all become a bit insular when we lose someone we love. How are your mum and Jamie now?’
‘They don’t seem too bad, considering how devastated they were at the time. I know Mum hides it a lot, but it hasn’t stopped her from getting back out there. She plays tennis three times a week, runs most mornings, regularly comes to the gym and yoga with me. She also has a job selling houses and a social life that puts mine to shame. No men. She says she’s not interested in meeting anyone else, but I guess we’ll see.’
‘If she’s still as gorgeous as I remember, I can’t imagine she’ll be on her own for long.’
Joely smiled. ‘She takes good care of herself, it’s true, and she still looks at least fifteen years younger than she is. How about your mum? How’s she these days?’
Andee sighed. ‘Not too bad. She’s had a few health issues lately, but she’s in Majorca with Martin’s mother at the moment, otherwise I know she’d love to see you.’
Joely looked around at the wider and clearly wealthier streets they were passing through. ‘I’m guessing this is Kesterly’s answer to Holland Park or Knightsbridge,’ she commented drily.
Andee laughed. ‘It has a long way to go before it can boast that sort of status,’ she replied. ‘It’s called the Garden District, and along here,’ she added taking another left turn, ‘is where you’re going to be staying.’
Joely gazed admiringly – and sadly – at the elegant Regency houses they were passing, tall and white with smartly painted front doors and grandiose eaves. They weren’t so dissimilar to her own house, the one she and Callum had bought and renovated during the years before Holly was born – and ever since. They were always doing something to it. She wondered about the people living here, behind those benign and beautiful facades, and hoped that none of them was feeling as wretched at the core as she was.
‘Here we are,’ Andee declared, pulling into a resident’s bay outside the final house. It was double-fronted, with a black front door between tall sash windows and a private garage to the left that separated it from the elaborate entrance to the Botanical Gardens.
Inside, the house turned out to be every bit as welcoming and tastefully decorated as Joely had expected, given Andee’s new career, and she couldn’t help but feel a little prideful when she discovered that she’d chosen the same wallpaper for her kitchen in Notting Hill as Andee had for hers here in Kesterly. The only difference was the colour – hers being teal green, Andee’s a silvery blue.
‘This is a beautiful room,’ she declared, looking across the large centre island to three sets of double doors in the back wall that opened out to a small courtyard garden. ‘Did you knock it through like this to include a sitting room, or was it already done when you moved in?’
‘We did it last year,’ Andee replied, signalling for Joely to take off her coat. ‘We spend so much time in the kitchen that we decided to make it more comfortable. Now, if you go and sit by the fire – it looks like it’s still going – I’ll make some tea, or would you rather see your room first and freshen up a bit?’
‘What I’d really love,’ Joely confessed, sinking into a sumptuous raw silk sofa beside the hearth, ‘is a great big glass of wine.’ She pulled a face. ‘Is it too early?’
Andee’s eyes sparkled. ‘Red or white?’
‘Whatever’s open.’
After hanging the coats in a hall cupboard, Andee took a bottle of French Merlot from a well-stocked rack, uncorked it and filled two glasses.
‘Heaven,’ Joely declared, taking a first sip and feeling the wine’s warmth and flavours running through her like liquid comfort. She looked up and finding Andee watching her a surge of emotion threatened to overwhelm her. ‘God it’s good to see you,’ she said, ‘I think I feel better already.’
Andee smiled. ‘It’s good to see you too.’ Putting her glass on the coffee table, she threw more logs onto the fire and folded her long legs under her as she settled into the opposite sofa. ‘So where do you want to start?’ she asked gently.
Joely’s eyes widened, feigning surprise, but then they wandered to the flames as she shook her head. ‘Not with them,’ she replied, trying not to see Callum and Martha in her mind’s eye. ‘I told you the worst of it on the phone,