‘Yes,’ Tati sighed.
They’d reached a clearing in the woods. It was a place Tati knew well from her childhood, a rabbit warren of at least thirty years’ standing. The ground was mossy, a virulent green carpet studded with hundreds of brown burrows. Birch and pine had given way to oaks and sycamores, their sturdy trunks and broad, shady branches providing a thick canopy, through which dappled rays of sunlight chinked their way to the forest floor. There were bright red toadstools underfoot and crunchy acorns and the scent of some sweet, cloying flower – honeysuckle perhaps – hanging heavy in the warm air. It was a magical place, a place to come with a lover, to lie down on a blanket and gaze up at the clouds as they drifted softly across the blue summer sky.
‘Gringo!’
An exhausted but delighted-looking basset hound bounded out from behind a tree, in cumbersome pursuit of a rabbit that he had about as much chance of catching as Jason had of becoming the next Olympic hundred-metres champion. Sliding to a halt, his tail wagging stupidly as the rabbit shot down the nearest hole, the dog allowed Jason to clip the lead onto his collar. He was panting madly, his enormous, drooling pink tongue hanging out of his mouth like a wet sheet on a washing line.
‘I knew he’d be here,’ said Tati. ‘We should get him home and give him a drink. He must be terribly overheated in this weather.’
Back at Furlings, Mrs Worsley was on her hands and knees, polishing the parquet floor in the drawing room, when she heard voices. Darting out into the hall, she couldn’t hide her displeasure at seeing Tatiana arm in arm with young Jason Cranley, wandering into the kitchen as if she owned the place.
‘Hello, Mrs Worsley,’ Tati said brightly, filling Gringo’s bowl from the tap above the Belfast sink and setting it down on the stone floor. As she bent over, the curve of her bottom was clearly visible below her very short shorts. Jason Cranley couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was a close-run thing as to who was drooling more obviously, Jason or the dog.
‘Long time no see. How are you enjoying the summer so far?’
‘I’m keeping busy, thank you, Tatiana,’ the housekeeper said frostily. ‘What brings you to Furlings this morning? Do you not have anywhere you need to be?’
‘Tati very kindly helped me find Gringo,’ Jason explained. ‘He ran off. We had a hell of a time catching him. It’s so damn hot out there.’
‘It is,’ Mrs Worsley conceded, through pursed lips. ‘Very kindly’, my Aunt Fanny, she thought. Tatiana’s up to something, and she’s using that poor boy as a pawn. Mrs Worsley looked up at the girl she had as good as raised, with intense suspicion written all over her face.
If she looked any more sour, she’d turn into a lemon, thought Tati. Silly old witch.
‘I wonder,’ said Jason, ‘do you think you could find us a spot of lunch? I’m starving after all that traipsing around and I’m sure Tatiana is too, aren’t you?’
‘Famished,’ grinned Tati, who was really starting to enjoy herself. Mrs Worsley’s face was a picture.
‘Just a salad or something would be great,’ Jason said innocently, adding insult to injury. ‘We’ll be in the dining room when you’re ready.’
Tati would have enjoyed the smoked salmon salad and fresh baked bread more had she not been wondering whether or not Mrs Worsley had spat in her helping. Certainly her father’s former housekeeper maintained the pained expression of a cat chewing a wasp throughout the meal, making it hard to focus completely on conversation.