Copyright

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Copyright © Kat French 2016

Cover illustration © Zlatko DrCar/Lemonade Illustration 2016

Design and lettering: www.emma-rogers.com 2016

Kat French asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007577620

Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780007577637

Version: 2017-05-15

Dedication

For my beautiful minxes –

Sally, Rose, Jojo, Romy, Suzanne, Lorraine, Sri and Lacey.

May the words be ever in our favour.

xx

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Three Months Later …

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Other Books by Kat French

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

The Daily Mirror headline that morning:

MCBRIDE OR MCMISTRESS?

Spotted! It looks like the sexy on-screen romance between married TV star Brad McBride and his sexy co-star Felicity Shaw has spilled over into reality, if our sensational pictures are anything to go by. Shots of the couple smooching in a booth at The Roof Gardens emerged this morning, along with further images of a distinctly sheepish McBride leaving Shaw’s London flat in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

‘They couldn’t keep their hands off each other in the club, they didn’t seem to care who saw them,’ one reveller, who didn’t wish to be named, told the Mirror. ‘I saw them leave in a cab just after midnight; from the way they were going at it in the club, I bet that cabbie had an eye full!’

Representatives for both McBride and Shaw have so far declined comment.

‘Alice, it’s not what it looks like. I can explain.’

Alice slowly lifted her eyes from the salacious images splashed across the morning papers to the man standing in front of her with his hands spread wide, his eyes saying the opposite of his mouth. Brad McBride. He’d been a burn-your-fingers hot struggling actor when she’d met and married him more than half a decade ago. All that had changed when he landed a role in a new cop drama that had caused a sensation on both sides of the pond, catapulting him straight from struggling-actor status to celebrity darling, and from Alice’s darling into the arms of his leading lady, if the papers were to be believed.

It was pretty tricky not to believe them, truth told. There weren’t many conclusions to draw from the photos of Brad and Felicity Shaw besides the glaringly obvious ones. Brad could always have been inspecting Felicity’s tonsils with his tongue in a purely platonic way, or maybe she was sitting in his lap with her dress around her thighs because her legs had suddenly stopped working, and there was always the outside chance that he’d been caught leaving her bijou townhouse looking rumpled at dawn because his car had mysteriously broken down right outside on the night of the infamous New Year cab strike that never was. That would be the same night three days ago, the very same one that Brad had called her on to say that he couldn’t make it back for the weekend as early as planned because filming had run over schedule. It had surprised her that they’d filmed during New Year week, but Alice hadn’t made a fuss. She’d had to get used to her husband being public property since he’d been catapulted into stardom, and as his wife she’d quickly had to get used to being photographed for publicity and showbiz events. She didn’t enjoy it but knew Brad needed her to smile for the cameras, and she’d be forever thankful that it had allowed them to buy Borne Manor, the Shropshire country pad of their dreams. Or Alice’s dreams, in any case. Brad had liked the place well enough, but London was calling for him in a way it just wasn’t for Alice. It seemed simple enough – they’d keep their London flat as a base and buy the Shropshire house as their long-term family home. Except there was no family as yet, and it seemed from the photographs that Brad had decided that life with Alice wasn’t quite bright lights, big city enough for him any longer. Folding her arms wearily, she looked her husband in the eyes.

‘Go on then.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Go on then what?’

Pack your case and leave. ‘Explain,’ she said. ‘You said you could explain the pictures.’ Alice glanced down at the newspaper on the table. ‘I’m listening.’

She wrapped her dressing gown closer around her as she slid into one of the dining chairs, weary already even though it was barely eight a.m. The expensive dove grey cashmere robe had been a Christmas surprise from Brad just a week or two ago. Alice found herself wondering if Felicity Shaw was at that very moment wearing the same thing. Her husband was big on efficiency; she could well imagine him doubling up on identical presents.

Brad paused, tongue tied and uncertain.

‘Erm, well …’ He shoved his hands through his dark hair and then scrubbed his palms over his cheeks, unable to meet her eyes head on. If she’d have been looking for classic signs of lying, the red flags were all there. Touching his face and covering his mouth, rapid eye movement, shallow breathing beneath his expensive shirt. It was a poor show for an actor, really, Alice thought, detaching herself mentally from the situation for self-preservation purposes. She watched him wriggle on the hook, slippery, trying any which way to get himself off it. She wasn’t going to help him. She couldn’t. All of her efforts were concentrated on holding herself still in the chair rather than flying across the room and tearing his face off.

‘Alice, I’m so sorry,’ he said, suddenly urgent, crossing the room and pulling out the chair beside hers. He sat facing her, his kneecaps against hers, close enough for Alice to smell the familiar scent of his favourite shower gel. ‘It was nothing. She doesn’t mean anything to me.’

Alice looked down at his strong, tanned hands as they closed over her clasped ones in her lap. Hands that wore the wedding ring she’d placed there, hands that she’d trusted to hold her heart safely, hands that had held another woman when they should have been holding her. She didn’t say anything. It’s difficult to speak when your heart suddenly fragments into a million pieces. She could feel it splintering, and it physically hurt all the way from her scalp to her toes.

‘It was one night, baby, a stupid, stupid mistake.’

His words washed over her skin, scalding, not in the least bit soothing. Did he imagine that it would be less of a betrayal if he said it had only happened once? Which it hadn’t, of course. Lots of little things had happened over the last few months that hadn’t quite added up, a dinner receipt here, an inconsistency in Brad’s recollections there, and each time Alice had allowed herself to sweep it under the carpet, or had at least looked for innocent explanations instead of jumping to the worst-case scenario. This though … these pictures … there wasn’t a best-case scenario to find here, only the ugly truth of deception and infidelity. Those warning signs did nothing to deaden the blow of evidence; hard facts turned out to be a lot harder to swallow than suspicion. Dread prickled cold and clammy beneath her skin and her morning coffee rose bitter in her throat. She knew that what she said next mattered. Go, or don’t go.

‘Tell me what I can do, Alice. I need to make this right again.’ Brad squeezed her hands. ‘You name it and I’ll do it.’

Was it really her responsibility to tell him how to right his wrongs? And why did he assume there was something he could do to balance the scorecard again? Even so, finding the strength required to say the things she needed to say next was the most difficult thing she’d ever done.

‘There’s only one thing you can do now, Brad. Pack a case. Leave.’

‘No! I won’t.’ Urgent desperation thickened his voice. ‘Alice, please, we can work through this. I love you, and I know you love me.’ He gripped her hands tighter still. ‘Our marriage is worth that, surely?’

Oh, he had no idea how badly he’d just screwed up. She nodded, digesting his words slowly, fury heating her blood.

‘You didn’t think it valuable enough to stop you screwing Felicity Shaw, yet I’m supposed to think it’s worth fighting for. Is that what you’re saying?’

She lifted her eyes to his and watched him scrabble for the right words when there weren’t any.

‘That isn’t what I meant,’ he said quietly. His phone buzzed in the pocket of his jeans. They both glanced down, knowing in her eyes, guilt in his.

‘You better get that,’ Alice said, keeping her voice even as she stood, scraping her chair back on the flagstones. ‘I’ll go and find you a suitcase.’

Three months later …

Throwing Brad out had hurt like hell. Gwyneth Paltrow had been way off the mark when she’d used the term conscious uncoupling for separation. Alice felt more like she’d had her heart amputated without anaesthetic, or all the life sucked from her body by an industrial-strength Dyson. It came as a surprise most mornings when she looked in the mirror and found herself still standing up.

‘I cancelled your newspaper delivery yesterday,’ Niamh said, handing Alice a mug of coffee before taking a seat alongside her on the garden bench out the back of Borne Manor. The sun hadn’t long risen, and there was that chilly hint of new-day promise in the pale blue sky.

‘Did I ask you to?’ Alice said, frowning. She couldn’t recall doing it, but that didn’t mean much lately. She talked to Niamh most mornings and could barely remember what they’d said within half an hour of her leaving. And it wasn’t just Niamh. It was everyone and everything since Brad had left. Her brain was soup. And not a silky smooth consommé, either. It was more like yesterday’s leftover dinner liquidised into a thick unappetising gloop, trying hard to work and failing.

Niamh shook her head. ‘Nope, but I did it anyway. You need more pictures of Brad the Cad and Felicity-no-knickers like you need a hole in the head.’

‘But …’ Although Alice knew that Niamh was right, anxiously scouring the papers and magazines for images of him had become part of her post-Brad daily routine. He’d taken out a costly subscription to all of the nationals when they’d moved to Borne; Brad had taken pleasure and pain from searching for mentions and reviews of his performances.

This was just another form of that, really. Alice didn’t enjoy it. In fact she had to brace herself for it and her shoulders didn’t drop from around her ears until she’d closed the last page of the last newspaper, but in another way she kind of relied on it, in the same strange way you can come to rely on visiting a sick relative in hospital because the alternative of losing them altogether is even worse. By cancelling the papers, Niamh had kicked the power cable out of the life support machine of her marriage. She’d argue, but Alice knew that any doctor in the land would have pronounced it dead anyway.

‘But what?’ Niamh said, leaning down to find a stick to throw for Pluto, her rescue dog turned loyal companion. ‘You’d rather torture yourself slowly than go cold turkey? If I had a bullshit buzzer I’d press it right now, Alice.’

They both watched an ecstatic Pluto hurtle down the frosty lawn and career off towards the woods in search of the stick. He’d be gone a while. He was the dearest of dogs, but he was blind in one eye and his good one wasn’t brilliant.

‘I bet Davina had a field day, didn’t she?’ Alice muttered, picturing the owner of the local shop-come-post-office. Dark haired and sly eyed, Davina was the village ear to the ground and man-eater. There was always talk of scalps on her bedpost amongst wronged wives after a few gins in the local. She wasn’t exactly what you might call a girls’ girl; she’d happily gossip with mums at the school gate in the morning and try to bed their husbands in the afternoon. She’d had plenty of cracks at Brad since they’d moved into Borne Manor a little over eighteen months ago, a fact which he’d always reported back with glee to Alice. She hadn’t been concerned, back then. The fact that he told her all about it meant he wasn’t interested, right? Looking back, Alice wasn’t so sure. Maybe if Davina had caught Brad at a weaker moment he might have accepted more than a book of stamps and a punnet of strawberries.

Niamh laughed beside her. ‘Oh, she tried to fish. All doe eyed, twisting her hair around her fingers as she asked after you and Brad. Proper concerned she was.’

Alice sipped her coffee and watched Pluto mooch about at the edge of the woods. The gardens and land that came with Borne Manor had been one of its big attractions; Alice had imagined kids building forts and camping in the woods, and Brad had pictured rolling garden parties and summer balls attended by the rich and famous. He was a man who’d let his fledgling fame go straight to his head – in his mind’s eye he was already one good dinner jacket away from David Frost. Pushing all thoughts of her errant husband to the back of her mind, Alice dwelled instead on the worrying red letter that had arrived a few days ago in the mail.

‘I might lose this place, Niamh,’ she said, facing facts as she cupped her hands around her mug for warmth against the March morning. ‘The bank letters are coming thick and fast, and Brad isn’t happy to keep paying the mortgage indefinitely. I can’t possibly pay it. I don’t even have a sodding job.’

‘So divorce him and use the settlement. Ask the bank to wait.’

‘You know that won’t happen soon enough. Even if I saw a solicitor today it’d drag on for months.’ She didn’t mention that she wasn’t ready to start divorce proceedings. Divorces needed strength, and she couldn’t see herself feeling very Fatima Whitbread for a while yet.

‘Is there any chance that Brad might try to take the house?’

‘Over my dead body,’ Alice shot back, even though she had no clue how she’d stop him if he actually tried. This was her house. It might have both their names on the deeds, but she knew every brick and slate, she loved every nook and cranny. She knew its history and its stories, because she loved the place enough to find out. From the moment she’d set eyes on Borne Manor, she’d wrapped her heart around its mellow stone walls and vowed to love it for ever. Much like her wedding vows, really. The difference was that Brad had let her down. Borne Manor hadn’t, and she wanted to repay it in kind.

Quite how she was going to do that though was anyone’s guess.

‘How long do you have?’

Alice shrugged unhappily. ‘Two months, maybe?’

Niamh sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. ‘We better think of something fast then.’

We. Not you, we. Not for the first time in the last few months, Alice found herself grateful for Niamh’s friendship. They’d been neighbours ever since Alice and Brad moved to Borne, but it was only since Brad’s departure that their friendship had blossomed beyond the occasional coffee in the village or chat at the gate. She’d knocked on the door of Borne Manor and asked if Pluto could possibly go for a run in the gardens as it was safer for him than being on the common, and she’d been around most mornings since at sun up for an early morning coffee on the back bench and an hour setting the world to rights. Alice suspected that word had reached Niamh’s ears of her troubles and she’d reached out to help; she was that special kind of person. In actual fact they weren’t neighbours, exactly; as owner of the row of four tied cottages next to the manor, Alice was officially Niamh’s landlady. Not that she went along the row and collected rent; specified arrangements with most of the cottage owners had been included as part of the sale particulars.

Number one housed Stewie Heaven, ex seventies porn star, a perma-tanned man who seemed to have a wig to suit every occasion. Alice had only seen him on hops and catches as he wintered in Benidorm, but from what Niamh said he’d arrived home a week or so ago and was as verbose as ever about his exploits. He paid rent to Borne Manor at the princely sum of one pound a month, a nefarious peppercorn arrangement with the previous owner for services rendered. No one knew the precise nature of the services, and no one had the stomach to ask.

Hazel lived at number two, a woman as round as she was tall and who told everyone who cared to listen that she was a practising witch. She lived with her sofa-surfing son Ewan, a perpetual student, and Rambo, her talking mynah bird, who could often be found perched on her open windowsill shouting obscenities at passersby. Hazel paid double Stewie’s rent at two pounds a month, secured on the basis that she’d cleared the manor of an unwanted poltergeist some twenty years previously.

Which left just Niamh, who’d returned to Borne to nurse her ailing mother after a stroke last summer and stayed on after she died a couple of months later. It was written into the sale of Borne Manor that Niamh’s mother and any of her surviving children should be allowed to live rent free in number three until such a time as they no longer wanted or needed to. There was no explanation offered, and Alice saw no reason to question it. Brad had wanted to when news reached him of Niamh’s mother’s death, but Alice had uncharacte‌ristically put her foot down and refused to allow it. She was glad every day now that she’d made a stand; Niamh had turned out to be the perfect friend in her time of need.

The end cottage, number four, presently stood empty after the passing of Borne’s most senior resident, Albert Rollinson, who Hazel assured them now haunted the row of cottages in spirit form, stealing their morning papers to check the runners and riders at Aintree. Fond of a bet and a pint, if Albert was there at all he was the most benign of ghosts. He’d make Casper look angry. Freed of its peppercorn rent arrangement with the death of Albert, the estate agent had secured a buyer for the tiny two up two down and agreed a sale a couple of months back, but as of yet no one had moved in.

‘Pluto!’ Niamh called, putting her cup down on the cobbles and standing up. ‘Here, boy! I better shoot. I’ve got a sitting this morning, some farmer from three villages over who wants a painting of himself naked for his wife’s birthday. Where would a man get the idea that any woman wants that?’

Alice laughed despite her gloom. ‘Maybe you could offer him a strategic bunch of bananas or grapes to drape himself with. Tell him it’s arty.’

Niamh huffed as she leaned down to clip Pluto’s lead on. ‘I don’t have bananas. Or grapes. Do you think he’d be offended if I suggested an out-of-date fig?’

‘His wife probably wouldn’t notice the difference,’ Alice said, making them both laugh softly as she opened the side gate for Niamh. ‘Call me if he gets frisky. I’ll come over with the contents of my fruit bowl.’

‘No worries on that score. I’ve got my bodyguard to protect me.’ Niamh fussed Pluto’s wiry head and he rolled his good eye towards Alice in farewell.

‘See you tomorrow. Same time same place.’

‘It’s a date,’ Niamh called over her shoulder, raising her hand as she disappeared down the road towards the cottages. Alice closed the gate slowly and returned to the bench, sitting down to watch the rose pink and gold clouds that streaked the early morning sky. One of her favourite parts of the day was already behind her and it was barely breakfast time.

Would it always feel like this? Would every day always be a new mountain to climb? Mount Kilamancal‌ledBradfor‌breakingmyheart might not roll easily off the tongue, but it was there on the map of Alice’s life and its recent eruption threatened to leave her homeless.

Bending to pick up the empty mugs, Alice looked out over the rolling gardens towards the woods. Through the trees she could see silvery glints of the vintage Airstream caravan she’d impulse bought on eBay last autumn with the intention of giving it a kitsch make-over for weekends away with Brad. His celebrity life made it difficult to go to hotels and cities without him being noticed, so she’d harboured hazy images of them camping out in the Airstream, maybe even taking it over to France for long weekends of wine and cheese and sex. The sight of it made her heart heavy these days. Maybe she could live in it if the bank repossessed the house, claim squatters rights in her beloved garden. Sighing, she turned and headed back into the warmth of the kitchen.

Sliding ready-made lasagne for one onto the kitchen table, Alice placed the most alcoholic bottle of wine she could find and a glass beside it and sat down, the tick of the kitchen clock the only sound in the too quiet, too big kitchen. It hadn’t seemed that way when she lived here with Brad; the kitchen had been the central hub of their lives and one of the rooms she loved best of all.

But then it had also been the room where the ugly end scenes of her marriage had played out too; the traded insults, the wall that had needed repainting after Alice hurled a cup of coffee at Brad and only just missed. She liked to tell herself that she’d intended to miss, but he sure had gone from bringing out the best in her to the worst in her in a very short space of time.

If this were a movie, Alice could see herself sitting alone at this table, a solitary figure as the end credits rolled and cinema goers were left bereft of their happy ending. Maybe it was melodramatic to cast herself as the crazy cat lady already given that she was still shy of her thirtieth birthday, but some days she really did just want to give it all up and go and sit in the attic in her wedding dress until the cobwebs choked her.

Picking listlessly at the pasta, Alice’s gaze slid to the unopened pile of bills. Ignoring them wasn’t helping, she knew that. She’d eat this cardboard dinner, and then she’d be brave and open them, because just the sight of them was making her feel ill and that was no way to go on. Flicking the TV on for dinner company proved little solace. EastEnders blared from BBC1, all garish lipstick and shouty arguments in the Queen Vic, and Alice had a self-imposed ban on Central in case Brad and Felicity unexpectedly appeared and scorched her eyeballs out with their passionate on-screen clinches. That left her with a straight choice between a nature documentary about hedgehogs or yet another re-run of The Good Life. She went for the latter, and ended up thinking how lovely Tom was to Barbara even though they didn’t have two pennies to rub together, and remembering how much happier she and Brad had been before he got famous and switched his wellington boots for Armani ones.

Pushing her dinner away and pulling her wine towards her, Alice laid her head on the table and allowed herself to indulge in a few tears. And then she poured a second glass of wine and cried some more; bigger, snottier, shoulder-shaking sobs that made her knock her drink back too quickly and refill her glass for a third, ill-advised time. Within the hour she was at her own pity party for one, which frankly beat the pants off her lonely, sober dinner for one, or at least it did for the glorious half an hour when she turned the radio up loud and wailed along to any sad song she could find on the dial.

When the bottle was finally as empty as her stomach, Alice flopped back into the chair again, her cheek on the dining table, her eyes closed because all she could see when they were open was that humungous, frightening pile of bills again. If I close my eyes, it might disappear, she thought. She’d heard all about positive thinking from Hazel down at the cottages. Maybe if she wished really, really hard, they’d be gone when she opened her eyes. Alice tried. She really did give it her very best shot, which only served to make it an all crushing blow when she opened her eyes and found the pile of bills still there, even bigger than when she’d closed her eyes, if that was even possible.

Any traces of wine-fuelled high spirits abandoned her there on her kitchen table, as did her resolution that she could find a way to hold onto her beloved manor.

As she fell into a heavy, troubled sleep she thought for the second time that day of the Airstream in the garden. Only this time, she saw herself living in it on a muddy campsite like a scene from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and all of her new gypsy friends coming out with sticks and big growly dogs to defend her whenever Brad the terrible turned up in his Range Rover and poncey Armani boots.

‘I’m going to live in the caravan.’

Niamh looked at Alice as if she’d just said she was planning to fly to the moon and should be back in time for lunch. Alice just nodded, her eyes trained on the edge of the woodland and the caravan that lay beyond.

‘It came to me yesterday after you left.’

Niamh frowned. ‘I only cancelled your newspapers, Alice, not your whole life. Have you had a knock on the head?’

‘I’m serious, Niamh. I thought about it all day yesterday and it might just work.’

It was more of an economy with the truth than an actual lie. She hadn’t thought of it yesterday, she’d thought of it at about four o’ clock that morning as she’d peeled her cheek from the dining table and made her way blearily up to bed. Her dreams had been full of the Airstream, muddled and messed up, but they’d sown the seed of a more plausible idea that had gripped her from the moment she’d properly woken up.

Pluto dropped his ball at Niamh’s feet and she picked it up and hurled it across the grass. ‘You’re going to have to spell this out. I’m not seeing how you moving into the caravan will help.’

‘Because if I live in the caravan, I can rent the house out to someone else to pay the mortgage.’

Niamh paused. ‘Are you allowed to do that?’

A frown creased Alice’s brow. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I don’t know … I just thought there were rules around that sort of stuff.’

Alice chewed her lip. ‘Then I’ll get it sorted so I can. I mean it, Niamh. This is the only way I can think of not to let Borne Manor go completely, or at least until I’m ready to leave on my own terms, rather than because of Felicity bloody Shaw.’

Niamh fell silent for a moment and then reached down and felt around on the ground behind the bench. When she straightened she held a half-empty bottle of rum in her hand, the emergency supply they kept there for extra cold winter mornings or moments of dire need. Moving from the grandeur and luxury of Borne Manor into a caravan that probably wasn’t even watertight definitely fell into the latter category. Tipping a good snifter into each of their coffee mugs, she clanked her cup against Alice’s.

‘Let’s drink these then and go and view your new home.’

‘It’s … it’s …’ Niamh paused, stepping into the caravan behind Alice ten minutes later. It had taken almost five minutes to prise the door open, and the first thing that hit them was the pungent smell of damp when a hard tug had finally wrenched it from its seal.

‘It’s kind of cute?’ Alice finished for her, seeing the same battered wooden interior as Niamh, though through more rose-tinted glasses. ‘Let’s open the windows, get rid of the damp smell. It’ll be fine once it’s aired.’

‘You think?’ Niamh’s gaze swept from the lumpy double bed at one end of the caravan to the threadbare seating at the other, taking in the tatty kitchenette and holey lino on the way. ‘Is there a bathroom?’

Alice stepped along the central aisle and they both reached for a wall to steady themselves as the caravan lurched downwards at one end.

‘Oops! Legs must need putting down.’ Alice smiled nervously. ‘The bathroom’s in there,’ she added, waving an expansive hand towards a slim door beside the bed. ‘There’s a loo and everything.’

She looked back over her shoulder at her friend’s doubtful expression. ‘Don’t pull that face. Work with me here, I need your vision. You’re an artist; can’t you see it as a blank canvas ready to be made gorgeous?’ She ran her hand over the faded wooden kitchen cupboard. ‘A rub down here, a lick of varnish there … some pretty curtains maybe?’

Alice watched Niamh study the interior, silently willing her to see beyond the shabbiness. Slowly, her friend began to nod.

‘Yes? You see it?’ Alice took Niamh’s fledgling encouragement and ran with it. ‘I looked on the net today, you should see some of the vintage Airstream makeovers I’ve found. It might be a bit of an ugly duckling now, but it’s got potential, and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’ Alice needed Niamh to share her vision; not least because she couldn’t sew so much as a button on while Niamh could operate her state of the art sewing machine with her eyes closed.

‘It’s an old girl, but she’s got good bone structure, so just maybe,’ Niamh said, ever cautious.

Alice nodded. ‘She’s Greta bloody Garbo!’

‘Steady on. Let’s start at Dot Cotton and work our way up.’

Suitably sobered, Alice ran through the basics she could remember from the eBay seller she’d bought it from. ‘Everything works. The water, gas, electrics, everything should be fine once it’s had a spruce up.’

‘Heating?’ Niamh pulled the sleeves of her jumper over her fingers as she spoke.

Alice nodded again, even though she couldn’t precisely remember the heating being mentioned. ‘I’ll be snug as a bug.’

‘A bed bug, probably,’ Niamh said, casting a glance over the tired-looking mattress. Alice followed suit and then breathed in deeply.

‘I’ll just bring my mattress topper down from the house. It’ll be fine.’

They both turned as Pluto appeared in the doorway, a heavy breathing thud of paws as he dropped his damp ball on the grubby floor and rolled his good eye at them hopefully.

‘Not on Alice’s new carpet, Plute!’ Niamh scolded, earning herself a nudge in the ribs for her sarcasm as they headed out of the caravan and back to normality. It didn’t escape Alice’s notice that it was a degree or two warmer outside than it was inside the caravan, despite the early morning frost. She made a mental note to order the highest possible tog-rated quilt later. Was arctic-tog even a thing? Dithering as they crunched back over the lawns towards the house, she really hoped so.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Are you sure this is the place?’ Robinson Duff frowned out of the passenger window of the taxi as it slowed to a halt outside Borne Manor. Set well back from the road along a sweeping drive, the house was nothing like Robinson’s sister had led him to believe. She’d used words like modern and cutting edge, he distinctly remembered their telephone conversation when she’d raved about having found him the perfect place on the internet.

This place wasn’t modern. As soon as he was settled they’d be having another conversation, one that began with something distinctly like ‘why the hell have you posted me out to Middle Earth for six months? What do you think I am, a fucking hobbit?’

Lounging splendidly in the watery afternoon sunshine, it was cute on a grand scale, the kind of house you might see on the English Tourism website alongside rolling green countryside and adverts for Shakespeare.

Robinson didn’t do cute. Jesus, the mellow stone walls were practically pink, and was that wisteria winding its way around the huge, old, wooden front door? It made him think of fairy stories and afternoon tea, not usual or welcome thoughts for a man more accustomed to packed stadiums and the technicalities of a recording studio. Who the hell lived in a place like this? Goldilocks, maybe?

‘This is definitely you,’ the driver confirmed, glancing at the satnav app on his iPhone clipped to the dashboard. ‘I’ll get your bags out of the boot, shall I?’

Robinson unhooked his seatbelt with a resigned sigh. ‘Looks that way.’

Inside Borne Manor, Alice paced barefoot across the cool flagstones of the square entrance hall. She’d fallen for the house as soon as she’d first set foot on those flagstones, picturing the grand stone fireplace alive with flames in winter and a cheery jug of flowers on the central table in springtime. The sound of car doors slamming had her heart bumping around behind her ribs. The new tenant must have arrived. Her heart didn’t know whether to soar or sink.

One of the benefits of being with Brad had been access to decent legal advice, and this had served her well over the last couple of weeks when she’d decided to rent the house out. Brad hadn’t been bothered; as long as he didn’t have to cover the mortgage payments, he was fine with whatever Alice wanted to do where the manor was concerned – or so the message came back from the solicitor who’d also been responsible for making the switch from mortgage payer to landlady a relatively easy one. Alice herself hadn’t needed to be involved in the legal ins and outs, so she’d spent her days clearing out her personal effects in order to prepare the house for its new inhabitants.

It had all happened with quite indecent speed once the ball was rolling; from ‘on the market’ to ‘six-month rental secured’ within a few days of being on the agent’s books.

It was mildly surprising that the new people hadn’t even bothered to come and view the house before signing on the dotted line, but Alice was just relieved to know that she was still the legal owner of Borne Manor, even if she didn’t get the joy of living in it, for the next few months at least.

Three raps on the doorknocker. It was time to meet the lucky new people who’d get to call the manor home, and then it would be time for Alice to move into her own new home too. She took a deep, calming breath, arranged her smile, and then reached out for the door handle.

Robinson watched the taxi disappear off down the drive and then knocked the huge blacked doorknocker three times and waited. It struck him as weird that the homeowners had insisted on meeting him here themselves rather than arranging for a key to be waiting.

In truth he’d have preferred to skip the tea, biscuits and guided tour, but then he was in England now, the homeland of, well, tea, biscuits and guided tours, so he steeled himself to suck it up and get rid of them as soon as he possibly could.

Setting his Goldilocks fantasy aside, he laid himself a private bet that the door would be opened by an elderly guy in tweed or his equally elderly wife in a woollen twinset and pearls. Or a butler, maybe? He’d seen enough movies about big English houses, there was an outside possibility of staff in a place like this.

Maybe living here for a while wouldn’t be so bad if there was someone around to help keep the fridge stocked with beer. Maybe he’d get really lucky and land up with a guy who liked to shoot pool, too … Robinson’s daydream came to a halt as he heard the catch on the inside of the door move, and a second or so later it swung wide.

Well, hell. Maybe there was something to those fairy stories after all, because it seemed that he’d been right first time around. This house was straight out of the pages of a beautifully illustrated children’s book, and even odder still, it appeared very much as if Goldilocks actually did live here.

Okay, so maybe she’d switched the pinafore dress for ripped jeans and a sweater that slid off one shoulder, but her hair was bang on the money. Golden ripples that fell past her elbows, and nervous, startlingly blue eyes that looked into his as her lips curved into a slow, uncertain smile.

‘Mr Duff? I’m Alice McBride.’

She stuck her hand out and Robinson dropped his bags onto the wide stone step so he could take it. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure the three bears weren’t anywhere in sight behind her, he slid his hand into hers.

She glanced over his too, and then managed to frown and keep that fixed little smile in place all at the same time.

She had a surprisingly strong handshake for a girl who appeared so delicate on first glance.

‘Come in, come in,’ she said, letting go of his fingers at last and stepping aside to allow him entry into the hall. More fairytale stuff. The hallway was big enough to count as a room in its own right, and the fire crackling in the hearth took the chill from the air. His hostess glanced around outside in the empty driveway for a moment and then banged the front door shut and turned to him.

‘Will the rest of your family be joining you later?’

‘My family?’ he frowned, nonplussed.

Alice faltered.

‘I’m sorry, I just assumed, given the size of the house and all …’ she trailed off, and a rose-petal warmth tinted her cheeks that had nothing to do with the warmth from the fireplace.

‘Maybe later. It’s just me for now.’

Robinson didn’t elaborate, and found himself irritated by her automatic assumption. The last thing he planned on doing was sharing his domestic arrangements with strangers. He’d come here to get away from prying eyes and nosy neighbours, not hurl himself headlong into the middle of village gossip.

Alice recovered herself well, switching that polite smile of hers straight back on.

‘Shall I show you around, or would you like a cup of tea? You must be exhausted after all the travelling.’

How very English. Welcoming as she was clearly trying to be, what Robinson really needed her to do was to leave him alone to get his head together.

‘Actually, you’re right. I am exhausted. Maybe we could take a rain check on the grand tour until tomorrow? I’m sure I can find somewhere to lay my head.’

He noticed how Alice blinked two or three times as she deciphered the request to leave hidden behind his polite words.

‘Right. Right, yes, of course.’

She spoke haltingly, that smile still there but no longer touching her eyes. She seemed momentarily stuck, wiping her palms on her jeans as if she wasn’t sure which way to go. He looked down at her bare feet and hoped she wasn’t planning to tackle the gravel driveway without shoes.

‘Okay, so I’ll leave you to it then,’ she said eventually, and then, oddly, she added, ‘it’s just this way,’ and turned and disappeared through one of the wide doorways that led off the hall.

Curious, he followed her and found himself heading into the kitchen.

‘This is the kitchen,’ she said, redundantly. He watched as she trailed her fingers over the central island as she passed it, almost an affectionate stroke. ‘The oven can be a bit temperamental, I can show you how to coax it, if you like.’

‘I’m not much of a chef,’ he murmured. An understatement. He’d barely cooked more than bacon and eggs in his life.

‘Right.’

She reached the backdoor, and then turned with her hand on the latch.

‘I’ll be off then,’ she said, her eyes moving from him to sweep slowly around the room.

Was it an English thing to leave by the back door? If it was he’d never heard of it. He watched as she stepped outside and pulled on a pair of bright red rain boots from beside a bench by the door, her curtain of hair swishing around her shoulders as she straightened. That resolved the shoe issue, at least.

‘Let me know if there’s anything you need.’

He nodded, and then realised he had no idea where she lived.

‘How do I find you?’

She glanced away from him across the gardens. ‘Easy. I’m over there.’

Turning away, she started to tramp across the damp grass.

He watched her go for a few seconds, confused.

‘You live in my garden?’ he called after her. She paused, then turned back around.

‘Well, no, not exactly,’ she said, holding up her finger. ‘If you check the lease you’ll see that you get the house and the top lawn. I’ve got the rest of the land.’

He frowned, lost.

‘My place is just the other side of the trees,’ she said. ‘I can have a fence put in to divide the garden more clearly, if you like?’ She looked at him testily. ‘I didn’t because it seemed a bit unnecessary, but maybe I was wrong.’

Robinson realised that he hadn’t just been being polite when he’d said he was tired. He was exhausted all the way down to his bones, and try as he might he couldn’t work out what the hell was going on here. He needed a bath, a beer, and his bed, wherever that was.

‘I’ll give it some thought,’ he said, and she gave him the smallest of perfunctory waves and set off again across the grass.

In the caravan a couple of hours later, Alice went into battle with the archaic heater and lost. She wasn’t altogether surprised; disappointed, but not especially surprised given that it was a game of luck to get the gas rings on the cooker to work and the water pump was distinctly dodgy. The eBay seller who’d sold her the caravan had certainly added a gloss of efficiency to the advert that wasn’t strictly true, but Alice wasn’t to be deterred. This was home now. She was just relieved to have a roof over her head, even if it was made of tin and not one hundred per cent draught proof.

Making herself a sandwich as she warmed the kettle to fill two hot water bottles, Alice considered her new neighbour. The last thing she’d expected when she opened the door to Borne Manor that afternoon was a six-foot-two cowboy, much less a cowboy with broad shoulders, clear green eyes and something about his guarded manner that rendered her mildly speechless. He was … interesting.

Climbing into the huge bed, Alice set herself up for the evening. The memory foam mattress from the house had been a pain in the ass to lug down to the caravan, but boy was she glad of it now. She was equally glad of the myriad pillows and the cloud of quilts, and especially thankful for the luxury fur throw she’d given to Brad for Christmas that he hadn’t bothered to take. The rest of the caravan might be lacking in amenities, but the bed was hotel luxurious with her five-hundred-thread-count bed linen thrown into the mix.

Warm and fed, Alice lay back and pulled the quilt up to her nose. Through the trees she could just about make out the honey glow of lights in the kitchen up at the house, and she could imagine standing by the Aga to warm her bum as the underfloor heating warmed her toes.

Bah. Who needed all that jazz anyway? She wiggled her toes on the hot water bottle and switched her Kindle on, the only light inside the dark caravan. Clicking through to the internet to browse for something new to read, Alice scrawled through the recommendations and huffed softly as a scorching cowboy romance appeared on the screen. The blurb promised a hot Texan bad boy who could do a lot more than play the guitar with his wicked hands. Her index finger hovered over the buy button for a second, and then she thought better of it and scrolled forward to the next recommendation. Cowboys might make good romance novel fodder, but she’d had her fill of romance for at least the next twenty years. All that romance had got her lately was a broken heart, a dodgy heater and a no-fixed-abode address. Resolute, she clicked buy on the latest gory thriller to hit the top of the charts and settled down to read.

Up at the manor, Robinson picked up the coffee he’d just made and turned out the kitchen lights. Beyond the windows he could see only evening darkness, no sign of any lights or life beyond the tree line. This really was turning into the strangest of days. Bizarre as it was, it would seem that he’d flown straight out of Nashville and become the lord of his very own English manor, complete with fairies at the bottom of the garden.

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