The Baronet's Wedding Engagement

by Jessica Hart

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Why don’t you stay?”

  “I need to be with Sweetie,” she said. “He’s a bit off his food.”

  “He’s just manipulating you. Cats are sneaky that way.”

  Flora bent down to kiss him. “I promised Pops I’d look after him. I don’t think he likes being left on his own. He’s taken to sleeping with me, and he’ll miss me if I’m not there.”

  “He’s not the only one,” Max grumbled, getting up and pulling on his trousers.

  “What are you doing?” asked Flora, puzzled.

  “Walking you home. It’s late.”

  For the next few weeks, Max complained about playing second fiddle to a cat, but he didn’t try to persuade Flora to stay the night again. That was clearly going to be a losing battle. The dogs joyfully adapted to a late-night walk, and escorting Flora to her cottage every night was a small price to pay for being able to hold her again.

  It wasn’t just in his bedroom that life had changed. Workmen had started on the renovations and redecoration in preparation for Hope’s wedding. Ally kept the office he had given her to organize PR around the wedding, and was often to be seen running up and down the stairs, clipboard in hand, a phone clamped to her ear, usually too busy to do more than wave at Max as she passed. But even she wasn’t the real reason Hasebury Hall felt as if it was getting a new lease of life. It was because of Flora, with her laughter and her huge capacity for love.

  He just wasn’t sure whether she loved him.

  And why should she? ran the doubting voice in Max’s head. His mother hadn’t, and in the end, Stella hadn’t either. Why should Flora be any different? She wasn’t a dog, offering unconditional love for no reason at all, and what, really, did he have to offer her?

  Flora was too bright a star to stay in Combe St Philip, anyway. The cakes and tarts she produced were exquisite, and she talked still about her dream of owning a restaurant one day. Having held on to his own dream of the manor, Max understood what that meant to her. It wouldn’t be fair to stand in her way and make it difficult for her to leave.

  But for now, there were still three months until the wedding. Three months until she would think about leaving. Max intended to make the most of them.

  Spring was definitely in the air. The incessant rain earlier in the year had given way to a mild, pale sunshine, and the daffodils were bursting out in the new warmth. Bella and Ted at his heels, Max made his way back from the greenhouses. He had been up early to check the plants there and needed to get on with a design for landscaping a new hospital, but he might as well get a coffee first. It was pathetic the way he found excuses to pop in and see Flora.

  As soon as he opened the back door, though, he knew that she wasn’t there. The kitchen was cold and empty. He checked his phone, but there was no message. Concerned, he whistled for Ted and Bella, and walked down to the village.

  “It’s open,” said Flora dully at the sound of his knock.

  The door opened into the little sitting room. Flora was sitting in a chair, Sweetie on her lap, and when she looked at Max, her face was blank and white.

  “He’s dead,” she said in a voice he barely recognized. “I thought that I was waiting for him to die, but now that he has, I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.”

  The cat’s body was already stiffening. Max found a towel, wrapped Sweetie gently in it and lifted him from Flora’s lap. Then he picked up Flora and carried her to the other chair so that he could hold her while she cried.

  His sunny Flora. Max’s heart cracked to hear her weep. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “I shouldn’t be crying.”

  “Flora, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I know you loved Sweetie.”

  “But I didn’t really love him,” she wailed. “I don’t understand why I’m even crying, when I didn’t cry like this for Granny or for Pops.”

  Max suspected that she hadn’t let herself cry. She would have been too busy putting on a smile and appearing cheerful for everyone at the funeral.

  “You’re grieving for them now. Sweetie was your last link to them. You’re allowed to be sad.”

  “I’ve been so lucky,” she sobbed. She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I could have been dragged around from commune to cult for years if Granny and Pops hadn’t taken me in. I’m just so grateful to them, and they hated seeing me cry,” she said tearfully. “They’d hate seeing me now ...”

  Max’s throat tightened. He thought about the brave little girl, abandoned by her careless mother, rewarding her grandparents with a cheerful smile that hid the sadness she must surely have felt.

  “Flora, they would understand,” he said. “They loved Sweetie, too, didn’t they? And you looked after him, right to the end, just like you promised you would.”

  “What am I going to do with him now?” Flora’s tears had quietened to hiccupping sobs. “I don’t know where to bury him. The garden’s so small here. I don’t want anyone to dig him up by mistake.”

  “I tell you what,” said Max. “We’ll bury him in the orchard at the manor, and we’ll get him a headstone, like all the other animals there.”

  “But you told me that there are only dogs buried there.”

  “We’ll make Sweetie an honorary dog.” Max could see his own dogs sitting quietly, sensing the atmosphere. “He saw off Bella and Ted, didn’t he?”

  That won him a watery smile at last.

  So they carried Sweetie up to the orchard, and Max took a spade and dug a hole next to the grave of his beloved Bess, while Flora crouched down and read the names lovingly carved on the stones: Rex, Major, Ajax, Roger, Mungo, Meg ... “Oh, dear, Sweetie rather lowers the tone,” she said.

  Max was glad to hear her sounding more her old self. He had hated seeing her cry, hated it. But it wasn’t fair that she felt she always had to be cheerful, and he had felt strangest urge to gather her up and make everything right for her.

  He couldn’t bring Sweetie back to life, but he could at least give the old cat a decent resting place. He didn’t think the dogs would mind. Sweetie’s place in the orchard would be a permanent link to Flora, too. Even if she went away, as she had always said she would, he would be able to think of her here, trying to smile through her devastation, grieving for a cat that had scratched her and bitten her and trapped her but that she had loved anyway.

  Flora had such a huge capacity for loving, Max had come to realize. It was selfish – and pointless – to want to keep that love just for himself. One day she would go and build the career she so deserved, and it would be wrong of him to deny her that. But while she was here, he could at least support her, the way she supported everyone else.

  Max put his foot on the spade and lifted out another clod of earth. He might not be very good with words or emotions, but he could be practical, and if that meant digging a grave for Sweetie, then that’s what he would do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Max probably regretted telling her that she was allowed to be sad sometimes. It felt to Flora as if she wept for days afterwards. She hadn’t realized how much sadness she had bottled up inside her. She had been too busy helping her grandfather after her grandmother died to grieve properly herself, and when he had died in his turn, she had been projecting all the attention she had given him onto the cat. It had been easier to think about practical things – dealing with probate, thinking about what to do about the cottage or how to keep her catering business afloat – than to remember that the kindly, steady grandfather with the twinkle in his eye was no more.

  Max was more patient than she could have possibly imagined. He mopped her up, made her cups of tea, made her laugh, and then held her at night when she cried again. No longer did she have to climb out of a warm bed to walk home to the cottage; now she could spend all night with Max and it began to feel perilously like the relationship that neither of them claimed to want.

  “You’re free now.” Max tried to comfort
her when she began to wobble again one night. “You can sell the cottage, do whatever you want.”

  “I can’t do anything until after the wedding,” Flora objected.

  “The wedding’s only three months away,” he pointed out. “If you’re serious about starting that restaurant, there’s lots you could be doing in the meantime. I imagine it’ll take a lot longer than three months to find premises and sort out the money side of things, let alone promote a new place and plan the food and décor.”

  He was right. Flora had been using Sweetie, along with Hope’s wedding, to mark time. She could see that now. It had been good to have a few months to regroup, but it was time now to get moving again. It would be too easy to stay comfortably here in Combe St Philip and forget the dreams that had kept her going for so long, especially when she was waking up next to Max every morning.

  But it felt as if Max was encouraging her to go back to London. He had been clear from the start that whatever they had would only be temporary, Flora remembered, mortified. They had had a good time, and he had been more than kind, but perhaps it was time for her to think about going.

  Max himself was busy with design work, and overseeing the production of plants in the greenhouses. She suspected that he was working harder to pay for the renovations to the manor. The house was swarming with plumbers, electricians and decorators who were smartening rooms in preparation for the wedding. Even the great hall was getting a fresh coat of paint above the panelling. The moth-eaten stag heads had been taken down, Flora was relieved to see, and the empty hall itself was now stunning in its space and simplicity, making a virtue out of necessity.

  Flora loved seeing the old house come to life after being neglected for so long. She was kept busy providing mugs of tea and biscuits, and happily offered advice and sometimes decisions. Max’s idea of décor was to paint everything white and while it could look stunning, as in the great hall, Flora couldn’t help feeling that the other rooms called for some warmer colour. She loved walking along the crooked corridors with their up and down steps and unexpected turns. The bedrooms were as quirky as the rest of the house, some with beamed ceilings and sloping floors, others built in the ‘new’ eighteenth-century extension with gracious windows overlooking the gardens.

  But these weren’t rooms she was ever going to live in, Flora had to keep reminding herself. She paused on a landing, her hands full of empty mugs she had collected earlier, and looked through the mullioned window to the walled garden below. It was April already, and the plants were budding up nicely in the spring sunshine. In a few weeks, the garden would be a haze of green – and a few weeks after that, the borders would be in full bloom. The roses would be out and a grand marquee would be erected on the lawn, and it would be full of laughing, chattering guests drinking champagne and tucking into the canapés Flora had planned. Hope would be married to her prince.

  And Flora would have no reason to stay any longer.

  Her future was in London, not in a sleepy village. Flora opened her laptop that evening and contacted friends in the restaurant business. She was coming back soon, she said, and she was ready for a fresh start. Who could she sound out about investment?

  The reply when it came threw her completely.

  “Rich?” Max echoed in disbelief when she told him. “As in the boyfriend who dumped you for caring about your grandfather? That Rich?”

  “I know, I was surprised too.”

  “Why are you even writing to him?”

  “I didn’t. A friend must have told him that I’d been in touch. But he says that he’s in talks with investors about a place in Notting Hill Gate. We used to talk about having a restaurant together, and he wants me to think about going in with him. It would be a purely business relationship, obviously.”

  “Oh, obviously.” Max sneered. “I can’t believe you’d even consider it after the way he treated you.”

  “He’s a brilliant chef,” said Flora simply.

  “There’s more to life than cooking.”

  “Not if you’re planning a top restaurant. Look, you were the one who said I should get moving,” she pointed out crossly. “And you were right. I’ve drifted for long enough. I need to be thinking about going back to London. Obviously the wedding is my priority, but I’ve put the cottage on the market, and it’s time to start thinking about what I’m going to do with my life. I’m not going to be stuck in Combe St Philip for the rest of my life. All I’ve ever wanted is to run a brilliant restaurant, and now I’ve got an opportunity to do just that. Rich might not be the most reliable person when it comes to relationships, but he’s a rising star in the restaurant world. I’d never get close to the kind of investment he has access to.

  “I couldn’t believe it when he first suggested we went into business together last year. Then it was like a dream come true, like Hope finding a real-life prince and becoming a princess. Of course it won’t be the same now that we’ve split up, but still, the fact that he’d still consider me as a partner in the kitchen ... it’s an amazing opportunity.”

  Max was unconvinced, but what had he expected? Amazing, Flora had said, stars in her eyes. Rich was her prince, the brilliant cook with all the contacts and the pizzazz to launch the restaurant she wanted. She’d go back to her London life, just the way she had always said that she wanted to. He’d tried to be unselfish and comfort her, but he’d been fooling himself. All along he had been hoping that she would want to stay ... but why would she stay for him?

  For a horrible moment, Max felt like a little boy again, deposited by his parents at school like an unwanted parcel. Which was absurd. He was a grown man, and he certainly didn’t need Flora.

  Flora was burbling on about her restaurant, about the dishes she would cook and the sensation they would cause. “I said I’d go up and meet him next week to talk about it,” she said. “I’m in a bit of a lull as far as the catering goes, and I can freeze a lot in advance.”

  “What about the wedding?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve been in touch with Hope, and I’m going to cook a taster session for her when she comes over in a couple of weeks, but she says she trusts me to decide on the menu.”

  “If that’s the case, why don’t you take a few days?” said Max. “Setting up a restaurant isn’t something you can do over lunch.”

  “Yes, I suppose I could do that,” said Flora. “I’ve got friends I could stay with.”

  Of course she did. She was a city girl.

  I’m not going to be stuck in Combe St Philip for the rest of my life, she had said.

  There was an awkward pause, and then they both spoke at the same time.

  “Look –”

  “Max –”

  “You first,” he said.

  “No, you go.”

  He hesitated. “I’m thinking that this may be the time when we should call it a day,” he said, while in the back of his mind a voice was shouting, No! No! What are you saying? Shut up now!

  “That’s what I was going to say.” Flora seemed relieved. “It’s better to end it now while can still be friends, isn’t it?”

  “Exactly. Not that it hasn’t been ...” incredible, heart-shaking, amazing “... fun but we always knew it was really just a holiday fling.”

  “You’ve been so lovely about Sweetie,” said Flora, “but it’s not as if we’ve got anything in common,” she reminded him with a wavering smile.

  Except the way they moved together, in each other, around each other. Except that when they held each other, the world went away.

  “We can keep our fake engagement going for the wedding,” she went on. “We don’t want Anna getting in a tizzy about her seating plans, but that’s not going to be a problem if we’re still friends and can end things in a civilized way.”

  Civilized. Max stared at the door after she left, a red mist behind his eyes. He didn’t feel civilized, he felt like tearing down the door with his bare hands and storming after her, spinning her round and shouting at her that h
e wouldn’t let her go, that she had to stay right there with him. How dare she smile and say they would be friends? How dare she leave him alone?

  His jaw was locked with the effort of not yelling and he wanted to punch something, but when he looked down, his vision cleared enough to see Bella and Ted watching him, doggy eyebrows twitching in concern. They helped him take a breath, and another.

  No, it was all for the best. This was his home, where he belonged. He had fought long and hard to keep Hasebury Hall safe. Stella would say that he had sacrificed his marriage for it. Holly and Ben were here. Bella and Ted were here. His work was here.

  He had been perfectly happy here without Flora, and he would be again.

  “We’ll be fine,” he told the dogs.

  They didn’t look convinced.

  “What do you think?” Rich looked at her eagerly.

  Flora looked around the space. It managed to be large and yet intimate at the same time, with different levels and big industrial windows letting in lots of light. It felt airy and welcoming and she could picture it so clearly filled with tables and diners, the air humming with the excitement of great food served in funky yet comfortable surroundings.

  She managed a smile. “It’s perfect,” she said.

  And it was. It was everything she’d ever dreamed of. So why wasn’t she more excited about it?

  The Notting Hill Gate property hadn’t been suitable in the end, and Rich had persuaded her to consider this converted warehouse in Docklands, overlooking the Thames. “This is groovier,” he had insisted, and Flora could see that he was right. It wasn’t an area she knew well but it had an edgy appeal, and she liked being able to see the river.

  She had been back in London a week, staying with friends and rediscovering the city. There was still so much about it that she loved: the way majestic old buildings jostled with the new, the purposeful way Londoners walked, the hubbub of languages around her. She loved the parks and the red buses, the elegant Georgian squares and the pretty painted houses. There was a vibrancy to the city streets that she had missed in Combe St Philip, that sense of a place where anything might happen.