Free Whatever Love Is by Rosie Ruston Page A

told her. ‘They’re about to take the engagement photograph of Mia and Nick.’
    Alice pulled a face. ‘Very upmarket,’ she said. ‘Don’t you find it hard?’
    ‘Hard? What do you mean?’
    ‘Well, fitting in here,’ Alice said. ‘Poppy told me that you’d had a pretty dire childhood and you weren’t exactly wealthy.’
    ‘Oh, that makes me somehow inferior does it?’ Frankie blurted out. ‘That and not being a live wire !’
    The moment the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. She wasn’t proud of eavesdropping and, despite her feelings, she hated to embarrass anyone deliberately.
    ‘Live wire? What do you mean,’ Alice cried, clearly having missed the allusion. ‘I do this all the time – I open my mouth before engaging my brain. I wasn’t saying
you were inferior, honestly. I’m so sorry. What I meant was, you’re more like me and Henry than the Bertrams.’
    ‘Hardly,’ Frankie said. ‘For one thing, I didn’t go to a posh boarding school.’
    ‘Our school wasn’t posh and we only went because my mother couldn’t wait to get us out of the way so that she could devote herself to a succession of different men,’
Alice said bitterly. ‘And you know what? Even now, all these years on, I feel so angry at what she did. I mean – how could she?’ She kicked at the gravel on the pathway to the
paddock. ‘She woke us up in the middle of the night – we were only eight at the time – and dragged us off to Cornwall to this man Derek. She left a note for my father: Can’t do this any more, it said. Can you believe that?’
    Frankie bit her lip. ‘My dad . . .’ she began and then thought better of it. Family loyalty, she thought, counted for something.
    ‘See?’ Alice replied. ‘I knew you’d understand – that’s why I felt a connection the moment I met you. Henry feels the same, I guess; he’s been seeing
quite a bit of you, hasn’t he? Didn’t he come over yesterday when you got back from Hove?’ Her eyes twinkled as she winked at Frankie.
    ‘What? Oh, no it’s nothing like that,’ she said hastily. ‘He just came over to talk about his project.’
    ‘Hey! It’s no problem. He likes you, he told me so. What’s more, I happen to know he told one of his mates that you were cute and have got a lot of untapped potential. Which
for Henry is as good as saying he’s smitten.’
    Frankie smiled and shrugged, unsure of her feelings about this latest revelation. ‘So did you live in Cornwall for a long time?’ she said, desperate to change the subject.
    ‘You’re blushing,’ Alice teased. ‘I’ll tell Henry he’s in with a good chance!’
    ‘No, don’t! I . . .’
    ‘Just teasing,’ she laughed. ‘And in answer to your question, Mummy got tired of Derek a couple of years later and moved us on to Liverpool – that was Aidan – and
now she’s with Greg in East Grinstead. He’s a real slimeball, which is why we’re here with Dad and —’
    ‘Yes, that’s it. That’s absolutely it!’ Frankie stopped short when she realised she was speaking out loud.
    ‘ What’s it?’
    She could hardly tell Alice that the saga of her mother’s erratic love life had just triggered a brilliant twist to the Jasper story that had been taxing her.
    ‘Nothing – I mean, I knew that was why you were here.’
    They had reached the paddock and Alice took the halter from Frankie’s hand. ‘Come on, Fling,’ she called. ‘We need to get you ready for Ned’s lesson.’ She
turned to Frankie. ‘He’s a cutie, isn’t he? A real sweetheart.’
    ‘I guess.’ Frankie shrugged. ‘Like I said, I don’t know anything about horses.’
    ‘Not Fling, silly! Ned. Although I suppose seeing as how you are cousins, you don’t see it. But believe me, he’s one fit guy. And you know what?
    ‘What?’
    ‘I’m pretty sure he likes me. I’m useless at this driving lark – my last instructor gave up on me in the end and Dad finds reasons to put off taking me out, even