It fit him well, too. It wouldn’t have fit Gabe—not that he’d have acquiesced even if it had fit. But he had a grandfather in Rivendell, not a grandmother, and perhaps more to the point, he wasn’t a part of the fabric of the town any longer. His life in Boston, or wherever, had beckoned.
Most of the residents—men and women alike—assembled in the sunroom for a mini fashion show. Grace Webster provided commentary on Jane Austen’s life and works, with details on each of the dresses modeled by Felicity and a half-dozen various elderly women thoroughly enjoying themselves. Grace had done meticulous research, and she had good teacher’s instincts and experience to know when her audience had had enough.
As Felicity cleaned up after the tea, she found herself wishing Gabe had stayed, but she hadn’t asked him to. He might not have realized he could have stayed. Whenever she was at Rivendell, she appreciated the rich lives the residents had. She wasn’t naive. Many of the men and women who’d enjoyed today’s tea had chronic health issues, and they would be the first to say they had fewer days ahead of them than behind them. Felicity had known most of them her entire life. She liked being around them. Her own grandparents were gone. Her maternal grandmother, the last, had died a few months after she’d quit finance and started work as an event planner.
Several of the residents had pulled her aside, reminiscing about how her grandfather had helped them get mortgages when they were starting out in life. He knew them, and he knew they were good for it, they’d tell her. That had been a different world from the one she’d entered as a financial analyst, but she’d never wanted to follow her grandfather and father into local banking. That world, too, had changed since her grandfather’s day.
By the time she returned home, she was dead on her feet. The house seemed so quiet. She peeled off her Regency dress—imagining Gabe was there—and forced herself to pull the sheets off the bed he’d used and throw them in the wash.
That was enough for now.
Tomorrow she’d turn her attention to Kylie’s book launch and other events further out in her calendar. The work she did now, upstream, would make everything smoother later on.
She placed a slice of leftover tea cake on a plate and poured a glass of champagne, walked out to the deck and sat on the most comfortable chair. It didn’t have a footstool, but she put her feet up on the low coffee table and set her goodies on the side table. A cool breeze floated through the trees. She could smell the river, and she could hear ducks not too far in the distance. She thought she could smell ashes from Gabe’s fires the past two nights, but she decided that was her imagination.
She picked up her champagne and held it up to the trees. “To me,” she said with a smile.
She’d managed her biggest party in Knights Bridge to date, with its very own movers and shakers, and she’d segued right into a Jane Austen tea. She’d survived her odd encounters with Nadia Ainsworth. She’d developed a rough plan for Kylie’s badgers.
Most of all, she’d gotten through having Gabe Flanagan as a houseguest.
They were friends again, weren’t they?
Maybe. She thought so. He could also go back to Boston and she wouldn’t hear from him for another three years. For sure any friendship wouldn’t be the same as the one they’d had before she’d marched out of his apartment that cold February morning. It couldn’t be. They weren’t the same people they’d been then.
Felicity raised her glass a bit higher. “Cheers, Gabriel Flanagan, wherever you are, whatever is next for you—for us.”
* * *
By noon the next day, Felicity was deep into the world of the clever, fictional Badgers of Middle Branch. She packed a rough version of two of the badgers in her tote bag and walked to the Mill at Moss Hill and met Kylie and Russ on their balcony.
“These are fantastic,” Kylie said, grabbing one of the tiny stuffed badgers and holding it up. “Sherlock Badger is going to have friends. I hope he doesn’t get jealous because they’re cuter than he is.”
Russ turned to Felicity. “Kylie thinks Sherlock is real,” he half whispered. “Indulge her.”
Kylie grinned. “I considered asking Sherlock to walk me down the aisle.”
Her artistic imagination and sense of fun were somehow compatible with her ex-navy security consultant husband. Russ clearly appreciated his bride’s talents as an illustrator and storyteller. The mysteries of love, Felicity thought as she picked up the second half-done badger. “I see this one as the mom badger and the one you’re holding as the dad badger. We can dress them in outfits from the first book in the series. Does that work for you?”
“Love it,” Kylie said. “I do okay with a needle and thread but best to farm out any real sewing. Do you have anyone in mind? Can I help find someone?”
“Still working on that. I can sew, but it’ll be faster to get someone else to do it.”
“I can help, but you’ll know more people in town than Russ and I do. You grew up here. You’ll never be a newcomer.”
For whatever that was worth. Felicity wondered what it must be like for her new friends to look at her hometown through fresh eyes. They wouldn’t see the pre-renovation boarded up windows at Moss Hill, or remember Mark and Gabe as teenagers plotting their exit from Knights Bridge. It wasn’t a positive or a negative, just a different relationship with their new home.
They reviewed the guest list, the schedule for the evening and everything that needed to happen between now and Friday. As events went, the book-launch party wasn’t complicated, but Kylie, Felicity had discovered, was afraid no one would come. Even with RSVPs, she was convinced everyone who’d promised to be there would bail
