The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella

CHAPTER NINE

ELLIE expected Daisy to be shy with Ben, but he was the one who lifted her up so that she could choose her lunch. It was his hand she clung to as they looked at the rabbits. He was the one who carried her as they toured the nursery, rubbing leaves so that she could smell the different herbs. Laughing as she screwed up her face and shuddered at something she didn’t like.

‘It’s no good buying them individually, like this,’ Ellie said, taking a pot of lemon balm from Ben. ‘If you’re serious about reviving the garden as it was originally laid out, you’re going to need dozens of plants.’ He didn’t answer and she looked up. Daisy was curled trustingly in the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder, and without warning she felt the prickle of tears. ‘They don’t even have everything on the list,’ she said crossly. ‘This is a waste of time.’

‘Maybe we should get in a professional?’

We? There was such temptation in the word, such promise. Such pain.

‘No!’ It wasn’t the suggestion of professional help that she was refusing. He regarded her thoughtfully, those clear blue eyes seeing far too much. She shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean…’ She’d never meant it to go this far. To get this complicated. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘The garden, like the house, has been neglected for years. It was my mother’s passion.’

‘Oh? Like Laura, then.’ She was gripping the plastic pot so tightly that it was in danger of cracking, and she carefully replaced it back in the display. ‘Her garden is lovely.’

‘My mother designed it, laid it out with my grandmother. Laura was still at school then.’

She frowned. ‘Your mother lived there, too?’ Then, catching on, ‘She was the girl next door?’

‘She and my father grew up together. Like you and Sean.’

She didn’t want to talk about Sean. Had been doing her best not to think about him. If she let him into her thoughts he’d know she’d kissed Ben. Had wanted him to kiss her. ‘He never considered marrying again?’ she asked. ‘Your father?’

‘It wasn’t something he ever discussed with me, Ellie. He was a very private man.’ Then, ‘I suspect Laura hoped he might, given time, notice her. She never married.’

‘Oh. Poor Laura.’

‘Life isn’t that…tidy. The truth is, he was never interested in anything very much after my mother died. He hung on until he thought I was old enough to manage without him, then he just let go.’

An aging father, a teenage girl, a small boy. ‘It must have been hard for him. For all of you.’

‘We coped. Nannies. Housekeepers. And Laura was always there.’He looked down at Daisy. ‘Are you ready for that ice cream, miss?’ She giggled, wriggled, and he set her down. ‘Go and pick out the one you want.’

‘Not a good idea. She’ll choose some brightly coloured lolly that’ll have her whizzing about like a demon.’

‘Isn’t that what kids are meant to do?’

‘Not if they’re being fuelled by chemical colourings.’

‘Spoilsport. What time do we have to get her back to her mother?’

‘She’s usually home by four. She goes to the hospital twice a week for dialysis. On Tuesday and Friday.’

‘It’s kidney failure?’He looked at Daisy and, without being told, Ellie knew that was what had taken his mother from him.

‘She’s waiting for a transplant, Ben.’

‘My father gave my mother one of his kidneys. Her body rejected it. He never talked about it. Adele told me.’

For once she didn’t know what to say. Finally managed, ‘Things are better now.’

‘Yes.’ Then he turned to her, ‘Four o’clock? Plenty of time to fit in the ducks.’

He bought them all ice lollies layered in traffic light colours of red, green and yellow. When Ellie gave him a look that suggested he’d regret it, he grinned and said, ‘I always wanted to try one of these.’

‘You are such a liar, Ben Faulkner. And, to prove it, your tongue will turn purple.’

‘That’s life with you around, Ellie March. Every day a new experience.’

Sue arrived at eight, bearing a pizza of stupendous proportions.

‘We can’t eat all this-’

‘I have only one thing to say to that,’ she replied, putting the box on the table, along with a bottle of wine. ‘Extra anchovies.’

‘But we’ll do our best.’

Sue grinned. ‘Corkscrew?’ Then, as she tackled the bottle while Ellie found some glasses, sorted out plates, ‘Actually, I bought the biggest because I thought Ben would be here.’

Actually, she’d thought he would be, too. Had planned to sit him down as soon as they’d dropped Daisy off at home, make a clean breast of things. Own up to the Milady column. Tell him that her drawing of his house was appearing on a monthly basis in the magazine.

Instead, he’d dropped her off at the gate, said he had some things to do. She suspected he just wanted to put a little distance between them after the closeness of the past twenty-four hours. Starting with that kiss…

Her lips softened, warmed at the memory, and, realising that Sue was watching her, she snapped back to now. ‘You two must have had a very cosy chat this morning,’ she said briskly.

‘Only about you. Were your ears burning?’

‘My ears, like the rest of me, were asleep.’ Then, because the idea of Sue and Ben talking about her was slightly disturbing, ‘Should I be worried?’

‘No. I was the soul of discretion.’

‘There’s nothing in my life to be indiscreet about.’

‘I know. You’re a real disappointment to me. But I have high hopes of Ben. The man is a dish. Bright, too. Books, papers-you name it, he’s written it.’

‘Checked him out on the university website, did you?’

‘I just have your best interests at heart.’

‘You were just being nosy.’ Then, because talking about Ben was a lot easier than facing a grilling from Sue about last night, ‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense. I know there’s more.’

‘Well, obviously.’ Sue finally pulled the cork, filled two glasses. ‘The university website was fine as far as it went, but-and I did this purely in the spirit of sisterly friendship-I Googled him.’

‘You are so bad.’

Sue regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Are you telling me you were never tempted?’

‘I’m telling you I resisted.’

‘Really? That’s…telling. What were you afraid you’d find?’

Ellie refused to bite. The truth was it had never occurred to her to go snooping on the net. She knew Benedict Faulkner was a distinguished academic. His sister had told her that when she’d first started working at Wickham Lodge. She was also aware that he’d written books on his forensic examination of ancient languages. They were on his shelves. If she’d ever bothered to do the decent thing, take one out and dust it, she have seen his photograph on the cover.

‘Did you know that he led a party of refugees over the mountains to escape the fighting in Kirbeckistan?’

What? ‘He told me that a group of them had walked out.’

‘Walked? Have you seen what it’s like there? A woman who was in the party talked to one of the redtops. Obviously completely smitten, but there’s no doubt that the man is a hero.’

‘Oh, please. If you’re prepared to believe anything printed in a tabloid newspaper.’ Except, of course, she could believe it. Just as she could believe that some woman had fallen for him. What about him? Not love. He was still in love with Natasha Perfect. But in life-threatening situations people clung to each other. And he’d stayed with someone, he’d said. When he’d got home. Someone who’d taken care of him. Tended that wound.

She felt a surge of jealousy so overpowering that for a moment she couldn’t think. Couldn’t hear. Just clenched her fists, closed her eyes.

‘Ellie?’

She started. Realised that Sue was looking at her a little oddly.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine. Still a bit tired. Sorry, what were you saying?’

‘Nothing. Just wondering why you’re still here, that’s all. As a house-sitter you must be redundant.’

‘Ben will be going away again soon. It made sense for me to stay.’ She pushed back a trailing wisp of hair. ‘It’s a huge house. We hardly ever see one another.’

‘You get close enough to talk. And don’t think of denying it.’

‘I wasn’t going to,’ she protested, wondering what on earth Ben had said, stuffing pizza into her mouth to give herself thinking time. ‘You know me,’ she said, when she’d managed to swallow it, then taken a sip of wine. ‘I never did know when to shut up, and he always seems to catch me with my guard down.’

‘Well, that’s promising. How far down?’

Further down than she’d ever imagined. He’d kissed her…Then, realising that Sue was regarding her through suspiciously narrowed eyes, she snatched her hand away from her mouth.

‘I hurt my knee,’ she said. ‘He gave me a lift, that’s all.’ Then, because the one way to distract Sue was to make her laugh, she shrugged and said, ‘Well, apart from the compost.’

‘The compost?’ she repeated.

‘And the rabbit. And the herb garden.’

‘Rabbit!’

She pretended to bang the side of her head. ‘There seems to be an echo in here.’

‘Very funny. Okay. Back up. Start at the beginning.’

Success…

‘Where to? The lift? It was nothing.’ Almost nothing. ‘Ben startled me, I fell off a ladder, fortunately I landed on him.’ She described the scene, the interesting exchange of views.

By the time she got to the part where Ben’s spectacles had fallen to bits in her hand, Sue was practically crying with laughter.

‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ she declared.

‘It’s true! Every word.’ Well, nearly every word. But why spoil a good story by sticking to the truth? ‘Anyway, having maimed me, he had no choice but to strap me up and drive me to the Chamber of Commerce reception.’

‘And then you talked?’

‘You know how it is,’ she said. ‘You sit there with your trousers round your ankles while someone straps an ice bandage around your knee. You have to say something, and “ouch” gets a bit monotonous.’ Uh-oh. That was the trouble with storytelling. Knowing when to stop…‘He didn’t think I should go,’ she said. ‘To the Chamber of Commerce.’

‘He was right.’ Sue clearly wanted to ask about the trousers-round-the-ankles scenario, but surprisingly let it go. ‘Tell me about the rabbit,’ she said.

‘Roger? Oh, well, I needed some compost for the ferns…’ Sue looked as if she was about to interrupt, decided against it ‘…and Ben took me to the garden centre because obviously I couldn’t fetch it on my bike.’

‘Obviously.’

‘And while I was there I went to look at the rabbits. Do you remember them, Sue?’

‘I remember you wanting one and your mum having none of it.’

‘Mmm. Well, there was this little black one.’

‘And you bought it?’

‘Roger. And Nigel. He’s a guinea pig. Ben built them a run.’

‘That’s quite a conversation you’ve had. He seems a very indulgent…’ She paused. ‘Not landlord. What is he, exactly?’

‘House-mate?’ Ellie offered. ‘And, yes, I suppose he is. He even ate my cooking.’

‘You cooked for him?’

‘No!’ She laughed. Ha, ha, ha…‘Not for him.’

Sue’s surprise was understandable. She had never even cooked for Sean. But then he’d been so much better at it than she was.

‘I just needed someone to taste what I’d cooked.’ And somehow, despite her determination not to tell, the entire story just spilled out. Milady. The column. Lady Gabriella…

‘Wait! Wait!’ Sue said, her eyes widening with horrified fascination-and entirely missing the impressive point that Ellie was now a columnist for a national magazine. ‘You not only somehow convinced this Cochrane woman that you’re “Lady Gabriella March…”’ she punctuated the air with quote marks ‘…but that you have three children? How old are they?’

‘Well, Oliver is eight. He’s really musical. Sings in the choir. Sasha is six and pony mad. Chloe is just a toddler.’In the face of Sue’s open-mouthed disbelief, she said, ‘Stacey loaned me one of her suits. I looked older.’

‘Even so, you’d have had to have been married at eighteen with a honeymoon baby.’ Then, perhaps remembering that that had been her dream, Sue said, ‘So, does the heroic Ben know he’s playing the role of the fictitious Sir Benedict Faulkner?’

‘No! I mean he’s not.’ Sue didn’t look convinced. ‘Honestly. This started before Ben came home.’ Then she’d written about him building the rabbit pen…‘Besides,’ she said, ‘my title is a courtesy one.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘That it’s mine, nothing to do with the fictitious husband.’ Sue still looked blank. ‘That my father is an earl or something?’ she offered.

‘You are in so much trouble, Ellie March,’ Sue said, grinning as she cut them both another slice of pizza, sucked the juices off her thumb. ‘No wonder you’re having trouble sleeping.’

‘It was just one night.’ Then, ‘What did Ben say? This morning.’

‘Just that you’d had a sleepless night.’ She smiled. ‘He was such a gentleman. When he realised he might have given entirely the wrong impression, he went to great pains to make sure I didn’t think that it was the result of a night on the tiles.’

‘As if.’

‘Well, indeed. The thought never crossed my mind which, when you think about it, is pretty sad. We haven’t got a life between us. Not a real one, anyway.’ She chewed meditatively on her pizza for a moment, then said, ‘He did ask me about Sean.’

‘Oh?’ Ellie couldn’t quite place the feeling that clenched at her stomach. A frisson of satisfaction that he was interested enough to want to know about the man she’d loved? Or was it nothing more than irritation that he should go behind her back and pry? Or both? ‘What, exactly, did he want to know?’

‘If Sean was jealous of your talent.’

‘What?’ All afternoon she’d been racked with guilt. Now she discovered that he’d been maligning Sean. ‘That’s outrageous!’

‘Uh-oh. Big mouth, large foot…’ Sue picked up the bottle, topped up both of their glasses. ‘If it’s any help, sweetie, I’m sure he was just concerned about you. He’d seen your drawings,’ she pointed out, as if that was enough. ‘Let’s face it, none of us understood why you chose English over Art.’

‘It wasn’t complicated. I just wanted an ordinary life, Sue. I wanted to be married to Sean. To have children.’

‘You could have taught art.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t.’

And because she didn’t want to think about it any more, and because she knew it would divert Sue as nothing else could, she said, ‘Ben has invited me to go with him to a family wedding on Saturday.’

‘Oh?’

‘Only because he doesn’t want people to think he’s a sad bastard who hasn’t got a girl. Or a closet gay.’

‘He’s not, is he?’

‘No!’ Then, when Sue smiled, wished she hadn’t been quite so emphatic. ‘He’s definitely not a bastard. His parents were childhood sweethearts.’

‘It’s not as rare as you’d think, then? So, who are you going as? Ellie March or Lady Gabriella?’

‘Myself,’ she replied.

‘You’ll be wearing a pair of extra fine Marigolds and a Busy Bees sweatshirt, then?’

Ellie stowed a new pair of the bright yellow rubber gloves she wore to protect her hands in her backpack. It would serve Ben right if she did appear on Saturday morning wearing them, and her Busy Bees sweatshirt.

Sean. Jealous.

Obviously that was what everyone thought, she realised as she fetched her bike from the shed. Sue hadn’t said as much, but it had been there, in her voice. In everything she hadn’t said.

She’d just mounted her bike when a pick-up truck reversed through the gates and began backing up towards the kitchen garden, forcing her to swerve.

‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

The driver stopped alongside her, grinned. ‘We’re doing some clearance work for Ben.’ Then, ‘You must be Ellie. Any chance of a cup of tea before we start?’

‘I couldn’t say. Why don’t you wake Ben and ask him?’

She didn’t wait for a reply, didn’t even know if Ben was home. She didn’t stop to find out. He’d organised the clearance squad, he could give them tea and biscuits. She rode on, ignoring the whistle of appreciation that followed her.

‘Moron,’ she muttered.

Clearance work?

Was that where he’d gone yesterday after he’d dropped her? To organise some heavy labour? He really meant to go ahead with the herb garden?

All through an unusually long day, catching up with some of the people she’d missed the day before, after Ellie had convinced Sue she was fit enough to work, her head wouldn’t let it go.

She’d already decided not to continue the column after the six-month initial contract. She already felt bad enough about it. But telling Sue had somehow made it all much more real. Much more dangerous. Much less a triumph.

She still had three to write, however, and she’d already mentioned the overgrown herb garden. Restoring it would offer something less personal to write about, and finishing with the completed garden would round things off. Make a suitable ending.

By the time she got home, just after four, the pick-up had gone, and she went straight to the kitchen garden to see what they’d done. Ben was there, tending to the dying remains of a bonfire at one end of the plot. At the far end, hundreds of young plants in trays had been laid out, waiting to be planted.

‘When you make your mind up to do something, Doc,’ she said, feeling oddly defensive, ‘you don’t hang about, do you?’

‘Laura found me someone who could clear the ground quickly. And a nursery for the herbs.’

‘That’s where you were yesterday evening?’

She half expected him to ask her about the Milady column. Instead he grinned, said, ‘You missed me?’

Laura hadn’t told…

‘Sue missed you. She wanted to see if you lived up to your internet billing.’ Then, before he could comment, ‘You’re going to be busy.’

‘This was your idea, Ellie. I’m relying on you to pitch in and help.’

‘Me? I know nothing about gardening.’

‘Neither do I, but how hard can it be? You make a hole, drop in a plant.’

‘There’s got to be more to it than that.’

‘I suspect you’re right, but it’s a beginning. There’s something in the potting shed that might help.’

‘Alan Titchmarsh? Gift-wrapped?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Cuddly, good-looking, the country’s favourite television gardener?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Not the entire Ground Force team? Tell me it’s the Ground Force garden makeover team?’

‘Gift-wrapped is all I can offer. As for the rest, it’s just you and me,’ he said, sticking the fork he was holding into the ground.

The box lying on the bench in the potting shed was indeed gift-wrapped. It wasn’t very big, but the red bow more than made up for that. She tugged on the ribbon, lifted the lid to reveal the stainless steel trowel she’d been looking at on their first visit to the garden centre. She picked it up, felt the weight of it, the smoothness of the polished wooden handle. It was a fine tool.

The perfect gift.

The promise of partnership, of working together, being together. The promise of her future here, in his house.

She turned, knowing that he’d followed her, was standing in the doorway. ‘It’s beautiful, Ben. Thank you.’ And without actually meaning to, or knowing how it had happened, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.

It was a spontaneous, over-in-a-second, thank-you kiss. No one could have mistaken it for anything else. But he’d caught her as she’d flung herself at him. His strong hands were holding her just above the waist, and as she drew back he didn’t let her go.

There was a streak of wood ash across his cheek, and she touched it, silky smooth against the stubble of his beard. Laid her hand against his cheek.

There was a stillness about him that seemed to spread to the air around them, and the world, a moment before filled with small noises-a blackbird pinking with annoyance at some disturbance, a car door banging, the steady humming of a lawnmower-was silent.

The only thing she could see was the small fan of lines that radiated from the corner of his eye. Not a smile, but the promise of one. The incredible blue of a gaze that seemed to see, to know everything that she was thinking. No, not thinking, feeling.

Take the balloon ride, Ellie…

The words seemed to come from inside her head, but it was Sean’s voice she heard, and her eyes were prickling with tears as she kissed Ben Faulkner again, not impulsively, not an over-in-a-second peck, but slowly, thoughtfully, in a lingering touch of her lips to his.

Someone sighed, it might have been her, and Ben drew her closer, wrapping her in the elemental scents of woodsmoke, clean sweat, hard physical work, deepening the kiss to something that had nothing of the boy-next-door about it, but with something raw and powerful that seeped through every part of her body, firing up damped-down desires, melting her bones, licking over her thighs so that her legs buckled, weak with need.

He caught her close as she dissolved against him, held her so that she could feel his own powerful response, while his other hand gently touched her cheek with dry, garden-roughened fingers, before sliding through her hair. He cradled her head in his palm as she responded to this purely physical raid on her senses, tightening her arms about his neck, opening up to the silk of his tongue, answering him with everything in her that was female, intuitive.

She dropped the trowel as he backed her against the bench, pushed up the T-shirt she was wearing, lowered his mouth to her navel, curling his tongue around the ring she wore there.

‘Ben!’

He looked up at her. ‘I’ve wanted to do that since the first moment I saw you.’

‘Oh.’ She felt a bit giddy. ‘Does it, um, live up to expectations?’

‘I’ll have to try it again to be sure…’

Yes! She was shivery, giddy, first warm, then cold, as his mouth trailed moist kisses over her belly, pushing her T-shirt further as he advanced on her breasts, sucked in a nipple over the thin lace of her bra.

She held in her breath as hot, urgent waves of pure pleasure spread in widening circles from the epicentre of his touch, stoking a hunger, firing a need so strong that it blocked out every thought, everything but this moment, now. Then he touched her, and she was flying, no hot air involved…

‘Ben…’ She murmured his name.

‘Ben.’

There was a sharper echo…

Or maybe not. The voice was not hers, and Ben had stilled. Without a word, he straightened, tugged her T-shirt back to respectability, never once taking his eyes off her.

‘Basic Gardening, Lesson One, Ellie,’ he said. ‘Always lock the potting shed door…’ Only then did he turn and say, ‘Hello, Natasha.’