was not only Lena’s veiled hints about some hold over Silas; I was sure it was something to do with the diamonds. I tried to empty my mind of all conscious thought to see if it would reveal itself. Nothing happened. Then I wondered if perhaps I should chant or try to balance on one leg, having a vague idea got from honeymooning in Morocco that there were ways to strike a channel through to one’s other plane or something and let it all out like a . . . the only image that sprang to mind was a farrier draining an infection with a nail driven through the rotted hoof. This thought made me laugh out loud and I saw something ahead of me move at the sudden sound. Alec Osborne and Cara Duffy were standing close together just where the trees began.
My first thought was to be glad that I was not wobbling on one leg and chanting, my second that had it been Hugh and I when we were engaged (had we ever stood together in the long grass at the edge of a wood?) we should have sprung apart and blushed. Times were changed; for the better I supposed. I shifted from foot to foot, deliberating whether to go on or veer away discreetly, but they both turned towards me and stood waiting for me to approach, all calm welcome, and so I walked up to them beginning my apologies. If anything, though, Alec Osborne looked relieved to see me.
‘Very timely, actually,’ he said in protestation as I wittered and took half-steps backwards. ‘There is so much to be discussed before a wedding, and so little of it that I can discuss convincingly. I shall hand you over, Cara, and melt away.’ I looked studiously towards the far bank in case he wanted to kiss her, but he shoved his hands into his pockets and strode off whistling, leaving the two of us looking after him, I rather more struck than Cara by his offhandedness, as far as I could tell from her face. We turned towards the start of the river path and fell into step.
McSween takes no interest in the woodland at Croys, woods being too close to ‘Nature’ to yield easily to his ministrations, and the result is charming, not least at the time of year when the last of the primroses meet the first of the bluebells and the canopy above them is unfurled but still fresh and pale. Cara, picking her way along the path ahead of me in the cool green light, would have looked like some little creature from a fairy tale, but for the fact that her rather clinging afternoon frock was covered with large, angular roses in black and pink. She sighed audibly, and again I wondered at how subdued she seemed. Such a doleful little sigh; not at all the chirruping and giggling one thought of as her wont. But then I probably had fixed in my head the Cara of years ago, a schoolgirl and then a debutante, and when I cast my mind back over our more recent meetings, it was clear that she had been on her way to this sombre state for quite some time. It is often the way, I have found, that one fixes one’s view of a person based on the time in their life when one met first them and then subsequent laziness prevents one from ever updating it. This is why, I suppose, old men who have known some old lady since she was a girl still cluster around and smooth their moustaches for no reason apparent to youngsters.
‘Do men always assume if a girl wants to talk about something, it must be something silly?’ Cara asked me presently.
‘I’m rather afraid so,’ I said. ‘But just before your wedding is no time to think of it. You must waft along on a cloud of blossom until after your honeymoon, and then you can begin on truths.’ She laughed at this. ‘And Alec is right,’ I went on. ‘Your mother and your sister are the ones for flowers and dresses and whatnot.’ She bent her head a little lower at this, studying the soft bark and old leaves under her feet. I felt an unexpected and quite fierce protectiveness towards her, but I also saw a handy opening.
‘Let’s us have a good long twitter about it,’ I said. ‘I expect
My first thought was to be glad that I was not wobbling on one leg and chanting, my second that had it been Hugh and I when we were engaged (had we ever stood together in the long grass at the edge of a wood?) we should have sprung apart and blushed. Times were changed; for the better I supposed. I shifted from foot to foot, deliberating whether to go on or veer away discreetly, but they both turned towards me and stood waiting for me to approach, all calm welcome, and so I walked up to them beginning my apologies. If anything, though, Alec Osborne looked relieved to see me.
‘Very timely, actually,’ he said in protestation as I wittered and took half-steps backwards. ‘There is so much to be discussed before a wedding, and so little of it that I can discuss convincingly. I shall hand you over, Cara, and melt away.’ I looked studiously towards the far bank in case he wanted to kiss her, but he shoved his hands into his pockets and strode off whistling, leaving the two of us looking after him, I rather more struck than Cara by his offhandedness, as far as I could tell from her face. We turned towards the start of the river path and fell into step.
McSween takes no interest in the woodland at Croys, woods being too close to ‘Nature’ to yield easily to his ministrations, and the result is charming, not least at the time of year when the last of the primroses meet the first of the bluebells and the canopy above them is unfurled but still fresh and pale. Cara, picking her way along the path ahead of me in the cool green light, would have looked like some little creature from a fairy tale, but for the fact that her rather clinging afternoon frock was covered with large, angular roses in black and pink. She sighed audibly, and again I wondered at how subdued she seemed. Such a doleful little sigh; not at all the chirruping and giggling one thought of as her wont. But then I probably had fixed in my head the Cara of years ago, a schoolgirl and then a debutante, and when I cast my mind back over our more recent meetings, it was clear that she had been on her way to this sombre state for quite some time. It is often the way, I have found, that one fixes one’s view of a person based on the time in their life when one met first them and then subsequent laziness prevents one from ever updating it. This is why, I suppose, old men who have known some old lady since she was a girl still cluster around and smooth their moustaches for no reason apparent to youngsters.
‘Do men always assume if a girl wants to talk about something, it must be something silly?’ Cara asked me presently.
‘I’m rather afraid so,’ I said. ‘But just before your wedding is no time to think of it. You must waft along on a cloud of blossom until after your honeymoon, and then you can begin on truths.’ She laughed at this. ‘And Alec is right,’ I went on. ‘Your mother and your sister are the ones for flowers and dresses and whatnot.’ She bent her head a little lower at this, studying the soft bark and old leaves under her feet. I felt an unexpected and quite fierce protectiveness towards her, but I also saw a handy opening.
‘Let’s us have a good long twitter about it,’ I said. ‘I expect
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