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‘It’s nothing.’
She gave a cracked laugh and did a three-sixty-degree turn that made her head spin. ‘This is not nothing.’
He grabbed her arm to steady her. ‘Compared to seeing Emmy smile, it is nothing.’ His grandfather’s words during that last argument came back to him.
‘Your problem is you think it’s all about profit, but it isn’t. It’s about people... You know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.’
Even though he’d mended bridges, Ben’s jaw hardened at the memory, just as it had back then as he had watched his grandfather feed the proposal he had sweated over for months—the one that was to drag the estate into the twenty-first century—into the fire.
But maybe the old man had had a point. And if he’d not reacted to his hurt pride and instead of storming off had stayed and made him see that it wasn’t all about the figures, there would have been no bridges to build. An image of his grandfather’s lined face—it was the frailty that had shocked him—rose up, leaving a taste of regret in his mouth.
Clearing his throat, he didn’t quite meet Lily’s eyes as he shrugged his shoulders. ‘We won’t be out of pocket the way the market is. We could sell the place tomorrow and make money and it isn’t totally altruistic—this is a big house.’
Her eyelashes fluttered as the comment sank in. She thought of the kiss and her insides quivered. Reading between the lines was an inexact science, especially when you were this exhausted. ‘You plan to live here?’
He looked as if he was about to say something, then to her intense frustration shook his head decisively. ‘Look, we can talk about this later. Right now what you need is sleep. I’ll show you where the room is.’
She looked at the sweeping staircase and felt a surge of panic. ‘You’ll wake me if there is any news?’
‘I promise.’
‘And you won’t let me sleep too long?’
In his view, a week would not be long enough for her, but he agreed.
* * *
He left her at the door of the room that was on the first floor, which was just as well because she was virtually asleep on her feet.
Lily barely registered the room as she headed for the bed, a modern limed-oak four-poster. With a sigh she closed her eyes and fell headlong onto it.
Bliss, she was asleep in seconds.
Coming to check on her fifteen minutes later, Ben tapped on the door that was still half open. When there was no reply he pushed it gently inwards; he could hear the sound of her soft breathing.
He crossed the room and, keeping one watchful eye on the sleeping figure, carefully lowered the Roman blinds on the window. The light dimmed but not significantly; the blinds were unlined. The heavy drapes would have provided a blackout, but, suspended by brass rings on a pole of the same material, would have made one hell of a racket so he left them alone.
As he passed the bed she sighed.
He had reached the door when he found himself walking back. He stood for a moment looking down at her. She lay on her stomach, one arm curved above her head, the other dangling over the edge of the bed. Her face half hidden by the pillow and her mane of glorious hair lightly flushed, she looked like a sleeping angel.
He unfolded a tartan throw that was neatly folded at the bottom of the bed and spread it carefully over her before easing off one calf-length boot and then the other.
‘Marry her!’ his grandfather had said, and of course, being the man he was, he had made it sound like an order, not a suggestion.
He had listened—not because the idea was anything less than ludicrous but because he knew that the old man, misguided and terminally old-fashioned as he was, had his best interests at heart.
‘Compromise is not a dirty word. Life doesn’t have to be a head-on collision.’
As he’d listened Ben had reluctantly acknowledged that his grandfather was not saying much he hadn’t secretly thought himself.
He had not planned a family, but now he had one wouldn’t it make sense to formalise things? The idea took hold and grew. He’d thought of it as a marriage of convenience because he’d been too much of a coward to face the truth. Today had changed that; he had been given a glimpse of what it would feel like to lose someone he loved.
How much worse would it feel to lose someone you loved and know you’d never had the guts to admit even to yourself that you loved her?
Not that anything was going to happen to Lily, his beautiful, marvellous Lily, not on his watch. He wanted to wake her up now and tell her; it took all his willpower not to.
