Still looking stunned, Colin let Ruth guide him away to the stand.
“Poor chap,” said Graeme.
She raised a brow. “Poor chap? You were about to fight him in the middle of the train station.”
“When I thought he was trying to steal you away.”
“I’m not something to be stolen. I’m a woman whose mind is made up,” she said.
He smiled. “I’d marry you today if you’d have me, Elizabeth Pedley.”
“How long is your leave?” she asked.
“Four days.”
“We’ll marry on Monday, the day after tomorrow.” The moment the words were out of Beth’s mouth, she knew that was what she wanted.
“Do you really mean that?” he asked, touching his hand to her cheek.
She didn’t want to wait for Graeme any longer. She didn’t know what their life would look like, but they would figure those things out. Together.
“I’ll marry you, Graeme, but I want you to know that I’m not going to be happy picking up and blindly following wherever the army sends you,” she said.
“We don’t have to talk about this right now,” he said.
“Yes, we do. I want to be your wife, but I won’t do it unless you promise me that I can have a home. A permanent home.”
He looked down at their joined hands and brushed his thumb over her knuckles, just as he had when he’d first touched her in the winter garden. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“If this matters to you, then we will figure out how to make that happen,” he said.
She let out a breath. “Thank you. Now, we have a wedding to plan.”
“We could go into Warwick,” he said.
She shook her head. “I don’t want a town hall wedding. I want to be married in Highbury.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“I think we’ll find the vicar sympathetic.”
“You have Highbury village wrapped around your little finger, don’t you?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “It’s just home. That’s all.”
He gave her a little smile and then nodded. “Understood.”
And she hoped he truly did.
• EMMA •
AUGUST 2021
Emma sat around a large outdoor table with Mum and Dad on her right and Sydney and Andrew on her left. Charlie should have rounded out their group, but he’d begged off because he had plans to take the boat up to Birmingham that weekend. Instead, Henry—wearing a burnt-orange shirt with an image of the late Bill Withers silk-screened on it—occupied the space across from her and kept grinning as her mother said things like “I suppose the house has some presence, doesn’t it?”
A few times, Emma wanted to bury her head in her hands and moan with teenage-like embarrassment. But it turned out, Mum’s backhanded compliments were no match for Sydney’s bright optimism.
“Any bigger and I’d lose Andrew in it,” Sydney laughed as she patted Clyde’s silky back. Bonnie was content to lay in the sun a few feet off, the perfect picture of a very good dog.
“It is a lot of space for two people,” said Mum in an odd reversal that still managed to feel judgmental.
“That’s entirely my fault. I’ve always loved it, and I practically begged my parents to let me buy it off them,” said Sydney. “It was a bit of a white whale for a long time.”
“And”—Andrew picked up his wife’s hand—“we’re hoping that it won’t just be the two of us for too many more years.”
Emma watched love spread sweet and glowing to Sydney’s eyes.
“Good luck to you both,” said Dad. “Do you have plans for the garden beyond Emma’s restoration?”
Sydney and Andrew glanced at each other. “Actually, we’d thought about reopening it to the public for the season in a few years when it’s matured.”
“Really?” Emma asked, sitting up. “What about the community kitchen garden project?”
“We’d like to do that, too, but it seems a shame to have all of this beautiful space and not share it.” Sydney paused. “I didn’t know how you’d feel about that.”
“It’s your garden. I’m just the person who gets to work on it for a little while. If you don’t mind managing it yourself, you could look at what Kiftsgate Court has done. They’re still family run, and they’re close by,” she said.
“Wouldn’t that be a lot of work?” said Mum.
Emma lifted one shoulder. “Yes, but if you charged a small admissions fee, it could help offset the cost of some of the work it will take to keep the garden up.”
“That will be good for Turning Back Thyme, won’t it, Emma?” Dad asked.
“It will. If you don’t mind talking about the restoration in your materials and press releases when you’re ready to open,” she said.
“I wouldn’t dream of leaving it out. I’m glad you like the idea.” Sydney flashed Emma’s parents her winning smile. “The work Emma’s doing is incredible. You should have seen the place before she got here.”
“It’s looking a little patchy, don’t you think?” Mum asked as she craned her neck to look at the long border.
Sydney’s eyes flashed, but Emma gave her a tiny shake of her head. She was used to this.
“It will grow in,” she said.
“Do you mind if we take another turn around the garden rooms? It’s almost overwhelming how much there is,” Dad said, always one to defuse an awkward situation.
She wasn’t sure if he intended to split off their groups or not, but all of them rose from the table. Sydney, Andrew, Henry, and Dad all hung on to their mugs as they trooped through to the tea garden.
“The gazebo looks great since Jessa and Vishal painted it,” Andrew remarked.
“What is the pale pink rose that’s growing up it?” Dad asked.
“I don’t know. We moved it from another part of the garden. I’ve never seen it before, and there doesn’t seem to be any record of its name.” She’d scoured Venetia’s plans, but the rose seemed to pop up in places she wouldn’t have expected, never labeled.
They spread out around the tea garden, Andrew and Henry wandering off into the lovers’ garden with Bonnie while discussing a farm-to-table delivery service that had approached Highbury House Farm. Watching them, Emma hadn’t realized that Mum was on her heels until her mother said, “They’re nice enough people.”
She started and turned. “They are.”
“Not too stuck-up. And that Henry is good-looking in a farmer sort of way.”
She sighed. “What is a farmer sort of way?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
“Sunburned face, dirty hands. He looks as though he spends his time out of doors,” Mum said.
“His hands are not dirty, and if you say things like that about him, you might as well say them about me,” she said, giving Clyde’s ears a scratch when he pushed up into her hand.
Her mother pursed her lips in the way that told Emma she probably did say them about her.