Love Knows Best
KNIGHTLEY
“Sorry I’m late.” I bent over, hands on knees, heaving in the wintry Cotswolds air.
I’d sprinted from my vet clinic to relieve Hetty Bates who ran our animal foster stall at our local farmers’ market. Highbury was a sleepy little medieval village, but today the cobblestone square was already bustling with villagers and visitors.
Hetty had parked the crates of kittens outside Bettina’s Bridal Boutique. I could tell she was itching to get in there and join the bachelorette party who were helping pick out the bride’s dress.
“I’ll take over from here, Hetty,” I said. “You head inside.”
“Knightley, I’m just so excited I can barely speak.
” Hetty fanned her face, which was as startlingly pink as her outfit.
“Invited to a ‘hen do,’ no less.” She beamed and turned to her elderly mother, who was seated beside her, staring straight ahead as usual.
“So excited I can barely speak, Mother,” she repeated.
Hetty smoothed her wool suit and adjusted the bird-shaped fascinator on her head, dressed as though she were having tea with the Queen.
But this queen was a different kind of royal. One called Emma Woodhouse.
“Can you believe Emma included me today?” Hetty gazed adoringly through the boutique window at our friend Emma who’d organized the party for her former nanny. “She’s so witty, so charming, so kind. Isn’t she kind, Mother?” Hetty bellowed to her mother who looked blankly ahead. “Kind!”
I felt my eyebrows shoot up.
Hetty must have seen my skepticism. “And so beautiful!” Now Hetty was bellowing at me.
“Oh my God,” said a passing teen girl, pointing to the boutique. “Is that Emma Woodhouse? The influencer?”
“Gorge,” her friend said.
“Stunner.”
Gorge. Stunner. Couldn’t argue with those descriptions.
Through the large shop window, I had a full view of Emma, wide-set blue eyes, heart-shaped face and swingy blond hair that shone under the chandelier.
Tall and slender, she twirled gracefully in the middle of the pink-clad cluster of women sipping bubbles.
Emma topped them up and offered tiny cupcakes.
It wasn’t just her face and figure—she had fucking great style.
Even someone utterly clueless like me, who wore mostly scrubs, could see it.
She was in one of her classic outfits, a pink dress that was all ruffles at the high neckline, but extremely short, with clunky black booties and lacy socks.
Like an Edwardian angel…who’d been very naughty.
Her thighs must be bloody cold, though. Stop looking at your friend’s thighs. Toned, gorgeous, thighs that I’d seen run by my caravan. Stop fucking looking at her thighs, mate.
As Emma chatted with everyone, her eyes sparkled even brighter.
No wonder. She was in her element—in charge, and everyone hanging on whatever opinion that dropped from those full red lips of hers.
As though she knew I was thinking about her lips, she plucked a berry out of her glass and ate it.
Juice dripped over her bottom lip and she licked it clean.
An irritated noise escaped my throat.
“It’s the vanity that worries me,” I said gruffly.
Why did I sound like a grumpy bastard? Because I’d had to get up early with a difficult foaling.
Nothing to do with Emma’s ridiculously short dress—which I’d only noticed because the frothy piece of fabric was unsuitable for this freezing winter.
Or those lace-up boots that looked…too fucking good on those bare legs of hers.
Er, hard to walk in. Or the way the women seated in the boutique seemed to be cracking up at whatever she said.
Christ. I was sounding like what she called me—old man—even though I was only six years older than her.
“Vain? Not at all.” Hetty was annoyed, and she was seldom irritated with me. “She wears her beauty with such ease.”
“She’s not vain about her beauty,” I conceded. “It’s about something else. Her vanity comes from thinking she sees people more clearly than they see themselves. That she knows best. She trusts her own judgment so completely that she reshapes reality around it.
“Her true vanity lies in her belief that she is cleverer and more insightful than those around her. Her high opinion of her own judgment leads her to ignore reality and manipulate situations to fit her own stories.”
My heated outburst sounded too thought through—maybe because it was. I had thought long and hard about why Emma worried me. Hetty now looked distinctly uncomfortable. Even her mother who usually had a vacant look, glanced away.
Inexplicably wound up, I knew I was being ridiculous even as I raised a finger as though I’d been asked for evidence in court.
“Case in point. First, she claimed responsibility for getting my brother and her sister together. Then she reckoned she paired Lizzy with Darcy, as well as Jane and William. Now she says she set up Annie, her old nanny, with Weston. She’s taken full credit for the match, and she insisted on organizing today, and actually pretty much the wedding day too.
And the amazing thing— people let her take over like this. ”
As I’d told Emma when she’d boasted of getting Annie and Weston, her idle thoughts didn’t constitute a match.
Rational thought versus her emotional meddling. That pretty much summed us up.
“Oh Knightley, that’s not like you to speak of Emma in that way,” Hetty said in a disappointed tone.
It was very like me to speak of Emma in that way, and it was nothing I wouldn’t, and hadn’t, said to her face, however hard I tried to hold my tongue in the moment.
I checked my annoyance. Why was I getting so worked up about this woman?
This always happened. Why did I care so much what she did or said? I certainly didn’t want to.
God knows I had enough to occupy my time elsewhere— tending to sick animals, birthing baby animals, calming their high maintenance humans, endless fundraising, my volunteering abroad.
I had no time to worry about how a slightly spoiled, admittedly attractive, 28-year-old woman should shape up.
But I had no choice. We were intertwined for the rest of our lives.
My brother and her sister were married, and we were aunt and uncle to their five kids.
I lived next door to Emma and her father.
That meant I had to see her all the time.
That was the reason I was so invested in her behavior.
Hetty looked increasingly concerned. “You need to cuddle a kitten. That’ll calm you down. We still have five left out of ten.”
I grinned with surprise. “Only five left? You adopted out five in just one hour?” She hadn’t even taken them out of the crate yet. “Well done you, Hetty.”
“It wasn’t all me as you know,” she said. “People already feel they knew these kittens. They already felt attached to them.”
Guilt crawled along my spine. This was thanks to the very woman I was grumbling about. Emma did our social media, and she was brilliant at it.
Still, I’d have to do some hustling this morning with the passersby.
I steeled myself not to cuddle one of the kittens.
That wasn’t the solution. That was how I’d ended up with way too many animals on my property.
And, as I was currently living in a caravan in a field, there wasn’t enough space for kittens who needed to be inside.
I was rivaling the Balfours at the Amor Inn with how many four-legged creatures I lived with, albeit better-trained ones.
With a cheery wave to me, Hetty wheeled her mother into the boutique.
Once Hetty and her mother were inside, I saw through the front window that Emma made a fuss over them and got Hetty’s mother settled, though I could see her press her lips a little at Hetty’s constant nattering.
Emma could be kind. Remorse nudged me in the side.
Maybe I was a bit hard on her. She did have good qualities, but she usually made sure they were well-witnessed.
What bothered me was how she used her talents for her own self-aggrandizement.
She never really did anything for anyone without thinking about how good it made her look.
Get a grip, man. Move on. I’d really lost my sense of humor today.
Right. I needed to get our homeless kittens out of their crates and bewitching passersby. Game time, you cute little balls of fluff.
I pulled one ginger furry ball out of his crate to transfer him to the playpen. Despite myself I couldn’t help cuddling him. He yowled and scratched at my face. I jerked away and he looked at me as if butter wouldn’t melt. I chuckled. Hmm. Reminds me of someone not a million miles from here.
Thankfully, a crowd soon gathered as I lowered all the kittens into the playpen so the passersby could see them more clearly.
I didn’t want to even think about what decisions I’d have to make if they weren’t adopted today.
I swallowed around a lump in my throat. People came up to watch the kittens playing, and I focused on carefully supervising the kids who wanted to pet them.
This was also a chance to talk to their parents about my volunteer work on farms in Bhutan.
There was a lot to keep me occupied. So why was I constantly checking on Emma and her antics in the boutique?
Two more of the kittens were adopted, and I was busy getting people to fill out forms, purchase a crate, and suggest a donation to enable our clinic to give shots and neuter stray animals.
Someone asked about my spiel—
A flash of pink and blond caught my eye.
My breath hitched. Emma emerged from the boutique.