“Did you really jump out of planes in the Army?”

“Yup.”

“Did you fight in any wars?”

“Been there, done that, got the PTSD.”

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