“Let’s just say, I’ve been inspired by—”
“A book?” Cook asked.
Pierre rested her chin on the back of the chair she was straddling. “I just finished reading a lovely book calledWhispers of the Forest.”
“I might have known.” Cook shook her head at Pierre before going back to the Aga. “You always have your nose in a book. You want to go out and live instead of hiding in books?”
“I do not hide. I have far too much to do these days.” She glanced at Laura, hoping for support.
“When was the last time you went out on a date?” Laura asked.
“Don’t you start.” Pierre gave Laura an aggrieved look. “You all have wedding fever!”
“I’m a bridal designer,” Laura said. “I’m supposed to have weddings on the brain.”
“How old are you?” Cook asked before pushing a tray of sausages into the oven.
Laura shrugged looking at Pierre. “I’m sure that’s to you.”
“Twenty-six.” Pierre answered defiantly.
“And you’ve been here for two years.” Cook seemed on a mission to lecture her this morning. She came over to lay the table but continued her sermon. “These are the years when you should be having fun.”
“I do have fun.”
“Dancing, dating, falling in love.” She punctuated her words with jars of preserves that she arranged on the long wooden table. “Not hiding on this tiny island with the middle-aged and widowed.”
“Millie and Laura are neither middle-aged nor widowed.”
“Millie’s about to get married,” Cook argued. “And she” — Cook tipped her head towards Laura — “is only staying here for a few weeks until she’s finished making Millie’s dress. You are too young and beautiful and single.”
“Nicole is beautiful and single.” Almost immediately Pierre regretted the words. Laura, for some unexplained reason, hated Nicole, which was odd because surely a bridal designer and a wedding planner should have been natural allies. Especially when both women were so nice to everyone else.
“Nicole’s not single,” Laura said quietly, her eyes on her bowl. “She’s got a boyfriend and they might even be engaged.”
“She’s never!” Cook stopped slicing bread.
“You’ll meet him. He’s the new photographer, Emmet.” Laura said, finishing off the last of her porridge.
Pierre hadn’t met the new photographer. Nicole had hired him and asked Pierre to find him a room in the house and give him a tour of the grounds. But he’d arrived yesterday when all hell had broken loose, and Pierre had been too busy to even meet the man. “Surely Nicole is too professional to–”
“Too professional to date a rubbish photographer and line him up with a lucrative job?” Laura’s smile was only half-hearted. “Actually, he seemed rather nice, and not bad-looking. So, even someone like Nicole can get a man, which proves—”
“Wait a minute,” Pierre said. “Nicole asked me to assign him a bedroom in the house. And because we have to keep the best rooms for the wedding guests, the only thing left was the Napoleon room.”
“That small one on the third floor?” Cook asked. “That’s tiny.”
“Exactly. Now, if he and Nicole really were a couple, wouldn’t he be sharing her suite? And wouldn’t she at least have insisted on something better than the Napoleon room?”
“We’ll see.” Laura shrugged.
“Which proves,” Cook said, “there are plenty of nice men in the world. And you, Missy” — She pointed her ladle at Pierre — “might even meet one of them, but not onthissmall, forgotten island.”
Something niggled at Pierre. It wasn’t like Cook to offer unsolicited advice, and certainly not about people’s private lives. And this wasn’t the first time, now that she thought about it, both Cook, and Nurse Ann had teased her about needing to ‘look to her future’ as they put it.
But she had a future here, didn’t she?
Laura placed her empty bowl and cup in the sink and started to rinse them.
