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she reached him. She hoped she’d put enough nuance into her voice to make Lucas wonder about their relationship. William was quite a bit younger than she, but toy boys were fashionable these days. ‘This is Lucas Gillespie, the new chef at Grantly House. Can we interest you in ice plants, Lucas? They’ve a different sort of texture which is good in a salad – taste a bit salty.’
    Lucas almost admitted to being confronted with something he had never eaten before. ‘I know these as flowers. They grow a lot in Cornwall.’
    ‘They do have pretty flowers,’ admitted Perdita, ‘if rather gaudy, but we remove them as soon as they appear.’
    ‘Isn’t that a bit cruel?’ asked Lucas, one black brow raised.
    Perdita looked down at her hands in mock remorse, hoping William wouldn’t ask what on earth Lucas was talking about. ‘It’s tough being in business,’ she said.
    William, when she finally dared glance at him, was looking a bit confused but, fortunately, he was shy and therefore unlikely to address Lucas.
    By the time Lucas had inspected all the tunnels and
seemingly every plant, Perdita was exhausted, and not only because she kept forgetting she was supposed to see her plants as her children. The project as a whole was her baby. She did want Lucas to approve of it, and see it as a good, profitable business. Not, she assured herself, as they walked back to the house together, because he was Lucas, her ex-husband. But because he was the new chef at Grantly House, and therefore a valuable customer.
    She didn’t offer him tea, although she was gasping for a cup herself, but she did offer him a lift back to the hotel in her van. It had got very dark and a cold November wind was blowing up the valley.
    ‘I’m sure you’ll need to be getting back,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to call in on Kitty anyway, and see how she got on at bridge.’
    ‘I’m sure she must be an excellent player.’
    It was just possible Lucas was trying to be pleasant, and that she only imagined a sneer in his voice, but Perdita couldn’t bring herself to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘She’s awful, actually. She’s only recently taken it up, and although the other members of the club are all terribly fond of her, no one likes being her partner. She has a tendency to think aloud, which gives the opposition an unfair advantage.’
    Lucas grinned, and for a dangerous, teetering moment, Perdita was reminded of how he was when she had first met him, handsome, devil-may-care, with a wicked grin. It gave her a nasty jolt. Once she had dropped him home and was on her way to Kitty’s, she realised that if she wasn’t careful she could quite easily find herself attracted to him again.
    Of course she wouldn’t do anything about it, and would not even allow herself the teeniest fantasy about luring him back to her, but it highlighted her problem. She was alone, with no focus for her romantic urges, no love object,
no one even to have a crush on. It was a dangerous state to be in. She must do something about it.
     
    Later, while she was washing up half a dozen dirty mugs and a few bowls, Perdita found it impossible not to think back to her short, turbulent marriage to Lucas Gillespie, and how she had picked herself up afterwards.
    Kitty had been marvellous. She had fought Perdita’s corner against her parents, insisting that their daughter didn’t share their passion for travel and so didn’t want to backpack round the world to get over her heartbreak. She convinced them that living quietly with Kitty, gardening, reading and eating nourishing meals, was what Perdita needed. And much later, when Perdita had done her horticulture course, and Kitty had got Perdita’s wedding money out of her father, she encouraged Perdita to buy her first polythene tunnel and set up in business.
    Kitty then sectioned off half an acre of her own enormous garden and gave it to Perdita – ‘So I don’t have to feel guilty about not looking after