Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“I’m fine,” I say. But I take the plate and the fork anyway. Sugar might help. I haven’t told Sandra about Vincent. Of course I haven’t. Not because she’d judge me. She’d be thrilled. She, along with the rest of the staff on the estate, are always telling me I need to have fun, asking me if I’m dating—or “courting” as the older staff say. They don’t accept I can have fun without dating or husband shopping or even going to the cinema in Cambridge. I have plenty of fun at Crompton.
Case in point? Last night. No dating involved. Vincent and his magic penis will be long gone by now and it will be like he was never here.
Suits me fine.
I wouldn’t have hated it if he’d stayed an extra night, although probably best he didn’t—I checked—as my body might have seized up if there’d been a repeat performance.
I open the Crompton Instagram page and check the notifications first. A few of yesterday’s visitors tagged us in photos. There’s one of the magnolia outside the tea shop that must have been taken just as we opened because there’s a long shadow of the person taking the shot underneath the flowers.
My stomach lurches as I wonder for a second if Vincent posted it. I check the handle and it’s just a picture of a mountain. It wouldn’t be him, would it? He’s not the kind of man who takes pictures of pretty flowers and posts them on Instagram. He’s the kind of man who looks at you like you’re a slice of cake and kisses you right into summertime. I click on the profile anyway, even though I know it’s definitely not Vincent, just because, if it is, that’s something I’d like to see. What would a man like Vincent’s Instagram account look like?
But it’s not Vincent’s Instagram account. I scroll up and down the grid and figure out it’s probably the couple from Harrogate that came in just after Vincent’s cousin, Nathan, arrived. I repost the picture on our account, adding a tag for Crompton’s gardens.
Nathan was the one whose wife or girlfriend wasn’t with him. But he didn’t look like the typical Crompton visitor either. I suppose they were having a family get-together of sorts, but it still doesn’t make sense why Vincent stayed over. Couldn’t he have gone back to London when the rest of the family left?
I’m over-thinking it. Why he was here doesn’t matter.
The crunch of gravel catches my attention and I look up. Meghan is coming toward me, carrying a can of full-fat Coke and wearing sunglasses and a puffer jacket, despite the fact it’s a balmy twenty degrees.
“Hey, sorry about last night.” She hands me a Freddo—a chocolate frog. “Have this. I’ve had two already today.”
“A two-Freddo morning. Must be bad. How’s the migraine?”
“It’s actually fine. I took the medication early, so I’ve escaped lightly. Sorry to drop you in it last night.” She takes a seat on the bench next to me.
My stomach swoops at the thought that I almost missed Vincent entirely. If it weren’t for Meghan and her migraine, we would have been like ships passing in the night. “It wasn’t busy.”
“It was Ilana’s birthday, wasn’t it? Anything interesting happen?”
“What sort of thing?” I ask, then realize I’m being defensive for no reason at all.
“Taylor Swift drop in?”
“If she did, I didn’t notice her,” I reply. “George was in a foul mood. We. . .we had a guy eat in who was staying upstairs.”
“On his own?”
“Yes, I can definitely testify to the fact he was by himself.”
“Up from London?” she asks.
“I guess.” Did he say whether he was staying in London while he was in the UK? He can’t have been staying with family because they left without him. “He was very handsome. Good tipper. Great in bed.” I sigh wistfully as Meghan splutters and chokes on her Coke.
She looks at me as if to ask if I’m being serious. I just shrug.
“I really wish I’d made it in now,” she says. “Did he leave this morning?”
I shrug again. I don’t want her to know I checked the reservations book as I’d left. When I’d gone to leave this morning, he’d pulled me back to bed for a final kiss before I told him I had to go.
He was a great kisser. I want to give up my job and kiss him all day. I can still feel his stubble against my cheeks and his fingers in my hair, hear his low moans that vibrated across my body.
He was a good everything-er.
“There must be something happening to the moon. Or something,” she says.
“The moon?”
“Yeah. Like … you’re having sex, Basil told me he thinks the estate is up for sale. I’m chomping Freddos like they’re edamame beans. Change is afoot.”
Basil was one of the more senior gardeners and a renowned curmudgeon. Every year he thought the magnolia wouldn’t flower, the lawns would never recover from visitors’ footsteps, and at least one of the old oaks in the circle of trees on the far side of the estate would die.