The sound of clinking glasses, tunes from the classic musicals, really bad singing and lively chatter floated out into the summer evening through the open patio doors from the drawing room. Helen’s party was in full swing but they had escaped and enjoyed their dinner in luxurious calm—and without the hindrance of evening gloves.
‘How on earth did you know about that secret staircase leading down from the hall to the back door?’
Sara looked up at him and her lips curled into a smirk before she replied, ‘Oh, I know every hidden passage and room and secret stair in that hotel. But of course you wouldn’t know … I’m a local girl. In fact—’ and at this she paused ‘—you might say I am very local.’
Then she took pity on his confusion, smiled and leant forward before adding, as casually as she could, ‘I grew up in that house. Kingsmede Manor used to be my home.’
She stopped suddenly, dropped her shoulders back and pointed towards the upper floor of the building. ‘Do you see the arched window with the stained glass? The room just at the corner on the left-hand side with the tiny balcony? That was my bedroom. I could lie in bed at night and watch the stars and the trees through the big picture window. It was magical!’
‘Now I’m really confused,’ he replied. ‘Are you telling me that your family used to own this house?’
‘That’s right,’ she answered with a shrug. ‘I am officially the last in the line of a family of Victorian eccentrics who built this house many generations ago. My grandmother passed away three years ago and left the whole place to my mother.’
Sara tilted her head and was grateful for the darkness in their corner of the garden so that he could not see the glint in her eyes. Talking about those sad times still hurt. ‘Mum didn’t want to live here—there were huge debts to clear and I’m sure you can imagine how expensive this house would be to run as a holiday home.’ Sara waved one hand, then let it fall as she turned back to face him. ‘And now it is this lovely hotel.’
‘Wow,’ he replied, with a look of something close to awe in his face. ‘Are you serious? Did you really grow up in this amazing place?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she answered with a tiny shrug. ‘I was sent to boarding school at the age of eight but this was the place I came back to every school holiday. We didn’t have much money to spend on luxuries but it was paradise for a child.’
She stopped talking and stood still for a moment, her eyes scanning the whole front of the building. ‘I have wonderful memories of my life here.’ She turned back to him with a smile and raised her eyebrows to ask with a lift in her voice, ‘How about you? What is your old castle like back in Transylvania?’
‘Oh, the usual problems of living in a dungeon,’ he replied with a sniff. ‘You just cannot get the staff these days. Draughty. Cold. There is a lot to be said for central heating.’
‘Oh, I so agree,’ Sara said with a nod. ‘The modern vampire needs his central heating.’
‘Even so,’ Dracula said, leaning against a wrought-iron balustrade at the edge of the terrace and peering out across the grounds in front of the house, ‘I envy you growing up here.’
Sara moved closer so that she could stand next to him with her arms stretched out on the metal railing. The cherry trees in front of the house had been strung with white party lights so the front entrance looked like a picture from a children’s fairy tale. A pergola filled with climbing white roses and multicoloured clematis in pinks and purples had been built on the western side of the house to capture the last rays of the setting sun and as Sara and the vampire looked out onto the lawns a light breeze lifted the perfume and surrounded them with warmth and fragrance.
It was a magical evening and Sara felt her shoulders relax for the first time in many days. A new moon appeared in the night sky, which was clear and already twinkling with the first stars.
She was suddenly very glad that she had accepted Helen’s invitation to the party.
This was why she’d never found peace when she’d lived in London. It had never come close to this special place in her life.
She leant in contented silence and grasped the balustrade with both hands and inhaled the warm air and the warm atmosphere drifting out from the party, which was going on quite well without them. She was also aware of how very close she was standing next to this man she had only just met. Close enough that she could hear his breathing and the way his cloak rustled in the slight breeze, silk on silk.
This was new! It had been a long time since she had spent the evening alone with a handsome man. Especially one content to enjoy the view in silence. He seemed happy to allow her to do all the talking but she was relaxed enough in his presence to chatter on about nothing in particular.
Of course he knew very little about her and they could enjoy the type of conversation that could only happen between strangers, unfettered by past history.
Perhaps she should start talking about orchids and fertiliser and the poor man would run away for help? As it was, she knew Helen would soon send out a search party to track her down so that she could be introduced to her blind date whether she liked it or not.
A twinge of guilt made Sara wince. Caspar’s friend was probably inside, feeling most neglected and rejected. She should go in and face the music in more ways than one.
Soon.
She would go in soon.
She could stand here for another few minutes and enjoy herself before going back to the party and throwing herself into Helen’s celebrations. She was not going to spend her best friend’s party hiding in the garden feeling sorry for herself or mourning the life she had once known. Especially when she had such a good listener as a companion.
‘I don’t come here very often,’ she whispered, even though there was only the two of them on the terrace. ‘My cottage is just across the lane so I can see the house every day if I want. But this garden is for hotel guests now, not previous residents. This is a rare treat.’
‘That’s because you love this place so much and you miss it,’ he replied in a gentle voice and chuckled at her gasp of surprise. ‘Yes. It is fairly obvious. Especially …’
‘Especially?’ Sara asked in a shaky breath. She was not used to opening up to a complete stranger in this way and it startled her, and yet was strangely reassuring. Weird.
‘I was going to say, especially considering that your family sent you away to boarding school when you were only eight years old.’ He blew out hard and blinked. ‘Eight! That’s hard for me to get my head around. You must have been so miserable.’
Miserable? How did she even begin to explain to a stranger the misery of leaving her home in the middle of the most traumatic time of her life? Abandoned by her mother, who didn’t know what to do with her. Worse, by the father she adored, who thought he was doing the right thing by leaving them to start a new life in South America when the life of luxury he’d thought he had married into when he’d chosen a girl with an aristocratic title and a country estate had completely failed to materialise.
Her whole world had shifted under her feet and was still shifting now. Even after three years of living in her tiny cottage, there were some days when she had to remind herself that she had a home that no one could take away from her. She might be unloved but she would never again be homeless and rootless. She had sold everything she had and burnt her bridges to make the orchid nursery a reality—but it was hers.
Sara blinked hard. The blur of constant activity which she used to fill each day created a very effective distraction, but even talking about those sad times brought memories percolating up into her consciousness. Memories she had to put back in their place where they belonged.
Selling the house and most of the contents had been the price her mother had