She had stopped and looked away whilst Maggie’s heart had rocked heavily against her chest wall.
Filled with fierce anxiety, Maggie had started to make plans—the foremost of them involving a letter to Finn over which she had pored with heart-wrenching intensity, imagining him receiving it, opening. Reading it.
The receipt of an e-mail from him had caught her off guard, but he had explained tersely at the end of it that the amount of work he was becoming involved in with the restoration of the house and the management of the farmlands had made the acquisition of a computer a necessity.
Knowing that her grandmother would be expecting her to spend the Christmas holiday period with her, as she always did, and knowing too that her grandmother would want to attend church on Christmas morning, and then no doubt to visit Maggie’s grandfather’s grave, Maggie had decided that even if the lease was through in time it might not be possible to travel to the Dower House over Christmas itself. Instead she was trying to compose a scrapbook of relevant information about both it and the early years of her grandparents’ marriage to give to her grandmother on Christmas Day.
So far she had managed to surreptitiously extract from her grandmother’s albums some photographs of them outside the Dower House, and the youth of their features had brought a huge lump to Maggie’s throat as she’d studied their bright expectant expressions, their eyes full of a love for one another which not even the faded black and white photographs could dim.
Via their solicitors, Maggie had enquired of Finn if it would be possible to have an up-to-date photograph of the Dower House, explaining what she needed it for, but she was still awaiting his response.
Without giving anything away she had started to ask her grandmother about the early years of her marriage, hoping to glean from her conversation information which she could use to bring those special days back to life for her, to help banish some of the unhappiness she was now feeling.
Her mention of a favourite rose of her grandfather’s had sent Maggie on a mission to acquire that same rose for the garden of the Dower House. Predictably it had been Gayle who had discovered a potential source of the rose for her, tracking down a company who specialised in growing traditional varieties. Maggie had gone to visit the company herself, to explain just why it was so important to her to obtain this particular rose, and to her joy they had confirmed that they were able to supply her with it, but had gone on to add that it would be ‘bare root stock’, explaining that this meant it would need to be planted immediately on delivery.
Maggie would have to wait until her grandmother had moved into the Dower House and planting conditions were right before sending it to her. However, in lieu of an actual plant, they had provided Maggie with a gift voucher inscribed with the name of the rose plus a brief history of it, to give to her grandmother.
Maggie had also borrowed a photograph of her grandfather at the age he had been when her grandparents had lived at the Dower House and had it secretly copied. She had hoped to be able to have her grandfather’s image superimposed on a modern-day photograph of the Dower House, but this plan had to be put on hold until she had a response from Finn to her request for some photographs.
Gayle’s helpful input into her plans had confirmed Maggie’s view that her assistant was well deserving of the very generous bonus that Maggie was planning to surprise her with as an extra special ‘thank you’ for her hard work during the year.
It had shocked her, though, following Maggie’s return to work, to hear Gayle commenting thoughtfully that she felt that Maggie had changed.
‘Changed…in what way?’ Maggie had demanded immediately.
‘I’m not sure,’ Gayle had admitted. ‘It’s just that you seem different somehow, less…driven,’ she had explained semi-apologetically.
‘Driven?’ Maggie had tried not to look as taken aback as she’d felt. She had certainly always prided herself on her dedication to her career, but she did not find it complimentary to be described as ‘driven’. But neither did she enjoy discovering that she was spending far too much time staring unhappily into space, fighting not to allow Finn to steal into her thoughts.
She had her career, her friends, her grandmother. Her plans. Surely she wasn’t going to allow herself to feel that these were no longer enough for her just because…Just because what? Just because Finn didn’t want her…because Finn didn’t love her?
Maggie frowned as she reached for her coat. This evening she was dining with a client who wanted to discuss a possible new venture with her.
Bella Jensen was a feisty forty-something divorcee who had built up her small and extremely successful IT personnel business following the break-up of her marriage. She had had, as she had gleefully told Maggie, the very enjoyable pleasure of being approached by her ex-husband’s company, who had come to her cap in hand to beg her to work under contract for them since, without the IT skills she had learned as the company had grown, they were lost.
Her husband had sold the small business they had built up together just prior to their break-up, brokering an excellent deal for himself, plus large consultancy fees, and claiming that Bella’s contribution to the business had been negligible. She had been delighted—not just to be able to prove him wrong, but to have her importance to their business recognised publicly in a professional and financial manner.
From that experience she had gone on to recognise a growing need for skilled IT staff to work on a contract basis in various mainstream industries, and she had used Maggie’s skills in the past to coax highly trained people onto her books.
Maggie liked her, and normally she would have been looking forward to spending an evening in her company. But right now she seemed to have lost the ability to enjoy anything. Right now it felt as though the whole of her life, not just the present but the future as well, had been blighted—and why?
Did she really need to ask herself that?
It was hard for her to fight against seeing in Finn’s rejection of her an echo of her parents’ earlier failure to truly love her. But that was to think of herself as a victim, and there was no way she was ever going to let herself be that.
Predictably, Bella had chosen one of London’s current crop of ‘hot’ eateries for them to have dinner in—the restaurant in the kind of superb hotel that people spoke about in hushed, awed voices.
‘Love the outfit,’ Bella commented enthusiastically to Maggie as they exchanged warm hugs in the foyer before going through to the restaurant. ‘And you’ve lost weight,’ she added accusingly, as they were shown to their table. ‘I’ve joined a Pilates exercise course, but so far I have only managed one class,’ she admitted ruefully as they both studied their menus.
The restaurant was busy, and Maggie gave a discreet glance at the other diners, recognising several well-known faces from television and the media.
‘You said you had a new venture you wanted to talk over with me?’ she reminded Bella.
‘Mmm…You know, of course, that with the arrival of so many American banks in the City there’s been an awful lot of transatlantic movement in the executive arena?’
Maggie nodded her head and waited.
‘Over half my staff now are ex-Silicon Valley, and I’m seriously thinking about relocating my business to the USA. I’d have to take on an American partner, but that’s all in hand, and what I wondered, Maggie, is whether or not you would be interested in taking over those of my people who want to remain UK-based.’