‘I don’t know yet. I haven’t—’
‘Get on with it. Your mother’s marrying that doctor too, thank goodness, so at least she’ll be off your hands.’
‘Yes. I’m going to be a bridesmaid.’
‘Better be a bride first. That Fingal phoned me up.’
‘Fergal?’
‘He’s a charmer and no mistake. Said everything was his fault, but he wanted to settle down with you and be a good husband.’
I shuddered. ‘That’s what I thought James was. I don’t want another one of those.’
‘Better have a bad one then,’ she pointed out practically.
Fergal: March 2000
‘LOVE WAS TOO STRONG FOR US,’
says Fergal Rocco of rock group Goneril, who is to wed
divorcée and mother of his child Leticia Drew, 31 …’
Sun
Maria said she’d told Tish that I’d make a model husband and father.
‘I told her: he will not want his little girl to see pictures in the papers of her papa doing naughty things with other ladies, will he?’
‘What did she say to that?’
Maria frowned. ‘I did not quite understand the idiom, but it was something about wearing your guts for garters if you did anything like that in future … does that make sense?’
I nodded. I didn’t need the warning: you can accuse me of many things, but being as stupid as her last husband isn’t going to be one of them.
Chapter 48: Besieged
This week in hospital has given me some time to think, if nothing else – and clearly life isn’t ever going to be the same again – thank God.
Of course, everything isn’t perfect – the world isn’t perfect (and I certainly won’t be taking out any shares in rubber goods either …) – but it’s as near as it’s going to get.
Mr Rooney found Glenda in Canada. She’s now a high-powered businesswoman, divorced, with no other children, and although she sent her best wishes, she doesn’t feel that she’s any place in my life. Nor, it sounds like to me, any real interest in me. I’d still like one day to meet her, more for curiosity’s sake than anything. I’ve written asking her for any details she can remember about my real father (apparently chance-met at a pop concert: Ill Met by Moonlight?), but more for the sake of the baby than anything.
Mother, predictably, is still impossible, but now she’ll soon be someone else’s responsibility. They’re planning a June wedding and she wants me to be a bridesmaid, which is the strangest idea she’s thought of yet. Margaret wants me to be Matron of Honour at hers, too, so you can see I’m much in demand.
Wendy doesn’t want me to be anything at hers. (I wonder if you can get leather wedding dresses.)
The hospital, my cottage, and the gates of the Hall are all still under siege by reporters waiting for me to take the baby home.
Home …
I admit I did cry when Fergal said it was impossible for me to go back to the cottage since reporters and cameramen line every perimeter like rabid triffids, but secretly I was relieved, too. The thought of having the sole responsibility for a tiny baby was throwing me into a panic, now it was actually time to leave the warm cocoon of hospital.
Not that I could have kept Fergal away anyway.
Maria says he’s decorated a room at the Hall exactly like the nursery at the cottage, and moved everything up there – what Granny would call a ‘fate acumply’. And he’s made me a study in one of the little tower rooms with a view of the park, and filled it with great drifts of my golden autumn leaves.
Maria was horrified!
The animals are settling in well together, and Bob is looking after the cottage and its garden for me until we decide what to do with it. (A weekend retreat for Carlo and Sara is on the cards – I quite like the thought of that.)
Maria also says the baby is the most beautiful one she’s ever seen (so do I, but as her mother I can’t go around saying that kind of thing!), and gave me the idea for her name when she said she was a late Valentine.
Valentina.
It sounds very romantic, and has made me think of a wonderful plot for a new novel.
But if the hero doesn’t have black hair, green eyes and a very short fuse, Fergal says he’ll want to know the reason why!
Acknowledgements
With special thanks to Judith Murdoch, my agent, for her encouragement and support.
About the Author
Trisha Ashley was born in St Helens, Lancashire, and gave up her fascinating but time-consuming hobbies of house-moving and divorce a few years ago in order to settle in North Wales. She is a Sunday Times bestselling author.
For more information about Trisha please visit www.trishaashley.com, her Facebook fan page (Trisha Ashley Books) or her Twitter account @trishaashley.
By the same author:
Sowing Secrets
A Winter’s Tale
Wedding Tiers
Chocolate Wishes
Twelve Days of Christmas
The Magic of Christmas
Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues
If you’ve enjoyed Good Husband Material, why not try some of Tish’s recipes?
Recipes
Apple Chutney
Ingredients
1lb/450g cooking apples
8oz/225g sultanas
6oz/175g shallots or onions
1 rounded tsp ground ginger
7oz/200g sugar – brown muscovado gives a good flavour
1 tsp salt
1 pint/600ml malt vinegar
Method
Peel, core and chop the apples and place in a large bowl with the sultanas. Finely chop the onion and mix in, together with all the remaining ingredients.
Cover the bowl and leave to stand for one hour.
Put the mixture into a large heavy non-reactive pan bring it slowly to a boil, uncovered, and then turn the heat down and simmer for thirty minutes or so, stirring frequently, until the mixture is thick and brown.
Allow to cool slightly and then spoon into warm, dry, sterilised jars and cover with a waxed disc and seal. Leave to mature for 3 months before opening.
Chewy Fig Fingers
Ingredients
4oz/100g dried figs (the soft, ready-to-eat ones are easiest)
4oz/100g sunflower seeds
rice paper or sesame seeds
Method
Chop the figs into little pieces, discarding the stalks and any hard bits. Put into a food processor and blend to a thick paste, or you can mash them up by hand.
Mix in the sunflower seeds. Make a ‘sandwich’ of the paste by rolling it flat between two layers of rice paper, then cut into bars. As an alternative, form the fig paste into little logs or balls and roll them into sesame seeds sprinkled onto a plate, to coat.
Store the bars or logs in a box in the fridge, or a cool place, between layers of greaseproof paper until needed.
Hasty Buns
These little bread rolls are akin to scones and are best eaten warm, split and buttered.
Ingredients
1lb/450g plain flour
1 tsp salt (optional)
2tsps baking powder
2oz/50g butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ pint/150ml milk
Method
Preheat the oven to 425ºF, 220ºC, Gas Mark 7. Grease a baking tray.
Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl and add the baking powder and salt.
Add the butter, using the rubbing-in method.
Mix the milk and beaten egg together, keeping a little bit of the egg back to glaze the rolls with.
Quickly stir the egg and milk mixture into the dry ingredients and then gather it together into a stiff, stretchy dough. (Have a little extra milk on hand, in case it needs a drop or two more, but add cautiously – you don’t want a sticky mass.)
Divide into about sixteen little rolls or balls. Place on the baking tray, brush tops with the last of the beaten egg, and bake in middle of oven for ten
to fifteen minutes.
To find out more about Trisha and her warm, wise and and witty books, visit her website www.trishaashley.com or become a fan of her Facebook page Trisha Ashley Books. You can also say hello on Twitter @trishaashley
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd in 2000
This edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2013
Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2000
Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9781847562814
Ebook Edition © March 2013 ISBN: 9780007494088
Version 1
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
Good Husband Material Page 41