There was only one word... ‘Love... Love has done this. Your family came together to do this for Natasha because you love her. That’s the difference.’
Laura put a sympathetic hand on his arm.
‘You’re tired, Darius. Working all hours at the foundry and selling a house is as stressful as death or divorce, even when you’ve only lived there a few years. Four hundred years...’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t begin to imagine how you must be feeling.’
‘No...’
He’d had a window, a few hours, and he’d grabbed it, wanting to be here, to stand by Natasha, but she didn’t need him. This was what she’d been working for. The prize. She had everything she wanted.
‘Sit down. I’ll get you a cup of tea and something to eat. Something to keep up your blood sugar levels. There are cucumber sandwiches, scones, or I’ve made some Bakewell tarts?’
‘Try spiced ginger.’
Natasha was standing in the doorway, flushed, laughing, and his heart leapt as it always did when he saw her. And each time it was different. That first time it had been purely physical, like a rocket going off. The rocket was still there, but now there was so much more. She was so much more. But her laughter, her joy was for something else.
‘Well, I’m sure you could do with a break, too,’ her mother said, ‘so why don’t you get it for him while I take the trolley through to the conservatory?’
Natasha walked across the kitchen, sat on his lap, put her arms around his neck and kissed him. ‘How are your blood sugar levels now?’ she asked, her eyes sparkling, the pulse in her throat thrumming with excitement.
‘Up. Definitely up...’ he said. ‘In fact, this might be a very good time to check out the structural integrity of the boathouse.’
‘Tash...’ She slid off his lap, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and was four feet away by the time her father appeared in the doorway. ‘There’s a Mr Darwish asking for you. I’ve put him in the library.’
‘Yikes! Major property buyer.’ She stopped at the door, leaned back. ‘By the way, we’re getting a double page spread in the Country Chronicle. Kevin Rose, the editor, knows you are the Darius Hadley. I’m afraid you’re busted.’
‘It was only a matter of time before someone made the connection,’ he said. ‘Will it help if I talk to him?’ he asked, as if he hadn’t heard their conversation.
‘Darling, if you talk to him we’ll be on the front cover.’
‘Great,’ he said as she flew out of the door. ‘I’ll do that, then.’
They both watched the space where she’d been for a moment. ‘Her career is her world, Darius. She had a bad start in life and maybe we overprotected her.’
‘She told me. All of it.’
‘She threw up a job that had been her dream to get away. Be independent. Prove something to us.’
‘To herself, I think.’ That she wasn’t that kid lying in a cancer ward, or a basket-case teenager. And she’d done it, becoming the top-selling agent for her company with a bright red BMW sports coupé to prove it. And when she’d been knocked back she’d proved it all over again. ‘You knew she turned down the National Trust job?’