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Hope stared down at the chips going cold on her plate and she pushed it away, not feeling hungry any more. ‘It is a bit grim.’
Her cousin was made of sterner stuff because he continued to wolf down his food. ‘Superstitious nonsense,’ he scoffed between bites. ‘They probably wanted an excuse to down tools.’
Cassie nodded. ‘That’s what the baron complained about in his diary, particularly when they started asking for more money. He persuaded most of the workers to continue, but a few refused to return. A couple of weeks later, a fever ran through the village and the estate. Your ancestor didn’t go into numbers, but several people died, including his eldest son.’
‘Oh, that’s awful.’ A cold shudder ran down Hope’s spine as she tried to imagine the despair the old baron must have felt over losing a child, and his heir to boot. Things like that mattered to families like theirs, no matter how much they tried to pretend they’d moved on from such things. If Ziggy didn’t have any children, which was looking increasingly likely given he hadn’t been out on more than a handful of dates as far as Hope could remember, then eventually Rhys would inherit the baronetcy. She pushed the thought away because even thinking about it felt like inviting disaster down upon the family. Her grandfather and both her uncles were fit and well, so it wasn’t something that needed to be worried about for many years. Hope tapped the wooden bench. Touch wood.
Cassie nodded. ‘He was distraught and things only went further downhill. After that, no one would come and work for him – and not just the extra labourers he’d got in for the gardens – the farmworkers downed tools and refused to set foot on the estate until the baron promised to do something about it. In the end, they left him no choice and he agreed to knock down what there was of the folly and return all the stones to the site. He was so angry, he razed the entire site to the ground, apart from what was left of the chapel because no one would go near it, and they buried everything. He had the gardens redesigned and when they’d finished building them, all the excess soil and leftover rubble and brick was transported up to the ruins and dumped on top until there was nothing left to see but a flat field.’
‘I wonder if that’s why we don’t graze up there,’ Rhys put in suddenly. ‘I’ve always assumed we avoided it because the river is open there and it’s too much of a risk to the livestock, but there are other parts of the estate where the river has been fenced off from the grazing land.’
‘Could be,’ Cam agreed, then he rubbed a hand over his face.
‘Are you okay?’ Hope asked him. ‘You’re not worried about this nonsense to do with a curse, are you?’
Laughing, he put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Not one bit. I was just thinking about how much damage was done and wondering what the site might have looked like before the baron got it into his head to build that stupid folly.’
‘What’s done is done,’ Hope said, resting her head on his shoulder. ‘All you can do is keep digging and see how much of it you can salvage.’
The mood around the table took a bit of a nosedive and Hope was wondering whether they should call it an early night. She was still worried about Amelia, who hadn’t done more than pick at her food, even before the conversation had turned to dead bodies and curses. The wine bottle was empty, but her friend hadn’t taken more than a couple of sips. Hope wondered if they should’ve been more sensitive about her father’s drinking, but if they’d all chosen soft drinks, then what kind of a message would that send to Amelia? We’d better not have a glass of wine in case you end up an alcoholic like your father? Hope shook her head. No. Whatever sins and wrongs Keith had committed, they were his burdens to carry, and his alone. She nudged Amelia’s shoulder. ‘You all right?’
Amelia managed a small smile. ‘Just tired.’
‘If you want to go…’
‘No, please, I’m fine.’ Amelia tipped her head back to look up at the sky, which was a brilliant mass of gold and red with the slightest hint of purple at the edge which augured the approaching sunset. ‘It’s so nice to be out instead of stuck at home staring at the TV while Mum works her way through all the evening soaps.’
‘Shall I get us another drink then?’ When her friend nodded, Hope looked down at Amelia’s plate. ‘Maybe something else to eat – we could split something if you don’t want a full meal.’ Even if she had a mouthful or two, it would be better than nothing. Not waiting for an answer, Hope picked up one of the menus. ‘If we’re going to order anything else, we should do it sooner rather than later,’ she said to the group at large.
The rest of the evening was much more relaxed. Over another round of drinks and main meals, including a chicken Caesar salad Hope shared with Amelia, Cam and his friends got into exchanging banter about their university days. It seemed they would spare no shame to keep each other laughing, from missed lectures to foolish dares, including one where Cam had slipped an anonymous Valentine’s card into Mrs Cotteridge’s handbag. ‘I thought I’d got away with it all that time,’ he said, chuckling at the memory. ‘And then I walked into my office the first Valentine’s Day after I started working as junior lecturer and there it was, sitting on my desk!’
‘The same card?’ Hope couldn’t believe it.
He nodded. ‘The very same one. I spent ages choosing it and it had this sort of red velvet background. I couldn’t give Mrs Cotteridge any old tat, you know.’
‘Did she say anything to you?’
‘Tell her the best bit!’ Barnie called out before he turned towards her and carried on speaking. ‘He put it back on her desk the year after, and they’re still exchanging it!’
Cam shrugged, looking a bit embarrassed but also pleased with himself. ‘She’s an absolute sweetheart. She really looked out for us when we were students and she’s still covering my arse all these years later.’
Hope remembered the way the older woman had considered her request for a long moment before leading her towards Cam’s office when she’d shown up looking for help. ‘If it wasn’t for her, I might never have met you.’
Leaning over, Cam pressed a quick kiss to her lips. ‘It’s my turn to give her the card next year, I’ll have to add a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates to thank her.’
While Hope sat there, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside about the idea of the two of them still being together then, Barnie began relaying some outlandish story. He’d gone home with a girl who lived in one of the other halls and ended up getting locked out in the corridor when he’d opened the wrong door, trying to find the bathroom. Even his most frantic knocking hadn’t woken her up and he’d ended up sleeping in the communal kitchen with only a tea towel to protect his modesty when her flatmates began to stir the next morning.
Hope clutched her stomach, which ached from laughing, as she pictured him sitting there in a plastic bucket chair with just a scrap of cloth over his lap. ‘Stop it, for goodness’ sake,’ she gasped.
‘My pelvic floor isn’t what it used to be,’ Cassie announced, through tears of laughter. ‘If I have an accident, Lysander Barnard, it’ll be your bloody fault!’
‘Lysander?’ Amelia said in disbelief before clamping a hand over her mouth. ‘Are you serious?’
Barnie immediately scowled, which only made everyone laugh harder. Cassie heaved herself up from the bench. ‘Come on,’ she said to Amelia, offering a hand to pull her up. ‘You can show me the way to the ladies’, and I’ll tell you all about it.’
They stayed until the sun was nothing more than a thin strip of red on the horizon, everyone too reluctant to make a move while knowing they all had full work schedules the following day. ‘We should go,’ Hope said, having drained the last of her tea. The hot drinks had been another delaying tactic, as had the desserts no one had needed but hadn’t been able to resist when they saw the people at a nearby table tucking into thick wedges of strawberry cheesecake.
‘You said that ten minutes ago,’ Rhys said with a laugh.
