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‘And if it’s not?’ Ben cautioned.
She smiled lovingly at him.
‘If it’s not, then we’ll be in the right place to commiserate with each other, won’t we? But it won’t be bad news,’ she told him firmly.
She insisted that he should be the one to open it and then closed her eyes, urging him to hurry because she couldn’t bear the suspense any longer, crossing her fingers behind her back as she listened to the sounds of him tearing open the envelope.
She could feel his tension and stillness as he read whatever was inside and then, unable to bear it any longer, she opened her eyes and begged.
‘What does it say?’
Silently Ben handed her the contents of the envelope. She scanned the letter quickly before dropping it on to the bed to scrutinise the thick glossy brochure which it had been attached to.
‘Oh, Ben! Look… it’s perfect!’
‘You haven’t read it properly yet,’ he derided her, but he was smiling and she could tell, although he was struggling hard to conceal it, that he was almost as excited as she was herself.
* * *
‘Don’t start getting your hopes too high,’ Ben warned her later when the brochure had been read and re-read at least a dozen times. ‘As Clive points out in his letter, there’s a long way to go. We’ll need planning permission to convert the stable block for one thing, and then…’
‘But it’s so perfect,’ Zoe interrupted him excitedly. ‘All that land…’
‘Which will have to be maintained. Gardens are all very well, but they don’t look after themselves, you know.’
‘No. No, of course not, but that walled vegetable garden… You said yourself that with people becoming more aware of the importance of how their food is grown as well as prepared…’ she began impatiently, but Ben shook his head.
‘We’re a long way from growing our own produce, Zoe. That’s something that will be way, way ahead in the future.’
‘But with a house like this at least we’ll have the potential for that kind of future development, won’t we?’
‘We don’t know that Clive will be able to buy the place yet,’ Ben reminded her. ‘He only says in his letter that the property is suitable and that, because of its situation, it won’t be overpriced.’
‘No, but he says that the surrounding area is reasonably prosper
ous, and that he believes that there will be a demand for a first-class restaurant, and then there’ll be weddings and other functions. Oh, Ben… it’s perfect. We’ll be able to use the gardens for marquees, and it says here that there’s a large pond…’
‘Which we’ll probably have to fill in, if we don’t want to spend half our time fishing drunken wedding guests out of it,’ Ben supplied drily.
Zoe made a small moue and flung her pillow at him.
‘You don’t fool me,’ she told him. ‘I know that you’re just as excited about it all as I am. When shall we go and see it? Clive says he’ll make arrangements for us to view it with him, if we can give him a date. Ben… Ben, what are you doing?’ she protested as he took hold of her and started kissing her.
‘Didn’t you say something about us celebrating?’ he asked her, his voice muffled as he kissed the soft curve of her breast.
‘It’s two o’clock in the morning and you’ve got to be up at four.’
‘Who needs to wait until four?’ he told her. ‘I’m “up” right now; come and feel for yourself.’
Zoe laughed, enjoying his unusual mock-macho display. It wasn’t like him to either talk or behave so playfully, and she felt her own spirits lift as she responded to his ebullience.
She repaid him for it later though, laughing as he protested at the delicate friction of her teeth against his skin.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded as she released him, craning his head over his shoulder suspiciously as he saw her face.
‘Nothing,’ she fibbed innocently, her eyes full of laughter as she surveyed the results of her handiwork, the small neat heart-shaped outline of lovebites she had drawn quite deliberately across his buttocks.
‘Will you be playing rugby on Sunday?’ she asked him sleepily as she curled up next to him.
