Graydon’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t owe you this job, Flora.’
‘No, you don’t. But you gave it to me, and I’ve done all you asked – and more. And, Henry and Eva love me,’ Flora said defiantly. ‘They would have to agree to any change in designer and, I’m telling you now, they won’t. Not in a million years. So if you want the slightest chance of getting these changes made, or entering Hanborough for the International Designer of the Year award, the fact is, Graydon, you do need me. You do.’
She was quivering with rage, glaring at Graydon, daring him to deny it. For a moment Graydon glared back, equally furious. Then, to Flora’s surprise, he smiled.
‘Thank goodness,’ he said. ‘I’d started to think the old, ambitious Flora Fitzwilliam was gone for ever. So, we’re on the same page? Winning International Designer of the Year will mean more for your career than it will for mine, darling.’
‘You’d share the award with me?’ Flora’s eyes widened. ‘I mean, we’d enter Hanborough together?’
‘Of course,’ Graydon said breezily. ‘As a team. My brand. My vision. Your hard graft. What do you say?’
Flora’s mind raced. She made a mental list of pros and cons. The cons list was considerably longer.
Graydon’s plans were frankly hideous, a betrayal not only of Henry and of Hanborough, but of Flora’s own artistic integrity.
Changing tack so radically and aiming for an April completion would mean working even harder than she was now, which scarcely seemed possible.
It would also leave her even less time for Mason – fewer trips home, and no time at all to focus on planning their wedding.
On the pros side, if by some miracle they pulled it off, she, Flora Fitzwilliam, would be International Designer of the Year. Her name and Graydon’s, side by side, as equals.
‘OK.’ She smiled back at Graydon. ‘I’m in.’
‘Wonderful,’ the old man purred. ‘So, how do you plan to convince our friend Henry to change his plans and double his budget?’
‘I don’t,’ said Flora.
Graydon frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I have a better idea.’ Flora smiled cryptically. ‘Trust me.’
‘What do you think?’
Flora and Eva were sprawled out in old-fashioned deckchairs in the back garden of Peony Cottage. It was a glorious, baking hot summer afternoon and Flora had asked Eva over specially for tea and cake. ‘I have something I want to show you privately,’ she’d told her up at the castle, the day Graydon flew back to New York. ‘Shall we meet at my cottage? Around four?’
Eva was entranced by Flora’s cottage, with its simple, cool whitewashed walls and artfully placed earthenware, and its overblown but exquisite back garden, bursting with sweet-smelling clematis and honeysuckle, its beds crowded with pretty pink roses and towering hollyhocks in white and pink and deep purple, the colour of overripe plums.
‘It’s like a Kate Greenaway postcard,’ she sighed. ‘Like something from a hundred years ago.’
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ agreed Flora. ‘I love it here. It’s my sanctuary.’
‘Lucky you,’ said Eva. ‘I mean, obviously I’m incredibly blessed to live at Hanborough. Who wouldn’t want to wake up in a fairy-tale castle every day, right?’
‘But?’ Flora prodded.
‘Well. It’s Henry’s home, really,’ said Eva.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that here, at Peony Cottage, you can do what you like. You’ve made it your home because you designed all the interiors yourself. Don’t get me wrong, I love what you’re doing up at Hanborough,’ Eva explained hastily. ‘It’s just that you’re doing it. You and Henry. Not me.’
Flora beamed. This couldn’t be going more perfectly.
‘That’s exactly why I invited you over,’ she said. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head. Graydon and I both felt that you’ve been excluded from the design process up till now, and that maybe what we’ve been doing up at the castle is a bit …’ She searched around for the right word. ‘A bit simplistic – a bit one-dimensional, shall we say – as a result. Take a look at these.’
Slowly, one by one, Flora walked Eva through Graydon’s revised plans. Naturally far more of a modernist than Henry, Eva was instantly drawn to the stark, minimalist, even industrial style of the party barn, with its steel and glass and light. ‘It looks very Swedish,’ she observed approvingly. Within half an hour, Flora had as good as convinced Eva that the designs were her own – or at least that she and Graydon had merely ‘anticipated’ her vision.
‘I know Henry wants Hanborough to feel like your home too,’ said Flora. ‘That’s why he moved here, after all. So the two of you could make a life together.’
‘That’s true,’ Eva mused, flipping longingly through the new plans.
‘But you need to speak up for yourself,’ Flora told her. ‘I can’t do it. If I showed Henry these plans, he’d shut me down immediately. But you can. And I really think you should.’
Eva nodded, taking another sip of Earl Grey tea from Flora’s shabby-chic china cup. Flora noticed she had left her fruit cake completely untouched. Being a world-famous lingerie model did have some disadvantages, apparently.
‘You’re right,’ said Eva boldly, tucking the plans under her arm. ‘I can’t complain about being left out of the process if I never tell Henry what I want. Thanks, Flora.’ Standing up to her full five feet eleven, towering over Flora, she hugged her goodbye. ‘And thanks for asking me over today. I really appreciate your friendship. I hope you know that.’
‘Likewise,’ said Flora, suppressing a mighty wave of guilt.
She felt bad, using Eva so blatantly to get these design changes past Henry. But it was the only way. Henry and Flora had such similar tastes; if Flora presented them he would smell a rat immediately. Plexiglas tunnels and party barns were definitively not Flora’s style. And the International Designer of the Year award was not going to win itself.
‘I’m sorry,’ Henry told Flora two days later, re-presenting her own plans to her over coffee in the castle kitchen, ‘I know these are big changes. And I know they’re godawful. But it means so much to Eva. I want to at least meet her halfway.’
‘I understand.’ Flora nodded sympathetically. ‘You realize it’s a lot more money?’
Henry shrugged. ‘Money’s not a problem. Don’t tell your bloody boss I said that,’ he added quickly.
‘Of course not,’ said Flora, trying her best to look loyal and supportive. Once again she successfully suppressed a pang of guilt. She was surprising herself by how good she was becoming at this manipulation lark. Perhaps she’d learned more from Graydon James than she realized?
‘I’m
