After a few moments, she heard his voice in the next room, telling Rob he’d fetch Maria’s high chair from the car.
It took her several minutes of straining veg and slapping it into serving dishes before she could trust herself to look at Mo, who’d been working in uncharacteristic silence. Awash with every emotion from misery to horror to anger that seeing Nico had threatened to reduce her to tears, she was tempted to strop out like a teenager. ‘You deliberately misinterpreted my wishes when I said I didn’t want to know anything about Nico,’ she muttered.
Then she saw the tears trembling on her mother’s lashes. ‘Sorry,’ Mo whispered. ‘I came over romantic when I invited him. He was so pleased. I thought he might rush in and sweep you off your feet. It seemed like a good reason. But he didn’t. Oh, the look on your face! Hannah, lovey, I’m sorry.’
Hannah’s heart melted. ‘Do you know where Loren is?’ Now she’d been flung into Nico’s presence she might as well face the worst.
Mo shook her head, wiping her eyes on her apron. ‘He said you deserved to hear about her directly from him.’
‘Right.’ Hannah’s heavy heart felt as if it was pressing on her lungs. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to avoid. But things can’t be avoided, can they? Let’s eat Christmas dinner while the food’s hot and delicious. I’ll pin on my happy face and quietly make an arrangement to talk to Nico later.’
Mo heaved a deep sigh. ‘OK.’ Then she sailed into the dining room with a cheery, ‘We’re about to bring out the food. Rob, will you be able to help Nan cutting hers up? Jeremy, wine needs putting on the table, dear.’
‘Oh, the napkins are Christmas trees!’ Josie cried. ‘Come on, Maria. I’ll help you in your high chair because we’re going to have a lovely lunch.’
‘Lunch!’ yodelled Maria, lifting her foot into Josie’s cupped hands to be thrown up into her high chair as if she were mounting a horse.
‘That’s their latest trick,’ Nico told Hannah drily.
‘Clever girls!’ Hannah ferried plates and dishes from the kitchen. As promised, she kept her smile pinned in place, though Rob raised his eyebrows at her in a silent question as to what the hell was going on. Hannah just smiled through Josie’s account of FaceTiming Tilly and Emelie this morning. She ate, though the food might as well have been cardboard. She pulled a cracker with Josie and wore a cerise paper hat that clashed with her top. She laughed at jokes and thanked Mo for the wonderful meal.
‘Tack för maten,’ Josie added, looking enormously pleased to be able to thank Mo for the food in Swedish. Then she screwed up her face and said to Nico, ‘Should me and Maria call Hannah’s mum Mormor?’
Hannah couldn’t look at Nico but every square inch of her skin burned scarlet. Josie surely hadn’t understood that ‘Mormor’ literally meant ‘mother’s mother’. She must think it was a courtesy title like ‘Nan Heather’.
Nico’s voice was husky. ‘I think we should be a little quieter before our food goes cold.’
Josie subsided and Jeremy covered the moment by lifting his glass and crying, ‘Let’s drink to Rob and Leesa’s first married Christmas!’
Hannah lifted her glass to her brother and his wife but her mind whirled. How long would Nico stay after lunch? Could they get the explanations quickly over with? Or maybe she could slip round later, when the girls had gone to bed … if Nico didn’t have other plans with Loren. Her heart really, truly hurt.
The first course cleared, Jeremy made brandy sauce for the Christmas pudding because he had a lovely touch with it.
‘I’m full.’ Nan beamed. ‘I’ve got room for Mo’s pudding though. I think she began making it in July.’ She took Hannah’s hand. ‘I missed you while you were away.’
Warmth crept through Hannah. ‘I missed you, too. I could stay with you till you get your cast off instead of here, if you want,’ she offered.
Nan regarded her gravely through her thick glasses. ‘Then what?’
Hannah felt as if everyone at the table had ceased their conversation to listen to her answer. She pulled an exaggeratedly thoughtful face as she tried to summon up some of her old dreams. ‘Start a new business, probably. I’ve learned a lot between Creative Lanes, Hannah Anna Butik and Carlysle Courtyard and the new business will be all my own.’
Josie frowned. ‘But not back in Sweden? Because then we’d only see you