Page 73 of A Colourful Country Escape
‘Oh. He does care for her?’ Why was she letting herself get pulled into this nonsense again? Organising other people was becoming less and less appealing. And she didn’t even want to consider whether she was just using Cynthia as her latest human shield against her feelings for Ben. Well, maybe Cynthia was welcome to him. Who’d want Mrs Carrington-Noble as their dragon-in-law anyway. Lexie would never feel good about herself again if she had that woman breathing scorn down her neck for all eternity.
‘And I’ll hurry things up with your replacement van. You’ll need your own living space when Benedict moves his new wife in. If you help to facilitate a union of businesses and hearts, I’ll stop digging around in your past and your secrets will be safe. We all have things we’d rather keep buried.’
Lexie gulped. She knew what was lurking in her own past, but she still wasn’t sure what, or perhaps who, Mrs Carrington-Noble was keeping interred.
‘I’d even let you keep your little job on the internet, with no more questions.’ Mrs Carrington-Noble flapped a hand as though arguing over a few Instagram posts was altogether too trifling. ‘Maybe you could even pitch up your camping-mobile in the bushes, over by the peacock shed.’
Urgh. Lexie Summers and her bloody bright ideas. Maybe therewassomething to be said for sorting out her own parachute first. But until then, she would have to just nod, smile and try to stay out of trouble.
Chapter 36
‘You should have seen Mother’s latest suggestion. Her earrings were bloody terrible,’ Ben shouted across the top of the car at Lexie.
She rolled her eyes and they jumped into Ben’s Merc and belted up, ready for the drive to Lancaster for Sky’s commitment ceremony. Ben had promised he had some business to attend to and Lexie was hoping he’d drop her off at a safe distance from her parent’s tatty council estate.
‘Sounds like you’re being unreasonably fussy,’ Lexie replied, as she searched her bag for road-trip M&Ms.
Ben had spent the past ten minutes systematically bulldozing his way through his mother’s updated list of matches, discarding each with a cutting remark.
‘They’re so heavy they’re giving her spaniel ears. Pat Butcher would have been proud of those.’
Lexie tutted, although she couldn’t blame him. It seemed like Mrs Carrington-Noble had picked a particularly odd bunch, presumably so Cynthia Fortescue would look like a comparative lottery win. How Lexie was going to broach the Cynthia subject with Ben was another matter. She had a three-hour drive and a hell of a lot of chocolate to help her with that.
Ben’s car crunched across the gravel driveway, past a pride of beady-eyed peacocks, and out onto the open road.
‘I can only assume she has a low opinion of me,’ said Ben as they finally hit the motorway.
‘Hmm?’ said Lexie, disturbed from her train of thought. She’d been watching the landscape in the distance, feeling like she was experiencing her drive down here all those weeks ago, but in reverse.
‘I mean, I had zero in common with most of those so-calledmatches. Call me choosy, but if I must go through with some charade of a wedding, my opposite number should at least be someone I could feel vaguely connected to.’
‘With respectable earrings,’ Lexie muttered. ‘They are removable, by the way.’
‘But dodgy taste in accessories is not.’
He was probably right on that point, but she wasn’t going to openly concede it.
‘You make it sound so unromantic,’ said Lexie. ‘Why are you giving me a lift to the other end of the country if you think weddings are a charade?’
‘I didn’t say all weddings. It’s just not something I would have chosen for myself. Being superglued to the same nagging human for the rest of my life until they finally peck me into an early grave.’
‘It’s not always like that, if you find the right person.’
‘The right person according to whom?’
Ben’s face was angled away from her, but she could still see the tightness in his jaw. He was becoming irritable, and in the small space of the car it was quickly contagious.
‘Well, you agreed to her bloody matchmaking. There’s no need to chew my ear off about the standard of people’s jewellery.’
‘Apologies. I should keep my private affairs to myself.’
‘Apparently so, after London.’ Oh God, where had that come from? She hadn’t meant to poke that ugly bear, twenty minutes into the world’s longest drive. He wasn’t even talking about that.
‘I’m extremely sorry about London. It was … regrettable. It won’t happen again.’
Oh. Maybe he did mean that. Which was fine. Wasn’t it? As if she wanted any of that Shakira grindy hips awkwardness with her too-good-for-anyone pompous arse of a boss. A small flutter in her chest was trying to argue with her, but it could just bugger off.
‘You’re right. It won’t happen again.’ Lexie heard her voice echo. Now the words were out there and she couldn’t hoover them back.
