When, the following day, Lizzie asked to speak to Hattie in the office, I wasn’t surprised when she left an hour later with a box of personal items and a furious scowl.
By the time I’d made Hattie a mug of tea and a slice of buttery raisin toast, she was back in the sunroom.
‘It was her decision.’ Hattie sighed. ‘Although I think she expected me to beg her to stay, to apologise and confess all, despite everything we’ve done together, and however strongly I trust her to do her job, I don’t trust her with this.’
‘She’ll be devastated when she finds out.’ I sat down in the seat beside hers.
‘As she ranted on about you, and the attic, and how she absolutely needs to know everything, I realised she’ll be more irritated and embarrassed about not being the famous artist’s confidante that she’s made herself out to be than she is upset about my diagnosis.’
‘Are you sure? She’s clearly hurt about being kept in the dark, but she loves you, Hattie.’
‘Well.’ She took a large bite of toast. ‘If she’s even atinybit put out about it, I can’t be dealing with it. I’m sorry she’s upset, but I’m not sorry to lose an assistant who puts her ego above assisting me. I simply don’t have the energy. And trying to emotionally blackmail me into sharing information was the final straw. I’d have let her go if she hadn’t resigned.’
‘It looked as though she’d cleared out her desk. Doesn’t she have to work out any notice?’
‘We agreed it would be best to make a clean break. I’ll pay her for another month, and she can use up her remaining holiday. She’s organised enough to have left things in reasonable order.’
‘Will you be able to manage?’
Hattie closed her eyes, shrinking back into the seat cushions. ‘I don’t suppose you can touch-type?’
After confirming that, no, I wasn’t going to take on Hattie Hood’s PA work, I did then help her spend a couple of hours trying to sort out what work was urgent, important and, as she put it, ‘a boring waste of my limited lifetime’.
We paused bookings on all the upcoming art-therapy courses on her website. If the test results were better than expected, it was simple enough to open them again. After poring over various files and emails, we decided that, alongside her current therapy classes, the only urgent business was to get the new Christmas designs completed.
‘Apart from that, I simply have to get my business, personal admin, finances, house and life in order,’ she said, with a groan.
‘Which is what you’re paying me for,’ I replied.
She tipped her head towards where I sat at Lizzie’s now-empty desk, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. ‘I’m not going to ask you to stay longer than the project requires.’
‘I know that.’ I lifted my chin until I could meet those turquoise eyes. ‘But I’m staying anyway. For as long as you need me.’
She gave a shaky nod.
Later that day, while Hattie slept, I amended my own website to say that I wouldn’t be taking on any new clients for the foreseeable future. For Hattie’s sake, I desperately hoped that in a week or two, I would be deleting the message.
* * *
That evening, I met Gideon by the river. After the last flurry of late snow the week before, spring was now well and truly under way.
‘Hey.’ He stood up with a grin, pulling me in for a hug and pressing his lips against mine for a sweet kiss that was all too short. ‘Good day?’
‘Lizzie resigned,’ I blurted, before considering whether or not Hattie would want this information shared so soon, even if it was to her cousin. There were so many thoughts and emotions swarming inside my head, I really needed to let some of them out.
‘What?’ Gideon sat down on the new, much larger camping chair he’d bought at some point in the last week, shifting to one side so I could squeeze in next to him. ‘She’d seemed a bit grumpy lately, but she’s been working with Hattie since she was a teenager. Has she found another job, or did something happen?’
I rested my head against his shoulder as we watched the woodlark swoop across the water.
‘I think it’s partly me.’
‘She can’t be jealous?’ He nudged me. ‘Well, she can be. You’re amazing. But the project has nothing to do with Lizzie’s job, or Hattie’s business. Does it?’
‘No. But she resented what she perceived as Hattie prioritising it over other things.’
‘That’s Hattie’s decision.’
‘Yes. And it’s not even true. Hattie spent most of last week in the studio, not the attic.’ I wasn’t sure how much to say about how Hattie had been distracted, disorganised and deceitful about why. ‘But Lizzie felt out of the loop, and like she couldn’t do her job properly. She made some demands that Hattie wasn’t prepared to fulfil.’
