I took the cross-stitching hoop she offered me and studied the design that was printed on the cloth.
A rainbow.
“Well, fortunately, I know a ten-year-old who happens to be rather fond of rainbows.” I grinned. “Thank you, Maggie. It’s sweet of you.”
“Can you get started by yourself?” She passed me five skeins of cross-stitching thread and a case with needles in. “Or do you need a hand?”
“Um.”
“I’ll help you, dear,” Florence said, setting hers down. “Oh, good. Maggie assembled the hoop. That can be a bit tricky at first. Now…”
Florence guided me through getting set up and starting, including the best way to start, in her opinion. It turned out that everyone had a different way of doing it—not that Helena offered her way, naturally—and it didn’t take me long to find a bit of a rhythm.
Following a pattern was harder than I’d thought it would be. It was one thing to randomly stitch everywhere, it was another entirely to do what it said on the bit of fabric-thingy I had to stitch on.
Dear God. How did these guys do it without a printed pattern?
I’d barely gotten through a quarter of the red part of the rainbow when Helena spoke up.
“So, Adelaide,” she said with a snideness in her voice that made me bristle. “I saw online that you’re seeing the duke.”
“Well, you know what Abraham Lincoln once said, don’t you?” I replied brightly.
“What?”
“Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.”
Millie giggled, dipping her head.
“Abraham Lincoln died before the Internet,” Helena said, peering over at me.
I fought a smile. “That’s the joke.”
“It’s not very funny.”
“Not to you,” Millie said dryly. “I thought it was.”
“You have a questionable sense of humour,” Helena replied.
“Better to have a questionable one than not one at all.”
I had to agree with that.
“But now that we find ourselves on the subject,” Millie said, turning her attention back to me and paying Helena’s ever-present glare no mind. “We did see it in the papers and online. I was going to text you, but Maggie told me not to.”
“I said you’d tell us in your own good time,” Maggie confirmed, leaning over. “Watch that stitch, dear.”
I glanced down. I was about to double-cross a stitch. “Thank you.”
“Now answer the question.”
I shook my head, laughing. “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.”
Florence cackled while Millie frowned at me.
“That’s not an answer!” Millie pouted.
“I can neither confirm nor deny the reports,” I said carefully, dropping my gaze so none of them could draw the truth out of me.
“It isn’t true,” Helena deduced. Truthfully, too.
“Oh, really?” Millie asked. “If it weren’t true, she’d say so. If you ask me, it’s something they’re trying to keep to themselves, but the papers have run away with the story like they usually do.”
Maggie snorted. “The papers? Running away with a story? Surely not.”
“Well, there was that time Arthur Miller’s duck went on her jollies from his farm and the local paper reported a platypus on the loose,” Florence recounted, smiling dreamily as she looked up. “That was rather fun. Imagine having one hundred people searching for a platypus.”
“In Whitborough?” Maggie asked, chuckling. “Who on Earth would think there would be a platypus in Whitborough?”
“It could have escaped from the zoo.” Helena picked up her glass of wine and sipped. “You never know.”
“Seventy miles away? Behave, Helena.”
“We’ve taken rather a wild turn from Adelaide and Alexander to a duck turned platypus, haven’t we?” Maggie didn’t miss a trick as she expertly cross-stitched what I now knew was a rooster. “I don’t believe we got an answer.”
“And you shan’t receive one,” I replied primly. “As I said, I can neither confirm nor deny what is in the papers. I’m here to escape Bentley Manor for a while—would anyone mind if we discussed something else? Like the weather, perhaps?”
“It does look rather grim for the next few days.” Millie set down her hoop and picked up her glass. “Has anyone seen that thunderstorm we’re due in two days? I don’t know if the allotments will survive it. It looks like a bad one.”
And just like that, Millie saved my arse.
***
“Thank you for saving me,” I said, pausing behind my car. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Millie grinned. “Saving you? What do you mean?”
I nudged her. “Come on. The thunderstorm? Talk about a British deflection.”
She laughed and shrugged, putting her hands in the pockets of her cardigan. “I have absolutely no idea what you mean.”
“Millie, you are a treasure.” I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her cheek. “For what it’s worth, I really can’t tell you either way.”
“I figured as much.” She squeezed me before she stepped back. “Look, it’s none of anyone’s business. I haven’t spoken to Alex properly in years, but I know he’s a good man. A truly good man who loves his family.” She smiled. “He’s had a lot of hurt in his life, but regardless of that… Oh, Addy, whether your relationship is real, media-made, or something you want to keep secret, I’m sure there’s a very good reason for it.”