скачать книгу бесплатно
Only the boundless optimism of youth had convinced her and Matt that they could finally reunite the families, heal a hundred and seventy years of discord with the power of their love.
Unfortunately, her mother and his father had been way ahead of them.
‘I do see that to the outsider it must seem a bit like a cross between the plot of a Catherine Cookson saga and a James Bond movie,’ Fleur said, rather fearing that, instead of involving the woman with company history, she’d just made things worse.
‘Yes. Well, family feuds are no concern of mine. Your business account is another matter. Given the fact that you’ve been trading, in one way or another, for a hundred and seventy-five years, you’ve had more than enough time to get it right. The Hanovers, despite the distractions, appear to have managed their affairs somewhat more successfully.’
On safer ground, Fleur said, ‘The Hanovers gave up plant production six years ago when Phillip Hanover died. They leave other people to take the risks these days.’
‘Maybe you should consider following their example.’
‘I doubt there’s room for two gardening hypermarkets in Longbourne. Besides, if everyone did that, there would be no plants for Hanovers to sell. And fewer jobs to help support the local economy.’
Ms Johnson gave a shrug, apparently prepared to admit that she might have a point—albeit a very small one. Encouraged, Fleur went on, ‘Any business that is at the mercy of weather and fashion is never going to be a smooth ride. In that we’re no different from the High Street chain stores.’
‘There are fashions in plants?’
‘Television make-over programmes have raised the profile of gardening, but they do need a continuous supply of something new to offer the viewer. It takes the novel, the unexpected, to make an impact.’ It was Fleur’s turn to give a little shrug, implying that a woman with her finger on the pulse of business would know all about that. ‘Unfortunately, breeding plants is a bit like steering one of those supertankers—it takes a long time before anything happens. It’s just as well that plant breeders are a passionate bunch.’
‘Sustaining a feud for the best part of two centuries would seem to require a certain amount of passion,’ Ms Johnson agreed drily.
Refusing to rise to this, Fleur said, ‘I had in mind the men and women who strive for years, generations, centuries to produce the impossible. The perfect black tulip, true blue rose, red daffodil.’
‘Are you going to make my day and tell me you’re planning to exhibit one of those at Chelsea this year?’
‘No, but then, as you already know, we grow fuchsias.’
‘So you do. And what is the Grail of the fuchsia grower?’
‘A full double in buttercup-yellow.’ She shrugged. ‘A bit blowsy for the purists, but it would make the cover of all the gardening magazines.’
‘Really. Wouldn’t it be simpler, if you want bright yellow, to plant buttercups?’
‘We’re talking about the rare, Ms Johnson. Not garden weeds.’
Unperturbed, she responded, ‘Is that what your father is spending his time working on?’
‘He’s been working on it all his life.’
‘May I suggest that he’d be more productively occupied searching for a way to reduce your overdraft?’ She sat back in her chair. ‘My predecessor held you on a very loose rein, but I’m going to be frank with you, Miss Gilbert. I cannot allow the present situation to continue.’
Fleur’s stomach clenched. ‘The overdraft is secured on our land,’ she said, praying that the internal wobbles hadn’t migrated to her voice. ‘The risk, surely, is all ours?’
‘It’s agricultural land and the equity is becoming perilously small, which is why I’ve instructed a surveyor to carry out a current valuation. He’ll be getting in touch with you some time this week to arrange a convenient time.’
‘And no doubt you’ll be adding his fees to our overdraft?’ Fleur did her best to stifle her outrage, but it was beyond disguising. ‘That’s no way to reduce it.’
‘My duty is to protect the bank,’ Delia Johnson said, getting to her feet, signalling that the meeting was at an end.
‘We need two months,’ Fleur said, not moving. She hadn’t been given a chance to make her pitch. ‘We need Chelsea to showcase our new varieties.’
‘Isn’t that a massive expense?’
‘The RHS does not charge for space, but of course there are costs. Transport, accommodation, the catalogue. You’ll find them itemised in the folder I’ve given you. It’s a very small outlay in return for the publicity on the television, radio, in the print media. For the sales we’ll make from the stand.’
‘Right now the only plans I’m interested in concern the reduction of your overdraft.’ She crossed to the door and opened it. ‘I need something on my desk a week from today. When I’ve had time to look at it I’ll come out to the nursery and talk to your father.’
Fleur considered standing her ground, insisting on making her pitch. Realising it would be to deaf ears, she saved her breath, picked up her briefcase and headed for the door. This was no longer a request for backing until May, it was a fight to stay in business.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE should have held out for the diamonds, Fleur thought as she climbed aboard the Land Rover. They’d have come in handy right now.
She reached up and took the tiny jewels from her ears that Matt had given her, cupping them in the palm of her hand. When he’d given them to her they’d seemed the most precious things in the world, but they were no more than pretty trinkets, worth as little as the till-death-us-do-part promise that went with them.
She tightened her hand around them, held them for a moment before dropping them in her pocket beside the letter from his mother.
They’d be in good company, she thought, reaching forward to turn the key in the ignition, before slumping back in the seat as the sting of tears caught her out.
She closed her eyes to trap them, refusing to let them fall. There wasn’t a Hanover in the world worth a single one of her tears. If she needed reminding of that, she need look no further than the latest diatribe from Katherine Hanover.
She took out the crumpled envelope, determined to rip it in two, but as she grasped it, something, no more than a prickle of unease, stopped her.
Maybe it was the fact that it was addressed to her, maybe it was the wake-up call from the bank, but some basic instinct warned her not to ignore this letter. That somehow it was different. And pushing her thumb beneath the flap, she tore it open.
The note inside was short.
Fleur, she read.
She almost laughed at that. If there was one thing to admire about Katherine Hanover, it was her total lack of hypocrisy. No mushy, insincere ‘Dear’ for her. And the formality of ‘Miss Gilbert’ would have given her too much importance.
As she began to read, however, all inclination to smile left her.
As a matter of courtesy I’m writing to let you know that I will be instructing my solicitor to apply to the Family Court for a blood test in order to establish that I am the father of Thomas Gilbert. Should you choose to fight me, despite the fact that simple arithmetic would seem to make the outcome a foregone conclusion, you will be held responsible for all the costs involved.
Once paternity has been established, be assured that I will vigorously pursue a claim for custody of my son.
Matt
For a split second the name overrode every other emotion.
Matt?
Matt was home?
There was a moment of confused hope before reality brought her crashing back to earth.
The Family Court. Blood tests. Custody…
Then she was tearing at her scarf, clawing it from about her throat, gasping for breath as the contents of the letter, rather than its author, struck home, driving the air from her body. The coldness of the words chilled her to the bone.
Matt had written this? Her Matt had applied these foul words to paper?
She stared at the letter, lying where it had fallen at her feet, scarcely able, even now, to believe him capable of such cruelty.
He hadn’t even troubled himself to pick up a pen. He’d typed it, sitting in front of a PC as he’d put those knife-edged words together before sending it, with the impersonal click of a mouse, to print. Only his name had been written in the bold cursive that she’d once known as well as her own hand.
Just the one word. Matt.
None of the words, full of love, that he’d once used to close his notes to her. No little drawings of flowers. No kisses.
Only the words Hanovers—Everything For Your Garden, embossed in blue and gold on the pale grey paper, to mock her.
He hadn’t even bothered to use personal notepaper, but had written to her on the company letterhead.
Then what?
Had he stuffed it into an envelope before, too impatient to wait for the mail to take its time about delivering his bombshell, he’d walked the hundred yards from his front gate to hers, to push it through her letterbox?
Had he been that close and she hadn’t felt his presence? Hadn’t known that he was just feet away?
She covered her mouth with her hand, as if to hold in the pain.
Would he have taken the risk of being seen by his mother? Did she know?
Her head began to swim at the thought.
No.
She clutched at the steering wheel, as if to a lifeline, forcing herself to swallow down the rising tide of panic.
No.
If Katherine Hanover had even suspected that Tom was her grandson there would have been no warning. The first she’d have known about it would have been a letter from the woman’s lawyer. There had been enough of those in the last few years.
A sagging fence. The branch of a tree daring to intrude over Hanover land. The slightest excuse to make their lives difficult had brought the threat of the law down on them.
No. She knew nothing about this.
But the cold reference to blood tests, the Family Court, costs, that was pure Hanover. This man whom she’d loved at first sight, had deceived her parents to meet, had married in secret, who had declared he would love her until death, had written this unfeeling note with as little compassion as if she were a bug, something to be squashed between his fingers.
And suddenly it was anger, rather than fear, surging through her veins.
How dared he turn up now, out of the blue, after all these years and demand his rights? He had no rights. Not morally, anyway.
Not that the morality of the case would matter a damn when it came to the law. She knew that his lawyers would obtain a court order if she refused to allow the blood test.
At least he hadn’t added insult to injury by suggesting the result was in doubt.
But that was small comfort. Once the blood test proved his claim, the Family Court would probably decide that she was the one at fault for depriving a man of his son and he would be occupying the moral high ground.
But that wasn’t how it had been.
He was the one who’d left.
She hadn’t had that luxury. She hadn’t been able to pack her bags, leave the country, start a new life, not with her mother in intensive care, her father in the throes of a breakdown.
There had been no way to hide the fact that she was expecting a baby from the speculative stares of the village gossips. She’d had to stay and face down the sudden silences whenever she’d gone into the village shop. As if she didn’t know exactly what they’d been saying. That she was no better than her mother.
Even the women who took their wages every week from her hand, who’d known her all her life, had thrilled themselves with whispers that the only reason she wouldn’t tell the father’s name was because she couldn’t. That she didn’t know.
She knew. That was the reason she’d kept silent.
There had only ever been one man in her life and she had both dreamed of and dreaded this moment.
Had dreamed of Matt bursting into the house, gathering them both up in his arms and begging her to forgive him.
Had dreaded having to admit what she’d done to her father. The lies, the deceit.
Exactly like her mother.
And, like an asthmatic grabbing for an inhaler, she flung open the Land Rover door to suck the chill air deep into her lungs.
An angry blast from a passing motorist who’d been forced to swerve out of the way brought her back to her senses. She banged the door shut and sat there for a moment, trying to block out the panic, the pain. She had no right to think of herself, indulge in self-pity, misery, waste energy raging against fate.
Only Tom mattered. His world, until now, had consisted of her, his grandfather, his life in the village. All that was about to change and she was going to have to make what was about to happen as simple, as straightforward, as painless for him as she could.
She didn’t have the luxury of time to formulate a strategy. She had to react to the situation as it had been presented to her and her first task was to put a stop to the blood test. Now.
She picked up the letter, dug out her mobile phone and, without stopping to think about what she was going to say, punched in the number. It rang only once before a familiar voice said, ‘Matthew Hanover.’
She nearly dropped the phone. She’d been prepared for a receptionist, a secretary, even for Katherine Hanover to answer the telephone, although if it had been Katherine she’d have hung up.
And she discovered that his voice, even now, went straight to her heart’s core, leaving her feeling bone weak.
After a moment she lifted the phone back to her ear. There was no prompt, no puzzled ‘Hello.’ He’d been waiting for her to ring. Knew it was her. Let the cruel silence stretch on for what seemed like minutes as he waited for her to speak, as she tried to find some word to break the silence.
How are you? What have you been doing for the last six years? I missed you…
In her dreams words hadn’t been necessary, but this wasn’t a dream, it was a nightmare.
‘I—I received your letter,’ she said finally. Then, quickly, before she fell apart, ‘There’s no need for a blood test. I don’t want Tom to go through that.’
‘I’m not particularly interested in what you want, Fleur,’ he replied, like her ignoring the niceties and going straight to the heart of the thing. ‘I just want the truth.’
Straight to the point, his mother’s son.
‘You know the truth.’
