The Bachelor: Racy, pacy and very funny!

You’re not at Sherwood now, Flora reminded herself, taking a sip of the ice-cold Chablis that had arrived with her meal. Georgie and her gang of bullies can’t touch you now. None of them can.

She’d seen all the films on offer and wasn’t in the mood for TV, so after dinner she wandered down to the Upper Class bar and picked up a couple of magazines. Flipping through Tatler a few minutes later, she was amused to find a profile of her client, Henry Saxton Brae, in the ‘Ten Hottest Aristos’ feature. It seemed to Flora that the bar was embarrassingly low in this particular category, with most of the men on offer looking distinctly chinless, weedy and unappealing. Henry, however, was undoubtedly a looker, with dark hair and perfect features, slightly hooded eyes that gave him a predatory look, and a curl to his upper lip that was at once disdainful and sexy. He had a good figure too, tall and lean, no doubt a testament to his days as a teenage tennis star. His girlfriend, the model Eva Gunnarson, pictured with him at the end of the piece, was even more wildly beautiful, all flowing limbs and hair, like some exotic, land-bound mermaid.

But it wasn’t Eva, or Henry, that had Flora reading the piece over and over, poring lovingly over each page. It was the pictures of Hanborough in the background, with its moat and turrets, its crumbling keep and chapel tumbling against the grand Georgian style of the West Wing, more country house than castle on this one side. There was something charmingly higgledy-piggledy about the place, despite its indisputable grandeur. Flora loved the way that different generations had simply added their own touches, building on and over and around the original structure, which had clearly been intended as a fortress. Part palace, part battlement, part idyllic family home, Hanborough Castle was truly iconic, as English as toast and Marmite in some ways, and yet almost French or Italian in terms of its many romantic flourishes.

Flora felt adrenaline flood her veins at the thought of stepping inside. This time tomorrow she would literally be crossing that drawbridge and stepping into history. She, Flora Fitzwilliam, would add her vision to Hanborough, tying together all its different strands and styles, its quirks and its beauty and its majesty, evolved over a thousand years to meet here, now, in this moment.

She felt like a princess in a fairy tale. But it wasn’t a prince who had swept her off her feet, or made her dreams come true.

This is my moment. My chance. The pinnacle of my life as an artist.

The last chapter of Flora’s life in England had ended in misery and shame. It was time to write the next one. Time to create her own happy ending.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The moment Flora stepped off the plane it started to rain. Lightly at first, just a few small drops dancing off the tarmac. But by the time she’d been through Customs and made it out to the Hertz car rental, sheets of water were bucketing down from menacing, charcoal-grey sky.

Tired, and unused to driving on the left-hand side of the road, never mind with her windscreen wipers going full pelt, Flora managed to take two wrong turns getting out of Heathrow and ended up going the wrong way around the M25. By the time she got back on track heading towards the Swell Valley, she was stressed, frustrated, and more than forty minutes late for her first site meeting with Graydon and the client.

‘Where are you?’ Graydon’s voice, low and gravelly and demanding, echoed around Flora’s car like a bear growling in its cave.

‘I’m on my way,’ she said. ‘The traffic’s terrible.’

‘I didn’t ask for a fucking traffic report,’ Graydon barked at her. Someone had woken up on the wrong side of bed this morning. ‘Just make sure you get there on time. Something came up in London so you’re going to have to meet Henry solo.’

Flora fought back the urge to scream. Or to ask Graydon whether what ‘came up’ was in fact some tart of a male stripper’s ten-inch hard-on, while she’d just flown halfway across the world to try to salvage the most prestigious job GJD had ever had, after Graydon’s last lover had just screwed it up royally.

‘Is there really no way you can be there?’ she asked, more in despair than expectation. ‘If the client’s expecting both of us—’

‘The client’s just secured my services for a pittance,’ Graydon snapped.

You mean my services, thought Flora, although she was wise enough not to say so.

‘He’ll get what he’s given.’

‘All right, but can you at least talk me through the … key points?’ asked Flora, grinding the car’s gears noisily into fifth. She hadn’t driven a stick since college and could barely see three feet in front of her in this rain. ‘What are his main … concerns?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual,’ Graydon said airily. ‘He wants the place to look magnificent, without compromising the history. And he wants it done yesterday. He’s open to suggestion, creatively.’

‘Really?’ Flora perked up. Henry Saxton Brae had a reputation for arrogance, as well as for being controlling. She’d assumed he’d be one of those young clients who think they’re really an architect and who weighed down projects with their endless impractical demands. ‘He doesn’t have a wish list?’

‘Oh, well, you know, somewhat,’ muttered Graydon. Flora could hear muffled voices in the background on his end of the line. And laughter. ‘You’ll be fine. Just don’t be late. And don’t nick anything.’

He hung up.

Clearly Graydon’s panic over holding on to the Hanborough job had subsided since yesterday. Was it really only yesterday when he’d called her? Picturing herself in Lisa Kent’s Siasconset garden, Flora felt as if it were a week ago at least.

The clock on her dashboard said 11 a.m.

She would be late. That much was a fact.

The only question was by how much.

Oh well. It couldn’t be helped. Hopefully Henry Saxton Brae would understand.

Flora finally arrived at Hanborough at half past one, a full hour late for the meeting. As luck would have it, she wasn’t the only one.

‘Mr Saxton Brae’s been held up at a meeting, I’m afraid,’ a smiling, slightly plump, middle-aged secretary informed her, scurrying out to the car as soon as Flora pulled up. ‘He shouldn’t be long now. Can I offer you a cup of tea while you wait?’

‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

The rain had finally stopped, and it seemed to Flora as if the clouds had parted just for her as she followed the secretary across the drawbridge and walked through the ancient portcullis into the castle proper. Outside, sunlight fell in thick, bright shafts onto the honey-coloured stone, and bounced back off the swollen waters of the moat. Inside, however, all was dark and cold and damp. Magnificent, in its own way, with its high ceilings and winding stairwells and tapestry-hung walls. But distinctly lacking in light.

We’ll have to do something about that, thought Flora, although for the moment she wasn’t sure what. A mug of tea arrived, along with a Hobnob biscuit. Not until that moment had Flora realized how hungry she was. Wolfing down the biscuit, she distracted herself from her rumbling stomach by wandering down the halls, mug in hand, trying to get her bearings while simultaneously taking a mental photograph of her first impressions of each room and feature.

First impressions were vital, in Flora’s opinion. It was so easy to lose sight of the essence of a house, or any building for that matter, once it became too familiar. Part of the designer’s job was to keep hold of that freshness, those first ideas and thoughts and emotions that assailed you when you walked through the door. Because that was what future generations would see, long after she and Graydon and Henry Saxton Brae were gone.

‘What the hell are you doing in here?’

Flora jumped and spun around, promptly spilling half a mug of tea all over a priceless Persian rug.

‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry!’

She was standing in the drawing room, examining a rather wonderful antique harpsichord that had been inexplicably shoved into a corner, when Henry Saxton Brae surprised her. In a dark suit and blue shirt open at the neck, but with an Hermès silk tie dangling from his long fingers, he’d obviously just come from a business meeting. Flora’s first impressions of Henry were that he was incredibly handsome – far better looking than he was in the pictures – and incredibly angry.

He was also incredibly rude.

‘Where the fuck is Graydon?’

‘He got held up. In London. I’m Flora Fitzwilliam.’ Flora put down the mug and offered Henry her hand. ‘I just flew in from New York. I’ll be overseeing the project at Hanborough and I’m incredibly excited to—’

‘No.’ Ignoring Flora’s proffered hand, Henry looked her up and down, like a horse he’d been considering buying but now found wanting. ‘I don’t want you. You can go.’ And with that he turned around almost casually and left the room.

It took Flora a moment to recover. But only a moment.

Running out into the hallway, she called after Henry’s retreating back. ‘Excuse me.’ When Henry didn’t answer she raised her voice. ‘Hey!’

Henry turned around, still scowling.

‘If you have a problem working with me, the least you can do is have the courtesy to tell me what it is,’ Flora said defiantly.

Henry took a step towards her. He was still giving her the ‘appraising a racehorse’ look, although this time it was marginally less dismissive.

‘You’re too young,’ he said bluntly.

‘I’m twenty-six.’ Flora drew herself up to her full five foot two. This seemed to amuse Henry, if the small smile playing around the corners of his lips was anything to go by.

‘Exactly. I told Graydon I needed somebody experienced.’

‘I am experienced,’ Flora said firmly. ‘I’m also the best designer at GJD. By miles,’ she added, jutting her chin out defiantly.

Henry’s smile grew. ‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Flora. Her dream job was slipping through her fingers. This was no time to play the shrinking violet. ‘If you’d read my references—’

‘I don’t have time to read references,’ said Henry.

He was in a bad mood because George had just lost them an important deal, the match he’d been hoping to watch at Queen’s this morning had been rained off, and to top it all off that infernally arrogant queen Graydon James had sent his minion to a site meeting without him, blowing Henry off for some spurious ‘emergency’ up in town. The truth was that Henry had already decided to nix Graydon’s girl just to teach the arrogant sod a lesson before he’d even laid eyes on Flora. Then he’d walked in, seen how young she was, and felt even more justified about pulling the trigger.

But now he was having second thoughts. He liked the girl’s confidence. And Graydon had said she was the best of the best. From the beginning the great designer had always talked Guillermo down, emphasizing that he’d be overseeing everything at Hanborough personally. But he’d described Flora as ‘Phenomenal. A unique talent.’ And when Henry asked if she was as good as he was, Graydon had replied, ‘She’s the best I’ve ever seen.’ Henry got the sense that he meant it, and that compliments probably didn’t come easily for an ego like Graydon James’s.

‘What’s your name again?’ Henry asked Flora. The smile had disappeared and the look of disdain was back.

‘Flora.’

He looked at his watch. ‘All right, Flora. I’ll walk you around the castle, but I don’t have long. You’ve got thirty minutes to impress me.’

Arrogant dick! thought Flora. You’d need a lot more than thirty minutes to impress me, asshole. But she reminded herself that she was here for Hanborough, not its spoiled prick of an owner.

‘And a few ground rules,’ Henry went on. ‘If you get the job, you’ll be working for me, not with me. This isn’t a fucking commune.’

With a heroic effort, Flora managed to keep her face neutral.

‘And I don’t want you living on site. Under any circumstances. Not after what happened last time.’

This was too much. Flora flushed scarlet.

‘If you’re suggesting I’m a thief, Mr Saxton Brae, then I’m sorry but I’m afraid I have no further interest in this position.’

‘Of course I’m not suggesting that,’ said Henry. He’d noticed she was shaking. He’d obviously hit a nerve, although he wasn’t sure why, exactly. ‘I simply meant that Eva and I value our privacy.’

‘As do I,’ Flora said crisply. ‘That won’t be a problem.’

Flora’s father had been a thief. Well, a fraudster. But it amounted to the same thing. She’d spent most of her teenage years suffering for his crimes; tainted, distrusted, guilty by association. She would never let that happen again. Certainly not because of a low-life, pilfering scumbag like Guillermo. Nor would she condescend to be judged by the likes of a snob like Henry Saxton Brae.

‘Good,’ Henry said briskly, regaining control of the conversation. ‘We’re on the same page, then. Follow me, please. And if you could try not to ruin any more of my rugs …’

The next three days were a complete whirlwind, so much so that Flora completely forgot to call Mason.

‘You’re still alive, then?’ he quipped, when she finally answered his call on Wednesday morning. Flora was standing in her ‘new’ home, actually a fifteenth-century cottage in the tiny hamlet of Lower Hanborough, surrounded by a sea of John Lewis boxes. ‘I was starting to worry your plane had gone down in the Bermuda triangle or something.’

‘Sorry. I should have called,’ said Flora, distractedly trying to unpack a desperately needed coffee machine from its Fort Knox-like packaging. ‘I can’t tell you how insane things have been since I got here.’

She briefly filled Mason in on Henry Saxton Brae’s arrogance and rudeness, Graydon’s disappearing act, and the whirlwind of winning the job, meeting contractors, finding and moving in to Peony Cottage and trying to come up with an initial design plan, all within the space of thirty-six hours.

‘He sounds like a total douche,’ said Mason, after Flora told him about Henry’s ‘you work for me, not with me’ line.

‘He is, unfortunately,’ Flora agreed. ‘But you know what they say. Every douche has a silver lining. In this case it’s Hanborough. I mean the castle is just … beyond. And the valley and the village and this cottage … Oh my God, Mason, you would die if you saw it. It’s like a little doll’s house with all these beams you have to duck under and creaky stairs with original boards and a cute little garden that looks as if it was planted by Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. You would love it.’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’ Mason laughed. ‘I’d spend the whole time whacking my head on the ceiling and pining for ESPN. But I can hear how much you love it. I’m happy for you, Flora.’

He means it, thought Flora. She could hear the smile in his voice, along with the lapping Caribbean waves in the background. He’s so kind and understanding. I really am the luckiest girl on earth.

‘Have you thought any more about what we talked about?’ asked Mason.

‘What’s that?’

‘Moving the wedding forward?’

‘Oh!’ Flora put down the half-opened coffee machine and frowned. ‘Well, yes. Sort of. I mean, I’d like to. But it’s just, you know, logistics. I’m here. You’re there. Christmas is really soon.’

‘We’ll get a wedding planner. They can do logistics. You just show up and marry me.’

Flora laughed. ‘I’m not sure it’s quite that simple, honey.’ She looked up at the kitchen clock, a heavy, turn-of-the-century wooden affair with a loud, ominous tick you could never quite turn into background noise. ‘Shit! I’m really sorry, Mason, but I have to go. I’ve got a meeting up at the castle in, like, ten minutes.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Mason, sounding distracted himself all of a sudden. Was that a woman’s voice Flora could hear in the background? ‘I have to go too. Henrietta’s organized a boat trip.’

‘That’s nice of her,’ said Flora through gritted teeth. Maybe she could fall overboard?

‘I know, isn’t it? We’re all headed to some private island for lunch. It should be great. I’ll call when I’m back in New York, OK, honey? Don’t work too hard.’

‘I won’t,’ said Flora. But Mason had already hung up.

She’d left Peony Cottage in a fluster, feeling anxious and not a little depressed about the thought of Henrietta Bitch Branston whisking her fiancé off to some fancy island for a romantic picnic. But as soon as Flora crested the hill at the top of Hanborough’s long, tree-lined drive, her worries floated away like seeds on the wind.

It was as if the castle exerted some strange kind of magic over her; some heady, hypnotic pull. Perhaps the Normans had known something Flora didn’t when they positioned it here? She wasn’t a big believer in mysticism, energy lines and feng shui and all that nonsense. But there was no question that simply being at Hanborough promoted a deep sense of wellbeing. It made Flora feel calm and content, the architectural equivalent of smoking a really mellow joint.

Or perhaps, more prosaically, she felt relaxed because it was a glorious June day, Henry was away until tomorrow morning, and he’d taken his secretary, the sweet Mrs French, with him. That meant Flora could have her meetings in peace – two contractors were preparing their bids this morning. After that, Flora was free to roam the castle and grounds alone, letting her creativity flow. The prospect made her feel excited, like a teenager on her first, unchaperoned date.

The contractor meetings were mercifully brief. The first guy, a leering middle-aged wide boy named Brian Hunter, was a definite no. Having first asked Flora to ‘fetch her boss’, he then expressed frank amazement that Flora was in charge, and proceeded to patronize her for the next twenty minutes, taking only short breaks from comments like, ‘You leave that to me, love. I’m the expert’ or, ‘With respect, darling, you’re not an architect, are you?’ to drool at Flora’s tits. (It was warm today, and Flora had made the mistake of wearing a lowish-cut army-green tank top and Bermuda shorts. On another woman these would have looked unremarkable, but on Flora’s pneumatically pint-sized figure, they were more temptation than Brian Hunter could bear.)

The second man, Tony Graham, was better. Older and a bit of a stickler for detail (with his monotone, accountant’s voice, it was fair to say Tony wasn’t going to bowl anybody over with his charisma), he was also professional and thorough. Equally importantly, he was prepared to follow directions. A lot of contractors thought they knew better than the architects or designers, but Graham seemed content to stick to the spec. Flora liked him.

Even so, she was thrilled when Tony’s van finally pulled out of the drive and she was alone at last. With a sketchpad and pencil in hand, she wandered inside, deciding to start at the top, in the old servants’ quarters, and work her way down.

Two hours later, with a fat wodge of notes and sketches under her arm (there was so much potential here, beyond what was in the original architect’s plans), she’d made it as far as the master bedroom suite above the old chapel.

There were plenty of larger, grander rooms in the castle. Clearly Henry and Eva had chosen this one for its romantic feel rather than its square footage. The medieval arched windows, complete with mullioned panes, made you feel like Rapunzel when you looked out of them, and the leaning floor and uneven, original wood-panelled walls imbued the space with a real sense of history. An antique Elizabethan four-poster bed completed the look, although glancing at it Flora felt sure it would work far better turned ninety degrees, to give its occupants a view across Hanborough’s parkland. Or was it too low for that?

Slipping off her espadrilles, Flora lay back on the bed, twisting her head to the right and craning her neck to see if one could, in fact, look out whilst lying down.

‘Oh my God. Oh my God! Who are you?’

Flora sat up to find a blonde Amazon standing in the bedroom doorway. She had an embroidered overnight bag in one hand and a small Chanel purse in the other. Even in no make-up and wearing a tatty pair of boyfriend jeans and a white T-shirt, she was instantly recognizable as Henry Saxton Brae’s supermodel girlfriend, Eva Gunnarson.

‘I’m Flora.’ Flora blushed, hopping back down off the bed and feeling like a dwarf next to Eva. ‘I’m the new designer. You must be Eva.’

Eva glared at her. ‘What were you doing in our bed?’

‘Oh. That.’ Flora blushed as it suddenly dawned on her how it must have looked. ‘I was measuring. I was, er … trying to see the view.’

‘Henry!’ Eva pushed past her, storming first into the master bathroom, then into the dressing room. ‘Henry! Come out, you coward!’

Flora watched mortified as this beautiful girl opened wardrobes and slammed them shut again, tears streaming down her face. Finally she dropped to her knees and actually looked under the bed, before turning furiously back to Flora.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s not here.’ Flora looked at her pityingly.

‘Don’t lie to me!’ Eva screamed. ‘Just how stupid do you think I am?’

Then suddenly, and without warning, she burst into explosive tears.

‘Oh gosh. Oh, no, please don’t. This is my fault. I didn’t know you were coming back today.’

‘Evidently!’

‘No! No, no, no. Look, Henry really isn’t here. He’s at a meeting. In Birmingham. Mrs French has gone with him.’

Eva looked confused. ‘Mary? How do you know Mary?’

‘She let me in, when I arrived last weekend,’ said Flora. ‘She gave me a cup of tea and I spilled it on your rug. Look, I really am the designer. And I really was measuring your bed height. For the view. There’s nothing … Henry and I … I mean I would never … I’m engaged!’ she finished desperately, waving Mason’s stunning ring in Eva’s general direction.

Eva looked from Flora’s ring to her face and back again. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands.

‘Oh God. I’m sorry. Of course you are. I’m turning into one of those women.’

‘What women?’ asked Flora.

‘Pathetic, jealous, paranoid women. Women who don’t trust their own partner.’ She looked up at Flora miserably. ‘You must think I’m such a fool.’

‘Not at all,’ said Flora truthfully. ‘It’s my fault entirely. I can only imagine what I’d do if I came back to my apartment and found a strange chick in my fiancé’s bed.’

Eva giggled. It all seemed rather ridiculous suddenly.

‘Flora, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Eva.’ They shook hands. ‘Let’s never tell Henry about this.’

‘Never!’

Flora smiled broadly. She had a funny feeling that she and Eva were going to become friends. She just wondered how someone so vulnerable and nice had ever made it to the top in the cut-throat world of modelling? Or why she would choose to throw herself away on a smug, arrogant jerk like Henry Saxton Brae.

‘We’re having a dinner party next Saturday night,’ Eva announced suddenly. ‘Just a few local friends, nothing fancy. You must come.’

‘Oh no. I mean, thank you. But I wouldn’t want to intrude,’ Flora said, remembering Henry’s graceless comment about he and Eva ‘valuing their privacy’ and Hanborough not being a commune. Clearly he wasn’t the sort of man who considered his interior designer to be a social equal. ‘Besides, I have a ton of work to do. I’m still playing catch-up on the project. You have an incredible home, and I want to do it justice.’

‘And I’m sure you will,’ Eva said kindly. ‘But you have to eat. We’ll expect you next Saturday. Eight o’clock.’

‘I still don’t understand why you had to invite her,’ Henry grumbled.

It was an hour before the party, and he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving. Stark naked after a shower, other than the white beard of shaving foam covering the lower half of his face, he looked as beautiful as ever, a Michelangelo sculpture in warm, damp flesh.