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As he watched Scott wilt before him, Cam realised he’d been silent for a bit too long. His instinct was to refuse and to continue to keep Scott – and his awful father – as far away from him as possible. That might be the pragmatic thing to do, but as Cam watched the boy all but curl in upon himself, he felt his heart go out to him.
‘If I accept you on the team, you’ll be a full member and treated just the same as everyone else. You’d be given the chance to learn as many different skills as possible. There’ll be crap stuff to do, and you’ll have to do your share, but no more and no less than anyone else on the team, me included. When I said what’s done is done, I meant it. I’m not one to bear grudges, that’s just not who I am.’ The fact he suspected Scott’s father of being the sort of man who would bear a grudge, Cam kept firmly to himself. Maybe a summer free of Willoughby senior and working as part of a team would help Scott to continue to grow up.
‘No, of course not. I just meant that I’d be happy to do anything that’s required of me,’ Scott said, his expression all but pleading at this point.
‘There will be lots of hard work and some of it will be boring as hell,’ Cam warned him, conscious he was already speaking as though he’d agreed to allow the young man to participate. ‘And you’ll be camping out for the duration,’ he added, wanting to make sure Scott understood there would be no special favours, regardless of who his father was. ‘Miss Travers, the project manager, has kindly agreed to allocate us some pitches on the estate’s campsite so there’ll be access to proper toilets and a decent shower block, but it’ll be camp beds and sleeping bags and four-person tents.’
‘Dr Barnard made all that clear when he was briefing our class the other day. I won’t expect any kind of special treatment, that’s not who I am.’
It was the first flash of anything resembling a backbone and Cam steepled his hands in front of his face to hide a smile. ‘Why did you come to me rather than speaking to Dr Barnard about it?’
The fact Cam hadn’t slapped him down for turning his own words back on him seemed to boost Scott’s confidence further. Sitting up straight, he looked Cam square in the eye. ‘The problem was between you and me. I didn’t want you to think I was afraid to face you or that I was using Dr Barnard as an easy way in.’
Good for him. Cam found himself nodding with something close to approval. He still wasn’t convinced anything that risked bringing the boy or his father back into his orbit was a wise idea, but what the hell. ‘Let me speak to Dr Barnard about it. If he thinks you are up to it, then you’ve got yourself a place on the team.’
Scott jumped up so quickly, he almost knocked over his chair. He thrust a hand towards Cam, who couldn’t suppress a smile as he shook it. ‘I won’t let you down, Dr Ferguson, I promise.’
‘See that you don’t. I’ll let you know my decision on Monday.’ As though he was worried Cam might change his mind, Scott left as quickly as he’d arrived, all but babbling his thanks. Rocking back in his chair, Cam stared after him, hoping like hell he wasn’t making a big mistake.
* * *
‘At least we know where we’re going this time,’ Barnie pointed out the following evening as he steered his car off the motorway and into the leafy back lanes of the Cotswold countryside. They’d waited for the worst of the Friday night rush hour to clear before setting off and had had a decent run down the motorway. It was that funny time of a summer evening where it wasn’t quite full light and no one really knew whether or not to switch on their headlights, so the passing traffic was a mix of the over-cautious and the confident.
Cam checked his watch. Hope had invited them for supper, saying the family tended to eat late anyway and everyone wanted to meet them. He was glad Barnie was driving because he’d spent most of the journey wondering about the kind of things the Travers family might ask him and conducting imaginary conversations in his head. ‘Don’t forget you’re heading for the side gate, rather than the main one,’ he reminded Barnie as they neared the outskirts of Stourton-in-the-Vale.
‘The tradesmen’s entrance, you mean,’ Barnie said with a laugh. ‘We know our place.’
Cam grinned. ‘I think the family use it as well so I’m going to consider it privileged access. You can’t pretend you’re being hard done by when one of us is getting put up in the hotel and bloody spa!’
‘Miss Travers clearly recognises class,’ Barnie said, sitting up straighter in his seat. ‘Which is no doubt why you’re staying in some shack in the woods.’
A few years ago, that kind of jibe might have put Cam’s back up. Barnie came from a solidly middle-class background, his parents both working professionals with enough money to have afforded them a sprawling villa in Portugal for use as their private holiday home. When they’d met on that first day at university, Cam hadn’t been able to stop himself from comparing his meagre belongings, unpacked from a canvas holdall that had seen better days, with Barnie’s array of grand possessions. He had every gadget imaginable, including a brand-new iPad, while Cam was coping with a third-hand laptop his dad had managed to secure from a sale of hardware at the company where he worked as a security guard. Technically speaking, he hadn’t been entitled to the discounted sale as he was employed by a third-party contractor, but his dad was well liked at work and had been so proud of Cam for being the first in the family to stay on through A levels, never mind secure a place at university.
Cam remembered looking at his dated laptop and across at Barnie’s iPad and feeling embarrassed and envious. It shamed him now to think back on it, because his parents had made so many sacrifices to enable him to get there. Thank God he’d grown up and been able to recognise it and thank them, though he still felt a twinge of guilt about the shallow boy he’d been. With his heart of gold, Barnie had never once made Cam feel any less of an equal and had shared everything, from his superior technology to his extra allowance, with such natural grace and charm, it had been impossible for Cam to feel patronised by him. More used to hard work and far more aware of the cost of failure, Cam had helped Barnie in other ways, curbing his tendency to procrastinate and instilling a healthy study routine for the both of them. Those early bonds had solidified into a friendship they both relied on.
Leaning back in his seat, Cam folded his arms and grinned at the information Hope had sent him about his ‘shack’. ‘I’ll be weeping into the hot tub on my private deck tonight as I think about you in your stuffy hotel room.’
‘Ha! I’ll be in there with you, pal. Those beers in the boot aren’t going to drink themselves.’ Barnie flicked a sly glance at Cam. ‘Unless, of course, you’re planning on a rendezvous with the delectable Hope, and then just say the word and I’ll keep a low profile.’
An image flashed into Cam’s head of a smiling Hope with all that glorious dark hair, wet and slicked back from her face while the bubbles of a hot tub obscured her body from his view. Was she a beer drinker? He rather doubted it and quickly swapped the bottle in her imaginary hand for a slender flute of golden champagne. Perhaps she’d prefer a gin and tonic, though, given she ran the distillery. He’d never really developed a taste for the stuff, though he’d be willing to submit himself to Hope’s tutelage. He’d be willing to submit himself to a lot of things, if he was honest with himself.
‘Earth to Cameron!’ Barnie took one hand off the wheel and waved his arm in front of Cam’s face. ‘I’d ask for a penny for your thoughts, but I’m not sure they would be repeatable given the glazed look in your eyes!’ Barnie cackled with laughter, clearly enjoying himself. ‘Cam’s got a crush,’ he continued in the annoying sing-song way he’d used to tease him when they were undergraduates and Cam had spotted a pretty girl in one of the student bars.
‘Piss off, you idiot,’ Cam grumbled, but he knew he had been caught bang to rights. What on earth was he going to do about this attraction he felt towards Hope? Ignore it.
‘Come on, Cam, don’t be like that, you know I’m only messing around.’
‘You’d better be.’ Cam sat up straight, his voice growing serious. ‘I mean it, Barnie. This project could be really important, and I can’t afford to muck it up or upset Hope and her family with any suggestion of impropriety.’
‘I swear I’ll be on my best behaviour,’ Barnie assured him. ‘But I think it’s a shame. She’s got brains as well as beauty. Breeding too, from the research I’ve been doing.’
‘Well, that’s definitely put a scotch on things because if she’s from a fancy bloodline, they won’t want to pollute it with common stock like mine.’ Cam laughed as he said it, but there was still a touch of truth in his words. Hope Travers might be everything he’d look for in a woman, but they were from very different worlds. ‘How posh are we talking?’ He hadn’t meant the question to slip out, but he told himself it was research rather than personal curiosity.
‘Grandfather’s a baron. The title itself dates back to the first half of the sixteenth century.’
‘Henry VIII?’ Cam tugged his seat belt loose enough he could turn in his seat to look at his friend.
Eyes on the road, Barnie nodded. ‘You know what that might mean…’
