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“So, you do know.”
He shrugged. “Alec is my best friend.”
She sighed heavily, clearly exasperated by him. “Is she sick?”
“We’ll be there in less than an hour.”
“So, she’s at least at Langley?”
“Yes.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard, Baird. I appreciate the straight answer.”
His brow lifted. “Do your friends enjoy your sarcasm?”
“I think so.”
He wanted to smile but he wouldn’t let himself. “Hmm. I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Do you even have friends?” she retorted a little too cheerfully. “Besides Alec, I mean?”
“I do, and I have a close family. We see each other often. Any other questions?”
“A few.”
“Let’s have them then, and once you’re satisfied, perhaps we can just be silent.”
Ella laughed. “You sound like an eighty-year-old man.”
She made him feel like it, too. “So, what are your questions, Ella?”
“Do you have brothers or sisters? Or are you an only child?”
“Three sisters. I’m the only lad.”
“And what a lad you are.” Ella said before clearing her throat. “I was being sarcastic, too. That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Oh, I knew that,” he assured her.
Silence followed. Ella had given up.
*
Baird didn’t speakagain until he began slowing down. “We’re almost there,” he said, pointing to the line of thick trees bordering the road. “That’s all Langley Park. The house is set back on the property. You can’t see it from the road. Those that rent the holiday cottages use this access road, but we’ll go through the main gates.”
Ella didn’t know what she’d expected, but not all these open fields with the clusters of oak and sycamore trees. She wondered if the land was pastures or for crops. “Is this good farmland?” she asked.
“No. The Peak District lends itself more to sheep and cattle, and crops such as hay to feed the livestock. Some farmers have been successful with maize or some root crops, but it’s not particularly arable. Most farms here are small.”
“So, this isn’t farmland?” she asked, pointing to the fields behind the stone wall.
“No. It’s just what we call parkland.”
Baird drove through huge gates and down a long driveway which gave quick views of an enormous red brick mansion, the center of the house flanked by two red brick wings of different heights and styles.
“Wow,” Ella whispered.
“It never fails to impress me, too,” Baird said. “The central house is Elizabethan and still has the original Tudor hall, but the exterior has been hidden by a Georgian façade.”
