His voice sounded warm. ‘When was the last time you added to your collection?’
Not since I started faking silver to help your family.
‘Not for a long time. I’ve been focusing on what I’ve already got. A battered silver teapot is like a bruised heart – both can be brought back to life with patience and polish.’
The words hung in the air between them like a bridge neither quite dared to cross. Hamish set down the salt cellar with infinite care, his eyes meeting hers for the first time in what felt like months.
‘Tina, I . . .’
She saw the crack and dashed for the opening. She knew how to restore this marriage. ‘Come with me tomorrow, I’ve a house I want to show you.’
He gave a single slow nod.
‘The card,’ she said, suddenly spotting the handmade envelope propped against the pineapple. Hearts in bold red and pink, Elspeth’s careful purple felt-tip spelling out ‘Mummy andDaddy.’ ‘Shall we open it?’
Neither moved. The card sat there like an accusation – their eleven year-old daughter remembering what they’d both forgotten.
Christina watched Hamish study the envelope, his jaw moving silently. Chase Lodge would work. A project. A new start, and a shared future, even if the present felt fractured. She looked at the pile of fruit. The kitchen air was thick with the scent of ripeness and the sharp tang of things on the verge of decay. Then the pineapple lurched, lost its balance, and dropped onto a Tudor pewter plate with a muffled thump. Christina and Hamish met each other’s gaze and laughed. And in that shared laugh, a small, stubborn hope stirred.
Twelve
Beneath the sagging roof tiles, Chase Lodge had once been beautiful, Christina could tell. Not grand, but important, and built for fun – a hunting lodge. Rather like her marriage; both needed bringing back to life, the neglect and decay stripping away. The house would be their salvation – restore the lodge, restore the marriage. God, she hoped shecouldrestore her marriage, after all the horrible things they said to each other two years ago.
The terrible row had begun, as many marital rows do, with a moment of domestic disharmony. Christina had just poured herself a cup of tea after baking bread for the family, when she heard a crash and whipped around. The beautiful blue mixing bowl her mother had given her and Hamish as a wedding present had crashed onto the flagstones.
‘Christ, Hamish!’
‘Frightfully sorry, darling.’ He stood in the kitchen, all six foot two of aristocratic awkwardness, leather satchel slung across his body, staring at the fragments of blue pottery scattered across the floor tiles.
‘I caught it with my satchel. I was reaching for the ... well, I thought it was the bread bin.’
She grabbed the kitchen roll, her hands shaking with the particular rage that comes from loving someone who could navigate the Tudor court but couldn’t find the bread bin in hisown kitchen. ‘Nine bloody years, and you still dinnae ken where anything is.’
‘Mea culpa.’ He crouched, gathering shards with those long fingers that could flip expertly through medieval manuscripts but took half an hour to load a dishwasher.
‘English, Hamish. For God’s sake, speak English.’
‘My fault. I said my fault.’ He looked up, wearing that wounded expression he got when she snapped at him, like a whipped hound. ‘Though technically it’s Latin, not—’
‘I know it’s bloody Latin!’ The words came out sharper than she meant. ‘That’s the point. You and your Latin and your metaphors and your ...’ she gestured at him, at his cashmere jumper and his polished shoes. ‘Everything.’
He rose, clutching the broken pieces to his chest. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Aye, well. That seems to be your specialty, doesn’t it?’ The bitterness leaked out before she could stop it. ‘Accidents. Mistakes. Things that justhappento the great Hamish Pemberton.’
His jaw tightened. ‘What precisely are we discussing now? Because I rather think we’ve moved beyond the bowl.’
‘Have we?’ she slammed her mug down. ‘Maybe we should discuss why you’re in such a rush to leave on this lecture tour. Two weeks away from the wife who trapped you by falling pregnant. That must be a relief.’
‘Trapped me?’ His voice went cold. ‘That’s a rather Tudor interpretation of events, wouldn’t you say?’
‘There you go again! I don’t know what that means!’
‘It means you’re rewriting history to suit your own narrative. The Tudors were masters at it.’ He set the pottery shards on the counter with exaggerated care. ‘I married you because I love you.’
‘You married me because your mother told you to.’ The wordshung there, ugly and true. ‘Even though the person she really wanted you to marry was Lady Penelope.’
Hamish looked stunned. ‘Oh yes. Don’t try and deny it. I heard you and Flora talking! Your mother found out I was pregnant and marched you down that aisle like you were some recusant Catholic heading for the block.’
