“Sure.”
“It seems he’s in Argentina. Buenos Aires. He’s set up an import-export business there.”
She felt nothing at this news except, perhaps, a lack of surprise.
“I still say, Catherine and this’ll be the last time, I swear -I’ll not
say it again that you were too generous to him.” He held up a hand as
if to forestall her objections. “I know, I know he was more of a case
for the doctors than the courts, but-‘
“Terry, I think he would have killed himself. In fact, I know he would.”
He frowned, he came round to the idea reluctantly. “Very well. I must accept your judgement on that.”
“And if anyone should have ended up in court, shouldn’t it have been Ben?”
His expression clouded, he said with feeling, “Indeed. And where is he, still.. .?”
“In Eaton Square, so far as I know. Oh, I don’t mind, Terry. Why should I mind? Better Rebecca than some poor girl who’d take him seriously and get hurt.”
They fell into a thoughtful silence, broken when they both began to speak at the same instant, broke off, only to speak over each other once again.
“There are two things I ‘
“There was something ‘
He said immediately, “No, after you,” and smiled his slow smile that started at one corner of his mouth and spread up into his eyes. She had forgotten how striking his eyes were, more blue than grey, and how unflinching.
She had to look down at her hands before she could find the courage to
start. “Before we discuss the garden, there are a couple of ‘
“Oh, I’ve no need to discuss the garden,” he said quickly.
“What?”
“I’m here to see you. I’m not worried about the garden.”
“Oh,” she repeated uncertainly. “But all these people are coming ‘
“I’ll wait. I’ll wait for as long as necessary.”
She took a deep breath. “There are two things I want to say to you before we go any further,” she began with strange formality. “Firstly, that I owe you an apology. About this house, how you came to own it. My father’s never been terribly truthful about money. I’ve always known it, really. I just found it hard to accept at the time. Somehow, the loss of the house got bound up in Mummy’s death. It was too much for me to accept that Pa had sold it under our feet just when Mummy was dying. I’m afraid I believed what he said all the bad things he told us about you because it suited me to. The alternative was too painful.” She looked up at him. “I got some sort of admission out of Pa the other day. Not a lot you can imagine but enough to make me suspect that the truth was very different. I don’t know what the arrangements were, but I’m sure they were very generous. As always. Whatever else, Terry, you are the most absurdly generous man I know. So ... I want to apologise. I hope that you’ll be able to forgive me.”
Matching the note of formality, he bowed his head in acceptance. When he looked up again he seemed pleased.
In her relief at having got this out of the way, she almost forgot the second matter. “Oh yes!” she exclaimed. “I loved your letters.”
She had caught him by surprise. “I’m sorry?”
“I loved the letters you sent me. I read them all many times. I wanted you to know that they gave me enormous pleasure.”
“But they were a poor effort,” he argued. “I’m no good at that sort of thing.”
“You’re wrong. And in fact... I owe you another apology. For sending
such an awful reply to that letter you sent me that summer ‘
He interrupted sharply, “No, no too long ago, Catherine. Best forgotten. Water under the bridge. No, no an age away!”
But she could see he hadn’t forgotten, she could see that the wound still smarted, and she felt an ache of regret and something else that was very like longing.
“I’m sorry, I.. .” But seeing the warning flash in his eyes, she said rapidly, “What was it you wanted to say? I interrupted you.”
“I think later,” he said.
It was an hour before the contractors left, an hour that Terry spent alone in the study. She found him hunched over his desk on the phone. At some point he had changed into casual clothes, more country than gardening, which suited him far better.
He mimed a greeting. While she waited for him to finish, she watched him and thought of the letter he had written her that summer. She couldn’t recall the exact words he had used, but she remembered that they’d been good honest words, straight from the heart. It occurred to her perhaps hadn’t been far from her mind for a long time that she had been foolish to turn him down.
“Now then!” he cried as he rang off. “Time to wrap up!”
The quad stood in the stable yard. He lifted her on and got on behind her. They went slowly because she had to brace herself on the handlebars, and he had to keep one arm tight around her waist.
A short way up the hill, he turned the machine around so they could look back at the house. “What I wanted to say was it’s yours,” he said. “I always intended to give it to you.”
She leant to one side so she could look back at his face. “The house?”
“The house.”
“But I don’t want it, Terry!”
“I’m giving it to you anyway.”
“And I can’t possibly accept it.”
He gave a sharp sigh. “Now, why did I think you were going to say that? Unlimited loan then?”
“No.”
He looked down at her. “Why not?”
“I wouldn’t want to live here on my own. It wouldn’t be practical for a start.”
He conceded this grudgingly. “Will you come often then?”
“As often as I’m invited.”
This idea floated tantalisingly between them.
“You drive a hard bargain, Catherine. But I agree.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clare Francis is the author of seven international bestsellers, Night Sky, Red Crystal, Wolf Winter, Requiem, Deceit, Betrayal and A Dark Devotion. She has also written three non-fiction books about her voyages across the oceans of the world.
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