‘I can’t deny,’ Mum wistfully carried on, ‘that I had been wondering if, thrown together in grief, you and Jackson might have formed some sort of an alliance.’
I didn’t waste my breath telling her that Jackson hadn’t been grieving, but I was keen to cut her off because the thought of forming any sort of alliance with him made me feel quite bilious.
‘When did you find out he’s selling up?’ I asked.
‘I heard a rumour a couple of weeks ago,’ she told me. ‘And your father and I have been waiting for you to call ever since.’
‘Why?’ I shot back. ‘I wouldn’t have rung to tell you, even if I had known, you know gossiping isn’t my style.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting that,’ she tutted, sounding snippy.
‘Why then?’
‘For you to ask if you can come home, of course. I also heard that Jackson’s already moved you out of that poky little cottage, so he can make a bit of money out of it, hasn’t he? So, I’m guessing your services are going to be surplus to requirements soon too. He’s bound to contract your job out. Where has he put you? In the stable block?’
It never ceased to amaze me what she could find out. I bet she’d somehow picked this titbit up via the cleaning agency Jackson had employed.
‘There’s no way he’ll contract out,’ I told her. ‘He wouldn’t want the expense and, for all you know,’ I added, more for the sake of my dignity than anything else, ‘whoever buys the place might want to keep me on. And I’m not in the stable block, I have rooms in the house.’
‘Even if they did want to keep you,’ Mum pointed out with annoying accuracy, ‘I can’t imagine you’d want to work there for someone else, would you? What if they wanted to change things? Goodness knows, the place could do with an overhaul, but I can’t imagine you’d want to be involved with it, would you, Freya?’
Seeing Jackson sitting at Eloise’s desk in the morning room was difficult enough, the thought of someone else instructing me to make changes in the garden was unbearable. Even if they did love the place, like Eloise had, they were bound to want to put their own mark on it, weren’t they?
‘Of course, I wouldn’t,’ I sighed, feeling the fight leave me. ‘I’d hate that.’
For a moment, I’d forgotten all about my potential fresh challenge and possible new home. Thank goodness I had such exciting prospects and, should I be brave enough to accept them, I wouldn’t have to wait to find out what was going to happen to the estate once Jackson had banked his fortune and headed back to the States. In fact, according to my informal contract with Eloise, the one he was so keen to keep waving in front of me, I wouldn’t officially be obliged to wait barely any time at all before leaving.
‘Well, there you are then,’ Mum said smugly. ‘You’ll have to come home, won’t you?’
She sounded a little too happy that my time at Broad-Meadows was coming to an end, but I wasn’t in any way tempted to tell her about what I might be doing next. I wouldn’t be telling anyone until I had given it more thought and shared my answer, whatever that might be, with Luke and Kate.
‘And when you do,’ she carried on, ‘you’ll soon find out that your dad and I have just the thing to get you back on track.’
I wasn’t aware I’d fallen off it.
‘We’ve got a project currently taking shape in Wellington that you can work on,’ she told me. ‘It’s going to be an eighteen-month contract.’
‘At least,’ I heard Dad say in the background.
‘At least,’ Mum reiterated, in case I hadn’t heard him.
‘Wellington,’ I repeated.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You know, the capital of New Zealand.’
Of course, I knew where Wellington was. It was only a week or so ago that I had been video-calling my ex who had relocated there.
Peter’s family firm was in the same industry as mine and we had met through a work project. I knew full well that our mutual business interests were one of the reasons why my parents had been so keen for us to get married. I think they rather fancied a future merger that mingled more than blood.
I got the impression that now Mum knew Jackson was a no-go, she was hoping I might consider reforming my alliance with Peter. If that was the track