“I was looking for you,” He went on. “They told me you were at the library.”
“They toldmeyou were birdwatching.”
“I was.” He gave her a quick smile. “But I couldn’t find any birds. Apparently, you have to wait for spring to see them on St Emmanuel’s Cliff.”
“So, what is your real name?”
“Gabriel Evans.”
He hadn’t really changed all that much. Apart from the trim beard. It suited him.
“Why is everyone else calling you ‘Emmet’?”
“Why did everyone tell me you had rainbow hair?”
“Do you believe everything you’re told?”
He chuckled under his breath. “I’ll make a deal with you; I’ll explain about my name and you tell me about the hair and…” He nodded at the painted Wellies on the picnic table in front of her.
“Oh no. That’s not a fair exchange.” She wasn’t going to let him win this little duel. “You’ll have to give up a lot more than a name.”
His smile widened showing the even, white teeth she remembered from before. “Name your price then.”
“I want to know what happened to your—”
His phone chirped. For a minute, it seemed as if he was going to ignore it, but then reached into his back pocket and pulled it out.
“Hi,” he said.
Not the impersonal ‘hello’ everyone used when answering the phone. Not a big ‘Hi’ to greet a friend. But the casual and quiet ‘hi’ that made it clear this was someone very familiar.Hi. As if he was continuing a conversation with someone he knew intimately.
“Oh yes, just now,” he said. Shading his eyes with a hand, he tilted his head back to look up at something behind her.
Pierre didn’t turn. She knew what, or rather who, was in the window where Nicole’s office overlooked the garden.
Just for a moment, she’d forgotten Nicole. Or not quite forgotten but hoped the gossip was wrong, and that he wasn’t her boyfriend, or fiancé.
It didn’t matter what the gossipers knew. She herself had seen them walking hand-in-hand. And even if she hadn’t, the way he’d turned away slightly to answer the call, the familiarity in his voice, all of it was proof enough.
Eyes down, she went back to painting her Wellies. Her earphones lay discarded on the bench. She couldn’t remember removing them.
“Nicole wants to speak to you.” Gabriel held the phone out to her.
Reluctantly, she put her paint down and took the phone from his hand. “Yes?”
“Pierre, honey, if you’re finished with whatever His Lordship wanted from the library, could you take Emmet to show him the church?”
It was sweetly said, but for some reason, Pierre felt that vague unease.
“I’m not finished with the research.”
“But you’re sitting in the garden,” Nicole said, not unreasonably.
“I was listening to a lecture on my phone. Information Lord M wanted. And I’d better go in and give him a summary of my findings.” She collected her boots and paints and started for the house in case Nicole was still watching from her window.
She’d never refused a favour for the wedding planner before, until today. The woman had always been very nice to her, so why did Pierre feel so uncomfortable around her? An unwelcome guilt filled her chest and squeezed all the air out. She ran the last few steps and entered the house by the conservatory door. It was only when she was upstairs that she realised she still had Gabriel’s phone in her hand.
Emmet. Not Gabriel. Not the man who once seen her in her knickers and bra, who had bought her a t-shirt with a dragon on it and paid for her lunch.
