Love at Home by Charlotte Bingham

Author:Charlotte Bingham [Bingham, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

It wasn’t difficult to get James to allow her to return to the hotel early for her siesta, and while he strolled back to the Uffizi still immersed in and no doubt admiring his singular erudition, Georgiana lay on a chair under a canopy and stared down at the courtyard below.

She had seen her new self through Gus’s eyes and she had hated what she had seen. He used to point out people like her and laugh at them, and although she had laughed too, she hadn’t been able to see the joke until now. And the joke was there was no joke. The joke was that they were the joke, - Gus’ joke. And now she knew he’d be enjoying a new joke, the one that had them ending up meeting in a place like Florence, a couple of years after their affair was over, and that she would be wearing of all things a cardigan and sensible shoes, married to the apparently correct sort of husband and thinner and how Gus would hate that because he hated thin women - they would exchange some small talk and perhaps meet for drinks or lunch somewhere before going their separate ways, she embarrassed by her conformity and he rejoicing in the accuracy of his prediction.

The worst of it all was that she was truly embarrassed by what she had become, particularly because she knew it had nothing to do with Stranragh or their marriage but all to do with her. When she was nineteen and had run away from Mary’s house to go with her first lover, for just a few weeks she had been happy. But Kaminski had left her, possibly because just as Gus had seemed to know, he knew that it would not be long before she reverted to type. The sophisticated and worldly Kaminski had left her in the fashion she now realised that mature men of the world left girls of nineteen once they had enjoyed them.

Shadows grew longer across the courtyard below her until it was almost night but Georgiana just sat there watching them grow, just as she had as a child.

At dinner James talked about Gus Hackett and seemed to Georgiana to enjoy doing so. He considered Gus to be a good painter while wondering whether he would actually ever make the top grade. He knew about Gus and Georgiana, and Georgiana knew he knew all about them; what puzzled her was that it seemed to her that James was quite untroubled by the past, particularly his wife’s past. She thought that now perhaps this was because he thought she was pregnant so he felt no need to be anything but assured. In fact it appeared to Georgiana he felt so confident in himself that he was able to tell her in detail all about Gus’ supply of local girls and the way he used them as models for his Biblical scenes, describing how his housekeeper had been visited in protest by

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