Restoring Grace (27 page)

‘
In a
manner of speaking. Can I come in for a moment?
I won't keep you long. I
know how tired you must be.’

Grace stood back to let him into the house.
'We'll go
into the kitchen, I don't want to
disturb Ellie.' She smiled
again,
genuinely this time. 'Demi has been asleep for ages
and wouldn't wake
for an earthquake.'

‘Can I make you a cup of tea, or anything?' she
said, when they had reached the kitchen.

‘
That would
be nice,' said Flynn. 'I realised that I hadn't
had the opportunity to show you how to keep the
Rayburn going.'

‘
I'm sure I
could work it out,' said Grace, wondering
for the millionth time why her
good manners always deserted her when she was with Flynn.

Flynn ignored her. 'This silver wheel is the
draught.
When you come down in the morning,
open that right
up, or even open that door, and put on some dry sticks,
dried orange peel, a bit of a cardboard box, stuff
like
that, which you'll have handy, if you're wise. When the
fire is going really well, or the kettle's boiled,
you can
put on some bigger logs and
turn the draught down a
bit. OK?'

‘
Fine. It's
really kind of you to give it to us,' said Grace,
valiantly fighting for the social skills which
served her
so well with everyone else
she encountered. 'We're
extremely grateful.’

He smiled in a way which made her feel that he
didn't
believe her gratitude, which was mean
of him because
she was trying so hard. She sighed deeply and looked at
him, her head on one side.

‘If you're really that grateful,' he said,
'there's a favour you could do for me.'

‘Oh, what? I mean, anything, I'd be only too
pleased.’

He laughed again. When
she'd first met him he'd
hardly laughed
at all, ever; now he seemed to think every
little
thing she said hilarious.

‘You may not be when you hear what it is. I
need you to feed my cat.’

Grace frowned. 'You have a cat?'

‘I do indeed. A Siamese. And, as I told you,
I'm going
away and for the first time ever,
there won't be anyone
in the house
to feed her and there isn't anyone else I feel
I can ask. I was wondering if you'd be very kind and do
it. My
house is on the way back from town to here, so if you're ferrying Demi to
college—'

‘
Of course
I'll do it. Can I come over and see what I
have to do tomorrow? Oh, no,
not tomorrow, I'll have Allegra. What about the day after? If you give me
directions to your house . . .'

‘
I'm going
away tomorrow afternoon. Not sure how
long for, I'm afraid. Could you
come over at lunchtime? Or will you still have Allegra with you?'

‘I don't know!' Grace was too tired to keep the
desper
ation out of her voice. She wasn't
looking forward to
seeing Allegra again tomorrow; she would find it much
easier to bully Grace if they were alone together.

‘
I'm going at two. I'd
better give you instructions about
the burglar alarm now.'

‘
What about keys? If you have a burglar alarm, presumably
you don't leave the house unlocked?'

‘
I went home
and got them.' He raised his eyebrows
and almost smiled. 'I presumed on
your good nature.’

She laughed. 'Rash, considering how my good
nature seems to keep itself to itself when you're around.'

‘
I know. But
you have been kind to Ellie and Demi so
I knew you had it in you.’

The tension between them
eased but not entirely. Grace
couldn't quite relax with him,
couldn't have the easy, friendly relationship that Ellie and Demi achieved with
no effort at all. She couldn't help remembering the way he'd stared at her that
first night and how it had disconcerted her.

‘
Tell me
about your alarm system then, and what your
cat eats.'

‘I'd better write it down.'

‘
Oh! Is it on a diet, then? I'm not cooking for
it.’

‘Not the
cat, eejit, the alarm system.'

‘
Is "eejit" Irish for "idiot"?'

‘No, it's a special word for when people are
being particularly tick.'

‘Don't you mean "thick"?'

‘I know what I mean, and so do you. Find me
something to write on.’

Grace found a piece of paper and he wrote a
long list of instructions on how to get into the house. The cat feeding bit was
just a line at the end of what could have been the plan for a major military
operation.

‘
It seems
terribly complicated,' she said, looking at his
straight black writing
and thinking that she liked it.

‘But you must have a burglar alarm here.
They're all much the same.’

She shook her head.
'Nothing to steal here. That anyone
knows about, anyway,' she added,
remembering the pictures. 'What do you mean?’

Covering up quickly, she said, 'I have a few
wedding presents stashed away in the attic.'

‘
But when
you were married, when you had furniture,
didn't you need a burglar
alarm then?'

‘No. Edward could never find one that he could
live with on the front of the house.'

‘I can't believe you've managed with so little
furniture since your divorce.'

‘
I've got a
perfectly good bed,' she countered, and then
wished she hadn't. He was unlikely to think she was
being
suggestive, but there was something about beds that made people think the wrong
thing.

His mouth twitched in a way
that was somehow
more amused than a
full-blown grin. 'I'm glad to hear
it. I wouldn't
like to think of you sleeping on bare
boards.'

‘
Goose
down,' she said reassuringly, reluctantly smiling
back. 'And percale
sheets. Edward had very good taste.’

‘I'd realised that.'

‘
About this
burglar alarm,' she went on, partly to
make
him stop looking at her with a smile in the back
of his eyes that seemed to mean more than it should
do.

‘
Try and come
to my house before two,' he said after
a
moment. 'It would be easier if I could actually show
you what to do.'

‘And your house is . . . ?’

Flynn turned back to the piece of paper and drew
a map on it for her and explained again about which key went where in what
order.

‘
You'd
better give me the number of the alarm, too. Or
do I just press a
switch?'

‘
Good God,
no. I'll tell you. Do you want me to write
it down? It's very simple. I
expect you'll remember it.’

‘I'd rather not take the chance.'

‘Then don't lose this bit of paper. It's got
instructions on how to get to my house and how to disable the alarm when you
get there.'

‘
Not to
mention which flavour of Kittikins your cat
likes. Highly explosive
information,' she teased.

‘
In the
wrong hands, it could be,' he said, his voice not
quite as serious as
his expression.

‘I won't let it get into the wrong hands,' said
Grace, trying to match his sober manner.

When Grace finally shut
the door behind him and
pulled the bolt she was aware of a
sense of loss. It must be because he was large and left an equally large space
behind him.

Chapter Eleven

Ellie set off in her car to Randolph Frazier's
wondering how on earth she and Grace would find thirty thousand
pounds before the house fell down or, in her
opinion more
importantly, the pictures fell apart.

Everyone had got up far
too early that morning, in spite
of going to bed so late: they were
all so worried about oversleeping, they hardly slept at all. Grace had to get
Demi to college, and Ellie had to get herself to Bath for ten o'clock.

Several money-making
projects had been discussed and
most of them dismissed.

‘I could sell the car,' Grace had said. 'It
wouldn't raise
all of it, but it would be a start.
On the other hand, I don't
know if I'd be very good at buying a cheap
second-hand car. I wouldn't be able to kick the tyres and say rude things about
it.’

The thought of Grace trying to pull off a deal
from a possibly crooked car salesman had made Ellie smile, in
spite of herself. 'We'll buy a local paper and
look in it,
and when Demi gets her
computer we'll be able to
research how much yours is worth.’

Demi, who was using her spare time to sort out
her
pencil case - and trying hard to
disguise the fact that she
was
actually quite pleased about going back to college, a
life of leisure
being less attractive than it had once been - had said, 'When I had my computer
they were always emailing great loan deals to me. When we get it from Mum, we
could go for one of them!’

Grace had been firm. 'Definitely not. Their
rates of
interest would mean I had to sell
the house anyway, and
if I'm going to do that, I might as well sell it
to Allegra.'
Then she'd frowned and wrinkled
her nose. 'Mind you,
if all else fails, we might have to look into it.'

‘
I do think
you should think more about beefing up
the wine tastings, and having
food with them?' Ellie had suggested. 'I love fancy cooking. It would be fun.’

Grace wrinkled her nose
again, a process which appar
ently aided thought. 'Would it be
cost-effective, though?'

‘
Well, you
could charge! "An Evening of Wine and
Food" Thirty or forty
pounds a head. You'll get the wine
for
nothing and if you have six different bits of food, some
of them could
be really cheap.'

‘What wine goes best with baked beans, you
mean?' said Demi.

Ellie nodded. 'What do you think, Grace?'

‘It could work.'

‘But you couldn't have them in the kitchen,'
Demi pointed out.

‘Why not? Shabby chic and all that,' said Grace
hopefully.

‘It would be rather nice to light the fire in
the drawing room, like you did last night for your sister, and rig up
some sort of table in there. It would still be
shabby chic.
Demi could put on a short black dress, black stockings
and a frilly pinny and serve. A French maid to go
with
the French wine.’

Demi squeaked.

‘That's a good idea!' said Grace.

‘
What!'
Demi's indignation was possibly audible in the
next village.

‘Not the French maid thing,' said Grace
dismissively,
'the drawing-room idea. We
could make it lovely and if
we got enough people, word would get round
and my name would become better known and I might get more
columns to write. I'll ask Graham from the wine
shop.
He knows someone on a magazine who might get me a column. We could
ask him, too, perhaps.'

‘You're hardly going to make thirty grand doing
that,' said Demi, still smarting from the maid idea. 'At least, not for years.'

‘
But it could
be an added regular income. Let's make
a
list of all the things we can do and sell to make money.
We'll feel much more positive if we have a list we
can
cross things off from.'

‘And the first thing on it is for you to
register with a doctor,' said Grace.