Seven For a Secret by Judy Astley

that you know exactly where to get any plant I want
and
where it will and won’t grow. All this muddle is just so people won’t realize you’re making a hefty profit out of them every time you so kindly discount a boxful of winter pansies.’
    Nigel pouted then smiled, acknowledging her perception, then flounced rather camply over to the fridge for more milk. That was another little piece of deceit, Heather considered, the fact that he tended to
mince
. She remembered when she’d first met him at the school, collecting his daughter from an after-hours hockey match, and had been surprised that he actually had a family. She’d assumed he lived with a male interior designer in the kind of exquisitely restored cottage (‘found the Adam fireplace in a builder’s skip,
so
lucky’) that rates a five-page feature in
Country Homes and Interiors
.
    A friend who had once visited the nursery with her had said afterwards, ‘Oh he’s married, is he? Well you do surprise me.’ Heather secretly suspected his campness was both a ruthless pursuit of the pink pound and left over from having been rather a tart at his public school: he must have been extremely pretty in his early teens. Even now, when you could get him to forget his cantankerousness and smile, the weather-tanned edges of his deep blue eyes crinkled into sunrise lines and his teeth gleamed stunningly.
    It crossed her mind that Iain had probably been rather attractive to the other boys at his own, decidedly rugged boarding school. Perhaps, she thought, that was why he had pursued not only her, but later a widely-reported series of young impressionable girls, rather than real, grown-up women who would have expected to be on less adoring, equal terms. The last one the gossip columns had mentioned had been only eighteen, with Iain now, she reckoned, being well into his fifties. She didn’t need to wonder how he did it, fame and fortune had their own pulling power, and no-one would deny the erotic quality of a title. ‘Sir’ wasn’t quite on the same quasi-orgasmic level as ‘Earl’ or ‘Marquis’ but it was enough in most susceptible girls to cause just a touch of internal dampening.
    â€˜Have they asked you to do plants for this movie that’s taking over the village?’ Nigel asked.
    â€˜Shouldn’t think they’d need me, surely, they’re more likely to want a florist,’ Heather replied, rather reluctant to show much interest in case Nigel recommended her and she was forced to come face-to-face with Iain over a hastily pot-plunged bed of full-bloom Madonna lilies.
    â€˜Don’t be so sure,’ Nigel said, wagging his composty finger at her. ‘I should get in there if you’ve got the chance. Who knows where it might lead? Even if it’s just to some bone-idle co-star who can’t be bothered to rearrange their own patio, it’s all work.’
    â€˜Well why don’t you go along and leave a few business cards with the right people, locations managers or whatever they are and then
you
can do it,’ Heather suggested, pretending she was being generous.
    â€˜Not me, deary. Got enough here to keep me going,’ he gestured round the tip of a room, ‘even if it’s just a spot of tidying up. You’re the one with the design eye. Get Margot to suggest to the director that her garden’s Lacking Colour, most gardens are by August. We have all suburban England thanking God for
Anemone Japonica
and the appalling ubiquitous
Lavatera Barnsley.
’ Nigel’s blue eyes twinkled craftily at her, and he said, as if he’d only just thought of it, ‘And of course, everything you might just happen to need, you can get from me – can’t you?’
    Kate wished she hadn’t chosen to take the Afghan hound for a walk. She daren’t let it off its lead, because she knew it would disappear and chase rabbits in the wood, or steal