outbuildings at the rear of the building.
She headed across the cobbled yard, past the rows of stone troughs filled with artistically arranged tumbling summer flowers, and up the stone steps that led to the flat above what had once been a coach house but now housed what was by all accounts an impressive collection of vintage sports cars.
Inside the flat she closed the door and leaned against it, relieved that he hadn’t put in an appearance while she was looking like a scarecrow. Walking across to the fitted cupboard that housed her clothes, she grimaced at her reflection in the full-length mirror inside the door. Not exactly the image of cool efficiency she was determined to exemplify.
Stripping down to her bra and pants, she folded her jeans. When the space was limited neatness was essential but fortunately she didn’t have many clothes, which made her choice of a suitable outfit pretty easy. Padding through the living room and through the twins’ bedroom into the en-suite, she popped her dusty top in the linen basket, then pinned her hair up before she stepped into the shower. Though she would have liked to wash her hair, it took an age to dry and she was short of time.
Fifteen minutes later, wearing a crisp white blouse, a pair of narrow-legged tailored black trousers and with her hair in a fat plait down her back, she slid her feet into a pair of sensible black leather loafers. She gave herself a critical once-over, bending at the knee to see the top of her head in the angled mirror. Resisting the temptation to jazz up the sombre outfit with a pink scarf dotted with orange roses, she slid a pair of gold hoops into her ears. The sound of them jingling brought a smile to her lips as she lifted her head, more confidence in her stride as she headed across the courtyard. She was determined to make up for the disastrous first impression she had made; she could do it.
She had to do it.
Her smile faded slightly as she approached the building, tensing as she heard a car in the distance, but the vehicle that drove through the arch was a delivery van from the local butcher’s. She started breathing again, delivering the silent advice, Cool it, Zoe, before she paused to thank one of the gardeners for donating a box full of the vegetables from the kitchen garden to the raffle the previous day, and admiring the magnificent lavender tumbling from a group of barrels.
‘The smell always makes me think of summer and at night it fills the flat,’ she told him, adding warmly, ‘The flowers you cut for the house were marvellous.’ She had spent a pleasant half-hour filling bowls in several of the rooms with the fragrant summer blooms.
He tilted his head in acknowledgement and looked pleased with the compliment. ‘The other one here before you sent up to London for fancy arrangements every week. I told her it was a criminal waste.’
‘I’m sure they were very beautiful.’ The gardener might approve, but Zoe suddenly felt less secure about her amateur attempts to add a touch of colour to the house; they were hardly professional.
Resisting the impulse to run back to the house and remove all the flowers, which in her mind were fast becoming tasteless and ugly displays of amateurism, she chatted a little longer to the man before she finally excused herself.
In the end she couldn’t bring herself to dump the freshly cut flowers, deciding as a compromise not to volunteer the information she was responsible—unless directly asked, which seemed unlikely. She walked around the place a final time to double-check everything, leaving it until the last possible moment before she jumped in her car and set off to pick up the twins from school.
For all she knew Isandro Montero might not arrive until midnight; he might be a total no-show—if she was very lucky.
The narrow country lane that led to the village was in theory a short cut, but Zoe got stuck behind a tractor, and the children were already waiting at the gate when she arrived, chatting to Chloe and Hannah.
‘I’m sorry I’m late!’ she exclaimed.
‘You’re not late,’ Chloe soothed. ‘They only just got out.’ She took in Zoe’s outfit and her brows lifted. ‘Wow, you look very…’
‘Weird,’ supplied Georgie bluntly.
‘Very sexy librarian,’ Chloe corrected.
‘Are librarians sexy?’ Harry asked.
Chloe exchanged a look with Zoe, who suppressed a smile and said, ‘In the car, you two.’ Adding, ‘Do you want a lift, Chloe?’
The older woman shook her head. ‘No, I’m picking up some glasses for tonight from Sara on my way back.’
‘I hope you all have a great night, I wish I could come but…’ She lifted her slender shoulders in a regretful shrug; her babysitting arrangements had fallen through that morning.
‘You can…I know, just call me fairy godmother. You know how John’s mum is having Hannah? Well, she’s offered to have your two as well. John will pick up the twins on his way home and he’ll fetch them back in the morning.’
‘Oh, Chloe, that’s really kind but I couldn’t impose…’
‘It’s not imposing. Maud offered and they’ll have a great time, you know they will.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Yes but nothing, Cinders, you’re going to the ball and don’t forget the invite includes your utterly gorgeous boss…I tell you, if I was a few years younger I’d give you a bit of competition there.’
Zoe struggled to smile at the joke. ‘He’s not here, I’m afraid.’ She felt a guilty tug as her friend’s face fell.
‘I thought he was due back today. John’s going to be so disappointed—he wanted to thank him personally and return his hospitality. Half the people there only came because they wanted to take a look at the hall.’
Zoe’s unease increased. Short of admitting that the hospitality they wanted to return had not been given freely, she had no way of preventing the decision to treat the new lord of the manor as a community-minded philanthropist.
‘He was…is…due today,’ she admitted. ‘But when I left he hadn’t arrived.’
‘But he might do.’
‘Anything’s possible,’ Zoe admitted, but the thought of Isandro coming to a party where the glasses were borrowed and the food was provided by guests! Possible but not very likely, thank goodness!
‘Well, promise you’ll remind him if he does turn up? Tell him that we’d love to see him and he seemed very keen to come. He’s obviously making an effort to be part of the community.’
Zoe didn’t have the heart to shatter this illusion and explain that the man had only said yes to cut the scene short and get rid of them as quickly as possible.
‘If he does I will,’ Zoe promised, imagining with horror the admittedly unlikely scenario of Isandro putting in an appearance at the party. Him spending the entire evening with his lips curled contemptuously would suck the joy out of any occasion and Zoe wanted to save her friends that. On a less unselfish note she wanted to save herself from spending her precious off-duty time with a man who made her skin prickle with antagonism even before he opened his mouth and said something vile and unpleasant. The fact that half the vile things he said were actually the truth was neither here nor…Losing track of her train of thought, she shook her head slightly to banish the image
