The Garden of Lavender and Time by Laura Briggs

Author:Laura Briggs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cornish romance, books set in cornwall, cornwall romance, cornish village series
Publisher: Laura Briggs

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Lady Val was in the kitchen, consulting with the chef on menu ideas when I came down to help slice bananas for the first desert lesson the chef was teaching, a banana and dried apricot upside-down cake.

"Yes, I like that one," she was saying, pointing to something on his sketchpad. "That would do nicely. And you say it's open to adaptation?"

"I met the baker a time or two, he's flexible," answered the chef. "Fillings, decorations — he leaves them up to the customer."

"Splendid," she said. "I think something light with lemon would suit us. Bard's partial to it, and I want something that feels summery."

"I'll make some calls," said the chef. "I'll let the housekeeping matron know, since she's the one who's helping you."

The plans for the catering trays were simple enough when I glanced at the menus laid out, the standard event catering choices the hotel offered. I didn't know if that would fit with Molly's image of an elegant wedding with 'pomp' for the hotel's manager and his future bride.

"What do you think?" Lady Val showed me the chef's sketch. "He says it comes in three layers, and that the decorations are typically white chocolate. He showed me the birds. They're my favorites. They can even be filled, apparently, and I think a lemon cream would be perfect."

"It's a really pretty design," I said. "What are the little decorations on the cake's sides?"

"Heath sprays," she said. "It's a Cornish nod, for good luck. I suppose we should have shamrocks, but I thought it was more fitting to think of Bard's current home than his former one."

"Northern Ireland's not home now?" I asked, making sure the question didn't sound serious, although I wanted to know if it was important to the future. We might as well know now rather than later, when the announcement was formally made.

"Home changes, doesn't it?" Lady Val answered. "I haven't thought of mine quite the same way since I've been on my own."

She lifted a green apple from the fruit bowl beside my tray of bananas, her fingers turning it like a globe. "I wondered a little about having a life here," she said. "In some ways, it reminds me of Genoa. There's a sense of peace — a little chaos — it has a nice balance." She smiled. "I wondered if I could find something to do with myself here, if we stayed."

"What do you think he wants?" I asked.

"He hasn't said, really," answered Val. "I wondered if he wants to go back. It has been a great many years. Deep down, I do think he longs for it, sometimes."

She took a bite from the apple as she gazed out the kitchen window, at the open garden that eventually ended on the border of a field, the grass of which was tall and lush, ready to turn golden in another month or two, when the evenings became cooler and the seedheads dried and scattered to create next year's crop. Serenity in the air, drifting above the late daisies and coneflowers, as if afternoon sunshine was a haze of contentment.

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