Page 35 of Beyond Her Manner
“Oh… erm…” Gillian’s cheeks tinged with pink. “Bridget brought it around last week and left it.”
“Left it playing?” Viola teased lightly as she drove off. She enjoyed poking fun at her new friend — if she could call Gillian that. This time, however, she could see her comment had made Gillian somewhat flustered as she fanned herself and then lowered the window. Hoping to put her at ease, she added, “You don’t have to answer that. Something I do want to know is if the classic car show went well?”
Gillian let out a dry laugh. “Let’s see, everyone was disappointed to find me — yet again — opening it instead of the A-list celebrity they’d been promised.”
Viola grimaced.
“And then there was the speech the major asked me to read.” Gillian rolled her eyes. “I drew the line at thanking Viola Berkleyand the Kingsford Estate for the use of the land. I couldn’t quite stomach that. So, no, I wouldn’t say it went well, at least for me.”
“Oh… sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Gillian replied with a resigned sigh. “It’s the major’s, for overpromising and delivering a spectacular anticlimax.”
“I wouldn’t call you an anticlimax,” Viola said, looking over at Gillian with a smile. The subtle shift in Gillian’s posture made Viola press on. “Why do you give so much to the village?”
The reply came quickly. “Duty.”
“You’re not the queen, Gillian.”
Gillian turned to Viola as if she was about to dispute that fact, then answered, “No, thankfully. I am very much alive.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, and you’ve given a lot too. The Berkley Pavilion didn’t come cheap,” Gillian said, biting her smirking bottom lip.
Viola snorted. “Thank you for the reminder.”
“Of the name or the price?”
“Both!” She grinned. “I wanted to make a good first impression, that was all. It got them off my back… at great expense.”
“I know. They have been pestering me for a new one for years. My policy is always to make do and mend.” A grin formed on Gillian’s lips. “You know the old one was perfectly serviceable.”
A realisation dawned on Viola. “Oh! Have I been had?”
“Let’s say they saw an opportunity and took it.” Gillian laughed and then covered her mouth. “It will only add to the appeal of the village… as long as no one looks at the back of it.”
Viola glared over her sunglasses at Gillian’s smirking lips. “If you find it distracting, how about you focus on navigation instead? Where am I going?”
Taking direction from Gillian, Viola turned down the high street of a gorgeous historic market town ten minutes later. It was typically laid out with a moot hall at one end and car parking down the middle of the road. Both sides of the street housed rows of shops in quaint Georgian buildings.
“Market day is on a Wednesday, so we shouldn’t have difficulty parking.” Gillian pointed to a shop further down on the left, aptly named ‘Country Attire’. “Park as close as you can to that.”
Viola drove the Porsche into a space outside a row of shops, squeezing them between a yellow car and an old blue camper van.
“It’s nice being out, doing something normal,” Viola said as she exited the car. “It’s something I don’t get much chance to do. The hat and sunglasses are great, but you draw more attention wearing them in the winter.”
A woman with long, brown hair appeared from the dry cleaner, arms laden with more clothes bags than any human could be expected to carry.
“Here, let me help you,” Viola said, racing forward to help her as a bag slipped off the top of the pile.
“Thanks. My wife has a lot of dry cleaning.”
“Then you should tell your wife to come and help you.” Viola laughed.
“Oh, I would if she wasn’t working away,” the woman said with an affectionate smile. “Would you mind opening the passenger door for me, please?”
The woman nodded at the light blue camper and handed her a key.
