The Last Garden in England(37)

“Mind if I join you?” called a voice from the other side.

Beth peered over the seat and saw the posh woman staring at her, hands on her hips. “Climb up.”

The woman hauled herself up as Beth pressed the clutch and turned over the ignition. The tractor roared to life.

“Been driving for long?” her companion asked.

“Two or three months,” she said.

The other women shrugged. “That’s good enough for me. I’m Petunia Brayley-Hawthorn.” Beth started, and Petunia laughed. “Horrid name, I know, but it’s better than what Mummy calls me.”

Beth couldn’t resist asking, “What is that?”

Petunia made a face. “Petal.”

She laughed. “You’re right. Petunia is better. I’m Beth Pedley.”

Mr. Jones shouted over to them, “I’m not paying you to socialize, ladies!”

“He’s not paying us at all, rotten man. The government is,” said Petunia matter-of-factly.

Beth bit her lip, fighting a grin.

Highbury House Farm was, unsurprisingly, the next property over from Highbury House, as it had once belonged to the manor. However, “next door” in the country meant something very different from “next door” in town, and the slow-moving tractor took a good ten minutes to arrive at the fields that edged Highbury House’s land.

All of that time gave Beth a chance to learn that Petunia wasn’t posh. She was a bona fide blue blood—the daughter of a baron’s second son who had taken a modest inheritance from a beloved aunt and grown it to an incredible size.

“Papa was in banking before the war, but he works for the treasury doing something now. War bonds, probably. Mummy used to sit on the board of several charities, but she pivoted to war work as soon as Germany invaded Poland,” said Petunia.

“How did you become a land girl?” Beth asked, steering toward the greenhouses at the property line.

“Do you mean why this and not the Wrens?” Petunia laughed.

Beth blushed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that the navy’s service is—”

“Where all the toffs like me end up,” Petunia finished with a kind smile. “I like being outside.”

Beth’s mind immediately conjured up images of Petunia in a red jacket and jodhpurs, jumping over streams in a hunt.

“And not just riding and hunting,” Petunia said, as though reading Beth’s mind. “I fish, row, camp, hike. My brothers are to blame for that.”

“How many brothers do you have?” Beth asked.

“Three, and they’re each as infuriating and wonderful as the others.”

“I wish I’d had a brother. Or a sister,” said Beth. Things might have turned out differently if that was the case. Her parents would have still died, and she still would have gone to live with Aunt Mildred, but maybe she wouldn’t have been quite so lonely.

Petunia was happily nattering away. “If I’m out of doors, I’m happy. Being a land girl seemed like the best way to make sure I could stay outside and still do my service. I think it gave Daddy a moment of pause, but Mummy is just happy I’m out of her way.”

They broke through the tree line, and Petunia gasped.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Beth asked, a strange sense of pride filling her chest as she gazed out over the view from the edge of the lake up to the house. “I think it might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

“It seems a shame to tear it all up for broad beans or whatever they’ll put in here,” said Petunia.

They stopped behind the other tractor, and Beth killed the ignition. A few patients in bath chairs or using crutches slowly walked the grounds closer to the house, and Beth could feel their eyes on her. They were curious looks—not hostile—and she could understand why. They didn’t see women driving huge tractors every day.

She started to climb down from the cab when a man’s outstretched hand, an exposed shirt cuff, no jacket, appeared. She looked over her shoulder and found Captain Hastings grinning up at her.

“You look as though you have the matter well in hand, but I thought I would give my assistance. Just in case,” he said.

Her work at Temple Fosse Farm had kept her in the barn and out of the fields, so it had been a solid week since they’d last spoken, and she found herself surprised at how pleased she was to see him. Pleased and… a little bit guilty because the last time she’d written to Colin she’d reassured him that she hardly spoke to any of the injured soldiers at Highbury House.

But when she returned Captain Hastings’s grin, she couldn’t help the little tug of attraction low in her stomach. She took his hand, even though she was fully capable of jumping down herself. When she hit the ground, however, he winced.

“I’ve hurt your shoulder,” she said.

“It’s nothing.”

“Captain Hastings.”

“The day I let a pesky injury dampen my gallantry, I shall have to give up, Miss Pedley,” he said.

“Well, we can’t have that. Petunia,” she said, turning to her new friend, “this is Captain Hastings. He sometimes walks out along Mr. Penworthy’s fields and stops for a chat.”

“Lovely name,” he said.

Petunia looked him up and down and then laughed. “It’s a terrible name, but it’s mine.”