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Silence.
Blast! She turned off the water and dropped the shower head into the tub, then grabbed the carrier bag she’d got when she’d bought the hair dye and fixed it over her hair as she ran down the stairs. Her slippery fingers closed round the door handle. She yanked it open and froze.
Will was standing there, his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide.
Double blast! No one wanted to open the door to their boss with a plastic bag wrapped round their head. Not even if they were the sort of girl who didn’t normally care what other people thought about their appearance.
She stared right back at him, issuing him a challenge. Go on, say something. The corner of his lip twitched in the beginnings of a smile. He’d better not laugh at her.
She gestured to her hair then reached to catch a drip running down the side of her head. Her fingers were a dark magenta when she pulled them away.
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘It’s about the tearoom. I can…come back later if…’
‘No! I mean…no. Come in. I’ll just…’
She opened the door wide and let him pass. As soon as it was closed again she sprinted upstairs and into the bathroom. He would just have to wait while she sorted her hair out.
Ten minutes later, when the water had finally run from fuchsia through pale pink to transparent, she stood up and rubbed her head vigorously with a towel.
There were no sounds at all coming from the living room as she walked down the stairs. Had he left? The last thing she needed right now was to have to search the estate for him. It was almost Hattie’s bedtime.
She flicked a strand of damp hair out of her eye as she entered the room and stopped. Two heads were bent over a game of snakes and ladders. Not a word passed their lips. They rolled the dice, moved their counters, scaled ladders and slid down snakes in complete silence.
It wasn’t long before Hattie’s counter occupied the winning square. She looked up at Will and they smiled at each other. ‘Thanks, Will.’
Josie walked over and ruffled Hattie’s hair. ‘Come on, princess. Time you got into your PJs and brushed your teeth.’
Hattie smoothed her hair down with the flat of her hand and disappeared upstairs.
Josie turned to face Will and shrugged. ‘Sorry about that.’
He looked puzzled.
‘Trapped into a game of snakes and ladders. I hope you weren’t too bored.’
He shook his head. ‘It was fun.’
Fun. Really? Then where had been all the shrieks of joy and cries of despair? He was just being polite.
‘What brings you to my doorstep on a Sunday evening, then?’
He picked up a briefcase propped neatly against the leg of the table and removed a manila folder. His fingers were quick and precise, every action clean and efficient.
‘My architect has drawn up some plans for the tearoom. I thought you’d like to have a look. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.’
He handed her the file.
Well, there was a turn-up for the books. Somebody actually wanted her opinion on something for a change. All the years she’d spent trying to get Harry to listen to her…
That was the problem with being labelled an enfant terrible. Nobody took her seriously. This was her chance to show the world she was more than just a disaster on legs.
Will really seemed to want to do the best for the hall. And, since he had no knowledge of her infamous past, he looked at her without the blinkers—saw the potential instead of the danger. She liked that feeling.
Now, if only she could make sure he kept seeing her in that light. She mustn’t do anything stupid to change his opinion of her.
‘Do you want a coffee? I could look through these right now if you like. Strike while the iron’s hot.’ Keep it calm. Keep it professional, that’s right.
He nodded and the faint hint of a smile flickered across his face. ‘That would be great, thank you.’
‘OK…good. If you want to—’ she reached forward and cleared a pile of papers off one of the armchairs ‘—want to take a seat, I’ll be back in a second.’
Will looked round the room and headed for a wooden-armed chair.
Her hands flew forward in warning. ‘No! Not that one!’
Will was frozen, hovering over the chair, knees slightly bent.
She patted the back of the armchair she’d just cleared. ‘Try here. That one would disintegrate under your weight. Only Hattie can get away with sitting on that old thing.’
Will straightened his knees and looked suspiciously at the armchair.
‘This one will hold. I promise.’
It only took a couple of strides for Will to cross the room and perch on the edge of the chair. He didn’t look convinced.
He also didn’t say much. Silence made Josie fidgety.
‘Harry let me furnish this place with bits and pieces from the attics when I moved in. Some of it has seen a bit more woodworm than the rest.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He shuffled back in the seat of the chair, but managed to look just as uncomfortable as he had been when sitting on the edge.
Josie darted into the kitchen and started making the coffee. She had to do something to restrain the urge to babble away like a nutter.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN SHE RETURNED with two cups of instant coffee he’d managed to slide right back into the armchair. Not daring to risk the other chair herself, she took the folder from him and spread the plans out on the table.
‘As you can see, there aren’t any huge changes. If we want to get the work done before the tourist season really kicks off, we’ll have to move fast.’
She wasn’t really used to reading blueprints. It all seemed a bit sterile and hard to imagine. Too flat. No colours. ‘What’s this section here?’
Will stood up and crossed the room. She pointed at a spot on the drawings and he stood behind her and leant over, following her finger.
‘That’s the self-service area and tills.’
‘They’re staying in the same place, then?’
She twisted her neck to look at him and discovered they were almost nose to nose. She hadn’t understood why Marianne had gone all weak at the knees at his supposedly ‘serious’ eyes, but now that they were focused on her she was starting to see where the attraction lay. Her breath stuck in her throat and she couldn’t do anything but blink back at him.
‘You think they should move somewhere else?’
Quickly, she snapped her head round to look back at the plans. ‘Um…’
All the little shapes had gone blurry. She forced her eyes to co-operate.
‘At the moment that long, straight layout funnels the customers towards the till. People who only want a hot drink have to queue up behind customers ordering food. I’d always imagined it would be better like this…’
She reached over and picked up Hattie’s drawing pad and flicked to a clean page. There weren’t any pencils or felt-tips easy to hand, so she used a purple crayon. Will leaned in even closer—she could tell because all of a sudden she could smell his aftershave—as she drew a few ragged lines to indicate the shape of the tearoom.
Then she drew a horseshoe shape with breaks in it.
‘If we had separate areas for drinks and hot and cold food—and maybe even two tills—we’d have a better flow of people and it would feel more open and inviting.’
Will picked up the pad and looked at it closely. Then he nodded.
Josie bit her lip.
‘I’ll get to the architects to amend the plans. We’re starting work next week but these sorts of things are finishing touches. It shouldn’t hold the work up too much.’
Josie stood up, taking her coffee-cup with her, and retreated to a safe distance. ‘Good. Glad to be of help. Any time.’
The urge to babble was getting worse. Now was the time to put the brakes on.
‘I’m really excited about the renovations and I’ve got some great ideas for the styling and decorating. I was thinking of wooden chairs and white walls with large modern art canvases…’
Stop. Stop now!
Her hands had been wildly illustrating her ideas. She dropped them and shoved them in her pockets for safe-keeping. ‘Never mind. No need to discuss all that right this very second.’
‘OK.’ He folded the plans neatly away and dropped them back into the waiting briefcase. ‘I’ll let you get back to…whatever you were doing.’
Her hand drifted to feel the damp tendrils. ‘Doing my roots.’
She fidgeted with the bangles on her wrist as he just stood there and looked at her. He opened his mouth, inhaled then shut it. He turned slightly, looking at the garden gate then focused on her once again.
‘What colour was it before?’
What? Oh, her hair! She reached up and touched the place where her hair parted.
‘I think it was white-blonde.’
‘No, before you started dying it strange—I mean, different—colours.’
She made a dismissive gesture, turning the corners of her mouth down. ‘Oh, you know. Nothing. Boring. Why do you want to know?’
Will stared over the top of her head. She was pretty sure he didn’t know why he’d asked. He had been a bit talkative for a man who was the dictionary definition of ‘the strong and silent type’.
The thump of little feet on the stairs behind her made her turn round. Hattie flew down the narrow cottage stairs and launched herself at Will, encircling his legs with her arms.
‘Bye, Will.’
He looked down at the child superglued to his legs and smiled. It was as if something about him had melted and softened. Just for a split-second.
‘Bye, Hattie.’
Something like electricity arced between the man and the little girl. Josie could swear she almost saw it. Not a bolt of lightning—more a slow, steady hum—but a strange kind of connection all the same.
All her life she’d wanted that to happen. That bolt from the blue, that sudden realisation that somebody ‘got’ her. She was still waiting.
It was unfair, that was what it was. And it was juvenile of her to be jealous of his instant rapport with Hattie.
She adored her daughter—really adored her—but if she hadn’t seen her arrive into the world and watched the wristband be attached then and there, she’d have thought her little girl had been swapped for another baby. Like those old wives’ tales about fairies leaving one of their own in place of a human child.
Mother and daughter were so totally different. And it wasn’t as if Hattie was anything like her father, either. She had none of his restless energy or extrovert tendencies.
Will attempted to untangle himself from Hattie.
‘Come on, Hattie. Let him go.’
Hattie obligingly dropped her arms and stepped away. See? There was another difference. If it were Josie, and she’d forged that kind of bond with someone at Hattie’s age, she’d have had to be prised away, yelling and screaming.
Will faced her again. The smile was gone. He looked about as comfortable as he had sitting in that old armchair.
‘Well, Josie. Thanks for your input.’
‘No problem.’
He looked down the path again. No doubt he was desperate to escape. Then she remembered something. ‘Oh, wait a minute. I’ve got something for you.’
She ran back into the living room and fished something out of a large bag beside the armchair. When she got back to the front door, she handed it to Will. ‘I crocheted this for you. Call it a peace offering.’
He turned it over once or twice. ‘What is it?’
Josie tried very hard not to be offended. ‘It’s a hat. March can still be quite cold in the country.’ What else did he think it was? A tea cosy?
‘Oh. Thank you. It’s very…colourful.’
He folded it in half and put it in his pocket.
‘Well, goodbye, then.’ And stupidly, as he turned to walk down the path, she added, ‘I’ll catch you next weekend, if I have any more ideas—if you’re down, that is.’
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. ‘The decorators have finished in the private apartments now. I’ve decided to stay around and keep an eye on things myself for a bit.’
He didn’t say anything else, just raised a hand in a half-wave and carried on down the path. Josie responded with an anaemic ‘Bye’ that lacked enough volume for him to hear, and closed the door.
‘Do I have to go to bed right this very second, Mummy?’
Hattie was peeping at her from behind the living-room door. It really was bedtime in five minutes.
