I was up early the next morning, rifling through the boxes of belongings that Catherine had recently let me move into the hall attic. The plan was for Gavin to move in with me and my parents after our engagement party, so I’d decided to have a good clear-out and rearrange things in my small bedroom to make space.
What a wasted effort that had been.
At least I now had access to my former uniform of tight tops and skinny jeans. If I was serious about reviving the old me, then I was going to need an outfit to match.
I found myself drawn to my school art folder, which I promptly hid under the bed in the Rose Room. For some reason I wanted to keep it close.
It was interesting to look through everything I had only recently moved out of my life to make room for Gavin to move into it. I hated the thought of heading back to my depleted room in town, but I knew I had no choice. I was going to have to brazen the embarrassment out, but at least I still had my most recent sketchbooks there to keep me company.
‘My darling girl,’ said Angus, when I returned to the kitchen to put the attic keys back on their assigned hook.
‘Dorothy has told us,’ said Catherine, shaking her head.
‘Needless to say, I won’t be hiring from his firm anymore,’ said Angus.
‘But what about your discount?’ I smiled.
‘That man can shove his discount up his . . .’
‘Angus,’ cut in Catherine, colour flooding her face. ‘I don’t think we need to resort to profanities, especially when there are far more pressing matters to resolve.’
‘Quite right,’ he said, winking at me. ‘Sorry, Hayley.’
‘It’s fine,’ I told him. ‘I almost resorted to blasphemy myself.’
Catherine looked at me and shook her head. ‘You sound remarkably chipper given the circumstances.’
‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ I said, biting my lip as I thought about everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. ‘But, it won’t last. I need to return this today for a start. That’ll wipe the smile off my face, won’t it?’
I slipped the ring off my finger and placed it on the table. Angus picked it up and scrutinised it.
‘You know,’ he frowned, ‘I’m fairly certain this isn’t the ring that Gavin—’
‘Angus!’
‘You’re fairly certain that this isn’t the ring that Gavin, what?’ I asked, ignoring Catherine’s interruption.
‘Oh, it’s nothing, my dear,’ he faltered. ‘My mistake.’
I looked first at him and raised my eyebrows and then at Catherine.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, sitting back and folding my arms. ‘I can wait.’
Catherine shook her head and Angus’s face began to colour.
‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘I wonder what I’m going to do with you, Angus Connelly.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Angus, ‘sometimes I speak without thinking.’
‘Sometimes?’ Catherine snorted, making Floss, the springer spaniel, jump in her sleep. ‘Well, go on,’ she carried on. ‘You might as well spill the rest of the beans now.’
Angus picked up the ring again.
‘The week before Gavin took you away to propose,’ he sighed, ‘he came to see me and asked if there was any possibility that I would make him a short-term, but fairly substantial, loan, so he could buy you the engagement ring of your dreams.’
This was news to me. Shocking news. I didn’t have an engagement ring of my dreams.
‘Please don’t tell me you gave him the money,’ I croaked.
‘I did,’ said Angus, ‘but this wasn’t the ring he showed me on his phone. The one he said you were hankering after was far bigger than this.’
‘And I daresay a damn sight more expensive,’ I added. ‘Angus, I never had a hankering for any ring. Until Gavin went down on one knee on that beach I had no idea that he was going to propose, and we had certainly never discussed rings of any kind.’
Seems I wasn’t the only one who had been played by the scorching scaffolder with the mesmerising blue eyes. This explained the crisp note he had used to pay for Dad’s fish and chips and his blasé attitude towards the bill for the party. He was using Angus’s loan as flash money to try to impress me. There was no way I was going to sign any dotted line and let him access our savings now.
‘I promise I will pay you back every penny he took,’ I said, holding my head high.
‘You will not,’ said Catherine. ‘Angus gave that money to Gavin and Gavin will be paying it back.’
I had no idea how she imagined that was going to happen, but she sounded too stern to challenge.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘in that case, you keep the ring. I know it isn’t anywhere near as valuable as the other one, but I don’t want it in my sight. You can sell it and get a little of the money back.’
Angus laid his napkin over it, hiding it from view.
‘Right,’ I said, tearing my eyes away and trying not to think about the future I’d lost. Not that the one I had been hoping for had ever really existed. ‘I suppose I better make a start. I’m going to work on the upstairs landings today, is that all right?’
I wanted to keep as busy as possible until I had to go home.
‘No, it isn’t all right,’ Catherine tutted, ‘of course it isn’t. Sit down, for goodness sake. We have things to discuss.’
‘And you haven’t had a bite of breakfast yet,’ added Angus, passing me a plate.
‘Mick reckons your mum has been trying to get hold of you,’ exclaimed Dorothy as she came bustling through, no doubt prompted by her telepathic skills that could pinpoint the exact moment the last crumb was eaten or the teapot was down to its last cup. ‘She’s rung here half a dozen times apparently but no one picked up, so in the end she left a message.’
I felt even worse about not filling her in on what had happened now.
‘I’ll text her in a bit,’ I sighed.
I knew she must be feeling gutted about Gavin. He’d really managed to find her sweet spot with all those flowers. Dad, on the other hand, would no doubt be blaming me for everything. He’d see Gavin’s philandering as a failure on my part rather than my ex’s inability to keep his fly buttoned. What a mess.
I wished Dorothy wouldn’t keep piling bacon on to my plate. All this family talk and the thought of heading back to town was making me feel bilious.
‘There’s no need to speak to her,’ said Catherine quietly. ‘Not yet anyway.’
‘Why not?’
I knew it was going to be excruciating for a while, but I’d faced it out once before and had come through it almost unscathed. I could do it again.
‘I really don’t know how best to put this, Hayley,’ Catherine shocked me by saying. ‘But, judging by the message she left, your mother doesn’t want you to call home, and I think she would prefer it if you didn’t go back just yet, either.’
‘What?’
She must have been listening to Dad and decided it was easier to side with him. All the effort I’d made to rebuild those bridges had amounted to nothing. All that hard work had been ripped apart again, and this time it wasn’t even my fault.
‘So, what am I supposed to do then?’ I demanded, throwing up my hands in despair and giving in to my frustration.
‘I think you should move in here,’ Catherine said simply. ‘I think you should pack up in town and move into Wynthorpe Hall.’