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‘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