Best Kept Secret

shown off and addresses exchanged.
    By six o’clock, when the waiters began to fold up the chairs, collect the drained champagne bottles and stack the last of the empty plates, Harry suggested that perhaps they should make
their way back to their hotel.
    Emma didn’t stop chatting all the way back to the Fairmont, while she was packing, during the taxi ride to the airport, and as they waited for their flight in the first-class lounge. No
sooner had she climbed aboard the aircraft, found her place and fastened her seat belt, than she closed her eyes and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

    ‘You’re sounding positively middle-aged,’ said Emma as they started out on the long drive back from London Airport to the Manor House.
    ‘I am middle-aged,’ said Harry. ‘I’m thirty-seven, and what’s worse, young women have started calling me sir.’
    ‘Well, I don’t feel middle-aged,’ said Emma, looking down at the map. ‘Take a right at the traffic lights and you’ll be on the Great Bath Road.’
    ‘That’s because life has just begun for you.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Exactly that. You’ve just been awarded your degree, and appointed to the board of Barrington’s, both of which have opened up a whole new life for you. Let’s face it,
twenty years ago neither opportunity would have been possible.’
    ‘They’ve only been possible in my case because Cyrus Feldman and Ross Buchanan are enlightened men when it comes to treating women as equals. And don’t forget that Giles and I
own twenty-two per cent of the company between us, and Giles has never shown the slightest interest in sitting on the board.’
    ‘That may well be the case, but if you’re seen to do the job well, it might help convince other chairmen to follow Ross’s example.’
    ‘Don’t kid yourself. It will still be decades before competent women are given the chance to replace incompetent men.’
    ‘Well, let’s at least pray it will be different for Jessica. I’m hoping that by the time she leaves school, her sole purpose in life won’t be to learn how to cook and to
find someone suitable to marry.’
    ‘Do you think those were my sole purpose in life?’
    ‘If they were, you failed on both counts,’ said Harry. ‘And don’t forget you chose me when you were eleven.’
    ‘Ten,’ said Emma. ‘But it still took you another seven years to work it out.’
    ‘Anyway,’ said Harry, ‘we shouldn’t assume that just because we both won places at Oxford, and Grace is a don at Cambridge, that’s a path Jessica will want to
tread.’
    ‘And why should she, when she’s so gifted? I know she admires what Seb has achieved, but her role models are Barbara Hepworth and someone called Mary Cassatt, which is why I’ve
been considering what alternatives are open to her.’ Emma looked back down at the map. ‘Turn right in about half a mile. It should be signposted Reading.’
    ‘What have you two been plotting behind my back?’ asked Harry.
    ‘If Jessica is good enough, and her art teacher assures me she is, the school want her to apply for a place at the Royal College of Art, or the Slade School of Fine Art.’
    ‘Didn’t Miss Fielding go to the Slade?’
    ‘Yes, and she regularly reminds me that Jessica is a far better artist at the age of fifteen than she was in her diploma year.’
    ‘That must be a bit galling.’
    ‘Typical man’s reaction. Actually, Miss Fielding is only interested in seeing Jessica fulfil her potential. She wants her to be the first girl from Red Maids’ to win a place at
the Royal College.’
    ‘That would be quite a double,’ said Harry, ‘as Seb’s the first boy from Beechcroft Abbey to win the top scholarship to Cambridge.’
    ‘The first since 1922,’ Emma corrected him. ‘Turn left at the next roundabout.’
    ‘They must love you on the board of Barrington’s,’ said Harry as he carried out her instruction. ‘By the way, just in case you’ve forgotten, my latest book is
coming out next week.’
    ‘Are they sending you anywhere interesting to promote it?’
    ‘I’m speaking at a
Yorkshire Post
literary lunch on Friday, and I’m told they’ve sold so many tickets they’ve had to move it from a local hotel to the York
racecourse.’
    Emma leant over to give him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Congratulations, my darling!’
    ‘Nothing to do with me, I’m afraid, because I’m not the only speaker.’
    ‘Tell me the name of your rival so I can have him