Chapter Thirty-Five – Rose
ROSE
Dearly Beloved
“ D on’t use that,” I said to Eleanor as she opened the sugar pot.
She stared into it. “Why not?”
“Just trust me.”
She leant down and sniffed it. “Ah. I see. I thought Oli’s punishment for the contract debacle was over when you finally put him out of his misery and handed him back the stewardship contract last week.”
“Mm,” I said, scrolling my Instagram feed absent-mindedly. “This one is for killing one of my new raspberry canes two days ago.”
“Oh, I see.” Eleanor pulled the sugar bag down from the cupboard and put a spoonful into her tea. “Understandable, then. He really is a bull in a china shop, isn’t he?”
I sighed heavily. “A tornado in a wind tunnel,” I replied. “I don’t know how he managed it. I explicitly told him not to touch them because he’d cut the wrong ones, but here we are.”
“It was one cane,” the man in question said, walking into the kitchen. “Then I bought you three more plants. Was that not sufficient enough an apology?”
I raised my head to look at him, my gaze dropping to his arms. “I’m sorry, why are you in the kitchen in your lingerie?”
Oliver paused. “What lingerie? I’m fully dressed.”
I leant over and pinched his rolled-up shirt sleeve. “This. This is dirty. Please put on some proper clothes.”
He leant down and hit me with his best smile. “Is that so? What are you going to do about it?”
Eleanor cleared her throat. “As pleased as I am to have got myself a daughter, please don’t flirt in front of me.”
Oliver looked between us. “Why doesn’t it bother you when she calls you her daughter, but the second someone asks us if we’re going to get married you look like a rabbit over a stewing pot?”
I blinked innocently at him. “Well, for starters, being her daughter means I’m stuck with her for life.”
“Marrying me means you’re with me for life, too. What’s the difference?”
“One is your mother and the other is, well, you.”
He flicked the side of my head and walked away, shaking his head. “You know, if we’d been dating longer than a couple of months, I’d be offended by that.”
I slurped my matcha latte through the straw, staring at him. “Good thing it’s only been two months, then, huh?”
He laughed, still shaking his head, and made himself a cup of coffee. I averted my gaze when he put two teaspoons of the contents of the sugar pot in his mug and stirred it in.
I also skirted my chair back and got ready to run.
Oliver sat down opposite me and looked at me. “Why do you look like you’re about to run?”
“Busy day,” I said vaguely.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because—” I paused. “Eleanor, plug your ears.”
She covered her ears with her hands.
“Someone is a neanderthal who fell asleep on me and wouldn’t let me go,” I said, looking pointedly at Oliver. “And last time I left after dark, you brought up statistics about badgers and cows attacking humans. It was a performance I’d rather not repeat.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” He raised his mug to his lips, then paused. “Uncover your ears, Mum,” he said loudly.
“Thank you.” She dropped her hands. “So, do you kids have any plans today?”
“Work,” I said with a sigh. “There’s not much to do at the allotment since the season is winding down, but now that the trees are losing their leaves, there’s a lot to collect.”
“Why are you collecting them?” Oliver asked. “You’re a gardener, not a road sweep.”
“They make for good mulch. I get them on my usual rounds. They break down quickly, so they’re a great fertiliser. And they’re free, which is my favourite price.” I grinned. “So, if you see me pushing a bright yellow sweeper around the grounds here, you saw nothing.”
He laughed, shaking his head, and finally took a sip of his coffee. He immediately spat it out and looked at me. “Rose.”
“Shit.” I got to my feet and pushed off the table, the force giving me a head start.
“You little—” The pounding of Oliver’s feet against the floor suggested he was following me, and I squealed, almost running into Bruce.
“Bruce, think fast!” I said, grabbing him and spinning us around so he was a blockade in Oliver’s path.
“What on Earth?”
“Rose!” Oliver called. “Get over here now!”
I turned around and poked my tongue out over my shoulder and swung a right… straight into two closed doors.
Oh, no.
For all the fun of the long, winding hallways in Hanbury House, there were just as many dead ends, and I had yet to learn where all these hallways went.
Oliver stopped, now blocking my only exit. I flattened myself against the door, staring at him with wide eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “It was just… just a little prank.”
“Rose.” He stepped towards me slowly, almost prowling. Like he was tracking his prey.
Damn it. I knew better than to run.
“Oliver,” I replied sweetly, smiling.
He didn’t buy it. He pressed his hands over my head on the doorway and shoved his leg between mine, blocking me in.
“Shit. You got me.”
He chuckled, lowering his face. “You ducked under my arm last time—I’m not about to let that happen again.”
Yeah, he was bound to catch onto my tricks sooner or later.
“Salt? In the sugar pot, really?” He raised his eyebrows, but he wasn’t the slightest bit annoyed. “Why wasn’t Mum bothered by it?”
“I warned her. Obviously.” I licked my lips. “I’ll change it back.”
“Hmm.” His gaze dropped to my mouth. “Apologise.”
“I just did.”
“No, you faked an apology. Apologise to me properly.”
I sighed. “You’re so needy.”
He closed his eyes expectantly, and I pecked a tiny kiss to his lips.
“There. Apology given.”
His eyes snapped open. “Rose.”
I laughed and grabbed his shirt, closing the distance between us. I kissed him slowly, letting my tongue tease the seam of his lips. He cradled my head with his hands and deepened our kiss. It sent shivers through me as it always did, and I hoped I would never tire of the feeling.
I whimpered into his mouth as heat spread through my body, and he pulled back.
“Put the sugar back,” he grumbled, meeting my eyes. “And stop running. You know I’ll catch you.”
“You always do. But maybe I just like the chase.” I caught my tongue between my teeth and grinned playfully.
“Maybe? You know you do.” He slid his hands down my body and cupped my bum, pulling me against him so I could feel his growing erection in his pants. “And you know I like it, too, so stop teasing me and go to work before I make you call your clients and tell them you’re ill.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” I kissed the corner of his mouth and skipped away from him. “Wait, which way do I need to go? I’m lost.”
He laughed and took my head, lacing our fingers together. “I’ll print you a map. You’re here enough, after all.”
What could I say? Eleanor bought the good bread from the bakery. “Please do.”
“I just don’t understand how the logistics will work,” I said, zipping my coat up a little further before returning to my sunflower heads.
“What are you going to do to exchange rings? Neither of you can hop the fences at your age, and you can hardly walk down your allotments and pop through my gate, can you?”
George mapped the process out in the air with his finger. “Don’t see why not.”
“I told him it won’t work,” Susan said. “But he’s adamant. Besides, can the allotments even hold a wedding here?”
“No. Why would we have a wedding license? It’s an allotment site, not a bloody pub.”
“See, George? I told you.”
George returned to scratching Hades on the back of the head at his displeased mewl. “What about the party here?”
“What if it rains? Are we all going to sit in our sheds and greenhouses and communicate on walkie talkies?” I asked. “Besides, there’s no real community space here.”
Susan cocked her head to one side. “What about asking your nice gentleman for a bit more space temporarily?”
“He already gave us another two acres,” I reminded her. “Although thanks to our little market festival thing this summer, we seem to have an insane amount of interest, and I’m trying to decide how to break them all up.”
“What do you want from me now?” Oliver asked, leaning on my fence. “Susan, you’re not trying to extort things out of my wife again, are you?”
“I’m not your wife,” I replied.
“You sure act like it,” George muttered.
I flicked a sunflower seed at him. He caught it and chomped down on it, and I shuddered.
I didn’t know how he could eat them like that.
What was he, a bird?
“We’re trying to figure out the wedding, dear,” she said to Oliver. “I don’t think we can make it work at the allotments like George wants.”
“Oh, for a minute, I thought you were talking about our wedding,” he replied.
“We’re not engaged,” I said.
“Yet.”
“Still not engaged.” I plucked the last seed from the sunflower head and put the head to the side before reaching for another dried one. “Got any ideas?”
He wrinkled up his nose. “You could use a garden at Hanbury House if you’re dead set on it being held outside.”
Susan perked up. “Really?”
“Yeah, we have a wedding venue license. Most big estates like ours do these days. It’s one of the reasons I was going to sell—” He stopped talking when he saw my dark look.
“That I rearranged funding,” he reworded himself.
“There’s a big gazebo-pergola type thing in one of the gardens, and it’s often hosted weddings. ”
I tilted my head to the side. “I’ve never seen that.”
“You wouldn’t have. You hyperventilate whenever someone mentions the word ‘wedding’ and ‘Hanbury’ in the same sentence.”
This time, I flicked a sunflower seed at him. Thankfully, he didn’t share George’s fondness for them, and it fell to the ground… somewhere.
Guess we’d find out where next year.
“We have a few different places a ceremony can be held. There’s one that’s exclusive only to the direct members of the family, but the others are open for everyone.
It’s an area I haven’t gotten around to dealing with yet, so we’ve not held any for a while, but we can probably figure something out. ”
Susan chewed the inside of her cheek. “I don’t think we need anything that fancy, though. It’s the second marriage for both of us.”
Did that matter? Was it against some kind of societal rule for a second marriage to be simple and not fancy? Was it any less important than their first one?
“So?” Oliver said, shrugging. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have the wedding you want. Think about it—your first marriages were when you were young, and were they your dream wedding?”
George and Susan shared a look. “Not the dream of dreams,” she said after a moment.
“Nothing wrong with it,” George said. “To be honest, I don’t care much either way. I’d be happy if her dream was us nipping to the registry office and going home for a cuppa. If you want a fancy one, Susie, let’s have a fancy one.”
I smiled and patted his hand. He was gruff and grumpy at the best of times, but he had a big ol’ soft heart in there somewhere.
She hesitated. “But won’t it be expensive?”
I looked at Oliver. “Will it be expensive, Mr Fancypants?”
His lips pulled to one side as his eyes met mine. “I don’t think so. You see, princess, I happen to know a guy.”
“Oh, do you? Do you think he’d be willing to offer my dearest friends a discount?”
“I think he’d do just about anything for you if you asked.”
George faked a sick noise. “And you complain to us about the flirting.”
“Now you know how I’ve felt for years!” I laughed, picking the last seeds out of the sunflower head. “Ow. Now my fingers hurt.”
“I’ve told you before to use tweezers.” Susan took hold of my hand and examined my fingers. “Look at your poor fingers, you silly thing.”
Oliver let himself into the plot and came over, taking my hand from Susan. “Rose…”
“They’ll be fine with a bit of ice. I’m not plucking the seeds out with bloody tweezers,” I huffed.
He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to each of my fingers. “Maybe this will stop you putting salt in the sugar pot for a few days.”
“That depends on if you annoy me again or not.”
Susan sighed. “Again, Rose?”
I grinned at her. “And still, he doesn’t check before he puts it in his coffee.”
George got to his feet, depositing Hades on his chair. “That’s on him,” George said. “If I were you, lad, I’d be taste testing that every time.”
Oliver grinned, resting his forearms on my legs and looking up at him. “Yeah, I know, but the look of delight she gets when I make a face is too cute.”
“You—” I tugged on his ear.
Susan laughed, following George to the gate. “Ah, who’d have thought it would work out like this.” She closed the gate behind them and looked over at me with a twinkle in her eye. “The world is a weird old place, isn’t it?”
I smiled. “Especially in Hanbury.”
Oliver looked up at me, still crouching in front of me. “And I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
I leant down. “You almost did, though.”
“Rose.” He pulled me down and fell backwards onto the gravel, and I flumped on top of him. “Ouch.”
“That was stupid,” I said, sliding my hand under the back of his head and rubbing it. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, but I’m your idiot. Right?” He gave me the stupidest, most playful smile I’d ever seen cross his face.
“Like a pet,” I said, touching the tip of his nose. “I meant it that time I said I’d lock you in my shed.”
“Mm.” He pulled my head down until our lips touched. “Go ahead. I like what we do in there.”
I smiled against his lips.
Yeah.
So did I.
Just as long as we didn’t get caught.