Secret Schemes and Daring Dreams (24 page)

THE WEATHER FINALLY BROKE SIX DAYS LATER. EMMA,
who by now was reduced to doing anything that might, just temporarily, stop her thinking about George, had been bullied by Lucy into helping out at the Frontier Adventure Centre's all-day ramble and scavenger hunt. It had seemed a good idea at the time, largely because she could take George's favourite dog, Brodie, with her and pretend George was just around the corner. In the event, it had been a disastrous decision. A violent thunderstorm when the group were at the very top of Ditchling Beacon had emptied what seemed to be a month's rainfall in half an hour, drenching her to the skin and ruining her new Kickstart trainers. In the rush to get the children back, she had left her picnic on a tree stump and was suffering from severely reduced blood sugar levels, which was probably why it wasn't until they were back at the Frontier Adventure Centre that she realised Brodie wasn't with her.

‘It's an omen,' she sobbed to Lucy, after Adam had
spent half an hour calling and whistling for the dog. ‘George will hate me for ever.'

‘Don't be daft,' Adam said. ‘Go home – I bet you the dog's got more sense than us and has run for cover. He'll turn up. Bet you.'

He was there, standing in the hall, when Emma burst through the front door of Donwell Abbey. Not Brodie. George.

‘Oh!' Emma had gasped out loud before she could stop herself. In the split second it took for George to turn round, she caught sight of her reflection in the huge walnut mirror. Her wet hair was plastered to her head like a skullcap, her mascara had run down one cheek, there was a drip on the end of her nose and her cream chinos were spattered with mud.

‘Emma!' George looked totally fazed to see her.

‘Hi, what are you doing back? I thought you were away till the weekend. This weather is awful, isn't it? We got caught in the storm, the kids were all over the place, I've been out with Lucy and Adam, you see . . .' She knew she was gabbling but she couldn't help herself. Now that he was here, in front of her, within touching distance, she felt panic-stricken.

‘It's not as bad as it was in Aberdeenshire,' said George, smiling. ‘It's been raining for three days there.'

‘Is that why you came home early?'

‘No – no, it's not actually,' George said. ‘Look – er, I was wondering – um, do you know where Harriet is?'

So this was it, she thought. All her worst fears were coming true.

‘Emma?'

‘I don't know – I think she's probably in the tearoom – Lily had to go to the dentist and Harriet said she'd cover for her.'

‘Great. There's something I need to ask her. Don't move. I'll be back in two minutes.'

I'll have to tell him about Brodie, I'll have to stand and listen to him telling me that he and Harriet are an item and I can't bear it, I can't do it . . . Emma thought despairingly.

‘Right! That's sorted.' Suddenly George was frowning, biting his lip and eyeing Emma anxiously. ‘Come for a walk?' he suggested. ‘I need to talk to you.'

She so wanted to refuse, to put off what she knew she had to hear, but the bottom line was that half an hour of emotional agony with George was better than a whole day without him.

‘OK,' she whispered.

‘Come on, dogs!' he shouted, and Emma's heart sank.

‘Um, there's something you should know,' she began, as he unhooked dog leads from the hat stand. ‘You see . . .'

She stopped as the dogs burst out of the games room, their paws slipping and sliding on the highly polished floor.

‘Brodie!' she gasped. ‘You're here.' She dropped down on to one knee and hugged the dog.

‘Ah, he was with you, was he?' said George, laughing. ‘Which explains why he turned up with a coating of mud and a guilty expression on his face. Did you mislay a Mars bar by any chance?' He prised the dog's mouth open and showed her distinct chocolate stains on
Brodie's teeth. Emma found herself crying with relief.

‘Hey,' George said, slipping an arm round her shoulders. ‘It's OK. He's a devil for running off – does it all the time. Not your fault.'

Emma gave him a watery smile.

‘Come on,' George said firmly, ‘Let's go.'

‘Emma, will you just be quiet for five seconds!'

They had reached the copse behind Donwell before Emma had paused to draw breath. Talking about trivia was, she knew, only putting off the moment of truth. Reluctantly, she sank down on a fallen log and waited for the inevitable.

‘I'm sorry.' George took her hand. ‘Really I am.'

‘You mean, about Harriet? It's OK,' she lied.

‘Harriet? No – about lots of stuff. Freddie, for one thing. I'm not stupid – I know you fancied him . . .'

‘Not really,' Emma confessed. ‘I tried to – I thought it would be quite something to be going out with someone high profile. But it wasn't until Harriet . . .' She paused. There was no way she could admit to her love for him, not now. She'd just have to suffer for the rest of her life. ‘You said there was something else?' Might as well get it over and done with, she thought, her throat closing with suppressed emotion.

‘Oh, I'm sorry about the way I've been – bossing you about, criticising the way you carry on.'

Emma couldn't help smiling. ‘Well, you've tried bossing me about since we were kids, and you've never won yet.'

George's expression was far too serious for her liking.

‘And now there's something I want to insist you do,' he said, ‘and I'm rather afraid that, yet again, you'll tell me where to go.'

He wants me to be happy for them, thought Emma.

‘I guess, as your friend, I'll give it my best shot,' she murmured.

‘I don't want you as a friend!' George raised his voice and hurled a nearby twig for the dogs. ‘You don't get it, do you?'

‘You mean, because of Lily . . .'

‘I mean, you dim-witted ninny, that I'm fed up with being good old George, the big brother, the best friend. I love you Emma. I want us to be – a couple.'

She stared at him, blinking, half expecting this all to be a mirage, a dream that would fade in an instant.

‘You mean, it's me you want? Really? But you dashed off to find Harriet.'

‘So? Mum wanted help with next week's guest list and I wanted to grab Harriet, so that you didn't get roped in.'

‘Oh.' Relief flooded through Emma's body like warm treacle.

‘So – could you think of me as – well, not as a big brother,' George pleaded. ‘I mean, we don't have to rush things if you're not sure . . .'

‘Oh, I'm sure,' Emma declared. ‘Very, very sure. And please, do let's rush things.'

After five minutes of finding his master locked in a motionless embrace, Brodie decided to go in search of someone else's lost picnic.

* * *

After Max Knightley and Tarquin had slapped one another on the back a dozen times as though their children's newly declared love was all of their own making, and George's mother had cried and said that Emma was just what George needed to help him loosen up a bit, Emma suddenly remembered Harriet.

‘I don't understand,' George said, after Emma had confessed that her friend was in love with him. ‘I never said anything that she could have misconstrued, honestly I didn't.'

‘I believe you,' Emma assured him. ‘She's the sort of person who gets the wrong end of the stick sometimes.'

‘It takes one to know one,' George teased. ‘What will you do?'

‘Tell her the truth and keep my nose out of her life from now on.' Emma sighed. ‘I just wish she could be as happy as me.'

‘Maybe,' George remarked only half-jokingly, ‘if you do just that, she will be.'

Emma sat on her suitcase, wriggling her bottom, and snapped the locks shut.

So this was it. In a few hours, they'd be on their way. She glanced round her bedroom, picked up her copy of
Australia Your Way
and stuffed it into her bag.

She was about to head off downstairs for a final briefing (otherwise known as neurotic nagging) from her over-anxious father when there was a knock on her door. She yanked it open and gasped with pleasure. Standing outside with a stunning new hair cut and the broadest grin possible was Harriet.

‘Hi! Thank goodness I'm in time – I was worried you might have left already.'

‘It's so good to see you,' Emma cried. Harriet had been lurking in the recesses of her mind ever since the awful day when Emma had told her that she and George were an item, and Harriet had declared that she couldn't work at Donwell a day longer, packed her bags and left. She hadn't answered Emma's text messages or emails and, when Emma, wracked with guilt, had driven over to Libby's house in the hope of news, there was a Sold board in the garden and a new family moving in.

‘So where have you been? How are you? This is so cool . . . are you OK?'

‘I'm just great,' Harriet assured her. ‘And guess what?'

They both burst out laughing as Harriet's catchphrase escaped her lips once again.

‘Go on,' Emma urged. ‘Tell me.'

‘Rob and me – well, we're together,' Harriet burst out.
‘I know you don't like him, and I know you think —'

‘Stop!' Emma said. ‘I don't know him – I was so snobby and stupid and out of order to interfere in your life in the first place. I reckon I'm a bit of a control freak.'

‘Really?' Harriet teased. ‘I'd never have guessed.'

Emma pulled a face and gave her a hug. ‘So go on, what's been going on?'

Emma listened as Harriet filled her in on how she'd taken a job in the café at the Sea Life Centre, how Rob asked her out, how his family had moved to a bigger house and were stretched for cash, so she had been renting their spare room till her dad could afford a bigger flat, and how she had never been happier in her entire life.

‘You didn't answer my texts,' Emma pointed out. ‘I thought you hated me.'

‘At first, I couldn't face talking to you,' Harriet admitted. ‘And then, we went to this cottage in Cornwall for a couple of weeks to celebrate our A-level results – oh, how did you do?'

‘Two As and a B – what about you?'

‘All As,' Harriet said, dropping her eyes modestly for fear of offending Emma at outstripping her. ‘Anyway, we all went to Veryan – Libby and her boyfriend, and Rob and me – and there was no signal. We got back last night and I found all your texts. I'm sorry.'

‘You don't have to apologise,' Emma told her. ‘So what now?'

‘Rob's got a place at Plymouth University to do marine biology and guess – oh, sorry! And I'm going
down there to do a foundation course in music technology.' She hugged Emma. ‘We're going to share a house – well, not just us, there'll be six students, but I'll see Rob every day!'

‘I'm really pleased for you,' Emma said. ‘And I'm sorry I messed up.'

‘And I'm sorry I was so dumb about George,' Harriet replied. ‘When he said he hoped I'd stop listening to you and think about the one guy who really loved me, I thought he meant him. And, of course, he meant Rob. Did you know that Rob phoned Donwell every other day to see if there was work?'

‘No,' Emma admitted. ‘I didn't. George didn't say.'

‘Emma! Are you coming? It's getting late and Lucy's here.' Her father shouted up the stairs.

‘Coming!' she called, dragging her suitcase to the door and turning to Harriet. ‘I'll email you, OK? And you will keep in touch? If I promise never to interfere again?'

‘It's a deal,' Harriet said laughing. ‘And, er . . .' She hesitated. ‘Rob's outside,' she admitted. ‘Will you just come and say hi? I want you to see how lovely he really is.'

‘ 'Course I will,' Emma replied. ‘But I don't need to see him to know he's right for you. You look terrific. Come on, let's go.'

Terminal Four at Heathrow Airport was heaving with people. Emma hovered by the entrance to the Departure Lounge. Now the moment had come to say her goodbyes she felt about fourteen again. There was her father, cracking silly jokes the way he always did when he was
trying not to get emotional; Adam, shuffling from one foot to the other; Lucy clinging on to his arm like a limpet on the bottom of a boat. Sara and Max Knightley were hurrying back from the bookstall, Sara with a pile of magazines in her arm.

And George. Dear, darling, wonderful, gorgeous George, patiently standing there, waiting.

‘Here you are, darling – something to read on the way,' Sara said, passing the magazines to Emma.

‘She'll have better things to do than read,' quipped Adam.

‘Adam!' Lucy nudged him and jerked her head towards Tarquin.

‘Don't you wish you were coming?' Emma's question hung in the air.

‘No way,' Lucy assured her. ‘Two months without Adam? You've got to be joking. If you knew how much I'd been worrying about telling you I wanted out . . .'

‘Now, George, you will look after her, won't you?' Tarquin insisted. ‘You know what she's like – she'll get some harebrained scheme into her head and get herself into all sorts of trouble. I'm counting on you to take care of her.'

Much as Emma bristled at being talked about as if she were an irresponsible adolescent, she didn't argue. She knew she was a free-thinking, independent woman of the new millennium. But she could see no harm in being gracious enough to let George take care of her for while.

‘Come on, we should go,' George urged, glancing at the departure board.

Emma hugged Lucy, Adam, the Knightleys and her
father, tears trickling down her cheek. ‘I'll email,' she said. ‘And phone. You too, right?'