“White can’t graduate from light to dark. But there’ll be white in some of the others because it’s the palest hue of blue, pink and yellow.”
A clink of cups and spoons makes us turn in our seats to greet Leonie. She comes over with our food and a pot of Darjeeling and sets down a bread basket, still steaming with freshly baked bread, a small dish with butter and two plates with sandwiches. Osian pours me a cup of tea before attacking his bacon butties.
“On the house.” She places a small saucer in front of me. “It’s still an experiment: orange and oat cookies.”
“Oh Leonie, you can’t spoil me like this. I’m going to put on weight and never fit into any of my clothes.” I take a bite and lose myself in the heavenly rich flavour. “Forget what I said; please spoil me.”
She laughs. “That’s what I was hoping to hear. I’ll put them on the menu.”
Osian snatches the second cookie before I have a chance to take it.
“Hey!” I complain loudly.
“Don’t fight, I’ll make more this afternoon.” Leonie takes the empty saucer and goes back inside, but there’s a definite spring in her step.
“She’s definitely a natural talent,” I say to Osian as he wolfs down his bacon sandwiches.
“You wouldn’t last five minutes in Kendric House without passion.”
“Me?”
He shakes his head while chewing, swallows then answers. “All of us. Didn’t you ever wonder why we all wake up so early?”
“Because, as the professor said”—I glance behind me through the tall windows to where he sits typing away at his laptop—“slugabed entrepreneurs would fail.”
Osian holds my gaze; a faint smile tugs at one corner of his mouth. “I don’t agree. I think we wake up early because we’re in love.”
Something thumps in my heart when he says the word love. He also said passion earlier. I can feel heat rising up into my face.
“W-we are…?” My voice comes out breathy.
“Aren’t you? You spend every waking minute down there”—he points towards the garden—“in back-breaking work. And you’re about to try planting the equivalent of five gardens, not to mention the pond and the rose arcade. All of that in two months. That’s passion. You’d never do all that unless you loved it.”
I don’t answer while my heart begins to slow down. Osian goes back to his breakfast, eating with – yes, now he’s mentioned the word, I can’t forget it – passion.
If Leonie were here and heard him, she’d have given me one of her meaningful looks. Any other woman would see something in the way he asked me if I were in love.
I feel my feet on the slippery slope that leads to dreaming. To imagining.
To painful doubt.
Besides, nothing has actually happened. Has it?
Has it? The question keeps nagging, demanding an answer which I’m too scared to give.
“I can hear you thinking from here,” he suddenly says.
“Oh? What can you hear?” I answer before I can think, before I can stop myself. It all sounds very flirty.
He pretends to cock an ear. “You’re practicing Welsh phrases.”
“Why would I be doing that?”
“Because you hate it when you can’t understand. You get this look when the professor or Llewellyn make the odd joke.” He pronounces Llewellyn the Welsh way:chlewellun,which sounds surprisingly nice.
I might be a bit flirty but so is he.
Isn’t he?Or am I reading too much into an innocent jokey conversation?
