‘Can we go, Daddy?’ Kerry urged.
‘I don’t think so.’ Jeffrey was hesitant. ‘It’s not really my cup of tea.’ A nice cup of tea was more his cup of tea. And Kate wouldn’t approve. ‘You’re supposed to be at school. What would Mummy say?’
‘She’s away,’ Kerry pointed out. ‘She doesn’t need to know what we get up to.’
Quite.
‘Please! Please!’ Joe begged.
‘Well, maybe,’ Jeffrey said reluctantly. ‘But that’s my last word on the subject.’
Joe was boinging round the begonias like Zebedee on speed. ‘LET’S! DO! IT!’ he cried, punching the air.
Jeffrey shrank back into the garden swing, which was starting to give him motion sickness. Let’s not, he thought.
chapter 35
This was madness, Ben decided, as he peeped inside the heavily laden picnic hamper complete with bottle of champagne, punnet of strawberries and the traditional red-and-white gingham cloth. Sheer unadulterated madness. He fussed with the glasses and cutlery that the priory had also supplied, then glanced at his watch. Kate would be waiting for him. It wasn’t too late to back out. They could eat their picnic on the lawn in front of the priory, with the Green-ham Common women and the Fur Fabric Four as chaperones, rather than in the very romantic—and secluded—spot on the edge of the woods that he had recklessly chosen for them earlier in the day.
He tidied the cloth back over the hamper and headed out to where he had arranged to meet Kate. She stood with her back to him, wearing a floral sundress and flat strappy sandals. Her fingers tugged anxiously at her hair and he recognised, with some relief, that she probably felt the same as he did—as nervous as hell and with as much confidence as an emotionally retarded seventeen-year-old.
‘Hi,’ she said shyly.
‘I’ve brought the picnic,’ he said inanely, wondering what else she would think he was carrying in a wicker hamper. ‘I thought we’d go up through the woods.’
Please look outraged and say you’d rather stay within screaming distance of the priory.
She crinkled her eyes against the sun as she smiled. ‘That sounds nice.’
It’s not nice! I’m trying to pretend to myself that I’m not hoping to seduce you. Don’t encourage me!
They walked out across the croquet lawn, both aware of the slight lull in conversation as they passed the other course members who were enjoying a preprandial sherry under the fluttering butterfly umbrellas on the terrace. Several pairs of eyes swivelled to follow their progress.
‘It’s a lovely evening,’ Kate said.
‘Yes.’ Scintillating conversation, Ben!
They pushed up through the cool shade of the woods, Kate walking slightly ahead of him where the path was too narrow to fit side by side. Golden shafts of sunlight dappled through the dark green leaves, shifting and swaying, so that they had to concentrate on their footing to avoid tripping over tree roots that snaked half-hidden over the surface of the sun-baked mud. It made talking impossible, which was just as well because they seemed to be finding it pretty impossible anyway.
‘Through here,’ Ben indicated when they reached the clearing he had earmarked. They ducked through the gap in a hawthorn hedge and emerged into a gently sloping area of lush green grass that banded a field of tall yellow corn. The fields stretched out as far as the eye could see, punctuated by the odd lone-standing farmhouse and abandoned tractor. The corn wasn’t ripe yet for harvesting, but a few more weeks and it would be razed to the ground, as unattractive as day-old designer stubble. But, for now, it swayed magnificently in the hint of a breeze.
‘What a beautiful setting,’ Kate said, pulling the hair back from her forehead and tilting her face to the evening sun.
More to Life Than This Page 18