Page 122 of A Recipe for Love
She leaned against the weird half-seat thing along the wall of the bus shelter and checked the time on her phone. Three minutes to wait. The digital display board, installed at great expense to inform travellers of the precise location of the next bus, told her brightly that no information was available at this time. She glanced down the road. The expanse of concrete and tarmac almost startled her. She was an animal of the city, but part of her brain was screaming for wide open skies and deep sparkling sea.
She blocked out the view and scrolled through her phone, not really taking in what she was reading, thinking instead about what exactly she was going to say to Adam when she made it back to Lowbridge. If she hadn’t been so absorbed she might have noticed the vehicle pulling into the bus stop. She might have heard the door opening and slamming closed. She might have been less shocked when she looked up.
Adam.
He was standing next to the estate’s antique Land Rover, parked entirely illegally in the bus stop. His hair was messed up and his face etched with tiredness. She moved to him without thinking, her body responding to his presence.
‘You’re going somewhere?’ His eyes were fixed on the stuffed rucksack that was still in her hand.
‘I was going to go and see you.’
He half-smiled, the same half-smile that had melted her the first time she’d seen it. ‘I’m not there.’
‘Clearly.’
They stood opposite one another in silence for a second. Bella needed to say something. She’d thought she had hours on trains and buses to pin down the details. ‘Adam—’
‘Bel—’
They both stopped.
‘Can I go first?’ Adam asked.
‘OK.’
‘I’m sorry.’
The knot in her stomach unclenched a notch. She let herself press her body against his and wrap her arms around his neck. For a moment he responded, pulling her closer and burying his face in her hair.
And then he pulled away. ‘Please. I’ve been planning this the whole way here. I’m sorry. I…’ His voiced tailed off. ‘I’m sorry. I’m going to be a coward and do this bit first.’
‘What?’
‘Look, I wasn’t going to show you these. I didn’t want to put pressure on you but, I’ve got some letters from people.’
‘What do you mean?’
He pulled a handful of papers from his jacket pocket. There were notes from everyone. Flinty. Darcy. Pavel. Jill. Anna and Hugh. Cath and Claire. Molly and Katy. Nina and the parents and toddlers, complete with handprint artwork from the kids. All asking her to come back, all telling her how much more alive Lowbridge had become since she’d been there and how much they missed having her around.
The final letter was in a sealed envelope addressed to Miss Bella Smith in neat cursive writing. Bella slit it open.
Dear Miss Smith,
I believe I might owe you both an explanation and an apology. I have come to see that I did not always make your time at Lowbridge easy and I fear that you might have come to the conclusion that this was a result of some antipathy towards you on my part.
On the contrary, I sought – misguidedly perhaps – only to protect you. I know, better than most, what can happen to young women full of life who give their futures to Lowbridge. I was once one myself, and everyone said how very lucky I was that the laird would choose to court a butcher’s daughter from the village. And I was lucky. My husband was kind and took care of me and our son very well, but I closed off a part of myself when I married him and took on the role of his wife. I still wonder what that girl I used to be would make of me now. I fear I would be the most awful disappointment to her.
And then when my son married Adam’s mother and she couldn’t bear the role that was thrust on her, to the point that she ran away from her own child, and then he brought Darcy back from America, it felt as though the story was constantly repeating itself. Yet another fiery, lively, woman closed up inside the castle.
Perhaps I couldn’t bear to see you trapped in the same way. It has been pointed out to me that I might have read these other people’s stories through the tinted lenses of my own. Darcy assures me that she never felt for one moment trapped but loved, not only by my son, but also Lowbridge itself. I wonder whether I should allow you and Adam the space to write your own story and not impose my own upon you.
In short, then, I apologise for any coolness you might have felt. I do hope you will come back to Lowbridge. You brought a certain light and vigour that we have, I now see, been missing. If you choose not to return, then I hope you make that decision for the best possible reasons and will find happiness wherever your life might take you.
Yours,
Veronica, Lady Lowbridge
‘Did you read this?’
