‘Nonsense! Of course you must stay here.’
Tash grinned. Bazinga...
* * *
‘Mum, Mum, we’ve found a boathouse! There’s a single scull!’
Patsy rolled her eyes. ‘I told you not to go near the river without an adult, Michael.’
‘Tom and Harry and James are down there, river dipping with the little kids.’
‘Are you interested in rowing, Michael?’ Darius, who was cutting the lawn, had stopped for a drink of the fresh lemonade Patsy had brought out.
‘He’s been desperate to try it ever since the Games,’ she said.
‘Well, let’s go and take a look at it. I’ll need a hand to get it down. Any volunteers?’ He glanced around at the women stretched out on the grass, soaking up the sun, studiously avoiding looking at Natasha, who took the view that the one-hour rule didn’t apply to her and was busy washing down the external doors and windowsills.
‘Take Tash,’ Patsy suggested. ‘Please. She’s making us feel guilty.’
‘Natasha?’ he prompted. ‘Do you want to give these women a break?’
‘They’re on holiday, I’m not.’ But she peeled off her rubber gloves and joined him.
‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked as they followed Michael down to the river.
‘Not especially,’ she admitted. ‘You’d think in a house of this size we might manage a few minutes on our own. If the kids had been ordered to chaperone us, they couldn’t have done a better job of it.’
‘Your mother knew what she was doing when she insisted I stay,’ he said. ‘If it’s any consolation, I’m not getting much sleep, either.’
‘Memories?’ she asked.
‘More the fact that my childhood bed no longer smells of dog, but of you. Which is very disturbing, especially when I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours under the close-eyed scrutiny of your three very large brothers who, let me tell you, are nowhere as easy to charm as your mother.’
‘Maybe you should stop being so charming to their wives,’ she suggested, a little tetchily, he thought.
‘You want me to be charming to you?’
‘No! That is so not what I want and you know it.’
He knew but they’d reached the boathouse and Michael was dancing with impatience, waiting for the slowcoach adults to catch up.
‘Anticipation only increases the gratification,’ he said.
‘That had better be a promise.’
‘Cross my heart,’ he said, drawing a cross over his chest, just as she had, and she groaned.
‘Come on!’
‘Okay, let’s see.’
The buckles on the straps were rusted but they finally managed to free them and lower the scull into the water and then watch as it filled with water.