Storybook Ending

Chapter Fifteen

Imogen looked up at Gabriel searchingly. He appeared cross again—also disheveled, and his eyes were puffy, as if he hadn’t

slept much. Obviously that snotty Louise had showed him a good time last night.

“How are you?” he asked, neutrally enough.

“Fine,” she replied. It was no business of hers who he decided to spend the night with.

“So, you’re a lord, then?” she blurted, for something to say.

“I am,” he replied. “Actually, to be technical, I’m an earl.”

“Not that it makes you a posh twit, or anything.”

“God forbid,” he said, one side of his mouth twitching up.

“I thought you were the caretaker or manager for the Hall or something.”

“I am, in most senses of the word,” he agreed wryly.

“So...” said Imogen, feeling that the conversation was not really going anywhere, “why are you insisting on giving me a

lift? I could easily get a taxi.”

“I need to speak to you.”

Oh God. He was going to talk about his relationship with Louise, she thought. Apologize for kissing her, leading her on and

stuff, probably beg her not to rock the boat.

“No, you don’t,” she insisted, urgently. After spending weeks longing for him to bring it up, she badly wanted to be excused from the conversation. She needed to play it cool. Play it cool, play it cool, she repeated to herself.

“I’m sorry, but I do need to speak to you.” He sat down opposite her and leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely between his knees.

He took a deep breath. “How much do you know about the obligations the owner of Storybook Cottage has for repairs at the Hall?”

he said.

What? thought Imogen, immediately disappointed now that it wasn’t the other thing. “Storybook Cottage?” she repeated slowly,

repositioning herself mentally with an effort. “What should I know? What obligations?”

“Your late husband carried out his own conveyancing, you mentioned?”

Imogen nodded nervously. “He insisted on it,” she said. “He was a solicitor,” she added, “although not actually a conveyer or conveyancer, whatever you call them.”

“Sure,” said Gabriel briskly, as if he had made up his mind about something. “Okay, well, I’ve been speaking to the trustees

of the estate, and the deal is this. My grandmother lived in Storybook Cottage for a long time—more than forty years, actually—and

even before then, it belonged to our family.”

“Okay,” said Imogen, trying to look alert, “like in Jane Austen and stuff. The widow moves to the storybook house to let the

son take over the big house.”

“Yeah, basically,” Gabriel said slowly, “the problem is, the owner of Storybook Cottage, in purchasing the house, takes on an obligation to the estate. The onerous part in this case is that the estate can call on the Storybook Cottage owner to contribute to repairs.”

“Okay,” said Imogen. “But—asking a stupid question—are there repairs?”

“That’s the trouble,” said Gabriel, rubbing his face. “There are.”

“How much?”

“Your share? For the foreseeable scheduled repairs?”

Imogen nodded, pleased her ankle meant that she was sitting down.

“About four hundred and sixty thousand pounds.”

“No way!”

“Way, sadly,” said Gabriel reluctantly. “Most of it is for the perimeter wall of the land surrounding the manor. There’s six

miles of it, and it needs repointing. Huge job.”

She didn’t doubt it.

“But how on earth—and, it has to be said, why on earth—should I find nearly half a million pounds to pay for it? I mean, you know I don’t have it, right?”

She couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Such a huge and completely unobtainable sum was so beyond her reach it was laughable

that they should even ask for it.

“How far would they—you—go to get it?” she said at last.

“That’s beside the point,” said Gabriel briskly, “because I’m doing everything I can to stop it.”

“Oh?” she said, daring to hope.

“I was going to suggest we look through your original deeds, to see if there was any loophole we can use to get out of it.”

“The other trustees?” interrupted Imogen.

“Yeah, there’s six of us,” said Gabriel.

“Well, you’re actually the earl, or whatever?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Surely it’s your choice whether or not you decide to bankrupt a pregnant widow for half a million quid?” She glared at Gabriel,

aware that her chest was heaving like a romantic heroine but unable to stop it. Worse, as always in times of fury and stress,

she felt tears springing to her eyes.

“Imogen, I—” He looked anguished.

“That’s enough,” barked Genny, simultaneously throwing Gabriel a fierce look and putting her arm around Imogen’s shoulders.

“Can’t you see she’s upset? And I’m not surprised,” she added.

“Imogen,” he said, desperately, “I don’t want to put pressure on you—God forbid—but I can’t just make this go away without

your help. It’s not just about us. If it was...” He shook his head helplessly. “I have family obligations. I wish I didn’t.

Anyhow, I am simply offering to look at the deeds with you to see where everyone stands, that’s all—”

“You know what?” said Imogen, brushing the tears from her eyes angrily. “The last thing I want to do is show you the deeds. We are on different sides, aren’t we? Not to put too fine a point on it, you’re the enemy.” Her voice broke on

the last word.

“I’m sorry you feel like that about it,” said Gabriel quietly.

“How else should I feel?” retorted Imogen. “And I have to say, a little less of the ‘droit du seigneur’ stuff, going around

snogging all the women who fleetingly take your fancy, wouldn’t do any harm either.”

Imogen was vaguely aware of Genny looking aghast, staring at them both in turn. “Oh yes,” Imogen continued, nodding at Genny to confirm that her supposition was correct. “I suppose you thought a little charm wouldn’t go amiss,” she ranted at Gabriel, “softening up the lonely old widow before you kick her in the teeth. I bet you could barely wait for me to arrive after you found out someone had actually been suckered into buying the house. You’ll have been cracking open the champagne with your grasping girlfriend once you realized what a pushover I would be, without even a husband to fight it out with you. I bet you were both just laughing your heads off.”

“Imogen,” Gabriel implored, “that’s not how it is.” He reached out to her, but she brushed him off and staggered out of the

kitchen, dragging her bag to his car, desperate to get away from him, the village, and even the house she had started to think

of as home.

The drive to the station was carried out in stony silence, with Imogen, in the front passenger seat, doing everything she could to physically distance herself from Gabriel. She was practically hanging out of the window. Genny was crouching in the back seat, doggedly making polite conversation—largely with herself. Imogen had thought about sneaking into the study before they left to see if she could lay her hands on the house purchase papers, but a) sneaking anywhere was difficult to pull off alongside the Long John Silver issues caused by the dodgy ankle, and b) she had suddenly remembered with immense relief that the papers were still lodged in the offices of Nigel’s old law firm in London. At least there was no danger of him finding them in her absence. Seeing this new, apparently ruthless side of him, she wouldn’t put snooping past him. With keys to the house, there would be nothing to stop him. No, she was going to fight him on this, and it never did any good to let the enemy see all your weapons.

In no time at all, Genny was loading Imogen and her bags into the waiting train and giving her a hasty, warm hug of farewell.

“Take care,” she said, looking intensely at Imogen, suddenly serious and older than her years.

“Tango!” screeched Imogen suddenly, making several people turn to stare at her oddly. “I’m such an appalling mother, I completely

forgot about the cat,” she explained to the puzzled Genny.

“Food and a cuddle twice a day?”

“Please!”

“Done. Now get on the train before it goes without you.”

Exhausted by the unexpected emotion of the morning, Imogen amazed herself by falling into a deep slumber before the train

even got to Didcot. She was embarrassed to have woken up from a limb-numbingly heavy sleep with her head on the shoulder of

a formidable old lady with corrugated blue hair. She heaved herself upright, muttering an apology and checking for signs of

dribble on the old lady’s shoulder. Fortunately, there was nothing, but she knew there was still an excellent chance that

she had both snored and slept with her mouth wide open.

Minutes later, they were pulling into Paddington Station, going from watery autumn sunlight to the gray, echoing spaces of the concourse. Imogen was relieved it was the end of the line. At least she had time to organize her luggage and her painful ankle without being whisked off to somewhere she didn’t want to go. Better still, a kindly guard—who had obviously noticed her earlier—turned up specially to put out her bags and lend an arm to help her off the train. Once he had also fetched a luggage trolley for her, she had decided that with both hands now free to lean on the trolley, she could progress quite well. So well, in fact, she nearly cannoned into a skinny, dark-haired man who was standing by the ticket office with his back to her. As she executed a swift veer to the right to avoid him, he turned at the crucial moment.

“Alistair!” Imogen exclaimed, aborting her maneuver in her surprise and hacking painfully at his ankles.

“Imo!” he replied. “I thought you must have missed it—I was just looking to see when the next one was.”

Ever the gentleman, Alistair refrained, with an almost invisible effort, from rubbing his ankles and instead leaned forward

to give her a kiss on both cheeks.

“Sally sends her apologies. Some crisis at the office, apparently. Plus ?a change.”

“Thanks.”

“?’S okay. I wasn’t doing anything.” He smiled ruefully. “Actually—there’s more. There’s some do on tonight at work that she

can’t get out of, so I wondered if I could take you out to supper at Caro’s?”

“That would be great,” said Imogen, pleased. Caro’s was her favorite Wimbledon bistro, and Alistair was good company—although not in a paint-the-town-red sort of way.

They had just got back to Sally and Alistair’s house, where Alistair had settled Imogen in the kitchen and put the kettle

on, when there was a crash as the front door was flung open, followed by the thunder of feet along the hallway.

“Hi, Ed,” said Imogen as a grubby schoolboy tumbled into the room. “How was school?”

“Rubbish!” he snorted. “We had double chemistry—yuck—and Tristan Parker told Mrs. Simkins I punched him.”

“And did you?” asked Alistair.

“Well, yeah,” he replied defensively. “He set fire to Mark’s chemistry book, so we had to have a fight in the playground.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, course,” Ed insisted. “?’S okay, though, Dad, I totally thrashed him,” he added, reassuringly.

Imogen stifled a giggle and turned away so she wouldn’t catch Alistair’s eye.

“I’m sure Mrs. Simkins will give me a blow-by-blow account when I come for sports day,” said Alistair with resignation.

“Is Mum coming?”

“She’d like to, Ed, but she can’t get away from work—you know that.”

“She never can!” shouted Ed.

“Ed, come on—”

“No! Shut up! Shut up!” he yelled, crashing his way out of the kitchen and slamming the door.

Alistair and Imogen listened to the receding thunder of steps up the stairs, ended by the distant slamming of a door.

“Sorry,” said Alistair.

The joys of being a parent, thought Imogen ruefully, stroking her bump. And she would be a single mum. Yikes. The almost impossible question of how to raise a child single-handedly whilst also earning

a living, whilst also living in the middle of nowhere was ever-present in her mind these days. And that was before this latest

challenge of magicking half a million pounds out of midair was presented to her on top of everything else. The stress of it

all was giving her heartburn to go with the heartache whenever she thought of Gabriel.

With her dead phone on charge, at least no one—including Gabriel—could contact her with any more bad news. Imogen got Alistair

to bring her the landline phone so she could call Nigel’s old office.

“Imogen!” said Richard. “How are you, my dear?”

“Very well,” lied Imogen, and then she filled Richard in on key events since the funeral, not least the baby, plus the bombshell

from Gabriel that morning.

“I’m sure everything is absolutely fine,” Richard reassured her. “I’ll get the property department to comb through the paperwork

today. Let’s meet for lunch later in the week—I’ll get my secretary to give you a call. I am sure I will be able to put your

mind at rest.”

Imogen certainly hoped so. Richard was a kindly, avuncular soul, and lunch with him would be no hardship in return for peace

of mind.

Imogen and Alistair chose a window seat at Caro’s, and the horrors of the morning began to recede. She was ensconced on the curved, padded seat gazing out at the polished early evening theater crowd mingled with work-wilted office staff all scurrying past with umbrellas and collars turned up against the rain. She rejected Alistair’s offer of even a small glass of wine and had soda water with lemon and tons of ice. It was so nicely chilled the condensation was already running down the outside of the glass, matching the drops streaming down the window. Her favorite slow-roasted pork belly with mashed potato and apple was on its way, and she had earmarked the chocolate fondant with salted caramel for pudding. She sighed with pleasure.

The chat between Imogen and Alistair was largely inconsequential. Imogen didn’t have the heart to bring him down with her

looming money disasters. Instead, they stuck with talking about the baby and the possibility of Imogen’s lucky break into

publishing.

“Children’s books are where it’s at,” he told her encouragingly. “Getting books published for the adult market is too hard

nowadays. Books for children are massive in comparison, especially if you get something that the grown-ups like too. Look

at the whole The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse , for example.”

“I love that stuff!” exclaimed Imogen. God, if she could somehow, miraculously, hit on some success like that, maybe Gabriel’s

revelations wouldn’t be so disastrous after all. But it would never happen.

“I could never...” she said, spooning up the last mouthful of her pudding with a sigh.

“Why not?” challenged Alistair.

Maybe he was right, thought Imogen. Certainly, her Instagram followers—who were presumably adult—seemed quite keen on her

stuff. She smiled at Alistair. He was such a lovely man.

Later, over coffee, he became nervous, twitching little bits off the wrapper from the amaretto biscuits that had arrived in

the saucers and rolling it into little balls.

Imogen waited.

“You know that Sally told me about the other woman, right?” he asked.

Her heart flip-flopped. After stuffing the letter in the pocket of her briefcase, she had successfully managed to push “the

other woman” to the recesses of her mind in the box marked “To Be Examined Only When Feeling Strong.” Which wasn’t now.

“We don’t know if that’s what it was,” she said.

“True,” Alistair replied enthusiastically. “We don’t, and personally I think it’s pretty unlikely given that Nigel... er...”

“What?”

“Well, he just didn’t seem the type. I mean, he was a muppet, but... Sorry.”

“I sort of know what you mean,” said Imogen. “But it does look like he cheated on me, and—” Weighing her words, she added

slowly, “I think I want to know why.”

He nodded. “Sally thought you would. What do you have to go on?”

“A love letter,” said Imogen. “Lots of gushy stuff about feeling like they’ve known each other all their lives and then a bit about not being able to wait until he can introduce her to friends and family.”

She felt a surge of anger at the last, in no doubt that it referred to Nigel removing her from the equation before bringing

in the replacement.

“Names? Addresses?” Alistair prompted.

“A first name and half the address, a street name but no house number or postcode.”

“Right. Well, there’s this woman I met.”

Imogen nodded, and Alistair continued, emboldened.

“She’s a private investigator.”

“Sally said,” confirmed Imogen, intrigued.

“Not that I had anything personally for her to investigate, you understand,” he explained hurriedly, noting Imogen’s expression.

“No—it was for a story I was looking at doing, on gangland crime. Turns out the police might sometimes use PIs as an easy

way of going undercover to gather intelligence on people they suspect.”

“Seriously? Do they really?”

“Don’t know, actually,” he admitted. “I suspected so but never really managed to nail the evidence, so I had to drop the story

in the end. Anyway, this woman was pretty impressive. Mind like a steel trap—and discreet isn’t the word,” he added with the

faintest hint of pique.

“So, you think I should contact her?” said Imogen, nervous at the prospect of discovering more.

“Yes, I do,” said Alistair firmly. “I’ll give you her number, and you can arrange a meeting with her before you go back to

Devon.”