Sunshine and Sweet Peas in Nightingale Square

by Heidi Swain

  He looked every bit as sick as I felt, and thoroughly fed up to boot.

  ‘I thought I might leave you all to it and pop back later,’ I told him. ‘I think that might be easier. After all, I’m still not feeling my best and I’m hardly dressed for the press, local or otherwise, am I?’

  ‘Look, please don’t go,’ he said, catching me by the elbow and steering us away from David, who was running a comb through his hair. ‘I need you here.’

  ‘What on earth for?’ I said, pulling gently free and wondering if my ex had always been so vain or whether I was only noticing it now because of the distance there was between us.

  ‘Moral support,’ shrugged Luke, ‘a friendly face in the crowd.’

  ‘You have Candice for all of that now,’ I reminded him, ‘I understand she’s the one responsible for this media circus?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said bitterly, his expression darkening. ‘And she knew perfectly well that I didn’t want it but went ahead anyway. I didn’t want any media hacks finding out that I had bought this place, let alone turn up to film it. All I really want is a quiet life, Kate, away from all of this kind of thing, but she still craves this ridiculous attention and publicity. She’s always been the same.’

  It sounded very much to me like they had got their wires crossed and I hoped they soon straightened everything out, for Jasmine’s sake if no one else’s. She was a lovely little girl, but it was more than obvious that she needed some stability in her life. However, I couldn’t help thinking that the last thing Luke would be in for was a quiet life if he ended up spending the rest of his days with a media-obsessed other half.

  As much as I disliked Candice, her manipulative manner and the hold she had over Luke, I had no choice but to hope that everything was going to work out for their daughter’s sake. Even if her mother wasn’t the best role model in the world, her father would be someone she could look up to and rely on, if he was given the chance to do things his own way, out of the limelight, of course.

  I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t had the chance to start relying on him myself. What had happened between us was bad enough, but any further emotional investment and I could have been in line for getting hurt all over again. I had got off lightly, hadn’t I? Lisa and Heather might have believed in there being more than one true love for everyone in the world, but thankfully I had stuck to my beliefs and in the process saved myself a whole heap of delusion and unnecessary heartache.

  The defensive route through the situation was the best, I decided.

  ‘Well,’ I began by asking, ‘if Candice really does love all this attention so much, shall I expect to see you plastered across the pages of Hello magazine sometime soon?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Luke, sounding furious.

  ‘Or perhaps reclining on a chaise longue in one of the high-end interior magazines,’ I teased.

  ‘Whatever has got into you, Kate?’ he demanded. ‘I have no idea what you’re getting at, but I don’t appreciate you making fun of the situation, especially as you know how I feel about it all.’

  I didn’t know really, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself and I only had his word for it that he hated it as much as she obviously loved it. Laughing at Luke, and what Candice clearly wanted to turn him into, and them as a couple, wasn’t funny at all; but I kidded myself into thinking that it was making me feel better.

  ‘I think you’re mistaking what I used to do for work for the real me,’ he said sadly. I ignored the disappointment in his tone as he carried on. ‘I never had you down as the sort of person who would do that, Kate.’

  ‘You know, this place would make a great wedding venue,’ I rushed on, looking around. ‘Don’t you think?’

  An image of Candice wearing an excess of white and sweeping down the main staircase forced its way into my head. I was starting to feel sick again, but it was my own fault. If I had just focused on breathing in and out and being civil instead of coming out with such twaddle I would have been fine. Why wasn’t I listening to what Luke was saying, what he was really saying?

  ‘You aren’t being serious?’ he frowned as Jasmine skipped over with Candice in hot pursuit. ‘Why are you talking like this? I can’t believe you would think I’m in any way enjoying this, especially now you know me so well.’

  But how well did I know him? I had been seduced by the Wentworth story and the house and the Square long before he arrived on the scene. Perhaps I had let my romantic inclinations slip out of the box I had sworn to keep them locked away in after David had broken my heart, but I knew it was time to pack them away again now and this time for good.

  I’d never entertained the idea before, not even since Candice had arrived and upset the applecart, but for the very first time I wondered if buying number four Nightingale Square had been a mistake. Perhaps I should have listened to my mother and moved back to Wynbridge after all.

  ‘You know that’s not the sort of guy I am,’ Luke whispered urgently in my ear.

  ‘But that’s the sort of guy Candice wants you to be,’ I whispered back, ‘and you need to think about what’s best for your daughter,’ I added as I tried to slip away.

  ‘Kate,’ nodded Candice, before I had moved barely an inch. ‘I didn’t think you would come.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she?’ Luke frowned. ‘If it wasn’t for Kate—’

  ‘Well, as you can see,’ I cut in, ‘I’m hardly dressed for the occasion, so—’

  ‘But as she didn’t get your note, Candice,’ said Lisa, who had realised what was going on and rushed to my rescue, ‘that’s hardly surprising.’

  ‘Obviously I had no idea it was going to be such a big deal,’ I added, bending to look at the little bunch of daisies Jasmine had clasped in her hand and was trying to show me. ‘Otherwise I would have unpacked my Prada pumps. These are pretty, Jasmine. Did you find them in the garden?’

  Candice began to mutter to Luke and before I realised what she was going to do, she stepped between Jasmine and me and snatched the flowers from the little girl’s grasp and threw them on the floor.

  ‘Now we have to wash your hands again,’ she said, pulling her away. ‘You want to look your best for the cameras, don’t you? You want to be a pretty girl like mummy.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Lisa to Luke as we watched them march away, ‘how did you end up hitching your wagon to a girl like that?’

  Luke didn’t say anything.

  ‘Come on!’ called David, ushering everyone together. ‘Inside everyone, it’s time.’

  Even from my spot at the back of the gathered group I could tell within seconds that the painting Luke and David were carefully unwrapping was not the original portrait of Edward. Luke didn’t know it of course, but the tell-tale throbbing vein in David’s neck and the nervous glance he threw in my direction confirmed my fears.

  ‘Oh, David, what have you done?’ I asked him a few minutes later when everyone had surged forward to get a closer look.

  The air was filled with the sound of cameras clicking and Luke and Candice had disappeared amid a flurry of clamouring journalists.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you check it earlier?’

  ‘Because I had no reason to doubt its authenticity,’ he hissed.

  I looked at him and raised my eyebrows.

  ‘What?’ he said, trying to sound innocent but failing miserably.

  ‘Even after the exhaustive search Charlie had made,’ I reminded him. ‘Even after it turned out that there was absolutely no proof that the portrait had ever left Prosperous Place or the family, you still believed that a contact in the US could just happen to chance upon it and that everything we had uncovered here was wrong?’

  David shrugged.

  ‘You’re out of your mind,’ I told him. ‘They’ll rip you to shreds.’

  He looked nervously over at the group who were still gathered around the painting, snapping away and studying it in minute detail.

  ‘How could you have been so naive?’ I scolded. ‘You wer
e excited the press were here an hour ago, you must have realised they were going to be the ruin of you.’

  I couldn’t believe he had been such a fool. I was going to get the hell out of there and fast. I didn’t want my name associated with that painting. I was having nothing to do with it. I might have been taking a year out, but eventually I would want to work in the field again and I certainly didn’t need a silly scandal like this dogging my reputation.

  ‘I wanted to believe it,’ he said, taking a step towards me and closing the gap between us. ‘I desperately wanted it to be genuine because it was the only way I thought I could find my way back to you.’

  Not this again.

  ‘I thought that if I found this portrait for you, you would—’

  ‘I would what?’ I seethed. ‘Fall back in love with you? Tell you I had made a mistake and that I didn’t want a divorce after all?’

  ‘Well, you made it clear enough at Christmas that you didn’t want a baby,’ he said, sounding hurt. ‘So, I thought that if perhaps I could just show myself in a good enough light that I would become enough for you, like I used to be.’

  How dare he sound hurt? And how dare he presume that I didn’t want a baby.

  ‘And I know that your passion for your work has always been your greatest love, Kate . . .’

  ‘You ridiculous man!’ I said, raising my voice. ‘I don’t suppose it ever even entered your self-obsessed head that I might still want a baby, but that I just didn’t want to have it with you?’

  He opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out.

  ‘And you seem to have forgotten that my having a child with anyone is a bit of a longshot now and as for this whole you being enough for me idiocy, what on earth makes you think that I would ever feel that way about you again, after everything you did?’

  He didn’t have time to answer, which was probably just as well, as I might have been tempted, for the first time in my life, to resort to physical violence; and that would have been far from ideal given the number of media men and women within a twenty-foot radius.

  ‘So,’ said Luke, bounding across the room in three strides and looking happier than I had ever seen him. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s a fake,’ I floored him by saying.

  I could have bitten my tongue off and shot David a look. It was his fault that I was in such a temper and now Luke was going to get the brunt of it.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a forgery,’ I said firmly, ‘a spurious imitation of the very lovely, but still lost, original.’

  The next thing I knew Candice was at Luke’s side, reaching for his hand and scowling at me.

  ‘How dare you,’ she spat.

  I shrugged, but didn’t take the allegation back.

  ‘She’s lying,’ she said, keeping her voice low to avoid catching any unwanted attention. ‘She’s sulking because David found it and now she has no reason to come over here for cosy nights in front of the fire with you.’

  I looked at Luke and shook my head, wondering just how much he had told her.

  ‘He told me all about your little tryst,’ she laughed. ‘And it doesn’t matter to me in the slightest.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me either,’ I laughed back.

  ‘What are you talking about, Candice?’ David demanded, sounding furious.

  Clearly it was acceptable for him to have an assignation when we were married, but not for me to have one when we were very nearly divorced.

  ‘Well, that’s good then,’ Candice continued in a spiteful sing-song tone, ignoring David. ‘I’m pleased you realised that he was prepared to do whatever it would take to keep you onside and looking for his precious portrait.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, crossing the room to the door and pointing back to the wall. ‘The only problem he has now is that this isn’t the precious portrait he’s been looking for at all.’

  Chapter 27

  ‘Where did you disappear to?’ Lisa demanded through the letterbox the next morning when I refused to answer the door.

  ‘Here,’ I shouted back along the hall. ‘I wasn’t feeling well again, so I just came home.’

  That wasn’t a lie. I’d been sick twice when I got home and then slept for hours, waking just before dawn and feeling no better for it. I was seriously thinking about cancelling my trip to Wynbridge.

  ‘Are you going to let me in?’ she continued to bawl. ‘Or am I going to have this conversation on my knees with the rest of the Square listening in? Carole and Graham’s curtains have gone into overdrive.’

  ‘I don’t think you should come in,’ I shouted back. ‘I don’t want to pass this damn bug back to you again.’

  ‘I don’t think I can catch what you’ve got,’ she said, her voice a little quieter, ‘and besides, you know there’s always some bug or another doing the rounds in our house. You don’t have as many kids as I have traipsing through your house without developing a pretty cast-iron immune system.’

  ‘So, what is it that you reckon I’ve got then?’ I asked, as I finally gave in and opened the door.

  ‘Well,’ she said, looking me up and down and shaking her head as if she wasn’t sure whether or not she should say it. ‘I know this might sound completely insensitive in view of our recent conversation, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant?’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, cocking her head to one side before she pushed by and walked into the kitchen where she quickly filled the kettle and arranged two mugs. ‘Sorry,’ she went on, ‘but given the way you look that’s my humble opinion.’

  I remembered how she had marched in, with little Archie on her hip, and taken over the very first day I arrived in the Square. She’d been doing it ever since and I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without her and Heather as my friends. That initial visit felt like such a long time ago, but actually it hadn’t been all that long. Just a few months at the most.

  ‘But,’ she continued, ‘given what you did tell me last week, combined with the fact that it’s been allegedly well over a year since you had intimate contact with something that doesn’t require double A’s, I can’t be completely sure.’

  ‘You cheeky mare,’ I told her, flushing scarlet and having a crafty look at the calendar while her back was turned.

  ‘What?’ she laughed, clearly feeling relieved that I hadn’t been hurt by what she had said, about being pregnant at least. ‘There’s nothing wrong with—’

  ‘I have absolutely no desire to hear what you’re going to tell me there’s nothing wrong with, thank you very much,’ I said firmly, abandoning the search for the last star I would have marked in red pen and which would ordinarily be the first thing I would see. ‘But can we just change the subject, please? I’m certain I’ve just got the same bug as the rest of you.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she conceded, for once allowing diplomacy to intervene.

  I was both surprised and relieved she was so willing to let the idea drop, but I knew that had she been aware of my Easter celebration she wouldn’t have let it go.

  ‘Have you seen the headline this morning?’

  She quickly flattened the local newspaper out on the kitchen table.

  ‘Front page,’ I tutted. ‘Must have been a slow news day when they set this up.’

  ‘Slow news day my eye,’ she said, looking over my shoulder. ‘Look at the three of them. This editor knows what he’s about. If that doesn’t sell column inches I don’t know what will!’

  She was right of course. The sight of Luke, Candice and Jasmine beaming out at the camera was perfection itself, even if I thought the smile on Luke’s lips didn’t quite reach his eyes. I wondered if he was holding back because he was still annoyed about being unmasked as the owner of Prosperous Place or if he was thinking about what I’d said about the portrait.

  ‘Did you stay long after I’d gone?’ I asked Lisa as she stirred the two cups of steaming coffee.

>   I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to drink mine. It smelled OK, but I wouldn’t be responsible for how my stomach reacted to the taste.

  ‘Not really,’ she shrugged. ‘As soon as the press disappeared Candice made it very clear that she wanted us lot gone.’

  That didn’t surprise me at all. She had all the makings of a stereotypical trophy wife, keen to keep the gates of her domain closed and guarded, not that I could imagine that was what Luke wanted. Yes, he was happy to keep the media at bay but he had welcomed the rest of us with open arms.

  ‘I hope she doesn’t make Luke shut the garden down,’ I muttered, knowing that the last thing Candice would want would be us lot traipsing all over her private realm.

  ‘She wouldn’t do that, would she?’ Lisa gasped. ‘Not after all our hard work.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past her,’ I shrugged.

  I knew I sounded bitter, but I also knew there was more to this girl than met the eye. I hoped Luke had been very careful about ensuring he would hang on to his legacy should anyone ever try to prise it from his grasp.

  ‘You really don’t like her, do you?’ Lisa asked.

  Had she been privy to the dressing down Candice had given me in the bothy, and the way she talked to Jasmine, she wouldn’t have had to ask.

  ‘Not really,’ I said, playing down my true feelings under her eagle-eyed attention. I didn’t want Lisa to think that it was just jealousy that had turned me off Candice. ‘But if she’s here for her daughter’s sake, then that’s fair enough and I wouldn’t have minded her half as much if she hadn’t gone against everything Luke wanted yesterday to be about.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All this nonsense,’ I said, with a nod to the paper. ‘He told me that all he wanted was a quiet life, with none of this press and media fuss. He’s been trying to keep his family history and this place a secret from the world of celebrity, or whatever you call it, but at this rate he won’t even be able to go down to the shops for a pint of milk without getting papped.’