I couldn’t sit there any longer. I knew what Saffron was like when she got in a state, and if Lord Whellerby was anything like every other man I had known, he would be terrified. He was probably already Googling for another design and build company to complete his conference centre, I thought bitterly.
How was I going to explain that to Hugh?
I know this was the big contract to ensure the future of your company, but, see, Saffron was having a bit of a crisis and now we’ve lost the contract? I’d be lucky if Hugh didn’t have another heart attack.
Barely two weeks on the job, and what would I have to show for it? Hugh back in hospital, out of a job, my best chance for site experience blown. My plan would be in tatters, my career would be over before it had really begun.
I pulled myself up short. Good grief, I was getting as bad as Saffron! There was no point in overreacting until I knew what the situation was, and to do that I had to get to Whellerby Hall.
My eyes flickered to George, and then away.
I could walk to the Hall, but it would take too long to cross the estate.
There was only one thing to be done.
Sucking in a breath, I got out of Audrey, closed the door, walked deliberately around the bonnet of the Land Rover and got in next to George without a word.
For a moment I sat there, looking straight through the windscreen, my lips pressed so firmly together they almost disappeared.
‘Thank you,’ I said at last, forcing the words out. ‘I’d be very glad of a lift.’
‘My pleasure,’ said George.
To my annoyance, his engine leapt into life without so much as a murmur of protest. I cast a reproachful look at Audrey as George reversed out behind her, and changed gear.
‘You know, you could invest in a reliable car,’ he said, a ghost of amusement in his voice.
‘I couldn’t get rid of Audrey,’ I said, instantly on the defensive. ‘She’s a great car. It’s just that she can be a little...temperamental.’
Or downright contrary, at times.
George raised an eyebrow. Have you ever met anyone who could actually do that? Raise one brow? George could.
‘Audrey?’ he said.
‘She’s named after Audrey Hepburn. Because she’s so glamorous,’ I added when George seemed unable to make the connection.
‘Right.’ He glanced at me and then away, shaking his head a little, but I could see the curl at the corner of his mouth.
I pushed my seat belt into place with a firm click. ‘She’s got style,’ I said defiantly. Vintage, perhaps, but definitely style.
‘Lime green is an interesting choice of colour,’ George commented.
‘It’s not everyone’s first choice, I know,’ I said, ‘but she was the only car I could afford when I bought her. I washed dishes for three years to pay for a car of my own,’ I told George. ‘Audrey’s a symbol as much as a car.’
George swung the Land Rover out of the site gates and onto one of the narrow lanes that criss-crossed the Whellerby estate. ‘I’m surprised to hear Kevin Taylor’s daughter had to buy her own car,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t your father buy you one? It’s not like he can’t afford it.’
My face closed down the way it always did when I had to talk about my father. I hugged my arms together and looked out of the window. I hadn’t taken a penny from him since I left school, and I wasn’t about to start now.
‘I pay my own way,’ I said. ‘I always have, and I always will.’
TWO
‘I didn’t even know Kevin Taylor had another daughter,’ said George.
I kept my eyes on the hedgerow brushing past my window. ‘Few people do,’ I said. My voice was perfectly even, the way I had trained it to be when I talked about my father. ‘I’m not sure he even knows himself any more.’
‘How long is it since you’ve seen him?’
‘Six years. I made the mistake of asking if he’d come to my graduation,’ I said. ‘He went to New York on business instead.’
As soon as I said it, I regretted it. I couldn’t think what had possessed me to tell George Challoner of all people about that bitter memory. I tensed, waiting for the sympathetic noises, but he surprised me.
‘I haven’t seen my parents for four years,’ he said, and I slewed round in my seat to look at him in surprise. He was so golden, so effortlessly charming. I couldn’t imagine him falling out with anyone.
‘Why not?’
‘We had an...er...disagreement,’ he said, lifting one hand from the steering wheel and spreading it in an eloquent gesture of resignation. ‘It culminated in one of those never-darken-our-doorstep-again conversations, and so I haven’t.’
‘I know what those are like,’ I said, unprepared to find myself sharing some fellow feeling with George.
‘Fun, aren’t they?’
‘Fabulous,’ I agreed. ‘Can’t get enough of them.’
‘Still, at least you’ve got your sister,’ said George. ‘I did family estrangement as a job lot. I haven’t seen my brother since then either.’ He spoke lightly, but I sensed the pain lurking, and I looked away.
‘Perhaps I should be grateful for Saffron, then,’ I said, keeping my tone light to match his. ‘Although if she upsets Lord Whellerby and anything goes wrong with Hugh’s contract, I will personally strangle her and then I’ll end up without any family either.’
‘Don’t worry about Roly,’ said George reassuringly. ‘He’s really not the grudge-bearing type.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ I gnawed fretfully at my thumbnail.
‘Is your sister really going to marry Jax Jackson?’ George asked to distract me after a moment.
‘Half-sister,’ I said automatically. ‘And so she says. I’m not really sure what it’s all about,’ I confessed, shifting back with a sigh to look out of my window where the hedgerows were a blur of spring green.
‘As far as I can tell Jax was a mediocre pop star until he started dating Saffron and became a celebrity. Now he’s on the cover of all those glossy magazines you get at the checkout in the supermarket. He seems to spend most of his time on tour, but Saffron’s so thrilled by the idea of getting married that he appears to be incidental to the whole process.
‘It’s going to be the wedding of the century, I gather,’ I added with a sigh. Ever since Saffron had announced her engagement, she had been in a frenzy of wedding plans, and if I never heard the word wedding again right then, I’d have been more than happy.
George glanced at me. ‘So are you going to be bridesmaid?’
‘No, thank God. Saffron did ask me, but obviously only because she thought she should, and when I said I didn’t think I’d fit with her other bridesmaids and would rather just be happy for her on the sidelines, she was so relieved it was funny. I really don’t blend with Saffron’s décor,’ I said to George. ‘She’s a socialite and I’m an engineer...you can probably imagine how much we have in common!’
‘I’d certainly never have guessed you were sisters,’ he agreed. ‘You don’t look at all alike.’
‘No, Saffron’s gorgeous,’ I said without rancour. ‘Her mother was a model, and Saffron gets her looks from her, not my father. Saffron’s blonde and bubbly and beautiful, and I’m...not.’