Chapter 1 #2
Since gaining her PhD five years ago, Beth had still struggled to find a job as a professional astronomer.
But work in that field was tightly contested and even with her qualifications, many doors were still closed to her due to the fact that she didn’t have any proper full-time work or research experience.
So she continued to work in jobs away from the scientific industry.
Four months ago, she had accepted a contract as a contributing writer for a column in an astronomy magazine.
The pay wasn’t much but she felt that she was finally using all the many years of study and she actually enjoyed thinking up new topics each month.
Alongside a temporary waitressing job, it had just covered her rent each month.
Even after all these years, Beth continued to feel that she had never quite achieved the potential that she had been promised in the early stages of her studies. But at least she had never lost her love for the stars either.
She closed the boot of her car before glancing up at the starry sky, her celestial comfort blanket.
Maple Tree Lodge was located in Cranley, a quaint village in the heart of the Cotswolds.
Without any ambient light coming from the hotel, the dark sky was a mass of twinkling lights.
She quickly spotted the plough, her favourite from her childhood.
But even that didn’t give her much comfort that evening.
‘Now I’ve probably lost my column on top of everything else,’ moaned Beth, feeling miserable once more. ‘It’s bad enough that I lost my waitressing job this week because the restaurant shut down.’
‘Hang on, why should you lose your job at the magazine?’ asked Lily.
‘I was understandably a bit upset and threw quite a few insults at Jeremy before walking out. And my ex-boyfriend hates any kind of criticism.’ Beth let her shoulders sag. ‘I should have never got involved with my boss.’
Jeremy was the editor for Stargazing magazine and there had been an immediate attraction between them at her first interview.
He was a professor of physics who had discovered a black hole twenty years ago and still kept an aura of fame about him.
Dazzled by his intelligence and notoriety in their field, Beth had quickly fallen for him whilst they had enjoyed a few dinners discussing her column.
In truth, her column was still a little restricting as Jeremy decided the topic each month.
But it didn’t take much effort on Beth’s part so she had been left with enough free time to create her own astronomy blog.
‘Starry Nights’ didn’t have much of a following but at least she was free to choose what she wrote about.
‘Nice of you not to say I told you so,’ she added to Lily, with a sigh.
Lily shrugged her shoulders. ‘Hey, what are best friends for? Besides, I’m pretty sure Ella will do that for me anyway.’
Where Lily and Hannah were both happy in their romantic relationships, Ella had remained resolutely single, still searching for the perfect partner who had style, money and, most important of all, was equal to her acerbic wit.
Ella had yet to find such a man, if he even existed.
In the meantime, she was equally critical about Beth’s choice of boyfriends.
‘Come on, let’s get you inside,’ said Lily, with a shiver. ‘It’s cold out here tonight.’
‘I’m sorry that I’m arriving here so late,’ said Beth. ‘Especially when you must be so busy,’ she added, knowing that it was a Saturday night and the hotel was likely to be full of guests.
Maple Tree Lodge had twenty bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. Lily and her boyfriend Ben ran the hotel, along with Ben’s family, the Jacksons.
The Jacksons were like a second family to Beth.
In fact, because she had never had a family of her own, they were the only family that she had, along with her best friends.
And thank goodness they owned a hotel, thought Beth. She hadn’t been able to face the miserable studio flat that she was currently renting. On a meagre income, it had spectacularly bad damp which was beginning to make her feel ill and she was desperate to move out of there as soon as she could.
She had arranged to spend the whole weekend at Jeremy’s modern and damp-free flat.
The monochromatic apartment wasn’t quite her style but she had secretly begun to hope that he would invite her to stay on permanently at some time in the future.
That perhaps he was the one to give her the happy life she had dreamed about for so long.
What a disaster, she thought. But at least she was with her friends.
And besides, where else was the perfect place to be comforted?
Maple Tree Lodge, of course, with its cheery fireplaces, oak beams and sumptuous soft furnishings.
As soon as she had walked out on Jeremy, it had been a knee-jerk reaction to head to her favourite place in the world and she didn’t regret the long drive to get there for a second.
‘There are no spare guest bedrooms available unfortunately,’ Lily told her as they began to walk across the car park. ‘Or rather fortunately, for us. It’s the first weekend of the night lights festival so we’re completely sold out.’
‘That’s fantastic news,’ Beth told her. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to have missed the first light festival. It’s so pretty!’
She knew that since Ben and Lily had begun the renovations the hotel’s future had been less than certain. Slowly, over the course of the past twelve months, however, the outlook had begun to look much brighter.
Dotty, Ben and Hannah’s grandmother, had had the inspired idea to have a floating light festival on Dragonfly Lake which the hotel was situated next to.
It had been a huge success the previous winter and the family had been keen to carry on with the monthly show as soon as the darker evenings of autumn had arrived.
‘Thankfully we had finished and packed away before the power cut,’ carried on Lily.
‘By the way, Hannah and Alex have moved back into her old room because there’s a leak that needs fixing in their apartment so you’ll be in the last of the spare bedrooms in the family wing. The first one on the right-hand side.’
As well as twenty guest bedrooms, the hotel had a private family wing of rooms, one for each member of the family.
‘They went to bed a little while ago, before you messaged me that you were coming here,’ carried on Lily. ‘As has everyone else, so you’ll have to catch up with them all in the morning.’
‘Can’t wait,’ replied Beth, suppressing a yawn and suddenly feeling exhausted from the rollercoaster of emotions she had been through that evening. ‘I just need a bed for the night. Thank you, as always, for being there for me.’
Lily smiled at her. ‘There’s always a place for you here, you know that.’
Beth followed Lily inside. The hotel was quiet for once, and in darkness as well. Only the torches on their mobiles lit up the double-height entrance hall.
‘If we’d known earlier, I’d have made sure that the room was clean. We’ve changed the sheets in any case since you were last here,’ whispered Lily, keeping her voice low in deference to the sleeping guests upstairs. ‘Do you want a drink to take up with you?’
Beth shook her head in the light of the torch. ‘I’ve got my water bottle with me.’
‘I’ve got to check that everything’s locked up and all the candles are extinguished before I head up,’ said Lily. ‘Will you be okay finding your own way? Or do you want to wait for me?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Beth reassured her. ‘It’s my second home, remember?’
‘Don’t forget Tiny will be sleeping in the room next door with Hannah and Alex,’ said Lily.
Beth smiled. ‘I’ll be extra quiet,’ she told her friend.
Tiny was Alex’s enormous dog. He was a gentle giant as he was a Newfoundland, but if he barked, the whole hotel would be woken up.
They hugged and wished each other a good night. Beth used the torch on her phone to light her way up the grand oak staircase before turning right and heading down the East Wing towards the family quarter.
She pushed her way quietly through the heavy oak door at the end of the corridor and into the family quarter.
All was quiet there too and she immediately turned into the first door on the right.
She opened up the door as quietly as she could, so as not to rouse Tiny.
She crept inside the bedroom and let the door close behind her with an almost silent click.
She switched off the torch on her phone and, sighing with relief, let her bag drop on the floor, feeling extremely weary.
She couldn’t even be bothered to unpack in the darkness.
So she shrugged off her Uggs and began to reach out towards the large and comfortable double bed that she knew must be nearby, desperate now to go to sleep, exhausted by the emotional break-up and long drive.
However, as she made her way in the darkness, she tripped over one of her Uggs and fell thankfully onto the bed.
Beth’s initial gratitude that the soft duvet had broken her fall immediately evaporated, however, as she was thrown onto her back and pinned down by a large weight. She was hit by the sudden and horrifying realisation that there was someone in the bed with her.
She was just about to scream when the lights flickered on and Beth was left blinking in the harsh glare of the bedside lamp, staring up at the handsome man who was lying on top of her.