anyway, they are very much in demand.’ Modestly, she didn’t add that she herself was also very much in demand, as much for her inventive and imaginative trompe-l’oeil scenery as for her stencilling and dragging. ‘I’d love to have the opportunity to paint your kitchen,’ she added wistfully.
She could see it now, the cupboards dragged in sunny yellow, with perhaps a circlet of ivy and white dog-roses painted on the fronts. She could sponge the walls to match and make roller blinds that faithfully copied the landscape outside the windows.
Upstairs, this long corridor just cried out for something jolly and period… a scene from an alehouse, perhaps. There must be something she could use as a base in Chester library’s local history section. Carried away with enthusiasm, she forgot her nervousness.
‘It’s a pity you can’t stay up here longer and get this place sorted out for me,’ Drew commented, watching her.
‘I’d love to,’ she admitted, her eyes sparkling at the thought.
‘My bedroom’s here,’ he told her, pushing open a door.
It was a large room on the same side of the house as her own, but with more windows. It had a huge bed set in a carved cherrywood frame.
‘Oh, Drew, I love this!’ she told him reverently, forgetting his socks and touching the carving with gentle fingers.
‘Do you? I’m glad… I did it myself.’ He saw her astonishment and smiled. ‘Woodwork has always been a hobby of mine.’
Holly looked round the bedroom with new eyes, noting the wardrobe and dresser. ‘Did you make those as well?’ she asked him. He nodded.
But, beautiful though the furniture was, it needed the right setting to show it off properly. The bedroom’s walls and ceiling were painted magnolia, and looked dull, like the plain brown carpet and the beige curtains.
As though he read her mind, Drew said apologetically, ‘Knowing my problem with colours, I played it safe and chose ones I knew I could recognise.’
He was unexpectedly tidy for a man, far tidier than she was herself, she acknowledged guiltily, and far more domesticated. The meal he had prepared for them last night had been delicious, but then, living alone, he had no doubt had to learn how to look after himself.
‘We’d better get the socks, otherwise we’re going to be late.’ He walked over to the dresser and opened a drawer, and then turned to Holly, and said, ‘I suspect it would save time if you got them out for me.’
Obligingly, Holly went to the open drawer. Because Drew had opened it to its fullest extent, there was hardly enough space between his body and the bed for her to get past, but she managed it by wriggling slightly.
‘Here you are. I think these are black,’ she told him breathlessly, rifling through the drawer until she found the right pair. ‘I’ll… I’ll wait for you outside while you put them on.’
She saw his eyebrows lift and blushed furiously, but he didn’t make the kind of scathing comment Howard would have made in the same circumstances, simply smiling at her and watching her go.
She had forgotten that he was colour-blind, she mused as she waited for him; that would, of course, explain the awful combination of red sweater and brown cords into which he had changed last night.
Howard had perfect clothes sense. So perfect, in fact, that at times he criticised Holly’s own choice. Take this dress she was wearing tonight, for instance. Howard didn’t like her wearing red, he preferred her in pastel colours; he considered them to be far more feminine.
Drew didn’t keep her waiting long, ushering her outside into the cool October evening.
She was about to cross the yard when he forestalled her, swinging her up into his arms as he had done the previous day.
‘Drew!’ she protested breathlessly.
‘You’re wearing those idiotic heels again,’ he growled. ‘Don’t you ever wear sensible shoes?’
‘I can’t,’ she told him sadly. ‘I’m only five foot two, you know. I need the height.’
‘What for?’
For some reason his question flustered her, and she was glad that they had reached the Land Rover. Or had they? She peered at the vehicle in front of them, realising that it wasn’t the one she had travelled in the previous day.
‘Drew, this is a Range Rover.’
‘So it is,’ he agreed laconically.
It was almost brand new as well, Holly recognised as she saw the number-plate, and so luxurious inside that her eyes rounded in surprise.
‘I didn’t know you owned this.’
‘No? Well, you wouldn’t, would you?’
‘But, Drew, they’re terribly expensive.’
She couldn’t help remembering how as a teenager Drew had always had less money than the rest of them, and she suspected he must have bought the vehicle in a last-ditch attempt to impress Rosamund.
Poor Drew, she thought, tears stinging her eyes as he got in beside her and started the engine. His situation was so much worse than hers. At least she could escape back to London, but Drew would be forced to live almost side by side with Rosamund and Howard. But at least that way he would be there as a constant reminder of what they had once shared, while Howard…
They drove through the village and out again along the road off which Rosamund’s father had built his house. The last time Holly had visited it had been for Rosamund’s eighteenth birthday. That had been one May, with a marquee on the lawn and every other fashionable expense Rosamund’s mother could think of.
Tonight there was no marquee, but the line-up of cars down the long drive was evidence of the new social sphere in which Rosamund and her parents moved—Porsche, Jaguar, Mercedes and Rolls—and a tiny tremor of fear quaked through Holly.
Drew found a parking spot half-way down the drive, parking the Range Rover with commendable expertise.
Someone was walking down the drive toward them; a couple, to judge from the light female voice and its deeper male counterpart.
The footsteps stopped as they drew level with the Range Rover, and a voice Holly vaguely recognised demanded, ‘Drew, is that you?’
‘Hello, Jane—and Guy. How are you?’
‘Oh, we’re fine.’
Of course, Jane Phillips; Holly remembered her now. She had been quite a few years ahead of her in school. In the same class as Drew, come to think of it.
‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed as Holly stepped forward. ‘It’s Holly Witchell, isn’t it? Well, now, how long have you two been together? Guy and I have just come back from the States. Guy’s been working over there for six months. Is this a new thing, or…?’
‘Stop gossiping, woman, I’m freezing,’ her husband interrupted.
When
