A Summer of Secrets (10 page)

‘So have you lived in the village all your life?’ he asked, resting his forearms on the table and leaning towards her.

Jenny nodded. ‘Born and bred, I’m afraid. Does that make me sound deadly boring?’

‘Quite the contrary. I can imagine you’re one of the village’s most popular characters.’

Jenny puckered her brow. ‘Well, I’m not sure I’d describe myself as either popular or a character. But I suppose I do know most of the residents.’

‘Just as I thought, then,’ said Len, staring at her intently.

‘What time do you call this?’ Phyllis demanded, the moment Jenny stepped through the door.

‘I believe it’s just after five-thirty,’ Jenny replied calmly.

‘And why are you looking like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Your face is all pink and you’re smiling.’

‘I’ve been sitting in the sun,’ Jenny informed her, tossing the bunch of red crysanths on the table. ‘And I didn’t know smiling had been forbidden.’

‘You’re up to something.’

‘Am I?’ Jenny’s smile widened as she turned around and walked into the kitchen.

Truth was, she really wouldn’t have minded being up to something. And certainly not with Len Ratner. As well as being incredibly attractive, the man just seemed so … together. He’d built up his own successful company (doing something with investments that Jenny hadn’t quite understood), never been married before, had a keen interest in the arts, and had moved to Yorkshire from Manchester for a slower pace of life. Best of all, though, he’d asked to see her again. For dinner next week. And despite her lack of experience with the opposite sex, even Jenny knew that was a proper date.

‘Oh, by the way, Mother,’ she called through to the lounge as she emptied her shopping basket, ‘I bought hazelnut whip cupcakes today, rather than lemon limoncello.’

The announcement was followed by a very strange wheezing sound from Phyllis’s throat.

Chapter Seven

‘How about a sunflower?’

Across the breakfast table in The Old Granary, Bethany rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be stupid, Dad. That’s like the most obvious thing ever for “something from the garden”. There’ll be millions of kids dressed as sunflowers.’

‘Right.’ Rich resumed his toast buttering, refraining from pointing out that, as fewer than one hundred children attended Buttersley Primary, this was unlikely. Still, he accepted his daughter’s point.

‘Well, in that case, I have no idea,’ he huffed.

Over her bowl of cereal, Bethany shook her head in exasperation, causing her tumble of blonde curls, exactly like those of her mother, to bob up and down. ‘That’s because you’re a boy. Boys aren’t very good at ideas, are they, Mum?’

‘Some are better than others,’ replied Alison, bustling into the kitchen from the garden with an empty laundry basket. ‘Right, that’s the washing hung out. Are you nearly ready, Beth? Where’s your school bag?’

‘In my bedroom. I’ll go and get it.’

As Bethany hopped down from the table and scurried off, Alison wrapped her arms around Rich’s neck and planted a kiss on his head.

‘We’ll be off in a minute. I’m going straight to Harrogate to meet a couple of suppliers after I’ve dropped Beth at school, so I’ll catch you later.’

And with that, she strode out of the kitchen.

Rich shoved aside his toast, suddenly feeling sick. And he knew exactly why: guilt. He hated keeping anything from Alison. Not that he ever had. Well, apart from that one time at a sales convention in Nice when, after a heavy drinking session in the hotel bar, his boss had slipped her knickers into his jacket pocket. That had been embarrassing enough for all concerned without adding Alison to the equation. But now he had the significantly more serious issue of Candi to deal with. He couldn’t imagine Alison being any more delighted with that news than she would about another woman’s thong on his person. But it wasn’t as if Candi’s existence reflected badly on her. The girl’s conception had taken place years before he’d even met Alison. Still, whatever her reaction, as his wife, she had a right to know. And he would tell her. Just as soon as the opportunity arose.

Rich picked up his coffee cup and leaned back in his chair. On the plus side, Candi seemed like a really nice kid. Level-headed, calm, together; the complete antithesis of her mother at that age. But the aura of sadness that clung to her unsettled him. Still, when they were better acquainted, she might open up. Confide in him. Assuming, of course, she wanted him in her life. He hadn’t yet broached that question. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just wanted to put a face to him; find out a bit about him; use him to answer the many questions she had about her roots. Blimey. The whole thing was wearing him out. He’d never employed so much brain power before. No wonder he couldn’t come up with any sensible ideas for Bethany’s dressing up as something from the bloody garden day. If the kid had been relying on him, he’d have wrapped a green tablecloth round her and said she was a lawn.

As Rich drove home that evening, he congratulated himself on a productive day. Four new clients, plus a couple of telephone enquiries. Not bad by any standards. Which proved that, however much the media rammed it down your throat about everyone living on the breadline, there was still loads of dosh slopping about in Buttersley.

When Alison had first mooted the idea of living in Buttersley, Rich hadn’t been keen. At the time, they’d been living on a suburban housing estate in a three-bedroom semi, indistinguishable from all the other surrounding three-bedroom semis. Then, just after Bethany’s first birthday, and only months after they’d started up Bubbles, they’d been out for a drive one scorching-hot July day, and called in at the Duck Inn, Buttersley’s idyllic village pub, for lunch.

‘God, imagine living here,’ Alison sighed, sitting at a table at the front of the hostelry, overlooking the immaculate village green and the cluster of cottages piped around its edges. ‘It would be heavenly.’

Rich hadn’t been nearly as enthusiastic. ‘It’ll be full of snobs. Everyone up their own backsides. And you’ll have to sell your granny to afford so much as a garden shed.’

Alison hadn’t replied.

Then, a few weeks later, their adjoining neighbours had announced they were moving to France and renting out their house to a “lovely little family”. Alison and Rich soon discovered that this new family was neither lovely nor little. With four unruly children, two incessantly barking spaniels and a stream of visitors, none of whom appeared to deem parking across the bottom of Alison and Rich’s drive a problem, moving house soon shifted to being the main topic of conversation in the Stevens household. And, with Bubbles exceeding all financial forecasts, they discovered they had a not-insubstantial budget at their disposal.

‘So, in an ideal world, where would you fancy moving to?’ Rich asked Alison, as they lay in bed one morning, the squeals of the children next door, followed by a cacophony of spaniel-barking, having woken them up at an ungodly hour for the fourth time that week.

Alison propped herself up on an elbow. ‘Buttersley.’

Rich burst out laughing. ‘I know the business is doing well, Al, but we could never afford anything there.’

Alison’s lips curved into a knowing smile. ‘Actually, we can. At a push. I’ve been keeping an eye on the estate agents’ websites and there’s a place that came up for sale two days ago. It looks gorgeous, Rich. An old granary. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, solid oak flooring, a brand-new kitchen, gorgeous window seats and the most adorable garden. It’s a bit more than we ideally want to pay and would mean a huge mortgage. But it’ll be a brilliant investment. And just think how happy Bethany will be there. Plus, the school has a fantastic Ofsted rating.’

‘Hmmm. I’m not sure,’ Rich mused. ‘I don’t know if I’d like living in a village like that.’

‘Of course you will. I’ll phone the agent this morning.’

Six weeks later they became Buttersley’s newest residents. And despite Rich’s initial reservations, he had to admit Alison had been right. Not only had the price of their property risen significantly since they’d moved in, but the school – despite its themed dressing-up days – was excellent, and village life, although sometimes verging on middle-class claustrophobia, was bearable. There were certainly a lot worse places he could be living. And one thing Rich absolutely loved was the drive to and from the showroom. Especially on a lovely sunny evening like this one, with the stunning countryside bathed in golden rays. The balmy conditions adding to his already good mood, he’d decided to break the news about Candi to Alison that evening. Just as soon as Bethany had gone to bed.

‘How are my two favourite girls?’ he asked, the moment he arrived home. Bethany and Alison were in the kitchen, Bethany kneeling on a chair at the table, sporting a striped apron and a red stain around her tiny mouth.

‘We made pavlova,’ she informed him. ‘And I’m going to decorate it with masses of cream and strawberries.’

Rich wrinkled his brow. ‘Is there something you two aren’t telling me? We only ever have pavlova when there’s something to celebrate.’

‘There is something to celebrate,’ announced Alison, turning round to face him from her position at the kitchen sink. ‘Something that has come as a bit of a surprise.’

Rich’s heart skipped a beat. Surely not. She couldn’t be. And if she was, the timing, given Candi’s appearance, would be off-the-scale weird. ‘You’re not … you know?’ He cast a meaningful look at her flat stomach.

Alison burst out laughing. ‘Nothing like that, no. But you’d better get your tux cleaned, Mr Stevens, because, on the fourteenth, we have been invited to the North’s Businesswoman of the Year Awards in Newcastle.’

Phew. Thank God that’s all it was. But an awards ceremony. Ugh. Rich would rather spend the night in a vat of piccalilli. ‘Oh, God, Al, do we really have to go? You know I can’t stand those things.’

Alison giggled. ‘I know you can’t
normally
. But when your wife’s one of the nominees, I thought you might make a bit of an effort.’

***

The sound of exploding bombs blasted through the air, followed by the clatter of flying debris.

With a thundering heart, Portia jack-knifed up in bed, sweat teaming from every pore. It took several seconds for her to realise where she was.

The gatehouse cottage in Buttersley.

She was safe.

Flopping back on the sweat-soaked pillows, she gulped in large breaths of air and attempted to calm down. Exactly as she’d done every day in the weeks since her narrow escape from death. The old adage of time being a great healer definitely did not apply here.

Fingers of dawn snaking around the edge of the curtains, she reached for her mobile on the bedside cabinet. 4.57 am beamed back at her. Strange how the nightmare seemed to occur at roughly the same time. Oh, well, as experience had taught her that the chances of falling back to sleep hovered around nil to minus sixteen, she might as well get up.

Forty minutes later, showered and breakfasted, Portia dug out the key to Buttersley Manor and made her way up the gravelled path that cut across the lawn separating the two properties. The day had dawned glorious: sun beaming, birds trilling, dew glistening. The heart-warming combination caused a tiny flame of optimism to flicker in her stomach. The first she’d experienced in months. It lasted the few short minutes it took her to reach the house.

Buttersley Manor – once the pride of the village; the jewel of the Pinkington-Smythe treasure chest; the ultimate symbol of success, status and power – had sunk to a pitiful state of disrepair. Previously bursting with priceless paintings, incalculable antiques and exquisite furniture, it now boasted nothing more than dust, peeling wallpaper and dodgy plumbing. Wandering from room to room, the stench of damp seeping through her clothes, hair and skin, tears welled in her eyes. Why on earth hadn’t she done something about the house before now? How had it plummeted to this state in seemingly no time?

But of course this couldn’t have happened over no time. The rot – literally – must have set in years ago. Even when Annie had lived in the cottage, acting as caretaker to the main house, they’d known the boiler had been on its way out. But no one had bothered to do anything about it. They’d all been too busy with their own lives. Too busy with – in her case – her career. And in Jasper’s case, too busy enjoying himself. And what exactly had happened to all those antiquities that had once graced the interior? They hadn’t been burgled, so she could only assume that, over the years, her parents had sold them off. Gradually. Replacing a priceless vase with a potted plant. Something a fleeting visitor would fail to notice. Did that mean, then, that her parents had been aware of the dire state of their finances? Had been reduced to such humiliating measures to top up their dwindling bank balance? The thought caused the tears to spill down her cheeks. She wiped them away and pulled the belt of her cardigan tighter around her slim waist, grateful she’d had the foresight to wear it. Despite the rising temperature outside, the house was freezing.

Oh, well, she concluded – no point hanging about here getting more depressed. She might as well go back to the cottage and put on her thinking cap. Rather than wallowing in remorse and self-pity, devise a brilliant, fool-proof plan which would allow her to borrow the funds to rectify the dismal state of affairs. Although quite what that would be, she had absolutely no idea.

She’d just locked up and was making her way down the steps at the front of the property when a black Porsche Carrera Cabriolet came haring down the drive, heavy rock music booming from its speakers. Portia stopped in her tracks. Who on earth –?

The car reached the front of the house and swerved to a halt, sending up clouds of dust, through which Portia noticed a shocking-pink leather interior.

The door swung open and out jumped a man she would have guessed to be in his early forties, wearing grey suit trousers, a light-blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a navy-blue tie speckled with what looked suspiciously like little white ducks.

‘Portia Pinkington-Smythe?’ he enquired, removing his designer sunglasses from his nose and perching them on his head of spiky brown hair.