about salary, holiday entitlement and numerous other perks I would enjoy, should I decide to take up their offer of starting a new life at Prosperous Place. The finer details made for very pleasant reading.
My only real concern about accepting their offer came from the fear that I might not be up to the job and that I would let Luke down. When Eloise was alive, I always felt more than capable, but Jackson’s barbed comments about my lack of formal training and qualifications nagged away at me in low moments when I was missing my friend most.
Deep down I knew he had sown the fear to keep me in place and toeing the line while he sold the estate off, but he had done his job well and my confidence had dipped right when I needed it most. I would have to dig deep if I didn’t want to pass up Luke and Kate’s generous offer.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Nell, hoping for some encouragement as I stretched out my legs to where she was curled up at the end of the bed and gave her a gentle nudge. ‘Do you think we should go?’
She thumped her tail and I wasn’t sure if it was wishful thinking on my part or not, but there did seem to be something of the old twinkle in her eyes. She hadn’t looked this engaged since she’d lost her mistress and entered her period of mourning.
My gaze returned to the details currently filling up my phone screen and I let out a groan as a reminder to ring home flashed up. As loath as I was to do it, I knew I couldn’t keep putting it off. It had been six weeks now since my fortnightly calls to my parents had tailed off and if I left it any longer, they’d most likely start calling me, or worse still, turn up in person. Dreading the thought, I hastily pressed the number for home.
‘Freya,’ answered my mother, her tone full of relief. ‘At last. We’d all but given up on you. We were planning to drive up this afternoon and find out what was going on.’
I could hear my father’s deep voice agreeing in the background and thanked my lucky stars that I had got myself together and called just in the nick of time.
‘I have been meaning to ring,’ I fibbed, avoiding Nell’s knowing stare, ‘but I’ve been so busy, what with the warm weather.’
‘I can well imagine,’ Mum surprised me by saying.
Usually when I made any sort of comment about my workload her standard retort was that it was my own fault for taking on such acreage single-handed. My parents ran a very upmarket landscape design company and were well aware of how many hours of weekly maintenance and what sized team it took to efficiently run somewhere the size of where I was working.
Neither she nor my father had made any secret of the fact that they had been deeply disappointed when I stopped working for them, ditched my horticultural design software and picked up my spade. These days, they didn’t go in for getting their own hands dirty, opting instead for remote project management, whereas I had discovered I still needed the closer connection to nature, the daily dose of green things growing, to keep my mind balanced.
They had never forgiven Eloise for offering me the opportunity to go, quite literally, back to my roots, after I had broken off my engagement. It didn’t matter how many times I told them she had nothing to do with my decision not to marry, they wouldn’t believe me. To their minds, it was all too much of a coincidence and I had long since given up trying to convince them otherwise.
‘I daresay you’re having to go all out to keep things pristine now, aren’t you?’ Mum carried on, surprising me further by sounding almost sympathetic. ‘Well, as pristine as one person can in grounds of that size.’
That was more like it.
‘Jackson won’t want anything out of place when he starts showing prospective buyers around, will he?’
Clearly, word about the sale had already reached her. I shouldn’t have been surprised, she and Dad had contacts everywhere when it came to property sales which included more than a few acres. They were always on the lookout for the next potential project and clients with pockets deep enough to turn their visions into reality, so they were bound to find out sooner rather than