‘Well, I don’t actually own this house,’ Georgia felt bound to explain.
‘But you do own this...this dog?’ he insisted grimly.
‘I... No, Ben, no,’ Georgia commanded sharply as Ben, growing bored, playfully crept up to the man and made to jump up at him, leaving a set of muddy paw-prints on his immaculate grey trousers.
‘Oh, I really am sorry,’ she apologised again. ‘He’s...he’s only a young dog and he—’
‘He’s a menace, that’s what he is. He ought to be chained up,’ the man growled acerbically at her. ‘And if I find him in my garden again he’s going to wish that he was. There’s a law in this country now about allowing dogs to roam.’
Guiltily Georgia listened to his tirade, knowing there was nothing she could reasonably say or do to make amends.
‘Six months of hard work gone completely to waste,’ the man was telling her furiously. ‘You should see what he’s done to my prize dahlias... I was growing them for the County Show and—’
‘What’s going on here?’
Neither of them had heard Piers walking into the garden, and Georgia’s face went as pale as the man’s was flushed as she saw him standing there.
How much had he overheard?
Just as she was about to launch into an edited explanation of what had happened the man beat her to it, turning to him and demanding furiously, ‘That damn dog of yours has just ruined my garden. Caught him down by the young lettuces, digging the whole of them up. Your wife’s offered to pay for the damage but that isn’t the point. That dog—’
‘I’m not—’
‘She isn’t—’
As they both spoke at once Georgia clenched one hand and stopped. Let Piers explain the situation to his godmother’s angry neighbour. He would probably do a far better job of doing so than she could. But to her consternation, as Piers continued to explain to him that they were not actually married, the man jumped to the wrong conclusion and exclaimed bitingly, ‘Hah! I suppose I should have known. It’s all of a piece—no standards...no morals... That’s what’s wrong with you modern young people. In my day a young man took his responsibilities seriously, whether they were to a woman or to a dog, and he had to buy a licence for both, just to prove his good faith and his intentions to honour his responsibility to them and to the community at large. But of course it’s all different now—no respect for anything or anyone...’
‘Just a moment!’
Piers’s voice cracked like a whip as he spoke sharply to the other man, commanding his attention and his silence.
‘Whether or not a couple choose to marry is their business and no one else’s. A man proves his respect and his love for the woman he commits himself to by the way he treats her and their relationship. And I can promise you that my responsibilities are something I take very seriously indeed.’
Piers moved closer to Georgia—so close to her in fact that for one wild, illogical moment she almost felt as though he had done so out of a desire to defend and protect her.
‘I’m sorry.’ The other man began to stutter, suddenly looking older and very much more frail than he had done when he had first arrived. He was elderly, and a little out of step with modern life, and probably, because of that, a little intimidated by it, Georgia guessed. And she could well understand how angry Ben’s destruction of his garden must have made him feel.
‘Look, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea?’ she suggested gently to him. ‘Then we can discuss what can be done to put matters right.’
Georgia could see the look of surprise on Piers’s face, but suddenly she felt almost sorry for the older man, sensing intuitively that he was probably rather lonely.
‘I...er...’
‘Yes, that’s an excellent idea,’ Piers agreed, smiling as he added, ‘Only instead of tea perhaps a strong G and T might be more in order.’
‘Well...now you’re talking,’ the older man agreed heartily.
In the end their unexpected visitor stayed for over an hour, and they learned that he was a retired colonel whose wife had died two years earlier, and that his decision to move to the area had been prompted by a visit he and his wife had made to the town many years earlier.
‘No family, you see. Both of us only ones, so no family to speak of. Felt that it would have been what Ethel would have liked...’
‘Well, I’m sure when my godmother returns she’ll be very keen to introduce you to her bridge cronies,’ Piers informed him.
‘Bridge?’ The colonel’s eyes gleamed with interest. ‘Haven’t had much time to get involved socially as yet. The vicar called round, of course, but I’m not a church-going man, never have been. Ethel liked a good sermon...’