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“No, we didn’t have the same ease that Madeleine and I did, and I’m not sure why it was so hard. She was beautiful, accomplished, very successful in her field. But something wasn’t right. I couldn’t commit, and that’s what she wanted. She wanted to get married and I couldn’t do it. The end hurt her, and she thought maybe I needed more time, but I didn’t need more time. I needed someone else—” He broke off at the sound of a car drawing close to the house.
The kitchen overlooked the back, with windows providing a view of the former stable master’s cottage and part of the parking area. Alec went to one of the windows and then shook his head, muttering something under his breath before leaving the kitchen.
“What’s happened?” Cara asked, following him into the corridor that led to the mudroom’s exterior door.
“It’s the aunts,” he said, incredulous. “They’ve arrived.”
*
It took twentyminutes to settle Emma and Dorothy in their respective bedrooms on the second floor in the family wing, with their rooms adjacent to each other. They always took the same rooms, and Mrs. Booth had aired them before she left, and made the beds up in anticipation of their arrival, so all Cara had to do was make sure Alec and the aunts had luggage in the right rooms, and then Cara returned downstairs to prepare the water bottles that everyone at Langley took to bed at night.
Cara didn’t know how long Alec stayed up talking to his aunts, but when he told Cara she didn’t need to stay any longer, she didn’t argue. She was glad to finally be upstairs in her wing, in her room, changing into pajamas and washing her face.
Her feet hurt from being on them all day, and it was with a sigh of pleasure that she climbed between the covers and turned out the light.
In bed, Cara thought about everything Alec shared with her tonight. About his beloved Madeleine, the girlfriend Elizabeth, the ease of one relationship, and the inability for another to feel comfortable and right.
What made someonethe one?
And if Alec had met Elizabeth before Madeleine, could she have maybe been the right one? Was it timing that made her wrong for him? Or was it something else, something intangible that one couldn’t explain?
At least now Cara understood why the staff was so protective of Alec and Mrs. Booth, in particular, didn’t want Cara in a hotel but at Langley. Mrs. Booth wanted Alec to have company during what had to be a difficult week.
Yet he’d been the good company today, taking her for that gorgeous drive through the Peak District, followed by lunch at Haddon Hall, a lunch that was interrupted by the appearance of Chet and Alison, but Alec had been almost heroic in how he’d managed Chet. They’d come home to the arrival of Uncle Frederick, the candlelight house tour, the takeout dinner, the washing of the champagne flutes, and then the aunts appearing so close to bedtime, and he’d handled getting them settled with only a little help from her.
He was the host, and he was a good host at a time that wasn’t his favorite, which made her think that at work he would be the same—a strong leader, a confident leader, someone who put others first, time and again.
How could you not respect that?
How could you not care for someone who put others’ needs first?
Was it fate or luck that she chose this week to visit, a week where the holiday cottage managers, Harry and Susan, were away for their first Christmas together? Because if they’d been here, Cara would have never met Mrs. Booth, and she wouldn’t have been invited into the house, and she wouldn’t have met Alec, which led to being included in the Sherbournes’ Christmas. It was all rather surprising and magical—because these things only happened in stories—but it was happening to her.
She really owed her brother Tom a better gift, maybe a bottle of whiskey, because without him giving her this week at the cottage, she wouldn’t be here, and she would have never met Alec and Alec was really the best part of everything.
Not that she’d ever tell him, of course.
*
Cara woke atfive Friday morning instead of three or four,which was a huge improvement. She waited another half hour before getting up and dressing, and then, when she couldn’t stand being in her room another minute, went downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to make coffee. Happily, it had already been made, and Alec was standing at the large marble-topped island, drinking coffee and reading on his iPad.
He hadn’t heard her enter the kitchen and she paused to just take him in and let her pulse settle. He was gorgeous, dressed in jeans and an oversized ruby-red sweater over a white T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved but his thick hair was combed back from his strong brow, and it amazed her that he could look just as handsome and dashing in jeans and a sweater as he did in a tailored coat.
“Good morning,” she said briskly, as if she’d only just entered the room.
He glanced up. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
“Better than I have. I think I’m getting used to your time here.”
His lips curved. “Which means you’ll suffer when you return home.”
“True.” She glanced around the enormous kitchen, completely unfamiliar with it. “Where could I find a cup?”
He gestured to an upper cabinet not far from the farmhouse-style sink. “Dishes are there. Cutlery in the drawer below.”
“This is a huge kitchen,” she said, retrieving a cup.
“The original kitchen was downstairs, along with the butler’s room, the housekeeper’s rooms, the staff dining room, so forth, but fifteen years ago, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Booth decided that a new modern kitchen on the main floor was needed, and together approached my father, asking for a new space with windows and light, and so this part of the wing, which has at different times been a drawing room, a billiard room, and mostrecently, a bachelor’s quarter, became the new kitchen, with its much-used hall leading to the mudroom.”
