Robyn would never forget her first glimpse of Purley Hall. They’d rounded corner after corner of twisting country lane, the vast hedges full of rosy pink blackberry flowers when suddenly there it was, red-gold and glorious across the rolling blond fields. It sat in symmetrical perfection, its aspect cushioned by the countryside around it, with honey-coloured fields stretching out in front of it and deep green woods behind it.
‘Look!’ she exclaimed, pointing out the window like an excited toddler.
Jace looked. ‘What?’
‘Purley!’
‘Where?’
‘Where?’ Robyn echoed. ‘There!’
‘That? I thought it would be bigger.’
‘It’s perfect,’ Robyn said, counting its three visible storeys and its seven sash windows across. ‘Twenty-one,’ she said.
‘Twenty-one what?’
‘Twenty-one windows. Or rather twenty. I expect one’s a door.’
Jace grimaced. Windows and doors didn’t interest him. He took another bend in the road and entered the tiny village of Purley. There was a row of picture-perfect cottages with dark thatched roofs, a pub called The Dog and Boot, and a pale gold church with a modest steeple.
‘Oh, I love it!’ Robyn said. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’
‘’S all right if you like that sort of thing,’ Jace mumbled.
Robyn bristled. Well, she did like that sort of thing and it was getting hard to enjoy it all with Jace as her companion. When, she wondered, was she going to get rid of him?
‘Where are we going, anyway?’ he asked impatiently.
It was then that Robyn saw a discreet wooden sign pointing right. ‘Purley Hall,’ it read, and there was a handwritten sheet of A4 paper tacked underneath. ‘Janeites this way!’
They turned into a driveway that could easily have stretched the length of Robyn’s whole village back in Yorkshire. The driveway was lined with mature trees, and there were fields either side of it.
Robyn was almost on the edge of her seat as the driveway widened and the grand front of Purley Hall greeted them.
‘Oh!’
‘What’s wrong?’ Jace asked.
‘Nothing! Nothing at all,’ Robyn said.
Jace tutted and brought the car to a screeching halt, its tyres firing up a shower of gravel. He parked almost—but not quite—parallel with a black Jaguar.
‘Someone’s got some money,’ he said.
‘Yes, apparently some people have,’ Robyn said, wondering what it must be like.
Robyn got out of the car and looked up at the house. The front was in shade, and a great cedar tree to the left shaded the tennis courts and cast its shadow across an immaculate lawn, its branches sprawling out like dinosaur limbs. A set of croquet hoops had been left out on the lawn and beyond that, Robyn spied a bright blue swimming pool.
She looked up at the house once more, awestruck by the size of its windows, which were as large as the great door, and the triangular pediment at the top which soared into the blue sky above.
‘Right,’ Jace said, interrupting her thoughts, ‘I’m off to the pub.’
Robyn did her best to hide her relief. ‘What are you going to do with yourself this weekend?’
He shrugged. ‘Come and see you.’
‘Oh, but you can’t,’ Robyn said. ‘There are activities all day, and you’d be bored stupid by them.’
‘All right, all right, I get the message. I’ll call you, okay? You’ve got your mobile, haven’t you?’
Robyn nodded.
Jace leant in to kiss her and gave her bottom and affectionate squeeze. Robyn blushed. It wasn’t seemly to have one’s bottom pinched at a Jane Austen Conference.
Jace hauled her suitcase out of the boot of the car and handed it to her. ‘I won’t come in,’ he said.
‘Best not,’ Robyn said.
‘I’ll give you a call.’
‘Okay,’ Robyn said, watching as he got in the car, did a boy-racer manoeuvre on the immaculate driveway, and disappeared. As soon as he was out of view, she took her mobile out of her handbag and switched it off.
***
Warwick had arrived a little earlier than predicted but had been welcomed by one of the event organisers and shown to a very nice room upstairs that looked out over the gardens to the river and fields beyond. Nadia had worked wonders at getting him a room in the house at the last minute, and he marvelled at the beauty of it. It sported an enormous bed in a rich dark wood with a pretty yellow bedspread. Four fabulously plump pillows caught his eye and promised a sweet slumber that night.
He looked around the room, and a pretty mahogany dressing stand inset with a porcelain bowl in blue and white caught his eye. He knew that such a piece of furniture would have been common in a Regency gentleman’s bedroom, and he took delight in the fact that he was to be its owner for the next few days although he was also glad that he had a modern en suite with power shower. Jugs and bowls just didn’t cut it in the hygiene stakes anymore.
A crystal vase of yellow and white roses stood on the deep windowsill and scented the room with their delicate fragrance, and the walls were painted in a shade Warwick recognised as verdigris—a willowy green that was in keeping with the period of the house and gave the room a wonderfully fresh feel. It was a beautiful room.
Warwick wasn’t at Purley Hall to stand admiring his bedroom, though. He had to register and see if Katherine had arrived yet, so quickly changing his shirt, he checked his reflection in the mirror—more out of fear that something might be out of place than for vanity—and headed down the grand staircase to where a table had been set for registration.
‘The dreaded name badges,’ Warwick said to himself. He didn’t have time to create yet another pseudonym for himself, he thought. He was to be Warwick Lawton this weekend. His fate was sealed.
About a dozen people milled around the registration table and more were arriving by the minute. Warwick stood at a respectable distance and watched the goings on. As a writer, he was used to observing, and his height gave him the advantage of being able to see everything. The young girl at the reception table was quizzing an elderly woman about her name badge.
‘Norris?’ the girl said.
‘Yes,’ the lady with cloudy white hair said. ‘Like in Mansfield Park.’
‘Doris Norris?’
‘Yes,’ the lady said with a cheery smile. ‘I know what you’re thinking. It’s not very likely, is it? But I wasn’t always a Norris, you see. I was Doris Webster. Perfectly normal. But then I met Henry Norris and had the misfortune to fall in love with him so here I am—Doris Norris.’
The young girl grinned, and Warwick could see that she was doing her very best not to laugh. He watched for a moment as Doris Norris pinned her name badge onto her pink cardigan, but then a young woman by the door caught his attention. She had long blond hair that corkscrewed down to her waist. Her face was pale with perfect features set into a slightly anxious expression as if she were asking herself, what do I do now? She was wearing a pretty white dress dotted with daisies, and her feet were encased in a pair of silver sandals. Warwick watched her as she looked around the hall, tiny white teeth biting her lower lip, and a part of him wanted to go help her—to take her bag and say, ‘Come this way,’ but the writer in him stayed perfectly still and watched.
That was one of the things about being a writer—one always stood slightly apart, listening and watching. It was hard to tell sometimes, if one were really alive, for life seemed to be happening to everybody else, and yet the writer’s lot seemed to be one of permanent stillness. Had Jane Austen felt like that? he wondered. With neither husband nor children of her own, had she felt that her role had been to watch others? And had that made her happy? Her books made other people happy, that fact was unquestionable, but had they made her happy?
Warwick shook his head. He might well be at a Jane Austen Conference, but he wasn’t ready to get all philosophical just yet. He wanted to have some fun. He wanted to see Katherine. He could feel his pulse accelerate at the thought of seeing her for the first time. She wouldn’t know who he was so he couldn’t call out to her across the room. He would have the chance to watch her. Wasn’t that role his favourite? He could get to know a little bit about her before he said hello.
He smiled. He certainly had the advantage in this relationship, he thought.
‘My wheels seem to be jammed,’ a voice suddenly boomed across the hallway.
Warwick’s eyes fixed on the sort of woman who can only be described as a battle-axe. She had an enormous bosom that was thrust out before her indignantly and a face that seemed to be carved out of angry granite. Warwick watched as she struggled with her suitcase and decided he’d better do the gentlemanly thing and offer some assistance. He was in training for a hero, after all, wasn’t he?