The Unfinished Garden. Barbara White Claypole

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СКАЧАТЬ Sebastian giggled. How could she hear that giggle and not let her attitude toward him thaw? She imagined the expression that accompanied the giggle: eyes sunk into creases of laughter, nose puckered up, lips stretched back to reveal the sexy gap between his front teeth. This was the Sebastian she’d fallen in love with—the boy who chased kites across the moors, or sat cross-legged on Tilly’s window seat holding his cigarette out of her bedroom window and laughing at who knew what. But that was before his father left and Sebastian prepared for a life of responsibility, before he grew old with worry for his mother, for his grandmother, even for Tilly. And that was the beginning of the end, because the more Sebastian coddled her, the farther she ran.

      Tilly gave a fake cough. “My mother tells me you’re living in Bramwell Chase, Sebastian?”

      Sebastian stopped giggling. “I’m renting Manor Farm.”

      “Yes,” Tilly said slowly. “My mother told me that, too.”

      “I didn’t tell you first?” Rowena stretched against the steering wheel. “Sure I had. But since you don’t answer my emails, I have no idea what you know.”

      Tilly bit her lip. Challenging Rowena was not an exercise for the jet-lagged.

      “Anyway. It’s a brilliant story, so I’m happy to repeat it.” Rowena tailgated a BMW and flashed her lights, while Tilly sank lower in her seat. “I was in town for a meeting at the bank. No offense, Sebastian, but ruddy bankers. It’s always something. I walked in and there he was. Well, I about died.” She smacked the steering wheel and the baubles around her wrist tinkled. “Can you imagine?”

      Yes, Tilly could. Rowena would have shrieked and people would have gawked. Sebastian would have been embarrassed, but would have concealed it and kissed both her cheeks. He certainly wouldn’t have stood and stared as he had done with Tilly. She yanked a tissue from her pocket and shredded it.

      “I had absolutely no idea he was back from Hong Kong not that he’s ever handled the Roxton account have you Sebastian but we went to dinner—” jeez, was she going to pause for breath? “—and Sebastian told me he needed somewhere to stay and I thought the Farm with all that fresh air for the children and here we are.”

      Tilly glared at Rowena’s headrest. Rowena’s recent emails had been full of chatter about finding her gamekeeper passed out with an empty bottle of whiskey, and about Sunday lunch at Woodend with roast lamb and the first new potatoes of the season. But no mention of Sebastian. And Rowena didn’t keep secrets. She didn’t know how.

      Rowena twiddled with the heat controls, and Tilly breathed through a surge of nausea. Was no one else suffocating in this car? If she threw up that would be interesting: Sebastian was vomit-phobic.

      Tilly shrugged off her cardigan. “Back for good, Sebastian?”

      “Yes.”

      “I thought you were in Hong Kong for the long haul. What changed your mind?”

      “Who, not what. Fiona.”

      Tilly sat up and watched the silver belly of an airliner soar above them. “She’d had enough of Hong Kong?” Was the plane full of holidaymakers, businessmen and women? People fleeing?

      “She’d had enough of me.” The front passenger seat groaned as Sebastian swung around. “Mind if I smoke? In front of Isaac?”

      He never managed to quit, then. And yes, she did mind him exposing Isaac to secondhand smoke. But she hadn’t studied Sebastian’s face until now, hadn’t looked beyond the grooming to notice the purple welts under his eyes. She shook her head and prayed she had misunderstood, because Sebastian single plus Tilly single equaled a complex math problem. And she hated all things math. Sebastian cracked open his window. Cellophane crinkled, a lighter flipped open and she heard him breathe.

      Tilly rubbed at a crust of strawberry jam on her jeans. “Fiona left you?”

      “Yes.” Sebastian dragged on his cigarette.

      “I’m sorry.” So, she didn’t plan to forgive him, and she didn’t want to hate him. Could she settle on indifference with a soupçon of pity? She could feel that for a squished squirrel on Creeping Cedars, and squirrels were public enemy number one.

      A counterpane of fields ripped past, retreating from the invasive ground cover of London. What a different view this was to the one from I-40, where wide banks disappeared into acres of forest. Her body tingled with something that felt strangely like longing. But before Tilly could muse further, a sense of unease prickled, and she turned from the window.

      Sebastian had angled the rearview mirror toward himself and appeared to be rubbing his eye. But it was a ruse; he was watching her. His eyes delved deeper—with curiosity, lust, wistfulness? Or was it need? Did he need her the way she had needed him after David died? If she were closer, she could concentrate on Sebastian’s eyes. Were they gray, the color stated on his passport, or murky green, the color of ocean reflecting storm clouds? Before she could decide, he looked away.

      Terrific, she’d have to forgive him after all.

      * * *

      She wanted to stay asleep, but hushed voices intruded, waking her before she was ready. Where was she? Oh, right, still ensnared in the Discovery. Rowena whispered, “Want me to tell her?” and Sebastian replied, “No, I’ll take care of it.” And Tilly decided to play possum.

      “Doing all right?” Rowena asked. “Sorry. Bloody stupid question.”

      “Yeah.” A lighter flicked. “Bloody stupid question, darlin’.”

      Darlin’? Said in jest and the dropped g made all the difference, but a term of endearment passing between Ro and Sebastian? Tilly held her breath, hoping that for once Sebastian would spill his emotions, not conserve them. But he remained silent, curled in on his thoughts like a turtle marooned in the middle of the road. And Tilly had to move; her buttocks were numb.

      “Aha,” Rowena said. “Sleeping Beauty and my little prince stir. Did we nap well, my darlings?”

      “Not especially.” Tilly’s neck cricked and she tugged on it.

      “We’re here, Mom! Look!” Isaac grabbed at her. “We’re here!”

      The road dipped under an arc of overhanging beech trees. Ivy-covered banks rose on either side of the car, and they were thrown into a leafy tunnel of silvery shade. Tilly wanted to scream her happiness, to rush from the car and kiss the ground. Who gives a monkey’s about anything! She was home, back in the place where life waited for her, unchanged. She lowered her window and inhaled cool air and the smell of fresh-cut grass. No heat, no humidity, no cicada buzz, nothing but the bleating of sheep.

      They emerged into brilliant sunshine as the bank slipped into a hedgerow of hawthorn, bindweed and elder knotted with blackberry brambles. A blue tit churred, and Tilly’s heart answered with a symphony of joy. Isaac’s first English summer! He was in for such a treat.

      A woman clopped by on a piebald horse and touched her velvet helmet in greeting, but Rowena, ever the sun-slut, was oblivious. “The sun!” She pointed and bounced like a child tied up with excitement on Christmas morning. “Oh, the sun!”

      Rowena continued to pay more attention to the sky than the road, but thankfully, drove below the speed limit. Not that СКАЧАТЬ