‘Oh, that’s really kind, but… I don’t think… what I mean is… I’m not sure I’m ready for… maybe another time.’
‘Oh, Jules, please come!’
Imperceptibly Tasha had also moved across the floor and was now standing on her other side.
‘It’ll be fun to have an extra person.’ She wrinkled up her nose at Lance. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken.’
Jules felt her heart beginning to race.
‘Please, please, please,’ Tasha begged. ‘You said you liked history and it’s an amazing place. Charles I was imprisoned there, and you can walk the ramparts and there are various exhibitions. There’s a lovely little chapel, too, if you like that sort of thing.’
She was being backed into a corner here.
‘Tasha, I’m perfectly okay to drive and Jules has got better things to do with her day,’ Lance said firmly.
He didn’t want her there either, she thought. It would be awkward.
‘Like brooding,’ Tasha said pointedly.
Jules felt tears spring to her eyes and prayed they wouldn’t pool over, or her mouth wouldn’t twist into that tight little fist shape which made it so obvious that she was about to cry.
‘There’s nothing wrong with a bit of brooding,’ Lance interjected.
‘That’s not what you say to me normally,’ Tasha replied.
‘Nor me,’ Erin butted in. ‘You don’t have to stick with us all the time, Jules. You don’t even have to be Dad’s full-time carer. You can go off and explore on your own. We can just meet up for the picnic. I’ve made sausage rolls and Dad will tell you that I make the best sausage rolls, not just on the island or in the British Isles, but in the whole world.’
Jules glanced at Lance. He was as compromised as she was.
He lifted his hands in capitulation.
‘It is true, I’m afraid. One day I’m convinced she’ll be a champion sausage roll producer.’
‘And Granny and I have made lavender iced cupcakes,’ Tasha added.
Jules dabbed at her eyes as surreptitiously as she could.
‘It seems I can’t say no,’ she said.
‘You can always get a taxi home if we prove to be a bit too much,’ Lance offered. ‘There’s just one thing, though, if you’re going to come with us.’
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘You might want to get dressed!’
TWELVE
Jules had gone upstairs in an absolute panic. What a nightmare. How on earth had she allowed herself to agree to that? And how was she going to get out of it? Poor Lance. He had gone pretty quiet, too, probably worried about being lumbered with a nervous wreck of a woman for a whole day. She longed to lie down, preferably with the curtains drawn and the duvet pulled right up over her face.
From the bedroom window she watched the three of them wandering around the garden, Lance pointing out different flowers and shrubs, Erin doing a cartwheel across the lawn and Tasha saying something which made them all laugh. She pulled on jeans and a T-shirt with La Dolce Vita emblazoned across the front, washed her face, brushed her hair and applied a touch of lip gloss.
‘You’d never know,’ she whispered, looking at herself in the mirror, ‘that on the inside you are a complete and utter quivering wreck.’
‘Do you think it’s going to rain?’ Jules asked, standing on the back doorstep and looking up at the sky, hoping for a blackcloud. Rain might force them to postpone this outing until another day and then she could be otherwise engaged.
‘Twenty percent chance at twelve o’clock apparently,’ Tasha called.
