‘Again – the fact that you could have pictured nakedness being a part of that … have you considered there might be help available for you—’
‘The falconry …’ Jake mentioned, ignoring Seth.
‘Hey, falconry is really in right now. People pay lots of money to have giant birds of prey swoop over their head and shave years off their life and it’s not a naked thing, it’s a majestic thing.’
‘Actually the falconry idea wasn’t totally awful,’ Jake admitted. ‘But do you have any idea how much outlay we’d be looking at to introduce even one of those plans at the Hall?’
‘I do actually. I wrote the cost-analysis reports you didn’t bother looking at. You know, I may be your kid brother but I’m not an actual kid anymore. I get it. You want to open the gardens to the public. You want to get married. You don’t have any money—’
‘What the hell?’ Jake bellowed, all patience immediately leaving the building faster than you could say Elvis already had. ‘I have money,’ he insisted, folding his arms. ‘Of course there’s money. Enough to support the Hall and get married.’
Damn.
The whole I need a dollar, dollar, a dollar is what I need subject was about as welcome a refrain around here as Seth having to hear the Have you got a job interview?
But this was why Jake was walking around so moody lately, wasn’t it? This was why he and Emma were both being so remarkably chill on finalising all those wedding details?
At first Seth had thought the pair of them keeping schtum about their wedding plans was out of deference to his divorce coming through but after a while he’d begun to worry it was something else. Jake had been engaged once before and as far as Seth knew his brother had his priorities set right this time. Accept there were no wedding plans forthcoming and when Seth wasn’t working flat-out he was wondering why that was.
‘I know the garden designing brings in a fair whack,’ he said now, standing his ground, needing for his brother to see he got the whole picture. ‘Just like I know this place eats up whatever it’s fed and still complains of being hungry after. I also know it’s probably going to cost you the income you made last year just to get married.’
‘Seth, I was handling budgets when you were busy dropping out of uni, swanning around the world and getting married on a whim,’ Jake said, managing to convey a largess of patronisation that only big brothers were capable of.
Here we go, Seth thought. The old ‘You Dropped Out of Uni and Ever Since It’s Been One Dubious Decision After Another,’ lecture. And since he was never going to regret leaving uni when he did, he was damn sure he didn’t need to explain his reasoning to his big brother, who, while enjoying acting like a parent; wasn’t. ‘So come on then,’ Seth said, telling himself to leave it. Telling himself not to have this conversation in the hallway while they were both tired. But then in the manner of muscle memory and brothers squaring off as brothers do, Seth promptly forgot his own advice to himself, copied Jake in folding his arms stubbornly across his chest, and said, ‘How much do you think the average wedding costs these days? I don’t need the full luxury package,’ he assured, ‘just give me the ballpark on the church, smallish reception and honeymoon package?’
‘Why? Are you worried there won’t be enough left over to put food on the table while you continue to live here rent free?’
‘Like you don’t know I’ve been giving Emma money for the last four months,’ Seth’s pride was forced to remind his brother.
He saw the shock wash across Jake’s face. Emma hadn’t told him where the money was coming from? What the hell was that all about?
On the scent of the sale now and unwilling to let any ground he could make crumble to dust, he pressed, ‘So come on then, enlighten me … how much does the average wedding cost?’ Because he’d done the workings out and granted, his brother had been handling small contracts and obscenely large award-winning contracts for years as part of his garden-design work but this place was going to continue to eat as much as Jake and Emma made until it could start paying for itself and being the new owner of this place came with responsibilities – the type where you were expected to put on a show, not quietly elope.
Then there was the fact that sound travelled really easily in this old house. So it was virtually impossible not to have heard the late-night discussions about Jake not wanting either of Emma’s estranged parents financially contributing to the wedding.
‘Hang on a bloody minute,’ Jake insisted, ‘you’ve been giving Emma money every month? Where are you getting it from?’
Oops.
‘I got a job. You didn’t seriously imagine I would want to live off my big brother forever?’
‘You got a job?’
‘It’s casual.’
‘Of course it is.’
Seth puffed out his chest. ‘I don’t hear you complaining when it means I’m around to help you out around here.’
‘So what’s the big plan, then? I assume you have one? Only it’ll be good to know how long you intend on repaying me letting you work here for free by putting food on my table.’
His big plan?
His big plan was genius.
Low risk. High reward.
And had he mentioned genius?
His big plan was to use the professional-quality printer and video editing equipment at Hive @ The Clock House to print out all the photos he’d taken of Knightley Hall as full-colour A3 glossies and then finish up editing the video footage of the Hall before giving the marketing packet to his location scout contact.
His big plan was to get the location scout to fall in love with Knightley Hall and then recommend it to the film production company looking for the next place to shoot Merriweather Mysteries.
The amount of money they’d get for allowing two months of off-season filming a year for six episodes a series for as long as it took for the public to decide they no longer wanted to see their favourite thesps in pension-enhancing hamming-it-up blood-curdling cosy mystery roles set in bucolic Blighty, was a no-brainer.
Phase two of his plan was to present the idea to Jake in such a way that Jake gave the go-ahead and also, possibly, bestowed the word ‘genius’ upon him … so much more preferable than presenting his idea and ending up as inspiration for the next series of Merriweather Mysteries.
But he needed to be patient and do it right this time.
‘You can’t look after us all forever, Jake,’ he said, keeping his voice low and calm. ‘I know you’re the one who we all come to but what if my big plan is for you to get to enjoy this place? What if my big plan is for you to get to enjoy your marriage without money stuff getting in the way?’
Jake did the whole pinching-the-bridge-of-his-nose thing that meant he didn’t know whether to engage full big-brother superiority or show that he was more evolved than that. ‘Seth, it’s not your responsibility to worry about this. Emma and I are just fine.’
‘Are
