The Bachelor: Racy, pacy and very funny!

I’ll never stop wanting him, Eva thought. Never.

‘I didn’t have to invite her. I wanted to. She’s nice.’

‘She’s stroppy,’ said Henry. ‘More to the point, she’s an employee.’

Eva frowned, adjusting the straps on her pretty, vintage sundress. ‘You sound like a Victorian. She’s a designer, not the man who comes to empty the bins. And, by the way, her fiancé’s very rich. Mason Parker. I googled him. He comes from a very upper-class American family.’

‘There’s no such thing,’ Henry said dismissively. ‘Americans don’t understand about class. And who’s this other bod you’ve asked?’ he added, before Eva could object to this last remark. ‘The random dog-walker?’

‘He’s a writer. His name’s Barney, and he’s also nice.’

‘How do you know?’ Henry asked reasonably. ‘You’ve only met him once.’

‘Twice,’ Eva corrected him. ‘I ran into him again the day before yesterday. So tonight will make three times. We need to meet some new people, darling.’ Walking up behind him, she ran a hand lovingly over Henry’s bottom.

‘I don’t see why,’ said Henry, rinsing off his face. Splashing on some aftershave, he started to get dressed.

He wasn’t thrilled about spending an evening with Graydon James’s number two and some random Paddy whose only claim to fame was that he obviously fancied Eva. But the real fly in tonight’s ointment was the fact that George Savile and her deathly dull husband Robert were coming. Evidently Henry had invited them months ago, to show off Hanborough, and forgotten all about it. But after his recent relapse, the thought of having Georgina – loose-lipped and drunk – under his roof and at the same table as Eva was enough to make him want to break out in hives.

As far as Henry was concerned, this evening couldn’t end soon enough.

‘Good to see you, mate.’ Richard Smart handed Henry an embarrassingly cheap bottle of wine as he stood in front of Hanborough’s grand portcullis. ‘Shame about this place, though. Bit of a shithole, isn’t it? Did you realize that bit’s actually falling down?’

He gestured behind him to the ruined northern tower and battlements.

Henry grinned. He loved Richard. Other than gaining a few inches in height, and a seriously fun and amazing wife, Lucy, he hadn’t changed at all since Henry first met him at pre-prep school when they were both five years old. He had the same cheeky smile, the same sandy blond hair that managed to look permanently dirty and unbrushed, no matter what he did to it, the same puerile but undeniably funny sense of humour. As a country GP, with a modest inheritance from his oil-executive father, Richard was comfortably off, but he’d never come close to the sort of fame and success that Henry had enjoyed. Not that he cared. Richard Smart didn’t have an envious bone in his body. In fact it was Henry who sometimes begrudged Richard his perpetually sunny nature. As Lucy put it, ‘If Rich got any more optimistic, he’d have to be sectioned.’

‘You’re late,’ said Henry.

‘Naturally,’ said Richard. ‘That’s how you know it’s us and not aliens who’ve stolen our bodies.’

‘Archie threw up,’ Lucy added helpfully over his shoulder.

Archie was either one of their sons or one of their dogs. Henry couldn’t keep up with the Smart menagerie. Every time you turned around some new yet-to-be-domesticated creature seemed to have joined the household.

‘Well, thank God you’re here,’ said Henry. ‘It’s like the house of bloody horrors in there.’

Richard leaned forward to hug him, but Henry assumed a look of mock disgust. ‘Not you, you big pleb. No one’s pleased to see you. It’s your wife I’m interested in. You don’t think anyone would ask you to dinner if it weren’t for Lucy, do you?’

‘Probably not,’ Richard admitted, watching impassively as Henry scooped Lucy up into his arms and made a big show of kissing her while she laughingly told him to get lost. In cut-off jeans and a slightly stained Madonna T-shirt, Lucy Smart had taken the evening’s casual dress code to its limits, but she still managed to look lovely, exuding warmth and mischief like a naughty schoolgirl. With her short, tomboyish haircut and long, slightly off-kilter nose, Lucy was sexy rather than pretty. But she had the sort of confidence that made both men and women love her. Henry had also always got the impression that Lucy was seriously highly sexed, although Richard had never said so, and that was one question even Henry didn’t have the balls to ask.

Putting Lucy down, he read the label on Richard’s wine. Then he led the two of them into the castle, holding the bottle at arm’s length and dropping it into the moat with a satisfying plop on the way, without breaking stride.

‘Oi!’ complained Richard. ‘That was Tesco Finest!’

‘Exactly,’ drawled Henry. ‘I love you, Rich, but I can’t let you poison us. Not all of us anyway.’

Leading them into the kitchen – they still didn’t have a table large enough for the formal banqueting hall, and Eva preferred kitchen suppers anyway – Henry made the introductions.

‘Everyone, this is Lucy Smart and some guy she took pity on.’

Richard walked around the table, smiling and shaking hands with everyone.

Henry went on, ’This is Barney Griffith, a friend of Eva’s. And Flora, who’s taking over the restoration work at Hanborough.’

Christ, thought Richard, looking at Flora’s impressive assets squeezed into a figure-hugging dark green shift dress. What happened to the gay guy? Eva had better watch her back there.

‘You know my brother and his wife, Kate?’ Henry went on.

‘How nice to see you again,’ Kate said regally, offering her hand to Lucy Smart like a duchess awaiting a kiss of submission.

‘Hi!’ Lucy smiled, ignoring the hand and hugging her, an experience Kate appeared to enjoy about as much as having lemon juice squirted into her eye.

Henry looked with irritation at the two remaining empty chairs.

‘We’re still waiting for the Saviles.’

Richard Smart rolled his eyes. ‘George is coming?’

‘Sadly,’ muttered Henry.

Richard knew Henry’s business partner, Georgina Savile, of old, and had always disliked her. At school, girls like Georgina – the ones who were too pretty to bother making an effort – had always made a beeline for Henry, looking through Richard as if he didn’t exist. George’s husband Robert was all right, but a crashing bore, always banging on about his latest case, which usually involved tax or shipping and was never a nice juicy celebrity divorce, or a murder, or something you might actually want to talk about at a dinner party. Unchivalrously, Richard took the seat next to Flora’s, leaving Lucy beside the Saviles’ empty chairs.

‘Hello.’ Richard grinned at Flora. ‘You are absolutely bloody gorgeous.’

Flora laughed loudly. She’d forgotten how direct English men could be.

‘Er … thank you?’

‘Richard Smart. You can trust me, I’m a doctor.’

‘Flora Fitzwilliam.’

They shook hands. ‘So where are you from, Flora Fitzwilliam? And what are you doing here? I detect an American accent.’

‘How do you do it, Holmes?’ Lucy teased him from across the table.

‘I’m from New York,’ said Flora. ‘Well, I live in New York. With my fiancé,’ she heard herself blurting, unnecessarily.

‘Git,’ said Richard. ‘I hate him already.’

‘Leave the poor girl alone, Rich,’ said Lucy, adding to Flora, ‘If he annoys you, just hit him.’

‘Let’s eat,’ said Henry, leaning over and helping himself to a large scoop of Jansson’s Temptation, a delicious Swedish dish of potato and onion with cream and anchovies that was one of Eva’s specialities.

‘Shouldn’t we wait for Robert and George?’ asked Eva.

‘Definitely not,’ said Henry, kissing her on the mouth. (Rather too ostentatiously in Barney Griffith’s opinion, although nobody else seemed to mind.) ‘If they’re rude enough to show up late, we can be rude enough to start without them. Besides, I’m starving.’

Christ, he’s arrogant, thought Barney. He wasn’t sure why exactly, but there was a vibe about Henry Saxton Brae that he didn’t like one little bit. The cut-glass accent didn’t help. But it was more than that. Something to do with the possessiveness of that kiss, as if Eva were a car or a diamond necklace, a trophy to be paraded. There was just a certain assumption, an entitlement to all of Henry’s gestures, looks and words that spoke of a deeply ingrained sense of superiority. He didn’t seem like Eva’s type at all.

Still, it was all good stuff for the novel, Barney thought, knocking back his second glass of better-than-decent claret: dinner in a castle, Henry being dastardly, Eva being good and wholesome and bewitching, an exquisite but fragile glass doll.

Barney had been astonished last week when Eva Gunnarson had tracked down his cottage, knocked on the door and invited him to dinner. (Why did that sort of thing – random dinner invitations from supermodels – never happen when other people were around? Like his ex-girlfriend Maud, for example?) So astonished that he almost said no, on some sort of weird, self-defeating autopilot. The thing was, Barney barely knew Eva. They’d bumped into each other once or twice walking the dogs, and somehow he found she was wonderfully easy to talk to, but that was it. Astonishing as it seemed, this stunning girl was clearly lonely.

She needs a friend, Barney told himself. And it wasn’t as if he had so many better things to do on a Saturday night.

In any case, he was delighted he’d got over himself and agreed to come, as it turned out he wasn’t the only singleton invited. Eva, God bless her, had sat him next to the new interior designer for Hanborough, an absolute cracker of a girl and very much Barney’s type: petite, blonde, curvy, and with the sort of boobs that frankly made a man happy to be alive. She was American (nobody’s perfect), but so far at least she seemed to have a very English sense of humour, not to mention a wonderfully unexpected, raucous laugh that made her sound like a French truck driver.

Flora. Fabulous Flora.

He’d only met her five minutes ago, but Barney was already infatuated.

The first course was almost over by the time a clattering in the hallway announced that the last two guests had finally arrived.

Eva got up to go and greet them but Henry put a hand on her arm.

‘Leave it. They know where to go.’

He seemed angry at George, which was odd as he was the one who’d invited her, and he never normally minded about lateness, being perpetually late himself. Still, Eva had long ago given up trying to figure out Henry and Georgina’s relationship. They clearly worked well together in business, although outside of work they fought. A lot. Eva had always had the feeling that George didn’t like her very much, but Henry was at pains to deny this.

Glancing up she smiled at Flora, who smiled back. What a great girl she had turned out to be! Having her around the place these past two weeks had been like a breath of fresh air. For the first time, Eva felt involved in the changes being made at Hanborough.

‘It’s going to be your home too, you know,’ Flora told her. ‘Your children’s home. If you don’t like something we’re doing, or you’ve had an idea we haven’t thought of, you need to speak up.’

Perhaps it was odd to put it in these terms, but for the first time Eva felt as if she had an ally against Henry. Not that Henry was the enemy, of course. Eva loved him more than anything, more than life. But he had such a strong personality, such a forceful way of expressing himself. Sometimes it was easy to get lost in his shadow.

On the other side of the table, poor Lucy Smart was being talked to death by Sebastian on the only subject he ever spoke about – hunting. Eva saw the look of relief and gratitude on Lucy’s face when the Saviles walked in, mercifully stemming the flow.

‘So sorry we’re late,’ George announced, not looking remotely sorry. ‘Traffic was just ghastly.’ She’d pulled out all the stops tonight and looked utterly ravishing in skin-tight black leather biker trousers, a ribbed vest that showcased her perfectly toned and slender arms, and sexily spiked Gucci heels that tap-tapped on the flagstone floors like metallic raindrops whenever she moved. Hovering behind her in the Fulham uniform of green jeans and checked Hackett shirt, and looking chinless and awkward, was her husband Robert. He reminded Barney of a nervous zookeeper presenting some exotic but dangerous animal to the crowds.

Just as this thought entered his head, Barney felt Flora’s hand in his. Before he had time to feel ecstatic about it, she started digging her nails painfully into his palm.

‘No!’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, please no!’

‘What?’ Barney asked, wincing, but loath to reclaim his hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

Before Flora could answer, George let out a little shriek.

‘I don’t believe it!’ She pointed at Flora. ‘It can’t be! Flora Fitzwilliam? What on earth are you doing here?’

‘You two know each other?’

Henry scowled at George. It was bad enough that she’d showed up late, dressed like a slut and doing everything possible to divert every ounce of attention in the room onto herself. But now she was claiming some sort of connection with Flora. He didn’t know why that should annoy him so much, but it just did.

‘We were at school together,’ Flora said through gritted teeth.

‘Old school friends?’ Seb piped up. ‘How marvellous. Where was it?’

‘Sherwood,’ said George, tossing her long blonde hair backwards luxuriantly.

‘And we weren’t friends,’ Flora added meaningfully. ‘Not at all.’

Henry looked at Flora with increased respect.

‘Well, we barely had time to be, did we?’ trilled George, tap-tapping her way over to the empty seat closest to Flora’s. ‘Poor old Flora got chucked out after her daddy was caught with his hand in the till. How long did they give him again?’

‘Eight years.’ Flora’s face was frozen. Under the table she tightened her grip on Barney’s hand.

‘Oh, so he’s been out for ages now then,’ George said breezily, adding, ‘Pass the wine would you, Henry darling? I’m parched.’

‘He never got out. He died in prison.’

Flora’s voice was like a funeral bell, ringing out across the table. Everyone looked at one another awkwardly. Only Henry met Flora’s eyes, with an unexpected flash of sympathy.

‘I was eleven when my mother died,’ said Henry. ‘You never get over it.’

‘No,’ Flora agreed, surprised and touched that Henry would understand. ‘You don’t.’

Meanwhile, George helped herself to the remnants of Eva’s potatoes and two large slices of roast beef.

‘What a sad story,’ she said, in a tone that made it clear that she gave not even the slightest fraction of a shit. ‘But do tell. What brings you to Hanborough, Flora? I’m quite fascinated. You are a dark horse,’ she added to Henry, reaching across the table and squeezing his arm in an unduly intimate way. ‘Keeping her a secret.’

Henry retracted his arm as if he’d been scalded. ‘Don’t be silly, Georgina. There’s no secret.’

Bloody hell, thought Barney. What’s going on there?

‘Flora’s our new designer,’ said Eva, sensing the tension around the table but not exactly sure about the cause of it. ‘She’ll be overseeing the entire restoration. And she is quite brilliant.’ She smiled warmly.

‘I’m sorry, did you say your father went to prison?’ Seb’s wife Kate piped up in horrified tones, belatedly catching on to the conversation just as the rest of the table was hoping to move on.

‘Fraud,’ said George, slicing gleefully into her beef.

‘How shocking,’ Kate thundered.

‘And how awful for you,’ Lucy Smart said to Flora kindly. ‘Did you really have to leave your school?’

‘I didn’t mind that part so much,’ said Flora. ‘School had become pretty much unbearable anyway.’ Her eyes bored into George’s like lasers. ‘But it was a rough time in our lives. I try not to think about it.’

‘The chap we’re renting our house from went to prison,’ Richard Smart announced cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Eddie Wellesley. Nice bloke, actually.’

‘Wasn’t that fraud too?’ asked Seb tactlessly.

‘Tax evasion,’ piped up Robert Savile, the first words he’d spoken since he and George arrived. ‘I come across quite a few evasion cases in my practice, actually. The last one I worked on …’

And he was off, succeeding where Eva had failed and dragging the conversation away from Flora at last.

For the rest of the meal, no one returned to the subject of Flora’s past, although George took every opportunity to take digs at her present.

‘I thought you said Graydon James was redesigning Hanborough?’ she asked Henry.

‘He was. He is.’

‘So how did you manage to end up with Flora? I don’t understand.’

‘A restoration like this is a long-term project,’ Henry answered, tight-lipped. He didn’t know what George was playing at exactly, but he didn’t like it. Everything was a power game with her. ‘Graydon was never going to be able to oversee it personally.’

‘Oh, I see. So he sent one of his juniors? That’s a shame. I hope he cut your bill.’

‘It’s not a shame at all,’ said Eva. ‘We’re delighted to have Flora here. Aren’t we, Henry?’

‘Delighted.’

Henry’s blue eyes flashed at Flora, and he smiled in a way that made her throat go dry. I can’t figure him out, she thought. One minute he’s being arrogant and obnoxious. And the next he’s sticking up for me.

‘You know, Graydon James worked on two of my friends’ houses and he did all the work himself,’ George went on, apparently hell-bent on irritating Henry. ‘You remember Lottie Calthorpe?’

‘No,’ Henry scowled.

‘Silly! Of course you do,’ trilled George, smiling. ‘Graydon did Lottie and William’s place in the Hamptons, and he was on site the entire time. Then again,’ George added smugly, ‘Lottie has never been one to accept second best.’

‘Nor am I,’ said Henry, leaning over and making another great show of kissing Eva. George’s smile died on her lips. Barney Griffith simply felt sick, and dirty, as if he’d been press-ganged into watching some sordid peep show.

As soon as pudding was over, Flora made her excuses and bolted out to her car like a bat from a burning belfry. Barney followed, just managing to tap on the window of Flora’s rented Volkswagen Touareg before she drove off.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, rubbing his sore hand. There were welts in his palm from where Flora’s nails had almost drawn blood. ‘That was seriously weird.’

‘I’m fine,’ Flora exhaled. ‘I just wish I’d known she was coming.’

‘George?’

Flora nodded. ‘I wish I’d been prepared, that’s all.’

‘Did you know she was Henry’s business partner?’

‘No! I mean, I knew he had a partner called George Savile, but I assumed it was a guy. She was called Georgie Lynne back when I knew her. She made my life hell at school.’ Flora shook her head bitterly at the memories. ‘I’m not sure I’d have taken this job if I’d known it meant running into Georgie again.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Barney said robustly. ‘Of course you’d have taken the job. School was a lifetime ago. And, even if it weren’t, you can’t let bullies like her get the better of you.’

‘Can’t you?’ sighed Flora. She felt defeated suddenly, and horribly low. This guy Barney had been really sweet all evening. But all she wanted right now was to talk to Mason; to feel his safe, comforting arms around her.

In one short evening, Georgina Savile had managed to poison what should have been one of the happiest, most triumphant moments of Flora’s career. Redesigning Hanborough Castle! Coming back to England, to the glorious Swell Valley, not as an exiled fraudster’s daughter but as a success in her own right. Why, why did that loathsome, manipulative bitch have to be Henry Saxton Brae’s partner? Of all people! It wasn’t fair. After tonight it was only a matter of time until the entire valley knew all about Flora’s dad and her history, the dark past she’d worked so hard to transcend and forget.

She turned on the engine.

‘Thanks for being so nice this evening,’ she said to Barney.

‘My pleasure.’

‘And sorry about your hand.’

‘Oh!’ He gave a brave, it-was-nothing shrug. ‘My pleasure again.’

‘I’d better get to my bed. Early start tomorrow.’

‘OK,’ said Barney, reluctantly stepping back from the car. ‘Well, sleep well. It was lovely to meet you, Flora.’

‘And you.’

Barney stood and watched as Flora drove away.

That’s the girl I’m going to marry, he thought.

CHAPTER NINE

Summer rolled into the Swell Valley late that year, slow and heavy and swollen with sticky heat like a river of molasses about to burst its banks. But when it finally came it brought record temperatures and an oppressive humidity that made it feel more like a Floridian mangrove swamp than the Sussex countryside.

While the local villagers sweated, cooling themselves off with ice lollies from the Preedys’ shop or cold jugs of Pimm’s from The Fox, up at Hanborough Castle the work never stopped. Flora had even started to lose some of her famous curves simply from running around the site all day, overseeing work and shouting directions till her throat was hoarse.

Tony Graham, the contractor, was efficient and on the ball, but he did have a habit of making a drama out of a crisis and niggling over the very tiniest details, right down to which brand of nails Flora wanted for the new joists. He also had the world’s most annoying, nasally voice, so grating that it had begun to creep into Flora’s nightmares. When Eva was around, Flora at least had a friendly face to talk to, or share an occasional snatched lunch with up at the castle. On rare occasions, Barney Griffith might join the two of them, or drag them down to The Fox for an after-work drink. But then Barney would be sucked back into the black hole of his book, and Eva would jet off to another photoshoot somewhere exotic, leaving Flora with only Mono-Tony, as she’d christened the contractor, for company.

Apart, of course, from Henry.

Ever since the awful night when George Savile had turned up to dinner and done her best to humiliate Flora in front of her new client and his friends, Flora had struggled to get a handle on Henry. Her first impressions of him had been wholly negative. He seemed rude, arrogant, selfish and a snob. Six weeks working for him up at Hanborough had confirmed that Henry certainly could be all of these things – and worse, if Eva’s suspicions and tabloid gossip were anything to go by. Henry Saxton Brae’s reputation as a womanizer was legendary, and though he’d yet to be caught cheating since getting engaged to Eva, Eva’s first meeting with Flora had made it clear that not even his fiancée would have put it past him.

But there was another side to Henry, too. He’d defended Flora when George attacked her that night, and on other occasions since. (It was astonishing how frequently George seemed to ‘drop in’ at Hanborough, for someone who purported to live in London.) Flora had also noticed how soppy Henry could be with his dogs, Whiskey and Soda, when he thought no one was looking, hugging and tickling them and sneaking them cuts of prime fillet steak from the fridge. Yet whenever Eva was around, he ignored the dogs completely, always letting her walk them alone, almost as if he were deliberately trying to conceal his affection.

One time Flora had walked in on him in the study, rolling around on the floor with the two Irish setters, giggling like a kid. Henry had flushed beet-red and leapt to his feet, as embarrassed as if he’d just been caught romping with a porn star.

‘I was just … I was, er … did you want something?’ He smoothed down his hair and did his best to regain his usual sang-froid.

‘Only to show you these.’

Flora unrolled her finally finished plans for the new library. When she took over the Hanborough project from Graydon and Guillermo, the idea had been to restore the old library – a vast, wood-panelled room with Victorian stained-glass windows, like a chapel, but riddled with rot and in a worse state of repair than anywhere else in the castle. Restoring this room alone would account for almost a fifth of the entire budget. When Flora had suggested a smaller, much more romantic library in one of the original towers, based on Vita Sackville-West’s idyllic study at Sissinghurst, Henry had leapt at the idea.