‘That’s not it at all.’ She’d certainly come around to Adrienne’s way of thinking about food and sustainability, but at the same time, she wasn’t worshipping at her feet.
‘So you want to stay.’
‘Yes I do but—’
‘And she’s going to make a cook of you. Where’ve I heard that before? You do realise she does this all the time. Finds a new protégée. Except…’ His mouth twisted again. ‘You’re not a cook. You don’t have that drive or passion. You shouldn’t listen to Mam. You’ll never be a cook.’
If he hadn’t added that charming comment, she might have stayed cool, calm, and communicative, but his obvious derision and instant assumption pissed her off mightily. Hannah didn’t have much of a temper, but some things, like injustice and unfairness, were immediate triggers and when she blew, she blew. She could feel her face turning red, reflecting the furious boil of her blood below the surface and her fingers developed their own reflexive desire to slap his smug, know-it-all face. He didn’t know it all. He clearly didn’t know her at all. Didn’t know that she wasn’t the sort to take short cuts or hitch her wagon to anyone else for an easy ride. All her life she’d worked hard towards her goals. Instead of correcting him, she decided with grim fury that he could think what the hell he liked. He could go screw himself.
‘You big, stupid, arrogant, up-yourself eejit!’
As her face burned with fury, she realised the words seemed to have burst aloud and then felt pleased, especially at the slapped-with-a-wet-fish expression on Conor’s face.
‘What did you call me?’
‘I think you heard, you big, fat eejit.’ She huffed out a mirthless laugh, too far gone not to say it. ‘And to think I thought I was in love with you.’
As soon as she spat the words out, she realised she’d made a grave mistake.
‘You’re in love with me. What and you’re going to move to Ireland and we’re going to found the next Byrne dynasty. Now, where have I heard that before?’ He glared at her. ‘And fool that I am, I thought I was falling in love with you.’
‘Well, it’s a good job you weren’t,’ she said, and with a flounce she was excessively proud of, she turned and slammed out of the front door, stomping down the gravel path towards the farmhouse, uncaring whether Conor chose to follow her or not. After the weekend in Dublin, she’d thought there might be something more. Clearly she was as big an eejit as he flipping well was.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Adrienne Byrne knew how to throw a party. When they assembled in the kitchen on the following day, she had ten different lists arranged on the workbench in front of her.
‘Right, I’ve organised you into working parties. Jason and Fliss, I’d like you to sous chef for me here in the kitchen. Alan and Meredith, you’ll be working with Conor in here too and Izzy and Hannah, you’ll be helping set up the tables in the greenhouse and helping everyone else out.’
Hannah let out a huge internal sigh of relief and rubbed at her sore, tired eyes. She hadn’t seen Conor since she’d stormed out of his house last evening. He’d not come back to the cottage until after she’d gone up to her room – although that had been at eight o’clock and she’d lain on her bed, her ears pricked, listening out for him, while going over and over their conversation in her head. She still felt sick to her stomach that it had all turned out so badly. But at the end of the day, she hadn’t been anything but honest with him. Lying about her feelings, about what she wanted, wouldn’t have made any difference in the long term.
When he’d come back to the cottage at about nine o’clock, she’d hidden in her room, holding her breath when she heard his slow steps on the stairs. She didn’t quite bury her head under the duvet but it was a close-run thing as she lay there hoping and praying that he wouldn’t knock on the door but at the same time wishing he would.
‘Phew,’ muttered Izzy under her breath, echoing Hannah’s relief. ‘I was worried about having to cook for all these famous people.’
Hannah nodded. Her biggest anxiety was facing Conor this morning, although she was equally relieved that her cooking would not be receiving headline billing. It might have improved no end in the last few weeks but her presentation skills were still woeful and she certainly didn’t have the flair for cooking that marked out Fliss and Jason. They had that star quality. Meredith and Alan were both very good cooks but not as ambitious or driven towards perfection as the other two, although Meredith’s presentation was beautiful and she loved her prettifying as she called it. Hannah and Izzy, while now more than competent, were never going to set the world’s Michelin star restaurants on fire in the way that the two youngsters probably would one day. It suited her just fine to be a general dogsbody for the day.
Once Adrienne had given her orders for the morning, Hannah and Izzy found themselves carrying bundles of crisp white tablecloths out to the long greenhouse that stretched down the middle of the orchard, separating the apple trees from the pear trees. The entire fifty-foot length had been turfed and a series of trestle tables ranged down the middle.
Despite the sky being overcast, a flat grey that promised a shower or two, it felt quite muggy, so all the windows and vents of the greenhouse had been opened.
‘Wow, this is going to be quite something,’ said Izzy, clutching the white cloths as she looked all the way down to the end of the greenhouse.
‘Ah, there you are, girls,’ said Bridget, striding forward to meet them in a pair of teal dungarees, her head bound up in a bright-yellow scarf, looking a little like the grandma of a member of Little Mix. ‘You’ll help me lay up the tables, all seventy-five place settings.’ She took a couple of the cloths and within a second shook one out, letting it billow like a sail as it fluttered down over one of the tables. Hannah and Izzy followed suit and, in no time, each of the tables was covered.
‘Right. Next, table decorations. Come with me.’ Without breaking her stride, Bridget marched across the field, through the herb garden and the courtyard to the farmhouse kitchen.
‘Someone’s been busy,’ said Hannah, taking in the forest of wildflowers assembled in glass jars on the big pine table.
‘Franklin and Niamh were up at dawn collecting foxgloves, hedge parsley, lady’s bedstraw, and speedwell.’ She pointed to tall pink flowers, blousy white ones, tiny yellow ones and ever smaller pretty blue ones. ‘They’re to go on the tables, mixed with the candles.’ With a nod she motioned to the jam jars on the counters, each with a sturdy, fat candle and twisted with wire handles around the tops. ‘Those ones hang from the metal struts in amongst the fairy lights.’ She grinned. ‘We’re big on fairy lights.’
From beneath the table, she hauled out two large flat crates and helped load them up with the flowers. It took five journeys to transport all the flowers and candles back to the greenhouse and Hannah could feel the sheen of sweat coating her forehead. Annoyingly, with each trip, her mind strayed to Conor.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Izzy as she let out a sigh, not realising she’d done it out loud.
‘Yes, fine.’
‘Are you sure? Because you keep sighing.’
