Emily murmured something back. She’d known Alice had lived with Lady Stokeley—at least she thought she had. Alice had been her carer, which was how Henry had met her. A fairy-tale romance, by all accounts, just as Alice herself had said.
“And how are you finding living here together?” Emily asked. “Are you used to the quiet?”
“Oh, yes. It still feels as if we’re rattling around in here, though. We only use a couple of rooms.”
“We’ll fill them up soon enough,” Henry said with a significant look.
“You’ll be using the manor for the holidays, I suppose?” Emily surmised, and Alice blushed. Oh. So he hadn’t been talking about the holidays.
“That, as well,” Henry answered with a chuckle. “But we’re keen to start a family of our own.”
“When the time’s right,” Alice said quickly, and rose from the table to refill the water pitcher. Emily detected an undercurrent but she couldn’t figure out what it was. She certainly wasn’t about to ask.
“Anyway, Emily,” Henry resumed, “I promise I won’t work you too hard. I want you to be able to explore the Cotswolds, and all Wychwood-on-Lea has to offer.” He smiled encouragingly. “It’s important, in organising the fundraiser, that you’re able to take part in the community life of the village. Get to know all the shopkeepers and local businesses. Be a face in the village.”
“So in one breath you tell her that you won’t work her too hard,” Alice teased as she sat back down at the table, “and in the next you say it’s all work!”
Henry grinned, unabashed. “I’m afraid that’s how I operate. But Emily knows that?” He raised his eyebrows in query, and Emily nodded back, although her stomach was churning.
Yes, she’d known that. Back in London Henry had regularly pulled fourteen-hour days, and Emily had often worked through her lunch breaks and into the evenings. But her boss seemed to be asking for something rather alarmingly different here—involving herself in the community life of the village? Getting to know all the small businesses?
Did Henry know her at all?
Perhaps he did, because he favoured her with a smile that seemed just a bit too knowingly compassionate as he said, “I think this move to Wychwood-on-Lea will be very good for you, Emily.”
Right.
The conversation moved on, and Emily nibbled at her shepherd’s pie—delicious—as she half-listened to Alice and Henry debate which room to renovate next, and then describe the village’s spring fete, complete with an egg hunt and Easter bonnet competition.
It sounded rather idyllic, and yet somehow, combined with the loveliness in the room, from the pie to the wine to the cat in the corner, it was all having the unfortunate effect of making her feel a bit melancholy. Everything about this was outside of her experience, which should have been fine, but for some reason tonight it wasn’t.
From the age of seven, Emily had grown up avoiding adults, attention, conversation, or care. Her life had revolved around her mother and keeping them both safe, and while that had had its own rewards, it hadn’t been anything like this. She didn’t like feeling the lack; in London she never had. Or maybe she just hadn’t let herself.
In any case, it was ridiculous to want something like this, or to feel like she’d missed out on something. She knew she’d missed out on the stereotypically normal childhood. That much had always been obvious all along, but she hadn’t minded.
Besides, most children didn’t grow up in a manor house, with a kitchen the size of a skating rink, in a village that, if Alice and Henry were to be believed, was like something out of Midsomer Murders but without the crime. None of it had to make her feel as if she’d somehow been deprived.
“So are you all unpacked?” Alice asked as she brought a sherry trifle to the table, along with custard and pouring cream.
“Mostly. I didn’t have that much to begin with, anyway.” She’d tried to speak lightly, but Alice was giving her that funny smile again, an uncomfortable mix of puzzlement and pity, as if Emily had just said something normal people didn’t. Surely not everyone was a hoarder, Emily thought with a touch of irritation. “You’ll have to tell me the best place to buy groceries and things,” she said a bit over-brightly, and Alice nodded, and launched into a discussion about the new deli that had opened up on the high street, along with the Tesco on the other side of the village.
The conversation remained thankfully innocuous as they had their coffees, liberally laced with liqueur, and when Henry insisted on showing her the office before she started work tomorrow, Emily tottered on her feet. She hadn’t had so much alcohol in a long while, if ever.
She followed him down a dark, rather dreary hallway, lined with more heavy oil paintings of frowning ancestors and muddy country scenes, before he threw open two wood-panelled doors and flicked on the lights of what had once been the morning room.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said rather unrepentantly as Emily blinked. There were piles of papers everywhere, along with teetering stacks of books, frames six deep stacked against the walls, and boxes of unidentifiable items scattered around. Someone had cleared a narrow path between all the mess to get to the other side of the room, but that was it. It was her worst nightmare come to life. The stacks of papers, crumpled and disordered…the dust…
“How on earth am I supposed to work?” Emily asked faintly, and Henry clapped a friendly hand on her shoulder.
“Alice said the same thing, but you’re brilliant at organising, Emily, and I thought since this is mainly your office, you ought to have charge of how it’s set up. Order whatever you like, and anything you don’t want in here we can put up in the attics.”
Anything she didn’t want? How about two-thirds of the room’s contents?
“The papers need to stay,” Henry said, as
