by Kate Hardy
‘I don’t object hugely to pineapple,’ she said. Then she tipped her head on one side. ‘But olives are essential.’
It sounded as if she was thinking the same thing: they needed to find common ground so they could start negotiating properly. Negotiation by pizza... He’d started it, and she seemed to be running with it. He might as well see where it took them. ‘OK. Ham?’
She gave a deep, dramatic sigh. ‘Oh, please. Prosciutto cotto at the very least.’
He couldn’t help grinning. ‘You’re a pizza snob—and you were lying about the pineapple, weren’t you?’
‘Yes. I was trying to be conciliatory. I’m prepared to agree to your demands for pineapple,’ she said. ‘But if you want deep pan or stuffed crust, the deal’s off. Proper pizza comes in thin crust only.’
He wasn’t quite sure whether she was teasing him or whether she was serious. She was a bit more difficult to read than he’d expected. ‘Did you ever eat pizza with Rosemary?’
‘Generally I use fresh basil on pizza,’ she said, her expression deadpan and her voice dry.
That was a definite tease. Nobody in his life teased him any more.
And then it hit him.
Obviously Alice didn’t know about Emma, because she wasn’t treading on eggshells round him the way everyone else in his life did; she was reacting to him as if he was a normal human being. And he really, really liked that feeling. It was refreshing enough for him to want to spend more time in her company. ‘All right. Thin crust, olives, pineapple, prosciutto cotto. Anything else?’
‘No. That all works for me.’
‘It’s a deal.’ Once he’d called the local pizzeria and arranged delivery, they headed back to the kitchen. ‘So how would the education centre work?’ he asked.
‘We might need to remodel the inside of the house. For a start, we need an exhibition room,’ she said. ‘And a space where children can learn how to help butterflies and wildlife by doing practical things—planning their own butterfly gardens with food plants for both caterpillars and for butterflies, how to build a bug hotel, that sort of thing. I’d like a screen where they can see things like a time-lapse film of a butterfly going through its life stages.’ She tapped into her laptop. ‘Like this. It’s only a couple of minutes long, but it always wows my first-years and I think you might enjoy it.’
He watched the film in silence, marvelling at the photographer’s skills. ‘That’s amazing. I had no idea it was that complicated.’
‘And that’s only on my laptop. Imagine seeing that on a really big screen, then following the trail through the garden, seeing those exact plants growing, seeing butterfly eggs on leaves and caterpillars munching their way through plants, seeing pupa suspended from canes or even hatching, and then seeing butterflies flying round in the butterfly house. How cool is that?’
Very. But he needed to be businesslike about it. This couldn’t be a decision based on emotions. ‘Rosemary’s investment income died with her. There isn’t any money to fund the running costs of an education centre.’
‘Which is why we need grants,’ she said. ‘We can do some crowdfunding, to cover the set-up costs, and then the grants will help keep us going. We’ll also charge admission fees—reasonable prices, though, because we want schools to visit in term time and families to visit out of term time. And we also want to attract anyone who’s vaguely interested in butterflies or conservation or re-wilding, or just wants a nice morning out with friends. So we’d have a pop-up café on the patio, serving drinks and healthy food. Probably a shop, for books and postcards and butterfly-related goods. I’ve put together a business plan with some projected footfalls, for my grant applications.’ She opened another file and let him look at it. ‘I can email this across to you, to give you time for a proper read.’
‘That would be helpful,’ he said, and gave her his business card with all his contact details so she could send the file across to him.
‘Do you think you could pause the house going on the market, just until you’ve seen what the possibilities are and had time to make an informed decision?’ she asked.
She wasn’t asking him to stop the sale completely, he noticed. She was giving him the choice of continuing their discussions, but without making assumptions that he’d fall in with her plans.
‘And what I’ve put together so far isn’t set in stone,’ she said. ‘It’s simply a start. A working document for discussion, if you like.’
‘So my family could have input.’
She inclined her head. ‘Including the butterfly house design, which Rosemary wanted to be yours. Though maybe I should take you to visit a few, so you can see what sort of things are possible.’
He remembered what she’d said earlier about site visits to see blue butterflies. ‘So you’re suggesting we should visit butterfly houses and botanical gardens.’
‘Butterfly houses,’ she said, ‘and sites of scientific interest. I suppose we could include formal botanical gardens, but as we’re looking at re-wilding the garden I think it would make more sense to look at nature reserves, so you can see the kind of habitat we can try to create.’
This was treading a very fine line indeed between a date and a business proposition.
He wasn’t sure if the fluttering in his stomach was terror or excitement. Probably both.
‘I appreciate,’ she said, ‘that you have demands on your time from work—as do I. But maybe we can look at our diaries and find a few windows for field trips: some local, some a bit further afield.’
Now Hugo could see that Alice Walters wasn’t the ambitious gold-digger he’d first thought she was, he was more inclined to listen to her.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell Philip Hemingford to put the sale of the house on hold for a couple of weeks and we’ll do some field trips.’
‘Thank you.’
He looked at her. ‘What about your crowdfunding?’
‘That stays,’ she said. ‘If you decide to put the house on the market after all, the trust will need all the money we can get. If you don’t sell the house, then the money will pay for remodelling and building the butterfly house.’
‘Trust?’ He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘What trust?’
‘I was thinking, it should be called the Ferrers-Grey Butterfly Education Trust,’ she said. ‘Honouring both Viola and Rosemary. Oh, and that reminds me: we should have a garden centre section of the shop with butterfly-friendly plants and seeds, obviously including violas and rosemary.’
Acknowledging his great-great-great-grandmother and his great-aunt with plants as well as with the name of the building? He liked that. But that still left him with questions. ‘What about you?’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t you want your name on the project?’
‘I told you before,’ she said quietly, ‘it isn’t about me. It’s about the butterflies. And I’m disappointed that you still think I’m doing this because I’m some power-crazed, ambitious bitch. Clearly you mix with the wrong sort of women.’
He felt the flush of embarrassment and awkwardness creep under his skin. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it quite like that.’
‘No?’ Her eyes narrowed a fraction.
The pizza arrived, at that moment; when he came back from answering the door, he gave her a wry smile. ‘Can we agree to a truce over dinner?’
‘I guess. How much do I owe you?’
‘This one’s on me,’ he said, cutting the pizza into slices. ‘Next meeting, you buy the pizza or whatever.’
Without further comment, Alice fetched plates from the cupboard and cutlery from the drawer and found two glasses. ‘Water?’
‘Thank you.’
* * *
It was weird, sharing a pizza with a near-stranger, one who’d been pretty much hostile up until now. And Alice found herself feeling
unexpectedly shy with him.
Oh, for pity’s sake. Just because he was posh, it didn’t mean that he was superior—or even that he had a superiority complex. She really had to stop letting what had happened with Barney get in the way of how she handled things. She was older, wiser and much more able to hold her own.
And she needed to be practical about this. ‘I could do a field trip on Saturday,’ she said. ‘Would that fit in with you, or do you need to check with your partner?’
For a second, it was as if someone had closed a shutter over his expression. And his voice was very cool when he said, ‘No partner.’
Uh-oh. Did he think she was coming on to him? Maybe she ought to invent a boyfriend. Then again, her love life was a complete disaster zone. Better, perhaps, to suggest something else. ‘If you want anyone else from your family to come along, that’s fine. Where I have in mind can be rough ground, though, and it’s also prime tick season, so I’d recommend whoever joins us wears strong shoes and trousers that can be tucked into socks.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’ll be just me.’ He looked at her. ‘Is your partner going to be OK with it?’
‘I,’ she said, ‘am married to my butterflies.’ Just so it would be clear to him that she saw this purely as work.
Her fingers accidentally brushed his as they reached for a slice of pizza at the same time, and again she felt that weird flicker of electricity along her skin.
Even if she admitted to being attracted to Hugo Grey, she wasn’t going to act on it. Her relationships never worked out, and she wouldn’t let anything jeopardise the butterfly project. ‘OK,’ she said, cross with herself when her voice went slightly breathless. She made an effort to sound professional. ‘Do you mind an early start? It’ll take us about three hours to get to the first site, maybe more if we get stuck in traffic.’
‘How early?’ he asked.
‘Given that the butterflies I have in mind are usually more active in the morning, six o’clock?’
He looked wary; maybe he wasn’t a morning person. ‘OK. I’ll pick you up.’
‘I’ll pick you up,’ she corrected. ‘Let me know your address.’
For a moment, she thought he was going to argue, but then he nodded and gave her his address. ‘Do you need anything from Rosemary’s study, while we’re here?’ he asked when they’d finished eating.
‘No. I’ve already got copies of the photographs she had of Viola.’
‘OK. I’ll clear up here, then, and I’ll see you on Saturday.’
‘All right. I’ll email over the files I promised you.’ She paused. ‘Thank you. I appreciate you listening to what I had to say.’
He inclined his head. ‘And I apologise for my earlier prejudice.’
She appreciated that apology; and it was her turn to compromise, now. ‘I can understand it, now you’ve told me about the people who took advantage of her. In your shoes, I think I would’ve felt the same. Maybe we both started off on the wrong foot.’
‘Maybe,’ he agreed.
‘Can I help with the washing up?’ she asked, glancing at the crockery on the table.
‘No, it’s fine. See you Saturday.’
‘Saturday, six a.m. sharp,’ she echoed, closed her laptop and left the house.
This field trip absolutely wasn’t a date: it was part of a business proposition. So why were all her senses humming?
Probably, she thought, because Hugo Grey was the first man who’d attracted her like this in several years.
But nothing was going to happen between them. She needed to be sensible about this. Her relationships always ended in disaster; and she and Hugo were pretty much complete opposites. Well-worn hiking boots versus handmade, highly polished Italian shoes. It simply wouldn’t work, so it was pointless letting anything start.
Even if he did have the most gorgeous eyes...
CHAPTER FOUR
DURING THE REST of the week, Hugo found himself thinking about the butterfly project whenever he had a spare moment. The doodles on his desk blotter were all of potential butterfly house designs—except for the sketches that started to creep in on Friday morning. Little line-drawings of a woman with untamed hair, a snub nose and freckles.
Sketches of Alice Walters.
Not good.
He didn’t want to start thinking about Alice, or about anyone else. Emma’s death had broken him; although on the surface it looked as if he’d managed to put himself back together, deep down he wasn’t so sure he had. Without her, there was a huge hollow in the middle of his life and he didn’t know how to fill it. His family and friends had encouraged him to date again, saying he needed someone in his life to stop him being lonely. But Emma wasn’t replaceable. And anyway he didn’t want to risk loving and losing again. It was easier just to avoid social situations and use work as an excuse. The only person he really saw much of nowadays was his best friend, and—since an incident where Kit and his wife had tried to set him up with a suitable woman, and Hugo had backed off for a couple of weeks—Hugo’s non-existent love life was a topic firmly off limits.
Saturday’s butterfly expedition with Alice was a field trip, not a date. Hadn’t she told him herself that she wasn’t interested? You didn’t tell someone that you were married to your job if you were even vaguely interested in dating them. This was business.
He dragged himself out of bed on Saturday morning at what he considered an unearthly hour, showered and dressed, ate a banana for breakfast, and was considering whether he had enough time to make himself a coffee to wake himself up properly when his doorbell rang.
Six o’clock precisely.
At least Alice was punctual. He would’ve been seriously annoyed if he’d dragged himself out of bed and then she’d made him wait around for ages.
She was wearing bright red canvas shoes instead of hiking boots today, he noticed when he opened the door to her. Her faded jeans emphasised her curves, and the slogan on her equally faded T-shirt was very pointed: ‘Don’t judge a butterfly by its chrysalis.’
She wore absolutely no make-up, and her light brown hair was tied back with a brightly coloured silk scarf, though little tendrils had already escaped at the front. Next to the women he was used to at the office in their sharp business suits, she should’ve looked a scruffy mess: but actually she looked incredibly cute, completely natural and guileless. When she smiled at him, his pulse actually leapt.
Oh, help.
He didn’t want to be attracted to anyone. Particularly to someone whose life had almost nothing in common with his.
He needed to get a grip.
He also needed more sleep.
Why on earth had he agreed to this ridiculous field trip at this even more ridiculous time of day?
‘Good morning. Ready to go?’ she asked.
How could she possibly be this chirpy at six o’clock? ‘You’re a morning person, then,’ he muttered.
Her smile broadened. ‘Of course. It’s the best part of the day. You’ve already missed the sunrise.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Owl, are we?’ And then, just to make it worse, she gave a soft, mocking ‘Tu-whit, tu-whoo.’
He glared at her, his synapses not firing quite quickly enough to let him make a suitably sarcastic retort.
She just laughed. ‘You can always nap in the car, because it’s going to take us about three hours to get there, if we’re lucky with traffic. Or, if you need coffee, I’ve a flask and a spare reusable cup in my backpack.’
Of course she’d have reusable cups. ‘Thanks.’ Though he was aware of how ungracious and grumpy he sounded, and winced inwardly.
She glanced at his feet. ‘I’m glad you’re not wearing your posh shoes. I forgot to warn you that it can be a bit boggy underfoot in the wetlands.’
‘Wetlands? I thought we were looking at butterflies?’
‘We are. But one of th
e sites we’re visiting is in the Norfolk Broads.’ She spread her hands. ‘By definition, it can be a bit wet.’
‘Oh.’ He looked at her feet again. ‘No hiking boots for you, today?’
‘They’re in the car. I don’t drive in them,’ she said.
‘I’m a bit surprised someone with your green credentials has a car,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I don’t. But if I can’t get somewhere any other way, I hire one.’
‘Oh.’ And then he felt stupid.
‘Feel free to change the temperature or the music,’ she said when he’d climbed into the passenger seat.
She was being nice, and he was being impolite and grouchy. ‘This is fine,’ he said. ‘And sorry. I don’t mean to sound grumpy.’
She patted his forearm, and his skin tingled where her fingertips touched him. ‘Poor little owl. I promise what we’re going to see will be worth the early start. Well, as long as the weather holds.’
‘Butterflies don’t like rain?’
‘Or wind. They like calm, bright weather,’ she said. ‘Or just calm will do. Overcast is all right, if there isn’t a wind. I have something with me in case I need to cheat a bit, though.’
‘Cheat?’ He was mystified.
‘Later.’ She started the car. ‘Go back to sleep, if you want to.’
Hugo had no intention of doing that, though he was glad that she didn’t want to chatter inanely. However, lulled by the warmth of the sunlight through the windows and the soft piano music she was playing in the car, he did actually doze off; when he opened his eyes again, they were in the middle of nowhere. The road before them wasn’t even a proper road; it appeared to be a dirt track.
‘Where are we?’ he asked.
‘Milk Parsley Fen—named after one of the plants that grows here.’ She drove through a gap in the hedge into what seemed to be a field, though there were a couple of other cars parked underneath the trees. ‘Do you want some coffee before we go for a walk?’
