A Summer Scandal: The perfect summer read by the author of One Day in December

‘Violet?’

Simon’s voice wavered a little, probably because he had a dodgy knee and the people at the next table were gagging to know what she was going to say. She smiled, stretched her mouth wide and laughed lightly. Her shoulders lifted around her ears, stressed, because she knew that really there was only one possible word she should say next and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to say it. But she didn’t want to say no either, at least not in front of other people. Even the waiters had paused, tikka masalas balanced on their forearms as they watched proceedings.

Because of all of those things, she reached down and plucked the pretty ring from its red velvet box, looking at it as if overcome.

‘Simon, I …’ She paused, as did every single person in the Taj Star. Simon looked pained; there was no other word for the expression on his face. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, pushing a smile out for his benefit. ‘Yes, Simon. I’ll marry you.’

It was only the beginning of the actual sentence in her head. What she really wanted to say was, ‘I don’t know, Simon. I’ll marry you one day, probably, maybe, in about ten years’ time – if we’re still a couple, which I’m not at all sure we will be because I don’t know if you’re the love of my life or not.’

She didn’t say all of that though; it wasn’t as much of a crowd-pleaser really, was it?

Taking Simon’s ring from the box, Violet slipped it onto her third finger and tried not to feel as if she wanted to slide it straight off again and hand it back.

Pulling into her parents’ driveway, Simon looked across at the illuminated front windows.

‘Shall I come inside and we can tell them together?’

Vi looked at her watch, glad they’d lingered for coffee at the restaurant because she could legitimately say it was too late in the evening.

‘Let’s leave it for tonight,’ she said. ‘They’ll be tired now.’

‘But they’ll notice your ring,’ he frowned.

Violet splayed her hand, and then slipped the ring from her finger. ‘There. Nothing to see.’

For a moment, they sat in loaded silence. Had he picked up on the fact that her heart wasn’t one hundred percent on board with the idea of getting married? Should she have cried with joy? She was actually feeling quite tearful, but more because she’d had the most overwhelming day of her life than because she was cock-a-hoop at the prospect of marrying Simon.

‘I’ll come over in the morning then,’ he said, watching as she put the ring back inside its box. ‘Ten thirty on the nose.’

Violet nodded, pushing the ring into her handbag beside her grandpa’s letter. Her plan to share her news with Simon over dinner had fallen by the wayside after his proposal; there was no tangible way to explain her sudden reluctance to tell her new fiancé about Swallow Beach. Leaning in to kiss him quickly with her hand already opening the passenger door to get away, she smiled, small and tight.

‘Night,’ she said. ‘See you tomorrow.’

She glanced over at her grandpa’s house next door as she delved in her bag for her keys, forlorn at the dark, empty house. Henry had been a cornerstone of her life forever; a safe corner of the world to escape to. And he was gone now, yet still somehow there offering her a safe haven, a different door to walk through than the one everyone expected her to take. Perhaps he saw Monica in her eyes or somewhere in her smile, knew the wanderlust that made her bones restless in a way no one else could.

‘Thank you, Grandpa,’ she whispered, then stepped inside without looking back.

She’d been wrong about her parents still being up. They’d left the lights on for her, calling down goodnight when she let herself in and locked the front door.

Still too wired to go to bed, she headed into the kitchen and made herself a coffee, laying her grandpa’s letter and Simon’s ring on the table in front of her. Left, and right. A more orderly person (her mum, her dad, Simon) might have switched them over – Simon’s ring on the left, ready to go on her wedding finger. Violet, however, felt them more appropriately arranged as they were: Simon on the safe and conservative right, her grandpa’s letter on the avant-garde, unpredictable left. Looking from one to the other, there was no denying which made her heart beat faster. Opening the ring box, the diamond winked up at her under the kitchen spotlights. Opening the letter, her grandpa’s spindly black writing lay stark against the pale blue paper.

Simon or Swallow Beach. Swallow Beach or Simon.

Could she have both? Did she want either? It had been a day of huge revelations and unexpected twists, and now Violet found herself at the end of it with choices to make and decisions to take. Sipping her coffee, she sighed and wished she’d opted for a brandy instead.

Simon’s here, love. He’s brought champagne!

Violet looked down at her vibrating phone as the message buzzed through from her mum at the house. It was ten thirty exactly. Laying down the box of scarlet feathers she’d just unpacked, she reached for her phone, her heart lead-heavy in her chest.

Ask him to come down, please Mum?

She pressed send, knowing that it wasn’t the response Simon would be expecting. He’d probably expected that she’d be there to welcome him on the doorstep, all jiggly with prenuptial excitement and raring to share their news.

Staring at the phone, she half expected her mum to send a second message telling her to get up to the house because Simon had something he wanted to announce. Please don’t, Simon. Relief prickled her skin when he emerged from the back door a couple of minutes later and started to pick his way down the long garden path. She watched him, wondering what the right words were to break someone’s heart gently. It’s not you, it’s me? She wouldn’t insult him with pat lines or stock phrases.

‘Violet?’

He opened the door and stuck his head into her workshop. It wasn’t a place he ventured often by choice. Violet’s workshop was a riot of colour and organised chaos; it didn’t sit well with his everything-in-its-place, neat-as-a-new-pin mentality.

‘Come in,’ she said, sliding down from her stool at the bench to hastily clear a pile of material off the battered velvet armchair she’d up-cycled from a neighbour’s garden sale. ‘Sit down.’

Simon looked back towards the door, uncertain, as if he didn’t understand why they weren’t leaving the workshop to go up to the house to break their happy news right away.

‘Please, just come in and sit down?’

Frowning, he did as she asked. ‘This isn’t quite what I had in mind for this morning,’ he said, looking uncomfortable as he pulled a peacock-blue reel of cotton from under his backside and laid it on the side table Violet had decoupaged with jungle animals; glossy leopards and jewel-bright parrots.

‘I know,’ she said, quiet and serious.

His eyes moved to her left hand, to her bare wedding finger.

‘There’s something I need to show you,’ she said, reaching for her grandpa’s letter. ‘It’s this. My mum gave it to me yesterday morning.’

He frowned at the letter as she held it out. ‘What is it?’

She didn’t answer, just swallowed and nodded for him to take a look. She watched as he sighed, resigned, pulled out the folded letter and began to read. He read it through once, then turned it over to read it from the beginning again.

‘You’re going to have to fill in the blanks for me here,’ he said, laying the letter down beside the cotton reel on the table, looking as nonplussed as she’d felt when she read the letter for the first time. Violet nodded, unsure where to start. She wasn’t surprised he was confused; she still felt that way herself twenty-four hours on.

‘It seems that my gran, Monica, owned a Victorian pier on the south coast. Grandpa never sold it on after she died, and now he’s left it to me.’

Simon shook his head, as if he didn’t want the information to lodge itself in there permanently.

‘Okay.’ He drew the word out in a way that said: You’ll have to tell me more, I’m not sure where this is going yet.

‘And there’s an apartment with it too.’

He nodded slowly. ‘So, you’ve inherited an old pier and a flat in a place we’ve never heard of down on the south coast.’

‘Yes,’ Violet said. ‘Mum thought it had all been sold off years ago. It’s come as a real shock to her.’

‘I can imagine.’ He looked at his shoes. ‘Is this why we’re not up in the house drinking champagne? I brought some, your mum put it in the fridge.’

Violet flinched, wishing her parents hadn’t needed to be involved. ‘Yes, I guess it is. I was going to tell you about it last night, but you kind of took me by surprise when you …’ her eyes moved to the small red velvet box on the window ledge ‘when you proposed.’

‘I have to say, you didn’t seem quite as thrilled as I’d expected.’

He couldn’t have handed her a clearer cue. Violet felt her heart start to rush, panicky now the moment was here.