Heaven Here on Earth
Carole Mortimer
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
“YOU’LL love it there,’ Mark assured her. ‘I have the most fantastic studio.’
‘Yes, but Yorkshire!’ Ryan grimaced.
He frowned at her, a very good-looking man of twenty-four, with the overlong hair of their contemporaries, clear hazel-coloured eyes, dressed as casually as Ryan in denims and a loose-fitting shirt. ‘I’ll have you know Yorkshire is very beautiful at this time of year.’
‘Beautiful Yorkshire in April!’ she scorned, sitting opposite him in her flat while her flatmate Diana was in the bedroom preparing for her date with him. ‘You just want to get rid of me for a few weeks so that you can pursue Diana without me in the way!’
Mark began to smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his teeth very white against his dark skin. ‘How did you guess?’
‘It wasn’t hard!’ She made a face.
He sat forward in his seat. ‘Maybe my reasoning is partly selfish—–’
‘Mainly,’ she substituted firmly.
‘All right, mainly,’ he sighed. ‘But I really do have a great studio. My brother had the whole of the top floor of the house converted for me.’
‘That’s another thing—your family. How will they feel about having a complete stranger foisted on them?’ Ryan frowned, looking younger than her twenty-one years with her long blonde hair and big blue eyes, her face small and heart-shaped. The deceptively youthful appearance hid a strong determination, a determination that had got her through art college against all the odds—that, as much as her talent, had won her a scholarship. It was at college that she had met Mark Montgomery, and while she had no romantic interest in him herself, he had been instantly attracted to her secretary friend and flatmate, Diana. The attraction was reluctantly reciprocated, as Diana doubted Mark’s sincerity.
Ryan and Diana had been brought up in the children’s home together, and both of them were a little wary of romantic relationships, although Diana more so, remembering her own parents and the bitter break-up of their marriage. In a way Ryan was a little luckier, she remembered nothing of her parents—if that could be called lucky!
Mark shrugged dismissively. ‘They won’t think anything of it, I often let friends use the studio. Besides, there’s only Grant and Mandy, my brother and sister. Grant’s always busy on the estate, and Mandy’s only eighteen, so you’d be company for each other. And you don’t have to stay in the main house, there’s a cottage you can use on the estate.’
Ryan knew that Mark came from a wealthy family, that far from having to struggle through like a lot of their fellow-students, he always had plenty of money. The existence of the family estate in Yorkshire had come to light since he had been dating Diana, an incentive for her to trust him, Ryan believed. It had been wasted on Diana, just making her more wary.
‘Besides,’ he added enticingly, ‘you don’t want to pass up the opportunity of seeing a whole room full of Paul Gilbert paintings.’
Her eyes widened, the deep blue of violets, her lashes thick and silky, naturally dark. ‘Your family have a Paul Gilbert collection?’ she gasped; Gilbert was one of her favourite artists, and had been popular for the last fifty years since his death.
‘Better than that,’ Mark said with satisfaction. ‘He was my great-grandfather. Encouragement enough?’
‘If it’s the truth,’ Ryan said sceptically.
‘Oh, it is,’ he told her seriously.
She frowned. ‘Then why haven’t you mentioned him before?’
He grinned, his eyes full of mischief. ‘One doesn’t like to boast.’
‘Doesn’t one?’ she taunted.
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Especially when “one” doesn’t have even a tenth of his talent,’ he added seriously.
She raised dark blonde brows. ‘Fishing for compliments, Mark?’ It was an accepted fact that Mark had been the most talented one in the class through the previous college year.
‘No,’ he laughed, dispelling the mood of seriousness. ‘Oh, be a love, Ryan! Three weeks, three lovely weeks, when you can have a studio all to yourself. You’re looking a little pale, the fresh air would put colour in your cheeks—–’
‘All right, all right,’ she interrupted laughingly, ‘I’ll spend the Easter holidays in Yorkshire. But if you do anything to hurt Diana while I’m away,’ she sobered, ‘I’ll have you hanged, drawn, and quartered! Understood?’
‘Understood,’ he nodded happily.
And so it was that two weeks later Ryan found herself on a train bound for Yorkshire, her case in one hand, her empty canvases in the other.
As the train neared the station for Sleaton her trepidation grew. Mark swore he had made all the arrangements, that he had told his family she would be arriving today, that his brother and sister didn’t mind her visit in the least. But Mark wasn’t known for his reliability. What if she should arrive at Montgomery Hall only to be turned away?
Montgomery Hall—just the name of it was enough to make her feel nervous, and it wasn’t an emotion she usually admitted to. But Mark’s family sounded a little out of her league, despite Mark’s claim of how hard his brother worked on the estate, and how glad of her company Mandy would be.
Yes, Montgomery Hall sounded very daunting. And what would the Montgomerys make of Ryan Shelton?
She was wearing her newest denims, the ones with no paint splashed over them, and a light blue fluffy jumper that hugged her body and just touched the top of her denims, riding up a little if she should raise her arms. Despite it being April, and the sun shining brightly in a blue sky, there was a nip in the air, and although the jumper had shrunk a little in the wash, it was a pretty colour, and made her hair look like gold. It also emphasised the dark blue of her eyes.
The train drew slowly into the station of Sleaton, and she stepped down on to the platform, dragging her case off behind her, scratching it in the process. Not that it mattered, the case was battered enough already.
A couple of other people got off the train too, although they seemed surer of their destination, hurrying from the platform to disappear from the station building.
After dragging her case and canvases through the busy London station, with no chance