WHAT FOLLOWED FOR Charlie were three days in a sort of limbo. She slept fitfully. She walked Alice’s Labradors for miles, exploring a countryside so different from the one she’d come from.
‘There’s an old copper mine with uncapped shafts on the western boundary,’ Alice warned. ‘The rest of the property’s yours to roam, though. Neighbouring farmers are all Bryn’s tenants, so tell them you’re our guest and you’ll be made welcome.’
She didn’t tell anyone anything. She avoided everyone. As much as she could without appearing rude she even avoided Alice. Alice was friendly, open, aching to talk, but Charlie didn’t want to talk.
She especially didn’t want to talk to Bryn—and he didn’t seem to want to talk to her.
Each morning he turned up to his mother’s kitchen for breakfast in what seemed to be a long-standing tradition and he was…nice to her. But he was respectful of her boundaries.
She tried to respect his. She was here to settle her dogs and her cows, and then she’d go home. She shouldn’t ask questions.
But three days was a long time to hold back questions.
‘Why don’t you live in the Hall?’ she finally asked Alice. Yes, she was being careful of boundaries but surely it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
‘Bryn doesn’t like pink,’ Alice said darkly.
Bryn had just left, striding off to do whatever peers of the realm did all day. Charlie was watching him as he negotiated the path through his mother’s overcrowded—and very pink—rose garden and thought he looked anything but a peer of the realm. He looked like a farmer, in faded, stained moleskins, a khaki shirt with sleeves rolled to show muscled arms, his hair already tousled from working before breakfast, doing…what she was trying not to think he was doing. Being an ordinary farmer?
He wasn’t. He was something that scared her.
‘It wasn’t just my love of pink,’ Alice said and Charlie realised she’d been silent too long after her question and Alice had been watching her watching Bryn. Maybe she hadn’t closed her face enough. Maybe something of what she was feeling was showing.
Except she didn’t actually know what she was feeling.
‘Sorry?’ she said, feeling confused, and Alice poured herself another cup of tea from a pot with pink roses all over it and prepared to expand. But with another cautious look at Charlie. It was as if she was measuring what she wanted to say against what she saw on Charlie’s face.
‘After the tragedy I was…in trouble,’ she said softly. ‘And so was Bryn. We’d lost so much. My father-in-law, brother-in-law and nephew had been living in the big house and we’d been living here, so suddenly there were two houses between three people. Bryn came home from university and threw himself into the breeding program. I grieved and did hardly anything but eventually I thought I’d redecorate. In pink.’
‘Pink,’ Charlie said faintly.
‘I know it’s over the top but I was desperate for a project,’ Alice admitted. ‘And I may have lost a little perspective. In the end Bryn said it was either pink or him, but, to be honest, we were both so grief stricken we were feeding each other. Seeing Bryn’s grief made me sad and vice versa. Meanwhile Bryn’s grandfather was like a ghost in that mausoleum of the Hall. It was the same between us. My father-in-law could hardly bear to look at me and I was no help to either of them. So Bryn moved over there. I knew it was awful. It was as if he was abandoning any chance he had of ever forgetting, of ever having fun, but there seemed no choice. He’s done everything in his power to help his grandfather and I love him for it but I regret so much…’
Her voice trailed off. Bryn was striding into the distance with his ancient collie by his side. Charlie watched him go and thought of him as a teenager, hauled shockingly from university, trying to cope with his mother’s and his grandfather’s grief as well as his own.
‘He’s gone for the morning and then he’s off to collect the dogs,’ Alice said and Charlie realised that she was being watched. Alice was back to being brisk, practical and bossy. ‘So now…wouldn’t you like to see the Hall? You’re an interior decorator and I’d love your opinion. Sooner or later Bryn will to have to put resources into the Hall, and, I’ll admit, pink may not be the way to go. Though it’s tempting. Come and tell me what you think.’
She hadn’t been in the Hall. She didn’t want to. She was almost…afraid to?
It was Bryn’s home and there seemed all sorts of reasons she should stay away. The agreement was that she’d see the dogs settled and then she’d leave—without getting any more involved than she was now.
But Alice was rising, taking dishes to the sink, brisk and efficient.
‘It’s nonsense that you leave without seeing the Hall,’ she told her. ‘Two minutes while I redo my lipstick and let’s go.’
* * *
So like it or not, she got the grand tour of the Hall, and at the end of it she was starting to see why Alice was veering towards pink. A one-solution-fitted-all approach seemed the only way to go when the prospect was so daunting. It was a vast mausoleum of a place, a three-storey rabbit warren with almost three hundred years of history.
Most of the rooms were dust-sheeted. ‘We’ve never been brave enough to do more than peek under them,’ Alice told her and Charlie peeked and saw a household frozen in time. Faded grandeur, mouse-chewed furnishings, great windows with massive, frayed drapes rotted with years of too much sunlight from the south-facing windows, or mould on the north-window drapes. There was one massive bedroom that looked ready to sleep in—the bed was made up and a fire laid in the grate, but it seemed that wasn’t used either.
‘That’s where Bryn’s grandfather slept,’ Alice told her. ‘When Bryn inherited the title I told him he should take it over. It’s where every baron has slept since the Hall was built and I keep it ready. He has to accept it one day, but the idea of taking on that role… Alone…’ She shook her head as if shaking off a weight and then kept going, towing Charlie from room to room until she felt her head spinning.
‘This is crazy. How many bedrooms?’
‘Fifteen,’ Alice told her. ‘Though I may have miscounted. The servants’ rooms make it more. They’re upstairs and horrid. I’d never put a servant in there. Not that we have servants any more. We have a lovely lady from the village who comes and cleans but Bryn said live-in servants make him nervous. We do have staff working with us on the land, of course. But come and see the living rooms.’
Living rooms! They were faded, ancient, never stepped in. Vast reception rooms, a ballroom, a great hall set up as a massive dining room, a library to take her breath away… This was true aristocracy stuff.
She was right to run, Charlie thought, as she wandered from room to room. That Bryn could possibly want her to stay…share…
The thought was crazy.
And then Alice led her into the kitchen and that gave her pause.
The kitchen was also vast but it was a used room. An enormous Aga took pride of place, radiating gentle heat. The floor was stone, worn with generations of use. The ceiling had wooden beams that seemed to match the enormous table running almost the length of the room.
Bryn obviously used this as his office and his living room. A computer sat at one end of the table, with a pile of bookwork. More bookwork lay on a beautiful old desk beside the dresser. A worn dog bed lay before the fire and the south sunlight shimmered through casement windows that looked feet deep. There was an ancient club lounge to one side, liberally covered with dog hair, and a small television on the top of the dresser. It was warm, comforting…great.
The place reeked of history, of centuries of good food and friendship, of warmth, of laughter…
Of home?
‘We should put a false floor over these horrid stones,’ Alice said. ‘Linoleum would be so much easier on the feet.’
‘Did she tell you she brought home samples of floor coverings?’ And Bryn was there, standing in the doorway, smiling at his mother with fondness as well as exasperation. Seemingly unaware that Charlie had stilled in shock. ‘And they were all…well, guess.’
Guess? When her heart was hammering in her chest? But some things were too obvious for words.
‘Pink?’ she managed, and there was that smile again…
‘So, Charlie, what would you do with my kitchen?’ he demanded, smiling straight at her. ‘You’re an interior designer. Pink linoleum?’
She had to collect herself. She had to ignore that smile and make herself breathe. ‘Sorry, Alice, it’d be a crime,’ she managed and she even managed to smile back at Bryn. ‘The floor has to stay as it is. Most of this kitchen has to stay as it is. It’s fabulous.’
‘One in the eye to you, Mum,’ Bryn said cheerfully and then he paused. ‘Most?’ he queried.
‘I’d be tempted to sand back those beams,’ she told him. ‘You don’t want to lose that fabulous patina of age but they were obviously put up rough. To be honest…a few hundred years of grease and spider webs… It could be improved.’
Bryn gazed up at the beams towering above their heads. ‘I’ve never really looked,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Spiders, eh? You’d destroy a three-hundred-year-old ecosystem just to make the place look pretty?’
‘This place isn’t meant to be pretty,’ she retorted. ‘But if you mean would I consider stopping the result of three hundred years of spider-breeding falling into my porridge, yes, I would.’
‘We could lime-wash them pink,’ Alice said happily and then as both Bryn and Charlie turned to look at her she giggled and held up her hands in surrender. ‘I know. I’m letting go of my pink…slowly. It was there when I needed it but I’m moving on. Bryn, I haven’t shown her the cellars or the outhouses yet but I’ll leave them to you. Or your bedroom! He sleeps where the butler’s supposed to sleep,’ she told Charlie. ‘Honestly, you can see what I’m up against.’ She smiled at Charlie, a warm, deep smile that had meaning behind it, a meaning Charlie couldn’t quite fathom—or didn’t want to fathom. ‘Meanwhile I have roses to deadhead. Bryn, I leave her to you.’
She bustled to the door, and then she paused and skewered her son with a look that mothers used the world over. Mostly parents used that look when they’d reached last resort. ‘Clean your room or else…’
This direction was simpler.
‘Make her stay,’ she said and then she was gone.
* * *
Make her stay.
It was as simple and as complicated as that, Bryn thought.
It had nearly killed him to leave her be for the last few days, to know she was so close and yet so far.
Why hadn’t he told her the facts from the start?
Because it wouldn’t have made a difference, he thought. Or maybe it would. Maybe it would have stopped her coming here in the first place.
She was here to provide for the security of her grandmother’s animals. That was all. She’d make sure he’d do what he’d promised and then she’d leave.
To go home to what? Debts up to her ears? He didn’t need to be told the chances of her accepting more help from him were zero.
And further contact? The chances of that were zero as well.
‘You want a job as an interior designer?’ he ventured. ‘This place is at your disposal.’
‘But you’ve apparently already knocked back your mother’s very kind offer.’
‘I did at that.’ He tried to smile, to make her smile back. It didn’t come off. ‘Charlie, stay.’
She tilted her chin and met his gaze. ‘Why would I?’
‘Because I want you to.’
‘I don’t understand why you would.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ he said gently. ‘But I think you’re afraid.’
‘I’m careful. I need to be.’
‘Of course you are. So accept this as a working proposition. Stay with Mum—she’ll love it. Then work your way through this mausoleum and figure how we can make it a paying proposition.’
‘You want to make this place pay?’
‘It’s too big for one man,’ he said. ‘Even if that man finds a wife, has a family, ends up with a dozen kids and even more dogs. My thought is that we could make part of it a luxury farm retreat. It’s big enough for guests to be completely separate. It could be…fun.’
‘Fun…’
‘For…both of us? I’m guessing that’s what’s been missing in your life for a long time, Charlie bach.’
He was watching her face, watching for a reaction, and a reaction wasn’t coming. Her expression was closed, wary, as if waiting for a trap.
He’d been around creatures enough to know that coming closer would be a disaster. He had to stay back, even though that edge of anger was making its presence known again. Why couldn’t she trust?
‘Wouldn’t it be fun, though?’ he said. ‘To rip off the dust sheets, to uncover history, to work out what we could keep, what guests could use, what we ourselves should treasure.’
‘We…’ She said it as a whisper and he heard the fear. What the…?
‘Mum and I,’ he said, trying not to snap, and then as the fear didn’t fade he decided to say it straight out. He’d shut up once and it had backfired. He had to be honest.
‘Charlie, I’m about to say it like it is,’ he said and he dug his hands deep into the pockets. What he was about to say should be said with a woman in his arms, but if he tried that he knew she’d run. ‘I think I’m in love with you. I think you’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with but you’re looking at me like I have a loaded gun and I don’t get it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘But…love? We’ve known each other for how long?’
‘For little more than a month. So yes, it’s crazy, but you know what’s even crazier? I felt this way from about two hours after I’d met you. So that’s being honest, Charlie, and now I need you to be honest back. Is it possible that you feel the same way?’
‘I can’t!’ She sounded panicked.
‘You can’t or you don’t?’
‘L-look at this place,’ she stammered. ‘You’re a baron. Lord Carlisle of Ballystone Hall. You own everything as far as the eye can see. If we got together… Okay, if we married… Baroness Carlisle? Lady Carlisle? How ridiculous is that?’
‘It’s just a title.’
‘Which you didn’t tell me about. How could I ever…?’
‘Trust me? You did when you thought I was just a farmer. That’s all I am, Charlie. The rest is an accident of birth. If I was born with a gammy leg would you still trust me?’
‘I…of course… I mean…’
‘Then what’s the difference? I was born into a family with a title.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘Because I was still struggling with it myself. I still am. But it’s surface. Something I’m stuck with. I hate that you’re judging me for it.’
Silence. The ancient grandfather clock in the corner started its sonorous boom. One, two…all the way to ten. While Charlie watched him.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, he thought. The rile of anger grew. He was exposing all here, and did she even get how hard it was to say it? But maybe what he was feeling wasn’t anger. Maybe it was pain. Whatever, the clock reached its tenth gong and he was done.
‘I can’t force trust,’ he said, and he could hear his own frustration. ‘And I won’t force anything. All I’m saying is that there’s work here for you. You could stay, draw up plans for the Hall, think about what you’d like to see done—I trust you, you see, not to lumber me with pink. And we could take our time to see how things progress. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t but you could trust enough to give it a try.’
‘Bryn…’
‘I’ve said enough,’ he said roughly, not bothering to disguise the anger now. He glanced—unnecessarily—at his watch. ‘I need to go,’ he said. ‘I have things to do before I collect the dogs. Isn’t it lucky there’s no room in the car for you? You’d be stuck with me for hours. You and me and seven dogs. You never know what I’d try on.’
‘I don’t…not trust you.’
‘That’s a lie,’ he said brusquely. ‘No matter. I’ll bring the dogs back here and I’ll care for them. Because I said I would, Charlie. You believed me that far at least. The rest…it doesn’t matter. Or it can’t matter. Leave it.’
* * *
Except it did matter.
She felt about three inches tall. Or maybe not even that much.
She should be driving to the airport to collect her dogs. Her dogs. He was doing this for her. He’d gone to enormous trouble and expense. The least she could do was trust him.
The problem was, though, that she didn’t trust herself.
He could have sent one of the men to collect them. There was a small army attached to this estate, mostly tenant farmers who helped out with Bryn’s herd, but also a farm manager and extra hands at need. She’d walked the estate and talked to enough people to know the lines blurred, between tenant, boss, neighbour and…friend.
Bryn was admired. Loved even. His crazy mother was adored.
So why couldn’t she throw her hat into the ring?
Because she was afraid?
Or…because there was no way a woman like her deserved a guy like him?
Was that the crux?
Left alone, she wandered through the vast rooms of the mansion and thought of what she could do if she was given free rein. The tiny upstairs servant quarters would make ideal bathrooms. The grand rooms below could incorporate discreet staircases. A couple of the rooms at the end were big enough to put in the tiny lifts she’d read about, so those rooms could be fitted for the elderly or those with a disability. Guests would flock to stay in such a home.
She looked out of the windows at the rolling hills, turning to mountains in the background. At the sleek cattle grazing in the morning sun. At the tiny historic village down the road, at the tenants’ houses, beautifully maintained.
This place was fabulous.
Bryn was offering her a place here.
She had no right…
He wanted her.
But for how long?
‘So take a risk,’ she told herself. ‘You can trust again.’
It didn’t work like that, though. Trust had to come from the heart, and it didn’t operate on command.
She took a last glance around at the fabulous Hall, at a project that could keep her happy for years. She thought of Bryn. He was a man who could keep her happy…for ever?
Or not.
She knew she was a coward. She couldn’t help it though. She wanted…to keep her heart safe.
She was going home.