‘I run a gallery in Missenden. Have you got any more of these?’ She pressed a card into Ella’s hand. ‘Come and see me,’ she paused and gave the nearest mouse picture a rueful look,
‘The mouse ones, well executed,’ her face softened and with a distinctly naughty twinkle she added, ‘but not my thing. I leave the cute stuff to the old dears.’
Ella raised a brow and grinned with her. She was easily the same age as most of the other women in the room, although something indefinable set her apart.
‘And let me know when your exhibition is.’ Ella turned the smooth matt card over in her palm, dying to look at it but it seemed rude to pick it up and peer at it. No doubt she ran one of those lovely little home interiors type shops where you could buy candles and tea towels and calendars.
‘Margery, you’re not monopolising our guest, are you,’ Audrey bustled up to join them.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ She looked down her nose so pointedly that Ella realised she was sending herself up. ‘You surpassed yourself this time.’
Audrey rolled her eyes with good humour. ‘I admitted the lady poultry expert was a bit dull.’
‘Dull!’ Margery gave a very unladylike snigger.
Audrey huffed in exasperation, ‘But there are lots of the ladies who are thinking of getting chickens.’
‘Thankfully they were bored into submission and the village won’t be overrun with chickens. Saves us being inundated with eggs at every meeting. We have enough baking competitions as it is.’
She walked off, leaving Audrey pursing her pink-lipsticked mouth. ‘Honestly, I admit we do get some duffers sometimes but she should try booking speakers. You were brilliant, and if Margery Duffle was impressed then you were good. She runs a very smart gallery in Missenden.’
‘Duffle, did you say?’ Ella’s pulse raced.
‘Yes,’ said Audrey with a complacent beam at her. ‘She’s very well known, I believe.’
‘Just a bit,’ said Ella faintly as blood rushed to her head. ‘Oh God, I’d never have brought those if I’d known.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘Margery Duffle. Margery Duffle.’ Ella kept repeating the name as she danced around her studio. Margery Duffle liked her picture.
A demanding knock at the door stopped her excited moves but her heart started skipping. Devon, bringing Tess back. He’d been out with her for ages. She tripped quickly down the stairs to open the door. He deserved a medal and dinner and maybe dessert this time. Memories of the sofa made her smile as she ran the last few steps to the door and threw it open.
‘Patrick!’
She stopped dead, holding the door in one hand, instinct shouting at her to slam it in his face.
‘Ella.’ He pushed a foot in the door. ‘We need to talk.’
Framed in the door in a waxed jacket and corduroy trousers, holding out a Fortnum & Mason bag, he looked just like Patrick. Not a monster. Although the country attire amused her. Typical.
Oh shit! He was probably right. She’d been running from this since the day she got on the train to Tring.
‘You’d better come in,’ she said in a low voice, as sadness pierced her. This wasn’t going to end well for either of them.
Time to be honest with him and herself, if he gave her the chance to get a word in edgeways. From the determined look on his face, he had it all worked out. Like the last piece of a jigsaw slotting into place, she saw the familiar patterns of the way their arguments had panned out in the past. Patrick being utterly reasonable. Wearing her down with his appeals and entreaties.
‘Ella, I’ve missed you. You’re looking amazing.’ He used the boyish charm that had worked so often in the past. Brown eyes big and soulful. Voice lowered in meaningful entreaty. What once seemed sexy and charming looked posed and artificial. And very different from the naturally masculine man she’d got used to in recent weeks.
‘Really?’ She’d made a bit of an effort for the WI but she hadn’t had her hair cut in weeks.
‘Yes,’ his voice held a note of surprise as he examined her face. ‘Yes. You look different. Maybe it’s the hair. It’s longer than usual.’ He tilted his head and then, as if he’d worked out the answer to a difficult sum, relaxed. ‘I see what it is. You’ve adopted the natural look. Bucolic charm. Roses in your cheeks.’
She raised an eyebrow. Her natural healthy glow came from daily walks in the sunshine which had also lightened her hair, while leaving it to dry naturally, instead of blow drying it into stylish submission, had given it a gentle curl.
It occurred to her that they were standing on the opposite sides of a chasm that couldn’t be crossed except he wasn’t even close to being aware of it. She couldn’t raise the energy to be cross with him when all she felt was a bone-deep weariness.
She led him to the lounge, deliberately avoiding the kitchen.
