Page 29 of The Songbird of Wychwood

“Don’t be like that, come on. I was only playing. Please, tell me about your beau.”

“Nope. My debauched secrets will remain in my heart under lock and key.” I mimed locking up my lips and threw the imaginary key over my shoulder. Eloise responded in her usual fashion.

“Tell me his name!” she demanded and then she set to tickling me into submission. I squirmed on the couch trying to buck her off me but Eloise was straddling me, clamping her thighs like a limpet on my legs. I always forgot how bloomin’ strong she was. I was breathless with laughter but finally submitted, “Okay, okay, his name’s Percy, Percy Harcourt.”

Thankfully, she stopped tickling me then and threw herself to the other side of the couch as we both took a moment to catch our breath. I reached for my cocoa now that it had cooled and took a long drink. Then I revealed, “He’s a poet, and he works at his father’s company as an editor.”

“Fancy!”

“He’s kind and funny and intelligent, and an awful good kisser. We talked and talked for hours…and err, got up to other things.”

“So, it was a good tumble?” she prodded.

I really didn’t want to go into intimate details. It was like the night I spent in Percy’s arms was so personal and fragile that I didn’t want to share it with anyone else. It was mine, special. And so I waggled my brows and hoped my grin said more than words.

“I’m happy for you George. You gonna see him again?”

“We’ve already made an arrangement,” I beamed. “It just felt easy to be with him. As soon as we got past the nerves it was like I’d known him for years,” I admitted.

“My old mum said that when you meet someone who makes you feel like you’re talking to yourself, that’s when you know you’ve found your soul mate.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked confused.

“It means that you’re so comfortable and safe with that person, you’re contented, like they’re the jigsaw piece that was missing.”

I understood what she meant, but I didn’t know if I went in for this soul mates’ stuff.

“Now, tell me, what’s going on with Grayson?” Eloise prodded.

“Doris has been flapping her gums. She must have told Grayson that I met with a man from Harcourt’s and decided I was selling some kind of salacious story to the papers?”

“His reaction was a bit suspicious; don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I’m just relieved that he didn’t accuse me of being a sodomite and make trouble for me.”

“This is the theater; we’ve got queer lads and lassies hiding in plain sight. It ain’t no one’s business how we get our pleasure,” Eloise insisted.

“I know that and you know that, but the law says different.”

“The law’s an arse. If you like your Percy, just be friends in public and discrete about where you get up to private business.”

“You going to see Mari again?”

“She’s got a contract to dance here for the next six months, so we’ve got plenty of time to get to know one another. I like her, and we had fun together… but…we’ll see.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” I agreed.

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