‘That is very kind of you, Mrs Tadley. Thank you. I will. Have a good afternoon.’ And she gave a small finger wave and smiled sweetly as the window slid up, ending the conversation.
Leo blinked. Proud, stubborn and independent. With very good manners. This was a very different side to the girl he had met at the buffet table in the hotel on Saturday night and danced with under the moonlight.
And she totally took his breath away.
His admiration clicked to a higher level.
‘Well, that was interesting,’ he said, ‘Lady Sara.’
‘Actually—’ she blinked ‘—my mother named me Eloise Sara Jane Marchant Fenchurch de Lambert but, seeing as you are my business adviser, Sara will do splendidly, my dear Leonardo.’ And she twirled her hand in the air as though giving him a regal wave.
‘Delighted to meet you, Eloise. And I don’t believe that we have been formally introduced. Leonardo Reginald Costantino Rizzi Grainger at your service, madam.’ And he bowed towards her with as much grace as the cramped cab would allow.
‘Leonardo Reginald. Oh, my.’ Sara clapped her hand over her mouth and pressed her lips together before she embarrassed herself.
‘Parents do have a lot to answer for.’ He shrugged and looked nonchalantly out of the window at the small street.
‘That they do,’ she croaked out, ‘Reggie.’
‘At last! Something we can both agree on, Eloise.’ And he returned her smile, lifting into the cutest dimple on the right side of his mouth.
It was not the smile of a slick city power broker but much more like a naughty boy who had been caught enjoying himself far too much.
‘Eloise and Reggie’s Floral Specialities. That does have a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? Any chance you could be available a couple of mornings a week? I could pay you in orchids and bartered cakes. I predict a great future. What do you say?’
Leo found something fascinating on the roof of the cab and tapped one finger against his chin as though he was giving her proposal serious thought, then shook his head. ‘I don’t think that particular brand would do much to sell orchids. But thank you for the invitation. If I decide to change direction, I shall give you a call.’
‘It’s a deal, and you could be right,’ Sara continued with a chuckle, checking in her door mirror that she was now safe. ‘They all know perfectly well that I am not a Lady anything and never will be, but as far as the residents of Kingsmede are concerned I am my grandmother’s heir and the rules of peerage do not apply. Not much good having a trophy girlfriend if you can’t brag, is there?’
She shrugged and laughed out loud. ‘It’s a good thing I’ve given up on the dating scene, that’s for sure. No more boyfriends for me. I can’t tell you what a relief that is.’
‘No more boyfriends?’ Leo laughed dismissively. ‘You can’t mean that. I take it that the Kingsmede singles scene is a tad limited if Mrs Tadley is anything to go by. And yes, I am driving us home. I can’t take any more excitement this early in the day.’
Sara stared at him down her nose as Mitzi pulled away from the kerb, and then snorted, ‘And what makes you think that I don’t have a fascinating social life? It might not be up to London standards, but Pasha and I have a splendid time and there is always the occasional costume party at the hotel.’
She sat up a little straighter in the passenger seat as Leo coughed disbelievingly and waved at a couple of pedestrians. ‘Do not mock. I am actually thinking of taking a short working holiday next spring. There are quite a few companies running holidays for orchid enthusiasts who need specialist guides and it would be brilliant to see what other folks are doing.’
She glanced over in his direction. Leo had his lips pressed firmly together and was staring hard at the road immediately in front of him.
‘Now, don’t look like that. These tours are very popular.’
He responded by tapping the steering wheel. ‘Oh, I don’t doubt it,’ he said in a low voice. ‘In fact, would you mind if I borrowed a few of your holiday brochures when we get back?’
Sara’s mouth fell open with a thud, then closed again. ‘You want to go on holiday with a team of orchid-mad gardeners touring glasshouses? I would like to see that.’
‘Research. And here’s another idea. Seeing as the local social scene is a little limited, I was wondering if I could persuade you to join me for dinner in the hotel this evening as my guest? Say about seven? You’ve been kind enough to feed me baked goods on a regular basis so please allow me to return the favour. What do you say? Are you willing to risk the hotel cooking again? There would be just the two of us this time.’
‘Dinner?’ she replied in a low voice and stared out of the van window at the other cars, the fields—anywhere, in fact, that did not require her to look towards Leo.
‘You may have heard of it. Meal. Usually taken in the evening involving hot food which is cooked by someone else. Can be fun. I have tried it myself many times and would heartily recommend it.’
Sara took a tighter hold on the paperwork and unfolded it as a distraction for her hands while her poor brain tried to process the fact that Leo Grainger had just asked her out to dinner. At the hotel. Just the two of them.
Somewhere in the back of her brain a choir was singing hallelujahs, blowing trumpets and holding up banners that read Sara has a date with Leo, Sara has a date with Leo! while the quieter contingent was sitting with their arms folded and shaking their heads.
She stole a glance sideways while he was distracted by a roundabout where the Kingsmede version of the rush hour was in full swing. Pension day.
Leo gorgeous-from-the-shoes-up Grainger had asked her out for a meal. Not a date. He had never mentioned that, far from it. But it was a meal and she would be his guest. In a hotel restaurant.
That sounded like a date, smelled like a date and she could almost taste the delicious totally unaffordable food that the hotel had become famous for. If she went as his date.
Most girls would jump at the chance to be in the same room as Leo, never mind be his dinner companion. She would be the envy of every other woman in the room.
But she was not like other girls. And she had already been down this road before one too many times.
It was ironic in some ways. She had just accused Mrs Tadley of seeing her as a trophy piece of arm candy—when that was exactly what she would be doing with Leo and what she had done with every other handsome and stylish man who had ever asked her out. She was the one who used to like trophy boyfriends.
She had used them and they had used her.
Weird that she had never realised that until this very moment.
She looked down at the creased and now totally screwed up receipts and her eyes slid over to the driver’s seat. The crease was still crisp in Leo’s black trousers, which were made of fabric so fine and soft she longed to touch it and stroke his leg.
Of course she wanted to spend the evening with Leo.
Of course she wanted to hear him laugh and find out how he ate his peas and what kind of food he liked best in the world.
Of course she wanted to have her heart broken yet again when he left her behind to go back to his high-flying life in London. He would be the trophy date to end all trophy dates, and would probably ruin her for anyone else for a long time. And then she would have to face him again at Helen and Caspar’s wedding. Oh, no.
Going out to dinner with Leo would be so wonderful that it would be terrible.
Smoothing out the pages of her now crushed receipts with the palms of her hands in the vain hope of making them legible, Sara lifted her head and looked from side to side.
‘Thanks for the invite but I’m already booked for dinner this evening. I would really love some of those fondant chocolates if they are on the menu, though. Would you mind leaving some at reception for me?’
‘You’re turning me down?’ He gave her a confused glance before focusing on his driving. ‘Should I change my cologne? I don’t usually have this much trouble
persuading ladies to dine with me.’
She smiled longingly at him. ‘No, and please don’t change a thing.’
‘I refuse to be thwarted. Let’s pretend that we are having our dinner conversation right now. Driving along in this van.’
‘Pretend we are having dinner together? I wish you’d warned me. I would have changed into something a little less…well…navy.’
He raised his right hand for a second. ‘You look enchanting. In fact I have not been able to take my eyes off you since you entered the room. Could I interest you in some chilled pink champagne while we look at the menu?’
‘Oh, yes, please.’ She wriggled, suddenly feeling much better, safe in the familiar comfort of Mitzi. ‘French, of course.’
‘Absolutely. So, while we are waiting for the starters to arrive, I’ll make small talk about city life. You mentioned that you used to work in London, but I have no idea how you spent your time. What did you do? Where did you eat? I’m curious. Perhaps we know the same restaurants?’
‘Ah, yes, my old city life. My mother still lives there, you know. Do you know Pimlico at all? Very chic. As for my job, I worked as a general dogsbody for my mother’s friends who ran a company renting out luxury villas. They paid me very little to sort out the problems their guests were having all over the world. When I was in London I usually ate out with my former boyfriend who was far more interested in my family connections than in me. He had nice manners, nice clothes and my mother totally approved of him.’
‘Ouch. To both. Please have another glass of virtual champagne.’
‘Don’t mind if I do. Thanks. Most delicious.’
Leo stopped the car and waved some pedestrians across the road before moving on. ‘Do you get up to London much to see your mother?’
‘Ah, that would be no. We had a major steaming argument three years ago and as a result I gave up my job in London to open an orchid nursery in rural Hampshire and she has never been back. We haven’t spoken much since.’
‘Three years! I find it hard to believe that you’re still not talking after three years!’ Leo said in a shocked voice. ‘You have to be one of the easiest people to talk to that I have ever met. What happened?’
Sara looked at him in silence. And suddenly the good opinion of this man mattered a lot more to her than she would have thought possible. She simply could not face the idea that he thought badly of her. It had been so long since she had told anyone or even thought about those sad days that it would be a relief to explain her decision to someone who did not know her history.
‘Do you really want to know? Then watch out. Here comes the main course. Roast beef. All dried up. Over-cooked. Tough and stringy.’
Her hands busied themselves pulling at a loose thread in her peaked cap while she deliberately tried to avoid making eye contact with Leo. ‘My grandmother had not been well for some time, but she insisted on living on her own at the Manor and we used to visit at weekends and make a fuss of her. Well, the crunch came when my grandmother had to go into hospital and needed someone to take care of her when she came out.’
Sara lifted up the cap and pointed it at the windscreen. ‘The villa company owed me about four weeks’ holiday but every time I asked for it there was always some crisis which needed my urgent attention or their world would stop. I finally pleaded for one week just to be here with my grandmother.’
She dropped the hat and fell back against her seat. ‘Of course that didn’t last very long. Three days into my holiday I had a pleading phone call telling me that there was an emergency in the Caribbean and I was the only person in the world who could sort it out. I refused to go so they called my mother, who told me quite clearly that I could not let her friends down, so she offered to take my place with my grandmother until I got back. And I was foolish enough to believe that she would actually do it.’
Sara closed her eyes and shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I should have known better.’ She looked over at Leo. ‘Do you know what the emergency was? The jacuzzi at the villa was not hot enough for the guests. And nobody else was capable of adjusting the temperature. I called the plumber. I watched the plumber adjust the temperature control. Then I came home. And what did I find? My grandmother, alone, cold and hungry. My mother had lasted a total of two days before driving back to London after falling out over some trivial thing.’
Sara started tugging at the hat in her lap. ‘I will not repeat what I said to my mother because it was not very dignified or polite, but let’s just say that she was totally shocked that a girl with my expensive education had such an extensive vocabulary of expletives, including some she had never heard before.’
There was a pause as she realised that she had just pulled the visor off her hat by tugging at it too fiercely. ‘It was the biggest row we’ve ever had. And at the end of it I was so furious that I told her that I had no intention of working for a pittance for one day longer while her friends lived in Switzerland in the lap of luxury. If she wanted to help them then she could do the work herself. She told me that I had always been an ungrateful child who would end up alone and unloved. I resigned over the telephone ten minutes later and I have never looked back. Not once. I don’t miss the travel and I don’t miss the problems.’
‘But you miss your mother,’ he said in a low voice. And in the relative silence of their small enclosed space his words seemed to echo into her brain and reverberate there for a second.
One side of her face twitched into a half smile. ‘Sometimes. She certainly taught me that not every mother loves her own child all of the time. I just didn’t know that it showed.’
‘What happened to the boyfriend? The one who was only interested in your grandmother’s title. Did he offer to come and help?’
Sara laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, yes,’ she replied. ‘He turned up for my grandmother’s funeral, then took one look at my cottage, compared it to Kingsmede Manor and decided that my new life in the country was not one he would enjoy. But he was very generous—he did offer to wait for me to come to my senses and come back to London. Two weeks later he ran off to Australia with the office junior he had taken to a conference and sent me a text accusing me of not giving enough priority to our relationship.’
Her shoulders shook off the memory with a dramatic shudder. ‘Last time I heard, he was happily dating the daughter of a Scottish earl. And good luck to him and very good luck to her because she’s going to need it. And I rather think that I have eaten far too much of the tough meaty part of the meal and not left any for you. Your turn.’
‘My turn?’
‘Oh, yes. I may be your guest at this splendid feast but I should be polite and try and learn more about my dining companion. Especially now that he knows all about my fierce bad temper and unforgiving nature.’
‘True. And under the circumstances it would be rude not to offer you some business advice. Although, after what you have just said about your bad temper, I suspect that my suggestion might not go down very well. Perhaps I should wait until you have eaten your dessert first to sweeten you up.’
Sara sucked in a breath and looked at him for a second. ‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ she said, ‘but okay. I did ask you to help me. Go ahead. Bring on the gateau but let me prepare myself first.’
She gritted her teeth and clutched onto the dashboard with both of her hands. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I’m ready. Hit me with it. You have my full attention.’
‘Don’t look so scared! This is just one idea. I was on the phone to a venture capitalist friend of mine yesterday who is interested in unusual start-up companies—like yours!’
She practically leapt out of her seat but Leo gestured with the flat of his hand for her to sit back down again.
‘Before you get excited, he will want to know that you can guarantee constant supply of top quality plants to the marketplace. Right now, I can only see one way to make sure that happens. You need to move the two old orchid houses.’
Sara felt as thou
gh all of the air had been sucked out of the van, making her head spin, but she could not—dare not—move until she’d heard what Leo had to say.
Leo paused while he turned back onto the main road where the traffic was much heavier. ‘I have been looking at land prices around Kingsmede and they are higher than I expected but, with the right business plan and a new marketing campaign, you could afford to rent the extra space you need on the other side of the village. Shall I give him a call? And now you have gone quiet. Tell me what you’re thinking. Interested?’
Sara stared at Leo wide-eyed, scarcely believing what he had just said. They had been working together in the same kitchen and he had not understood one single thing about why she was there and why she had stayed in this cottage in Kingsmede when she could have moved anywhere in the world. And how could he? When she had not bothered to explain it to him. She sighed at her own stupidity.
Why should he understand when even her own mother did not understand fully?
‘Take down my grandmother’s orchid houses?’ she replied. ‘Have you any idea how difficult that would be? They are huge.’
Leo shuffled forward in the driver’s seat, checked the road and then turned the van off onto the tarmac on the side of the road in silence. Switching off the engine, he twisted around in the narrow seat and stared hard into her face. ‘I don’t think that you have thought through the implications of what happens when the land is sold, Sara. That letter means what it says. The builders will need to clear the land before they start. Of course they will give you a chance to remove the greenhouses, but if you don’t… They would be within their rights to demolish them.’
The blood seemed to drain from her face and she felt dizzy. ‘Demolish,’ she said in a weak voice. ‘Could they do that?’
‘Only if they had to,’ he replied. ‘But you have to be ready for that possibility.’
‘I don’t know if I’m up to this,’ she whispered, her eyes fixed on the dusty floor of the van, which was littered with sweet papers, cat treats and random pieces of paper and other assorted rubbish. Which at that moment looked like a fair representation of how this week was turning out.
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