The French Gardener(21)
“We’ve just moved here,” she said, pouring ground coffee into the machine. “We’re still adjusting.”
“Change takes time. But this is a beautiful place. You will be very happy here.” The way he spoke sounded almost prophetic.
“What brings a Frenchman to Hartington?”
“That is a good question. I don’t really know myself.”
“You don’t look like a tourist.”
“I am not.”
Storm pulled a stool over to where Jean-Paul was perched and climbed up. “Jean-Paul is going to build me a little house in a tree,” she said, smiling up at him.
“She was sad she didn’t have a secret house, like her brother,” said Jean-Paul.
“Gus won’t play with her, that’s the trouble. He’s nearly eight. Storm’s too little for him. Do you have children?”
“No, I never married,” he said.
What a waste of an attractive man, she thought.
“Gus will be going to boarding school next year,” she continued.
“Boarding school? He is very little.”
“Believe me, if anyone needs boarding school, it’s Gus.” She chuckled, opened the fridge and took out a carton of milk. “Besides, I work. The sooner they’re both packed off to boarding school the better.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a journalist. A frustrated novelist, actually. I like to think that when the children go to boarding school I’ll have the time to write a book.”
He looked down at Storm. “Little Storm will go, too?”
“When she’s eight and a half. I’ve got you for a while longer, haven’t I, darling?” said Miranda, smiling at her daughter. But Storm only had eyes for the handsome Frenchman.
“What do you do, Jean-Paul?” She poured coffee into his cup and handed it to him.
He hesitated while he took a sip. Then he looked at her steadily and replied, “I garden.”
Miranda was astonished at the coincidence. “You’re a gardener?”
He gave a wry smile. “Yes, why not?” He shrugged in the way Frenchmen do, lifting his shoulders and raising the palms of his hands to the sky. “I garden.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve been frantically looking for someone to do our garden. Everyone keeps telling me that the previous owners were brilliant gardeners and that this was the most beautiful garden in the country. I’m now feeling guilty that I’m letting it go. As if it’s a great crime or something.”
He stared into his coffee cup. “Did you know the people who lived here before you?”
Miranda shook her head. “No. Old people, I think. Lightly or something. They moved away.”
“I see.”
“You’re not…I mean…you wouldn’t consider…”
“I will bring this garden back to life,” he said.
Miranda looked pleased. “My husband will think I’m mad. I don’t even know you.”
She couldn’t have known why he suddenly offered himself. That it wasn’t a wondrous coincidence but a promise made over two decades before.
“Trust me, I am more than qualified. This is no ordinary garden.”
“We have a cottage just over the river. It’s in need of repair. It wouldn’t take long. We’d be happy for you to live there rent free.”
He turned to Storm. “Gus’s secret house, no?”
“It’s very dirty,” Storm piped up. “It’s all dusty. I’ve looked inside.”
“We’d clean it out, of course. It’s a charming place. I bet it’s an idyll in the summertime.”
“It will do,” he replied. He stood up and walked over to the window. “It would be a shame to let it go,” he said gravely. “After all the work that has gone into it.” After all the love that has gone into it.
He drained his cup. “I must go,” he said. “I have some things to sort out in France. I will return at the end of the month and I will give you a year.”
“That gives us enough time to prepare your cottage.”
“You never told me your name,” he said, walking into the corridor.
“Miranda Claybourne.”
“I ask of you one thing, Mrs. Claybourne.” His gaze was so intense she felt her stomach lurch.
“Yes, what is it?”
“That you take my advice without question. I promise, you will be more than satisfied.”
“Of course,” she replied, blushing again. His charisma was alarming.
“You don’t trust me now, but you will.” He turned to Storm, who was following them into the hall. “There is magic in the garden,” he said, crouching to her level.