When Phinn had gone back to work and, unable to lie, told her boss that her mare had been ill, she had been told in return that they were experiencing a business downturn and were looking to make redundancies. Was it likely, should her horse again be ill, that she would again take time off?
Again she had not been able to lie. ‘I’ll go and clear my desk,’ she’d offered.
‘You don’t have to go straight way,’ her employer had told her kindly. ‘Let’s say in a month’s time.’
Because she’d known she would need the money, Phinn had not argued. But she never did work that full month. Because a couple of weeks later her world had fallen apart when her father, haring around the fields, showing a couple of his pals what a reconstructed quad bike could do, had upended it, gone over and under it—and come off worst.
He had died before Phinn could get to the hospital. Her mother had come to her straight away, and it had been Hester who, practical to the last, had made all the arrangements.
Devastated, having to look after Ruby had been the only thing that kept Phinn on anything resembling an even keel. And Ruby, as if she understood, would gently nuzzle into her neck and cuddle up close.
Her father had been popular but, when the day of his funeral had arrived, Phinn had never known he had so many friends. Or relatives, either. Aunts and uncles she had heard of but had seen only on the rarest of occasions had come to pay their respects. Even her cousin Leanne, a Hawkins several times removed, had arrived with her parents.
Leanne was tall, dark, pretty—and with eyes that seemed to instantly put a price on everything. But since the family antiques had been sold one by one after Hester had left, there had been very little at Honeysuckle Farm that was worth the ink on a price ticket. Thereafter Leanne had behaved as decorously as her parents would wish.
That was she’d behaved very nicely until—to his credit—Ashley Allardyce had come to the funeral to pay his respects too. Phinn had not been feeling too friendly to him, but because she did not wish to mar the solemnity of the occasion with any undignified outburst—and in any case it was not him but his elder brother Ty who was the villain who went around instigating notices to quit—she’d greeted Ashley calmly, and politely thanked him for coming.
Leanne, noticing the expensive cut of the clothes the tall, fair-haired man was wearing, had immediately been attracted.
‘Who’s he?’ she’d asked, sidling up when Ashley Allardyce had gone over to have a word with Nesta and Noel Jarvis, the tenants of Yew Tree Farm.
‘Ashley Allardyce,’ Phinn had answered, and, as she’d suspected, it had not ended there.
‘He lives around here?’
‘At Broadlands Hall.’
‘That massive house in acres of grounds we passed on the way here?’
The next thing Phinn knew was that Leanne, on her behalf, had invited Ash Allardyce back to the farmhouse for refreshments.
Any notion Phinn might have had that he would refuse the invitation had disappeared when she’d seen the look on his face. He was clearly captivated by her cousin!
The days that had followed had gone by in a numbed kind of shock for Phinn as she’d tried to come to terms with her father’s death. Her mother had wanted her to go back to Gloucester and live with her and Clive. Phinn had found the idea unthinkable. Besides, there was Ruby.
Phinn had been glad to have Ruby to care for. Glad too that her cousin Leanne frequently drove the forty or so miles from her own home to see her.
In fact, by the time Christmas had come, Phinn had seen more of her cousin than she had during the whole of her life. Leanne had come, she would say, to spend time with her, so she would not be too lonely. But most of Leanne’s time, from what Phinn had seen, was being spent with Ash Allardyce.
He had driven Leanne back to the farmhouse several times, and it had been as clear as day to Phinn that he was totally besotted with her cousin. Phinn, aware, if village talk were true, of his recent recovery from a breakdown, had only hoped that, vulnerable as he might still be, he would not end up getting hurt.
Because of a prior arrangement Leanne had spent Christmas skiing in Switzerland. Ash had gone too. For all Phinn knew his notice-to-quit-ordering brother might have made one of his rare visits to Broadlands and spent his Christmas there, but she hadn’t seen him, and she’d been glad about that. The notice to quit had never been executed. It had not needed to be.
Since Phinn had no longer had a job, she’d no longer needed a car. Pride as much as anything had said she had to clear the rent arrears. She had formed a good opinion of Ash Allardyce, and did not think he would discuss their business with Leanne, but with him becoming closer and closer to her cousin, she had not wanted to risk it. She did not want any one member of her family to know that her father had died owing money. She’d sold her car and sent a cheque off to the lawyers.
Though by the time all accounts had been settled—and that included the vet’s last bill—there had been little money remaining, and Phinn had known that she needed to get a job. A job that paid well. Yet Ruby had not been well enough to be left alone all day while she went off to work.
Then Leanne, on another visit, having voiced her opinion that Ash was close to ‘popping the question’ marriage-wise, had telephoned from Broadlands Hall to tell her not to wait up for her, that she was spending the night there.
It had been the middle of the following morning when Leanne, driving fast and furiously, had screeched to a halt in the middle of the farmyard. Phinn, leaving Ruby to go and find out what the rush was about, had been confronted by a furious Leanne, who’d demanded to know why she had not told her that Broadlands Hall did not belong to Ash Allardyce.
‘I—didn’t think about it,’ Phinn had answered defensively. Coming to terms with her beloved father’s death and settling his affairs had taken precedence. Who owned Broadlands Hall had not figured very much, if at all, in her thinking at that particular time. ‘I told you Ash had a brother. I’m sure I did.’
‘Yes, you did!’ Leanne snapped. ‘And so did Ash. But neither of you told me that Ash was the younger brother—and that he doesn’t own a thing!’
‘Ah, you’ve met Ty Allardyce,’ Phinn realised. And discovered she was in the wrong about that too.
‘No—more’s the pity! He’s always away somewhere—away abroad somewhere, and likely to be away some time!’ Leanne spat. ‘It took that po-faced housekeeper to delight in telling me that Ash was merely the estate manager! Can you imagine it? There was I, happily believing that any time soon I was going to be mistress of Broadlands Hall, only to be informed by some jumped-up housekeeper that some poky farm cottage was more likely to be the place for me. I don’t think so!’
Phinn doubted that Mrs Starkey would have said anything of the sort, but as Leanne raged on she knew that once her cousin had realised that Ash was not the owner of Broadlands, it wouldn’t have taken her very long to realise the ins and outs of it all.
‘Come in and I’ll make some coffee,’ Phinn offered, aware that her cousin had suffered something of a shock.
‘I’ll come in. But only to collect what belongings of mine I’ve left here.’
‘You—er—that sounds a bit—final?’ Phinn suggested at last.
‘You bet it is. Ten minutes and the village of Bishop Thornby has seen the last of me.’
‘What about Ash?’
‘What about him?’ Leanne was already on her way into the house. ‘I’ve told him—nicely—that I’m not cut out for country life. But if that hasn’t given him something of a clue—tell him I said goodbye.’
Ash