Page 90 of The Christmas Retreat
‘I’ll let you know when you can look round it. Then, if it suits, it’s agreed,’ he said. ‘It isn’t furnished, by the way.’
‘I can have what I need sent up. My last cottage wasn’t huge, so I don’t have a lot of furniture anyway.’
Max went off to work then. Rhys explained that when thequarry garden was closed, Max usually helped in the rare shrub nursery.
Rhys laid his hand over mine on the table and said, warmly, ‘I hope you like the lodge, Ginny, because now I’ve found you again, I really don’t want you to vanish out of my life.’
He may have felt my instinctive slight withdrawal, for he added, quickly, ‘We’ve already become good friends, haven’t we?’
But despite his words, there was no mistaking the light in his amber eyes … or the sudden fast beating of my heart.
I was sure he had more than friendship in mind – but exactly what? And was I going to fall for him all over again?
I’d never been interested in casual affairs and my only other foray into a serious relationship, with Will, hadn’t exactly ended well.
I looked at him doubtfully, conflicting thoughts running through my mind … but then, I seemed to feel Annie’s ghostly presence between us once more, reminding me that I still hadn’t confessed to him that I’d been present when she died. And the longer I delayed it, the harder it seemed to become.
‘Rhys …’ I began, then faltered to a halt.
‘What is it, Ginny?’ he asked, looking concerned.
‘I – nothing,’ I said, changing my mind, then got up abruptly. ‘Hadn’t we better go and collect Cariad?’
*
When we arrived, Cariad came bounding down the steps of Castle Newydd, an impressive castellated stone building, and was excited by the news that I would be staying in the area, at least for a little while.
‘I think it should befor ever,’ she declared. ‘Don’t you, Daddy?’
‘Definitely, and I’m hoping she’ll love living here so much, she’ll never want to leave,’ he agreed. ‘She’s become – quite literally since we found out she’s related to the Caradocs – part of the family!’
*
A battle had been fought in our absence and Verity was now in triumphant possession of the family TV upstairs, as I discovered when I popped my head in to see how she was. She looked fine to me, sitting up in bed and, although her nose was a bit pink due to the sniffles, I suspected she was malingering.
Opal, however, who had come downstairs in her dressing gown and taken up residence in the small TV room, had genuinely had flu and it had left her listless and pale.
Pearl had said she seemed depressed and she certainly didn’t welcome any enquiries about her health from any of us, but remained in there with her dinner on a tray. Still, as Nerys said, that was an improvement on someone having to carry it upstairs.
That evening there was no mistaking the rosy glow surrounding Toby and Pearl. It was love!
And when Kate came back, late, from visiting her teddy bear expert acquaintance, she too looked rather flushed and self-conscious when she told us that her friend had asked her to stay for a day or two after the retreat, before she went home.
‘You know, I think love is in the air,’ I said to Nerys, as Kate answered one of many text messages on her phone after dinner, with an absorbed expression, while Pearl and Toby sat close together on a sofa, talking in quiet voices.
There was Evie and Noel, too, who had seemed thick as thieves ever since they’d met. My mother’s one previous foray into love hadn’t worked out that well. But perhaps they were just good friends, like me and Rhys.
Before I could shut off that train of thought I heard Rhys say, softly, ‘Let’s hope it’s as catching as flu, then.’
‘Running a marriage bureau would certainly make a change from being the reluctant proprietor of a plague house,’ Nerys agreed, with an amused glance at him.
28
Ill Will
When Will walked into the small private dining room at the Star and Stone next day and found a reception committee awaiting him, not just me, he stopped dead on the threshold looking totally taken aback – and even aghast, once his eye fell on Evie.
‘Hi, Will,’ I said breezily. ‘Why don’t you come in and close the door?’
