The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,22
I said brightly, in case he’d got sudden-onset mid-thirties amnesia. ‘I was in the year below you at Honeywood.’
He’d been specializing in garden design for his final year, but when he was talent-spotted after taking part in a TV documentary, Gardeners of the Future, his life had taken a different turn – right into TV stardom.
I’d made a brief and unwilling appearance in that documentary too, trenching for asparagus, but I’d done my best to keep my back turned to the camera as I shovelled.
While these memories galloped through my head, Ned’s oddly wary look didn’t lift, but he said, finally, ‘Yes, of course I remember you. You were a friend of Sammie Nelson, weren’t you?’
This was obviously not a recommendation and I recalled that he’d briefly gone out with Sammie, before she’d suddenly dumped him in favour of a fling with the documentary presenter, a well-known gardening personality about twice her age.
‘We weren’t really friends, she was just in my year,’ I said. ‘We all tended to hang out in the pub together anyway, didn’t we, because it was the only one for miles? I haven’t seen or heard from her since she left without doing her degree year.’
In fact, she’d left very suddenly, the minute she’d finished her exams at the end of the second year and rumour had it that she’d shacked up with that presenter.
Ned made a non-committal grunt and said, ‘You look … different.’
‘Well, I’m older, thinner and my hair is short,’ I said, slightly tartly, though I didn’t think I’d changed that much. And neither had he physically, except that his broad-shouldered frame had filled out with a lot more muscle. No, the difference lay in his expression.
Everyone at college had liked tall, gangling, good-natured, easy-going Ned Mars … and so had the TV viewers, right from the first airing of his series, This Small Plot. When I left for France it had still been running and was as popular as ever, though I hadn’t watched it for ages, since Mike had been jealous when he found out I’d known Ned.
But that was an entirely different Ned, for this one very evidently wasn’t pleased to see me. And now I began to wish he had been the middle-aged, balding and rather stolid stranger I’d expected. I’d so wanted a whole fresh new start, leaving the past behind me, and now I suspected I wasn’t going to get it.
Myfy appeared to have missed the uneasy undercurrents, for she exclaimed delightedly, ‘You were students together? What a coincidence! And now you’ll be working together on the Grace Garden, too!’
‘Well, as to that—’ he began and then broke off, bushy fair eyebrows twitched together in a frown as he stared at me.
Something in his voice and the lack of enthusiasm finally got through to Myfy and she gave him a sharp look.
‘I heard on the gardening grapevine that you’d been doing well with the Heritage Homes Trust … until you left suddenly, a few years back,’ Ned said to me, meaningfully.
My heart sank. Just what, exactly, had he heard?
‘I resigned from the Heritage Homes Trust over five years ago and went abroad,’ I said shortly.
‘Marnie’s been living in France for the last few years, Ned,’ Myfy told him, puzzled.
‘Yes, my adoptive family bought an old château. I’ve been based with them, but helping other ex-pat château owners restore their gardens. I moved around a lot … but then I found I wanted to come home again. This job presented the perfect chance to move back to England.’
‘Right … And you had no idea I was here?’ He was eyeing me narrowly now.
‘No, why on earth should I know you had any connection with the place? The last I heard of you, you were living near London and doing endless series of This Small Plot.’
I frowned, thinking about that. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you could still do that, if you’re based all the way up here, now, but—’
I broke off abruptly, because I’d obviously said something very wrong. His face darkened like a threatening thunderstorm and for a moment I wished I had those butter paddles handy.
‘That’s not a problem any longer,’ he snapped, and then, turning to Myfy, said ominously, ‘Could I have a private word?’
‘Well … of course,’ she said, looking taken aback. ‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right …’ she said, then smiled at me, reassuringly. ‘You will excuse us for a moment, Marnie, won’t you? Perhaps you’d like to wait for me in the old rose garden.’