‘And you get left behind?’ I made my tone soft. I almost wanted to laugh. All that therapy hadn’t really helped Ross at all, had it?
Another head twitch. ‘It’s fine. Honestly.’
‘And you think I would do that? You think so little of me that you expect me to dump you and run off into a future of…’ I looked down at the diamonds glittering as they rolled around amid the biscuit crumbs and spilled tea. ‘Whatever,’ I finished. ‘You really think that?’
Now it was his turn to touch my cheek. ‘I don’t want to, Libby,’ he said softly. ‘But I’ve been here before, remember. Not, admittedly, to quitethisextent.’ He held up the diamond again. ‘Coming into a fortune in diamonds is a new one on me, but the principle is the same and it means you can have a whole new life. You and Tilly and David.’
‘And you.’ I took the diamond from between his fingers. ‘I want you to be part of it all too, Ross. Don’t let what happened before ruin this.’
It felt as though everything went still then. The pathetic car park tree ceased to waggle its skinny branches in the wind, the permanent background rush of sound stopped. The world froze.
And we were kissing. Proper, heated kisses, as though Ross and I were suddenly acknowledging one another as actual people rather than roles and situations. He was this incredibly hot man, and I had become the me that I’d been before I’d been a stressed-out mother. In fact, we became a bit teenager, and had to straighten up, clearing our throats and tidying our clothing before we got arrested.
‘Well, that seems like a positive reaction,’ Ross said eventually, tidying his hair. ‘Once common sense cut in. Looks like I really did listen to my therapist.’
‘For which I am very glad,’ I said, still rather breathless. ‘Wow.’
‘Much as I would like to take you to bed right now, common sense still has the upper hand and I’ve got a camera crew and a team of twenty stuck in the middle of woodland waiting for my return.’ The look Ross gave me now sparkled more than a thousand diamonds in full sun. ‘So you may have to excuse me for a while.’
‘I’m going to take these to the man who looked at the crow diamonds for me.’ I put the lid back on the tin to distract myself from my desire to fling myself on to Ross and not let him leave. Besides, the steering wheel was in the way and passers-by had begun to stare. ‘I might at least find out what I’m dealing with here. We might be jumping to conclusions and they’re only worth a couple of grand.’
He was breathing heavily too, I noticed and we grinned at each other. ‘Don’t be bloody daft, I saw smaller diamonds during the Coronation.’ Now his smile was so radiant that the inside of the car shone. ‘You’re going to be all right, Libby.’
I touched his cheek again, mostly because it felt wonderful to be able to. ‘I wasalwaysgoing to be all right,’ I said softly. ‘It was just the nature of the all-rightness that was in question, and these’ – I shook the tin, which rattled slightly but only a little because the teabags and biscuits were still in there, buffering the diamonds nicely – ‘are the icing on the cake.’
‘And Isobel?’
‘Knew what she was doing.’ I remembered Isobel, her words of advice, her desire for freedom. ‘I might have some explaining to do as to how I came into the diamonds, but I’ve got her notes and enough people knew she lived in Elm Cottage. I suppose they might want to trace her to make sure I didn’t steal these?’
Ross smiled. ‘Trust you to think of the problems first. You’re right though, provenance will have to be proved and all that, it’s not going to be a speedy process. In the meantime, well. We can sort ourselves out. It might be nice to at least start off our relationship without money being a huge factor. Now, I really ought to go back and sort out my demolition men.’
I climbed out and his jaunty hand wave as he drove away reassured me that Ross and I could have a very nice thing going between us. That kiss had also been a bit of a giveaway.
28
EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER
‘Tils! Where are you?’
‘In my bedroom, silly Mummy!’ Tilly popped her head out of the doorway. ‘Is it time yet?’
I checked the clock. ‘Not quite. Daddy said ten o’clock.’
Tilly stared at the enormous clock face that I’d bought to make teaching her to tell the time a little bit easier. ‘It’s ten o’clock now.’
‘No, it’s half past nine. Get your socks.’
David was coming to take Tilly for her first weekend down in London, where he would, no doubt, be showing her off to all his actor friends and indulging her wildly.
‘Are you going somewhere? When I’m not here?’ Tilly sat on the carpet in her bedroom doorway, ignoring my instructions about her socks. ‘I want you to stay here.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I said, with a small shiver of silent, private delight. ‘Ross and I are looking over the plans for the new building.’ And that wasn’t all we’d be doing, if past weekends were anything to go by, but Tilly was at least a decade too young to know about whatelsewe’d be getting up to.
‘What building?’ She’d lost interest now in her mother’s weekend plans. Daddy was coming and she was clearly more focused on that.
‘The new hostel. The Isobel Isherwood building.’ I still hadn’t quite got used to saying that. Being a Public Benefactor was so totally new to me that I struggled to get my head around having the money to beableto be a benefactor. But I was determined that those diamonds would do some good.
‘Oh.’ Tilly scuffled on her bottom back into her room, hopefully to get her socks, and I sat down at the kitchen table and looked around me.
