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‘Sorry.’ He looked at her sheepishly, his face breaking out in a grin. ‘Off all the things to say, eh?’
Lili burst out laughing, too.
Abigail’s smile faded. ‘Will you do as I ask, Joss? Not mention to anyone here that I inherited Daphne’s cottage?’
‘Of course. You can count on me.’
Abigail’s eyes shifted to Lili across the table. She was smiling at Joss again, with a glint in her eye. Abigail caught her attention and frowned at her, shaking her head as if to say,I know what you’re up to, trying to fix me up, and it is not going to work.
Lili looked away. She glanced at her watch. ‘Well, crumbs! Is that the time? I’d better crack on.’
Although Joss hadn’t long sat down, and his bap was half-eaten, he rose from his seat.
Lili waved her hand at Joss. ‘No, not you. You’ve still got twenty minutes.’
‘But I went into town.’
Lili shook her head. ‘Doesn’t count. Finish your lunch. You can catch me up. You know where I am, on the south lawn.’
Joss turned to Abigail. ‘Are you going too?’
She was about to sayyeswhen Lili got there first. ‘Abigail has a longer lunch break because she’s employed in the house.’
Are you serious?thought Abigail.Lili was clearly engineering this.But she had no choice but to say, ‘Yes.’
‘I, on the other hand, set the breaks for the landscaping work, and I’m afraid it’s just thirty minutes. Unless you drive into town and get me a lovely bap and a cream cake.’ Lili reached for the table and took a cream bun out of a small box of cakes that Joss had bought in the cake shop. ‘Well, enjoy the rest of your break. I’ll see you in a bit.’
Abigail watched her stomp off in her wellies around the side of the house. She turned back to Joss and fidgeted in her seat, suddenly at a loss for what to say.
Joss stood up.
Abigail looked up at him. ‘Oh, are you going back to work now?’ Absurdly, although she was cross with Lili for leaving her alone with Joss – she was sure her friend had engineered it – on the other hand, she didn’t much fancy sitting there on her own.
‘Would you like to take a walk in the grounds? It beats sitting here looking at a car park. What do you think? A quick twenty minutes?’
What’s the harm?Abigail thought. Besides, it was quite possible she was just reading too much into things, and Lili wasn’t after fixing her up with Joss. She reckoned she was just being oversensitive.
