Читать книгу The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy: The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy - DONNA ALWARD, Donna Alward - Страница 6

PHINN tried hard to look on the bright side—but could not find one. There was not so much as a glimmer of a hint of a silver lining to the dark cloud hanging over her.

She stared absently out of the window of her flat above the stables, barely noticing that Geraldine Walton, the new owner of the riding school, while somehow managing to look elegant even in jeans and a tee shirt, was already busy organising the day’s activities.

Phinn had been up early herself, and had already been down to check on her elderly mare Ruby. Phinn swallowed down a hard lump in her throat and came away from the window, recalling the conversation she’d had with Kit Peverill yesterday. Kit was Ruby’s vet, and he had been as kind as he could be. But, however kind he had been, he could not minimise the harshness that had to be faced when he told her that fragile Ruby would not see the year out.

Phinn was quite well aware that Ruby had quite a few health problems, but even so she had been very shaken. It was already the end of April. But, however shaken she had been, her response had been sharp when he had suggested that she might want to consider allowing him to put Ruby down.

‘No!’ she had said straight away, the idea not needing to be considered. Then, as she’d got herself more collected, ‘She’s not in great pain, is she? I mean, I know you give her a painkilling injection occasionally, but…’

‘Her medication is keeping her relatively painfree,’ Kit had informed her. And Phinn had not needed to hear any more. She had thanked him for his visit and had stayed with Ruby for some while, reflecting how Ruby had been her best friend since her father had rescued the mare from being ill treated thirteen years ago, and had brought her home.

But, while they had plenty of space at Honeysuckle Farm in which to keep a horse, there had been no way they could afford to keep one as a pet.

Her mother, already the breadwinner in the family, had hit the roof. But equally there had been no way that Ewart Hawkins was going to let the emaciated mare go back to the people he had rescued her from. And since he had threatened—and had meant it—to have them prosecuted if they tried to get her back, her owners had moved on without her.

‘Please, Mummy,’ Phinn remembered pleading, and her mother had looked into her pleading blue eyes, so like her own, and had drawn a long sigh.

‘You’ll have to feed and water her, and clean up after her,’ she had said severely. ‘Daily!’

And Ewart, the battle over, had given his wife a delighted kiss, and Phinn had exchanged happy grins with her father.

She had been ten years old then, and life had been wonderful. She had been born on the farm to the best parents in the world. Her childhood, given the occasional volcanic explosions from her mother when Ewart had been particularly outrageous about something, had been little short of idyllic. Any major rows between her parents, she’d later realised had, in the main, been kept from her.

Her father had adored her from the word go. Because of some sort of complication at her birth, her mother had had to stay in bed, and it had been left to Ewart to look after the newborn. They had lived in one of the farm cottages then, only moving to the big farmhouse when Grandfather and then Grandmother Hawkins had died. Phinn’s father had bonded with his baby daughter immediately, and, entirely uninterested in farming, he had spent hour after hour with his little girl. It had been he who, advised by his wife, Hester, that the child had to be registered with the authorities within forty-two days of her birth, had gone along to the register office with strict instructions to name her Elizabeth Maud—Maud after Hester’s mother.

He had never liked his mother-in-law, and had returned home to have to explain himself to his wife.

‘You’ve called her—what?’ Hester had apparently hit a C above top C.

‘Calm down, my love,’ he had attempted to soothe, and had gone on to explain that with a plain name like Hawkins, he had thought the baby had better have a pretty name to go in front.

‘Delphinium!’

‘I’m not having my beautiful daughter called plain Lizzie Hawkins,’ he’d answered, further explaining, ‘To be a bit different I’ve named her Delphinnium, with an extra “n” in the middle.’ And, to charm his still not mollified wife, ‘I’m rather hoping little Phinn will have your gorgeous delphinium-blue eyes. Did you know,’ he went on, ‘that your beautiful eyes go all dark purple, like the Black Knight delphinium, when you’re all emotional?’

‘Ewart Hawkins,’ she had threatened, refusing to be charmed.

‘And I brought you a cabbage,’ he’d said winningly.

The fact that he had brought it, not bought it, had told her that he had nipped over some farmer’s hedge and helped himself.

‘Ewart Hawkins!’ she’d said again, but he had the smile he had wanted.

Hester Rainsworth, as she had been prior to her marriage, had been brought up most conventionally in a workaholic family. Impractical dreamer, talented pianist, sometime poet and would-be mechanical engineer Ewart Hawkins could not have been more of an opposite. They had fallen in love—and for some years had been blissfully happy.

Given a few ups and downs, it had been happiness all round in Phinn’s childhood. Grandfather Hawkins had been the tenant of the farm, and on his death the tenancy had passed to her father. The farm had then been her father’s responsibility, but after one year of appalling freak weather, when they had spent more than they had earned, Hester had declared that, with money tight, Ewart could be farmer and house-husband too, while she went out and found a job and brought some money in.

Unlike his hard-working practical father, Ewart had had little interest in arable farming, and had seen absolutely no point in labouring night and day only to see his crops flattened by storms. Besides, there’d been other things he’d preferred to do. Teach his daughter to sketch, to fish, to play the piano and to swim just for starters. There was a pool down at Broadlands, the estate that owned both Honeysuckle Farm and the neighbouring Yew Tree Farm. They hadn’t been supposed to swim in the pool, but in return for her father going up to the Hall occasionally, and playing the grand piano for music-lover Mr Caldicott, old Mr Caldicott had turned a blind eye.

So it was in the shallows there that her father had taught her to dive and to swim. If they hadn’t taken swimwear it had been quite all right with him if she swam in her underwear—and should his wife be home when they returned, he’d borne her wrath with fortitude.

There was a trout stream too, belonging to the Broadlands estate, and they hadn’t been supposed to fish there either. But her father had called that a load of nonsense, so fish they had. Though, for all Phinn had learned to cast a fine line, she could never kill a fish and her fish had always been put back. Afterwards they might stop at the Cat and Drum, where her father would sit her outside with a lemonade while he went inside to pass time with his friends. Sometimes he would bring his pint outside. He would let her have a sip of his beer and, although she thought it tasted horrible, she had pretended to like it.

Phinn gave a shaky sigh as she thought of her dreamer father. It had been he and not her mother who had decorated her Easter bonnet for the village parade. How proud she had been of that hat—complete with a robin that he had very artistically made.

‘A robin!’ her mother had exclaimed. ‘You do know it’s Easter?’

‘There won’t be another bonnet like it,’ he had assured her.

‘You can say that again!’ Hester had retorted.

Phinn had not won the competition. She had not wanted to. Though she had drawn one or two stares, it had not mattered. Her father had decorated her hat, and that had been plenty good enough for her.

Phinn wondered, not for the first time, when it had all started to go so badly wrong. Had it been before old Mr Caldicott had decided to sell the estate? Before Ty Allardyce had come to Bishops Thornby, taken a look around and decided to buy the place—thereby making himself their landlord? Or…?

In all fairness, Phinn knew that it must have been long before then. Though he, more recently, had not helped. Her beautiful blue eyes darkened in sadness as she thought back to a time five, maybe six years ago. Had that been when things had started to go awry? She had come home after having been out for a ride with Ruby, and after attending to Ruby’s needs she had gone into the big old farmhouse kitchen to find her parents in the middle of a blazing row.

Knowing that she could not take sides, she had been about to back out again when her mother had taken her eyes from the centre of her wrath—Ewart—to tell her, ‘This concerns you too, Phinn.’

‘Oh,’ she had murmured non-committally.

‘We’re broke. I’m bringing in as much as I can.’ Her mother worked in Gloucester as a legal assistant.

‘I’ll get a job,’ Phinn had offered. ‘I’ll—’

‘You will. But first you’ll have some decent training. I’ve arranged for you to have an interview at secretarial college. You—’

‘She won’t like it!’ Ewart had objected.

‘We all of us—or most of us,’ she’d inserted, with a sarcastic glance at him, ‘have to do things we don’t want to do or like to do!’

The argument, with Phinn playing very little part, had raged on until Hester Hawkins had brought out her trump card.

‘Either Phinn goes to college or that horse goes to somebody who can afford her feed, her vet and her farrier!’

‘I’ll sell something,’ Ewart had decided, already not liking that his daughter, his pal, would not be around so much. He had a good brain for anything mechanical, and the farmyard was littered with odds and ends that he would sometimes make good and sell on.

But Hester had grown weary of him. ‘Grow up, Ewart,’ she had snapped bluntly.

But that was the trouble. Her father had never grown up, and had seen no reason why he should attempt it. On thinking about it, Phinn could not see any particular reason why he should have either. Tears stung her eyes. Though it had been the essential Peter Pan in her fifty-four-year-old father that had ultimately been the cause of his death.

But she did not want to dwell on that happening seven months ago. She had shed enough tears since then.

Phinn made herself think back to happier times, though she had not been too happy to be away from the farm for such long hours while she did her training. For her mother’s sake she had applied herself to that training, and afterwards, with her eye more on the salary she would earn than with any particular interest in making a career as a PA, she had got herself a job with an accountancy firm, with her mother driving her into Gloucester each day.

Each evening Phinn had got home as soon as she could to see Ruby and her father. Her father had taught her to drive, but when her mother had started working late, putting in extra hours at her office, it was he who had suggested that Phinn should have a car of her own.

Her mother had agreed, but had insisted she would look into it. She was not having her daughter driving around in any bone-rattling contraption he’d patched up.

Phinn had an idea that Grandmother Rainsworth had made a contribution to her vehicle, and guessed that her mother’s parents might well have helped out financially in her growing years.

But all that had stopped a few months later when her mother, having sat her down and said that she wanted to talk to her, had announced to Phinn’s utter amazement that she was moving out. Shocked, open-mouthed, Phinn had barely taken in that her mother intended leaving them when she’d further revealed that she had met someone else.

‘You mean—some—other man?’ Phinn had gasped, it still not fully sinking in.

‘Clive. His name’s Clive.’

‘But—but what about Dad?’

‘I’ve discussed this fully with your father. Things—er—haven’t been right between us for some while. I’ll start divorce proceedings as soon as everything settles…’

Divorce! Phinn had been aware that her mother had grown more impatient and short-tempered with her father just lately. But—divorce!

‘But what—’

‘I’m not going to change my mind, Phinn. I’ve tried. Lord knows I’ve tried! But I’m tired of the constant struggle. Your father lives in his own little dream world and…’ She halted at the look of protest on her daughter’s face. ‘No, I’m not going to run him down. I know how devoted you are to him. But just try to understand, Phinn. I’m tired of the struggle. And I’ve decided I’m not too old to make a fresh start. To make a new life for myself. A better life.’

‘Th-this Clive. He’s part of your fresh start—this better life?’

‘Yes, he is. In due time I’ll marry him—though I’m not in any great hurry about that.’

‘You—just want your—freedom?’

‘Yes, I do. You’re working now, Phinn. You have your own money—though no doubt your father will want some of it. But…’ Hester looked at her daughter, wanting understanding. ‘I’ve found myself a small flat in Gloucester. I’ll write down the address. I’m leaving your father, darling, not you. You’re welcome to come and live with me whenever you want.’

To leave her father had been something Phinn had not even thought about. Her home had been there, with him and Ruby.

It was around then, Phinn suddenly saw, that everything had started to go wrong.

First Ruby had had a cough, and when that cleared she’d picked up a viral infection. Her father had been marvelous, in that he’d spent all of his days looking after Ruby for her until Phinn was able to speed home from the office to take over.

The vet’s bill had started to mount, but old Mr Duke had obligingly told them to pay what they could when they could.

Phinn’s days had become full. She’d had no idea of the amount of work her mother had done when she was home. Phinn had always helped out when requested, but once she was sole carer she’d seemed to spend a lot of her time picking up and clearing up after her father.

And time had gone by. Phinn had met Clive Gillam and, contrary to her belief, had liked him. And a couple of years later, with her father’s approval, she had attended their wedding.

‘You want to go and live with them?’ her father had asked somewhat tentatively when she had returned.

‘No way,’ she’d answered.

And he had grinned. ‘Fancy a pint?’

‘You go. I want to check on Rubes.’

It seemed as though her mother’s new marriage had been a signal for everything to change. Mr Caldicott, the owner of the Broadlands estate, had decided to sell up and to take himself and his money off to sunnier climes.

And, all before they knew it, the bachelor Allardyce brothers had been in the village, taking a look around. And, all before they could blink, Honeysuckle Farm and neighbouring Yew Tree Farm, plus a scattering of other properties, had all had a new landlord—and an army of architects and builders had started at work on Broadlands Hall, bringing its antiquated plumbing and heating up to date and generally modernising the interior.

She had spotted the brothers one day when she was resting Ruby, hidden in the spinney—property of Broadlands. Two men deep in conversation had walked by. The slightly taller of the two, a dark-haired man, just had to be the Tyrell Allardyce she had heard about. There was such a self-confident air about the man that he could have been none other than the new owner.

Phinn had seemed to know that before she’d over-heard his deep, cultured tones saying, ‘Don’t you see, Ash…?’ as they had passed within yards of her.

Ash was tall too, but without that positive, self-assured air that simply exuded from the other man. Listening intently, he must have been the younger brother.

Tyrell Allardyce, with his brother Ashley, had called at Honeysuckle Farm one day while she was out at work. But from what her father had told her, and from what she had gleaned from the hotbed of local gossip, Ty Allardyce was some big-shot financier who worked and spent most of his time either in London or overseas. He, so gossip had said, would live at Broadlands Hall when his London commitments allowed, while Ashley would stay at the Hall to supervise the alterations and generally manage the estate.

‘Looks like we’re going to be managed, kiddo,’ her father had commented jocularly.

Highly unlikely!

Further village gossip some while later had suggested that Mrs Starkey, housekeeper to the previous owner of Broadlands, was staying on to look after Ashley Allardyce. It seemed—though Phinn knew that, village gossip being what it was, a lot of it could be discounted—that Ashley had endured some sort of a breakdown, and that Ty had bought Broadlands mainly for his brother’s benefit.

Phinn thought she could safely rule that out—the cost of Broadlands, with all its other properties, must go into millions. Surely, if it were true that Ashley had been ill, there were cheaper ways of finding somewhere less fraught than London to live? Though it did appear that the younger Allardyce brother was living at the Hall. So perhaps Mrs Starkey, whom Phinn had known all her life, was looking after him after all.

Everything within this last year seemed to be changing. To start with, old Mr Duke had decided to give up his veterinary practice. It was a relief that she had just about settled with him the money she’d owed for Ruby’s last course of treatment. Though it had worried Phinn how she would fare with the new man who had taken over. Mr Duke had never been in any hurry for his money, and Ruby, who they calculated had been about ten years old when they had claimed her, was now geriatric in the horse world, and rarely went six weeks without requiring some treatment or other.

Kit Peverill, however, a tall mousy-haired man in his early thirties, had turned out to be every bit as kind and caring as his predecessor. Thankfully, she had only had to call him out twice.

But more trouble had seemed to be heading their way when, again clearing up after her father, she’d found a letter he had left lying around. It had come from the Broadlands estate, and was less of a letter but more of a formal notice that some effort must be made to pay the rent arrears and that the farm must be ‘tidied up’—otherwise legal proceedings would have to be initiated.

Feeling staggered—she’d had no idea that her father had not been paying the rent—Phinn had gone in search of him.

‘Ignore it,’ he had advised.

‘Ignore it?’ she’d gasped.

‘Not worth the paper it’s written on,’ he had assured her, and had gone back to tinkering with an old, un-roadworthy, un-fieldworthy quad bike he had found somewhere.

Knowing that she would get no sense out of him until his mind-set was ready to think of other things, Phinn had waited until he came into supper that night.

‘I was thinking of going down to the Cat for a pint—’ he began.

‘I was thinking we might discuss that letter,’ Phinn interrupted.

He looked at her, smiled because he adored her, and said, ‘You know, little flower, you’ve more than a touch of your mother about you.’

She couldn’t ignore it. One of them had to be practical. ‘What will we do if—er—things get nasty—if we have to leave here? Ruby…’

‘It won’t come to that,’ he’d assured her, undaunted. ‘It’s just the new owner flexing a bit of muscle, that’s all.’

‘The letter’s from Ashley Allardyce…’

‘He may have written it, but he will have been instructed by his big brother.’

‘Tyrell Allardyce.’ She remembered him very clearly. Oddly, while Ashley Allardyce was only a vague figure in her mind, his elder brother Ty seemed to be etched in her head. She was starting to dislike the man.

‘It’s the way they do things in London,’ Ewart had replied confidently. ‘They just need all the paperwork neatly documented in case there’s a court case. But—’ as she went a shade pale ‘—it won’t come to that,’ he repeated. ‘Honeysuckle Farm has been in Hawkins care for generations. Nobody’s going to throw us off this land, I promise you.’

Sadly, it had not been the first letter of that sort. The next one she had seen had come from a London firm of lawyers, giving them formal notice to quit by September. And Phinn, who had already started to dislike Tyrell Allardyce, and although she had never hated anyone in her life, had known that she hated Ty that he could do this to them. Old Mr Caldicott would never, ever have instructed such a letter.

But again her father had been unconcerned, and told her to ignore the notice to quit. And while Phinn had spent a worrying time—expecting the bailiffs to turn up at any moment to turf then out—her father had appeared to not have a care in the world.

And then it had been September, and Phinn had had something else to worry about that had pushed her fear of the bailiffs into second place. Ruby had become quite ill.

Kit Peverill had come out to her in the middle of the night, and it had been touch and go if Ruby would make it. Phinn, forgetting she had a job to go to, had stayed with her and nursed her, watched her like a hawk—and the geriatric mare had pulled through.

When Phinn had gone back to work and, unable to lie, told her boss that her mare had been ill, she had been told in return that they were experiencing a business downturn and were looking to make redundancies. Was it likely, should her horse again be ill, that she would again take time off?

Again she had not been able to lie. ‘I’ll go and clear my desk,’ she’d offered.

‘You don’t have to go straight way,’ her employer had told her kindly. ‘Let’s say in a month’s time.’

Because she’d known she would need the money, Phinn had not argued. But she never did work that full month. Because a couple of weeks later her world had fallen apart when her father, haring around the fields, showing a couple of his pals what a reconstructed quad bike could do, had upended it, gone over and under it—and come off worst.

He had died before Phinn could get to the hospital. Her mother had come to her straight away, and it had been Hester who, practical to the last, had made all the arrangements.

Devastated, having to look after Ruby had been the only thing that kept Phinn on anything resembling an even keel. And Ruby, as if she understood, would gently nuzzle into her neck and cuddle up close.

Her father had been popular but, when the day of his funeral had arrived, Phinn had never known he had so many friends. Or relatives, either. Aunts and uncles she had heard of but had seen only on the rarest of occasions had come to pay their respects. Even her cousin Leanne, a Hawkins several times removed, had arrived with her parents.

Leanne was tall, dark, pretty—and with eyes that seemed to instantly put a price on everything. But since the family antiques had been sold one by one after Hester had left, there had been very little at Honeysuckle Farm that was worth the ink on a price ticket. Thereafter Leanne had behaved as decorously as her parents would wish.

That was she’d behaved very nicely until—to his credit—Ashley Allardyce had come to the funeral to pay his respects too. Phinn had not been feeling too friendly to him, but because she did not wish to mar the solemnity of the occasion with any undignified outburst—and in any case it was not him but his elder brother Ty who was the villain who went around instigating notices to quit—she’d greeted Ashley calmly, and politely thanked him for coming.

Leanne, noticing the expensive cut of the clothes the tall, fair-haired man was wearing, had immediately been attracted.

‘Who’s he?’ she’d asked, sidling up when Ashley Allardyce had gone over to have a word with Nesta and Noel Jarvis, the tenants of Yew Tree Farm.

‘Ashley Allardyce,’ Phinn had answered, and, as she’d suspected, it had not ended there.

‘He lives around here?’

‘At Broadlands Hall.’

‘That massive house in acres of grounds we passed on the way here?’

The next thing Phinn knew was that Leanne, on her behalf, had invited Ash Allardyce back to the farmhouse for refreshments.

Any notion Phinn might have had that he would refuse the invitation had disappeared when she’d seen the look on his face. He was clearly captivated by her cousin!

The days that had followed had gone by in a numbed kind of shock for Phinn as she’d tried to come to terms with her father’s death. Her mother had wanted her to go back to Gloucester and live with her and Clive. Phinn had found the idea unthinkable. Besides, there was Ruby.

Phinn had been glad to have Ruby to care for. Glad too that her cousin Leanne frequently drove the forty or so miles from her own home to see her.

In fact, by the time Christmas had come, Phinn had seen more of her cousin than she had during the whole of her life. Leanne had come, she would say, to spend time with her, so she would not be too lonely. But most of Leanne’s time, from what Phinn had seen, was being spent with Ash Allardyce.

He had driven Leanne back to the farmhouse several times, and it had been as clear as day to Phinn that he was totally besotted with her cousin. Phinn, aware, if village talk were true, of his recent recovery from a breakdown, had only hoped that, vulnerable as he might still be, he would not end up getting hurt.

Because of a prior arrangement Leanne had spent Christmas skiing in Switzerland. Ash had gone too. For all Phinn knew his notice-to-quit-ordering brother might have made one of his rare visits to Broadlands and spent his Christmas there, but she hadn’t seen him, and she’d been glad about that. The notice to quit had never been executed. It had not needed to be.

Since Phinn had no longer had a job, she’d no longer needed a car. Pride as much as anything had said she had to clear the rent arrears. She had formed a good opinion of Ash Allardyce, and did not think he would discuss their business with Leanne, but with him becoming closer and closer to her cousin, she had not wanted to risk it. She did not want any one member of her family to know that her father had died owing money. She’d sold her car and sent a cheque off to the lawyers.

Though by the time all accounts had been settled—and that included the vet’s last bill—there had been little money remaining, and Phinn had known that she needed to get a job. A job that paid well. Yet Ruby had not been well enough to be left alone all day while she went off to work.

Then Leanne, on another visit, having voiced her opinion that Ash was close to ‘popping the question’ marriage-wise, had telephoned from Broadlands Hall to tell her not to wait up for her, that she was spending the night there.

It had been the middle of the following morning when Leanne, driving fast and furiously, had screeched to a halt in the middle of the farmyard. Phinn, leaving Ruby to go and find out what the rush was about, had been confronted by a furious Leanne, who’d demanded to know why she had not told her that Broadlands Hall did not belong to Ash Allardyce.

‘I—didn’t think about it,’ Phinn had answered defensively. Coming to terms with her beloved father’s death and settling his affairs had taken precedence. Who owned Broadlands Hall had not figured very much, if at all, in her thinking at that particular time. ‘I told you Ash had a brother. I’m sure I did.’

‘Yes, you did!’ Leanne snapped. ‘And so did Ash. But neither of you told me that Ash was the younger brother—and that he doesn’t own a thing!’

‘Ah, you’ve met Ty Allardyce,’ Phinn realised. And discovered she was in the wrong about that too.

‘No—more’s the pity! He’s always away somewhere—away abroad somewhere, and likely to be away some time!’ Leanne spat. ‘It took that po-faced housekeeper to delight in telling me that Ash was merely the estate manager! Can you imagine it? There was I, happily believing that any time soon I was going to be mistress of Broadlands Hall, only to be informed by some jumped-up housekeeper that some poky farm cottage was more likely to be the place for me. I don’t think so!’

Phinn doubted that Mrs Starkey would have said anything of the sort, but as Leanne raged on she knew that once her cousin had realised that Ash was not the owner of Broadlands, it wouldn’t have taken her very long to realise the ins and outs of it all.

‘Come in and I’ll make some coffee,’ Phinn offered, aware that her cousin had suffered something of a shock.

‘I’ll come in. But only to collect what belongings of mine I’ve left here.’

‘You—er—that sounds a bit—final?’ Phinn suggested at last.

‘You bet it is. Ten minutes and the village of Bishop Thornby has seen the last of me.’

‘What about Ash?’

‘What about him?’ Leanne was already on her way into the house. ‘I’ve told him—nicely—that I’m not cut out for country life. But if that hasn’t given him something of a clue—tell him I said goodbye.’

Ash did not come looking for her cousin, and Honeysuckle Farm had settled into an unwanted quietness. With the exception of her mother, who frequently rang to check that she was all right, Phinn spoke with no one other than Ruby. Gradually Phinn came to see that she could do nothing about Leanne having dropped Ash like a hot brick once she had known that he was not the one with the money. Phinn knew that she could not stay on at the farm for very much longer. She had no interest in trying to make the farm a paying concern. If her father had not been able to do it with all his expertise, she did not see how she could. And, while she had grown to quite like the man whom Leanne had so unceremoniously dumped, the twenty-nine-year-old male might well be glad to see the back of anyone who bore the Hawkins name.

She had no idea if she was entitled to claim the tenancy, but if not, Ash would be quite within his rights to instigate having her thrown out.

Not wanting the indignity of that, Phinn wondered where on earth she could go. For herself she did not care very much where she went, but it was Ruby she had to think about.

To that end, Phinn took a walk down to the local riding school, run by Peggy Edmonds. And it turned out that going to see Peggy was the best thing she could have done. Because not only was Peggy able to house Ruby, she was even—unbelievably—able to offer Phinn a job. True, it wasn’t much of a job, but with a place for Ruby assured, Phinn would have accepted anything.

Apparently Peggy was having a hard time battling with arthritis, and for over a year had been trying to find a buyer for what was now more of a stables than a riding school. But it seemed no one was remotely interested in making her an offer. With her arthritis so bad some days that it was all she could do to get out of bed, if Phinn would like to work as a stable hand, although Peggy could not pay very much, there was a small stall Ruby could have, and she could spend her days in the field with the other horses. As a bonus, there was a tiny flat above one of the stables doing nothing.

It was a furnished flat, with no room for farmhouse furniture, and having been advised by the house clearers that she would have to pay them to empty the farmhouse, Phinn got her father’s old friend Mickie Yates—an educated, eccentric but loveable jack-of-all-trades—to take everything away for her. It grieved her to see her father’s piano go, but there was no space in the tiny flat for it.

So it was as January drew to a close that Phinn walked Ruby down to her new home and then, cutting through the spinney on Broadlands that she knew so well, Phinn took the key to the farmhouse up to the Hall.

Ash Allardyce was not in. Phinn was quite glad about that. After the way her cousin had treated him, dropping him cold like that, it might have been a touch embarrassing.

‘I was very sorry to hear about your father, Phinn,’ Mrs Starkey said, taking the keys from her.

‘Thank you, Mrs Starkey,’ Phinn replied quietly, and returned to the stables.

But almost immediately, barely having congratulated herself on how well everything was turning out—she had a job and Ruby was housed and fed—the sky started to fall in.

By late March it crash-landed.

Ruby—probably because of her previous ill-treatment—had always been timid, and needed peace and quiet, but was being bullied by the other much younger horses. Phinn took her on walks away from them as often as she could, but with her own work to do that was not as often as she would have liked.

Then, against all odds, Peggy found a buyer. A buyer who wanted to take possession as soon as it could possibly be achieved.

‘I’ll talk to her and see if there’s any chance of her keeping you on,’ Peggy said quickly, on seeing the look of concern on Phinn’s face.

Phinn had met Geraldine Walton, a dark-haired woman of around thirty, who was not dissimilar to her cousin in appearance. She had met her on one of Geraldine’s ‘look around’ visits, and had thought she seemed to have a bit of a hard edge to her—which made Phinn not too hopeful.

She was right not to be too hopeful, she soon discovered, for not only was there no job for her, neither was there a place for Ruby. And, not only that, Geraldine Walton was bringing her own staff and requested that Phinn kindly vacate the flat over the stable. As quickly as possible, please.

Now, Phinn, with the late-April sun streaming through the window, looked round the stable flat and knew she had better think about packing up her belongings. Not that she had so very much to pack, but…Her eyes came to rest on the camera her mother, who had visited her last Sunday, had given her to return to Ash on Leanne’s behalf.

Feeling a touch guilty that her mother’s visit had been a couple of days ago now and she had done nothing about it, Phinn went and picked up the piece of photographic equipment. No time like the present—and she could get Ruby away from the other horses for a short while.

Collecting Ruby, Phinn walked her across the road and took the shortcut through the spinney. In no time she was approaching the impressive building that was Broadlands Hall.

Leanne Hawkins was not her favourite cousin just then. She had been unkind to Ash Allardyce, and, while Phinn considered that had little to do with her, she would much prefer that her cousin did her own dirty work. It seemed that her mother, who had no illusions about Leanne, had doubted that Ash would have got his expensive camera back at all were it not for the fact that he, still very much smitten, used it as an excuse to constantly telephone Leanne. Apparently Leanne could not be bothered to talk to him, and had asked Phinn to make sure he had his rotten camera back.

Phinn neared the Hall, hoping that it would again be Mrs Starkey who answered her ring at the door. Cowardly it might be, but she had no idea what she could say to Ash Allardyce. While she might be annoyed with Leanne, Leanne was still family, and family loyalty said that she could not say how shabbily she personally felt Leanne had treated him.

Phinn pulled the bell-tug, half realising that ifAsh was still as smitten with Leanne as he had been, he was unlikely to say anything against her cousin that might provoke her having to stand up for her. She…

Phinn’s thoughts evaporated as she heard the sound of someone approaching the stout oak door from within. Camera in one hand, Ruby’s rein in the other, Phinn prepared to smile.

Then the front door opened and was pulled back—and her smile never made it. For it was not Mrs Starkey who stood there, and neither was it Ash Allardyce. Ash was fair-haired, but this man had ink-black hair—and an expression that was far from welcoming! He was tall, somewhere in his mid-thirties—and clearly not pleased to see her. She knew very well who he was—strangely, she had never forgotten his face. His good-looking face.

But his grim expression didn’t let up when in one dark glance he took in the slender, delphinium-blue-eyed woman with a thick strawberry-blonde plait hanging over one shoulder, a camera in one hand and a rein in the other.

All too obviously he had recognised the camera, because his grim expression became grimmer if anything.

‘And you are?’ he demanded without preamble.

Yes, she, although having never been introduced to him, knew very well this was the man who was ultimately responsible for her father receiving that notice to quit. To quit the land that his family had farmed for generations. It passed her by just then that her father had done very little to keep the farm anything like the farm it had been for those generations.

‘I’m Phinn Hawkins,’ she replied—a touch belligerently it had to be admitted. ‘I’ve—’

His eyes narrowed at her tone, though his tone was none too sweet either as he challenged shortly, ‘What do you want on my land, Hawkins?’

And that made her mad. ‘And you are?’ she demanded, equally as sharp as he.

She was then forced to bear his tough scrutiny for several uncompromising seconds as he studied her. But, just when she was beginning to think she would have to run for his name, ‘Tyrell Allardyce,’ he supplied at last. And, plainly unused to repeating himself, ‘What do you want?’ he barked.

‘Nothing you can supply, Allardyce!’ she tossed back at him, refusing to be intimidated. Stretching out a hand, she offered the camera. ‘Give this to your brother,’ she ordered loftily. But at her mention of his brother, she was made to endure a look that should have turned her to stone.

‘Get off my land!’ he gritted between clenched teeth. ‘And—’ his tone was threatening ‘—don’t ever set foot on it again!’

His look was so malevolent it took everything she had to keep from flinching. ‘Huh!’ she scorned, and, badly wanting to run as fast as she could away from this man and his menacing look, she turned Ruby about and ambled away from the Hall.

By the time she and Ruby had entered the spinney, some of Phinn’s equilibrium had started to return. And a short while later she was starting to be thoroughly cross with herself that she had just walked away without acquainting him with a few of the do’s and don’ts of living in the country.

Who did he think he was, for goodness’ sake? She had always roamed the estate lands freely. True, there were certain areas she knew she was not supposed to trespass over. But she had been brought up using the Broadlands fields and acres as her right of way! She was darn sure she wasn’t going to alter that now!

The best thing Ty Allardyce could do, she fumed, would be to take himself and his big city ways back to London. And stay there! And good riddance to him too! She had now met him, but she hoped she never had the misfortune of seeing his forbidding, disagreeable face ever again!