by Kate Hewitt
“Emily and I have met,” Owen said easily. “She came to ask if The Drowned Sailor would take part in the fundraiser up at the manor, and of course I said yes. No one says no to Lord Stokeley.” If there was a very slight edge to Owen’s voice, Emily thought she was the only one who noticed it. Ava seemed oblivious.
“Henry has been going on about that, hasn’t he?” she said with a laugh. “How is it all going, Emily? And can we get you something to drink?”
“Fine, so far. And uh, yes, thank you.” They made it so easy, as natural as breathing. Chat, laugh, drink, eat. Life was both simple and full. At least it could be. But everything felt mechanical to her, as if she had to tell herself what to do. Smile. Nod. Take a sip of the wine Ava just handed to you. Try to act normal.
“It’s going to be quite big, this fundraiser, isn’t it?” Ava remarked as they all moved into the lounge, where two overstuffed sofas framed a cheerily blazing hearth. “Olivia, are you taking part?”
“Oh, yes. Emily asked me, too.” She gave her a quick, friendly smile that felt like an apology, her anxious gaze scanning Emily’s face. They hadn’t spoken since Emily had marched out of her cottage, and Emily thought she was the one who should be apologising. She tried to smile back. “I was thinking about doing cupcakes again.”
“Oh, I adore your cupcakes,” Ava said, and Simon put an arm around Olivia as they settled on the sofa.
“So do I,” he said, with a knowing smile, and Emily knew there had to be a story there. Had they fallen in love over the buttercream icing?
“Olivia did a Twelve Days of Cupcakes last Christmas,” Ava explained. “A different cupcake every day. They were absolutely gorgeous.”
“I came in every day for one,” Simon confessed with a laugh, “although admittedly it wasn’t just for the cupcakes.” He and Olivia gave each other another loved-up look that made Ava roll her eyes good-naturedly. Emily’s gaze snagged with Owen’s and his laughing look had it skittering away again, panicked. This evening was sure to be awkward in all sorts of ways.
“It’s always nice to have things that draw the village together,” Ava said comfortably. “Especially now they’ve cancelled the Easter fete.”
“Have they?” Olivia looked surprised. “Why?”
“Don’t you remember, some louts last year barged in, drunk as skunks, and wrecked a bunch of stalls?” Jace answered. “Unfortunately there’s no way to keep them out, with it being on the village green.”
“What about the fundraiser? It’ll be up at the manor?”
“Yes, on the grounds,” Emily said, although she had barely got that far in her planning.
“You’ll ticket it, I suppose?” Ava said. “To keep the riffraff out?”
“Of course they will,” Owen interjected, his voice light. He was smiling, but his eyes were rather hard. “You can’t have just anyone coming up to the manor, can you?”
Emily felt her cheeks warm. “It’s not that kind of event,” she said, which she’d already told him, that day in the pub. “It’s meant to be very inclusive. Everyone is invited, and if there are tickets, it will just be to keep track of the numbers.” She forced herself to meet Owen’s gaze. He gave her a grudging nod back, and Emily wondered what he had against the manor, or maybe just Henry. No one else seemed to notice it, but she’d sensed a hostility from him whenever either were mentioned.
“And I’m sure it will be,” Ava agreed easily. “It’s bound to be fab.”
The conversation moved on, and Emily sipped her wine, shooting Owen sideways, speculative looks she hoped he didn’t notice, wondering again what he had against the manor. Or maybe it was just her. Despite that weird almost-moment in the courtyard, she was starting to think he might not like her very much. He certainly wasn’t paying her any attention tonight. A fact that normally wouldn’t bother her at all, because she never wanted attention, shied away from it at every opportunity…but somehow tonight it did.
“Right, food’s ready, so shall we all take a seat?” Ava said brightly. “Simon and Olivia, you on that side, Jace on the other end…Owen, can you take that seat?” She gave Emily an entirely bland look. “And, Emily, you next…everyone happy?”
Of course Emily had been seated next to Owen. Ava didn’t do subtle, apparently, as innocent as her look had been. Emily wondered how anyone could think she and Owen were suited. They were as chalk and cheese as two people could possibly be—he so gregarious and larger than life, she a small mouse hiding in the shadows.
Owen seemed to be thinking the same thing, for he slanted her a wry, laughing look as she put her wineglass on the table and sat in the seat next to him.
“Don’t look quite so horrified,” he told her with one of his booming laughs. “I don’t bite.”
“I’m not horrified,” Emily said stiffly. “No more than you are, anyway.” Now where had that come from? It seemed his barbed comment from earlier had drawn blood, after all.
“Horrified?” Owen raised his eyebrows, amused. “Is that what you think I am? Now where did you get that idea?”
Emily shrugged and reached for her napkin. “I don’t know whether it’s me or the manor or both, but something seems to have got your back up.” She smoothed the napkin across her lap, not quite willing to meet his gaze. She wasn’t normally so forthright, and it made her feel all shaky inside. She shouldn’t have said anything.
“You’re right about that,” Owen said after a moment, the laughter gone from his voice. “Although I don’t think anyone else has much noticed. But the whole manor set sticks in my craw a bit. I’m not ashamed to admit it, although I generally don’t.” He sounded so serious that Emily risked a look up. Everyone else was chatting and serving food, heads angled away from them, giving them the illusion of privacy even at a crowded dinner table—something she suspected was completely intentional.
“The manor set?” she repeated.
“Henry and his like. The privileged few, and they know it.” He shrugged. “I suppose I’ve got a chip on my shoulder, but there it is. They go their way and I go mine, and usually it’s fine.”
“Henry Trent does take a bit of getting used to,” Emily said after a moment, when she’d absorbed all that Owen had said. “He’s quite abrupt, but I do think he’s a good man underneath.” She’d never minded her boss’s taciturn ways, and it was his new, more effusive manner that had her feeling rather alarmed, but she couldn’t exactly explain that to Owen.
“So you don’t think he’s a snob?”
Emily hesitated. In her four years at Ellis Investments, Henry definitely had been a snob. He’d insisted on only the best of everything—whether it was his Montblanc fountain pen or the Veuve Clicquot she’d order for a celebratory meeting with a client. His suits were straight from Savile Row, and cost in the thousands. And then there was the Jag…
But he was a rich man, and he’d moved in exalted circles, and the guest list for some of the firm’s events would have made many a jaw drop. Did it make him a snob? Was he one still? Maybe.
Emily had never minded, because she liked nice things and anyway, her preferred place was on the outside looking in. But that didn’t mean it was for Owen.
“I think he’s changing,” she answered. “I think Alice is changing him.”
“The love of a good woman,” Owen quipped wryly. “And I know she’s had some hard times of her own—she was a former foster kid, herself, or so I heard.”
“Yes, she was.”
“Henry keeps it quiet, though, doesn’t he? The village crack was that he didn’t think her suitable at first.”
“I’m not sure…” Emily could see how he wouldn’t, but it seemed unkind to be talking like that about Alice now.
Owen shrugged. “She seems like a good sort to me.”
“She is,” Emily said firmly.
“What about you?” Owen asked. “Where did you grow up?”
Such a loaded question, although it didn’t have to be. “Reading,” Emily said, because it was what
she always said and it was where she’d been born. She had lived there for six years, after all.
“Brothers? Sisters?” Owen raised his eyebrows, giving her a faint smile that seemed to say, a conversation takes two, you know. Emily reached for her wine.
“No, just me. What about you?” There, she could bat it back at him.
“A whole passel of sisters. Five, actually.”
“Goodness. And that was in…?”
“Cwmparc, in the Rhondda Valley, in Wales. Couldn’t you tell?” He grinned at her, his eyes twinkling, making her want to look away.
“I figured Wales,” she admitted. “The accent is a bit of a giveaway.”
“True enough.”
“How did you end up in the Cotswolds?”
“Well, I wanted to get out of Cwmparc as soon as I could. There’s not much there anymore, to be honest. The mines shut down for good in the eighties, when I was a kid. Put my dad out of work along with just about every other poor bloke in the place.” His face set in grim lines for a second, before it relaxed into an easy smile. “So I took the bus east and my ticket went as far as Cheltenham. From there I worked in pubs here and there until I had enough money to buy The Drowned Sailor. Bought it when it was a right dump and got it for a song.”
“And the rest of your family?” Emily asked, curious. Two parents, five sisters. She couldn’t imagine having so many people in her life.
Owen’s face set again and then once more he deliberately relaxed. “They’re still all back in Cwmparc, except my father.” He paused. “He died a few years ago now.”
*
He didn’t usually talk about his family—the bevy of sisters with their whiny kids and their tired faces, the reproach in their eyes that he’d got out, he’d made it, at least more than they had. He certainly didn’t talk about his father, or the fact that he’d died a drunk, beaten to death in a pub fight in Merthyr Tydfil, alienated from his family, only forty-seven years old. Owen had been seventeen.
And he never talked about his mother, or the fact that she blamed him for his father’s death, even though by that point he hadn’t seen his father for over a year. Owen stabbed a forkful of lasagne, willing the memories away. It was time to ask Emily some questions, and stop thinking about his own past.
“So, Reading,” he said. “Only child.” He gave her a slanted, speculative look. He could picture it already—the pink, frilly bedroom, the private school, the hockey sticks and horse riding and trips to Switzerland for skiing. She was definitely that sort of girl—part of the manor set he’d already said he despised. He could tell from her carefully styled face and hair, the designer jumper she was wearing that looked like cashmere, the expensive leather boots. Everything about her reeked of money and privilege. “What was that like?”
Emily looked startled, a little trapped by the innocuous question. “Oh, you know…” she said vaguely, and left it at that.
“Actually,” Owen answered mildly. “I don’t know.” He’d grown up in a two-up two-down colliery house on a steep little street overshadowed by a hulking mine shaft. He could remember when the toilet had been at the bottom of the garden, and they hadn’t had enough fifty-pence pieces for the gas meter. “Tell me about it,” he invited.
Emily stared at him for a moment, a distant look on her face. Was he boring her? Why did he care?
For some unfathomable reason, he continued to let this woman get under his skin. From the first moment she’d looked down her pert little nose at him, to that strangled “Don’t” in the courtyard, she’d affected him far too much. Made him want to know her, protect her, even. Both notions were laughable. She thought she was above him. Plenty of people had before, and it usually didn’t bother him. He didn’t let it. So why couldn’t he let it slide this time?
“What do you think it was like?” she asked after a moment, sounding cautiously curious.
“Nice enough, I suppose?” He suddenly felt petty and a little bit ashamed. What did it matter, if Emily David had had a nice life, with two parents and a pony? So had loads of others, and he didn’t mind.
“Yes, I suppose that about sums it up,” she said after a moment, but something about her tone made Owen think it didn’t at all. And for an unnerving second, he wondered if he’d got Emily David completely wrong.
They finished their meal—a lovely lasagne—without saying much more to each other, and somehow Owen felt as if he’d come off worst in the conversation. It was odd, because he was a let-it-roll-off-him type of guy, and yet he’d been the opposite with Emily, from the very first second he’d clapped eyes on her. It annoyed and alarmed him in equal measure. Why did this slip of a woman cause such a reaction in him?
After a mostly silent meal, Emily rose to help clear the plates, even though Ava insisted she didn’t have to. Owen had a feeling she was avoiding him, and he could hardly blame her. Something in his manner had been a bit aggressive, even though he hadn’t meant it to be.
“What do you think of Emily?” Jace asked in a low voice when the women were organising dessert and Simon had gone to take a phone call from his sister.
“It’s a bit obvious, isn’t it, mate?” Owen replied. “You get two single people in this village and everyone’s pushing you together no matter what.”
“You know how it is,” Jace returned affably. “You don’t have to do anything about it, but there seemed to be some sparks flying.”
Yes, there were definitely sparks. There certainly had been when’d touched her. Still Owen shook his head. “She’s not my type.”
Jace arched an eyebrow. “Or you’re not hers?”
“They’re one and the same, I reckon.”
Jace lifted his beer bottle to his lips as he rocked back on the legs of his chair. “Actually, I don’t think they are.”
“What’s it matter to you?” Owen returned. “You’re not usually one to play matchmaker.”
Jace shrugged, grinning. “When you’ve found true love yourself…”
“Oh, stuff it.” Owen spoke good-naturedly enough, but he meant what he said. He enjoyed flirting, and he’d gone on a fair few dates, but he wasn’t in the market for a real relationship, the kind where people got hurt, where he hurt them. Definitely not.
Perhaps that was why Emily David affected him the way she did, creating in him this unsettling mix of attraction and aggression. He saw her standoffishness and it irritated him, and then he sensed her fragility and felt both intrigued and wary. Who was she? And when would he stop caring?
Chapter Ten
“Well?” Ava’s voice was a carrying whisper as she took a bubbling and golden apple crumble out of the oven. “What do you think?”
Emily decided it was best to play dumb. “It looks delicious,” she said with a nod towards the crumble.
Ava let out one of her throaty laughs. “Not this, you ninny,” she said. “Which I think you know full well.”
“You are being a bit obvious,” Emily felt compelled to say.
Ava placed the crumble on the worktop, her eyebrows raised. “Life is short. What’s the harm in being obvious? Subtlety is entirely overrated, in my opinion.” Emily thought she disagreed with that sentiment, but she decided not to say anything. “Look,” Ava said, lowering her voice so Olivia, fetching bowls, couldn’t hear. “I know it’s hard when you’ve been on your own a long time. You’re used to fending for yourself, and that can feel good. Safe. And I’m willing to admit that maybe Owen isn’t the right bloke for you, but he is a lovely guy and whatever happens, he’d be a good friend. We can all use a few of those, don’t you think?”
“Er, yes, I’m sure,” Emily managed after a second’s pause. How did Ava know she’d been on her own a long time? Had she been talking to Olivia? Why did everyone seem as if they knew her, and they had the right to say so? It left Emily feeling as if she were naked. Exposed and vulnerable, and she didn’t like it at all.
“It takes one to know one,” Ava said softly, in reply to her unasked question, and th
en she picked up the crumble and brought it to the table.
Dessert was a jollier affair than dinner, with everyone chipping in and the conversation moving from topic to topic with lightning speed—rugby, the new playground on the village green, the fact that The Three Pennies was now offering rooms.
“That doesn’t cramp your style, Owen?” Simon asked with a smile. He was a gentle-looking man with slightly longish dark hair and kind eyes. He clearly adored Olivia.
“Not at all. The Three Pennies has an entirely different clientele than The Drowned Sailor, as I’m sure you know. And I wouldn’t let a dog sleep in the rooms above the pub.” Owen let out one of his booming laughs. “I may have a slight problem with damp, but I’m sorting it out.”
“I can help you with that, mate,” Jace said, and Owen smiled and nodded.
“I’ll take you up on that.”
They were all such good friends, their conversation so natural, they made it look easy, just as the women had when they got together. Talk, laugh, eat, drink. Repeat. Everyone else could do it, Emily thought, so why couldn’t she? Of course, she’d never wanted to quite so much before. She’d been happy on her own. She still was.
A week or two in Wychwood-on-Lea didn’t have to change her. She didn’t have to let it. And yet it had been so much easier to be anonymous and alone in London.
“I suppose I should get back,” Emily said when the dessert plates had been cleared and the decaf coffees drunk. It was past ten and she realised she was longing for the peace and quiet of her cottage, sterile though it might be, even as she’d strangely enjoyed the banter flying all around her, without taking part in it. Socialising, even though she was rubbish at it, was exhausting.
“Oh, you can’t go through the wood alone,” Ava exclaimed, and Emily knew what was coming. “Owen, why don’t you walk her back? It’s miserable going down that path late at night. Like being in some haunted fairy tale.”