‘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 did not come looking for her cousin, and Honeysuckle Farm had settled into an unwanted quietness. With the exception of her mother, who frequently rang to check that she was all right, Phinn spoke with no one other than Ruby. Gradually Phinn came to see that she could do nothing about Leanne having dropped Ash like a hot brick once she had known that he was not the one with the money. Phinn knew that she could not stay on at the farm for very much longer. She had no interest in trying to make the farm a paying concern. If her father had not been able to do it with all his expertise, she did not see how she could. And, while she had grown to quite like the man whom Leanne had so unceremoniously dumped, the twenty-nine-year-old male might well be glad to see the back of anyone who bore the Hawkins name.
She had no idea if she was entitled to claim the tenancy, but if not, Ash would be quite within his rights to instigate having her thrown out.
Not wanting the indignity of that, Phinn wondered where on earth she could go. For herself she did not care very much where she went, but it was Ruby she had to think about.
To that end, Phinn took a walk down to the local riding school, run by Peggy Edmonds. And it turned out that going to see Peggy was the best thing she could have done. Because not only was Peggy able to house Ruby, she was even—unbelievably—able to offer Phinn a job. True, it wasn’t much of a job, but with a place for Ruby assured, Phinn would have accepted anything.
Apparently Peggy was having a hard time battling with arthritis, and for over a year had been trying to find a buyer for what was now more of a stables than a riding school. But it seemed no one was remotely interested in making her an offer. With her arthritis so bad some days that it was all she could do to get out of bed, if Phinn would like to work as a stable hand, although Peggy could not pay very much, there was a small stall Ruby could have, and she could spend her days in the field with the other horses. As a bonus, there was a tiny flat above one of the stables doing nothing.
It was a furnished flat, with no room for farmhouse furniture, and having been advised by the house clearers that she would have to pay them to empty the farmhouse, Phinn got her father’s old friend Mickie Yates—an educated, eccentric but loveable jack-of-all-trades—to take everything away for her. It grieved her to see her father’s piano go, but there was no space in the tiny flat for it.
So it was as January drew to a close that Phinn walked Ruby down to her new home and then, cutting through the spinney on Broadlands that she knew so well, Phinn took the key to the farmhouse up to the Hall.
Ash Allardyce was not in. Phinn was quite glad about that. After the way her cousin had treated him, dropping him cold like that, it might have been a touch embarrassing.
‘I was very sorry to hear about your father, Phinn,’ Mrs Starkey said, taking the keys from her.
‘Thank you, Mrs Starkey,’ Phinn replied quietly, and returned to the stables.
But almost immediately, barely having congratulated herself on how well everything was turning out—she had a job and Ruby was housed and fed—the sky started to fall in.
By late March it crash-landed.
Ruby—probably because of her previous ill-treatment—had always been timid, and needed peace and quiet, but was being bullied by the other much younger horses. Phinn took her on walks away from them as often as she could, but with her own work to do that was not as often as she would have liked.
Then, against all odds, Peggy found a buyer. A buyer who wanted to take possession as soon as it could possibly be achieved.
‘I’ll talk to her and see if there’s any chance of her keeping you on,’ Peggy said quickly, on seeing the look of concern on Phinn’s face.
Phinn had met Geraldine Walton, a dark-haired woman of around thirty, who was not dissimilar to her cousin in appearance. She had met her on one of Geraldine’s ‘look around’ visits, and had thought she seemed to have a bit of a hard edge to her—which made Phinn not too hopeful.
She was right not to be too hopeful, she soon discovered, for not only was there no job for her, neither was there a place for Ruby. And, not only that, Geraldine Walton was bringing her own staff and requested that Phinn kindly vacate the flat over the stable. As quickly as possible, please.
Now, Phinn, with the late-April sun streaming through the window, looked round the stable flat and knew she had better think about packing up her belongings. Not that she had so very much to pack, but…Her eyes came to rest on the camera her mother, who had visited her last Sunday, had given her to return to Ash on Leanne’s behalf.
Feeling a touch guilty that her mother’s visit had been a couple of days ago now and she had done nothing about it, Phinn went and picked up the piece of photographic equipment. No time like the present—and she could get Ruby away from the other horses for a short while.
Collecting Ruby, Phinn walked her across the road and took the shortcut through the spinney. In no time she was approaching the impressive building that was Broadlands Hall.
Leanne Hawkins was not her favourite cousin just then. She had been unkind to Ash Allardyce, and, while Phinn considered that had little to do with her, she would much prefer that her cousin did her own dirty work. It seemed that her mother, who had no illusions about Leanne, had doubted that Ash would have got his expensive camera back at all were it not for the fact that he, still very much smitten, used it as an excuse to constantly telephone Leanne. Apparently Leanne could not be bothered to talk to him, and had asked Phinn to make sure he had his rotten camera back.
Phinn neared the Hall, hoping that it would again be Mrs Starkey who answered her ring at the door. Cowardly it might be, but she had no idea what she could say to Ash Allardyce. While she might be annoyed with Leanne, Leanne was still family, and family loyalty said that she could not say how shabbily she personally felt Leanne had treated him.
Phinn pulled the bell-tug, half realising that ifAsh was still as smitten with Leanne as he had been, he was unlikely to say anything against her cousin that might provoke her having to stand up for her. She…
Phinn’s thoughts evaporated as she heard the sound of someone approaching the stout oak door from within. Camera in one hand, Ruby’s rein in the other, Phinn prepared to smile.
Then the front door opened and was pulled back—and her smile never made it. For it was not Mrs Starkey who stood there, and neither was it Ash Allardyce. Ash was fair-haired, but this man had ink-black hair—and an expression that was far from welcoming! He was tall, somewhere in his mid-thirties—and clearly not pleased to see her. She knew very well who he was—strangely, she had never forgotten his face. His good-looking face.
But his grim expression didn’t let up when in one dark glance he took in the slender, delphinium-blue-eyed woman with a thick strawberry-blonde plait hanging over one shoulder, a camera in one hand and a rein in the other.
All too obviously he had recognised the camera, because his grim expression became grimmer if anything.
‘And you are?’ he demanded without preamble.
Yes, she, although having never been introduced to him, knew very well this was the man who was ultimately responsible for her father receiving that notice to quit. To quit the land that his family had farmed for generations. It passed