“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he called. “My soufflé was at a crucial stage when you pulled in.” The man was even taller than Anthea, a strapping six foot two at least. He was quite a few years her junior as well, if his flaxen hair and relatively unlined face were anything to go by. He was dressed casually, in a faded green polo shirt, sand-colored chinos, and the first pair of penny loafers I’d seen in years. If he was surprised to find a black limousine parked in the courtyard, he didn’t show it.
“I’m Swann,” he said, making his way across the formal garden to where we stood. “If you’ve come to see Anthea, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. She’s supervising a delivery at a neighboring farm and won’t be back until after tea.” He gazed at us with polite surmise. “Have you come to see her about a horse?” .
“No,” I said. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Swann—”
“Just Swann,” he said.
“Swann, then. As I was saying, we’ve come about something else entirely. We were hoping—”
“You’re an American!” Swann swatted himself in the forehead. “Of course. How foolish of me.”
“Sorry?” I glanced at Nell, feeling as though I’d missed something, but she too seemed bewildered.
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? You must be Lori.” Swann turned to Nell. “And this must be Nell Harris. Lucy was just telling me about you.”
“Lucy’s here?” I said.
“She came up to spend the day with Anthea and me,” Swann replied. “She’ll be delighted to see you. We’re about to sit down to tea. Please join us.”
“Are you another cousin?” I asked hesitantly.
Swann threw back his head and laughed, revealing a set of strong white teeth. “Good Lord, no,” he said. “I’m Anthea’s husband.”
My brain skidded to a halt, did a sort of pirouette, then backed up a step or two. “I-I thought you were dead,” I said, gaping stupidly.
“That’s the other one,” Swann informed me affably. “I’m the husband Anthea should’ve had all along.”
22.
Swann took us through to the kitchen, where Lucy Willis was keeping a watchful eye on his spinach soufflé, then went back to help Paul carry our luggage upstairs. No one who made the long journey to Cobb Farm, he declared, was permitted to leave without staying at least one night.
The kitchen was a warm, inviting room with a rosy redbrick floor, stripped-down redbrick walls, and a well-scrubbed wooden table set for two. A picture window above the double sink overlooked a pair of horses grazing in a tufted meadow, and pots and pans piled helter-skelter filled the shelves above a cream-colored Aga. Old wooden dressers and hutch bases, pushed together end to end along the walls, took the place of conventional countertops, and a massive glass-enclosed Irish-pine bookcase held stacks of crockery, rows of teapots, and assorted pieces of chintz china.
Swann clearly had a countryman’s notion of what constituted tea. A stockpot simmered on the stove, filling the room with the knee-weakening aroma of homemade vegetable soup, and a fresh-baked loaf of French bread cooled on a rack beside a glazed apple-and-custard tart. A brown earthenware pot filled with wildflowers sat in the center of the table, surrounded by a jug of iced lemonade, a crock of butter, and a silver trivet, where the soufflé was due to land at any moment.
Lucy had shed her business suit and with it the air of world-weariness that had emanated from her in London. She wore casual slacks, a red sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves, and a pair of woolly socks on her shoeless feet. She’d pulled her dark hair back from her face with a pair of tortoiseshell combs, and her brown eyes were bright and alive.
“Hello,” she said, turning to greet us. “I thought you might follow Cousin William up here. He’s been and gone, I’m afraid, but I hope you won’t rush off. Mother’s dying to meet you. Swann’s invited you to tea, I trust.”
“He has, and we’ve accepted,” I assured her, trying not to embarrass myself by drooling. I signaled to Paul and Nell, and we added three more place settings in record time, exchanging covert, congratulatory glances for having so narrowly avoided dining on pub grub.
Swann must have been aware of other covert glances that greeted him on his return—some from Nell, but some from me as well—because, as soon as we sat down to eat, he remarked to Lucy, “I believe our guests have noticed that I’m somewhat younger than my wife.”
Lucy sighed. “I suppose you’ll have to tell them about the monkey glands.”
“That would be fibbing,” Swann said reprovingly. “They shall hear the truth or nothing. You see,” he went on, looking from my face to Nell‘s, “I was a stableboy when I met Anthea. I fell in love with her the first time she let me muck out her loose box. There’s something about an older woman who knows how to use a riding crop....” He gazed dreamily into the middle distance, while we gaped in startled silence, soup spoons frozen halfway to our lips.
Lucy broke the spell with a throaty chuckle.
“You’re teasing us,” Nell accused.