He touched her shoulder now, feeling the smoothness of her skin as his thumb brushed her neck. Her responsive shiver had him moving closer, behind her, so that she leaned back against him. He wanted to go home with her tonight. He wanted to continue what they’d started this morning, what they’d been dancing around since they’d met.
“Nick, you’ve got your phone off.” Nelson intruded.
“So?”
Nelson grimaced, comical and sympathetic, indicating that he read the situation, that he knew Nick was focused on Lanie, but that wouldn’t stop him. “Sorry, mate. It’s Hong Kong. Something about the drainage and access. We need to sort this.”
Nick set his pint down. “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon went up smoother than this damn wall.”
“How would you know?” Lanie laughed up at him.
“Because if they were any harder, they’d never have been built. Excuse us a minute.” He switched on his phone as he followed Nelson outside.
London on this summer night was misty with rain and smelled smoggy and stale. He studied the messages and long email left for him, then looked at Nelson.
“Yeah,” his friend said, drawing out the word. “Not an easy fix.”
Nick swore. “I had plans for tonight.”
“So I saw.”
Nick frowned. Not at his friend, but at fate. Between juggling time zones and his unchangeable plans for tomorrow, he had to deal with the Hong Kong wall garden now. “I’ll deal with it,” he said. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do.”
“Thanks.” Ironic.
Nick pocketed his phone and walked back into the pub.
Lanie looked up, seeing him instantly.
The connection gave him a grounded feeling—and added to his frustration.
Her smile faded, so he guessed his frustration showed.
“What’s happened?”
He leant over her, close, giving them a degree of privacy. “I have to deal with a problem in Hong Kong?”
“Fly out?” she asked.
“No.” Hell, no. He was staying here. “Email and phone, but I need to fix it, now.”
At least she looked disappointed.
He didn’t want to be the only one suffering.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow?” A smile and the promise in her eyes invited him to continue; dared him to do so.
“Chloe’s fete is on tomorrow at Waterhill. I told her I wasn’t sure I could make it, but we have a standing invitation.”
“Me, as well?”
“You, definitely.”
“Oh.”
When he thought on it, which he didn’t plan to, that standing invitation meant that Chloe had perhaps seen his focus on Lanie faster than he had. Maybe she recognized the similarity to his dad’s focus on her? He shrugged off the thought. “It will mean an early start. Can I pick you up at seven?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her. “Pack a bag for the weekend.”
Heads turned as Nick departed.
Lanie sighed.
“The best laid plans of mice and men…” Colin consoled her.
“Yeah.” On the other hand, a summer’s day at Waterhill with Nick. This time, Lanie’s shiver was of sheer bliss.
A few months ago, she’d have weighed her decision and probably declined the invitation. But it was nearly a year and there’d been no sign of the serial killer’s voyeur. She’d even let her quest to find him lapse. Days could pass before she checked a political blog. Now, she could listen to reason and see how slim-to-vanishing were her chances of detecting a monster via gossip and photos online.
She still wished she could. She hated the thought of evil influencing others. But far more important was her relationship with Nick. The best answer to evil was to live well. She intended to go one better.
This weekend would be fabulous!
Chapter 13
Lanie had attended village fetes before, but usually as a performer.
A fortune-teller’s tent was a must for any fete, and as she’d been trained from the cradle to read people’s tells, the little signs that gave away so much of their thoughts and emotions, she or any of her family, were well-equipped to run a fortune-teller’s tent, and were frequently asked to do so. As often as they could, they obliged. When you were in the theatre, favors were currency. You never knew when you’d need a ride somewhere, a room, or a guaranteed audience.
And Lanie used to enjoy telling giggling teenagers their futures. Forecasting happy futures had been a fun use of her cold reading skills. It was a contrast to her stage performance in which she demonstrated the tricks a medium used. Those performances could become heavy with grief, even as people marveled—and many people had refused to believe her revelation of how the performance operated. They’d clung to their belief in contacting the afterlife.
But today, she wasn’t here to perform or to remember. Today was about new joys.
Lanie threw off her memories and the almost tangible sensation of the musty, fusty, too-warm smell of a fortune teller’s tent, and cast an experienced eye over the preparations for the Waterhill Summer Fete as Nick drove them slowly down the estate’s driveway.
She found the preparations outstanding. Marquees, tents, trestle tables and portable conveniences were laid out beyond the rose garden but well away from the lake. Ropes marked off a large parking area.
The fete was yet to open, but people were everywhere. Lanie commented on it as she craned her neck to see that yes, there did seem to be a skittles alley behind the Cream Teas tent. Her brother had always demolished the skittles, but she lacked his hand-eye coordination—which was partly why she hadn’t gone in for conjuring. “It’s busy, and bigger than I’d thought it would be.”
“Everyone who works on the estate, and many of their family, are involved. Then you have the people who used the fete to sell their products or run stalls to raise money for various causes. The village considers Waterhill Fete theirs.” Nick grinned. “Dad has to judge the vegetable competitions. Largest pumpkins, best tomatoes, funniest shaped anythings.”
“How long has it been going on?”
“On and off forever, I gather. But Chloe restarted it seriously about twenty years ago. She puts a lot of effort into it, but this year—” He broke off. “Dad’s organizing things for her. He, or one of the volunteers, will probably conscript you.”
“It’ll be fun.” Lanie carefully refrained from questioning Chloe’s health, which had to be the reason for Richard taking over the fete’s organization.
“You say that now,” Nick retorted. “They had me run the greased pig contest one year.”
She laughed, imagining him chasing slippery piglets through mud. She was still laughing when he parked, and got out her weekend bag and his from the boot. Then she stopped. It struck her how much like a couple they looked, a couple away in the country for a romantic weekend. There would be family and a fete, but this weekend was theirs.
It took her breath away.
Nick took her breath away.
She covered the moment with a joke. “No chasing pigs, today.”
“It’s not pigs I intend to chase.” He slanted her a wicked look.
Her laughter returned and they walked in, relaxed and easy, through the kitchen door.
Mrs. Webster, the housekeeper, met them. “Good morning, Nick. Miss Briers.”
“Lanie, please.”
Mrs. Webster gave her a distracted smile. “Nick, Chloe’s put Lanie in the Rose Bedroom near yours, if you don’t mind taking the bags up. Everyone’s busy.”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll say hello to Chloe—if she’s up?”
“Chloe’s awake.” Mrs. Webster’s bustling energy quieted. “You’ll be a nice surprise for her.”
Lanie read Mrs. Webster’s reservations, and when she looked at Nick, she saw he’d done the same.
His mouth was tight at the corners and his supple body rigid as he walked beside her to the stairs.
He’d said that the annual fete was Chloe’s especial concern. For her to be awake, but not involved in the last minute chaos was a bad sign.
Lanie hesitated at the top of the stairs. “Would you like to see Chloe alone?”
He put their bags down. “Please, wait. If she’s up to it, she’ll want to say hi to both of us.”
Chloe’s bedroom door was ajar. He knocked on it. “Chloe, it’s me.”
“Nick! Come in.” Her surprise and joy were unmistakable, but her voice was weak.
Lanie tipped her head back, gazing at the high ceiling and trying not to dwell on what it all meant. Chloe was seriously unwell, but meeting her with an expression of worry and pity wouldn’t help anyone. Lanie heard a low murmur of voices in the room before Nick called out to her to join them.
Chloe sat up in bed, a pretty pink bed jacket around her shoulders, its soft color lending an illusion of flushed health to her pale skin.
Nick was lifting away a tray containing tea and toast, mostly uneaten.
“Lanie, how lovely to see you, again.” Chloe’s welcome was warm and genuine. “I’m glad Nick brought you down to enjoy the fete. Richard has taken over much of the organization this year, so things shall run like clockwork.” It was a brave attempt to both acknowledge and gloss over her own frailty.
“I’m looking forward to it.” Lanie smiled. “My ambition is to knock over a coconut on the coconut shy Nick promised me.”
“If you can’t, Nick will have to help. His aim, like Richard’s, has always been excellent.” She stretched out her hand to him and he took it, perching on the edge of her bed. Her smile was both loving and wistful.
Lanie walked to the window, pretending an interest in the view, to give them a moment of privacy. “The fete seems quite extensive. Bigger than I’d imagined.” She could only see the edge of it, the stalls that stretched toward the lake, and what appeared to be a stage. Evidently, there’d be some live performances—and Richard had ensured that these would be visible to Chloe from her room. According to Nick, the bulk of the stalls were near the converted stables, beyond the rose garden.
“Everyone loves Chloe’s fete.”
“Except Richard,” Chloe said with a hint of laughter. “You should go help him, Nick. He’s been very good about arranging everything, but you know how he hates all the strangers and their cars on his precious turf.”
Escaping the house, Lanie and Nick both breathed deeply, and Nick shook his shoulders. Waterhill had an ominous, unhappy vibe; a feeling of wrongness. It was better to be outside.
“We’ll enjoy the day,” Nick said.
Anything less would disrespect Chloe’s courage.
And as they left the house behind, Lanie guessed it wouldn’t be so hard to sink into the fun of the fete. The day had to have been ordered from a Hollywood special effects department. It was perfect. White clouds floated in a blue sky, the wind was light, just enough to cool the heat of the sun, and the gardens and parkland were storybook gorgeous. Every shade of green stretched out to the horizon.
Nearer at hand, the loudspeaker got going, and punctuated the day with announcements, raffle draws and random squeaks. Richard was everywhere. He was not only judging the vegetables, but in Chloe’s absence, judging cakes, jams and two rows of ridiculously clothed scarecrows. Lanie acquired a cloud of blue candy floss on a stick and helped him with that last one. She chose a scarecrow dressed as Queen Victoria, right down to a cardboard sign pinned to its chest, “We are not amused.”
“Oh yes we are,” Lanie said.
Richard smiled at her before looking back to the house. Throughout the day, he’d arranged for select people to pop in and visit with Chloe, bringing the fete to her.
Nick, meantime, was deep in conversation—and competition—with a group of other younger men, all attempting to demonstrate a forgotten skill: scything. They stood at a distance, in a roped-off area, among knee-high grass.
“They’ll cut their feet off,” Lanie said.
“We have a first aid tent.” Richard vanished to attend to a wildly waving arm that signaled the vicar needed help with something.
An old man took the scythe from Nick and swung it expertly. Grass fell. The men laughed.
Lanie went in search of safer entertainment.
Nick caught up with her at the coconut shy, and as Chloe had promised, his aim was excellent.
Crack. The coconut wobbled. A second throw, a hit, and it fell.
Lanie got her coconut. “I’ve always wanted to win one.” She held the rough sphere in both hands, and lowered her voice. “Now, what do I do with it?”
Nick grinned widely, then kissed her, with the coconut between them. He handed the coconut back to the stallholder, and Lanie dusted off her hands. “Cream tea or beer?” he asked her.
“Cream tea.”
Everywhere they went, people knew Nick, and greeted her cheerfully. Two elderly women waved them over, indicating two extra chairs at their table. Lanie sank into one, while Nick went in search of two teas. Conversation was light and pleasant, about the weather—no kidding, the English could always discuss the weather—and books the women had picked up at the book stall. They asked Nick about Chloe, but tactfully.
“The Waterhill Fete is the high point of summer,” one told Lanie. “I don’t know how Chloe manages it, but it never rains on the day she chooses.”
“It did in 2012.”
“Only for an hour, and it rained every day that summer.”
Lanie smiled at Nick and ate a delicious scone smothered in cream.
The tiredness at the end of the day felt good because it was the right kind of tiredness; composed of sunshine, laughter and freedom. Lanie liked Nick’s arm around her shoulders and her own arm around his waist as they waited by the side door for Richard.
He emerged unexpectedly not from the rose garden or the path from the lake, but from the converted stable block that housed the craft studios. He walked steadily, shoulders still square set after the long day, confidence and vigor in his movements. He walked, watching them.
As he got closer, Lanie could read his expression, and she wished she hadn’t. Her gaze darted away to stare at the roses, the trampled grass at the edge of the lake path, the lake itself. Anything but that too revealing look into Richard’s soul.
He hurt.
She concentrated intently on a moth that flittered over the rose garden, following its haphazard flightpath as Richard’s steps neared and Nick’s arm lay heavy on her shoulders.
Envy wasn’t simply the horrid, spiteful and destructive emotion that people labelled it. Envy was also an ache for what was lost or missed or never attained. Richard envied Nick as a man; envied the simple joy of standing with a lover as the day was dying and night brought its own promises.
And Lanie suspected that Richard also envied her. He needed closeness with Nick. There were times when a father needed his son, and this was that time. Chloe was badly ill.
“That’s the last of them gone,” Richard said prosaically, looking past them to where a car drove down the driveway, vanishing among the trees that lined it.
“Over for another year.”
Nick’s voice was cordial, almost sympathetic, but Richard flinched.
“Hell. Dad, I didn’t think…”
Richard’s sharp shake of the head cut him off.
Lanie covered the moment. “Not to be rude, but I’m starving.”
Nick squeezed her shoulders, appreciating her intervention. Chloe’s state of health was the unspoken, only concern in the family.
“That we can do something about,” Richard said. “Mrs. Webster said she’d leave various salads and things, breads from that bakery stall, and what not, in the kitchen. You go and serve yourselves.”
“Dad?” Nick took his arm away from Lanie’s shoulders.
Richard hesitated. “I’m going to sit with Chloe. I’ll take her a tray in a bit. She’s more likely to eat if I’m with her.”
The wind blew off the l
ake and through the rose garden, ruffling the petals. Nick turned away, facing into the wind and hiding his expression from them.
“Would she enjoy more company or is she likely to be tired?” Lanie asked. “We could all have trays. I’d like to shower off the day’s dust, but then we could eat together…”
Richard ceased staring at the back of his son’s head to glance at her.
“We could tell her how the fete went,” Lanie offered.
“I think, yes, Chloe would enjoy it. Let me just check with her.”
“Of course.”
Richard went inside.
Nick swung around. “I didn’t realize Chloe was so frail.”
Dying.
Lanie took his hand and was fiercely glad when he returned her clasp. “Let’s organize those dinner trays.” Mundane words. The important point was being there for him.
He looked down at her before raising their joined hands to his lips. “Yes.”
Yet the dinner organized with such somberness became a light-hearted party. Lanie knew how to entertain an audience, and she exerted those theatre skills in Chloe’s sitting room. They sat with trays on their knees, eating the excellent tapas-style meal with real enthusiasm, while she recounted stories of the fete and drew out Nick and Richard to share their experience.
Chloe even shared a story from years ago, a brief one, and Lanie suspected that she’d chosen it for that reason: to conserve her energy. But Chloe’s eyes were bright and her happiness obvious as Nick and Richard discussed the calamity of the fishing tank (filled with metal fish to be “hooked” using magnets that dangled from string tied to cane sticks) springing a leak and flooding the ground under the coconut shy next to it.
“Did you win a coconut?” Chloe asked Lanie.
Nick broke off his conversation with his dad. “Not for want of trying. How many throws was it?”
“Twenty seven.”
Even Richard laughed. “I hope you got one in the end.”
Sky Garden Page 19
