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She pulled a face that told him he was right and that she didn’t regret any of them.
Leia arrived with their drinks and starters. James allowed his gaze to move from Estelle to the food in front of them, and his stomach rumbled.
‘Go on,’ Estelle said. ‘Try it.’
He speared a slice of salami and put it in his mouth. It was full of robust flavour, zinging with black pepper and the sweetness of fennel seeds.
‘See? It’s amazing.’
He nodded. ‘It is. So, tell me about Alexis. Did she hand the livery over to you before…’
Estelle’s nose scrunched up, and she took a sip of her drink. ‘Kind of. I don’t remember the first time I got on a horse, but Alexis would have been the one to put me on it and lead me around the manège. Growing up, if I wasn’t at home then I was at the livery, especially after I went to secondary school.’
She picked up a chunk of chorizo and ate it before continuing.
‘I wanted to do a degree in equine studies, but Dad said I knew so much about horses already it would be a waste of time and money, and Mom wanted me to be an actress and model instead.’
Stabbing her fork into the food in front of her, she speared capers, pickled carrot slices and salami, then shoved them into her mouth.
‘So, what did you do?’
Estelle shrugged as she chewed then swallowed. ‘I tried to fulfil my destiny as a member of the British aristocracy and please my father at the same time.’
‘Doing?’
‘History of Art, of course. It’s one of Dad’s passions and I know a fair bit about the subject. But I was as out of place with the poshos as I was with the hoi polloi at Foxbrooke secondary. Officially, I was “one of them”, but with my family background, I most certainly wasn’t.’
James was silent. Estelle could have been talking about how he felt growing up. But whereas she’d had the confidence to stick out, he’d spent most of his life trying to fit in.
‘I first knew Alexis was ill in the summer after my first year,’ she continued. ‘She’d kept it from me for at least twelve months, and when I saw her again that Christmas, I knew she wasn’t going to make it.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She didn’t meet his gaze, seeming lost in her memories.
‘When she died, Dad wanted to sell the stables. Because of her illness, the business had been struggling, and he wanted to get shot of it. I persuaded him to let me take it on and left uni for good. I threw myself into saving the livery, and once it was on an even keel, I started working more and more for the wider estate. Trying to stop Dad and his crazy ideas running the entire place into the ground.’
‘What happened when you were seven?’ he asked softly.
She glanced up, a look of shock on her face. ‘You remembered?’
He nodded.
‘What happened when you were seven?’ she countered.
‘You remembered.’
‘You said it was the last time you ever cried.’
James shifted in his seat. Did he want to tell her? No, of course he didn’t. But she’d just shared something with him he doubted many people knew.
Just rip the plaster off.
‘I was seven when Dad decided to upgrade our family and change my name. It was weird, but he made it sound like an exciting game our family were destined to win. As well as the new name, we had a new house, and I was enrolled in the nearest prep school. The uniform felt like some kind of superhero costume.’
Estelle had stopped eating and was listening intently.
‘A lot of boys started with me at seven, so I wasn’t the odd one out. I made a friend, Jeremy, that week, and invited him to my house on Saturday afternoon for a game of football. He came, I thought we had a good time, then he left.’
