I picked up my fork to begin eating, before noticing that Jack was holding up his glass. I returned my fork to the table, and I picked up my own glass.
‘It seems someone does have something to celebrate, then?’
‘There’s always something to celebrate if you look hard enough.’
I wiggled my head in a maybe yes, maybe no kind of fashion.
Jack looked at me patiently. ‘Right now, I’d like to make a toast to you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. You. For opening your home to me and making what could have been a very difficult transition so much easier. Especially when I know you could probably have brained Felix for making the offer on your behalf.’
‘Who said it was on my behalf? It might have been my idea all along, for all you know.’
He really did have a great laugh and I loved the way it filled my kitchen with warmth and joy. My determination to keep a straight face lasted all of two seconds.
‘It was pretty obvious from your face on the screen that night that it definitely wasn’t your idea.’
‘Rubbish, you don’t know me well enough to judge that.’
‘You’d be surprised. I spent an awful lot of time at your house and watched you grow up.’
‘Oh, pfft. You didn’t even notice I was there. Your eyes were always on the next pretty girl.’
‘Maybe they were,’ Jack said, evenly. ‘Can I make this toast now?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘To you. For all that you are.’
His eyes didn’t leave me as he spoke and I felt the heat creep up my chest under his gaze and the attention, neither of which I was used to. I saw a flicker of something I guessed to be amusement flit across his face before he tilted his glass to connect with mine, the crystal ringing clear before he lifted his own to his lips and took a sip. I, on the other hand, drained the glass.
8
Jack watched me put the glass down and without a word refilled it.
‘Thirsty,’ I said by way of an explanation.
Eager to move the focus away from me, I asked Jack to tell me about his day, which morphed into him telling me how the rebuild of his business was going and the people he’d met so far, as well as the plans both they and he had for moving forward. In between this, he complimented me several times on the dinner, of which he had now had second helpings.
My plate empty, I sat listening to him talk, loving the enthusiasm that radiated from him when he spoke about his work. It was easy to see the joy that it brought him, and it was a shame that his family had never supported him on his choice. Inevitably, the conversation drifted around to this very point.
‘You still haven’t seen them, then?’
‘No, although I can only put it off for so long. I think they were hoping I’d have got this whole “gardener” business out of my system by now. They were pretty horrified to find out that I was still happily toiling in the earth.’
‘What is it that they don’t agree with? You’re a respected garden designer who trained at Kew, for goodness’ sake. You can’t get much better than that. You’ve made a huge success of it all and it makes people happy.’
He laughed without humour. ‘Making people happy is the last thing to be considered when it comes to my family. Tradition, appearances, doing the right thing – that’s all of importance. Whether people are happy or not is way down the list of considerations.’
‘OK, in which case, you are doing the right thing. The right thing for you.’
‘Oh, my dear girl,’ he said thickening and emphasising his original cut-glass accent until it was almost a pastiche of his own father’s. ‘How little you understand these things. Yes, it’s about doing the right thing. But the right thing for the family, not you personally.’
‘New traditions are born all the time,’ I said, taking a sip of my third glass. I did a double take at the glass. Was it really my third? How did that happen?
‘Not in the Coulsdon-Hart estate, they’re not.’
