Just The Way You Are(42)

Hatherstone Hall was the epitome of serenity. The faint notes of a sonata from a grand piano mingled with the evening birdsong and gentle murmur of conversation. It was mid-July, and the air drifting through the conservatory doors was fresh and sweet, the gardens a mix of lush lawns and pretty flower beds. Everything from the paintings on the walls to the linen tablecloth and single peach rose in a vase spoke of class and elegance. I would have felt utterly out of place and horribly uncomfortable, except that each small gathering was getting on with enjoying their own meal.

I had a feeling that had someone famous walked in, no one would have stirred or even noticed. They certainly weren’t going to notice me.

My feeling was wrong. By the time I’d ordered my starter and main course and enjoyed a complimentary appetiser (yes, the prices made my eyelids twitch, and had I not been so adamant in sticking to the spirit of the Dream List, I would have gone for the cheapest thing on the menu and then got out of there) I was starting to genuinely enjoy myself. However, just as the waitress brought out my mackerel, another customer waved at me from their table on the other side of the room, offering a sympathetic smile.

I gave a tentative wave back before turning to pretend I was engrossed in my food, mind racing to think where I’d seen the woman before. She looked to be in her late thirties, definitely not someone I knew from Sherwood, and too old to have been at school or university with me. I scrolled through the ReadUp team in my head, but couldn’t place her. It was only when I sneaked another peek, and happened to catch a proper look at the man sitting with her, that I remembered.

Crap.

Sam’s brother. The one who, the one and only time I’d seen him previously, had suggested that Sam shoot my dog.

And now his wife was briskly texting, while having a hushed exchange with her husband that included more furtive glances over at me.

I took a deep breath, reminded myself why I was here and ate another blissful forkful of fish, trying not to pull a face that revealed quite how my tastebuds were rolling about in ecstasy as I shifted my chair around a couple of inches to block Sam’s family from my peripheral vision.

I’d polished off my starter, enjoyed a palate-cleansing cucumber sorbet and was about to tuck into my guinea fowl when a much louder voice interrupted the soft chatter, causing everyone, including me, to swivel around to see what philistine had disturbed the genteel atmosphere.

My heart instantly plummeted into my overly high heels before rebounding back into my throat on the next beat.

Sam stood beside his sister-in-law, his sun-streaked hair an agitated mess, face creased with concern, wearing a grey T-shirt, worn jeans and scuffed brown boots.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked, causing his sister-in-law to shush him.

‘You said it was an emergency,’ he said, the worry in his voice slipping into annoyance.

She slid her eyes over to me and back again a couple of times, trying to get Sam to look my way without saying anything. I should have ducked my head, started scrolling on my phone or something but it was a rabbit-in-the-headlights so-awful-I-can’t-stop-watching type of moment. Eventually, she did a totally unsubtle pointing gesture, as if by keeping her finger close to her midriff I wouldn’t see it, and Sam turned a second too soon for me to avert my gaze.

Which I did anyway, of course, heartily shoving in a far-too big chunk of guinea fowl so that when he arrived at my table a second later and said hi, my cheek was bulging.

I did that awful please wait while I chew gesture, rotating my hand near my mouth while sort of smiling and rolling my eyes in a faux-goofy manner. Beneath the stupid expression, I was slowly dying, one humiliated cell giving up on me at a time.

‘Hi!’ I managed, eventually, after a painfully big swallow. Thank goodness this place served such tender meat or it would have dragged on forever.

‘Um, is it okay if I…’ Sam nodded at the chair opposite me. ‘I don’t want to cause even more of a scene.’

‘No, of course.’ I patted my mouth with a napkin, tempted for a second to just drape it over my head and stay there until everyone had gone home.

‘I’m so embarrassed, and annoyed,’ he said, as soon as he’d shuffled the chair as close to the table as possible so he could speak more quietly.

‘Oh. Um, sorry…’

‘No, not at you!’ He shook his head. ‘At Megan. Interfering old bat. She messaged and said to come over as soon as possible, and when I called to ask why she turned her phone off. I thought Tom must have choked on a chicken bone or something.’

‘So what?’ I ate a forkful of fondant potato. I wasn’t missing out on this meal, no matter what drama accompanied it. ‘I was the emergency?’

‘Megan assumed you’d been stood up.’

‘And needed rescuing?’

‘Precisely. And before you ask, this is more about me than it is you. She’s been desperate to set me up ever since… well. Since I’ve been single. Despite me telling her repeatedly that the last thing I want is a serious relationship.’

The last thing he wants…

Good to know.

Well, actually it was rubbish to know, but at least I knew before I’d completed the Dream List and asked him out or something even more embarrassing.

‘So she calls you any time she sees a random woman out alone?’

He sighed. ‘Mum told her that you had dinner with me the other week. They were practically planning wedding outfits. I did say that if anything you’re even less interested in a relationship than I am. We’re friends, and there’s no point hoping we’ll become anything else.’