Chapter 3
CLAUDIA
S tupid town.
Stupid people.
Stupid car.
Claudia Weatherley-Harcus was tottering back up the hill towards the layby where she’d left the hire car.
Tank was more like it.
Urgh!
She’d have been so much happier making the trip in her trusty little banger, but her mother had put paid to that.
“Why must you always insist on being an embarrassment to this family?!’
Still, at least she’d paid for the awful thing.
With divorce number two newly finalised, Claudia barely had two pennies to rub together.
If she did have any money right now , she sure as hell wouldn’t be wasting it on keeping up appearances…
she’d be too busy moving out of her mum and stepdad’s pool house!
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she muttered, scowling at a seagull as it dared to swoop in front of her. ‘I wasn’t always this pathetic, you know!’
The bird glared at her with a decided lack of sympathy before soaring back out towards the sea.
Claudia stuck her tongue out at it. If she wasn’t wearing this pair of ridiculous heels, she might actually be tempted to stamp her foot too.
Anything to let off a bit of steam! As it was, she was having a hard enough time keeping her balance while putting one foot in front of the other.
A temper tantrum would probably topple her over completely.
Even so… it was tempting!
Claudia was already at the end of her tether, and she’d only just arrived in Seabury. She should never have agreed to come in the first place. If it wasn’t for the fact that she had her own agenda while she was in town, she’d have told her mother where to stick her ridiculous demands.
‘Yeah, right! Like you’d have had the guts to say “no”,’ she huffed, doing her best to ignore the hot prickle behind her eyes.
It had been years since Claudia had had the strength to stand up to her mother. In fact, the last time she’d dared to try it was when her dad had been alive… and back then, life had looked very different.
Of course it had. She’d been a mere baby of nineteen!
With dreams of becoming an artist, Claudia had said a tearful final farewell to her first boyfriend, and—egged on by her wonderful, maverick father—she’d headed off to Europe on a solo interrailing trip.
Unfortunately, her grand adventure hadn’t lasted long.
In fact, she’d been in Paris just three hours when she received a phone call from her heartbroken sister.
The call had promptly put an end to life as she knew it.
According to her sister, their dad had finally snapped.
That morning, he’d packed all his worldly possessions and walked out—promising their mother that divorce papers would be in the post the minute he got back from a skiing holiday in the Alps.
Claudia had dutifully returned home on the next train.
The divorce papers had never arrived… because her dad had never made it home.
‘Don’t think about that now!’ she muttered, doing her best to steer her thoughts away from the avalanche that had ended her father the minute he’d dared to claim a bit of freedom.
Claudia shook her head. She needed to keep it together. Right now, she had some serious meddling-by-proxy to do. She needed to find the Pepper brothers, and she didn’t fancy facing them with red eyes and a snotty nose.
According to her research, Seabury House was meant to be on this side of town somewhere. It had looked easy enough to find when she’d studied the map, so where on earth was the blasted drive that led to it?
Claudia had already driven up and down what felt like every lane and cart track in the county… and not one of them had led to her final destination. All she’d found so far were tight u-turns and angry locals.
That farm had been the last straw. It was hard enough making the stupid SUV do what she wanted at the best of times, and turning the thing around was like some major military manoeuvre. Add a sea of chickens into the mix, and her shredded nerves had completely given out.
That’s when she’d spotted the layby and decided she’d be safer doing a bit of exploring on foot instead.
‘I should have changed my shoes first,’ she muttered.
Pausing briefly, Claudia closed her eyes and did her best to let the feel of the soft sea breeze on her skin calm her down a bit.
Unfortunately, it did nothing of the sort.
Instead of gently cooling her as strands flew around her face like she was in a soft-focus romcom, the wind simply pushed her entire fright-wig to one side in a solid block.
Claudia let out a growl as she patted her stiff, crunchy hairdo back into place.
Stupid wind.
Stupid sea.
Stupid cute-as-a-button beaches!
It was all wrong. Her hair was wrong, this trip was wrong… hell, her entire life was wrong!
All she had to show for her life so far were two failed, loveless marriages and a mother who was more than happy to point out every single mistake she’d ever made at every given opportunity.
Claudia’s lip wobbled, and she cleared her throat, trying to get a grip.
She couldn’t decide if she was seriously angry or completely heartbroken.
Either way, she needed to put it to one side and focus.
This first part of the trip wasn’t about her – she was here for Freya.
She’d been over the moon when her little sister had called to share the news of her engagement.
Unfortunately, their mother had been the complete opposite.
‘You’d think marrying a pilot would be good enough!’ grumbled Claudia, as she continued to wobble her way up the hill.
Ever since the phone call, her mother had been doing everything she could to dig into the Pepper family.
Frankly, her findings would have most parents over-the-moon about the kind of family their daughter was marrying into.
A pilot, a concert pianist, and a high-flying doctor in the same family was practically a fairy tale.
But it wasn’t enough to appease her mother.
“Just think—the other one owns a wool shop! I will not let Freya throw her life away on a family like that!”
As far as Claudia was concerned, Freya was a big girl. She was smart as a whip, funny and independent. She could love who she wanted and make her life anywhere and with anyone she chose. As long as she was happy, that’s all that mattered. It was all that had ever mattered.
Unfortunately, her mother didn’t agree. She was on the warpath and determined to uncover any skeletons the Pepper family might have loitering in their closets. Who was their dad? And what about their mum? Did they own Seabury House, or was there something dodgy behind it all?
Claudia might have been a bit more sympathetic about her mother’s fears for Freya if they’d come from a place of genuine love… but they just didn’t. As usual, her mum was thinking about money. Of course, she would never admit it in so many words.
“They’ve got to be the right pedigree! We’ve got the family name to think of!”
When her mother got frustrated by the lack of information available on the internet, Claudia had been dispatched to visit the Peppers in person.
It was the last thing on earth she wanted to do, but Claudia really didn’t feel like she had any choice in the matter.
For one thing, she was basically squatting in the pool house, and both her mother and stepfather kept using the threat of eviction as a highly effective bargaining tool.
It wasn’t just the threat of homelessness that had made her agree, though.
There was an even worse scenario that had clinched it.
If Claudia refused to go, her mother had threatened to take matters into her own hands.
She could only begin to imagine the carnage if her mother and stepfather appeared in Seabury and hunted the Peppers down themselves.
The wedding would be called off faster than you could say “snobby-gold-diggers.”
Still… it meant that Claudia was now faced with the task of carrying out her mother’s less-than-palatable mission.
A cube of ice dropped into her stomach at the thought.
It was all well and good searching the countryside for Seabury House, but she was dreading what she had to do when she actually found the place.
How did you waltz into the home of a bunch of random strangers and basically tell them you were there to check they were good enough to be part of the family? !
‘Well… I might as well get it over with,’ she huffed, peering up the hill, searching for the SUV.
It was still there.
‘Worst luck!’ she muttered.
A tiny, rebellious part of her wished for a second that it had been towed. At least that would have meant she didn’t have to drive it anymore. Besides, it would have served her right, considering where she’d left it!
Claudia had been so distracted by her frustrated search that she hadn’t realised she’d managed to park right in front of a gateway, completely blocking some kind of entrance.
Great. Now she was going to have to hope she’d be able to reach the car and drive away without being spotted by a miffed local. Bowing her head, she scuttled forward as fast as her heels would carry her.