This man down in the garden, with his trim brown beard was Emmet, who wasn’t single, and she would do well to remember it.
In her room, she switched on her laptop and opened the folder of online cards. There were several sub-folders; she chose the one titled Romance. Inside were several images she’d already downloaded from Shutterstock. One showed a woman in a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, a manicured finger was on the edge of the sunglasses pulling them lower while her eyes glanced over the top as if looking at something interesting.
Pierre clicked on the text box and after a moment’s thought, she typed.Attraction is like buses, just because one stops in front of you doesn’t mean you should get on, or that it’s going where you need to be.
She tweaked the placement then uploaded it to herWay With Wordswebsite and, in the spirit of generosity, priced it at £1.99.
A red notification icon showed at the top of her sales tab; clicking on that brought up her sales dashboard. One hundred and thirty-five cards sold last week. Her hand stilled on the mouse.Wow. That meant a net profit of £105. How had that happened? Then she remembered it had been Valentine’s Day last week.
It had also been a week after Valentine’s when she first met Gabriel, three years ago. Had he been with Nicole then?
No good asking. No good knowing the answer. She focused on the screen in front of her.
The little business in online cards normally didn’t do such great business. A few florists bought some of her cards to use with flower orders. Otherwise, it was mostly people looking to send a joke card to a friend. She had a partnership with a printing company who did print-on-demand so anyone could choose to have a physical card posted on their behalf.
She didn’t earn much, but it paid for hair colour and clothes dye.
Not that she needed the money; her job for Lord M paid well and living here, she had few expenses. She pushed the chair back and got up. Her study had a sitting room as part of her suite. But since she didn’t have private guests, she’d shoved the sofa to the far end and converted the space into her private study. Shelves lined one long wall, probably for ornaments and family pictures. In her two years here, Pierre had managed to fill them with books. There were more books in the bedroom. She walked thought the arch and sat on the bed.
Was buying new Wellies to paint the only adventure in her life?
Her phone dinged with an incoming message.
MRS PARKER: There’s a new delivery of vintage Ladybird books just arrived for The Pages and I know you like those.
Was there anything Young Parker didn’t know? Even a book delivery to the second-hand bookshop in the village? On this occasion, however, Pierre was grateful for the gossip. She adored old Ladybird children’s books. Their illustrations were lush and vibrant, the kind that brought fairy tales to life. She’d been trying to mimic one of them on her boots yesterday.
Tomorrow she would go and see what she could find, hopefully before anyone else bought them. Perhaps she should text Young Parker and ask her not to mention the books to anyone else.
No, that was stupid.
Also, it would give Cook and Laura ammunition in their argument that she didn’t get enough real life outside of books. Which wasn’t true.
Pierre straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly. She got plenty of real life.
For one thing, she also got to overhear Nicole and her man fight, later that evening.
Seven
Nicole had been given the suite next to Pierre’s; they shared a wall and a balcony. So, when the night was mild, and either of them had a window open, she could hear the other woman on the phone late at night.
Without ever intending to eavesdrop, Pierre found out that Nicole was planning to move to America after her job organising the Du Montfort wedding finished. On many nights, Pierre lay in bed trying not to listen to protracted negotiations about a new apartment in LA, a new website, and a high-profile business launch.
After tonight, Pierre would gladly put up with any number of loud calls about apartment-hunting on the Pacific coast.
“How could you tell her?” Nicole’s voice rose suddenly.
Gabriel’s reply was too low to understand but the deep timbre of his voice was unmistakable.
“Why? Why tell anyone about us? Especially Laura.”
There was another short reply from him.
“I’m not asking you to lie, just not spill our private business to everyone.”
So, it was true, he was engaged to Nicole and she’d been trying to keep that a secret. Pierre wondered why. Other than not wanting people to accuse her of lining up a lucrative job for her own man.
“Nothing is wrong with me,” Nicole answered him sounding defensive. “I’m the same.”
