The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,132

and possibly might eat him alive.

But no, he escaped unscathed, because I saw him again that evening in the pub with Cress, sitting at the end of the next table, ready for the quiz.

Luke wasn’t there, but that wasn’t a surprise because Treena had told me he was going over to her cottage this evening for dinner. She’d be on emergency call tonight, so it made more sense that way.

We’d eaten our dinner and Ned was just telling the others about our delvings into the family archives, when I caught sight of Wayne coming in, followed by his father.

Elf spotted them too, and exclaimed in surprise, ‘Oh, we don’t often see Saul Vane in here!’

‘The lure of mammon does seem to be too much for him to resist sometimes,’ Myfy said. ‘Or maybe it’s just curiosity to see what fun looks like.’

Wayne took his beer straight into the darts room as usual, but Saul stayed by the bar, sipping his pint and glowering at anyone who came near him, as if they might be thinking of stealing it.

Ned reclaimed my attention by teasing me about something, but when I looked up again, I found Saul’s cold eyes fixed on me, under lowering brows.

Myfy noticed it to. ‘Old Saul seems to be giving you the old “you’ll burn in hell” look tonight, Marnie – what have you done to deserve that?’

‘Nothing that I know of,’ I said hastily. ‘He’s only seen me once before, on the day the garden opened, when he said some odd things … but Gertie told me he is a bit odd.’

‘Daisy told me Wayne came into the café the other day, asking all kinds of questions about you, Marnie,’ said Elf. ‘But of course, Daisy doesn’t know much about you and she wouldn’t tell him if she did.’

‘I warned Wayne on Wednesday morning not to come on my property any more,’ Ned said angrily.

‘Well, dear, although we’re family, the café isn’t your property, so I expect he thought it didn’t count,’ Elf pointed out. ‘And he bought an ice-cream, so he was a paying customer.’

‘What did he want to know?’ demanded Ned.

‘Oh, where Marnie came from and how old she was … if she was seeing anyone,’ said Elf. ‘Daisy thought he might fancy you, Marnie – and maybe he does and Saul’s come to have another look at his prospective daughter-in-law.’

‘I suspect Marnie could do a little better than Wayne Vane!’ said Myfy.

‘Yes, but it would account for Saul being weird to you in the rose garden,’ Ned said, grinning. ‘But if so, I don’t think he’s about to give you his blessing.’

‘He can keep it,’ I said and then, to my relief, Saul finished his pint, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and walked out.

But his sudden appearance and the way he’d looked at me had shattered my enjoyment of the evening. I wished I could believe that he merely was interested in me because Wayne had taken a fancy to me, but I couldn’t.

But if he had guessed who I was and already thought he’d warned me off, why had he come tonight for what seemed to be the sole purpose of glaring at me? Was it just to reinforce the warning?

As if I needed it.

A bad conscience is a poor bedfellow, but luckily, a warm cat is a comforting one.

I didn’t sleep very well, due to feeling that the Sword of Damocles was suspended above my head by a hair – and, deep down, I knew the only way I’d ever be free from it would be to tell Ned the truth about my Vane connections.

The trouble was, the longer I left it, the harder it became. We’d become so close now that I was afraid of seeing the change in his face when he knew, the sudden retreat behind that shutter, barring me from his friendship and confidence … and I didn’t think I could bear it.

31

The Handmaid’s Tale

Despite the lack of sleep, I’d still woken up just as early as usual, draped in a dead-to-the-world cat. My usually healthy appetite seemed to have vanished, but I drank two mugs of coffee before heading down to the bottom of the cottage garden, where I had a good weed under the bushes that edged the paving where the beehives stood in a row.

The shrubs there were all insect-friendly – winter-flowering mahonia, butterfly-attracting buddleia and a ceanothus – so it must be lovely on a warm summer’s day when the