The Second Time I Saw You: The Oxford Blue Series #2 by Pippa Croft Page B

picture my mother’s face, and think how she would love to tend this garden. Myparents still know nothing about Alexander, and I’ve confided that I had a ‘fling’ with only a handful of my friends back home. Once again, I wonder just where things are heading for us and immediately stop myself. I’m going back to college, to work and to have some
fun
.
    I crunch a piece of toast while leafing through a piece on a new Klee exhibition at the Tate Modern. I love Klee and vow to arrange a trip to see it with some of the guys at the faculty. I wonder if Immy can be persuaded to come. At the thought of her in the Tate surrounded by what she calls a ‘bunch of sad hipsters’, I smile. She may as well try to get me to go digging for fossils with her and camp in a tent. Outside the sun is bright; if the courts back in Oxford aren’t icy, we could get in a game of tennis. I’ll text her when I get back up to my room, if Alexander is awake.
    ‘Sorry I’m so bloody late …’
    Alexander strides into the breakfast room, in jeans and a T-shirt, rubbing his unruly brown hair into submission. My stomach twists. He looks heart-stoppingly gorgeous but I also can’t forget last night’s violent dreams.
    I lay down the newspaper. ‘Hiya.’
    He leans down and kisses me on the lips. ‘Morning.’
    Despite the nightmares, the night’s rest has done him good and he looks better than I’ve seen him since I got back from Washington and found him slumped outside my door.
    ‘How are you?’
    ‘Not too bad. You should have woken me.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘What do you think?’ His eyes glint.
    ‘I thought you needed your beauty sleep.’
    He shoots me a glare. ‘More importantly, I need to get my strength up. That breakfast smells good.’
    After he’s piled his plate high with the contents of the breakfast dishes, he takes a seat next to me. Robert brings him a pot of coffee and he drinks it black while talking to me about his plans over the next few days. He won’t be back to Wyckham until later in the week, after meeting with the lawyers and financial team, and with some of the tenants who farm the estate. Then, he says, he has some ‘regimental business’, whatever that means. I’d like to know more, and if it has anything to do with the mysterious Mr Armitage who called during the funeral. I know better than to ask and as he helps himself to seconds, I conclude he seems to have no recollection of the violent nightmare, or else he’s in denial again.
    ‘When’s Emma going back to school?’ I ask as he butters another piece of toast.
    ‘Tomorrow. She has to get back into her work for her exams. She’s missed too much already but she’s bright. Too bright …’ He smiles. ‘I hope she can settle down for the rest of this term and there’s no more drama. I don’t think I can handle running to and from the school on top of everything else, and Emma needs some peace and quiet, if that’s possible.’
    I smile, but mentally I’m crossing my fingers, hopingthat Henry Favell will keep away from Emma while she’s at school. I wish she hadn’t told me she was seeing him again. It’s something I really don’t want to deal with.
    ‘More toast before I eat the lot?’ He pushes the rack towards me.
    ‘No thanks.’ My appetite is sated and anyway, the pangs of guilt are stirring again at my promise to Emma.
    ‘Alexander?’
    He dollops marmalade on his toast and looks at me with mock seriousness. ‘Yes, Lauren?’
    ‘Do you really think Emma will be OK when she goes back to school?’
    ‘I don’t know, but the staff are going to keep a close eye on her and she has to get her head down again sooner or later.’ I sip my tea as he spreads the marmalade and goes on. ‘Thanks for being there for the funeral. You’ve made quite an impression on her.’
    ‘Really? I didn’t do anything.’
    ‘You listened to her, which is everything. She really needed someone from outside the family to talk to.’
    I force