Restoring Grace (60 page)

‘Grace! That's appalling! Keeping something
like from Hermia! It almost amounts to child abuse!' Allegra was incandescent
with outrage on her friend's behalf.

As Grace did feel extremely guilty, she didn't
prevari
cate. 'I am sorry, Hermia. I know it
was very wrong of me. And I'll quite understand if you think you should
take
Demi back home with you.'

‘You certainly don't deserve to have her,
deceiving Hermia like that!' Allegra managed to make Demi sound like an unruly
puppy allowed to wreak havoc and then sent back.

‘I didn't actually ask to have her, you know,'
Grace pointed out gently.

A look of horror passed across Hermia's face as
she contemplated having Demi home on a permanent basis.
'I think that might be overreacting, Allegra. After all, there
was
no permanent damage. And, quite honestly, life is very much easier without her.’

Relieved,
but still wounded on Demi's behalf, Grace said rather acidly, 'It's a good
thing I don't feel like that, isn't it?'

‘It's so
much easier for you. You're not her mother.' At
which Hermia, whom Grace had always seen as a health
fanatic,
took out a packet of cigarettes and proceeded to light one.

While Allegra appeared to be wondering how to react
to her friend's sudden departure
from her normal behaviour, Flynn put a hand on Grace's shoulder. 'Drink your
brandy, darling,' he murmured, 'and leave these
appalling
women to me.’

Grace was
very tempted, but she'd always let Edward protect her and, ultimately, it
hadn't done her any good. 'No,' she murmured back. 'I must fight my own battles.'

‘
Well, I'm here for you if you need back-up.’

Hermia inhaled deeply.
'Look at what the wretched
girl's done to me! I haven't had a
cigarette for years!'

‘
Well, I hope you haven't
had the same effect on Demi,'
said Grace. 'I made her swear not to smoke
anything, and
only
drink under supervision.' She couldn't remember
exactly what she had made Demi promise, but as no one
could
contradict her, she felt fairly safe.

‘
We're getting off the point,' said Allegra. 'I think we
should have a family meeting. Get Nicholas down.’

‘What for?' asked Grace.

‘
To discuss
these paintings. To decide who owns them.’

‘
Oh,
Grace owns them,' said Flynn firmly. 'There's
absolutely no doubt about
that. I used to be a solicitor, and
I know that for a fact. They were
nailed down, you see.’

‘Oh,' said Allegra after a moment's
consideration. 'But, of course, if they do turn out to be valuable . .

said Grace, not sure how she meant to go on.

‘Well, why can't we find out?' demanded
Allegra, still keen, even if she had accepted they weren't half hers.

‘We've done some research, found a bit of
paper, but we're still not certain who painted them.'

‘But you think they might be by Richard
Coatbridge?’

‘Goodness!' said Hermia, impressed.

‘We've only got initials. And Ellie is
convinced that a
rabbit she saw in a
painting in London is almost iden
tical to one in the panels.'

‘Oh,' said Allegra, not impressed.

‘So we need a Richard Coatbridge expert, who
knows his movements, and who can recognise his handwriting. We've got a scrap
of paper. We found it in the stables.’

Allegra looked at her watch
and took charge. 'Right.
I'll see to that. Give me the
telephone number of this picture restorer. I'll get decent slides and a copy of
the letter. Leave this to me! We're going to get the proper amount for those
panels, or I shall die in the attempt.’

While Hermia and Allegra
went to the Ladies, prob
ably to
discuss Grace and Flynn, Grace said, 'At least she
said
"we", so perhaps she is including me.’

Flynn chuckled.

‘And were you really a solicitor? I didn't know
that.'

‘God, no, I made that up. But I'm sure it's
true about
you owning the paintings. Part
of the fabric of the house.'
Then he
kissed the top of her head. The feel of his breath
so near her ear gave
her delicious shivers.

‘But I'm going to sell them, they can't be part
of the fabric of the house.' Then she sighed as he put his hand on her knee.

‘
Don't worry, the house
won't fall down without them.'

Chapter Twenty-six

 
Later
that afternoon, Ran received a telephone call from Allegra. The moment she
realised who it was, Ellie went
and made
herself useful in the kitchen by knocking up a
batch of cheese straws, having read somewhere that they
were the fast track to a man's heart. She felt
embarrassed
that it was indirectly because of her that he had to deal
with such an annoying woman.

Fortunately Ran was accustomed to dealing with
annoying women and came into the kitchen a little later appearing his usual
calm, cynical self.

‘
I'm so
sorry about that,' said Ellie, rolling pastry. 'She's
a nightmare.'

‘
She had
some very good ideas and is prepared to go
to quite a lot of trouble to
find out all she can about the panels,' said Ran, being irritatingly
reasonable.

‘Only so they'll be worth more!' Ellie refused
to give
Allegra credit for anything. 'I'm sure
she's trying to claim
them as hers.'

‘She said not, that Flynn had told her they
definitely belong to Grace, because they were nailed down.'

‘Pity it didn't occur to Grace to nail down
some of the
furniture, although I'm not sure
exactly how you'd do
that. Can you pass me the big knife?'

‘
You're
always cooking. If I lived with you permanently
I'd get as fat as a pig.’

Ellie concentrated on
scoring straight lines in the cheese
pastry. Was he
telling her, yet again, to give up hope with
regard
to him? Just as well he didn't realise that she'd surrendered her free will
with regard to him ages ago. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'You're a thin
type.'

‘And I'm unlikely to live with you permanently.’

Now he was definitely telling her something,
but not anything she didn't know - in her head, at least. She looked up. 'So is
she going to come here and look at the panels? If so, I'll arrange to be out.'

‘There's no point in her doing that. I'm going
to send
her slides and a copy of the letter,
such as it is. I've given her a few names which might be helpful, then she's
going
to find out who the expert on
Richard Coatbridge is, and
he'll come and look at them.'

‘
Or she. It
could be a woman, you know.' Ran had sexist
tendencies that had to be
suppressed.

‘Or she,' he agreed without argument. 'What are
you going to do with those strips of pastry?'

‘You'll see. The telephone's ringing.’

She had the cheese straws in the oven by the
time he came back to say the phone call was for her.

It was the doctor's
surgery. 'They've had a cancella
tion,' said Ellie as she came back
into the kitchen after
taking the call.
'They can do my scan tomorrow. Isn't that
good?' she added to disguise
the fact that she felt a bit scared. 'I must ring Grace.'

‘Why?'

‘
Because
she's going to come with me. For support, you
know. So I don't feel so
much like a single mother.’

Ran frowned. 'Do you mind being a single
mother?’

Ellie shrugged. 'I don't suppose it's ideal,
but it's the only sort of mother I've had any experience of being.'

‘And you're OK about it?'

‘
I think
so. There's no point in being anything different,
is there?'

‘But you still want support?'

‘Yes.' She frowned. 'Does that make me seem
very pathetic?'

‘
Of course
not. Ring Grace. And when will those things
be edible?'

‘When the pinger goes. Can you take them out of
the oven for me, in case I get held up?’

Grace was excited about the thought of Ellie's
scan being so soon.

‘
I've been
lucky. They've fitted me in because they need
to find out when I'm due,' said Ellie. 'Can you be here
for eleven?'

‘Of course. It'll give me time to take Demi to
the bus,
and then I've got to nip home to see
the dry-rot people
off and then I'll come straight down.'

‘I'm quite annoyed with Demi for coming back,'
said Ellie cautiously. 'I told her why she should go and stay with her mother.'

‘
And she did
go, but we've had a long chat and it
really is miserable for her there.
She tried to stick it out but she just couldn't. She burst into tears when she
apologised.'

‘
You're too soft for your own good,' said Ellie.
'So are you,' countered Grace.

Ellie laughed. 'So you'll
be down in good time? We
need plenty of time to park and I've
got to drink lots of fluid so I have a full bladder.'

‘You always seem to have a full bladder.'

‘
Not
really. I just need to wee a lot - not quite the same.
How are you and
Flynn getting on?'

‘
Fine. He's so easy to be with . . .' She
paused. 'Not like Edward, you mean?'

‘
Mm. I was always on
edge with Edward, trying to
please him, trying to live up to his
expectations. With Flynn it's, well, easy.'

‘Like the comfortable old slippers you put on
after the
killer heels?' Ellie thought
lovingly of the Snoopy slip
pers she had gone on wearing long after the
toes were worn through.

‘Not sure about that. He's a lot more exciting
than slippers.’

Ellie would have liked to prod more, but
decided the
telephone was not ideal for such
intimacies. She was still
annoyed that her plan for them to be alone had
been
messed up by Hermia. It was more than
likely that Grace
didn't feel she could sleep with Flynn while Demi was
staying. Ellie wouldn't have felt like that
herself, but she
was fairly sure that Grace was more sensitive.

*

That evening Grace and Flynn ate supper at the
kitchen
table. Demi had taken a tray up to
her room so she could
watch a video,
although Grace suspected it was an excuse
to leave her and Flynn alone
together.

Grace had cooked spaghetti and tomato sauce and
insisted on putting candles on the table.
'If I had a Chianti
bottle, in a nice raffia coat, I'd have used that,
but I've managed to make do with this old candelabra,' she said.

‘Which, being Georgian silver, is quite
pretty.'

‘Quite pretty,' she agreed.

‘Unlike you, who are very pretty.’

Grace straightened the mat
by way of reply, not meeting
his gaze.

‘
It looks
very appetising,' Flynn went on bracingly.
'Good thing I ate a lot of
lunch.’

That made Grace look at
him. 'Thank you for that vote
of confidence in my culinary
skills.'

‘A pleasure,' he said calmly, looking into her
eyes in a way that made Grace look away again.

‘
Ellie rang,'
she said brightly, trying to change the
mood. 'Her scan's tomorrow. I'm going to go to it with
her. Just
for moral support.’