CHAPTER ONE
ANAMPHIBIANWAS giving her trouble. Louisa pushed her glasses up her nose, staring down at the recalcitrant creature she’d sketched. Her illustration brief had been clear. He was meant to be a cute frog with a golden crown. The perfect frog prince for a sweet children’s story. Instead, he sat there on the page, crown jauntily askew. His froggy little mouth turned up into a kind of smirk. Arms crossed, as if in some way judging her...
Louisa could never accept that. No judgement was allowed anywhere in her life, any more.
Though it was a familiar smirk on that mouth of his. Sly, knowing. Recognition niggled in the recesses of her memory, yet she still couldn’t place it. Louisa blew out a slow breath. Sometimes your characters worked against you and today was that day. She tried sketching him again, this time with a billowing cape. A rakish wink.
Although surely frogs in children’s stories shouldn’t be rakish, should they?
‘Play nicely,’ she said to the frog on the page. She could have torn the paper out, tossed him away and shown him who was the real boss, yet something about his familiar smile forced her to keep him for now. Louisa turned to a fresh sheet of crisp white paper. She would get him right. She would. She had a deadline for her illustrations, and she never missed a deadline. Timing was everything. She lived by it.
Instead of challenging herself with misbehaving frog princes, she immersed herself in the world of the story. A verdant, magical forest, with fairies and animals come to life on the page. A mythical world where she didn’t have to think about a gleaming coffin lowered into sodden ground in a snowdrop-carpeted cemetery. A grave in the English countryside her great-aunt Mae had loved and would lie in for ever.
Louisa rubbed at the yawning ache in her chest. No. She didn’t have to think of grief. Right now, she could think about another world entirely. A world of make-believe. Her favourite place.
She inked a watercolour wash of green, the detail of leaves. It was as if she were in that picture, strolling through the forest like a lost princess with the breeze whispering through her hair. Possibility abounding as her brush slicked across the page and her heart tripped along at themystery of discovery.Half in reality, half out of it. Picking up some blue because in this world she created the sun always shone and the sky remained a perfect hue...
A clanging gong sounded in the distance. She tried ignoring it, even though the doorbell could challenge Big Ben for loudness. A ringing doorbell couldn’t be right. It was Wednesday, and no one was due today. The house empty, staff on one of their days off. Just her and her work, in what should be blissful silence. Of course, tourists would occasionally drop by on days the home wasn’t open to the public, but a polite sign on the door usually saw them on their way. Anyhow, since Mae’s passing Easton Hall had been closed, which was made clear on the house’s website. No. Everyone in the area knew the home’s schedule, and none would be impolite enough to disturb it. She could ignore the demanding sound with impunity...
Yet the knowledge that there must be a stranger outside gnawed at her consciousness like a worm in an apple. Louisa stilled. Her brush held above the page, a splat of blue dripping onto it as she was rudely wrenched from the world of her illustration into cold, hard reality.
She looked down at the livid blue blot now bleeding over the page, marring her picture. At least it was only a working drawing, and not the final copy. The error wouldn’t put her behind her schedule. Louisa loathed the idea of missing her deadline almost as much as she loathed unscheduled strangers at the door. In recent times those kinds of strangers hadn’t meant anything good.
That infernal doorbell gave another chime. Whoever it was wasn’t going away. Since Mae had been laid in the ground, a number of people had visited the property. Buyers’ agents, mostly. Looking to see if Easton Hall was for sale, given the owner’s passing. All vultures, as if the estate were some kind of carcass to pick away at, rather than a loving home.
She could try to ignore them, yet they were known for their doggedness and the housekeeper, Mrs Fancutt, and her two Pomeranians weren’t here to help her evict them. Right now, she was alone.
It was her job to see the intruders off the property.
‘There’s more to the world than you’ve experienced, Louisa. Be brave.’
The last words Mae had spoken to her. Tears pricked Louisa’s eyes, but she blinked away the burn. Her great-aunt had lived a long and eccentric life and had loved Louisa fiercely. Swooping in when one medical professional had finally refused to believe her mother’s lies. Giving her a home when her mother had died just prior to a trial that would have laid ugly secrets bare.
That Louisa wasn’t sick all those years as her mother had claimed.
Mae had ensured she’d gone to school again, trying to give her a normal life. Getting her the help she’d needed when her mental scars had threatened to overwhelm her. If Mae’s last message to her was to be brave, that was what she’d be. In her twenty-four years, she’d fought bigger demons than strangers on her doorstep.
Louisa washed her brush. Pulled her long hair back into a rough ponytail and stomped to the front door. Realising as she peered through the spyhole to an amorphous blur that she’d forgotten to take off her reading glasses again. But what did it matter? She’d be working again in no time and sometimes the world was better when everything was a little soft focus. She took a deep breath, turned the giant iron key, and yanked the ancient oak door open.
A man in dark clothes stood on the gravel drive with his back to her, seeming to survey the land before him as if he owned it. Whilst he was at an inconvenient distance for her glasses, his silhouette could only be described as sharp.His hair like a blot of ink on his head. Something about him made the heat creep up her chest and prickle her cheeks.
Everything about his demeanour screamed authority. She wanted to say something, but she feared her voice was trapped and all that would come out was a croak. Then he turned. Began to move towards her as if he were made of liquid, his movements so rolling and fluid. The only thing making her realise he had solidity and weight was the heavy crunch, crunch, crunch of his shoes on the gravel drive. And she had to say something because he’d get to the stairs soon and she had a wild premonition that if he made it to the top, he’d never leave...
She held up her hand. ‘Stop right there.’
He did. Closer now, a little less soft focus. The corner of his mouth quirking in a way that seemed all too familiar. That sensation of recognition overcame her. Give him a billowing cape, a jaunty crown and a rakish wink and this man was her frog prince made human.
It was as if she’d drawn him to life.
Her heart thumped an uncomfortable rhythm. She should take off her glasses, but she didn’t want him to think that she wanted to get a better look at him, even though she did.
Desperately.
‘You haven’t answered any of my lawyer’s correspondence.’
That voice of his. Smooth, rich and decadent. Like treacle tart with clotted cream. Sogood,yet sobad if you indulged too much. Louisa was sure this man could make reading chess moves sound like some kind of midnight intimacy... But correspondence? That sounded official and not like an estate agent. All things official she left in the hands of her solicitor. Any mail redirected there. Although the man had talked of retiring and sometimes did seem increasingly overwhelmed in his small, overstuffed office in the village.
Though...this man spoke almost as if he knew her. How could that be? In recent years whilst caring for Mae she’d not ventured much further than the local village and if he’d lived there, she would have remembered him. He wasn’t the sort of person you’d ever forget. Sure, everyone in the local area knew her. In the early days of her arrival, she’d been ‘Poor Louisa Cameron...’ ‘Lost her parents...’ ‘Too young to be living with an old lady...’ She’d heard it all. Once, those whispers had chattered in her head. Especially when she’d believed that someone would come to take her away from the only home she’d felt safe in for years.
‘Everything goes to my solicitor. He must be busy.’
Even though the man was soft focus at the bottom of the stairs, she saw his brows rise on his high forehead. ‘What you call busy, I’d call incompetent. You weren’t at the reading of the will.’
Mae had told Louisa she’d be looked after. ‘You will always have a home.’ Her solicitor had confirmed that Easton Hall was her place to live, for ever. Why would she need to go to the reading of a will with all her relatives? If she never saw another Bainbridge again, it would be a happy day. They didn’t deal with life when it became real and messy. Elegantly brushing said messiness under vast antique Axminster carpets so it wouldn’t tarnish the family’s pristine name.
All they cared about was their money, their reputation and keeping up appearances. The ones who had come to visit Mae nearer the end had tried to ingratiate themselves. Get her to leave here for a care facility, ‘for her own good’. But it was never about what was good for Mae. Only themselves. Each of them wanted a piece of the Bainbridge estate, Mae being holder of the most coveted prize, Easton Hall and its surrounds. She’d cackle when they left. ‘Watch the silver as they walk out the door!’ How sad that she hadn’t been far wrong. Mrs Fancutt had reported finding one of them poking about the teaspoons in the good cutlery service after one visit...
‘There was no need for me to go. I know everything I need to.’
‘Do you?’
In those final days of Mae’s life, she’d promised Louisa she didn’t have to worry. So Louisa believed her because Mae had always kept her promises. Of course, if this man had been at the reading of the will, that meant he might be a lawyer too. In his dark suit, he had an official kind of demeanour. Except...there was something more. Standing near the bottom of the stairs with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets in a casual yet authoritative way, it was as if he were entitled.
Bainbridges were the most entitled of the lot with their wealth, and good name paid for through cynical attempts at philanthropy to gain kudos, not putting their money where it mattered most. Yet he didn’t look like anyone from that family with his dark hair and warm brown skin. Bainbridges tended to an almost vampiric type of pale. She supposed she was of Bainbridge stock too, though she didn’t look much like the rest of them with her colouring, taking after her father. Something she’d come to be thankful for, even though her luminescent mother had bemoaned her red hair, green eyes, and freckles if she spent too much time in the sun.
‘We need to talk, Louisa.’
That decadent voice of his drew her out of her introspection. Which was a good thing because introspection was a bad place for her to be even on her best days. He’d begun moving again, slowly this time. One step. Pause. Two steps. Pause. Though she couldn’t describe any of the moves as hesitant. Each pause more like a silent demand for permission to move further, from a man she doubted sought permission from anybody, to do anything.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I thought it was self-evident. Coming closer, since I’d rather have a discussion where I don’t have to raise my voice or, even better, need to communicate with two paper cups and string.’
Paper cups and string... What an odd thing to say. Yet a memory came drifting back of a magical summer as a six-year-old, staying with Mae here as she often had when her dad was sick. A common occurrence as the motor neurone disease began to take its awful toll. She remembered exploring Easton Hall. Running wild through the rambling gardens chasing butterflies.
There was a boy who’d come to stay too. He’d seemed so much older and wiser, at twelve. A cousin, Mae had told her when they’d first met. Though her mother had later said he wasn’t a real Bainbridge because he’d been adopted, as if that were some kind of disqualification. And they’d played, trying to make a string telephone, which had worked in the end, to their surprise.
‘I’ve had so many adventures,’Mae had told them. ‘Make your own and make them stupendous.’
It had been the last moment of happiness before a whole mountain of misery for Louisa. But she’d created special memories during that time. More importantly, stories of those stupendous adventures had been what she’d recounted to Mae in her last months. Those adventures had made Mae laugh. Maybe Louisa had taken some creative licence, but so much of her past was a blur of sadness and sickness and pain, what did it matter that she exaggerated? Trying to hold on to those few snatches of brightness as tightly as she could.
It seemed as though the sun had always shone in that summer of innocence and joy. There wasn’t a day that hadn’t been perfect.
The man was halfway up the stairs now, and somehow the squirming sensation in her belly didn’t feel like the beginnings of dread, but something far more...anticipatory. Almost like excitement. Though it was remiss he hadn’t told her who he was, when he clearly knew her name. As he climbed with his long, powerful legs he became clearer and sharper. As if she were inking in the details of an illustration she’d been commissioned to complete. His suit in a dark charcoal grey, pristine white shirt gleaming in the sunshine like the snowdrops in that old churchyard. As he came closer the niggle of recognition didn’t pass. It grew and grew.
Then he arrived at the top of the stairs and that recognition hit her with a wallop. Because that tanned-skinned, dark-haired little boy who she’d thought completely unlike his insipid Bainbridge namesakes, with all his vibrancy and life, was standing right in front of her. All grown up, filled out and angular with broad shoulders, narrow hips and cut cheekbones. His brown eyes she’d once thought of as warm and hinting at constant mischief as a child, now remote and cool. Like the flat stones they’d gathered in the stream running through the estate to skip in quieter waters. He’d taught her how to do that and she’d squealed when her stone had skipped twice.
He’d been less impressed. His had skipped six times. Sometimes more.
He regarded her then, seeming to glower in the same ominous way as the slate-coloured sky behind him. A storm threatening. Louisa’s breath hitched. She smoothed her hands down the front of her crushed dress. Feeling too soft and unkempt for him as he stood there sharp as a blade. Not a dark hair on his head out of place. The neat stubble on his strong jaw clearly by design, rather than a neglect to shave.
She’d bet he neglected nothing.
‘Matty.’
Not his given name of Matteo. He’d been Matty to her. The adopted Bainbridge who’d apparently conquered the world and made his fortune independent of his family. Almost to spite a name that tended to open every door. Yet what on earth was he doing here? He’d not visited Mae in that last year of her illness, or at all in the time Louisa had lived at Easton Hall. Though her great-aunt would mention him and his successes. She had tended to keep some things close, to be tossed out occasionally like little treats of sweets...
‘Louisa.’
The way he said her name was soft and smooth, almost like a caress. Though he’d called her Lulu when they were children. Her father’s nickname for her. One her mother had loathed because it apparently sounded undignified.
She’d never understood why a child’s name needed to be dignified.
‘H-how are your parents?’
Louisa wasn’t sure why she sounded so breathless, as if she’d run a mile. It was a normal kind of question, wasn’t it? Although she had no real practice at small talk, since her contact with strangers was restricted to telling tourists about the history of Easton Hall and its surrounds, which was a well-practised script.
His mouth thinned. Eyes narrowed. That look could slice you clean through, leaving you eviscerated. Then he shrugged, but it was somehow stiff. Almost an attempt to be dismissive when she suspected there was an enmity running seams deep.
‘I’ve no idea. I haven’t seen them in years.’
Mae had mentioned some family estrangement, so she didn’t press. Especially not to ask about his sister, not right at this moment. She’d gathered even as a child that Felicity was a tender point for him. She’d been envious of the idea of a sibling back then, when she was a lonely only child. Matty had said, almost like a challenge, that he had a sister and she was sick. Louisa had known all about sick people, so she’d left well alone. Even then, she’d wanted the fantasy of a perfect summer rather than being haunted by the spectre of illness and death.
She suspected they both had.
Matty didn’t ask about her family in return, but she didn’t think that rude. The last time she’d glimpsed him was through streams of tears at her father’s funeral, eighteen months after that summer at Mae’s. He’d stood there, almost fourteen, sombre in a dark suit looking so grown up to her almost-eight-year-old self. She hadn’t cared about anything that day because her world had ended.
‘What are you doing here?’
It wasn’t as if this were a social visit. All economy and business, he didn’t even offer her condolences when she’d spent over half her life with Mae. She wasn’t sure she liked it, missing the smiling sunshiny boy she’d glimpsed all those years ago. But then, she’d changed a great deal too. She wondered what he thought of her.
Whether he thought of her at all.
‘Had your solicitor passed on any of my solicitor’s letters, you would have known.’
His mouth was a thin, stern line. He looked as if he rarely smiled, no laugh lines round his eyes. The consummate businessman he’d reportedly become.
In response, she pasted on her brightest smile, because she’d come to believe life was too short and tenuous not to try and fill it with a little happiness.
‘Well, now you’re here you can tell me. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’
‘I could just as well be inviting you inside, Louisa.’
How...odd. His voice was so cold. What had happened to him to strip him of any warmth? She was caught by the inappropriate desire to reach out, to touch. To see if he felt as cold as he looked. The prickle of something entirely unpleasant began to march down her spine. A warning.
‘What do you mean?’
His mouth quirked into the pretence of a smile. His lips curling at the edges in a way that should seem happy, yet it didn’t touch his eyes. They remained cold and hard as those river stones in the stream running through the estate.
‘Since I’m now owner of Easton Hall.’