“No,” she said, letting the steam waft up in her face. “Not this moment.”
That afternoon, Alastair, the first in a series of visitors, arrived.
He perched on the edge of a chair while Pru, planted on the sofa, sat up with a light throw over her legs. “I’m so very sorry for my part in such a ruse,” he said, accepting a cup of tea from Christopher and balancing it on his knee. “To think it all turned out to be true—the journal real. The fellow from Aberfeldy who offered it to us is a distant Menzies relative, as it turns out. Well, you’ve certainly established your name in horticultural history, Pru.”
She blushed. “Yes, but what about Mac?”
“I told Mr. MacIntyre I would have nothing to do with his attempt to run roughshod over the ecological landscape of Moray. He took it rather well,” Alastair said. “He said that, regardless, he was as good as his word, and the donation stood—as well as paying for your three-month project.”
“I hope he doesn’t think we’ll relent.”
Alastair shook his head. “The plans for this Texas-style ranch resort of his will be tied up in environmental reviews for years,” he said and cleared his throat. “The flat and the office are yours as long as you’d like them, Pru. Take as long as you need to recover and after that finish studying the journal and write up your findings. It will be published.”
Pru smiled. “I’ll be back at it in a day or two.”
“Well, then.” He picked up his tea. “And what will you and Christopher do after the wedding?”
It was the same question from Victoria, who stopped in with a bunch of early pink tulips and told a story about her parents eloping to Gretna Green in the ’50s. Rosemary, too, inquired as to their plans. Pru and Christopher had no answer, but Pru thought that made them appear flighty, and so she filled in with scraps of stories about her former clients in London and Christopher’s work at the Met. Christopher himself remained quiet.
—
“You’re very welcome,” Mrs. Murchie said to Pru as she held the door open. “And we’re honored you made us your first visit after recovering.”
Pru presented Murdo with a box of fairy cakes from a local bakery and pulled a pink woolly catnip mouse from her coat pocket, holding it up by the tail. “May Prumper have this, Mrs. Murchie?”
The Siamese stood on his hind legs, front paws batting the air trying to reach the toy.
“He may indeed. And, Pru, you’ll truly need to call me Agnes, now, won’t you?”
“Yes. Agnes.” Pru had been brought up with good Southern manners, and wouldn’t dream of calling a woman older than herself anything but Mrs. or Ms. unless strong-armed. “If I’d called you that from the beginning, this”—she waved her finger back and forth between Agnes and her nephew—“might not have taken so long.”
“Ah, Pru,” Murdo said, hanging both his and Agnes’s coats on pegs, “if it hadn’t been for you, I might’ve gone back to Dallas without ever knowing Auntie was so close.”
Pru beamed. Chalk another mended relationship up to her skills. “So will you stay in Edinburgh?” she asked.
“I will. Auntie has offered me her second bedroom, at least for now. My dad expected me to scurry back north, and he wasn’t best pleased when I told him about Auntie Aggie. He bellowed and demanded I get home, but Laird or no, he can’t order either of us around any longer.”
“Murdo will take up his furniture making again,” Agnes said. “He began with my scarf rack, and now he’s creating enormous pieces from trees—they’ll be modern works of art. He’s going to fashion a table from part of a beech they took down at the Botanics.”
“The one we were watching that day?” Pru asked.
Murdo nodded.
“And now,” Mrs. Murchie said, “what will you and Christopher do after the wedding?”
—
And so it went, until finally Pru, with her first glass of wine since leaving hospital five days before, said to Christopher, “What are we going to do after the wedding?” Just getting to the day seemed a monumental task to her, and the vague references they’d made to “after” mostly involved Pru moving in to his flat.
Christopher, finished with a call about a case in London, stretched his legs out and tapped his phone on the table, keeping his eyes on her for a moment, after which he sat up, leaned forward, and said, “I want to talk with you about something.”
She watched him over the rim of her glass. His face had gone pale, and he looked a bit like he had the day he proposed.
He inhaled once, twice. The third time, he spoke. “I want to quit the Met—if we both decide that it’s a good idea.” The statement broke the tension on his face, and he continued with more enthusiasm. “I’ve some savings we could live on, and we could sell the flat in London if need be. You’d be free to find the work you wanted, and perhaps I could get on with a local force once we’re settled someplace. If we stay in London—well, you know what it’s like.”
She did. His workday knew no bounds—evenings, weekends. She smiled behind her glass. At age fifty, she had quit her job and moved to another country. Now Christopher wanted a change of his own; how could she complain? That they could make such radical choices at this point in their lives was a good thing. “They’re still paying me here—and I’ve almost no expenses. And I’ve loads of money still left from Bryan and Davina.” The Templetons had presented Pru with a generous check when she left Primrose House. “Yes, quit the Met.”
The black hole that had been the rest of their lives had no more shape than it had ten minutes ago, but it had softened into a pink, fluffy cloud of promise.
“What should I tell people when they ask where we’ll go?”
“Tell them you haven’t a clue. And say it with confidence.”
—
She’d tried it out first on Jo.
“You what?” They were on the phone ticking off wedding preparations. Rosemary had apologized for her behavior, secured a June date at the Caledonian Hall, and insisted that the arrangements, the cake, and the dinner be a gift from her and Alastair. Pru had disavowed herself of all decisions now that both Jo and Rosemary were in charge, and she cheerfully looked forward to a glorious day full of surprises.
“I mean that apart from Christopher leaving the Met, we’ve no plans and won’t make any until after we’re married.” She knew it sounded a bit irresponsible, and that gave her a thrill.
Chapter 39
“Your right hand, gentlemen,” Sandy said, holding his own up as he wove his way among the seven couples on the dance floor. “Your right hand is the steering mechanism, the rudder, if you will. It’s how you communicate direction to your partner—forward, back, left, right. Now, place your hand on her back.”
Christopher placed his hand, and Pru giggled. As he passed them, Sandy said, “A little higher than that, Christopher.”
Here they were in June with only two days until the wedding. Alastair had left the previous week to begin his new job as development director at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. Rosemary remained in Edinburgh, to follow in a few days.
Music swelled, and the seven couples staked out their territory with a box step for the ballroom waltz. Before long, with a few suggestions from their teacher, they were moving around the room with no collisions and only a few close calls. Christopher kept his eyes on Pru as he drew her around the floor, and Pru kept her mind in the moment. Sandy stepped in for a few measures to show Christopher how to lead her into a turn, and they glided off once again. Next, they were on to a foxtrot—quick-quick, slow-slow—to a recording of Frank Sinatra singing “You Make Me Feel So Young.”
“You’re a wonderful teacher,” Pru said to Sandy as she changed from her spike heels into outdoor shoes when the two-hour lesson had finished. “Dancing is exhausting—I don’t see how you do this every day.”
Sandy sat on the bench next to her and smiled. “I could say the same thing about gardening. It isn’t as tiring when we love what we do—or rather, it�
�s a good tired.” He glanced over at Christopher, who stood apart, looking out the window as he talked on the phone. “It sounds as if everything is ready for Saturday. What will you and Christopher do after the wedding?”
Pru smiled broadly and shrugged her shoulders. “We haven’t a clue.”
—
Pru slipped her heels back into her bag, and Sandy stood as Christopher finished his call and walked over to them. “I’m your dresser on Saturday, Christopher. Everything will be waiting,” Sandy said. “And you, Pru—you’ve sorted your outfit?”
Pru shifted on the bench. “Yes, all sorted.” Sorted without your aunt was the implication, but Pru couldn’t bring herself to say anything untoward about Madame Fiona. She liked the woman—just not her dresses. Jo, in charge of Pru’s wedding attire, had given no clue what was to come. Fine with me, Pru thought. It left her with little to work with in her daydreams, although Little Bo Peep continued to lurk in the dark recesses of her mind, like one of those nightmare clowns.
Sandy smiled. “Right, well, then. See you both soon. Cheers.”
“That was Alan ringing,” Christopher said to Pru. “He’s asking if we’d rather write our own vows.”
Pru shook her head. “No, I already told him what we wanted. A simple ceremony—Church of England, Church of Scotland. Whatever.” She frowned. “Did he not remember?”
“Perhaps he was giving us one last chance. Did he take a look at Caledonian Hall?”
“He didn’t seem to think it was necessary. And now, Jo’s in town. Maybe he’s distracted.” She took a large envelope out of her bag and held it out for him, her face pink from dancing and from excitement. “Look what came today.”
Christopher pulled a sheaf of papers from the envelope. “Your article—well done,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Congratulations on being published. That’s fantastic.”
“Well, not quite published, but it should be in the winter issue of the journal.” She shrugged. “I’ve a section about Iain—how he was the one that led me to look at the fuchsia.”
“May I read it?”
Pru laughed. “Yes—in bed. Fuchsia coccinea, Araucaria araucana, Mesembryanthemum chilense—all those botanical names are guaranteed to put you to sleep in record time.”
Christopher shuffled a few pages. “Does it have a title?”
“There,” Pru pointed to what looked like the first paragraph.
Lost and Found:
The Missing Year (1795) of the Journal of Archibald Menzies with Captain George Vancouver on the Discovery and the Authentication of Said Journal Through Tracing the Provenance of Fuchsia coccinea and Its Introduction into Cultivation by Way of Seeds Brought to Great Britain by Menzies, with a Contemporary Account by Sir Joseph Banks
“Where did the seeds come from?” Christopher asked.
“More from Banks—apparently Mr. Menzies acquired the seeds when they stopped in Rio de Janeiro on the return journey. Not long after, someone else took seeds to France, but we’ve got them beat.”
“Is this enough for you?” he asked. “You don’t want to continue writing scholarly journal articles?”
“It is mostly certainly enough,” Pru said, her itch to carry out research now thoroughly scratched. “Mr. Menzies and I are parting ways on the best of terms.”
Chapter 40
The next morning, Christopher had shaved and showered by the time Pru turned over to find him out of bed. “Are you going somewhere?” she asked.
“I need to go to London,” he said, slipping wallet and phone into his pocket.
She sat up. “London? You can’t go to London—we’re getting married tomorrow.”
He leaned over to kiss her. “Just for the day—I’ll be back this evening. There’s something I need to take care of.”
“What do you need to take care of?” She was wide awake now.
He eyed her narrowly. “I can’t tell you—it’s a surprise.” Her silence was deafening, and after a moment he relented. “A wedding gift.”
“From whom?” she demanded and then it dawned. She covered her open mouth. “Oh, no—was I supposed to get you a wedding present?”
“For us,” he said, laughing. “It’s a wedding gift to both of us.”
She threw back the covers and stood up. “I’m going with you.”
“What? You can’t go—we’re getting married tomorrow.”
“Please don’t leave me here alone—I’d much rather be in London with you.”
He checked the time. “The flight leaves in an hour and a quarter.”
She stepped with him into the waiting taxi ten minutes later, and rang Jo on the way to the airport.
“You wouldn’t skip out on your own wedding, would you?” Jo asked. “The two of you elope and leave us drinking all this prosecco on our own?”
“Not a chance,” Pru said.
—
“Why don’t we spend the night and take the train back tomorrow?” she asked as they landed at London City Airport.
Christopher raised his eyebrows.
“We could take the train first thing in the morning,” she continued. “We’d be back hours and hours before the ceremony. Wouldn’t it be lovely?” The entire question—“Wouldn’t it be lovely to avoid any last-minute decisions Jo or Rosemary might force on me?”—was left unspoken but understood.
“All right.”
It was like having the honeymoon before the wedding. They ate a late breakfast at a café near the flat in Chiswick, after which Christopher went off on his mysterious business and Pru took a nap. In the afternoon, she made her way to St. James’s Park and sat on a bench, waiting for the pelicans to be fed.
She hoped he wasn’t getting her something extravagant. Maybe he was collecting her ring. She pulled a plain, slightly worn, wide gold band out of her bag. It would be her gift to Christopher—his wedding ring. At the beginning of the week, Lydia had arrived with it from Dallas—Pru had left her last few family mementoes with her best friend in Texas. She fingered it now, slipping it on her middle finger where it didn’t slide around as much. She put it back in her bag only a moment before Christopher appeared.
“Just where I thought I’d find you,” he said, sitting and taking her hand. They looked across to Duck Island where the geese, herons, and a flotilla of ducks made their way to the afternoon feeding. “It was a fair bit colder the first time we were here.”
She smiled at him and at the memory. They had strolled around the city on their first entire day together—after which Pru had tried to send him away and return to Dallas. Fortunately, clearer heads had prevailed.
They returned to the flat, and she shook out the summer dress she’d stuffed into her bag as they hurried out the door that morning. Sheer and long with enough skirt to swish and the warm yellow of English butter. Her wardrobe would take a decided downturn when she no longer had Agnes Murchie and her charity shop to lean on. Christopher eyed her with admiration, and then his glance fell on her feet.
“Are you allowed to wear those outdoors?”
Pru cast an eye on her heels. “It’s fine—it’s just for tonight. Don’t tell Jo,” she added.
—
They ate at Gasparetti’s, her old haunt. Riccardo couldn’t believe his eyes—“It has been far too long.” But their news brought a nod—“I knew it from the first time, didn’t I?” A bottle of Brunello appeared at their table, with Riccardo’s compliments and best wishes for a fine wedding and long life together.
Over bowls of pasta, Pru and Christopher fell into reliving the details of their relationship—all those tiny words and gestures that meant more than they knew at the time—and how the country fête where Christopher manned the Badger Care booth had most likely won her over. By the end of the meal, they’d settled into a silence thick with long looks and hints of smiles.
They stepped out on the pavement to a warm breeze—truly midsummer in London, although still on the cool side in Edinburgh. Christopher came up behind and put his arms ar
ound her, nestling his face into her hair. Pru’s chin trembled. A sob burst forth, followed by another, and Christopher leaned over and looked into her face. She sobbed again, but laughter overrode the tears.
She cupped his face in her hand. “I love you. I hope you’re ready for this,” she said, wiping her cheeks and sniffing through a leftover giggle.
His reply was a good long kiss, as they ignored the jostling elbows of passersby.
They sat apart in the cab and didn’t speak. Christopher’s fingertips barely touched hers, but she could feel the heat—really, she could. Pru slid her gaze over once or twice to meet his eyes. In the elevator up to his flat Pru stayed against the rail after Christopher’s nod up to the corner reminded her of the CCTV camera. She preceded him into the flat, standing in the hall by the kitchen. He closed the door, and when she turned, he backed her against the wall—gently, but with an insistence that took her breath away. They were half undressed when she pulled him into the front room; he went to close the blinds and she put her hand on his arm. “No,” she whispered, “don’t close them.”
And so they made love in full view of the building across the road. True, it was a building of offices, empty at that time of night, with the windows dark, but still, it was the principle of the thing.
When at last Pru shivered—from cold, this time—and pulled one of her shoes out from underneath her, they both laughed. “Let’s go to bed, shall we?” Christopher asked.
—
“Pru, look at the time,” Christopher said as he got out of bed and went out to the front room. “We said an early train.” He came back with trousers in one hand and jacket in the other.
“Yes, early. I’m ready, I’m ready,” she said, standing up and looking left and right.
“You’ll need clothes, won’t you?”
She’d brought next to nothing with her, so packing wasn’t a problem. They were on their way in short order.
“Saturday morning—at least the traffic is light,” Christopher said, leaning forward and looking at the road ahead.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series Book 3) Page 25