by Jessica Hart
Luckily the two dogs bustled into the kitchen just then and put a stop to a fiery argument between the two children. The dogs were followed by Max, and for an odd moment, Flora’s pulse leapt, as if she had missed a step in the dark and had only just righted herself in time.
“Dad!” Holly scrambled from her chair and threw herself at him, talking a mile a minute about some party she had been invited to. Max’s smile as he bent over his daughter gave Flora a jolt. He was only thirty-six but he was so dour that he usually looked older than that. Now, though, ruffling Ben’s hair, he seemed younger and really ... well, really quite attractive. He’d been working in his studio and was still wearing his glasses, stern horn-rimmed affairs that should have looked ridiculous but actually made him seem pretty cool.
Stella rose gracefully from the table and wafted towards him, lifting her cheek for a kiss. “Hello, darling,” she said. “It’s so lovely that Flora knows about Hope’s engagement. It means we can talk about it with someone at last.”
“Great. As long as I don’t have to talk about it.” Max’s gaze met Flora’s briefly. “I see you’ve met Holly and Ben?”
“Yes, we’ve been bonding over bridesmaid’s dresses,” Flora managed. Her voice sounded alarmingly thin, as if her lungs had been squeezed of air.
“Max,” Stella interrupted. “Did you get my email about Christmas? There’s so much going on, it’s an absolute nightmare. Ben’s class has got a Christmas fair, and there’s Holly’s dance event, and then the carol concert ... You don’t want to miss any of them, do you?”
“God forbid,” said Max straight-faced and Stella made a show of rolling her eyes at him.
“They’d both be devastated if you weren’t there, you know.”
He sighed. “I’ll be there, Stella.”
“And we’ll see you for Christmas lunch as usual? It means so much to Holly and Ben that you’re there too,” Stella went on. “I couldn’t bear for you to be here on your own ... unless you’ve got other plans?” she asked artlessly.
There was a tiny pause. “No, no other plans,” said Max.
“Tell me, how did you get on with Cressida?”
“Fine,” said Max, doing a good impression of a stag at bay.
Stella clapped her hands. “I thought you’d get on! She’s lovely, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she’s very nice.”
Mr Chatty. Flora, who had gone back to her icing, rolled her eyes inwardly. You’d think Stella would have known better than to try and get an enthusiastic response out of Max.
“Are you going to see her again?”
Max’s eyes flickered to Flora and then away. “We’re having dinner tomorrow,” he conceded reluctantly.
“Ooh, exciting!”
“It’s just dinner, Stella,” he said, ignoring her moue of disappointment. “I’ve got enough to do getting the house ready for Hope’s wedding. A relationship is the last thing I need at the moment.”
The children had drifted away and Flora was grating cheese by the time Max finally saw Stella off and went back to the kitchen. Bella and Ted were sitting by her, looking alert in the hope of a dropped scrap or two, while Flora seemed to be doing her best to ignore them.
“Do you always let them beg like this?” she asked Max disapprovingly.
“They like cheese.” It seemed a good enough explanation to Max.
“Still, it’s a bit degrading. Look at them, all big eyes and drooling and hopeful expressions,” she said with a disparaging glance downwards at the two dogs. “You’d never get Sweetie carrying on like that. He just expects his treats served up on a gold plate without him even having to ask for them.”
“That’s cats for you,” said Max, stealing a couple of pieces of cheese and tossing them to Bella and Max, who gulped eagerly at them. “Dogs are much more appreciative.”
Flora sniffed, evidently unconvinced. She shook the last gratings of cheese into a bowl and set a pan on the hob with a knob of butter.
“Does your ex-wife organize all your dates for you?”
“They’re not exactly dates,” said Max, hunching a shoulder. “It’s just going out for a drink or dinner.”
“That sounds awfully like a date to me.”
“It’s awkward,” he admitted grudgingly. “Stella keeps introducing me to these friends of hers and they’re obviously expecting me to ask them out, and frankly it’s easier to invite them for a drink than try and think of some excuse.”
Flora raised her brows. “You don’t strike me as the kind of man who does anything he doesn’t want to do. Why don’t you tell Stella to stop fixing you up?”
“I’ve tried telling her that I’m perfectly happy on my own, but she’s got this idea that Holly and Ben need me to give them an example of a ‘loving relationship’.” He hooked his fingers in the air as if his tone hadn’t already told Flora all she needed to know what he thought about it.
“I’ve pointed out that she and Marcus are already providing a good example, but Stella thinks I should do the same, and she manages to imply that by not doing that, I’m letting Holly and Ben down somehow. My ex-wife has emotional blackmail down to a fine art,” he added as he pinched a piece of cheese for himself.
Flora pulled a sympathetic face. “That’s tough. I know what it’s like, though. I had a boyfriend once whose ex was the queen of emotional blackmail. Sam told me about her soon after we got together. He said that even though she’d met someone else, they had ended things amicably and decided to stay friends. Which I thought was fine. Very civilized. Who could possibly object to that?
“When I met Michelle, she was very friendly. I thought she was nice, in fact, but then I realized that she was ringing Sam whenever anything went wrong. She needed a lift home, or she’d lost her keys, or the tap was dripping, or her new boyfriend had made her cry ...” Flora sighed and shook her head at the memory of it. “Sam said I didn’t understand. Michelle had had a bad time, he said. She was very vulnerable. They were friends; how could he refuse to help her? And so on and so forth.”
She peered into her pan, shaking it on the element. “I thought Michelle was just jerking his chain. She didn’t want Sam as a boyfriend but she didn’t want him to move on either, for all she was so friendly. Sam was supposed to be pining for her, not having fun with someone new. But of course Sam didn’t want to hear what I thought. I suppose she was right and that he wasn’t ready for a new relationship. I gave up in the end,” Flora told Max. “It was sad. I really liked Sam, but I soon got tired of waiting for him to decide which girlfriend he really wanted.”
“Stella’s not like that,” said Max, frowning uneasily.
“That’s good,” said Flora. “I wouldn’t wish that situation on anyone. And I can see it’s hard. You’ve got children together. It’s not as if you can cut Stella out of your life.”
“Exactly,” said Max. For a minute there he had thought Flora might not understand. And it was only afterwards that he asked himself why he cared whether she did or not.
Chapter Four
When Flora walked into the Three Bells that night, Ally was already perched at the bar. She had shooed away a couple of men who were lurking hopefully and patted the stool beside her. Unwinding her scarf, Flora climbed onto it, pink-faced and glowing from the cold. She was wearing a lime green top and felt like the jolly green giant next to Ally, who was slender and effortlessly stylish, with sparkling hazel eyes and glossy brown hair that she had twisted up and secured casually.
“I hate the way you do that thing with your hair,” Flora said by way of greeting. “Like you haven’t even thought about it but it still looks perfect.”
“I haven’t thought about it,” Ally pointed out. “I hope you’ve got a good excuse for being late, Floradear?”
Flora checked her phone. 18:32. “Two minutes!” she protested.
“It feels like two hours with Jennifer glaring at me. I don’t think she liked me hogging this stool for you.”
“Jennifer doesn’
t like anything.” Flora glanced across the bar to where Jennifer, the pinch-mouthed landlady of the Three Bells, was polishing glasses and assiduously ignoring all attempts to catch her eye. “Have you ever wondered how someone who hates serving drinks comes to be running a pub?”
“Only every time I come in here,” said Ally.
“How do you think Pete stays married to her? He’s so lovely and she’s so ... so ... so not.” Pete Harmon had given Flora her very first job washing dishes in the kitchen. He was a big, jolly bear of a man in complete contrast to his thin, sour wife. The nature of their marriage had long been a puzzle to Flora, Ally and Hope.
“Maybe it’s like a fairy tale and Jennifer turns into a beautiful, sweet-natured princess at night?” Ally suggested.
Flora lowered her voice and glanced around to make sure no one could hear her. “And talking of princesses ... have you heard from Hope at all?”
“Not for a while, no. Why?”
“I just wanted to run some menu ideas past her.”
Ally regarded Flora with affection. “I might have known you’d be thinking about the food already.”
“The trouble is that Hope wants simple, and I’d really like to show off,” she confessed.
“I’m sure you can squeeze some fancy twists in somewhere,” said Ally. “Actually, I’d like to talk to Hope too. I’ve got an idea that I’d like to run past her.”
But Flora wasn’t listening. Glancing idly at the pub door, she had seen a slim, very attractive woman come in. She was smiling and saying something over her shoulder to the dark, stern-looking man behind her.
Max.
The sight of him made Flora’s heart jolt alarmingly, although she couldn’t have said why. She had seen him briefly earlier that day, when he had grunted a reply to her cheery good morning. So there was no reason for every cell in her body to jump when he had walked into the pub.
It must be something to do with seeing him out of context, Flora realized. She was (sort of) used to him padding through the kitchen in socks and his old working clothes, but tonight he was dressed up, or as dressed up as one got for a drink in a country pub. He was wearing a pale yellow, textured cotton shirt, open casually at the neck, and it suited him so well that Flora would have staked her life on the fact that Stella had bought it for him.
Over it, he wore an old tweed jacket with leather buttons. Very lord of the manor, Flora decided, trying to joke herself out of the ridiculously heightened sense of awareness. It wasn’t even as if he were particularly handsome or charming. His expression was set in characteristically sardonic lines, overlaid with an aloofness that she had often seen when he was out in the village, but that was quite different from the way he looked at his children. For the first time it occurred to Flora that when your family name had been comprehensively dragged through the mud it might be easier to hide behind a mask of reserve.
She watched under her lashes as Max steered the woman – presumably Stella’s friend Cressida – to a table.
“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” Ally dug Flora in the ribs with her elbow. “Who are you looking at? Ohhhhh,” she added on a long drawn-out note of interest before Flora could reply. She had already followed her gaze to the table across the room. “Sir Max Kennard himself! Who’s that with him?”
“Her name’s Cressida, I think.”
“Cressida?” They exchanged a look and a little moue of agreement that the name wasn’t for them, although Cressida’s wardrobe met with more approval. Dark-haired and slender, she was elegantly dressed in narrow trousers, heels and the palest of pale pink cashmere jumpers with pearls at her throat and in her ears. Ally studied the outfit enviously. “She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”
Flora fingered the gaudy turquoise glass necklace at her own neck. “I think the pearls are a bit boring, don’t you?”
“Dullsville,” Ally agreed. “Still, could we be looking at the next Lady Kennard? She’s beautiful, glamorous, well-dressed ...”
“Max said she was very nice, too,” Flora remembered glumly.
Ally flicked her a speculative glance. “What’s he like?”
“Max?” Flora looked at her in surprise. “You must know, surely. You’ve known Hope much longer than I have.”
“I don’t really know Max, though. He was always so much older than Hope. Either he was away at school or he’d left home. He always seemed as if he had a big stick up his bottom.”
“I know what you mean, but he’s not so bad when you talk to him,” Flora said. “He’s never going to be Mr Charm, and he can be a bit cranky, but he’s okay. He’s been fine, actually. What?” she demanded when Ally just looked at her. “He has!”
“Any resurrection of your little crush on him?”
“God, Ally, that was years ago! I should never have told you about it – and I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t poured a vat of gin down me,” Flora accused her friend.
“It was the night Rich the Rat dumped you. You needed it.”
“Anyway, I didn’t really have a crush. I just ... thought he seemed nice.”
You told me you cried for two whole days when you heard that he was going to marry Stella.”
“I was fifteen,” said Flora. “Anyway, I was so over it a couple days later. I think I decided to be in love with someone a bit more attainable like Prince William instead.” She straightened a bar mat. “Now you come to mention it, I seem to have a pattern of falling for unavailable men.”
Ally knew where that one was going. “Rich wasn’t unavailable,” she pointed out robustly. “He was just incredibly selfish and self-centred.”
“I suppose.” Flora sighed a little and then gave herself a shake. She was the cheery one, not the kind of girl who moped about ex-boyfriends or felt depressed because Max was out on a date with a gorgeous, nice, glamorous woman. It was time to lift their mood.
“What do you think we have to do to get a drink from Jennifer?”
“I’ve tried waving to catch her attention, but she just ignores me,” said Ally. “She hates me.”
“She hates me too,” Flora pointed out. “It’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, who would hate us when we’re so fantastic?”
“And charming.”
“And good fun.”
“Good company.”
“Perfectly behaved.”
“Except after a third gin.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m always perfectly behaved.”
They were both laughing as Max approached the bar. He hesitated fractionally as he caught sight of them but Flora wiggled her fingers at him in greeting and could practically see him realize that he wouldn’t be able to ignore her.
“Flora.” Max nodded at her, and then at Ally. “Ally.”
“Hi, Max.” Ally smiled at him.
“Sir Max!” Jennifer Harmon practically fell over herself to rush to Max’s end of the bar.
She was a ghastly snob, and adored the Kennards, scandal or no scandal. Gerald Kennard’s imprisonment had hit her almost as hard as the Kennards themselves but she saw Max as the family’s salvation. He might be short on glamour or his father’s ebullient charm, but he had paid off all the debts and managed to hang on to the manor itself by the skin of his teeth, so there were still Kennards at Hasebury Hall. He could do no wrong in Jennifer’s eyes. Hope swore that she had once actually seen Jennifer curtsey, and Flora had never quite known whether she had been joking or not.
“How nice to see you in here!” she gushed, her smile sitting oddly on her normally sour face. “What can I get you?”
“I think Flora and Ally are waiting to order,” Max said, tipping his head in their direction. “They were here before me.”
Unable to refuse outright, Jennifer turned to them with a smile so acidulated that it was all Flora and Ally could do not to burst into giggles.
“Two large glasses of sauvignon blanc, please, Jennifer,” said Flora, “and two packs of peanuts.”
“Thanks, Max,” said Ally,
blowing him a kiss.
Jennifer plonked the two glasses in front of them, tossed the peanuts on the bar, and turned obsequiously back to Max, who ordered a small glass of chardonnay and a pint of bitter.
Flora lifted her glass and took a sip, momentarily distracted from Max as she narrowed her eyes and concentrated on the lovely zingy flavours: gooseberry and cut grass, a touch of lime perhaps, or was that grapefruit she could taste? She put down her glass while she savoured the effect on her taste buds.
“Say what you like about Jennifer,” she said to Ally, “but she’s introduced some decent wines. Remember what plonk they used to serve before she pushed Pete into turning the Three Bells into a gastropub?”
“I didn’t know that was Jennifer’s doing,” said Ally, distracted.
“You must remember what it was like! When I started helping in the kitchen we just churned out ordinary pub grub, but then they brought in Tom and got a proper wine buyer ... Pete and Jennifer have transformed the Three Bells without losing the pub atmosphere.”
Ally pulled a face, unconvinced. “The atmosphere is down to Pete. He’s brilliant. If Jennifer had her way, she’d ban riff-raff like us and only serve titled people. Look at her with Max. It’s revolting!”
“I know.” Flora leant closer to her friend. “Imagine what she’s going to be like when she hears that our best friend is going to be a princess,” she breathed in her ear so that no one could hear. “She is so going to regret not being nicer to us,” she said and Ally had to clap a hand over her mouth to stop the snort of laughter.
“I’ve reserved a table in the restaurant for seven-thirty,” Max was telling Jennifer when Flora turned her attention back to him.
“Of course! I’ll make sure it’s ready for you.” Jennifer set the lovingly pulled beer and the glass of chardonnay carefully in front of him. “I’ll put all this on your tab, shall I?”
“Thank you.” Max looked relieved to escape.
Flora swivelled on her stool so that she could watch him carry the drinks back to the table, where Cressida smiled up at him, shaking back her glossy hair invitingly.