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“All right, let’s accept that is so. Can you honestly say Mr. Brown returns your feelings?”
Jeannie’s lips pressed tight, as if refusing to allow the words to escape.
“Sweetheart, Mr. Brown is almost twice your age,” Sabrina said in a kind voice. “And you have quite a lot of growing up to do before you’re ready for marriage.”
“Other girls get married at my age,” Jeannie protested. “And I’m sure he’d wait for me, anyway.”
Kathleen steeled herself for the necessary cut. “I’m sorry, darling. Mr. Brown is a very kind man, and I’m sure he thinks you’re a terribly sweet girl. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he does not love you.”
“You don’t know that!”
She held Jeannie’s gaze. “I assure you, I do.”
The girl stared at her for a moment. Then she gasped. “You want him for yourself, don’t you?”
“I absolutely do not,” Kathleen emphatically replied.
Jeannie pulled from her loose grasp. “I don’t believe you. You always have to have everything, don’t you? You always have to haveallthe attention.” She dashed a hand across her eyes. “It’s not fair.”
“Dearest, I swear to you—”
The girl pushed past her and stormed for the door. When Kathleen started after her, Jeannie spun around and flung up her hands.
“Leave me alone, Kath. I hate you. Ihateyou.” Then she ran from the room.
Stunned, Kathleen sank into the club chair in front of Graeme’s desk. “I made a mess out of that, didn’t I?”
Sabrina grimaced. “It couldn’t be avoided, I’m afraid. Now, can I get you a whisky, old girl? You look like you could use it.”
“Please. And make it a large one.”
Chapter Nineteen
Despite the darkness, Grant easily spotted Kathleen in the new gazebo at the far end of the kitchen garden. She’d designed the elegant little folly, incongruously set amidst vegetable beds. She had a knack for bringing beauty to the odd corners of life that everyone else forgot, filling them with laughter, joy, and even love.
When she’d burst into his quiet life like quicksilver and moonlight, she’d yanked him awake. Grant now knew that Kathleen Calvert was exactly what he’d been looking for all along.
He walked past the neatly tended beds, some already mulched and ready for the colder months ahead. Would Kathleen spend those months up here, separated from the wider world and from him? That was a question that needed answering.
She sat on a wrought-iron bench in the corner, her legs tucked under her skirts. Deep in thought, she didn’t glance up until he stepped into the gazebo.
“Getting a bit of fresh air, are we?” Grant asked.
“I’m hiding,” she tersely replied. “This place seemed safe from discovery.”
“Ah. Would you rather I go away?”
“Oh . . . no. I’m sorry to snap your nose off. You startled me, that’s all.”
He leaned against a support post. “I should have called out before sneaking up on you.”
“You Kendricks do seem to excel at popping up out of nowhere.”
“Then perhaps you could bell me, like a cat.”
She chuckled. “I’d say you’re much too big, and more like a tiger than a harmless tabby cat.”
Grant rather liked the sound of that. “Seen any tigers lately? Besides me, of course.”
