Page 40 of The Beekeeper's Cottage
‘Oh.’
Amos took in her expression. ‘But, as I’ve already told Flora, I won’t just up sticks and leave. We’ll all know when it’s time for me to go, and that will be when the time is right. I don’t stay a set amount of time anywhere. In fact, I don’t ever know how long I’m going to be in a place, I wait for circumstance to tell me and time just passes of its own accord.’
‘But when you travel, you help people along the way?’
He nodded. ‘We help each other.’ He touched a finger to the corner of his mouth. ‘I know I can tell you this without having you laugh at me,’ he said. ‘But I have a view of the way the world works, or how it likes to work given the chance. All I do is encourage that process by looking for the openings, the little chances; the opportunity to help and be helped is always there if you keep yourself open to it.’
He pulled a face. ‘And over time I’ve kind of developed a sixth sense for knowing where I need to be. Plus, every once in a while you meet people who think the same way and then, whoosh, pretty much anything seems possible.’
‘A wise observation,’ commented Grace. ‘You wouldn’t be talking about Hope Corner, would you, by any chance?’
Amos grinned. ‘Now who’s being wise?’ he asked. ‘You already know that there’s a massive buzz about this place and I’m not just talking about your bees. I felt it as soon as I arrived and now, in answer to your very first question, the reason I am helping you is very simple – I look for the places where I can push what’s already going on even higher. Or does that all sound a bit new age, hippy, woo woo…?’ He dunked his biscuit and then popped it, whole, into his mouth.
Grace laughed, and he was pleased to see her finally beginning to relax. ‘Probably,’ she agreed. ‘But I also happen to think it’s true. It does take the right kind of people to make it happen though. There are certain people who wear blinkers their entire lives and never even notice what’s happening around them. I love your ideals, Amos, but surely your hopefulness about the way people behave isn’t always borne out?’
‘No, of course it isn’t. Some people are just morons whatever help you try to give them, mentioning no names, obviously…’
Grace caught the inflection in his voice. ‘Isn’t that the truth,’ she said. ‘I had high hopes for Dominic once. Despite some very silly behaviour in the past, I always thought he was basically a good soul and all it would take was a little nudge for him to shine. It seems I was wrong.’
‘You never know, he might surprise you yet.’
‘Oh, he’s certainly done that.’ Grace picked up a biscuit and jabbed it viciously in her tea. ‘Although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised really; anyone who hangs around Paul for long enough seems to become tainted with the same low moral standard that he has.’
‘Everyone except you, Grace,’ Amos reminded her.
She smiled, but it was a tight, brief affair and went nowhere near her eyes.
‘So you mentioned that Dominic is Paul’s boss. Does that mean that he’s the person to whom you sent the information about your husband’s various dalliances? And presumably therefore the one who might hold some sway over Paul’s actions as a result? It would seem that he’s holding rather a lot of cards.’
Grace nodded. ‘Yes, and when you’re holding all the cards, it’s pretty easy to use blackmail as a means to your own ends.’
‘Blackmail?’ He sat up a little straighter. ‘Grace, that’s serious.’
She waved her hand. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean it in the traditional monetary sense, but in a way I might as well have. Right now, if I do what they say, I get to keep the house, that’s what it boils down to.’
Amos’s mug was on the way to his mouth and he paused, holding the rim against his lips, holding her look for a moment before taking a swallow. ‘I think you’d better tell me what’s been said.’
Grace settled herself. ‘When Paul’s career first began to take off there was a lot more money in the industry than there is now,’ she explained. ‘And everyone was wined and dined, it was the only way deals were done. And I’m not just talking a dinner party, I’m talking full-blown house parties which went on for the whole weekend, usually three or four people, sometimes as many as six or seven. Over the years, I got quite adept at putting on a good show.’
She gave a soft smile and blushed slightly. ‘Actually, it was a bit more than that. The three of us were quite a team,’ she added wistfully. ‘Dominic would hook in the business, I would set the stage and provide the setting, and Paul would reel them in. For quite a time it felt like we could do no wrong. Paul’s career was in the ascendant and it seemed as if everything he touched turned to gold.’ She shook her head as if to clear it.
Amos could see how hard it was for her. She had played such an important role in her husband’s career, only to be cast aside like last year’s out-of-date clothes. How anyone could do such a thing to someone like Grace was beyond him.
‘Of course, after a while, as entertaining budgets became less and less, the weekends stopped, shrank into dinner parties, then drinks, then trickled away to nothing. Deals still got done, just not the way they had happened before. Except that now, Dominic has found a very big fish that he wants to land and he wants my help to do it.’
‘Dominic wants your help?’ he queried.
‘Both of them do. Except that Dominic knew that Paul would never be able to talk me into doing what they wanted so Dominic came to do the dirty work instead. Dominic has his hook well and truly planted in some bigwig hotshot from America who’s launching a brand new programme that all the networks are vying for. Paul is the bait of course and, although it seems that they like the taste of him already, Dominic needs something to set themselves above the competition.’
‘And that something would be you, would it?’ supplied Amos.
Two spots of colour were appearing on Grace’s cheeks as her words brought back her feelings from earlier. ‘I still can’t quite believe he had the nerve to even ask me, but it would appear that in the cut-throat world of television, anything goes. I am to turn the clock back and provide the kind of weekend that I have done in the past for three guests, despite the fact that I can barely stand to be in the same room as my husband. If all goes well and the network gets the show, with Paul as host, then I get to keep the house. Dominic has even said he’ll go so far as to get something drawn up legally so that Paul can’t back out of it.’
Amos held her look. He could hear the anxiety in her voice and see the pain in her eyes and his own anger was beginning to rise as a result. How could anyone think it was acceptable to trade for something over which there should not even be any question? The trouble was that, as with all things negative, there was always a positive side to be found, and Amos had become adept at finding it over the years.
‘You could look on it as a massive compliment,’ he remarked.
Grace’s withering look suggested otherwise.
