SHE had lunch with Jude; not in a fast-food place this time but in a very good French restaurant, near Covent Garden. Jude was actually wearing a dark lounge suit and his brown hair had been styled and was well brushed and glossy, but he still looked uneasy in a smart striped shirt and silk tie. He kept fiddling with the tie and shifting in his seat, hardly able to meet her eyes.
"You look very elegant today, Jude," Samantha said, with a smile at his discomfort.
Jude was really very sweet, and she was determined to be cheerful today. She had spent enough time brooding; she was going through with her plans and she meant to enjoy herself. "Is the suit in my honour?" she asked him teasingly. "I'm flattered."
He almost spilled his lobster bisque in his embarrassment, and Samantha patted his hand across the table.
"I just want to say thank you, Jude. I really appreciate everything you've done for me. You were the only person I could think of to ask for help. Isn't that a confession? My one real friend, and I have to share him with my husband! I hope I won't have caused any trouble between you and Darius, anyway. Put all the blame on me; don't quarrel with him over me, Jude, will you?" He looked gloomily at her.
"I'll try not to." He did not sound very optimistic about the prospect.
"Have you heard from him today?" She wondered if Darius knew yet that she was not at Lambourne or had he been too busy to ring her? She had kept her phone off the radar for the main time until Darius comes back to town. She had left the telephone switched on to the answering machine.
Miss Porter might have left any number of her honeyed messages and, unless Anna switched off the machine or answered it when it rang, Darius might not yet know she had left home.
Jude nodded. "We talked for half an hour early this morning."
"He's still in Wales, though?" Jude nodded. "He's terrifically busy, Sam, sorting out what happened and what has to be done now. He asked me to talk to you if I had time, make sure you're OK."
"You didn't tell him I was in London?"
Jude shook his head. "You did say you didn't want him to know yet."
"Yes." She smiled gratefully at him. "Thank you." Then, looking down at her plate, "And he has no idea I'm not at home?"
Jude grimaced. "I doubt it, or he would have been different. He just said he hadn't been able to get you on the phone, your cellphone line isn't going through and there wasn't time to keep trying, could I ring you for him. He mostly talked about the explosion. It's a very disturbing business, you see, Sam. Darius is sick with worry, try to understand..." Jude still found a way to advocate for his friend even though he didn't know exactly what was going on between him and his wife.
"I do," she said, sighing, as the waiter proffered a mixture of fresh vegetables. "Don't these look delicious? Do you come here often, Jude? I haven't been to Covent Garden for years and I hardly recognized the place; it's charming, isn't it?" Her sudden change of mood had thrown Jude at first, until he realized she was acting for the waiter's benefit.
He muttered something about liking Covent Garden's atmosphere and shops, and Samantha agreed.
"Oh, yes, I can't wait to wander around and take a look at some of the boutiques. I have some heavy shopping to do over the next couple of days, to furnish my flat. I bought some antiques, they're being delivered this evening but I still need masses of things, from electric bulbs to tea towels. I'm not bringing anything up here from Lambourne. I'm going to buy my own stuff. I only hope I can persuade the shopkeeper who is delivering the antiques to help me arrange them the way I want them. He seemed quite obliging, so I may have struck luck."
"So long as he doesn't think he has!" said Jude, frowning. "Maybe I'd better be there when he delivers this stuff? Seeing that you've got a man in the background will scare him off if he does have any ideas about you being a woman on her own. London isn't the country, you know, Sam. You're going to have to be careful. I don't want to scare you, but a woman living alone can be a target. You have got a chain on the door of this flat, I hope? If not, I'll fit one for you tonight. In fact, I'll look the place over and suggest some security measures."
"You're very thoughtful," Samantha said wryly, wishing he hadn't said any of that, because she was going to feel nervous when she had moved to her new flat and was alone at night.
The dangers of life in London for a woman on her own hadn't occurred to Samantha until now. "Thank you, Jude, you're a darling," she said, though, because she knew he meant well. "And if you do have the time, please come, I'll even provide supper, of a sort. It will have to be a scratch meal, I'm not ready to give a full-scale dinner party yet. But I could do a spaghetti with a simple tomato sauce, or sandwiches and coffee... Which do you prefer?"
"Sandwiches would be fine," Jude said, and she laughed and made a mock-furious face at him across the table.
"I see you don't trust my cooking!" He looked aghast.
"Oh, no, I didn't mean... I've always enjoyed your cooking, but I don't want to put you to any trouble. Why don't I bring the sandwiches? I know a great delicatessen near the office. I'll pick up some of their sandwiches on my way."
"You won't. This is my treat. Anything you really hate, or shall I just make a selection and hope you like something?"
"I eat anything." Jude said.
"Except my spaghetti?" she teased.
"I can see you'll never forgive me for that!"
Jude hurried back to the office after their lunch and she wandered around the narrow streets surrounding Covent Garden's old market hall; she found several bargains, which meant that she did not take the tube or the bus to Finchley, as she had planned, but hailed a taxi, which cost far more but was far easier.
She would have to watch the pennies in future, though. Taxis would be few and far between. She meant to live on what she earned; she wouldn't take money from Darius. From now on she was going to be independent, learn to stand on her own two feet, which meant strict economy, and oddly enough she was quite excited by the thought.
When they were first married they had had to think twice before they spent money, and that had been fun, especially as she and Darius were sharing everything both at work and at home. In those days everything had been fun, come to that. She had been rapturously happy, and she was sure Darius had been, too.