The Perfectly Imperfect Woman by Milly Johnson (22)

Chapter 22

There was no oxygen in the room. Marnie needed to get out. She could feel her head grow light. She saw Kay Sweetman’s mean mouth twisting, heard Titus shouting over that he wanted ‘a word with you, lady’, then Lionel telling him to calm down. Una’s jaw was moving ten to the dozen as she stood with her arms crossed indignantly over her bosom and though Marnie couldn’t hear what words she was dispensing, she would have bet none of them were congratulatory. Marnie pushed her chair back and half-sprinted from the room. How could everyone hate her for something she’d had thrust on her? How was any of this her fault? She hadn’t inherited the damned village, but whoever had had made her the scapegoat. She wanted quiet and a comfortable spot in the background and this . . . this . . . git had dragged her into an ice-cold limelight. Why her? She didn’t want any complications; she just wanted to make cheesecakes three times a week in peace and read books about sexy lords of the manor and what they got up to in their cellars. Actually, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that any more. Even the word ‘manor’ at the moment was enough to make her throw up.

She was at the front door when she heard Herv’s voice behind her, calling her name. Seems he was taking Lilian’s request to ‘keep an eye on her’ seriously.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

The stupid question to end all stupid questions. ‘Not really, seeing as you ask,’ she snapped and felt bad for that. Again.

‘Come on, I’ll walk you home.’

Her legs were shaking. She didn’t realise how much until her feet touched the gravel path and she stumbled, righting herself just in time. She willed herself not to faint on Herv Gunnarsen or fall flat on her face Elena-style in front of him. Then again, how much worse could today get?

‘Slow down, I can’t keep up,’ said Herv. She slowed, even though she wanted to get into Little Raspberries as soon as possible. She couldn’t think of anything to say to him as they walked side by side, until he asked the question that must have been on everyone’s lips.

‘Marnie, are you the new owner?’

Marnie halted abruptly and twisted to face him. ‘No, I am not. Is that what they think? That I’ve inherited the manor and conjured up this . . . charade for . . . whatever reason. I don’t know what that could be.’

‘Hey, it doesn’t matter if you are. It was Lilian’s to leave to whoever—’

‘It’s not me, Herv. I didn’t know about any of this. I don’t even know what it means.’ Marnie started walking again and Herv jogged at her side.

‘You have no idea who it is?’

‘No idea at all. I presumed it would be Titus who inherited the manor. Like everyone else did. Including Titus.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Who would do this to me?’ Second in line to inheriting must be Lionel, she reasoned. But he would be perfectly capable of managing the estate himself and wouldn’t need someone else to do it for him.

‘Someone who values you, obviously,’ said Herv.

‘Is it though, Herv? I’ve worked in business and I know that people hire someone to do all the dirty work so they can keep their hands clean. Then they get rid of them.’ An idea came to her that – stupidly – she hadn’t considered yet. ‘I won’t do it. I’ll tell Mr Wemyss, I refuse to do it. No one can make me. Then I won’t have to worry about people throwing bricks at my window.’

They were steps away from Little Raspberries.

‘Do you want me to come inside with you for a little while?’ Herv asked.

‘Absolutely not,’ replied Marnie, scrabbling in her bag for her keys. ‘Thank you but I want to be by myself.’ She spoke to him in a tone he didn’t deserve. She dropped the key and Herv reached down for it. He was as calm as she was all over the place. He’d be a rock in a crisis, she knew. Everything Lilian said he would be and more.

‘Here let me.’ He opened the door for her and she knew he was concerned that she was a jittery mess of shock and confusion. But she couldn’t cope with kindness. Not today. She wouldn’t know how to handle it.

‘I’m sorry. Thanks for the offer, but I really need to be alone,’ she said.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, his voice gentle, understanding.

She shut the door hard on him as if he represented the whole traitorous world and she wondered how she would keep the scream spiralling up within from breaking out and shattering all the glass within a five-mile radius.

‘What next?’ she shouted skyward. ‘What else have you got in store for me?’

Her phone chose that moment to vibrate in her handbag. She took it out to find a message from a number she recognised immediately.

She didn’t reply to the message, but her brain did anything but ignore it. It obsessed on why he had contacted her, what he wanted from her, what must have been going through his mind. She told herself that she didn’t care about what he might be feeling, but she was lying and she knew it. She didn’t trust herself to reply to it. Not at the moment. She wished she could get a ticket to another planet, away from Justin effing Fox, Titus Sutton, wills, manors . . . everything.

She poured herself a glass of water, forced herself to take a breath, then flipped open her laptop. Then she took Mr Wemyss’s business card out of her handbag and wrote him an email.

She had no compunction about pressing the send button. There was no waver of indecision present in her index finger. Problem solved. The owner would soon know that she had no intention of being the public whipping boy and the rest might soon realise that the title of village upstart had been thrust on her and that she had not sought it.

Why was this all turning into such a mess?

She locked the door, uncorked a bottle of Lionel’s strawberry wine and poured herself a large glass. But before she took her first sip, she made sure her laptop was out of reach because the last thing she wanted to do was get blasted and start up a conversation with anyone else on a cheesecake site.