Chapter 12 #2
That was enough. It wasn’t enthusiasm, exactly – but it wasn’t a ‘no’. Christina felt her shoulders relax just slightly. He could picture a future here. She was sure of it.
She forced a breath through her nose. ‘So, you think we should buy it.’
‘I didn’t say that’ he replied, too quickly. ‘I just mean . . . if this would make you happy . . .’
If. Always if. As though her happiness was something abstract, a puzzle for her to solve alone. She could feel the weight of it sliding across the floor between them.
Christina moved to a window, trailing her fingers along the sill, where plaster curled back in thin, papery layers, a painful reminder of her unravelling marriage.
This house mattered. Something that could tether them. She’d brought him here because she believed that to fix them, they needed a fresh start, in the right house.
‘It’s got presence,’ Hamish said, stepping carefully around the rubble. ‘You can see it, can’t you . . . the lords and their guests, stomping in with mud on their boots, hounds barking outside. This place wasn’t just shelter; it was part of the performance.’
‘It has charm, doesn’t it? The kind of house you don’t forget. The kind your family admires,’ she said.
‘Ernest has called a family meeting,’ he added, too casually.
The words flew out before she could catch them. ‘With your lot? That won’t be a meeting, it’ll be a bloody circus.’
She felt the flush rise in her cheeks. Old habits.
She hadn’t meant to snip. She’d spent years softening those edges – deliberately reshaping herself into someone calmer, steadier.
Someone who didn’t roll her eyes or fire from the hip every time one of his relatives said or did something ridiculous.
Hamish laughed, surprised. ‘There’s the firebrand I married. I thought she’d disappeared.’
She froze. The flush deepened – this time laced with embarrassment. She looked away sharply. What was that supposed to mean? That she was backsliding? That he missed the impulsive, loud-mouthed version of her he’d once romanticised before realising how inconvenient she was at family dinners?
‘Well,’ she muttered, voice tight, ‘good to know I still pass for entertainment.
He looked at her oddly. ‘That’s not what I . . .’
‘Forget it,’ she cut in, brushing dust from her coat with unnecessary force.
He didn’t speak for a moment. Just stood there, watching her like she was something half-familiar.
‘The meeting’s probably about money,’ he offered after a pause. ‘Another reminder from Ernest to watch the spending. Ma’s idea of budgeting is washing her own hair. And Hugo’s spent the last two decades drifting about the Manor like some Edwardian gentleman who’s misplaced his era.’
Christina snorted. ‘Sounds like a proper royal court.’
Hamish shook his head with a tired smile. ‘Honestly, it was much easier managing rebels in Tudor times. At least Cromwell knew how to keep things in order – no dithering committees, just a quick axe and no warning.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Christina said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Much less messy when heads roll.’
‘Exactly,’ Hamish grinned. ‘Though I suppose Ernest’s version of “keeping things together” is slightly less . . . decapitating.’
‘Maybe it would be easier if Ernest stopped appointing himself chancellor of the bloody exchequer.’
‘He’s just trying to steady the ship. Help out.’
She shot him a sidelong look. ‘Yes. And I’m the help.’
He chuckled softly, the familiar warmth back in his eyes. ‘You know it’s not like that.’
For a moment, their teasing tethered them in a fragile truce.
He wandered over to the stairs and nudged a tread with his foot. ‘These could be hand-cut oak. You’d need to stabilise the foundation, obviously, but . . .’ He looked around, almost wistfully. ‘It has potential.’
‘So, you do want to move here.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
No, she thought. But you didn’t say you didn’t either.
‘I just . . .’ she began, then stopped. She didn’t know how to explain the ache in her heart. That gnawing sense of needing to do something – anything – before everything collapsed.
‘Do you think the meeting is about your mother?’ she asked instead. She didn’t want to frighten him but couldn’t block out the look in Ernest’s eyes when he mentioned taking Flora to the doctor about her forgetfulness.
Hamish frowned. ‘Could be. She’s the worst culprit for extravagance.’
Christina exhaled slowly, eyes drifting to the sagging beams above.
The wind whistled through the drafty windows, and she looked at her husband – half-lit in the pale winter light, talking again about ancient joists like they mattered more than his mother, his brother, or everything that had come undone between them.
By early evening, the windows of Prosecco twenty minutes ago. She felt an icy draft and glanced up.
‘Darling, you look positively peaked,’ Lady Penelope declared, settling herself into a burgundy velvet armchair with the fluid grace of someone who had spent decades perfecting the art of making an entrance.
Christina signalled for a top up and a glass for her friend. A diamond bracelet at Penelope’s wrist sparkled as she lifted her flute. Christina smiled; Penelope made even drinking look like a performance.
‘I’m perfectly fine,’ Christina lied. Around them, the bookshop hummed – the soft thud of hardbacks being re-shelved, the rustle of pages turning, the distant hiss of the coffee machine.
‘Of course you are, sweet thing.’ Penelope laughed, but it rang hollow. ‘That’s why you’re hiding in a bookshop on a Saturday, drowning your sorrows in sparkling wine. Very healthy coping mechanism, I must say.’
Christina set down her glass harder than necessary, the clink drawing a sharp look from a nearby customer. ‘I’m not drowning anything. I’m simply . . . taking a moment.’
‘Of course you are.’ Penelope leaned forward conspiratorially, her perfume – something flowery and expensive that probably cost more than Christina’s monthly grocery budget – wafting across the space between them. ‘How are you really, darling? How are things with Hamish?’
Christina felt her cheeks flush. She took another sip of prosecco, letting the bubbles distract her from the sting of truth. ‘We’re working through things.’
‘Working through things,’ Penelope repeated, her tone suggesting she found the phrase amusing.
‘How wonderfully optimistic of you. Rather like saying the Titanic was having navigational difficulties. I hear our children are becoming quite the theatrical partnership,’ Penelope continued, examining her manicured nails with studied casualness.
‘Elspeth and my Benjamin, rehearsing together for these plays.’
Christina felt a surge of maternal pride. ‘Elspeth’s very talented . . .’
‘Oh, I’m sure she is, darling. Benjamin speaks very highly of her.
Very highly indeed.’ The way Penelope said it made it sound vaguely scandalous, though Christina couldn’t put her finger on why.
‘Though one does hope they’re spending as much time on their lines as they claim.
It never took me more than a week to learn lines for a play in my Oxford days. ’
The coffee grinder whirred to life behind the counter, and Christina found herself grateful for the noise – it gave her a moment to process the odd undercurrent in Penelope’s voice. Was this the reason for the summons – to subtly warn her not to let Elspeth get too close to Ben?
‘They’re just friends,’ Christina said finally, dismissing the image of her daughter’s blushing face – Elspeth couldn’t mention Ben’s name without reddening.
‘Of course they are. At their age, friendship is so delightfully . . . fluid.’ Penelope raised her glass in a mock toast. ‘Here’s to the resilience of youth, and the delusions of their mothers.’
She felt her temper spark. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing at all, sweet thing. Simply that we all make accommodations, don’t we?
It’s what women of substance do.’ Penelope’s smile was razor thin.
‘You with Hamish, me with William. William and I haven’t shared a meaningful conversation in fifteen years, let alone anything more intimate.
But we soldier on, don’t we? Stability has its own rewards. ’
The comparison made Christina’s skin crawl. Whatever problems she and Hamish had, they’d once loved each other desperately, passionately. To compare that to Penelope’s glacial arrangement felt like sacrilege.
‘Our situations are hardly the same,’ Christina said stiffly.
‘Aren’t they?’ Penelope tilted her head like a bird studying an interesting worm. ‘Oh, I forgot – you still believe in romantic love. How refreshing.’
The prosecco tasted sour in Christina’s mouth.
Before she could respond, Penelope breezed on, already bored of her own jab.
‘Anyway, Chase Lodge. I’m going to play around with some ideas this weekend.
Textures, palettes, the whole thing. One needs to start somewhere.
And then I want to go back there with you, discuss the project. Give me a couple of days.’
Christina frowned, surely this was putting the cart before the horse; what she needed was an architect not interior design advice. She hesitated. ‘Actually, I’ve been looking into architects. There’s someone local, a woman called Rhianna. She’s based in the village. Small practice, but—’
Penelope’s eyes sharpened, a flash of horror.
‘Darling, no. You need a proper heritage architect. Not someone who learned on . . . garden offices and loft conversions.’ She gave a papery little laugh.
‘Honestly, the number of people calling themselves architects these days; it’s like styling myself a painter because I once held a Farrow somewhere cold and dreary, the Alps or Scotland or something, but the moment he’s back, I’ll introduce you. He will transform the lodge.’
Christina nodded, trying to absorb Penelope’s certainty, to let it buoy her, instead of swamping her.
She must be positive, especially now that Hamish had seen the lodge.
She smiled, hoping that if she acted enthusiastic enough, the feeling might eventually follow.
This Humphrey man sounded like he would be expensive.
‘Penelope, about Humphrey, I don’t need . . .’
‘Of course you don’t, darling. But you want. And wanting is so much more interesting than needing, don’t you think?’ Penelope drained her glass and set it down with finality. ‘Trust me, sweet thing. I know exactly what you need, even if you don’t quite see it yet.’
She couldn’t challenge her, not when Penelope was being so generous with her time. Chase Lodge would be a compromise, but it would be worth it.
She forced a smile and reached for her prosecco, but it had lost its sparkle.