Читать книгу The Bachelor: Racy, pacy and very funny! - Тилли Бэгшоу - Страница 19

The moment Flora stepped off the plane it started to rain. Lightly at first, just a few small drops dancing off the tarmac. But by the time she’d been through Customs and made it out to the Hertz car rental, sheets of water were bucketing down from menacing, charcoal-grey sky.

Tired, and unused to driving on the left-hand side of the road, never mind with her windscreen wipers going full pelt, Flora managed to take two wrong turns getting out of Heathrow and ended up going the wrong way around the M25. By the time she got back on track heading towards the Swell Valley, she was stressed, frustrated, and more than forty minutes late for her first site meeting with Graydon and the client.

‘Where are you?’ Graydon’s voice, low and gravelly and demanding, echoed around Flora’s car like a bear growling in its cave.

‘I’m on my way,’ she said. ‘The traffic’s terrible.’

‘I didn’t ask for a fucking traffic report,’ Graydon barked at her. Someone had woken up on the wrong side of bed this morning. ‘Just make sure you get there on time. Something came up in London so you’re going to have to meet Henry solo.’

Flora fought back the urge to scream. Or to ask Graydon whether what ‘came up’ was in fact some tart of a male stripper’s ten-inch hard-on, while she’d just flown halfway across the world to try to salvage the most prestigious job GJD had ever had, after Graydon’s last lover had just screwed it up royally.

‘Is there really no way you can be there?’ she asked, more in despair than expectation. ‘If the client’s expecting both of us—’

‘The client’s just secured my services for a pittance,’ Graydon snapped.

You mean my services, thought Flora, although she was wise enough not to say so.

‘He’ll get what he’s given.’

‘All right, but can you at least talk me through the … key points?’ asked Flora, grinding the car’s gears noisily into fifth. She hadn’t driven a stick since college and could barely see three feet in front of her in this rain. ‘What are his main … concerns?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual,’ Graydon said airily. ‘He wants the place to look magnificent, without compromising the history. And he wants it done yesterday. He’s open to suggestion, creatively.’

‘Really?’ Flora perked up. Henry Saxton Brae had a reputation for arrogance, as well as for being controlling. She’d assumed he’d be one of those young clients who think they’re really an architect and who weighed down projects with their endless impractical demands. ‘He doesn’t have a wish list?’

‘Oh, well, you know, somewhat,’ muttered Graydon. Flora could hear muffled voices in the background on his end of the line. And laughter. ‘You’ll be fine. Just don’t be late. And don’t nick anything.’

He hung up.

Clearly Graydon’s panic over holding on to the Hanborough job had subsided since yesterday. Was it really only yesterday when he’d called her? Picturing herself in Lisa Kent’s Siasconset garden, Flora felt as if it were a week ago at least.

The clock on her dashboard said 11 a.m.

She would be late. That much was a fact.

The only question was by how much.

Oh well. It couldn’t be helped. Hopefully Henry Saxton Brae would understand.

Flora finally arrived at Hanborough at half past one, a full hour late for the meeting. As luck would have it, she wasn’t the only one.

‘Mr Saxton Brae’s been held up at a meeting, I’m afraid,’ a smiling, slightly plump, middle-aged secretary informed her, scurrying out to the car as soon as Flora pulled up. ‘He shouldn’t be long now. Can I offer you a cup of tea while you wait?’

‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

The rain had finally stopped, and it seemed to Flora as if the clouds had parted just for her as she followed the secretary across the drawbridge and walked through the ancient portcullis into the castle proper. Outside, sunlight fell in thick, bright shafts onto the honey-coloured stone, and bounced back off the swollen waters of the moat. Inside, however, all was dark and cold and damp. Magnificent, in its own way, with its high ceilings and winding stairwells and tapestry-hung walls. But distinctly lacking in light.

We’ll have to do something about that, thought Flora, although for the moment she wasn’t sure what. A mug of tea arrived, along with a Hobnob biscuit. Not until that moment had Flora realized how hungry she was. Wolfing down the biscuit, she distracted herself from her rumbling stomach by wandering down the halls, mug in hand, trying to get her bearings while simultaneously taking a mental photograph of her first impressions of each room and feature.

First impressions were vital, in Flora’s opinion. It was so easy to lose sight of the essence of a house, or any building for that matter, once it became too familiar. Part of the designer’s job was to keep hold of that freshness, those first ideas and thoughts and emotions that assailed you when you walked through the door. Because that was what future generations would see, long after she and Graydon and Henry Saxton Brae were gone.

‘What the hell are you doing in here?’

Flora jumped and spun around, promptly spilling half a mug of tea all over a priceless Persian rug.

‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry!’

She was standing in the drawing room, examining a rather wonderful antique harpsichord that had been inexplicably shoved into a corner, when Henry Saxton Brae surprised her. In a dark suit and blue shirt open at the neck, but with an Hermès silk tie dangling from his long fingers, he’d obviously just come from a business meeting. Flora’s first impressions of Henry were that he was incredibly handsome – far better looking than he was in the pictures – and incredibly angry.

He was also incredibly rude.

‘Where the fuck is Graydon?’

‘He got held up. In London. I’m Flora Fitzwilliam.’ Flora put down the mug and offered Henry her hand. ‘I just flew in from New York. I’ll be overseeing the project at Hanborough and I’m incredibly excited to—’

‘No.’ Ignoring Flora’s proffered hand, Henry looked her up and down, like a horse he’d been considering buying but now found wanting. ‘I don’t want you. You can go.’ And with that he turned around almost casually and left the room.

It took Flora a moment to recover. But only a moment.

Running out into the hallway, she called after Henry’s retreating back. ‘Excuse me.’ When Henry didn’t answer she raised her voice. ‘Hey!’

Henry turned around, still scowling.

‘If you have a problem working with me, the least you can do is have the courtesy to tell me what it is,’ Flora said defiantly.

Henry took a step towards her. He was still giving her the ‘appraising a racehorse’ look, although this time it was marginally less dismissive.

‘You’re too young,’ he said bluntly.

‘I’m twenty-six.’ Flora drew herself up to her full five foot two. This seemed to amuse Henry, if the small smile playing around the corners of his lips was anything to go by.

‘Exactly. I told Graydon I needed somebody experienced.’

‘I am experienced,’ Flora said firmly. ‘I’m also the best designer at GJD. By miles,’ she added, jutting her chin out defiantly.

Henry’s smile grew. ‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Flora. Her dream job was slipping through her fingers. This was no time to play the shrinking violet. ‘If you’d read my references—’

‘I don’t have time to read references,’ said Henry.

He was in a bad mood because George had just lost them an important deal, the match he’d been hoping to watch at Queen’s this morning had been rained off, and to top it all off that infernally arrogant queen Graydon James had sent his minion to a site meeting without him, blowing Henry off for some spurious ‘emergency’ up in town. The truth was that Henry had already decided to nix Graydon’s girl just to teach the arrogant sod a lesson before he’d even laid eyes on Flora. Then he’d walked in, seen how young she was, and felt even more justified about pulling the trigger.

But now he was having second thoughts. He liked the girl’s confidence. And Graydon had said she was the best of the best. From the beginning the great designer had always talked Guillermo down, emphasizing that he’d be overseeing everything at Hanborough personally. But he’d described Flora as ‘Phenomenal. A unique talent.’ And when Henry asked if she was as good as he was, Graydon had replied, ‘She’s the best I’ve ever seen.’ Henry got the sense that he meant it, and that compliments probably didn’t come easily for an ego like Graydon James’s.

‘What’s your name again?’ Henry asked Flora. The smile had disappeared and the look of disdain was back.

‘Flora.’

He looked at his watch. ‘All right, Flora. I’ll walk you around the castle, but I don’t have long. You’ve got thirty minutes to impress me.’

Arrogant dick! thought Flora. You’d need a lot more than thirty minutes to impress me, asshole. But she reminded herself that she was here for Hanborough, not its spoiled prick of an owner.

‘And a few ground rules,’ Henry went on. ‘If you get the job, you’ll be working for me, not with me. This isn’t a fucking commune.’

With a heroic effort, Flora managed to keep her face neutral.

‘And I don’t want you living on site. Under any circumstances. Not after what happened last time.’

This was too much. Flora flushed scarlet.

‘If you’re suggesting I’m a thief, Mr Saxton Brae, then I’m sorry but I’m afraid I have no further interest in this position.’

‘Of course I’m not suggesting that,’ said Henry. He’d noticed she was shaking. He’d obviously hit a nerve, although he wasn’t sure why, exactly. ‘I simply meant that Eva and I value our privacy.’

‘As do I,’ Flora said crisply. ‘That won’t be a problem.’

Flora’s father had been a thief. Well, a fraudster. But it amounted to the same thing. She’d spent most of her teenage years suffering for his crimes; tainted, distrusted, guilty by association. She would never let that happen again. Certainly not because of a low-life, pilfering scumbag like Guillermo. Nor would she condescend to be judged by the likes of a snob like Henry Saxton Brae.

‘Good,’ Henry said briskly, regaining control of the conversation. ‘We’re on the same page, then. Follow me, please. And if you could try not to ruin any more of my rugs …’

The next three days were a complete whirlwind, so much so that Flora completely forgot to call Mason.

‘You’re still alive, then?’ he quipped, when she finally answered his call on Wednesday morning. Flora was standing in her ‘new’ home, actually a fifteenth-century cottage in the tiny hamlet of Lower Hanborough, surrounded by a sea of John Lewis boxes. ‘I was starting to worry your plane had gone down in the Bermuda triangle or something.’

‘Sorry. I should have called,’ said Flora, distractedly trying to unpack a desperately needed coffee machine from its Fort Knox-like packaging. ‘I can’t tell you how insane things have been since I got here.’

She briefly filled Mason in on Henry Saxton Brae’s arrogance and rudeness, Graydon’s disappearing act, and the whirlwind of winning the job, meeting contractors, finding and moving in to Peony Cottage and trying to come up with an initial design plan, all within the space of thirty-six hours.

‘He sounds like a total douche,’ said Mason, after Flora told him about Henry’s ‘you work for me, not with me’ line.

‘He is, unfortunately,’ Flora agreed. ‘But you know what they say. Every douche has a silver lining. In this case it’s Hanborough. I mean the castle is just … beyond. And the valley and the village and this cottage … Oh my God, Mason, you would die if you saw it. It’s like a little doll’s house with all these beams you have to duck under and creaky stairs with original boards and a cute little garden that looks as if it was planted by Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. You would love it.’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’ Mason laughed. ‘I’d spend the whole time whacking my head on the ceiling and pining for ESPN. But I can hear how much you love it. I’m happy for you, Flora.’

He means it, thought Flora. She could hear the smile in his voice, along with the lapping Caribbean waves in the background. He’s so kind and understanding. I really am the luckiest girl on earth.

‘Have you thought any more about what we talked about?’ asked Mason.

‘What’s that?’

‘Moving the wedding forward?’

‘Oh!’ Flora put down the half-opened coffee machine and frowned. ‘Well, yes. Sort of. I mean, I’d like to. But it’s just, you know, logistics. I’m here. You’re there. Christmas is really soon.’

‘We’ll get a wedding planner. They can do logistics. You just show up and marry me.’

Flora laughed. ‘I’m not sure it’s quite that simple, honey.’ She looked up at the kitchen clock, a heavy, turn-of-the-century wooden affair with a loud, ominous tick you could never quite turn into background noise. ‘Shit! I’m really sorry, Mason, but I have to go. I’ve got a meeting up at the castle in, like, ten minutes.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Mason, sounding distracted himself all of a sudden. Was that a woman’s voice Flora could hear in the background? ‘I have to go too. Henrietta’s organized a boat trip.’

‘That’s nice of her,’ said Flora through gritted teeth. Maybe she could fall overboard?

‘I know, isn’t it? We’re all headed to some private island for lunch. It should be great. I’ll call when I’m back in New York, OK, honey? Don’t work too hard.’

‘I won’t,’ said Flora. But Mason had already hung up.

She’d left Peony Cottage in a fluster, feeling anxious and not a little depressed about the thought of Henrietta Bitch Branston whisking her fiancé off to some fancy island for a romantic picnic. But as soon as Flora crested the hill at the top of Hanborough’s long, tree-lined drive, her worries floated away like seeds on the wind.

It was as if the castle exerted some strange kind of magic over her; some heady, hypnotic pull. Perhaps the Normans had known something Flora didn’t when they positioned it here? She wasn’t a big believer in mysticism, energy lines and feng shui and all that nonsense. But there was no question that simply being at Hanborough promoted a deep sense of wellbeing. It made Flora feel calm and content, the architectural equivalent of smoking a really mellow joint.

Or perhaps, more prosaically, she felt relaxed because it was a glorious June day, Henry was away until tomorrow morning, and he’d taken his secretary, the sweet Mrs French, with him. That meant Flora could have her meetings in peace – two contractors were preparing their bids this morning. After that, Flora was free to roam the castle and grounds alone, letting her creativity flow. The prospect made her feel excited, like a teenager on her first, unchaperoned date.

The contractor meetings were mercifully brief. The first guy, a leering middle-aged wide boy named Brian Hunter, was a definite no. Having first asked Flora to ‘fetch her boss’, he then expressed frank amazement that Flora was in charge, and proceeded to patronize her for the next twenty minutes, taking only short breaks from comments like, ‘You leave that to me, love. I’m the expert’ or, ‘With respect, darling, you’re not an architect, are you?’ to drool at Flora’s tits. (It was warm today, and Flora had made the mistake of wearing a lowish-cut army-green tank top and Bermuda shorts. On another woman these would have looked unremarkable, but on Flora’s pneumatically pint-sized figure, they were more temptation than Brian Hunter could bear.)

The second man, Tony Graham, was better. Older and a bit of a stickler for detail (with his monotone, accountant’s voice, it was fair to say Tony wasn’t going to bowl anybody over with his charisma), he was also professional and thorough. Equally importantly, he was prepared to follow directions. A lot of contractors thought they knew better than the architects or designers, but Graham seemed content to stick to the spec. Flora liked him.

Even so, she was thrilled when Tony’s van finally pulled out of the drive and she was alone at last. With a sketchpad and pencil in hand, she wandered inside, deciding to start at the top, in the old servants’ quarters, and work her way down.

Two hours later, with a fat wodge of notes and sketches under her arm (there was so much potential here, beyond what was in the original architect’s plans), she’d made it as far as the master bedroom suite above the old chapel.

There were plenty of larger, grander rooms in the castle. Clearly Henry and Eva had chosen this one for its romantic feel rather than its square footage. The medieval arched windows, complete with mullioned panes, made you feel like Rapunzel when you looked out of them, and the leaning floor and uneven, original wood-panelled walls imbued the space with a real sense of history. An antique Elizabethan four-poster bed completed the look, although glancing at it Flora felt sure it would work far better turned ninety degrees, to give its occupants a view across Hanborough’s parkland. Or was it too low for that?

Slipping off her espadrilles, Flora lay back on the bed, twisting her head to the right and craning her neck to see if one could, in fact, look out whilst lying down.

‘Oh my God. Oh my God! Who are you?’

Flora sat up to find a blonde Amazon standing in the bedroom doorway. She had an embroidered overnight bag in one hand and a small Chanel purse in the other. Even in no make-up and wearing a tatty pair of boyfriend jeans and a white T-shirt, she was instantly recognizable as Henry Saxton Brae’s supermodel girlfriend, Eva Gunnarson.

‘I’m Flora.’ Flora blushed, hopping back down off the bed and feeling like a dwarf next to Eva. ‘I’m the new designer. You must be Eva.’

Eva glared at her. ‘What were you doing in our bed?’

‘Oh. That.’ Flora blushed as it suddenly dawned on her how it must have looked. ‘I was measuring. I was, er … trying to see the view.’

‘Henry!’ Eva pushed past her, storming first into the master bathroom, then into the dressing room. ‘Henry! Come out, you coward!’

Flora watched mortified as this beautiful girl opened wardrobes and slammed them shut again, tears streaming down her face. Finally she dropped to her knees and actually looked under the bed, before turning furiously back to Flora.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s not here.’ Flora looked at her pityingly.

‘Don’t lie to me!’ Eva screamed. ‘Just how stupid do you think I am?’

Then suddenly, and without warning, she burst into explosive tears.

‘Oh gosh. Oh, no, please don’t. This is my fault. I didn’t know you were coming back today.’

‘Evidently!’

‘No! No, no, no. Look, Henry really isn’t here. He’s at a meeting. In Birmingham. Mrs French has gone with him.’

Eva looked confused. ‘Mary? How do you know Mary?’

‘She let me in, when I arrived last weekend,’ said Flora. ‘She gave me a cup of tea and I spilled it on your rug. Look, I really am the designer. And I really was measuring your bed height. For the view. There’s nothing … Henry and I … I mean I would never … I’m engaged!’ she finished desperately, waving Mason’s stunning ring in Eva’s general direction.

Eva looked from Flora’s ring to her face and back again. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands.

‘Oh God. I’m sorry. Of course you are. I’m turning into one of those women.’

‘What women?’ asked Flora.

‘Pathetic, jealous, paranoid women. Women who don’t trust their own partner.’ She looked up at Flora miserably. ‘You must think I’m such a fool.’

‘Not at all,’ said Flora truthfully. ‘It’s my fault entirely. I can only imagine what I’d do if I came back to my apartment and found a strange chick in my fiancé’s bed.’

Eva giggled. It all seemed rather ridiculous suddenly.

‘Flora, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Eva.’ They shook hands. ‘Let’s never tell Henry about this.’

‘Never!’

Flora smiled broadly. She had a funny feeling that she and Eva were going to become friends. She just wondered how someone so vulnerable and nice had ever made it to the top in the cut-throat world of modelling? Or why she would choose to throw herself away on a smug, arrogant jerk like Henry Saxton Brae.

‘We’re having a dinner party next Saturday night,’ Eva announced suddenly. ‘Just a few local friends, nothing fancy. You must come.’

‘Oh no. I mean, thank you. But I wouldn’t want to intrude,’ Flora said, remembering Henry’s graceless comment about he and Eva ‘valuing their privacy’ and Hanborough not being a commune. Clearly he wasn’t the sort of man who considered his interior designer to be a social equal. ‘Besides, I have a ton of work to do. I’m still playing catch-up on the project. You have an incredible home, and I want to do it justice.’

‘And I’m sure you will,’ Eva said kindly. ‘But you have to eat. We’ll expect you next Saturday. Eight o’clock.’

‘I still don’t understand why you had to invite her,’ Henry grumbled.

It was an hour before the party, and he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving. Stark naked after a shower, other than the white beard of shaving foam covering the lower half of his face, he looked as beautiful as ever, a Michelangelo sculpture in warm, damp flesh.

I’ll never stop wanting him, Eva thought. Never.

‘I didn’t have to invite her. I wanted to. She’s nice.’

‘She’s stroppy,’ said Henry. ‘More to the point, she’s an employee.’

Eva frowned, adjusting the straps on her pretty, vintage sundress. ‘You sound like a Victorian. She’s a designer, not the man who comes to empty the bins. And, by the way, her fiancé’s very rich. Mason Parker. I googled him. He comes from a very upper-class American family.’

‘There’s no such thing,’ Henry said dismissively. ‘Americans don’t understand about class. And who’s this other bod you’ve asked?’ he added, before Eva could object to this last remark. ‘The random dog-walker?’

‘He’s a writer. His name’s Barney, and he’s also nice.’

‘How do you know?’ Henry asked reasonably. ‘You’ve only met him once.’

‘Twice,’ Eva corrected him. ‘I ran into him again the day before yesterday. So tonight will make three times. We need to meet some new people, darling.’ Walking up behind him, she ran a hand lovingly over Henry’s bottom.

‘I don’t see why,’ said Henry, rinsing off his face. Splashing on some aftershave, he started to get dressed.

He wasn’t thrilled about spending an evening with Graydon James’s number two and some random Paddy whose only claim to fame was that he obviously fancied Eva. But the real fly in tonight’s ointment was the fact that George Savile and her deathly dull husband Robert were coming. Evidently Henry had invited them months ago, to show off Hanborough, and forgotten all about it. But after his recent relapse, the thought of having Georgina – loose-lipped and drunk – under his roof and at the same table as Eva was enough to make him want to break out in hives.

As far as Henry was concerned, this evening couldn’t end soon enough.

‘Good to see you, mate.’ Richard Smart handed Henry an embarrassingly cheap bottle of wine as he stood in front of Hanborough’s grand portcullis. ‘Shame about this place, though. Bit of a shithole, isn’t it? Did you realize that bit’s actually falling down?’

He gestured behind him to the ruined northern tower and battlements.

Henry grinned. He loved Richard. Other than gaining a few inches in height, and a seriously fun and amazing wife, Lucy, he hadn’t changed at all since Henry first met him at pre-prep school when they were both five years old. He had the same cheeky smile, the same sandy blond hair that managed to look permanently dirty and unbrushed, no matter what he did to it, the same puerile but undeniably funny sense of humour. As a country GP, with a modest inheritance from his oil-executive father, Richard was comfortably off, but he’d never come close to the sort of fame and success that Henry had enjoyed. Not that he cared. Richard Smart didn’t have an envious bone in his body. In fact it was Henry who sometimes begrudged Richard his perpetually sunny nature. As Lucy put it, ‘If Rich got any more optimistic, he’d have to be sectioned.’

‘You’re late,’ said Henry.

‘Naturally,’ said Richard. ‘That’s how you know it’s us and not aliens who’ve stolen our bodies.’

‘Archie threw up,’ Lucy added helpfully over his shoulder.

Archie was either one of their sons or one of their dogs. Henry couldn’t keep up with the Smart menagerie. Every time you turned around some new yet-to-be-domesticated creature seemed to have joined the household.

‘Well, thank God you’re here,’ said Henry. ‘It’s like the house of bloody horrors in there.’

Richard leaned forward to hug him, but Henry assumed a look of mock disgust. ‘Not you, you big pleb. No one’s pleased to see you. It’s your wife I’m interested in. You don’t think anyone would ask you to dinner if it weren’t for Lucy, do you?’

‘Probably not,’ Richard admitted, watching impassively as Henry scooped Lucy up into his arms and made a big show of kissing her while she laughingly told him to get lost. In cut-off jeans and a slightly stained Madonna T-shirt, Lucy Smart had taken the evening’s casual dress code to its limits, but she still managed to look lovely, exuding warmth and mischief like a naughty schoolgirl. With her short, tomboyish haircut and long, slightly off-kilter nose, Lucy was sexy rather than pretty. But she had the sort of confidence that made both men and women love her. Henry had also always got the impression that Lucy was seriously highly sexed, although Richard had never said so, and that was one question even Henry didn’t have the balls to ask.

Putting Lucy down, he read the label on Richard’s wine. Then he led the two of them into the castle, holding the bottle at arm’s length and dropping it into the moat with a satisfying plop on the way, without breaking stride.

‘Oi!’ complained Richard. ‘That was Tesco Finest!’

‘Exactly,’ drawled Henry. ‘I love you, Rich, but I can’t let you poison us. Not all of us anyway.’

Leading them into the kitchen – they still didn’t have a table large enough for the formal banqueting hall, and Eva preferred kitchen suppers anyway – Henry made the introductions.

‘Everyone, this is Lucy Smart and some guy she took pity on.’

Richard walked around the table, smiling and shaking hands with everyone.

Henry went on, ’This is Barney Griffith, a friend of Eva’s. And Flora, who’s taking over the restoration work at Hanborough.’

Christ, thought Richard, looking at Flora’s impressive assets squeezed into a figure-hugging dark green shift dress. What happened to the gay guy? Eva had better watch her back there.

‘You know my brother and his wife, Kate?’ Henry went on.

‘How nice to see you again,’ Kate said regally, offering her hand to Lucy Smart like a duchess awaiting a kiss of submission.

‘Hi!’ Lucy smiled, ignoring the hand and hugging her, an experience Kate appeared to enjoy about as much as having lemon juice squirted into her eye.

Henry looked with irritation at the two remaining empty chairs.

‘We’re still waiting for the Saviles.’

Richard Smart rolled his eyes. ‘George is coming?’

‘Sadly,’ muttered Henry.

Richard knew Henry’s business partner, Georgina Savile, of old, and had always disliked her. At school, girls like Georgina – the ones who were too pretty to bother making an effort – had always made a beeline for Henry, looking through Richard as if he didn’t exist. George’s husband Robert was all right, but a crashing bore, always banging on about his latest case, which usually involved tax or shipping and was never a nice juicy celebrity divorce, or a murder, or something you might actually want to talk about at a dinner party. Unchivalrously, Richard took the seat next to Flora’s, leaving Lucy beside the Saviles’ empty chairs.

‘Hello.’ Richard grinned at Flora. ‘You are absolutely bloody gorgeous.’

Flora laughed loudly. She’d forgotten how direct English men could be.

‘Er … thank you?’

‘Richard Smart. You can trust me, I’m a doctor.’

‘Flora Fitzwilliam.’

They shook hands. ‘So where are you from, Flora Fitzwilliam? And what are you doing here? I detect an American accent.’

‘How do you do it, Holmes?’ Lucy teased him from across the table.

‘I’m from New York,’ said Flora. ‘Well, I live in New York. With my fiancé,’ she heard herself blurting, unnecessarily.

‘Git,’ said Richard. ‘I hate him already.’

‘Leave the poor girl alone, Rich,’ said Lucy, adding to Flora, ‘If he annoys you, just hit him.’

‘Let’s eat,’ said Henry, leaning over and helping himself to a large scoop of Jansson’s Temptation, a delicious Swedish dish of potato and onion with cream and anchovies that was one of Eva’s specialities.

‘Shouldn’t we wait for Robert and George?’ asked Eva.

‘Definitely not,’ said Henry, kissing her on the mouth. (Rather too ostentatiously in Barney Griffith’s opinion, although nobody else seemed to mind.) ‘If they’re rude enough to show up late, we can be rude enough to start without them. Besides, I’m starving.’

Christ, he’s arrogant, thought Barney. He wasn’t sure why exactly, but there was a vibe about Henry Saxton Brae that he didn’t like one little bit. The cut-glass accent didn’t help. But it was more than that. Something to do with the possessiveness of that kiss, as if Eva were a car or a diamond necklace, a trophy to be paraded. There was just a certain assumption, an entitlement to all of Henry’s gestures, looks and words that spoke of a deeply ingrained sense of superiority. He didn’t seem like Eva’s type at all.

Still, it was all good stuff for the novel, Barney thought, knocking back his second glass of better-than-decent claret: dinner in a castle, Henry being dastardly, Eva being good and wholesome and bewitching, an exquisite but fragile glass doll.

Barney had been astonished last week when Eva Gunnarson had tracked down his cottage, knocked on the door and invited him to dinner. (Why did that sort of thing – random dinner invitations from supermodels – never happen when other people were around? Like his ex-girlfriend Maud, for example?) So astonished that he almost said no, on some sort of weird, self-defeating autopilot. The thing was, Barney barely knew Eva. They’d bumped into each other once or twice walking the dogs, and somehow he found she was wonderfully easy to talk to, but that was it. Astonishing as it seemed, this stunning girl was clearly lonely.

She needs a friend, Barney told himself. And it wasn’t as if he had so many better things to do on a Saturday night.

In any case, he was delighted he’d got over himself and agreed to come, as it turned out he wasn’t the only singleton invited. Eva, God bless her, had sat him next to the new interior designer for Hanborough, an absolute cracker of a girl and very much Barney’s type: petite, blonde, curvy, and with the sort of boobs that frankly made a man happy to be alive. She was American (nobody’s perfect), but so far at least she seemed to have a very English sense of humour, not to mention a wonderfully unexpected, raucous laugh that made her sound like a French truck driver.

Flora. Fabulous Flora.

He’d only met her five minutes ago, but Barney was already infatuated.

The first course was almost over by the time a clattering in the hallway announced that the last two guests had finally arrived.

Eva got up to go and greet them but Henry put a hand on her arm.

‘Leave it. They know where to go.’

He seemed angry at George, which was odd as he was the one who’d invited her, and he never normally minded about lateness, being perpetually late himself. Still, Eva had long ago given up trying to figure out Henry and Georgina’s relationship. They clearly worked well together in business, although outside of work they fought. A lot. Eva had always had the feeling that George didn’t like her very much, but Henry was at pains to deny this.

Glancing up she smiled at Flora, who smiled back. What a great girl she had turned out to be! Having her around the place these past two weeks had been like a breath of fresh air. For the first time, Eva felt involved in the changes being made at Hanborough.

‘It’s going to be your home too, you know,’ Flora told her. ‘Your children’s home. If you don’t like something we’re doing, or you’ve had an idea we haven’t thought of, you need to speak up.’

Perhaps it was odd to put it in these terms, but for the first time Eva felt as if she had an ally against Henry. Not that Henry was the enemy, of course. Eva loved him more than anything, more than life. But he had such a strong personality, such a forceful way of expressing himself. Sometimes it was easy to get lost in his shadow.

On the other side of the table, poor Lucy Smart was being talked to death by Sebastian on the only subject he ever spoke about – hunting. Eva saw the look of relief and gratitude on Lucy’s face when the Saviles walked in, mercifully stemming the flow.

‘So sorry we’re late,’ George announced, not looking remotely sorry. ‘Traffic was just ghastly.’ She’d pulled out all the stops tonight and looked utterly ravishing in skin-tight black leather biker trousers, a ribbed vest that showcased her perfectly toned and slender arms, and sexily spiked Gucci heels that tap-tapped on the flagstone floors like metallic raindrops whenever she moved. Hovering behind her in the Fulham uniform of green jeans and checked Hackett shirt, and looking chinless and awkward, was her husband Robert. He reminded Barney of a nervous zookeeper presenting some exotic but dangerous animal to the crowds.

Just as this thought entered his head, Barney felt Flora’s hand in his. Before he had time to feel ecstatic about it, she started digging her nails painfully into his palm.

‘No!’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, please no!’

‘What?’ Barney asked, wincing, but loath to reclaim his hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

Before Flora could answer, George let out a little shriek.

‘I don’t believe it!’ She pointed at Flora. ‘It can’t be! Flora Fitzwilliam? What on earth are you doing here?’

‘You two know each other?’

Henry scowled at George. It was bad enough that she’d showed up late, dressed like a slut and doing everything possible to divert every ounce of attention in the room onto herself. But now she was claiming some sort of connection with Flora. He didn’t know why that should annoy him so much, but it just did.

‘We were at school together,’ Flora said through gritted teeth.

‘Old school friends?’ Seb piped up. ‘How marvellous. Where was it?’

‘Sherwood,’ said George, tossing her long blonde hair backwards luxuriantly.

‘And we weren’t friends,’ Flora added meaningfully. ‘Not at all.’

Henry looked at Flora with increased respect.

‘Well, we barely had time to be, did we?’ trilled George, tap-tapping her way over to the empty seat closest to Flora’s. ‘Poor old Flora got chucked out after her daddy was caught with his hand in the till. How long did they give him again?’

‘Eight years.’ Flora’s face was frozen. Under the table she tightened her grip on Barney’s hand.

‘Oh, so he’s been out for ages now then,’ George said breezily, adding, ‘Pass the wine would you, Henry darling? I’m parched.’

‘He never got out. He died in prison.’

Flora’s voice was like a funeral bell, ringing out across the table. Everyone looked at one another awkwardly. Only Henry met Flora’s eyes, with an unexpected flash of sympathy.

‘I was eleven when my mother died,’ said Henry. ‘You never get over it.’

‘No,’ Flora agreed, surprised and touched that Henry would understand. ‘You don’t.’

Meanwhile, George helped herself to the remnants of Eva’s potatoes and two large slices of roast beef.

‘What a sad story,’ she said, in a tone that made it clear that she gave not even the slightest fraction of a shit. ‘But do tell. What brings you to Hanborough, Flora? I’m quite fascinated. You are a dark horse,’ she added to Henry, reaching across the table and squeezing his arm in an unduly intimate way. ‘Keeping her a secret.’

Henry retracted his arm as if he’d been scalded. ‘Don’t be silly, Georgina. There’s no secret.’

Bloody hell, thought Barney. What’s going on there?

‘Flora’s our new designer,’ said Eva, sensing the tension around the table but not exactly sure about the cause of it. ‘She’ll be overseeing the entire restoration. And she is quite brilliant.’ She smiled warmly.

‘I’m sorry, did you say your father went to prison?’ Seb’s wife Kate piped up in horrified tones, belatedly catching on to the conversation just as the rest of the table was hoping to move on.

‘Fraud,’ said George, slicing gleefully into her beef.

‘How shocking,’ Kate thundered.

‘And how awful for you,’ Lucy Smart said to Flora kindly. ‘Did you really have to leave your school?’

‘I didn’t mind that part so much,’ said Flora. ‘School had become pretty much unbearable anyway.’ Her eyes bored into George’s like lasers. ‘But it was a rough time in our lives. I try not to think about it.’

‘The chap we’re renting our house from went to prison,’ Richard Smart announced cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Eddie Wellesley. Nice bloke, actually.’

‘Wasn’t that fraud too?’ asked Seb tactlessly.

‘Tax evasion,’ piped up Robert Savile, the first words he’d spoken since he and George arrived. ‘I come across quite a few evasion cases in my practice, actually. The last one I worked on …’

And he was off, succeeding where Eva had failed and dragging the conversation away from Flora at last.

For the rest of the meal, no one returned to the subject of Flora’s past, although George took every opportunity to take digs at her present.

‘I thought you said Graydon James was redesigning Hanborough?’ she asked Henry.

‘He was. He is.’

‘So how did you manage to end up with Flora? I don’t understand.’

‘A restoration like this is a long-term project,’ Henry answered, tight-lipped. He didn’t know what George was playing at exactly, but he didn’t like it. Everything was a power game with her. ‘Graydon was never going to be able to oversee it personally.’

‘Oh, I see. So he sent one of his juniors? That’s a shame. I hope he cut your bill.’

‘It’s not a shame at all,’ said Eva. ‘We’re delighted to have Flora here. Aren’t we, Henry?’

‘Delighted.’

Henry’s blue eyes flashed at Flora, and he smiled in a way that made her throat go dry. I can’t figure him out, she thought. One minute he’s being arrogant and obnoxious. And the next he’s sticking up for me.

‘You know, Graydon James worked on two of my friends’ houses and he did all the work himself,’ George went on, apparently hell-bent on irritating Henry. ‘You remember Lottie Calthorpe?’

‘No,’ Henry scowled.

‘Silly! Of course you do,’ trilled George, smiling. ‘Graydon did Lottie and William’s place in the Hamptons, and he was on site the entire time. Then again,’ George added smugly, ‘Lottie has never been one to accept second best.’

‘Nor am I,’ said Henry, leaning over and making another great show of kissing Eva. George’s smile died on her lips. Barney Griffith simply felt sick, and dirty, as if he’d been press-ganged into watching some sordid peep show.

As soon as pudding was over, Flora made her excuses and bolted out to her car like a bat from a burning belfry. Barney followed, just managing to tap on the window of Flora’s rented Volkswagen Touareg before she drove off.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, rubbing his sore hand. There were welts in his palm from where Flora’s nails had almost drawn blood. ‘That was seriously weird.’

‘I’m fine,’ Flora exhaled. ‘I just wish I’d known she was coming.’

‘George?’

Flora nodded. ‘I wish I’d been prepared, that’s all.’

‘Did you know she was Henry’s business partner?’

‘No! I mean, I knew he had a partner called George Savile, but I assumed it was a guy. She was called Georgie Lynne back when I knew her. She made my life hell at school.’ Flora shook her head bitterly at the memories. ‘I’m not sure I’d have taken this job if I’d known it meant running into Georgie again.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Barney said robustly. ‘Of course you’d have taken the job. School was a lifetime ago. And, even if it weren’t, you can’t let bullies like her get the better of you.’

‘Can’t you?’ sighed Flora. She felt defeated suddenly, and horribly low. This guy Barney had been really sweet all evening. But all she wanted right now was to talk to Mason; to feel his safe, comforting arms around her.

In one short evening, Georgina Savile had managed to poison what should have been one of the happiest, most triumphant moments of Flora’s career. Redesigning Hanborough Castle! Coming back to England, to the glorious Swell Valley, not as an exiled fraudster’s daughter but as a success in her own right. Why, why did that loathsome, manipulative bitch have to be Henry Saxton Brae’s partner? Of all people! It wasn’t fair. After tonight it was only a matter of time until the entire valley knew all about Flora’s dad and her history, the dark past she’d worked so hard to transcend and forget.

She turned on the engine.

‘Thanks for being so nice this evening,’ she said to Barney.

‘My pleasure.’

‘And sorry about your hand.’

‘Oh!’ He gave a brave, it-was-nothing shrug. ‘My pleasure again.’

‘I’d better get to my bed. Early start tomorrow.’

‘OK,’ said Barney, reluctantly stepping back from the car. ‘Well, sleep well. It was lovely to meet you, Flora.’

‘And you.’

Barney stood and watched as Flora drove away.

That’s the girl I’m going to marry, he thought.