The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘THANKS, Ellie.’

‘Um?’

Ben took her arm and they walked on in silence for a few moments, Ellie apparently lost in thought.

‘For a great evening.’

Good conversation, laughter, the kind of evening he’d cut from his life, intimacy between friends a searing reminder of everything he’d lost. It was, he’d found, easier to be alone. Easier to bury himself in work.

Then, realising that she hadn’t responded, ‘Earth to Ellie?’

‘What? Oh, sorry.’ Then, ‘Yes.’

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, although she’d seemed to be having a good time. ‘You’ll be able to cook for your sister without a worry in your head,’ he said.

‘What? Oh, yes.’ Then, ‘I had no idea that Laura was your aunt, Ben. Really. She knew I was living at Wickham Lodge, but she didn’t say a word. If I’d known…’

‘It’s not a problem. I should have made my peace with her a long time ago. Better tonight than coming face to face at the wedding on Saturday, not knowing what to say.’

‘Laura always knows what to say,’ she said.

‘And usually says it, whether you want to hear it or not. You will come? To the wedding?’

‘If that’s what you want,’ she said, but he could see that, despite her effort to engage with him, she had slipped away again, was miles away in her head.

‘Is it going to be that much of a burden?’ he pushed, in an effort to draw her back. Wanting her quick smile, warm laughter.

‘What?’ She turned on him, as if to swat at an irritating wasp, then, focusing on him, she snapped back from whatever dark place she’d been. Found a smile. ‘A burden? Oh, please.’ Her laughter was warm, but he wasn’t entirely convinced. ‘Given the perfect excuse to buy a hat, who could possibly resist?’

‘A hat? That I have to see.’

She gave him a sharp glance. Then, disappointingly, let it go. ‘They only want what’s best for you, you know. Family.’

‘True, but while they may know what’s best, they don’t have to live with the consequences.’ He glanced at her. ‘Why did you really give up art, Ellie?’

‘Who said I’d given it up?’ she said, too quickly. ‘I still draw. All the time.’

‘When?’

‘All the time. Just scribbles…’ They’d rounded the side of the house, entered the courtyard. ‘What a mess,’ she said, pulling free as she saw the abandoned table, picking up a glass, holding it in front of her, using it as a way of distancing herself from him-afraid, perhaps, that, having kissed her once without being rebuffed, he’d assume he’d been given some kind of green light. That it was a short step from there to the bedroom.

Understandable, but she couldn’t have been more wrong.

That he desired her, that his body would give him hell for not behaving like a caveman and going for instant satisfaction, was his problem, not hers.

He needed time to get used to the idea of actually wanting another woman. To deal with the surge of guilt that had followed that single kiss, the sense of betraying not Natasha, but himself. While Tasha had wasted no time in moving on in every way-much as it pained him to admit it, Laura had been right about the lovers-he’d believed in his love.

If it hadn’t been as real, as strong, as he’d thought it, if his body could be roused, his head turned by the first woman who’d managed to get close to him since Tasha had left, how could he possibly trust his feelings?

More to the point, how could Ellie trust them?

He caught her wrist, held it, took the glass from her hand. ‘Leave it, Ellie, I’ll clear up.’

He was close enough to feel the warmth of her skin, smell the familiar herby scent of the shampoo that she used. Beneath his hand, her wrist felt fine, delicate, and it took an effort of will to release her, to deny himself even the innocent pleasure of kissing her cheek. There would, he knew, be nothing innocent about it. Instead he took a step back, leaving the way clear to the door.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Ellie. If you’re not too busy maybe we could take that trip to the garden centre. If you’re really thinking about replanting the old herb garden.’

‘I hadn’t got beyond the thought,’ she said. ‘Besides…’He didn’t help her out. ‘It’s not my garden. I can’t just start doing stuff.’

‘That’s never stopped you before.’

‘Curtains, ferns…’ she said.

And a lot more. But she looked so utterly miserable that he couldn’t keep up the teasing.

‘It’s okay, Ellie. If I didn’t want you changing things I’d say so. What would it take? To restore the herb garden?’

She shrugged. ‘It would need planning. A planting design…’

‘That’s your department. Why don’t you sketch something out?’

‘I don’t know anything about gardening.’

‘Like cooking? Between us we managed.’

Ellie knew she wouldn’t sleep. Didn’t want to think. Did not, despite her proclaimed enthusiasm for it, want to confront reality. And she would find no release staring at a blank screen, battling with words that wouldn’t come. Since she’d started writing her column, her attempts to write anything else had been a complete waste of time.

Instead, she took out the sketchpad she’d bought for her Milady drawings, a fine pen, curled up on the sofa. She’d found the bones of the original herb garden, the overgrown brick paths, when she’d been hunting for green stuff for the animals, and it had occurred to her that the renovation of a herb garden could be used as an on-running theme in her column.

She’d intended to pick Laura’s brains for ideas for a planting scheme; that was now out of the question. Clearly since the last time they’d met she’d seen the Milady issue with the ‘ferns’ column, put two and two together, and she’d know exactly what Ellie was up to. At least that had been all her own work-even if it had only been in her head until Laura had given her the ferns to match her imagination.

This time it seemed she was going to have to do all the work herself. The planning, at least. As for the rest of it, well, the idea of working side by side with Ben-as she had this evening, preparing supper-made the whole thing feel much more real. Much more appealing.

For a while she worked on a plan, checking out the plants Laura had suggested against a book she’d borrowed from the library. After a while she found the lack of colour irritating, and hunted through a small tin trunk in which she kept the kind of stuff that she couldn’t bear to throw away, found the box of precious oil pastels that her mother had given her years before.

Two rows of barely used colours. She ran her fingers over them, breathing in the scent of them, the feel of the new sticks under her fingers. Choosing the colours. Blending them to make the glaucous grey-green of lavender, rosemary, using hot orange and yellow and white for the glowing brightness of pot marigolds, pale pink for the flowers on low spreading thyme…

When it was done she ripped the sheet from the pad, carried on.

She drew the kitchen table covered with small dishes, each containing a spice or some other ingredient of the dish she’d cooked with Ben.

She drew the heavy red cast-iron pot, shining with heat and colour on the top of the Aga.

She drew the table set for two. Pristine, fresh, with its blue cloth, pale candle.

Drew it again with crumpled napkins, crumbs, the candle burned low, Ben’s hand around a glass, his strong wrist; the rest of him was out of the picture, but she could see him clearly, leaning back in the chair, laughing at some memory he’d shared with Laura.

She drew and drew and drew, ripping pages from her pad as she filled them, dropping them on the floor.

Images stored in her memory poured out on the paper. She drew the garden from her window. The porch trailed with honeysuckle, her bike propped up against it.

The soft, warm rose and peach colours of the bricks of Wickham Lodge. The mock medieval turret. The wisteria, its thick twisted grey stems, long blue racemes echoed in the slate of the roof.

She drew a detail of the newel post, furniture she polished and knew as intimately as her own hand, the fold of the shawl over the sofa. She drew swift sketches of the people she worked for, producing in a few lines a feature, a look, going back further and further until her slashing pastels produced Sean, lying in the road, the small hi-tech headphones still blaring out the blast of noise that had masked the sound of the approaching car. His hand resting against the bloodied headline proclaiming United’s triumph in the league.

‘How dare you?’ she demanded. Slash, slash, slash. Her tears puddled in the red, so that it ran into the black just as it had on that hideous day. ‘How dare you be so careless? So thoughtless? How dare you die?’

She caught her breath on a sob, and in the sudden awful silence she heard the sound of a bird, whistling up the dawn. Shocked, she looked up, saw the pale arch of early pre-dawn grey against light. Heard a step, turned, and saw Ben standing in the open doorway, hair tousled from bed, wearing only a pair of cut-off jogging pants, his bare feet pushed into old tennis pumps.

‘There was a vixen in the garden,’ he said, as if that explained everything. ‘She can’t get at Roger, but she’s like you, Ellie, just won’t quit. So I went out to chase her off. That’s when I saw your light. You’ve been up all night.’

Not a question.

She was still wearing the same clothes, jeans, a T-shirt; it wouldn’t take a genius to see that she hadn’t been to bed.

She let the pad fall to her knee, rubbed a hand across her face, eased her shoulders. ‘What time is it?’

‘Just after five.’

She nodded. ‘About time I was up, anyway,’ she said, attempting to make light of it.

‘Why don’t you give it a miss today, Ellie?’

She blinked. She looked that bad, huh? ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘People are relying on me.’

‘They will manage for once.’ He came close, knelt in front of her, said, ‘It’s your turn to call in favours.’

She tried to look somewhere else, ignore the wide smooth gold of shoulders that lived up to the promise offered by his tweed jacket, the highlights and shadows of silky skin that made her fingers twitch-not for her pastels to reproduce them, but to reach out and touch. The faint shadow of hair that arrowed to a point as it dived below the sagging waist of his pants. Only the puckered cicatrice of a scar across his shoulder, down one arm, marred his beauty. Recent. Only just beginning to fade.

‘If only it were that easy,’ she said, resisting the urge to run a finger along it, take the pain to herself. ‘I have to pick up Daisy Thomas from nursery school at twelve. No one else can do that. It has to be someone they know.’

‘Give me Sue’s number. I’ll call her and tell her you’ll pick up Daisy, but you’ll have to pass on everything else today.’

‘No…’

‘I’m not giving you a choice, Ellie. Go to bed, get some sleep. I’ll wake you in plenty of time.’

She knew he was right. She didn’t feel fit to lift a duster, let alone wield a vacuum cleaner, and she needed to be alert to keep up with three-year-old Daisy. ‘Promise? If I don’t turn up-’

‘You have my word, Ellie. I won’t let you down.’

No. He had the straightest look of any man she’d ever known. He was honest, forthright. Everything she was not.

‘Her number’s on the Busy Bees card. It’s pinned to the board.’

‘I’ll get it when I’ve seen you safely down to your room.’

‘I can manage…’ She tried to move. Her legs were locked beneath her, her hands stiff. Ben took the pad from her, doing his best not to look at the shocking image, but it was compelling in its awfulness. And he must have heard her…‘I was so angry with him,’ she said. ‘Not just about the milk.’

Without warning, Ben found himself recalling an occasion when he’d been angry with Natasha when, without consulting him, she’d arranged an evening out with some visiting politicians from eastern Europe, booking a table at some exotic restaurant. Stimulating for her, hard work for him, when all he’d wanted after a day of financial hassle and university politics was something on a tray in front of the fire. On the surface the row had been about one evening, quickly forgotten. In retrospect it had been a metaphor for their whole relationship.

‘It’s never just about the milk, Ellie,’ he said. ‘You gave up art college for him, didn’t you?’

‘I gave it up for me. We were Ellie-and-Sean. Sean-and-Ellie. That’s all I ever wanted. The two of us. Kids. He had no right to be so careless with his life.’

Not when she’d sacrificed her dreams for a lifetime of happy-ever-after with him.

How dare you…?

He looked at the angry strokes of colour, impression rather than reality, but a powerful image nonetheless. Unlike the prettier pictures that littered the floor, this one was filled with rage, pain and loss.

‘Did you ever take the balloon ride, Ellie? Not the metaphorical one, but the real thing?’

He didn’t think she was going to answer him, but after a moment she nodded. Then, as if to make sure he understood, ‘I took Sean’s ashes and set him free over the Downs, poured two glasses of champagne. One for him, one for me. Too late. We left everything too late.’

‘Let it go, Ellie,’ he said, a twist on her lips telling him to move on. But, whatever she was doing, he was certain now that it was anything but that. ‘You have to let it go.’

He laid the pad to one side, took the pastel from her numb fingers, then stood up, easing her to her feet before she fell asleep where she was. Held her when her legs refused to support her.

‘They’ve gone to sleep,’ she said.

‘Very sensible. Let’s get you downstairs so that you can join them.’

He hooked his arm around her waist, helped her to the next floor, tugged back the cover, sat her on the bed. She fell back against the pillows. ‘Jeans, Ellie,’he said. Then, clearly to himself, ‘You can’t sleep in your jeans.’

He unbuttoned the waistband, eased them down over her hips, over her feet, lifted her legs onto the bed, then covered her up, kissed her cheek. She turned over, face into the pillow, as if to shut out the light-or the world.

He would have drawn the curtains, but she’d taken down the heavy velvets, draped soft sheers in their place. Covered the bed with a hand-pieced quilt in shades of blue. Made the room entirely hers.

Beside the bed was a silver frame.

Sean. Smiling.

He had every reason…

He watched Ellie for a moment, but she didn’t stir and he finally went back upstairs to fetch Sue’s number. It was too early to call, so he gathered up the drawings, looking at each one as he shuffled them into a tidy pile, smiling at the layout of the herb garden, the neat detailing of the plants, Latin and common names. The drawing of Wickham Lodge.

Coming to a halt at the one of the table at the end of their meal, his hand resting on the cloth, his fingers curled around a glass. Hands, he knew, were notoriously difficult to bring off successfully, but this, drawn from memory, was superb. He rubbed at his knuckles, at the almost forgotten scar that she’d caught.

She was, it seemed, truly gifted. Even if she’d wanted to stay near Sean, if he’d had no choice but to stay in the area, there was an excellent art department at the university where she could have studied.

What had she said? Exactly? Something about the common sense option. He looked again at the drawing and wondered who had persuaded her that taking an English degree with its limited options was the common sense choice.

He realized, to his chagrin, that he’d underestimated her. If she’d had that wide a choice, she must have been a seriously bright student.

Maybe she could write as well as she could draw.

He glanced around, half hoping to find something, anything that would give him a clue. But there was nothing lying around that he could pick up. And he wouldn’t stoop to looking through her drawers.

Instead, he picked up her design for the herb garden and, after a moment’s hesitation, the picture of the house, leaving the rest in a neat pile on the table beside the sofa, took the Busy Bees card and went downstairs. There was a handwritten cellphone number beside the printed office number, and on impulse he dialled that.

‘Sue Spencer.’ The voice was crisp, collected, wide awake despite the early hour. Clearly Sue Spencer worked as hard as the people she employed.

‘Miss Spencer, this is Ben Faulkner at Wickham Lodge. I’m calling to let you know that Ellie won’t be at work today.’

‘Is she sick?’ He heard genuine concern, rather than the vexed reaction of a disgruntled employer who’d have to find a replacement at short notice.

‘Not sick. She just didn’t get much sleep.’ Then, because that could be taken more than one way, ‘She was working.’

‘Writing.’A heartfelt sigh. Adele, it seemed, was not the only person who was concerned that Ellie was wasting her life. At least he could reassure her on that score.

‘Not writing. She was drawing.’

‘Drawing?’ There was a pause. ‘Drawing what?’

‘Anything and everything. She produced dozens of sketches-things, furniture, people. A quite detailed picture of the house.’

‘Oh, well, she fell in love with your house the first time she saw it.’

‘Did she?’

Somehow, he was not surprised. That was the difference between the way it had looked when Mrs Turner worked for him and now. The fact that his mother’s precious ornaments were no longer placed in regimented rows, but in small groups. That there were flowers. That it looked like home.

It was love.

‘I found her in a bit of a state at about five o’clock this morning.’

‘Oh, Lord.’ Then, ‘How is she?’

‘Exhausted. Asleep. She made me promise to wake her in time to pick up Daisy Thomas.’

‘Right. Yes, that would have been difficult. Tell her I’ll sort out cover for the rest of her jobs. Tell her…Tell her to take the rest of the week off, will you?’

‘I’ll tell her. I can’t promise she’ll listen.’

‘Maybe if you tell her that I won’t pay her even if she does turn up, that would do it.’

‘But would she believe you?’

She laughed. ‘You’ve got her measure, Ben.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far. Why don’t you drop by this evening and tell her in person? She might need someone to talk to. Someone she trusts.’

‘I’m not sure that’s me any more. She’s cut herself off in the last few months. Stopped talking about anything, even her writing.’ Then, when he didn’t respond, ‘Maybe I should have tried harder. You’re right. I’ll be there. And Ben…?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you for taking care of her.’

‘No problem.’ Then, ‘Miss Spencer…?’

‘Sue, please.’

‘Sue. Would you say it’s a good thing? That Ellie’s drawing again?’

‘It’s certainly a breakthrough.’ Then, ‘How much has she told you?’

‘About her dead husband who wanted to take the balloon ride. That she’s given up teaching to write a novel. That studying art was not the common sense option.’

‘That much?’

Her evident surprise made him feel privileged, included. ‘Was he jealous?’ he asked. ‘Of her talent?’

‘Sean? He adored her, Ben.’

‘I never doubted it.’ He’d seen the man’s smile. The eyes suggested he had everything he wanted. ‘It doesn’t answer my question, though.’

‘She adored him.’

He’d never doubted that, either, but to hear it from someone who’d known Ellie all her life, known Sean, was both a comfort and a pain.

‘Maybe that does,’ he said.

‘Ellie?’

Surfacing from the dark pit of sleep, Ellie took a moment to work out where she was. Her head hurt, her gritty eyes refused to open, just as they had morning after morning for months when every night she’d cried herself to sleep. When every morning she’d dragged herself out of bed, plastered a smile on her face and stood in front of her class, going through the motions of another day.

‘You asked me to wake you. To fetch Daisy.’

Ben!

She sat up, suddenly wide awake, remembering, groped for her alarm clock, blinking at it, trying to focus, work out which was the big hand, which the little one.

‘You’ve got plenty of time.’

‘Sue? Did you call Sue?’ She dragged her fingers through hair that was sticking up in a tangled bush, saw the state of her hands, covered with pastel colour. Swung her legs over the side of the bed, then realised that she was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of pants. Decided not to worry about it.

Ben had seen her legs before, when she was tidy. He’d managed to contain himself then, so it was unlikely he’d lose it when she looked a total mess.

‘Slow down,’ he said. ‘I’ve spoken to Sue. She said you were to take the rest of the week to recover.’

‘Recover? What on earth did you tell her?’

‘You can ask her yourself. She’d coming to see you this evening.’

‘Oh.’ She’d been avoiding Sue. She could read her too well, would know she was hiding something. ‘Now I’m really worried.’

‘Don’t be. I’ve brought you a cup of tea and some toast-’

‘I don’t have time for that,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go. You should have called me sooner. It’ll take me twenty minutes to walk-’

‘But only five minutes in the car.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t need…’ She swallowed. ‘If you’d just called me.’

‘I did. You’ve got half an hour. Take your time.’

He didn’t give her a chance to argue, but without him the room suddenly felt horribly empty. She picked up a piece of thick, buttery toast, bit into it as she walked into the bathroom, instantly lost her appetite as she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

The hair was bad, but she’d expected that. Her fingers, nails, were ingrained with colour. Not good to go to bed that way, but the sheets would wash. It was the streaks and smudges of pastel, red and green and black, across her forehead, on her cheeks, down her neck, that made her flinch. She dropped the toast into the bin, spread out her hands. Her fingers hurt, her hands ached. She remembered the wild night, how the images had poured from her. Ben prising the pastels from her fingers, helping her downstairs. After that everything was a blank.

She looked down at her legs. Just as well she hadn’t thrown a wobbly over bare legs, since he must have helped her out of her jeans before he tucked her up in bed.

She tried not to think about that and, wasting no time, stripped off the rest of her clothes and dived under the shower. It took her less than five minutes to wash her hair, scrub herself clean of the war paint.

She towelled her hair dry, dressed swiftly, and in ten minutes was downstairs, with nothing on her face but a film of moisturiser, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a neat skirt that had been part of her schoolmarm wardrobe, her damp hair screwed back in a French plait.

Ben got to his feet as she walked through the kitchen, beat her to the door.

‘Don’t disturb yourself. I’m not an invalid.’ He was blocking the door. ‘Really, Ben, I’m quite capable of walking to the nursery school.’

‘I never suggested you weren’t, but I thought we might all go straight to the garden centre, have lunch there. We could take Daisy to visit the pets and then buy some plants.’ He held up the plan she’d drawn. ‘Since you’ve done all the hard work.’ Then, ‘Of course, if you think the little girl would be happier at home-’

Ellie swallowed. She’d hoped that if she just waltzed through the kitchen with a wave he’d see that she was back to normal, let her go. Be glad to forget the fact that he’d kissed her. Wipe last night from his mind.

If only she could. Put the clock back. All she could do was put things right. But not now. This needed more than ten minutes.

‘Yes?’ he said, prompting her for an answer.

She shook her head. ‘I’d planned to make sandwiches, take her for a walk along the river, feed the ducks, buy her an ice cream.’

‘There’s no time to make sandwiches. And the ducks won’t starve.’ She looked at him. Fatal…‘The garden centre has ice cream,’ he added temptingly.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive. I noticed the freezer last time we were there.’

‘I meant about spending the afternoon…’ She waited for him to take the chance to back down. When he didn’t she gave an awkward little shrug. ‘I know how busy you are.’

Busy? Ben considered the word in the context of the work he was doing. ‘The text I’m working on has been waiting for me for over five thousand years. I don’t imagine one more afternoon will make much difference in the great scheme of things,’ he said.

‘If you put it like that.’

‘I do.’ And, as if the matter were settled, he stood back to let her by before opening the car door for her, waiting until she was installed in the front seat of Adele’s ancient Morris, with her seat belt safely fastened, before he added, ‘Of course I will want something in return.’

She froze. ‘Oh?’

‘Relax, Ellie, your virtue is safe. If it was your body I was after, trust me, I’d want your wholehearted co-operation.’ Then, grinning, ‘The way your cheeks get involved when you blush.’

He didn’t wait for her hot denial, but closed the door and slid in beside her, deciding that if he was going to do much of this he was going to have to buy another car.

‘You drew a picture of the house,’he said, as he fitted the key into the ignition. This time his words had the totally opposite effect. ‘You’ve seen it?’ she said, the colour draining from her face.

Damn! She thought he’d invaded her privacy, and she was right, he had…

‘I know I shouldn’t have looked through your pictures,’ he said quickly, in an attempt to forestall the anticipated eruption. ‘I just meant to pick them up, but they were so striking. They have a real leap-off-the-paper quality.’ She didn’t respond. Maybe, like him, she wasn’t able to get that last terrible image out of her mind. ‘I’ve always thought the house looked at its best with the wisteria in full bloom,’ he said, hoping to distract her.

‘Wisteria? Oh, right.’ She seemed to sag a little. ‘Last night. I drew it last night.’

What had she thought he meant? Had she drawn it before?

‘It’s no more than a scribble, Ben. You can’t possibly want it.’

‘I’m sure Picasso said that when he drew sketches on paper napkins.’

‘I’m quite sure he didn’t. He knew his worth. But in any case, I’m no Picasso.’

‘So I can have the picture?’

‘That’s all you wanted?’

That wasn’t what he’d meant, but she seemed so jumpy he didn’t tease. ‘That’s all.’ For now.

She shrugged. ‘Take it. It’s yours.’

‘Thank you.’

Normally she would have looked at him, smiled. Instead she looked at her wristwatch, despite the fact that there was a clock on the dashboard right in front of her, and said, ‘It’s time we were leaving, Ben.’