At least it would be, just as soon as her Nantucket nightmare was over.
I must not complain, Flora thought, gazing out across the Siasconset bluffs at the roiling grey waters of the Atlantic.
She’d been here a week now, staying at a quaint little guesthouse in town, but Nantucket’s famous charm seemed to have eluded her. In fact Flora found the island deeply depressing, with its grey, clapboard houses, cranberry bogs and miles of windswept beaches, not to mention the sour-faced locals, who always seemed to glare at you as you passed, as if you were engaged in some deeply personal dispute with them, but no one had bothered to tell you what it was. Everyone here seemed to be at war with everyone else. The über-rich residents of Baxter Road, like Lisa Kent, were daggers drawn with the local fishermen and year-round islanders, who resented them shipping in tons of sand, at vast expense, to try to shore up their crumbling properties. Flora couldn’t imagine living in such a poisonous atmosphere of envy and loathing every day. It seemed to her as if the grey clouds gathering in the May skies were heavy not with rain, but with the islanders’ petty resentments and grievances. A thunderstorm would do all of them good.
The situation with the ‘Sconset bluffs would be funny if it weren’t so tragic – the arrogance of rich New Yorkers believing they could hold back the mighty Atlantic Ocean. That a big enough cheque would stop global warming in its tracks and save them and their precious beach houses from inevitable disaster. Talk about the foolish man building his house upon the sand! You couldn’t make this stuff up.
The site foreman turned to Flora. ‘What do you want me to do? We can’t start digging a pool. The town hall will shut us down in a heartbeat.’
‘Of course you can’t,’ Flora agreed. ‘I’ll talk some sense into her.’
The foreman raised an eyebrow. He liked Flora. She worked hard and got on with it, not like most of the poncey designers out here. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she looked like Marilyn Monroe. But she’d clearly bitten off more than she could chew with this Kent bitch.
‘Good luck with that,’ he said to Flora. ‘And until you get her to change her mind? What should I tell my guys?’
‘Tell them they can take the day off. As many days as it takes, in fact. Mrs Kent will pay for their time. She can afford it.’
Snaking his way through rain-slicked country lanes, Henry smiled as he eased his foot down on the accelerator of his new Bugatti Veyron, delighting in the roar of the engine as the car surged forwards. The Veyron was the man-made equivalent of a leopard, he decided. Or perhaps a black panther was a better analogy. Dark, sleek, elegant and insanely powerful. Henry loved it.
He felt the last flutterings of guilt in his chest over his latest slip-up with Georgina. But they soon faded, like the dying wingbeats of a trapped butterfly. Guilt was a waste of time. Eva didn’t know, and what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
He would do better next time.
He did feel bad about missing the fete, mostly because he knew Eva really cared about all that ‘community spirit’ bollocks. Traffic out of London had been so horrendous that not even the mighty Veyron could have got Henry to Fittlescombe on time. But Seb had already texted to say he’d filled in with the raffle prizes. So all was well that ended well.
At thirty, Henry had the world at his feet. He was successful, rich, intelligent, handsome and charming – when he wanted to be. He was engaged to be married to one of the most desirable women in the world, who also happened to be deeply kind and loyal, two qualities Henry himself had been known to lack. And then there was Hanborough, the icing on the already mouthwatering cake that was Henry Saxton Brae’s life.
Despite all his success, there was still a part of Henry that felt like the younger son. Growing up, he had always known it would be Seb who would inherit the family estate in its entirety; Seb who would one day become Lord Saxton Brae. Henry was fond of his elder brother. It was hard not to be. For all his outward pomposity, Sebastian didn’t have a mean bone in his body. But on some deep, subconscious level, it was important to Henry to own a house that was better than his brother’s, better than Hatchings. And not just a house. An estate. Something with land and a future, that could be left to future generations.
The problem was that this dream home had to be in the Swell Valley, the most beautiful part of England, in Henry’s opinion, and the part of the country where the Saxton Braes had lived for generations. That left precious few options, and although some were on a par with Hatchings, none really outshone it in terms of grandeur.
Hanborough Castle was easily the most impressive house in the county. Moated, and of Norman origin, with extensive medieval additions, it sat atop the South Downs at the end of a mile-long drive, with incredible views that stretched from the sea to the south right across the entire Swell Valley to the north. There were oak trees in Hanborough’s vast swathes of parkland that were believed to date back to the Conquest. Unfortunately, the entire estate had been gifted to the nation in 1920. As far as anybody knew, there was no mechanism for the house ever to return to private hands.
But Henry Saxton Brae rarely took ‘no’ for an answer. Somehow, nobody quite knew exactly how he did it, but apparently it involved an offshore trust and a large chunk of Gigtix’s shares as collateral, he had pulled strings with English Heritage and the relevant government department, and emerged as Hanborough’s new owner and saviour. Budget cuts had seen the property fall into serious disrepair over the last twenty years. Henry was one of the few individuals with both the money and the inclination to bring Hanborough back to life.
The rain had finally stopped and twilight was softly falling over the Sussex countryside as Hanborough shimmered into view.
God, it’s beautiful, Henry thought, gazing at the shadowy turrets, like something out of a fairy tale. Graydon James, the designer, was arriving next week to begin the restoration. The plan was that next summer, after a traditional church wedding at St Hilda’s, Henry and Eva would host a star-studded reception up at Hanborough, to officially launch the castle as a family home, and to begin their lives as man and wife.
It would be a new start for the estate, and for Henry.
He would be responsible. Faithful. Married.
The end of his bachelor days.
And only a year to go …
‘Forget it, Graydon. You don’t take me seriously!’
Graydon James lay back against a riot of purple and peach silk cushions on his vintage B&B Italia daybed and watched Guillermo, his latest toy boy, pack. If by ‘pack’ one meant strutting around Graydon’s apartment naked, pouting and tossing one’s long, blue-black, Indian Brave mane of hair with gloriously theatrical panache while occasionally throwing a T-shirt into a Louis Vuitton Weekender.
‘Don’t be a drama queen, William,’ Graydon drawled in his famously deep, gravelly, smoker’s voice. ‘You know I value your talent.’
‘Yeah, right,’ the young man grumbled. ‘All eight inches of it.’
‘Don’t sell yourself short.’ Graydon grinned. ‘Closer to ten, I’d say. When you make an effort.’
‘Piss off,’ the boy hissed.
He’s even more magnificent