Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
‘ Y ou’ve told him what ?’ Spencer looked up suddenly from his seafood risotto as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.
‘I’ve told Clayton Masters he can sell his Christmas trees from the garden at Spindlewood. He needs somewhere, I have somewhere. It makes perfect sense.’
Spencer speared a prawn, somewhat savagely. ‘To you, maybe. Well, I hope you know what you’re doing, Laura, that’s all. You’re setting a precedent. What happens next year, and the one after?’
‘I’ll worry about that when the time comes,’ Laura said, her inner voice whispering that the time might not come at all. ‘If you’d have let Clayton stay where he was for one more Christmas, he wouldn’t have had to find somewhere in such a hurry.’
Spencer shook his head. ‘That was never an option. I’m putting surveyors on the job in a week or so. Your tree man would be in the way.’
‘He’s not my tree man...’
Laura sighed. She didn’t want to argue, especially when she had no chance of winning. That ship had already sailed. She smiled in an attempt to lighten the moment.
‘Let’s not talk about it anymore. Here, try this pork. It’s delicious.’ She held out her fork with a piece of sage-infused tenderloin on it.
Spencer took the morsel into his mouth. ‘Great.’ Then, after a moment, he said, ‘I don’t like the idea of your private property being invaded by strangers.’
So much for dropping the subject.
‘Hardly invaded . They won’t all be strangers either. Most of the customers will come from the village.’
Spencer held up his hands. ‘I’m only looking out for you, Laura, that’s all.’
‘Nothing to do with your feud with Clayton, then?’
The words were out before she could stop them. She’d intended to keep the conversation general, but Spencer was showing a touch of arrogance, which was unusual for him and she didn’t like it.
Spencer looked surprised, then faintly alarmed. Clearly he hadn’t intended to tell Laura himself about the to-do in the Goose and Feather, but he should have known she’d find out eventually.
‘Not at all,’ Spencer said emphatically – too emphatically to Laura’s mind. ‘It’s not a feud, only a slight disagreement between businessmen, that’s all. It’s not personal.’
Not personal ? Then why the display in front of half the village?
Laura stayed silent. She sipped her half-glass of red wine; she’d brought her own car tonight. For some reason, she hadn’t wanted Spencer to pick her up, as he usually did. Sometimes, she felt like sitting back and enjoying letting him look after her, and at others, like tonight, her independent nature clamoured to be asserted.
‘Not that Clayton of Green and Fragrant, or whatever it’s called, is a proper businessman, in the real sense of the word,’ added Spencer, in an offhand voice which said more than his actual words.
Laura saw red. ‘What do you mean by that? Clayton runs a highly successful business, he provides a great service and lots of people rely on him, like I do. Just because he gets his hands dirty there’s no need to be snobby about it.’
‘I’m not being snobby…’
Spencer glanced towards a nearby party of four who were undisguisedly showing interest, and shot Laura a warning look, but she didn’t care who was listening. She’d had enough. Just because Spencer had made a mint out of property development, it didn’t give him the right to knock a small business like Clayton’s. The two enterprises weren’t comparable for a start, and she happened to know that Spencer’s company had begun with a substantial injection of cash from his father; she doubted Clayton had been so fortunate.
She threw down her napkin and pushed back her chair.
‘Laura…?’ Spencer stood up too, reaching a placating hand across the table, his eyes full of alarm, and concern. ‘Sit down, finish your meal. We’ll talk about something else, I promise.’
Laura hesitated, then she said, ‘I’m sorry, Spencer, it’s not just that. I’ve got a splitting headache and I’m really not hungry anymore.’ Picking up her bag, she crossed the bar full of diners and headed for the door.
It wasn’t only Spencer’s attitude towards Clayton that had spiked her need to be away from him; she realised that as soon as she was standing beneath the fairy lights in the porch, breathing deeply. It was more than that, but her mind refused to focus on what else it might be. She took more deep breaths, inhaling the sharp air with its hint of frost. Her car was only yards away; she could be in it and away in seconds, but she couldn’t do that to Spencer. Being out here alone was doing a fair job in calming her down.
A pair of tall, fake Christmas trees stood one each side of the entrance to the pub garden. They always decorated early here; it pulled the customers in. The trees were frosty white, strewn with hundreds of tiny white lights which twinkled like stars. From the branches hung oversized, clear glass baubles on silver ribbon, silver bells on red ribbon, and white sparkly snowmen wearing red and green scarves. Laura gazed at the trees and felt better. She loved Christmas and all the trappings that went with it. She couldn’t wait to fetch her own tree down from the attic, and all the decorations that came out faithfully, year after year.
But shouldn’t she have a real tree this year, one purchased from Green and Fragrant? They’d always had a real tree in James’s time. It was only in recent years she’d taken the easier option, but perhaps this year she should return to tradition. Holly would like that. She imagined herself looking over Clayton’s trees for just the right one. Clayton, helpful as he was, would carry it up to the house for her. He might even offer to help her put it in place. But if she said no, she could manage, he wouldn’t insist. Spencer, on the other hand, would assume that putting up a Christmas tree was most definitely a man’s job, and all she was capable of was hanging the baubles.
Goodness, where were these thoughts coming from? Why was her mind set on drawing comparisons between her gardener and the man whom she might, possibly, spend the rest of her life with? It was too bad of her, it really was. She felt slightly guilty but relieved when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around, leaning in to curve herself against the solid warmth of Spencer’s chest.
‘I’m sorry, Spence. I felt a bit off for a moment but I’m all right now.’ She peeled away from him and smiled. ‘Do you want to go back inside and have a dessert, or coffee?’
‘No, I’m good. Let’s call it a night, shall we? We don’t want your headache getting worse.’ His eyes gleamed in the soft light of the porch, the fairy lights above casting miniature pools of colour on his dark hair.
‘You’ve got a rainbow in your hair,’ Laura said, reaching up to touch the crown of his head.
Spencer raised his hand and caught hold of hers, taking it to his lips to press a kiss on her fingers. ‘I’m so sorry if I upset you. I never meant to. I do love you, Laura.’
‘Yes, I know.’
They walked across the gravelled forecourt to where the cars were parked, Spencer’s arm loosely around Laura’s shoulders.
‘Ah, two cars,’ Spencer said, as if he’d forgotten they’d arrived separately. ‘What’s it to be? Shall I follow you home, then? Unless you want to follow me?’
Laura felt unaccountably irritated. It wasn’t as though Spencer expected every date to end with sex, either at hers or his, although it often did. She wasn’t being fair on him, in her mind. But tonight her mind seemed to have a different agenda. If only she could work out what it was.
‘Do you mind if it’s not either?’ She smiled, placing a hand on Spencer’s chest. ‘Come to lunch tomorrow, if you like.’
It felt as if she was offering him a consolation prize. His face showed he was thinking the same. Really, she was too tired for this, too tired to negotiate, or to worry that she’d hurt Spencer’s feelings.
‘Of course I don’t mind. You get home and have a good night’s sleep. I’ll be busy tomorrow but I’ll ring you.’
Once she was home, Laura couldn’t bring herself to go straight to bed, tired though she was. Her dinner date with Spencer hadn’t been easy, and therefore it hadn’t been much fun either. It was her fault – well, partly. The moment she’d seen the way it was heading, she should have nipped the conversation about Clayton in the bud right away and smoothed it over. Instead, she’d come out of her corner fighting and made it a whole lot worse.
But that was just it. She still wasn’t sure what it had all been about, not really. If there was more to all this than appeared on the surface, Spencer wasn’t saying, and she certainly wouldn’t learn anything from Clayton.
Laura went through to the kitchen. She made herself some tea and took a couple of paracetamol – it was true, she did have a niggling headache – then went upstairs to the turret room. Without turning on the light, she stood by the uncurtained window, cradling her mug of tea. There was no moon tonight – it was lost in the murky winter sky – but there was just enough light to show the stark outlines of the trees, black against charcoal.
Spindlewood stood on a rise. At the front of the house, the grounds sloped gently downwards to the road, levelling out halfway down, at the spot Laura had earmarked for the Christmas tree plot. She stared through the gloom, sensing rather than seeing the undulating lawns which wrapped around the house, and the deep herbaceous borders, so wonderfully colourful in season. If she did have to leave here, she would miss the garden as much as the house.
Thinking about the garden brought Clayton back to mind; not that he’d been far from it. It was all very well blaming Spencer for overreacting to her news, but had she not done the same thing, rushing out of the pub like a stroppy teenager? It must have been as perplexing to Spencer as it was to her. Well, she’d make it up to him. She would invite him to dinner tomorrow instead of lunch and let him stay over, even though it was a school night. And she would try, if possible, to keep well away from the subject of Christmas trees, and Clayton.
The grandmother clock chimed twelve. Laura shivered in the slight draught. Taking a last look out of the window, she visualised the miniature, transitory pine forest that was about to appear in her garden, and smiled into the darkness.