Read Daughters for Free Online Page B

houses.) ‘Look at this.’ She nipped at the leaves of the box hedge edging one of the beds. ‘Such colour. Even now. Velvet, yes?’ She held out her hands. ‘Smell, Mum. Divine, isn’t it? So fresh.’ Her gaze travelled around the sunken garden, a winter vista of cold-stiffened grey-greens and lichen-etched stone. She paced up and down. ‘Where’s my notebook? She stripped off her gloves, wrote something down, blew on her fingers. ‘Imagine it in summer.’ Off came her beret.‘All scented and dreamy with warmth.’ She came to a halt by Andrew, her frozen breath spiralling up into the air. ‘What do you say?’
    He took possession of the beret, ‘Come here,’ and settled it carefully back on her head. ‘Let’s discuss it later.’
    ‘No – now, please.’
    ‘Evie,
later
.’ He tucked in a rogue strand. ‘What about Lara?’
    Eve appealed to her: ‘Do you approve? You
must
approve.’ The chill had whipped colour into her normally pale cheeks and her eyelashes into spikes. She looked young, pitiless and determined, and Lara’s heart turned over.
    ‘Evie, don’t bully Lara.’
    Eve frowned. ‘I’m not.’
    Andrew was checking the messages on his phone and Lara heard his sharp intake of breath. With heightened colour, he dropped it back into his overcoat pocket. ‘Eve,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking. Let’s not have a big, fussy wedding. I’m not sure I want it.’
    ‘That can’t be true,’ she said, with a sound of distress, and backed away. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’
    ‘I should have done.’
    The wind was freshening, buffeting their cheeks with its icy breath. Tactfully, Sarah moved away down the steps.
    ‘Andrew.
Please.
’
    His phone pinged. Then again. Lara saw that Andrew really wanted to look at those messages. Body language. ‘Hey,’ he said, his gaze sliding past Eve. ‘I’ve got to take this call.’ He moved away.
    Lara watched him hunch over his phone by the myrtle, talking softly, rapidly. Eve flipped over the pages in her notebook. ‘Evie,’ she began, ‘just one thing. We have to be careful about the expense of –’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ she cut in. ‘Dad said he’d got it under control. There’s money.’
    ‘Ah,’ she said. Dry as a bone. ‘There is, is there?’
    ‘Problem, Mum?’
    She looked into the oh-so-familiar face. There was nothing so strong, so
unfightable
, as what flowed between her and her daughters. If asked, she couldn’t have described mother-love but she could have told you it felt deeper and wider than the universe. ‘No problem, Evie.’
    Andrew ceased talking. He gestured at them. ‘Sorry.’ His gaze did not quite meet either woman’s. ‘We were discussing? Lara, how would you feel about the set-up? Would it be difficult for you? I know that you and Bill and Sarah … but …?’
    ‘That’s very sweet and thoughtful of you,’ she said. ‘I appreciate it, but I’ll be OK.’
    ‘So?’ Eve was impatient.
    ‘I give in.’ Andrew pulled up his collar against the wind and was, clearly, searching for his customary emollient self. ‘If it pleases you, Evie.’
    ‘It does! It does!’
    ‘OK.’ Andrew’s gaze drifted past the group to a middle point in the distance. Then he waved at Sarah, who took it as a signal to rejoin them.
    Eve was glowing. ‘Let’s set a date, then. Sarah, when do you think you and Dad will be sufficiently settled in?’
    ‘Is there a pub anywhere?’ asked Andrew. ‘I could do with a drink.’
    Sarah said, ‘There are still things to be sorted.’
    Behind Eve’s back, Lara signalled to Sarah.
Say nothing.
    ‘But easily sorted?’ Eve’s breath puffed into the air. Little clouds of excitement.
    Sarah looked at Lara. ‘I think so.’ She gave a cat-with-the-cream smile, and placed a chatelaine’s hand under Lara’s elbow. ‘We can decide details later.’
    Having chosen the incline on which to position it, Robert Adam’s disciple had unleashed his master’s taste for