Bluebell Castle

Drawing himself up to his full height, Carl shot her a look of such contempt she knew it was true. ‘We are the premier auction house in the country for a reason, and protecting our reputation is tantamount!’ There was no denial in any of that, he really had looked into her background.

‘It was fifteen years ago! I was a child, I had nothing to do with anything my father did.’ She could hear the pitch in her voice climbing and forced herself back into silence. Like father, like daughter. The apple never falls far from the tree. All those sayings existed for a reason—because people actually believed them.

Raising his hands to his face, Carl scrubbed at his eyes, tone quieter now, as though he was talking to himself. ‘Employing the daughter of a convicted fraudster? What was I thinking! It won’t be just you losing your bloody job over this.’ He pointed towards the door. ‘Get out of my sight!’

Only the neat crescents of her nails digging deep into the palms of her clenched fists stopped the tears of frustration from spilling over. Crying wouldn’t do any good, it might even serve to demonstrate a guilty conscience. Lucie followed Piers with her eyes as he crossed the room to pull open the door. He muttered something to whoever was outside, then stepped back. To her horror, Mr Hazeltine, Witherby’s head of security stood in the corridor. God, this was some kind of terrible joke. She looked from Carl to Piers and back again. Grim-faced, neither of them spoke.

‘If you’ll come with me, Miss Kennington, I’ll take you to gather your belongings.’ The security chief held out his hand indicating he wanted her to go with him.

With no fight left in her, Lucie did as he bade. To his credit, Mr Hazeltine took a slightly circuitous route to the restroom area which also contained staff lockers in an anteroom between the two sets of bathrooms and they only passed a couple of people she knew on the way. Neither spoke when it would be normal practice for both to say at least hello, and Lucie felt her insides cringe. The gossip mill was already churning, which was hardly surprising giving the volume of Carl’s earlier yelling.

Mr Hazeltine checked the anteroom then nodded for her to enter. Lucie’s low heels sunk into the plush carpet as she crossed to her locker, then paused key in hand. ‘Did you want to search this?’

‘I’ll also require the keys to your office, and your access pass.’ His voice was so bland, like they were discussing something as neutral as whether he took his tea with milk, rather than whether she’d got a load of stolen contraband stuffed under her spare pair of tights. ‘Of course.’ Lucie unhooked the lanyard dangling around her neck then sank onto the velvet banquette lining the wall before catching her slumped posture and forcing herself into an upright position. Body language and appearance were everything. It was the Witherby’s way, after all.

It took about ten minutes to go through the meagre contents of her locker, and though he hadn’t suggested it, Lucie took the opportunity to empty out the contents of the small rucksack she used to ferry her belongings back and forth to work. Laying out her trainers, a selection of old receipts, a spare pair of tights, two books—both of which were recent bestsellers—and a small cosmetic bag containing a few bits of make-up and a handful of tampons, she tried not to think about what it said about her life. It could be the contents of any woman’s bag. There was nothing amongst the items that said anything about her, who she was, what she thought, what she felt. She’d tried so hard to present the perfect front, and yet it seemed there was no escaping the past.

‘Right, I think I’ve got everything I need for the time being.’ Mr Hazeltine closed the door to her locker with a decisive click then pocketed the keys. ‘Now, before you go home, I should remind you about the non-disclosure clause in your employment contract.’

Bewildered, she could only blink at him. ‘I’m sorry?’

If the smile he gave her next was supposed to be reassuring, it was anything but. ‘When you signed your contract, you agreed not to discuss any matters which could harm or in any other way bring the reputation of Witherby’s into disrepute.’ The words tripped off his tongue in such a way she could tell it was a direct quotation. ‘Until this matter is satisfactorily resolved, you cannot discuss it with anyone—legal counsel permitting, of course—outside these four walls.’

‘L…legal counsel? Do you honestly think it might come to that?’ And how the hell was she going to be able to afford it, if it did? ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. This is all a horrible mistake!’

There was that smile again, all teeth and no warmth. ‘We’ll be in touch in due course. Try to be patient, these things can take time.’

Lucie found herself thanking him, when she wanted to throw herself at him and beat her fists against his chest in frustration. Not the Witherby’s way. Clenching the scraps of her pride together, she clamped her mouth tight against any further protests and gathered her belongings. As Mr Hazeltine escorted her out the rear entrance, Lucie knew she’d never be crossing the threshold of Witherby’s again. Not now they’d found out who she really was.

CHAPTER THREE

‘Yes, yes, I understand.’ Arthur spoke into the phone as he stared across the wide oak desk in what was now his office and met his brother’s eyes. ‘And there’s no chance of recovering any of it?’

‘I’m sorry, Sir Arthur, we tracked the funds as far as the Cayman Islands, but they’re notorious for withholding cooperation.’ Inspector Dillon sighed. ‘Even if we could get them to let us inspect their records it’s highly unlikely the funds are still in situ. It’s taken us the best part of eighteen months to get Masterson’s case to a verdict. We assume he’s not acted alone, though he’s not said as much. Hasn’t said anything beyond “no comment” since his arrest, slippery sod.’

The very last of his hopes sinking, Arthur shook his head at Tristan’s enquiring glance. ‘Well, I want to thank you, Inspector, for all your hard work and diligence in bringing him to justice. Please pass on our gratitude to your team, also.’

‘I will, Sir Arthur, I’m just sorry we couldn’t get the justice you and all the other innocent victims deserve.’ He sounded exhausted, poor man, which wasn’t surprising considering Masterson’s case had been splashed all over the tabloids. Ponzi schemes were nothing new, but it was the calibre of people who’d been caught up in Masterson’s fraud that had the press pack slavering. Arthur’s father hadn’t been the only notable name to lose a fortune. From members of the peerage to pop stars and actors, the roll call of the duped and deluded had been a gossip columnist’s dream.

‘Not at all, and you have our profound thanks for keeping us up to date with developments in the case, I’m sure you have enough on your plate.’

‘Well, the times I met your father, I was touched by what a decent man he was. I was very sorry to hear of his passing, and it seemed the least I could do under the circumstances.’

So, Arthur wasn’t the only one who suspected the stress of the case had contributed to his father’s demise. ‘Thank you. I know he held you in very high esteem, Inspector, as do we all.’ Having ended the call, Arthur dropped the handset into the cradle then let his head fall back. As he studied the brilliant crystal droplets of the chandelier hanging above the desk, he acknowledged how much hope he’d been clinging to—hope that Masterson would have a change of heart and enter some kind of plea bargain deal. The money was gone. And that was all there was to it.

‘What are we going to do?’

Tristan’s question made Arthur sit up straight once more. ‘We’re not going to do anything, little brother. You and Iggy are going to get the hell out of Dodge while you still can. No point in all three of us going down with the sinking ship, is there?’

Swiping the dark curls of his fringe out of his eyes, Tristan glared at him. ‘Don’t start that nonsense again, or you and I will have a serious falling out.’

‘Stubborn fool.’ Exasperation and affection filled the words in equal measures.

‘Takes one to know one.’

He had a point. The two of them were similar in far more than looks, Arthur thought as he smoothed a hand through his shaggy hair, which was well overdue for a cut. He was looking more like Tristan every day, though Arthur was broader thanks to years spent rucking on a muddy rugby field. With his taller, more slender build, Tristan had been better suited to the cricket pitch. It had relieved them both to find their own sport to excel at, as people had tried to pit them against each other for as far back as he could remember. There’d never been any sense of competition between them, though. Their father and uncle had set an example which they’d been only too happy to follow—regardless of whose shoulders the family title rested upon, the Ludworths would succeed, or fail, together. Just lately though, Arthur had begun to regret this, desperate as he was to spare his siblings the pain of witnessing their family legacy collapsing before their eyes.

Frustrated, Arthur shoved his fringe from his eyes, an unconscious mirroring of his brother’s earlier action. He’d never really bothered much with his own appearance, content with a short back and sides whenever he could be bothered to pop down to the little barbershop in the village, and a basic uniform of cords or chinos and a checked shirt. Tristan had always been the trendy one of the two of them, and he claimed the women loved his Poldark-esque mane.

Arthur was finding the tangle more hassle than it was worth and made a mental note to wander down to the village sooner rather than later. Besides, he’d never had any trouble attracting women even in his baggy old cords and rugby shirt. Being heir to a title was its own special pheromone, he thought with more than a shade of weariness. It had taken him a while—longer in fact that he was proud to admit—before he’d come to understand his popularity with women had more to do with his title than him as a person. He’d even got as far as considering asking one girl to marry him before the scales had fallen from his eyes when she’d been horrified by his attempts to promote Iggy into the position of official heir to the baronetcy. Now he was officially Baronet Ludworth—his name having entered the official roll the previous week—they’d be crawling out of the woodwork once more. Well, if they were hunting for a fortune, they were going to be sorely disappointed.

A knock at the study door scattered the random musings his brain was using to avoid thinking about the enormous hole in their family finances. When the heavy wood remained resolutely closed, Arthur rolled his eyes at Tristan and hid a smile as he called out ‘Come.’

The door opened to reveal Maxwell, their family butler, dressed in an immaculate charcoal trousers and waistcoat over a white shirt. The black tie at his throat was fastened in the same Windsor knot he’d taught both Arthur and Tristan to tie as young boys. ‘Good afternoon, Sir Arthur, Master Tristan, your aunt has requested you join her in the yellow drawing room for afternoon tea.’

It was all Arthur could do not to let out a snort. Morgana Ludworth had never requested anything in all of her seventy-plus years. As delicate as a bird to look at, she had an implacable will and a tongue sharp enough to slice through steel. And a heart as big and fierce as a lion. She’d remained at home to nurse her ailing father whilst her peers had flown the coop, got married and had babies. ‘I didn’t just miss the boat, I missed the entire regatta,’ she’d told them once with a laugh in her voice that hadn’t reached her eyes. ‘Then your father and Lancelot came along, and I stayed to help out your grandmother.’

Always a delicate woman, Arthur had few memories of his grandmother other than as someone they were always shushed into silence around. She’d died when they were still very young, and it had been Morgana who’d once again stepped into the void. Arthur adored his paternal great-aunt, as did his siblings, for as stern as she could be at times, she’d not blinked at taking on the three heartbroken, confused children Helena had left in her wake. ‘Thank you, Maxwell, we’ll be along shortly.’

‘Very good, sir.’ With the briefest incline of his head, Maxwell pulled the door closed behind him.

‘He’s got more starch in his pants than a virginal vicar. Can’t you get him to relax a bit?’

Arthur shook his head. He’d tried to have a chat with Maxwell when he’d first inherited the title, but the butler had been so offended at the idea he might “move with the times and dispense with a few unnecessary traditions” that Arthur had abandoned the effort. Mrs W, their housekeeper, had been more on board and he’d given her free rein to discuss the issue with Betsy, the cook, and give him a proposal on improvements and updates they would like to make. Together, the three of them were in charge of the day-to-day running of the castle, with an ever-shrinking band of staff to assist them.

With March just around the corner, they were busy gearing up for the annual spring clean scheduled for next weekend. Mrs W and Betsy had been delighted when Arthur told them he, Tristan and Iggy would be rolling up their sleeves and getting down to it along with the team of paid volunteers gathered from the village. Maxwell had looked as though he were sucking a lemon at the very idea of members of the family dirtying their hands, but had refrained from commenting.

A building as old and extensive as the castle took a huge amount of physical effort to keep going, never mind the financial cost. They’d closed as many rooms as possible over the winter months, but with the latest utility bill lurking in Arthur’s desk drawer like a malevolent toad, it had been a drop in the ocean. He dreaded to think what damage they were going to find now the weather was improving and they were beginning to pull back the dust covers.

Feeling suddenly queasy, Arthur swallowed hard then forced himself to stand. ‘Come on, we’d better not keep Morgana waiting.’

Tristan gestured to the old fisherman’s jumper Arthur had bundled himself into that morning, and then his own designer-branded sweatshirt. ‘We’d better get changed, too, or we’ll never hear the end of it.’

*

Hands and faces washed, jumpers and jeans exchanged for collared shirts and dark cords, the brothers entered the yellow drawing room. With a view to the woods behind the castle, it was their great-aunt’s favourite room, and her unofficial domain. As usual, Morgana sat at the head of the small rosewood dining table, closest to the large stone fireplace. A cheery fire filled the room with the scent of pinecones, mingling with the ever-present fragrance of Penhaligon’s Bluebell Eau de Toilette which was their aunt’s signature perfume. Finding Iggy already seated to Morgana’s left, Arthur bent to brush a kiss to the powdered cheek of his aunt before taking the empty chair to her right. Tristan repeated the greeting and slid into the seat beside Iggy.

Clad in her usual unrelieved black, Morgana cast an eye from Arthur to Tristan before nodding once. At the gesture, a maid stepped forward and began to pour tea into the bone china cups placed before each of them. As he waited for the maid to serve everyone, Arthur studied the silver stands laden with finger sandwiches, slices of Victoria sponge and fresh-baked sultana scones. Though it hadn’t been that long since he’d wolfed down a bowl of soup for his lunch, Arthur felt the stirrings of appetite in his stomach at the fine spread before them.

Only once the maid had set the silver teapot down and left the room, did their aunt speak. Fixing Arthur with an expression that said she would brook no nonsense, she asked, ‘What did the inspector have to say?’

That she knew who Arthur had been on the phone to surprised him not at all. Very little happened behind the stone walls of Camland Castle that didn’t reach Morgana’s ears sooner or later—usually sooner. ‘We have to assume the money’s gone for good.’

Iggy’s sharp intake of breath told Arthur he wasn’t the only one who’d been pinning his hopes on a different result. Morgana, however, showed no reaction. ‘It’s done then. The silly fool’s scuppered your ship good and proper.’

‘Morgana.’ Iggy sounded pained, and Arthur saw Tristan reach beneath the table to give their sister’s leg a comforting pat.

‘Don’t Morgana me, girl, when I’m only speaking the truth. Your father was as foolish with money as he was generous with his heart. Remember that race horse he bought for a fortune only for it to go lame the next week? Or that holiday resort in Dominica that got demolished by a hurricane and then it turned out the developers weren’t insured? And what about—’

‘Enough!’ Arthur wasn’t sure who was more shocked, Morgana at being cut off mid-flow or himself at having the balls to raise his voice to her. His great-aunt recovered first, raising her teacup to her lips and taking a sip as though nothing had happened.

Leaping in to fill the silence, Iggy reached for the stand of sandwiches and placed it next to her aunt’s plate. ‘Egg and cress, Morgana, your favourite.’

‘I’m not a child to be mollified, Igraine,’ Morgana said stiffly, but reached for a sandwich none the less.

Arthur and Tristan made themselves busy filling their own plates. Silence reigned over the table for a few minutes as they all tucked in. Only once Morgana had finished her first cup of tea and nodded to Iggy to refill her cup did she speak again. ‘Regardless of how we got here, the dire situation can’t be ignored any longer.’

‘It’s not your problem to worry about, Morgana, I can handle it.’ Arthur said in his best ‘head of the family’ voice.

Morgana snorted. ‘Don’t try that tone with me, boy. You’re not too old for a box on the ears.’

‘You’d have to kneel by her chair so she can reach,’ Tristan muttered causing Arthur to cough loudly to try and cover his sudden burst of laughter.

‘Tristan Ludworth, I’ll thank you to try and remember some of the manners I taught you,’ Morgana snapped before turning away from the hot blush scalding Tristan’s cheeks. Gaze fixed firmly on Arthur, she continued. ‘The way I see it, you have very few choices, none of them particularly palatable.’ She held up one slender hand, fingers gnarled with age. ‘One, you can see if the National Trust will take this place off your hands. If we’re lucky, they’ll allow us to occupy a small part of it and open the rest up to the public.’

Arthur frowned at her rather unkind portrayal of the charity. ‘They do a fantastic job, but I’m not quite ready to hand over the reins to someone else. I’m already seriously considering opening some parts of the castle to the public, but I want it to be on our terms and absolutely under my control.’

Morgana pursed her lips. ‘Option two, you find some filthy rich foreigner to take the place lock, stock and—’

‘No!’ The triplets shouted her suggestion down in unison.

‘There must be another way…’ Iggy said.

‘Can’t we sell a few bits off?’ Tristan asked.

Arthur raised a brow. ‘Like what?’

His brother shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but the place is stuffed full of paintings, furniture and the like. Some of it must be worth something.’

Arthur shook his head. ‘There’s an old archive record somewhere, but I wouldn’t know where to start with it.’

‘If the three of you would let me finish,’ Morgana said, her voice sharp, ‘My third suggestion is to get an expert in to take a full survey of the contents of the castle. As well as being obsessed with all that Arthurian nonsense, the ninth baronet was friends with a very artistic set of friends. I believe several of them gifted him with works of art to thank him for his hospitality.’

Thomas Ludworth, Arthur’s several times great-grandfather had become obsessed with a theory that rather than the traditional Cornish and Somerset connections, the legendary King Arthur had in fact been a Northern warlord and Camland Castle the seat of the court of Camelot. The majority of his peers had openly laughed at the idea, but there was a stack of research and papers Thomas had collated in the library which he’d sworn proved his theory. He’d even gone so far as to name his children after characters connected to the legend, a tradition the family had adopted to that day. As part of his obsession, he’d collected every bit of tat he could lay his hands on with even the most dubious connection to Arthur and Camelot. The walls were littered with rusting swords, battle axes and the like, and the family chapel held no fewer than three cups on the altar alleged to be the holy grail. He’d even gone so far as to commission the huge round table which dominated the centre of the great hall.

It kept the locals amused and gave the area a bit of a tourist boost, so Arthur didn’t see any real harm in it, but he’d never given the theory any serious credence. ‘I suppose it would be useful to get a survey done, for insurance purposes if nothing else.’

‘And if you did decide to do some public open days, you could get this expert to curate the best of the Arthurian stuff into a proper exhibition. That’d be something to draw the crowds in,’ Tristan said, sounding more excited than Arthur would’ve expected.

‘It might work,’ he mused. ‘If we could get someone in quickly, we may even be able to put it together in time for the summer.’ He would have to do some serious research, find out what some of the famous estates like Blenheim Palace and Highclere Castle charged for admission, and what sort of thing they offered the tourists who flocked there. The Arthurian connection gave Camland an eye-catching hook—regardless of how spurious it was.

‘I could try and do something with the gardens,’ Iggy said, eyes alight. ‘A few themed walks to connect to the legend. There’s that gorgeous glade in the woods we could suggest it was the meeting place for Lancelot and Guinevere; a more testing one out to the lake we could call the Excalibur trail.’

‘With a great big rock somewhere along the way you’ll claim is where King Arthur pulled the sword from the stone, no doubt,’ Arthur said, half-joking.

‘Yes! Exactly.’ When she saw the doubt on his face, Iggy leaned forward. ‘Come on, Arthur, in for a penny in for a pound. If we’re going to go down, it might as well be in a blaze of tasteless glory!’

*

‘Are you sure we’re not deluding ourselves with this?’ Arthur asked Tristan as they surveyed a dusty collection of paintings in the long gallery. It was hard to imagine anyone looking twice at the gloomy-looking, mostly brown images lining the walls. Years of dirt and neglect made it almost impossible to make out the subject of most of them.

Tristan shrugged. ‘We might be, but it’s got to be worth a shot. If we can show the bank and the other creditors a viable business plan it might take a bit of the heat off you, at least for a little while. And as Iggy said, if we’re going down let’s go down fighting. We can call it Arthur’s Last Stand,’ he said with a wink.

‘You and me on the drive wielding broadswords at the bailiffs? Lord, can you imagine it?’

‘Morgana wouldn’t need a weapon, she’s already a battle-axe.’ They both laughed, then glanced around guiltily. Their aunt had a habit of appearing at the most inconvenient of times, a bit like the witch some of the children from the village suspected her of being.

Only once they were sure the coast was clear did Tristan speak again. ‘Look, worst-case scenario we’re going to lose this place, so it won’t do any harm to know what all this stuff is worth—separate the tat from the treasure, you know?’

Arthur nodded. He did know. He also had a sinking feeling in his stomach that there was more tat than treasure to be found hanging on the walls and littering the dusty surfaces of old bits of furniture. He took a breath. One thing he’d promised himself when he’d inherited the place was that he would face whatever came head on. No hiding behind dreams of a miracle, no banking on a deal that would never come off.