He wished that he'd planned it, but then when had he ever planned anything when it had come to his private life. He was a man of quick decisions and of impulses and as he'd sat there in that quiet church listening to the voice that soothed him to the very depths of his soul, it had all seemed so simple. What would we do she had asked him, God did she have no imagination? What had made it worse was that he'd accepted her refusal without question, told her that they'd move on, instead of telling her that he loved her and that he wanted to kiss her.
Why on earth hadn't she seen it coming, he'd just blurted it out as though he was suggesting that they went for a cup of tea. A thousand times she had told him, but why the hell did that matter? This was the first time that he'd asked her and she'd so wanted to say yes, so why hadn't she and surrendered to him and let him kiss her as he so obviously wanted to do?
One month later.
The private flight will be leaving from Brize Norton airport at eight the following morning, read Harry on the memo that had been handed to him. On board will be the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Cabinet's negotiator. There was an apology that this was at such short notice but the following members of section D were required to accompany them. Harry Pearce, Beth Bailey, Ruth Evershed, Dimitri Levendis and Tariq Massood . In addition to the duties listed below they would also be required to attend a church service and formal dinner on the second evening, but other than for that the dress code would be as on a daily basis. So much for his quiet weekend with Scarlet drowning his sorrows with a bottle of whisky, he muttered under his breath as he called them into the meeting room.
'Brexit,' said Harry with distaste and an expression that suggested that he'd just swallowed a wasp. 'There will be no exceptions,' he added pointedly, looking directly at Ruth, 'the negotiations are just about to get underway and the PM wants to twist a few arms.'
'Hogwarts,' countered Tariq rather ill advisedly, when Ruth pressed a button to show a picture of what look like a castle from 'The Tales of King Arthur', when it was in fact a small chateau on the outskirts of Paris.
Was there really someone out there conspiring against her she thought? Of all places why the hell did it have to be in Paris?
'It'll be like a holiday,' suggested Beth, trying to lighten the mood as they packed before she and Ruth sat down to eat their evening meal. Ruth had already poured herself a larger than usual glass of wine, possibly two if what was left in the bottle was anything to go by. She'd arrived home to hear her on the telephone, obviously talking to Harry if the hesitation in the conversation was anything to go by. It was the same every evening, always with the pretext of talking about work, but with an atmosphere akin to simmering. It was worse at work, in fact it usually went way beyond simmering up to boiling point, until one or the other of them managed to say something that tipped things over the edge. It had been like that for weeks, she just didn't know why.
Harry had called her as she knew he would. He would pick both her and Beth up at five thirty was pretty much all he'd said, despite her efforts to extend the conversation before Beth had walked in and interrupted them. They really needed to talk, to sort this out once and for all whatever the outcome.
Across town, Dimitri who lived much closer to where Ruth lived than Harry was sharing a takeaway with Tariq who was staying with him overnight. Given the hour that they would have to leave home to make it to the airport, it made much more sense were he to pick Ruth and Beth up rather than Harry, but when he'd suggested it to him he'd been adamant that he would do it, and who was he to argue?
Harry was the only one eating alone as he invariably did, but for once he had resisted reaching for the whisky bottle. The next few days were work related nothing more he had to remember that, but with a far wider audience that they ever had when they were on the grid. He knew that needed to behave better than he had done for the past month, it wasn't Ruth's fault it was entirely his. Never the less, he was miserable and he was hurting.
The Harry that arrived to collect them the next morning was the indifferent Harry that Beth had presumed he would be. He'd wished them a reasonably cheery good morning, loaded their cases into the boot of his car alongside his and then predictably opened the back door for her and the front for Ruth. It was going to be a long two hour drive to the airport but she didn't care, she was intent on going back to sleep. As they joined the long line of traffic that was filtering onto the A40, Harry was forced to stop as the traffic lights turned red. They were so close together her hand only inches from his, she so wanted to touch it. It was the nearest they had been since the funeral and she could feel that her heart rate was rising, God this was awful. Beth was asleep and even if she wasn't it had reached that point where she couldn't take it anymore, she had to say something.
'Harry we need to talk about this, but not when you're driving,' was the best she could manage.
'Then sit next to me on the plane unless they expect me to fly it,' was his sarcastic but none the less very Harry reply. It was a minor breakthrough.
Once they arrived at the airport, the reality for the inexperienced Dimitri Tariq and Beth really began to sink in. They had never in their wildest dreams imagined that they would be mixing with parliamentary royalty, yet here they were boarding a plane with the three highest ranked members of the government who were going to some sort of clandestine meeting in France. They were here to do the job that they'd been trained for, this wasn't a game anymore and they really didn't want to let anybody down. Sitting across the aisle, apart from the niceties of Harry stowing Ruth's hand luggage and passing her the cup of tea that the stewardess had delivered, there had been virtually no conversation. However when the pilot announced that they would be arriving in the next ten minutes so please would they fasten their seat belts and that they were currently flying over central Paris, there was an inaudible intake of breath on both their parts. Ruth who had the window seat was watching Harry's dream unfolding in front of her and she knew if she turned to look at him that his face would be inches away from hers. She could feel him leaning across her to see it, which was far too arousing when you were sitting in an aeroplane.
The Chateau which was surrounded by acres of parkland belonged to the French Government. Generations of previous presidents and prime ministers had hosted all manner of gatherings both for work and more often for pleasure, if the rumours were to be believed. Being driven through the grounds on their way to what could only be described as a stunning building, Harry conceded that Tariq had been right and that it did resemble Hogwarts, alias Alnwick Castle in Northumberland. Not only that, the church that they were expected to attend was less than fifty metres away in the same grounds. Having been shown to their rooms by a member of the French security detail, they were invited to join their counterparts for coffee or tea which according to Ruth the French drank in equal measure, before attending a joint meeting where Harry's equivalent who he knew by reputation, explained in detail the agenda for the weekend.
As Dimitri Tariq and Beth were whisked away to check the security arrangements in the main rooms of the chateau, Harry and Ruth found themselves alone again. He couldn't quite bring himself to comment that wasn't it a lovely setting considering that they were close to the centre of Paris, even though his head and his heart were screaming at him to do it. By the time that they reached the front gates and he had turned to follow the line of the wall, they had been walking for nearly twenty minutes. Ruth who was so much smaller than he was had been struggling to keep up with him and was just about to shout at him to stop, when he beat her to it. Although it had been over a month since his proposal, it was the first time that they had been afforded such privacy. She so wanted him to ask her again and give her the chance to say yes, but for the moment anyway it wasn't to be.
'Have you any idea how difficult this is for me?' he told her with such hurt in his eyes that it made her heart constrict, before he turned and left her standing with no option other than to watch him walk away.
It was bloody cold and Ruth was in no mood to be stuck a mile from the house in grounds that she barely knew, but she was damned if she was going to chase after his quickly departing figure. She had her answer and he would get it, but he would jolly well have to wait.
For what remained of the day until bedtime they didn't get a chance to speak again. Ruth was called into a meeting where she was needed to interpret and Harry went in search of his three younger charges. At dinner time much to his displeasure, Harry was invited to sit at what amounted to the top table with what he considered to be the hoi polloi, whereas he'd have much rather been sitting with his staff, or more precisely Ruth.
By bedtime on the first of the three evenings, with the security of their charges ensured, they were at last able to turn in. The ever watchful Beth could sense the increased tension. She'd hoped that perhaps it might have eased during the course of the day but clearly not. She was however the ultimate optimist and with another two evenings and nights to go, anything might happen.
