CHAPTER One

As soon as she saw the advert, in one of the magazines she was paid to dust, not read, Cassie knew it had been written for her.

‘WANTED: Female live-in companion for independent lady in isolated Lancashire village. Own room provided. Must not chatter. References required.’

Isolation and silence — underlined silence. It was perfect. Carrying the magazine to the study, careful not to crease any pages, Cassie found a scrap of paper and copied out the advert.

Her pen hovered over the final two words. References? How was she going to manage that? Then her gaze landed on the computer, and the letter-headed notepaper lying beside it. No one would notice one missing sheet. The password for the computer was taped on the inside of the desk drawer: she hadn’t cleaned here three times a week for the last three months without finding that out. It would take barely five minutes to conjure something suitable. And surely her boss at the cleaning company, who had employed her without references and without questioning why she had no ID in the name she’d given him, wouldn’t scruple to give her a reference in any name she wanted?

Her conscience protested, but conscience was one of the many luxuries that Cassie could no longer afford. Her fingers trembling, she switched on the laptop and typed out a letter, recommending herself as an employee in terms she hoped were too good to refuse. She had to get this job. It was time to move on.

Two weeks later, Cassie tramped along a twisting Lancashire lane, knees buckling under the weight of an Army-style backpack. Exhaustion made every step feel like ten, and her feet would have ached if the February chill hadn’t numbed them. But her heart was lighter than it had been in months. Glorious countryside stretched around her, unbroken by any sign of human life. It was almost as good as home. This was exactly the isolation she needed.

She let her backpack slide to the ground, rolled her shoulders to ease the tension and stepped forward for a closer look at a lamb in the field on the opposite side of the road.

A horn blared. Cassie felt a rush of air as a vehicle swerved around her and came to a halt in the hedge. The mother sheep started to run, her muddy brown bottom bobbing up and down, her lamb close behind.

‘What the hell were you doing leaping out into the road?’

Cassie stared up into a face of darkness and bristles. Black eyebrows met over furious brown eyes, and she could just about detect lips set in a cross line inside an unruly beard.

‘You scared the sheep,’ she said, watching as the animals halted at the far side of the field.

‘What?’ The man briefly followed her gaze, then swung back. ‘Stupid woman. I could have killed you! Cars rocket along this road.’

Stupid woman … A different voice fogged Cassie’s brain. She stepped back.

A strong tug on her arm jerked her forwards again just as another car shot round the bend of the road.

‘What’s the matter with you? Do you have a death wish?’

The man looked even more cross and bristly.

‘Sorry.’ Cassie began to rub the knuckle at the base of her right thumb, willing him to leave.

‘Where are you going? Are you heading for Ribblemill?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll give you a lift.’ He picked up Cassie’s bag and slung it in the back of his pick-up truck. He opened the passenger door and a brown Border Collie jumped down. It ran over to sniff Cassie and she bent to stroke it, letting her fingers sink into the soft fur. The dog licked her hand, its tongue rough and warm. It was the most affectionate touch she had felt for months.

‘Gin, here girl.’

The dog abandoned Cassie and returned to the man, who lifted her into the back of the truck. He looked across at Cassie.

‘Come on. It’s too cold to hang about.’ When Cassie didn’t move, he sighed and scratched his nails along his beard. ‘You’ll be perfectly safe. I’m sorry I shouted, OK? A local girl was knocked down on this road last year. I don’t want it to happen again.’

His tone was gentler than it had been, and concern diluted the crossness in his eyes: undoubtedly genuine concern, surprising and disconcerting in equal measure. It took less than a moment for Cassie to make her mind up and climb into the truck. What had she to lose? All she had left was in her backpack, and he had already taken that.

After five minutes of silence, they pulled up just past a substantial stone bus shelter, in what Cassie assumed was the heart of the village. The road split in two before joining a third road, creating a triangular village green in the centre. For a place in the middle of nowhere, the village was surprisingly well-equipped. A pub, its exterior blackened with age, dominated one side of the triangle, and she could see a Post Office and general store, a butcher’s, and a hardware shop that had an extensive jumble of brushes, mops, buckets and other paraphernalia cluttering the pavement outside.

‘This is Ribblemill,’ the man said, cutting the engine and interrupting Cassie’s inspection of what she hoped would be her new home. ‘Do you know where you’re going?’

Cassie peered through the windscreen. None of the roads had names. She shook her head.

‘Which is Wood End Road?’

‘That one.’ He pointed to the road that disappeared to the left, at the opposite point of the triangle from the Post Office. ‘There’s not much that way. Have you been here before?’

‘No,’ Cassie admitted. ‘I’m looking for a house called Ramblings. Do you know it?’

There was a definite shift in atmosphere inside the truck. The man turned towards Cassie.

‘What are you going there for?’

‘I have a meeting with the owner, Mrs Smallwood.’

‘What about?’

‘Is that any of your business?’

‘Why don’t you tell me? Is it really Mrs Smallwood you want?’

Cassie wondered why he was looking at her with such suspicion, when he was the one acting oddly. She reached for the door handle.

‘Wait! I’m on my way to Ramblings now. I can take you there.’

This seemed a remarkable coincidence, but it was impossible to know what he was thinking under all that hair.

‘It’s no problem. I can walk.’

‘It’s a mile and a half away.’

Cassie let go of the door handle. She was already feeling the effects of pushing herself too far today. If the interview wasn’t successful, she had no idea how she would find her way back to public transport or, more to the point, where she would go once she did. For the first time she regretted the impulse that had led her to give up her job and her room to come here.

‘I’ve a couple of errands in the village, then we’ll go. I’ll be five minutes. Wait there.’

The man was halfway out of the truck before Cassie realised that he was talking to her, not the dog. The dog was allowed to go with him, and she watched them cross the road and head into the hardware shop. A few minutes later they emerged and walked over the green to the pub. Errands! Cassie snorted to herself. A swift pint, more like. Her eyes flicked across to the general store. If he was having a drink, she could easily pop over there and be back before he knew she’d moved. She climbed out, grabbed her bag, and headed to the shop.

Five minutes later, Cassie left the store and inwardly groaned as she saw the man standing at the side of his truck, looking up and down the road. She could sense waves of bristling irritation flooding her way.

‘Where did you go?’ he demanded, as soon as she was within shouting distance. ‘I told you to wait.’

‘I went to the shop.’

‘What for? Have you been asking questions about me?’

‘No. I needed some tablets,’ she said, thinking that this lie must surely end the interrogation. She wished she had asked about him while she was there. Was he actually mad, or just good at behaving like it?

‘What tablets? Are you ill?’

‘Period pain,’ she improvised, confident this would be the perfect full stop to the conversation. She put her bag into the back of the truck with the dog, and climbed into the passenger seat. The man started the engine, but didn’t set off.

‘What tablets did you get?’

‘Ibuprofen.’

‘Don’t take them on an empty stomach. Have you any food?’ Cassie shook her head. He reached across and opened the glove box. It was stashed full of chocolate bars. It was possible he blushed under Cassie’s astonished gaze, but it was hard to be sure, what with the beard. ‘Help yourself.’

‘I don’t eat chocolate.’

He snapped the glove box shut again, and pulled an apple from the door pocket. He polished it on his jeans and tossed it to Cassie. She crunched into it, preferring his germs to his questions.

The road out of the village passed a couple of cottages and then there was nothing but undulating fields on either side. They approached a copse, and the truck swung abruptly through a pair of elaborate stone gateposts and along a well-kept drive. Cassie sat up. This wasn’t right.

‘I thought you were taking me to Ramblings.’

‘I am.’

‘But …’

Cassie’s words fell away as they pulled onto a gravel forecourt in front of a house of stately home proportions. Built of a pale grey stone, elaborate turrets and towers propped up the corners and huge chimneys burst through the roof. There was no symmetry or order. It looked like someone had thrown every fantasy together in one building – and yet it worked. It was beautiful.

‘This is Ramblings?’

‘Yes. What were you expecting?’

Cassie gave a vague shrug, which was as good as a lie, because after one brief conversation with Frances Smallwood, she’d had a clear idea of what to expect. She’d imagined a detached house, possibly Edwardian, neat gardens outside and inside a riot of ornamental china displayed on lace doilies. Never in a million years had she imagined this.

Her companion was beetling his brows again.

‘Surely you looked it up before you came?’

‘I don’t have a computer.’ She hadn’t dared use the ones in the houses she cleaned in case she left a search history. On finding out the address, Cassie had gone into the nearest WH Smiths and looked on a road map to see where the village was, and which was the closest railway station. The house itself had been irrelevant. The advert had promised her own room, and as she’d learnt over the past few months, ultimately she didn’t need more than that.

The man continued to stare at her, clearly unconvinced.

‘Why are you here?’

‘I told you. I’m here to see Mrs Smallwood.’ She opened the door. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

She hopped down, but before she could reach into the back for her bag, he had come round and picked it up himself, swinging it over one shoulder as if it contained nothing more than cobwebs.

‘I’ll introduce you,’ he said, and led the way under an ornate entrance canopy that reminded Cassie of a four-poster bed. He flung open one half of the massive oak door, without ringing the bell, and walked into a hall the size of a tennis court. The walls were wood-panelled, carved into arches that echoed the windows, the door frames and the fireplace.

‘Frances!’ he shouted. There was no answer. ‘She’s probably in the morning room.’

He marched off and Cassie hurried after him, through an over-sized archway and down a corridor until he burst through a door.

‘There you are,’ Cassie heard him say as she dawdled behind, unsure whether she should have followed him or waited in the hall. ‘Why have you got your feet up? Are you feeling ill?’

It was a softer version of the inquisitive tone he had used on Cassie.

‘Barney! I did not expect you to be here today.’ The answering voice was female, elderly, and querulous. ‘I was simply resting my legs. Stop fussing and get off to your office.’

‘What’s the hurry? Am I interrupting something?’

‘Nothing that concerns you. I am expecting a visitor.’

‘Then it does concern me, because I’ve brought you one. Or I thought I had. Has she done a runner already?’ Cassie heard footsteps and then the man, Barney, peered round the door. ‘It appears you were telling the truth – about your meeting, at least. You’d better come in.’

Cassie pushed open the door and went into a large but surprisingly cosy room, decorated in a soothing shade of blue, with squashy sofas and chairs scattered around and not a single doily in sight.

An old lady rose from a chair. She was immaculate in an A-line wool skirt, silk blouse and cardigan, her grey hair set into a softer version of the Queen’s style.

‘Miss Bancroft? It is very good of you to come. I am Frances Smallwood.’

She swept a sharp, assessing look over Cassie, who gazed back, helplessly aware that if she was going to be judged on appearance, the job was as good as lost.

‘Do sit down. You look exhausted. Was it a bad journey?’

‘Not really, until the last few miles…’

‘Until she ran me off the road,’ Barney interrupted. ‘She jumped out of the hedge like a rabbit.’

‘Are you still here?’ Frances cast an irritated glance at him before turning back to Cassie. ‘Why were you in the road? Where was your car?’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘No car? But I assumed…’ Frances trailed off.

‘Is it a problem? I don’t mind the isolation. There’s nowhere I want to go.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Cassie noticed Barney shift nearer Frances. She looked up as she felt his gaze land on her, cool and appraising. It was worse than Frances’ scrutiny, and Cassie shrank back into her seat.

‘What’s going on here, Frances? Is she here about me? Have the journalists started again?’

Frances smoothed her skirt out with a small huff of resignation.

‘It has nothing to do with you. Miss Bancroft has applied to be my companion.’

‘Your what?’

Barney’s expression of stupefaction might have been amusing, if Cassie’s lips could remember how to smile.

‘My companion.’ Frances cradled her hands in her lap. ‘Someone to keep me company. To be another presence in the house.’

‘I’m in and out of the house all day!’

‘Working,’ Frances replied. ‘And you are not here at night.’

‘I can be. I’ll move in.’

‘I hardly think that would be appropriate. I have no wish to find a parade of strange ladies wandering round my house in their smalls.’

‘Then why have you invited one to live with you!’

Cassie moved a cushion on to her knee, trying to fade into the sofa. She glanced at Barney, who stared back at her, eyebrows drawn in obvious challenge. For the first time since she’d encountered him on the road, she considered him properly. He was younger than she’d thought, perhaps mid thirties, a similar age to her; his hair was thick and conker brown, though rather wild, and his eyes, when he stopped frowning long enough to reveal them, were large and expressive. Objectively he was an attractive man, notwithstanding the beard. Perhaps it wasn’t so unlikely that he had streams of ladies visiting him, if they blocked their ears and didn’t listen to him shouting. And if they could stand the intense scrutiny: he had a gaze that could strip away skin and bone, and see straight into the soul. Cassie gripped the cushion tighter.

‘There is nothing strange about Miss Bancroft. You only need look at her to see how utterly normal she is.’

Two pairs of eyes now scrutinised her: a faint shadow of doubt in one set and frank disbelief in the other. Cassie stared silently back, soaking in the unintended compliment. Normal! She hadn’t felt normal for months, years maybe.

‘This is the first time you’ve met. You don’t know anything about her. Which agency is she from?’

‘Agency? I want a companion, not an escort.’

‘I mean a care agency.’ Barney crouched down by Frances. A look passed between them, loud with words that Cassie could see but not hear. ‘If you’re set on this, you need someone who knows what they are doing – what to expect. This isn’t right.’

Cassie tossed aside her cushion. All her polished interview phrases vanished from her head.

‘I can do this,’ she said. ‘Please give me a chance. I need this job.’

Frances met her gaze, with an expression so stern that Cassie thought she had blown it. But then she gave a slight but definite nod, a gesture that somehow seemed to convey understanding as well as agreement.

‘I think I am the best judge of what I need,’ Frances said, turning to Barney. ‘I will not be bullied: not again, not in my own home, and certainly not now. I am employing Miss Bancroft as my companion, and you, Barnaby Smallwood, will have to get used to that.’