She put the phone down and stared out of the window at the busy York street below. Yes, it was a pity Patrick hadn’t been with her. Maybe then that man wouldn’t have talked to her, looked at her, the way he had. Her face ran with scarlet, remembering Josh Kern’s contemptuous eyes as he’d looked her up and down. She could never remember meeting anyone she disliked more; it had been like running into a stone wall. Her whole body still ached with the shock of it.
‘Who does he think he is?’ she had demanded of Mr Dale after Josh Kern had climbed back on to his tractor and driven away.
‘He knows who he is! He’s Josh Kern of Kern House, and he owns all this,’ Mr Dale had said drily, waving an arm around in a circle. ‘Four hundred acres of good farm land, half arable; last year he had a fairish crop of barley, but he runs stock, too. A good dairy herd—Friesians. He’s starting to run sheep on the hill up there too now, I gather. That’s new. His father never had sheep, never did much with that land, except a bit of rough shooting. Plenty of rabbits and some game birds up there—I’ve shot with him in the past. Not much use for anything else, that land, old Jack Kern always said; not worth clearing the gorse and heather, but upland sheep can live on very little. Josh Kern’s a canny chap; he’s done some controlled burning up there, rid the land of most of the scrub, and ploughed it up.’
Mr Dale looked respectfully and wryly after the farmer, who was disappearing into another field. ‘Aye, Josh works like a demon himself, and he gets good work out of his men—he expects his land to work, too.’
‘If you ask me, he expects too much!’ Laura muttered, still angry after the encounter with Josh Kern. ‘And he isn’t threatening me and getting away with it!’
‘Good for you, then,’ said Mr Dale, looking rather relieved. ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t let Josh scare you away.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Has he scared many would-be buyers away?’
Mr Dale didn’t answer. He pretended not to hear her, watching the girls, who, now that all the excitement was over, had tripped, giggling and chattering, into the cottage garden.
‘Eeh...like a flock of starlings, aren’t they?’ Mr Dale said, beaming after them. ‘Well, now, Miss Grainger, shall we go inside and look round?’
Laura followed him, but she wasn’t going to let him drop the subject of Josh Kern.
‘Was it his father who sold this cottage to the present owner?’ she asked the estate agent, who looked reluctantly at her, as he unlocked the front door.
‘Jack Kern didn’t sell it to her, he gave it,’ he said at last, rolling an expressive eye, and Laura’s brows shot up.
‘Gave it?’
‘Oh, aye,’ he said, waving her past him into the cottage. The models surged in after her and spread out around the ground floor of the cottage like spilt marbles, running from room to room, shouting to each other.
Mr Dale gestured around them. ‘The current owner had this porch hallway built on to the front of the cottage. The front door used to open right on to the parlour—that was how they built them a couple of hundred years ago. Through here, miss. There were two little rooms downstairs which have been knocked into one big one.’
Laura walked into the sunlit room and looked with pleasure at the rough stone walls, the arched fireplace with a blue slate hearth, the polished floorboards on which lay a few scattered blue and white rugs. There was a minimum of furniture—dark blue velvet curtains, a couch upholstered in matching material, piled with white and blue cushions, an armchair by the fire, covered in the same velvet, a writing desk, and a couple of bookcases on either side of the fire.
‘It’s a bit stark, to my taste,’ Mr Dale apologised.
Laura gave him a quick look and didn’t tell him that it was exactly to her own taste. ‘Has it always been like this? Or did the present owner...what did you say her name was?’
‘Forest,’ he said. ‘Mrs Joanna Forest. Yes, she tells me she had the cottage modernised when she moved in twenty years ago. It had been a bit of a mess—it was a farm cottage since it was built, used by the head cowman. No money had ever been spent on it before. First thing she did was strip off all the old wallpaper, and then the plaster, laid the actual stone walls bare, the way they are now. Did it all herself, she said. Quite a job for a woman.’ His face was wryly knowing. ‘But then she didn’t have anything much else to do.’
‘She didn’t have a job?’ Laura was fascinated. She felt she would like Mrs Forest, judging by her taste. She wondered how old the woman was, and what she looked like? Why had she decided to sell the cottage?
‘Depends what you mean by a job,’ Mr Dale said, winking at her. ‘She was...let’s say...a friend...of old Jack Kern, Josh’s father, who died a year ago.’
‘Oh,’ Laura said, eyes widening. ‘Oh, I see.’ So that was why Josh Kern didn’t like her?
Lowering his voice, Mr Dale said, ‘Aye, I’m not one to gossip, but it’s common talk around here—you’d hear the tale in any pub for miles. Everyone knew what was going on. He visited her here every evening, they say. Never slept up at the farmhouse, if you get my meaning. What his wife thought of that, nobody ever found out. Nell Kern’s the grim and silent type...’
‘His wife was still living with him?’
‘Oh, aye. Nell’s still there now, running the house for Josh. There’s just the two of them living there now. A wonderful housekeeper, Nell—people swear by her cooking, too—but that marriage never worked. Not that she’s bad-looking. Even now she’s what I’d call a handsome woman. In fact, when we were young, Nell Bevan could have taken her pick of men around here. I didn’t have the brass to make her an offer, but I had my eye on her, I tell you! Jack Kern was thought a very lucky man to get her. What went wrong nobody’s sure, but...well, who knows what goes on inside a marriage? They just weren’t happy together, it seems.’
The other girls surged into the room. ‘Oh, the kitchen’s lovely, Laura—come and see!’ They caught her hands and pulled her after them.
‘My wife was taken by it too when she came round with me,’ said Mr Dale, following. ‘She likes to have a peer at places I’m selling. Very interested in houses is my Doris. And the kitchen was her favourite room in this house.’
Laura loved it, too. Like the sitting-room it had been stripped back to the stone walls, and the fittings were all of golden, polished pine which shone in the sunlight. It was surprisingly spacious and was obviously intended for use as a dining-room, too, judging by the large pine table and chairs set out by a long window at one end.
But even while she looked around, smiling, part of her mind was busy with what Mr Dale had told her about the family background, which explained Josh Kern’s hostility. No wonder he had resented his father’s gift of this cottage to the woman who had usurped his mother’s place.
‘Now upstairs,’ said the girls and stampeded off with Laura and Mr Dale in the rear.
‘I suppose there’s no doubt that the cottage does belong to this Mrs Forest?’ Laura asked him and he shook his head.
‘No, don’t you worry about that...you won’t have any legal problems.’
Laura gave him an uncertain look. ‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Certain. Don’t worry. Josh was just trying to scare you off; take no notice of his threats. He can’t legally deny you access to this place, and he knows it. I promise you, Mrs Forest’s title has been tested in court; there are no problems.’
He might be telling her the strict truth, but Laura still had doubts about the wisdom of going ahead with buying the cottage.
He saw her expression and grimaced. ‘Look, frankly, miss, it did look as if there might be a problem with it because when he gave the cottage to her old Jack Kern didn’t do it through his