The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella

CHAPTER FIVE

‘YOU’VE shot me,’ Ellie repeated, unable to quite believe it.

‘Don’t be stupid, girl.’

‘Stupid!’ Outraged, Ellie said, ‘There’s blood running down my leg! See,’ she said, pulling up the leg of her cropped trousers, forcing herself to look.

She blinked.

There was no sign of blood. No damage.

‘But I felt it…’ The sting of something hitting her. The damp trickle. She touched her skin, and sure enough her fingers came away wet-but not with blood. ‘It looks like water…’

‘It is water,’ Laura Morrison said. ‘Unless you wet yourself with fright?’

She might have, if she’d had time to be frightened. ‘That’s a water pistol?’

‘Of course it is.’ Then, ‘Did you really think I had a firearm?’

‘Um…yes.’

‘Stupid, but brave,’ she said.

‘No,’ Ellie assured her, ‘stupid does it.’ Then, with only her pride hurt, she picked herself up, wincing as she put her leg to the ground.

‘Did you hurt yourself when you fell?’ Laura asked, finally concerned.

‘No, I did the knee yesterday, when I was dusting.’

‘Dusting? I have to admit that I never saw that as a dangerous pastime.’

‘It is when you do it at the top of a ladder.’A colourful array of bruises had emerged overnight to confirm this fact. She wondered if Ben Faulkner had a matching mirror set, left shoulder, right thigh…Best stop right there, she told herself, and tuned back in to Laura Morrison, who was laughing.

‘You do live an exciting life. Are you sure something as down-to-earth as gardening is quite your thing?’

‘I seem to have the knack of turning the most mundane activity into an adventure,’ she said, her own smile a touch wry. Then, as Laura Morrison winced, she forgot her own aches. ‘Have you seen a doctor? For your back?’

‘For all the good he did. Painkillers and bed-rest was the best he could offer.’

About to suggest that maybe she should do as he’d advised and go to bed, so that she could lie flat, Ellie thought better of it, suspecting that she was not the kind of woman who took kindly to unasked-for advice.

‘Could it be tension?’ she offered instead. ‘My mother’s back seizes solid whenever Great-Aunt Jane comes to visit.’

It was possible that an invasion of neighbourhood cats treating her garden as a fast food franchise might have the same effect on Laura Morrison.

‘She finds massage helpful,’ she continued-her mother occasionally voiced the opinion that she’d been vaccinated with a gramophone needle. ‘She’s fit for anything after that.’

‘Really? Likes a young man giving her a good working over, does she?’ Ellie, not normally given to blushing, blushed furiously. Laura’s laughter was brought up short by another spasm. ‘Good for her. I’ve got my own young man coming any time now. In fact I thought you were him.’

‘Oh.’ She’d been teasing. ‘I’m sorry to have disappointed you.’

‘On the contrary, my dear, you’ve been thoroughly entertaining. You must come again, when I’m on my feet.’ Then, ‘Now, go and get those ferns.’

She did as she was told, sorting through dozens of pots before returning with a likely assortment of ferns in a tray and anticipating a botany lecture.

‘You’ve missed the grey and red one,’ said Laura, sending her back for it. ‘Yes. That should do. Take a look at my planter on the way out and you’ll see how to lay them out.’

‘What? Oh, you mean these are for me? But I just wanted the names…’

Which roughly translated meant, Oh, bother. I’d rather not…It was information she’d wanted, something she could use in her column, not a do-it-yourself dirt-under-the-fingernails lesson in gardening.

‘No point in buying them when these are just sitting around, no use or ornament. You’ll find the names on the labels.’

‘Well, that’s really very generous. Thank you.’

Laura Morrison waved her thanks away. ‘Just buy a bell for your cat and we’ll call it quits.’

Uh-oh. ‘How did you know it was my cat?’

‘It’s my back that’s unreliable, not my eyesight. I’ve seen you sitting at your window, playing with your computer. And I’ve seen that cat climbing in through your window.’ She touched the binoculars. ‘I like to know my enemy.’ Before Ellie could answer, there was a ring at the doorbell. ‘That’ll be Josh. Send him round, will you?’ Then, ‘Don’t let those plants dry out.’

‘I won’t. I’m really very grateful, Miss Morrison.’

‘Laura. Come again soon, Ellie. But leave the cat behind.’

Ben was looking at the text in front of him, but he might as well have had his eyes closed for all the sense he was making of it. He couldn’t get Ellie March out of his head. The way she’d kept those huge brown eyes of hers averted as he’d walked into the kitchen, as if by not looking at him she would somehow render herself invisible. As if he might overlook her presence. Forget she was there.

Impossible. If she’d been some quiet, mousy female he would have had no problem with her, but she wasn’t either of those things. Even when she wasn’t around she still managed to fill the house with her presence. She was there in every gleaming surface, every plumped-up cushion, in a lingering scent that he couldn’t put a name to, one that didn’t come out of any bottle.

She disturbed the very air, and he’d wanted her out of his house, out of his life, and the sooner the better.

His mistake had been talking to Kitty. Maybe he’d been looking for some salve for his conscience-justification, confirmation of the lack of any formal agreement or contract. It was clear that there was neither, which should have made things easier. Too late, he discovered that it didn’t.

With a formal agreement there would have been a measure of equity, protection on both side. It would have given him a get-out clause, a period of notice to be given in writing. She would have had rights and, having acknowledged them, he would have been able to rest easy.

Somehow, this gentlemen’s agreement his sister had thought sufficient-and he was quite sure that the lease for her own apartment hadn’t been anywhere near as casual-had left him with no choice but to behave like a gentleman.

He might have to live with it, with her. But he didn’t have to like it.

As he sat there, work neglected, he gradually became aware of the small sounds of the garden filtering in through the open window. A blackbird in the lilac tree, singing its heart out. Small insects, bees mobbing the wisteria. The softly repeated chink, chink, chink of someone working in the garden with a hoe or a small hand tool.

He closed the window. Returned to his desk. But even when he’d blotted out the sound he could still hear it in his head and, furious at the disturbance, he walked out of the front door, around the house, determined to tell her to stop whatever she was doing, give him some peace.

When, finally, he came across her, bent over the old stone trough by the kitchen door, it was too late to regret the impulse, to wish he’d stayed put. To late to back away. It was a re-run of that moment in the library.

A re-run of his life.

And yet everything was different. The woman was a mess. Her hair tugged back in an elastic band, her temple streaked with dirt. She was wearing cut-offs that displayed practically every inch of her shapely legs, the nearest sporting a bruise that mirrored the one on his thigh-a physical reminder, should he need one, of their first encounter. She had battered blue pumps with bright red laces on her feet, and to top it all a blindingly bright pink crop top clung to her untidily generous curves.

‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

Ellie, having made a note of the Latin names of the ferns-handily printed on plastic labels stuck into the pots-and despatched them by e-mail to Jennifer Cochrane, along with a proposal for a feature on the imaginative fabric playhouses designed and made by one of the ladies she cleaned for, had felt the tug of conscience.

Laura Morrison had been kind enough to give her the ferns. The least she could do was plant them.

It hadn’t occurred to her to clear the idea with Ben Faulkner first. Why would it?

‘A neighbour gave me these,’ she said, gesturing at the waiting pots with the trowel. ‘Apparently they like damp shade. Unlike these pansies which, it has to be faced, are on their last legs.’

When he didn’t answer, she glanced over her shoulder.

‘They were never happy there,’ he agreed. ‘Never thrived.’

His initial irritation had faded into something else, something that tugged at her heartstrings. The haunted note she’d caught in his voice was in his eyes, too. But it wasn’t her he was looking at, but the sad, elongated plants, all stalk and tiny leaves where they’d hunted for the light. Belatedly, she wondered who had planted them.

Not him-he wouldn’t have overreacted that way if it had been him. Someone he’d cared for, then, she decided, remembering how she’d kept a potted plant Sean had bought her, some ghastly purple chrysanthemum, long after it had shrivelled up and died.

‘I’m sorry, Ben,’ she said, picking them up very carefully, tucking their roots back into the damp soil so that they wouldn’t just lie there and die, then easing herself to her feet. ‘I’ll put them somewhere where they’ll be happier,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask Laura. Laura Morrison. She’ll know.’

For a moment she thought he was going to tell her to forget it. To turn and walk away.

He didn’t.

‘You’ll need some fresh compost if they’re going to survive,’ he said, after a moment or two.

‘The pansies?’

‘The ferns. Possibly something ericaceous. I believe woodland plants prefer an acid environment.’

‘Sorry, you lost me right after “compost”.’

‘I’m just guessing. Someone at the garden centre will know.’ Then, ‘Do you want to go and fetch some?’

‘Compost?’ Ellie used the seat of her pants to brush the dirt from her hands. Then, ‘Are you offering to take me to the garden centre to pick some up?’

‘It comes in sacks. I may be wrong, but I suspect you’d find it difficult to manage on your bike.’

‘I wouldn’t even try.’ Then, ‘Maybe we should take Adele’s car? It would be a shame to mess up yours. And it’ll have more room in the back.’

‘How much compost do you imagine you’ll need?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not a gardener.’

‘That makes two of us.’He shrugged. ‘You may have a point. To be honest, I’m surprised Adele didn’t offer you the use of her car as a perk of the job. Or maybe she’s not as free with her own possessions as she is with mine.’

‘Oh, no! She did offer. I can’t drive.’

‘Can’t?’

‘I’ve tried. Sean tried everything. But I have a problem with making my left hand do one thing while my left leg is doing something else and still looking at the road. He told me there’s a word for it.’

‘I’m sure he did,’ he said, with a fleeting suspicion of something that might have been amusement momentarily transforming his face, offering her a glimpse of a very different Ben Faulkner.

Ellie, who rarely got to out-of-town places such as garden centres, left Ben to get all technical on the subject of compost with one of the staff while she wandered off to marvel over the colours and varieties of the endless trays of bedding plants, wonderful pots, bright new tools.

Ben found her looking at a stainless steel trowel with something approaching lust.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘Mmm,’ she said, replacing it on the display. ‘You know, I could really get gardening.’

‘If you didn’t have the world’s most romantic novel to finish.’

‘Oh, it’s finished. I had rejection number eleven today.’

‘Eleven? Is that all? You’ve got a long way to go to catch up with some of the great writers.’

‘I make no claims to greatness,’ she said. ‘Even so, I don’t suppose anyone ever told them they were “clichéd”.’ She couldn’t believe she was telling him that.

‘Maybe you should stop trying to imitate Emily Brontë and try writing about your own life?’ he suggested. ‘That would be different.’

That was why, she thought She could rely on him not to be sensitive, not to save her feelings by suggesting that agents knew nothing, publishers were blind-a frequent moan at the Writers’ Circle.

‘Are you all done here?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ Then, ‘No. Can you spare another minute or two?’

‘I’m in no hurry.’

She led the way to a corner of the store, where glass-sided pens held baby rabbits and guinea pigs. The warm, musky scent of animals and sawdust took her straight back to her childhood.

‘I wondered if they still sold them. My dad used to bring me here when I was little,’ she said, bending down to pick up a sleek-coated jet-black baby bunny. ‘I wanted a rabbit so much. One just like this,’ she said, gently stroking it.

‘Why? They don’t do anything.’

‘They’re soft and furry.’

‘So are soft toys,’ he pointed out, ‘and they’re much less work.’

‘But not warm.’ She glanced at Ben. ‘Maybe it’s a girl thing.’ She sighed. ‘Poor little things. They’re going to spend their lives shut up in tiny little cages, most of them, forgotten after a week or two. Left for Mum to clean out and feed.’

‘Stupid Mum for buying it in the first place.’

She turned to glance at him. ‘Oh, come on. Didn’t you bug your mother for a pet, Ben?’

‘My mother died when I was very young.’

Oh…Oh…‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Why?’ Then, not waiting for her answer, to hear meaningless words that he’d no doubt heard a hundred times before, he shook his head. ‘Dogs,’ he said. ‘We always had dogs.’

‘I was never allowed a dog.’

‘Given the choice,’ he said, ‘I’d have opted for a mother.’

Damn! He’d finally managed to bring her nonsense to a halt, shut her up. But, confronted by her stricken face, he wished he’d held his tongue.

‘My father had a black Labrador,’he said, in a bid to wipe that look from her eyes. ‘I had a golden retriever and an assortment of mongrels. And there was a red setter, too, that Adele brought home from a rescue centre. You put me in mind of her.’

‘Adele?’

‘The setter.’

Her brows dived in a puzzled frown. ‘But I don’t have red hair.’

‘Then it must be the temperament. Boisterous. Feather-brained. Never knows when to stop.’

‘Feather-brained?’

She had the same eyes, too. Large, expressive, the colour of warm treacle. Nothing was hidden. Every thought laid bare.

‘That’s a little harsh,’ she said. Then, having thought about it for a moment, she twitched her shoulder in the smallest of shrugs and said, ‘Or maybe not.’ Then, ‘No cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters?’ she pressed, as if determined on proving his point. ‘What about mice? Surely you had mice? All boys have mice.’

‘Then you’ve answered your own question, haven’t you? Are you done here?’he asked, with a gesture at the pens.

‘Yes.’ She put the rabbit back. Stood watching it for a moment. ‘I shouldn’t have come over here,’ she said with a sigh, as they headed for the checkout. ‘It was okay when I was a kid. It never occurred to me to empathise with a rabbit when I was six. Twenty years on, I won’t be able to stop thinking about him.’

They had almost reached the checkout when she stopped. ‘Hold on.’

‘Ellie!’ he warned.

‘I won’t be a minute,’ she called back. True to her word, she returned a few moments later with a large terracotta pot shaped like an old-fashioned flowerpot. ‘I’ll take this, too,’ she said.

‘Thank heavens for that. I was afraid you’d gone back for the rabbit,’ he said, as she put it on the trolley.

‘Listen, feather-brained I may be. Plain stupid I’m not.’ She fished her purse out of her bag and took out a twenty-pound note.

‘Put your money away, Ellie.’

‘Oh, but-’

‘My trough. I buy the compost.’

‘But the pot…’

‘Will be in my garden.’

‘I might want to take it when I leave.’

‘Don’t tease me with empty threats. We both know you’re not going anywhere.’ Then, ‘It’s up to you, Ellie, but if you want to pay for it, you’re going to have to come back and fetch it on your bike.’

She lifted it onto the counter without another word. Mouth zipped. Restraint personified.

‘Damn it!’

‘What?’ she asked, startled, as he put the pot back on the trolley and pulled out of the queue. ‘What did I do?’

Nothing. She didn’t have to do anything. She was exactly like that damn setter; she wore her heart in her eyes. Right now, while the rest of her face was doing its best to be on its best behaviour, they betrayed her.

‘Go and get the blasted rabbit!’

Delight and disappointment chased each other over her face, warring for supremacy. ‘I can’t.’

‘Can’t?’

‘It’s not that easy.’ Seeing his obvious bafflement, she said, ‘It’s my turn to play the responsible mother, Ben. Where will it live?’

‘They sell those flat-pack A-frame animal houses here, don’t they?’

‘Yes.’ She swallowed. ‘They do.’ Her shoulders twitched in another little shrug.

‘But?’

‘But he’ll need a wire enclosure so he has somewhere to run.’

He wasn’t being pushed to provide a rabbit palace. Ellie was giving him a chance to have second thoughts, he realised. Back off. Common sense suggested that it would be the wise option.

‘There’s a DIY place next door,’he said. ‘We can call in and pick up some posts and chicken wire.’

‘Do you mean that?’

Yes. No. ‘I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.’

She shook her head. ‘This is weird. I don’t know what to say.’

‘Is that a fact?’ An unbidden smile broke out, reaching every corner of his face. ‘And all it took was a rabbit? Unbelievable!’

Ellie’s laugh was a joyous sound. ‘You won’t regret it,’ she promised, speech not a problem after all, apparently.

‘Oh, I’m sure I will,’ he warned. ‘I’d advise you not to waste any time.’

‘I’ll, um, need a hand. With the hutch. And stuff.’

‘I’ll sort out the hutch. You sort out the “stuff”.’

‘Something tall enough,’ she insisted. ‘Rabbits need to be able to keep their ears upright.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘No! I’m buying his house and I want him to have plenty of room.’ She suddenly caught on to the fact that he was kidding and pulled a face. ‘And he’ll need straw. And sawdust.’

How had he seen only the soft eyes, missed that determined chin? How on earth did he come to be buying rabbit bedding instead of sitting in the peace of his study, deciphering a recently discovered early form of Devanagari? How had he somehow committed himself to building a rabbit run for a woman who had no right to be living in his house in the first place?

‘It’s a good thing we brought Adele’s car,’ she said, as he picked up a vacuum-packed bale of straw. ‘We’d never have got all this into your sports car.’

‘My mistake,’ he said.

‘You don’t mean that,’ she said, her eyes sparkling. ‘You put on a good act, Ben, but you’re not the grouch you pretend to be.’

‘I am,’he said to her retreating back. ‘Truly.’ She just waved his words away without even turning around.

When she returned, she had a cardboard carrying box in each hand. Behind her was an assistant, carrying food, feeders, a water container. ‘Rabbits are gregarious creatures,’ she said, undeterred by his horrified expression. ‘Roger will need company.’

‘Not another rabbit,’ he said, with what he hoped was unarguable firmness.

‘Oh, please. I’m not that dumb.’ He gave her a look that suggested the jury was out on that one. ‘Really. This,’ she said, holding up the smaller box, ‘is Nigel. He’s a guinea pig. And you,’ she said, standing on tiptoe and, before he realised what was coming, kissing his cheek, ‘are a very kind man.’

For a moment, with both hands full, she wobbled, and he reached out to steady her, a hand on each arm. Her skin was golden, silky smooth, warm to his palms, her eyes, mouth, her entire face lit up like a kid on her birthday. For a moment he longed to kiss her laughing mouth, tap into that simple pleasure in every moment well lived.

How had she managed that? Turned her life around from such tragedy to such joy?

Ben, wearing jeans so soft and thin with wear that the cloth had split under the strain to expose a glimpse of knee and thigh, was swinging a mallet to hammer posts into a shady patch of lawn. Ellie, bringing him coffee, paused for moment on the edge of the lawn to indulge herself in the pleasure of watching him.

‘Can I do anything to help?’ she asked, as he stopped, straightened, wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his T-shirt and glanced at her, apparently sensing her presence despite the fact that she’d done nothing to attract his attention.

‘I think you’ve done quite enough for one day.’

‘Me? This was your idea.’

‘Of course it was. When I offered to run you to the garden centre for a bag of compost, it was my firm intention to return with a menagerie.’

‘We’re very grateful.’

‘We?’

‘Roger, Nigel and me.’ Then, ‘Actually, we all think you should get a dog. For yourself.’

‘The cat doesn’t have a say in this?’ He stopped her before she could answer, took the mug she was offering him, and said, ‘No dog.’ Then, ‘It’s possible I’ll be returning to Kirbeckistan in the near future.’

‘I’ll be here to take care of it.’ Then, ‘It’ll be here to take care of me.’

‘In other words you want a dog.’

‘The house would like a dog.’

‘No dog.’

‘Okay,’ she said, turning away, walking back to the house.

‘I mean it, Ellie.’

She lifted a hand in acknowledgement. He was not reassured.