Page 22 of Not Exactly Mr. Darcy
A memory of Sunday night’s conversation poked through his thoughts, taunting him. He shook his head.
“Liam?”
He sighed. He owed it to his sister to tell her the truth. “Fine. Veronica rang me the other day with an offer.”
“What kind of offer?”
He wiped his hands on the paper napkin, then dragged them down his face. “She wants me to reopen the Hall. Said we’d get tourists in.” He scoffed with disbelief.
“Well? You would if you opened. But that takes people to open it.” George frowned. “Who is she thinking would help?”
He jerked his chin at the trio sitting at the table.
“Those three? But isn’t Veronica nearly eighty?”
“Thereabouts. And she’s just been in the hospital, so she’s hardly able to lead tours like she used to.” See, he’d been right to deny her. It would be cruel to force an old woman to do something like that. Why couldn’t she see he was protecting her from herself?
“And from what I remember Tobias is hardly a man of leisure.”
“No.” The man might be based in their village, but he had charge of another parish too.
“What about the granddaughter?”
“What about her?” he sniped.
George’s eyes rounded. “Well, judging from that response, now I definitely have to meet her.”
But as if they’d heard her request, the trio stood, Liv helping her grandmother to stand. She didn’t look at him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Maybe she really was what she’d said, simply here to help her grandmother. She certainly seemed to care about Veronica.
George’s gaze seemed to shift between him and Liv. Yes, he’d been a bit too abrupt there, fuelling speculation that really wasn’t helpful.
Because he’d wrecked all possibilities with how he’d treated her. And even if Veronica was to reiterate her offer and he said yes, he could bet the dryad would want nothing to do with him. And he really couldn’t blame her.
Chapter 6
A sea of beauty lay before her, in rows of pink and white, lilac and indigo. Liv’s heart, a little sore today from her grandmother’s complaints, eased as she stared at the rows of flowers. These fields, known locally as flower confetti fields, were only open for a week or two each summer, and Gran had insisted Liv needed to see it while she could.
“You won’t see flower fields like that in Australia,” she’d promised.
And no. Staring out across the loveliness from one of the elevated platforms designed for the hundreds of tourists, she doubted she would. Delphiniums, cornflowers, poppies, it was like a floral fairyland. Every so often a breeze would ripple through the rows, releasing a drift of tiny petals—the confetti thrown at weddings, that was a more eco-friendly, biodegradable alternative to paper or foil confetti. Gran had said that after the show the flowers were handpicked, dried, and then sorted by hand, creating jobs for the locals. Such a clever idea.
See, this was the kind of thing that Hartbury Hall should do. Lease out some of its lands, grow flowers it could then sell, create jobs, revive the village, keep the school alive. It was a shame nobody had the vision to take the reins.
Liam the grumpy gardener seemed to have limited ideas and even less time. She wondered if he was the only person who worked at the Hall. She hadn’t seen anyone else on her visit there. Maybe nobody else wanted to work with him because he was so surly. Or maybe the owner was a tightwad who couldn’t be bothered paying beyond an absolute minimum. Like paying Liam, who obviously had far too much work for one man.
Sorry, God.She needed to forgive him.
She clenched her fingers, then released them. What happened at the Hall was none of her business. Gran might be disappointed—she wondered if that was partly why she seemed a little down in the dumps in the past days since returning from the hospital—but like she’d said, people made their choices, even if it meant the future generations had to live with the consequences.
Like Doreen and Felicia, who had selected a history teacher who didn’t know her stuff. Good luck to those students—they’d be needing it, for sure. Or those people in state planning departments who seemed to think green space between villages was a licence to approve mini-city developments, not just at the expense of traditional village charm and character but also at the expense of local wildlife, like those koala habitats sacrificed for developers’ greed. Things like that made her mad, and she wished she could do something about it. But again, she couldn’t get gung ho and take action against all the injustices in the world. “Lord, what is it You want me to do?”
For a moment last Sunday, she’d wondered if Gran had wanted Liv to stay and somehow get involved in the village. Not that the local primary school needed a teacher. She probably could see about how her teaching qualifications transferred across to England, but even if she did that, that would take months.
Not that it mattered now. From her most recent conversations, it sounded like Gran was thinking that Liv would only be here a little while longer, and then she’d return to Australia. Which meant what? Teaching again? No way did she want to return to Wattle Vale Secondary College. That ship had sailed. Working at her parents’ tea shop? That held limited appeal. But what? Uncertainty was hard to navigate. Where could she invest her dreams? What even were her dreams these days?
She shook her head. No. Gran had given her this opportunity, and she needed to make the most of it, not let the questions infect her enjoyment of today.
She joined the queue moving to another elevated platform and then, once there, took her time to photograph the fields from higher. “It’s so beautiful.”
