Page 27 of A Recipe for Love
‘I am aware that the younger generation tend towards a somewhat more casual approach to things than might previously have been the norm here.’
‘What? I don’t—’
Veronica held a hand up. Bella shut up. It seemed like this was alittle talkwhere Veronica was the one who got to talk.
‘If you are to marry Baron Lowbridge…’
‘When,’ Bella muttered.
‘…there are certain expectations of you. A role like Lady Lowbridge comes with responsibilities and expectations. One cannot expect to have the same friendships and freedoms that she might have enjoyed before.’
Anger was beginning to swirl in Bella’s gut. Who was this woman to suggest that Bella wasn’t up to being the lady of her precious Lowbridge?
‘It is a life defined by duty, not by individual wants or fancies.’
This was ridiculous. ‘I think I can marry Adam and still have a life.’
‘Of course. I simply want you to understand what type of life that might be. It will be quite different from whatever you have enjoyed before.’
Bella folded her arms, which had the handy secondary benefit of securing her sheet more firming across her chest. ‘I’ll manage.’
Veronica’s lips pursed, presumably at Bella’s perceived insolence. ‘Perhaps you will. But is that enough?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Many peoplemanagein this sort of situation, but perhaps Lowbridge deserves more than that. Sooner or later one can find that it is not enough to manage. One might find they wish to be somewhere where they can thrive.’
Was Veronica warning her off? The anger in Bella’s gut hardened. She did not need lectures on how to fit in, or what sort of woman she needed to be to be a lady. She was Bella Bloody Smith and her nan had raised her to understand that people were people. No matter who they seemed to be or where they came from you could only judge them by getting to know them and finding out who they really were. Veronica was showing a bit of who she was this morning. Bella mentally marked the older woman’s card.
‘I’ll leave you to rest. Do think about it though. Is this really the place you belong?’
Bella managed almost six hours of resting with her foot up. During that time she drank five cups of tea, demolished a plate of ham sandwiches she suspected Flinty might have intended her to share with Adam, and a hefty chunk of fruit loaf – rich and moist and, she acknowledged, better than Bella could make herself – and imagined six different terrible accidents that could befall her soon-to-be grandmother-in-law.
The whole conversation had been ridiculous. She and Adam were here because his father had died. They would stay for the funeral, but then there was nothing to stop them – whatever Veronica said about duty – from going to Edinburgh like they planned. Adam didn’t even live here. Why on earth would Bella?
After every check-in and food delivery, Adam and Flinty both told her vigorously that she needed to rest. And she tried. She lay on the bed and she closed her eyes, but she kept finding herself sitting up, or picking up her phone.
There was a message from her nan. Bella smiled. That was their deal. Wherever they were, whatever was going on, her nan emailed or messaged once a week, and Bella replied, or vice versa. They were rarely long, verbose screeds on what was going on. They were just enough to let the other person know you were still alive, and keep that sense that somewhere out there was somebody you were connected to. Bella scanned the message.
I’m still down in Somerset. Gwendoline and Darren are dead set ontheir full moon ritual plan so I’ll probably stay here for that. Takecare. And tomorrow the world!
Bella hesitated over how to reply. News like an engagement ought to be delivered in person, but doing it over text would save her from actually seeing her nan’s unfiltered reaction. She started typing, and then deleted, and then typed again and deleted some more.
Bit of a change from Spain – I’m in the Scottish Highlands. Longstory but all is well (give or take a sprained ankle!) Tomorrow theworld xxx
And then she did try to rest, before starting a list of things she needed to do to find a job in Edinburgh, then an entirely unnecessary list of things she could do in Lowbridge. When she caught herself already three quarters of the way through registering with an international recruitment site, she decided that rest wasn’t really working out for her, and climbed out of bed.
Her jeans had been squirrelled away somewhere so she delved into Adam’s ridiculously overpacked suitcase. His jeans looked like they had every chance of fitting her waist but not a hope in hell of making it over her bum, so she pulled out a pair of soft jogging bottoms instead. They were fleece lined. What sort of man took fleece lined trousers to Spain?
Fleece lined was just the ticket for the old stone coach house. There was a radiator under the window but it didn’t seem to put out any heat at all, however much Bella twiddled the control. And the plug-in heater Flinty had found her created a delightfully tropical hot spot covering the six inches around the heater but didn’t seem to warm the room itself at all. And it wasMay. She was already thanking her lucky stars they wouldn’t be here for winter.
She dragged the jogging bottoms on with a T-shirt and her clogs. It wasn’t a high fashion look, but she was clean and dressed and ready for action. So long as the action only involved one foot.
She hopped down the stairs, clinging on to the rail, and hobbled into the courtyard. She stopped and twenty or more pairs of eyes turned towards her. Sheep. Lots of sheep. The leader trotted over to her bleating plaintively, followed by nineteen of its closest mates.
‘What are this lot doing here?’ Flinty came out of the kitchen door, buttoning her coat.
‘I don’t know. They were just sort of here.’ Bella limped towards Flinty. The sheep shuffled after her.
