Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange

by Jenny Kane

  ‘Landscape Treasures?’ Tom was impressed. ‘That’s quite something.’

  ‘We are fortunate to have strong links to the show. Hopefully, they’ll be here to film a little of the excavation early next month.’

  Tina could feel Thea forcing herself not to glance in her direction. Did this mean Sam had heard from Shaun and that the filming was going ahead?

  ‘On television?’ Tom’s eyebrows rose. ‘Would that involve all your staff? I’ve never done anything like that.’

  ‘I imagine the angle of us training recovering military personnel as excavators would appeal as good television. Although no one would be forced to be involved. If screen time isn’t your thing, it would not affect whether you got the job or not.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Tom watched the steady peeling back of squares of turf. ‘Young workforce; university students?’

  ‘From Exeter, yes. We need the site opened, but no more for now. That will save the Landscape team time when they get here as their schedule is very tight.’ Sam turned to Helen, passing her the site plans. ‘Could I leave Tom in your capable hands while I have a talk with Thea and Tina?’

  Helen wiped her palms on her legs again; this time because they were sweating. What’s the matter with you, woman? ‘I’d be delighted. Tom, would you like to borrow some overalls? I’d hate that suit to get dirty.’

  *

  Sam sat opposite Thea and Tina at the patio table near the kitchen door. He gestured to the open notebook Thea placed before him. ‘First impressions?’

  ‘He’s a nice man; passionate about his work.’ Tina looked over her shoulder towards the dig.

  Thea agreed. ‘We both liked him, and although he drifted a while after he was demobbed – is that the word? – once Tom found his passion, he stuck to it. We only have one concern.’

  ‘Which is?’ Sam pulled the notes Thea had made during the interview closer, scanning them as he listened.

  ‘His five-year-old son, Dylan. That’s why he’s applied for this post. Tom is not living with the boy’s mother, and she has moved to Tiverton. We get the impression Tom shares child care and needs to be nearby.’

  ‘That’s not a problem surely? Tiverton’s only fifteen miles or so away.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of that. I was more considering the times when Tom has Dylan for the weekend or longer. How would that work if we needed Tom on site at the weekend?’

  Sam tapped a pen on the notebook. ‘You have a point. I hadn’t envisaged children here. Not for a while at least.’

  Tina caught Sam’s gaze, and couldn’t help the smile that crossed her face. He’d thought about them having children. Her heart felt as though it was glowing.

  ‘Until that time, I hadn’t thought about if the house was safe enough for enquiring young fingers. Although…’ Sam paused ‘…would it be so bad having a child here sometimes?’

  ‘Of course not. Not for us. But this place isn’t about us on an everyday basis. It’s about our guests. They might not want a young lad about the place.’

  ‘Or they might love it.’ Sam considered for a while. ‘We haven’t offered accommodation with the role, have we?’

  ‘We haven’t,’ Tina confirmed. ‘Tom told me he’s booked into the Stag and Hound tonight.’

  ‘Then let’s leave the question of living at Mill Grange unspoken for now.’ Sam watched Tom and Helen move around the fortlet. ‘If accommodation arrangements are a problem, he won’t take the job.’

  ‘You’d like him to though.’ Thea spoke the point as a statement not a question.

  ‘I think his knowledge of how the forces work and how service folk think will prove valuable. Combine that with the fact he is already employed in the sort of job we want doing here, then I think he’d be an asset.’ Sam laid down his pen and faced his colleagues. ‘What do you two think?’

  Thea looked at Tina. ‘I think Helen fancies him. I wonder when she’ll realise?’

  Thirty

  September 22nd

  Brushing out her blonde hair, teasing it down as long as it would go, Sophie was pleasantly surprised by how long it had grown.

  Even with her determination to make Shaun fall for her, she hadn’t considered her appearance much. Archaeologists were usually a bit muddy; tatty, even. Thea was an archaeologist, so she’d decided to be as much like that as she could. Now, however, as Sophie ran light pink lipstick over her bottom lip, she winced at how much she’d taken for granted. How arrogant she’d been.

  I assumed he’d want me if I could be like Thea, when I should have been trying to be better than her. I am younger and probably thinner. ‘Thea might work at a nice house and have a rare archaeological site at her disposal, but so do I. And I own mine – well, sort of!’

  Sophie concentrated as she ran the lipstick over her top lip. Time I channelled my inner Hammett aristocrat. There’s got to be a reason my mother always gets what she wants.

  Glowing from the fact Shaun had asked her out for coffee, rather than the other way around, Sophie concentrated on making herself look good. She was determined to present him with an attractive appearance as well as money, a title, and a passion for archaeology. Sophie pursed her lips, blotted them with a tissue, and then relaxed them into a smile.

  Slipping on a pair of skin-tight jeans and an open-necked white shirt, she grabbed her jacket. ‘Sorry, Thea, but it’s my turn now.’

  “I’d like a private conversation. Do you know the café in Bodmin?”

  Those had to be her favourite sentences of the year. Perhaps Shaun had only pretended not to want me before because he feels guilty about being attracted to a younger woman? That made sense. How often had she read in the celebrity magazines about famous people leaving their husbands or wives and going off with someone half their age? The way it was often reported made it sound as if such behaviour was a natural stage of life for people in the public eye.

  Shaun’s stressing that the matter should remain private between them because it was a delicate situation made Sophie’s pulse race with excitement. She rather liked the idea of being his secret. As long as it didn’t stay a secret for too long. Sophie found herself picturing the envy on the faces of the girls at finishing school when they saw her in the papers, photographed alongside Shaun Coulson.

  Finally ready, she headed down the backstairs. As she neared the kitchen, Sophie paused to listen. She couldn’t hear anyone moving around in the kitchen. Carol Atkins, who cooked the evening meals at Guron, wasn’t due for another hour. The coast should be clear.

  It wasn’t.

  ‘Sophie darling, what brings you here?’ Her father lowered his newspaper. ‘And so smart. Your mother would be delighted to see you so groomed.’

  ‘I um, I’ve got a date.’ Sophie’s eyes fell on the pile of papers heaped up next to Lord Hammett. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you read papers in the library?’

  Chuckling, he lifted up the tabloid so Sophie could see what he was reading. ‘This is, according to your mother, the gutter press. She would not approve.’

  Sophie laughed. ‘Father, are you hiding in the kitchen to read an illicit pile of red tops?’

  ‘Yes.’ He flexed the copy of The Sun. ‘They make me laugh. Well, this one makes me laugh. Those—’ he pointed to a pile of Daily Expresses ‘—I get for the crosswords, and that lot over there—’ a tall stack in the corner of the kitchen next to the range made Sophie shake her head in amazement ‘—combine The Star, The Mail, The Metro and everything in between.’

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘Mrs Atkins of course. She brings me the papers her husband and his friends have finished with.’ He tapped the date at the top of the page. ‘Yesterday’s. Mr Atkins and his chums read them, then I have them. In return, I come down here, into this little sanctuary and get the range stoked up a bit for Mrs Atkins so it’s warm on her arrival.’

  Wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he sat on the old battered sofa next to the cooker, Sophie asked, ‘Is th
is how you survive here? By having a bolthole?’

  ‘Away from your mother you mean?’ He spoke calmly, but there was no escaping the edge of offence.

  ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ He tapped the seat next to his, and Sophie sat down. ‘Everyone needs space of their own. This is a huge house, but it’s also a lonely place sometimes. Down here in the kitchen, there is a sense of life. That’s why I’m so grateful for you bringing the archaeologists here.’

  ‘What about Mother? I’m still amazed she agreed to them staying a week longer.’

  ‘She’s as proud as punch at having her home shown off.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Then, why can’t she just say so? Why does she have to make me feel like a disappointment all the time?’

  Lord Hammett wrapped an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. ‘Your mother’s father was very strict. Her mother was worse. They were good people, but old-school in the extreme sense of the word.’

  ‘But, this is now.’

  ‘And this is not the life you want, not completely. I’m right aren’t I?’

  Sophie had a sudden urge to cry as she hugged her father tighter. ‘I wish it was. I do love the house and Cornwall, but I can’t stand the thought of being marooned here and forced to run a deserted estate. Not to mention being expected to marry someone of Mother’s choice and not mine. It’s the twenty-first century. I can’t just—’

  Lord Hammett held up his hand. ‘I know you can’t. How about going on that date? I wouldn’t want to make you late.’ He hugged her and then let Sophie go. As she stood up, he asked, ‘Who’s the lucky chap? An archaeologist I presume?’

  *

  As she drove her father’s old Jag down the back lane, avoiding the dig site, and therefore taking twice as long to get into Bodmin and the boutique café Shaun’d suggested they go to, Sophie tried to work out why she’d told her father that the date was with Shaun. He’d been delighted. ‘A nice solid young man with prospects,’ had been his response. He hadn’t batted an eyelid about the age difference. But then, she thought, Shaun didn’t look like he was in his forties, and her father was very unlikely to know he had a girlfriend. If he had, there was no way he’d have loaned her his precious car, so she didn’t have to take her Mini, and risk being spotted. ‘We don’t want tongues to wag, do we, darling?’ had been his response, delivered with a little wink.

  Taking extra care as she drove out of the long driveway, onto the narrow road that looped the estate, Sophie swallowed the nagging conscience that prickled at the back of her neck. She hadn’t lied to her father, but she hadn’t been entirely honest either. She thought of him now, reading his banned papers, taking a moment to himself every day. Maybe that was how to survive being Lord of a remote manor.

  ‘You can’t think about that now.’ She spoke into the mirror as she checked the road behind her. ‘Now you need to impress Shaun. Perhaps living at Guron wouldn’t be so bad if Shaun lived here too. We could turn the manor into a tourist attraction, and have people come to visit the church site.’

  We could have what they have at Mill Grange. Sophie pressed the accelerator. Shaun would be waiting for her.

  *

  Shaun felt guilty even though he had no reason to. Phil was fully briefed as to his mission, and although he wasn’t there to chaperone his late afternoon cuppa with Sophie, he was expecting a full briefing of the conversation in the pub later.

  Heading through the empty café to a table for two in the far corner, ordering a large Americano, Shaun hoped he’d be able to stick to his plan.

  *

  Arriving in a puff of expensive perfume, Sophie appeared stunningly different from the woman he’d seen on site. Shaun found himself smiling a bit too widely at her, before an uncomfortable thought hit him. She doesn’t think this is a date, does she? This is just a coffee shop for goodness’ sake. Memories of Ajay’s theory about Sophie fancying him suddenly reared up in his mind.

  As Sophie joined him, she shot Shaun a simmering smile.

  You idiot, of course she thinks it’s a date. You’re in a café in Bodmin, hidden away from everyone we know. And I asked her to keep it secret. Damn.

  Feeling a total idiot, and trying to gauge how badly Thea might react to Sophie’s assumption when he spoke to her later, Shaun wondered if there was a kind way to burst Sophie’s bubble.

  As she gushed over the cake menu, Shaun listened with growing awkwardness as she enthusiastically thanked him for giving her the chance to chase her dream of becoming an archaeologist.

  When she reached a hand across the table and laid it over his, Shaun made a play of flapping out a paper napkin, so he didn’t offend her by yanking his hand away, before grabbing his chance to get a word in edgeways.

  ‘Sophie, you’ve been great on the dig.’ She battered her eyelashes, making Shaun wish he hadn’t decided to open with a compliment. ‘And Phil and I, not to mention the rest of the team, are grateful you managed to persuade Lady Hammett to grant us an extension, but—’

  Sophie dived back into the conversation, basking in the warmth of Shaun’s flattery. ‘You’re welcome. It was hearing about Mill Grange that swung it according to my father. Apparently, although she’d rather die than admit it, Mother is keen on having people admire her home in the same way.’

  ‘Oh.’ Shaun was prevented from saying more by the arrival of the waiter. But as he ordered a thought came to him. ‘How did you know about Mill Grange?’

  ‘I looked it up online.’ She fluttered her eyelashes demurely. ‘Ajay and Andy mentioned it.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Shaun couldn’t recall anything about Mill Grange being opened to the general public being on the website Tina had organised, but he supposed the AA could have mentioned the open event they’d attended before Sam took over the manor. ‘Anyway, as you know, we need to get the excavation here finished so we can get to Upwich.’

  Sophie nodded, the move making her blonde hair sway across her chest in a way that was incredibly provocative. Shaun was sure it was deliberate.

  ‘I can see why you’d want the television coverage, although…’ Sophie ran a fingertip around the top of her glass ‘… the Mill Grange site isn’t as important as ours, is it?’

  Feeling instantly defensive and increasingly wary of Sophie’s body language, Shaun fell back on his television presenter’s stock answer: ‘All sites have their own level of importance.’

  ‘Of course, but…’ Sophie gave him a slow smile ‘…you can’t really want to dash back to Somerset, when Cornwall has so much on offer.’

  *

  ‘I tell you, Thea, I drank my coffee so fast I burnt my mouth!’

  Thea sat at her office desk gripping her phone, torn between gratitude at her boyfriend’s honesty about the café he’d fled from, and anger that he’d been so blind to Sophie’s advances in the first place.

  ‘And what’s worse,’ Shaun mumbled, ‘I never got to ask Sophie about what I took her there for in the first place. Phil is not going to be impressed.’

  ‘And what was that?’ Thea sat very still. She could feel her pulse thudding in her neck. ‘Why couldn’t you have just taken her to one side at the house? Why go out at all?’

  ‘Well, I…’ Shaun found himself blustering. ‘It’s just, we – Phil and I – think that her mother might be behind the acts of sabotage we’re experiencing.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘The evidence seems to fit.’ Shaun wiped perspiration from his forehead. ‘I couldn’t risk anyone overhearing the accusation when I asked Sophie about it. Lady Hammett always seems to be lurking somewhere. Watching. It was only the local café, not a hotel or anything.’

  ‘Did you consider a hotel then?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t!’

  ‘Umm.’ Thea pulled a pad and pen in her direction and began to make a to-do list. ‘Sounds as if mother and daughter are as manipulative as each other.’

 
‘Perhaps it’s something they teach at finishing school.’ Shaun snorted. ‘I’ve already offended Sophie, so I might as well go the whole hog and ask her if it’s on the syllabus!’

  ‘Actually, I think I’ll ask her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s time Sophie and I had a little chat.’

  Thirty-One

  September 23rd

  ‘Are you sure it’s okay?’

  ‘How many times are you going to ask us that?’ Tina rolled her eyes as Thea threw a hastily packed rucksack into the boot of her car.

  ‘But I’m abandoning you, and the first guests are arriving in twelve days!’

  Tina smiled at her friend. ‘Honestly, if it wasn’t okay, we’d say so.’

  Sam passed Thea her walking boots. ‘Go and sort this Sophie girl out. You’ll never be able to concentrate if you don’t go, and anyway, you going could make the difference between Shaun’s team coming here or not.’

  Thea gave her friends a hug, and was about to climb into the driver’s seat when she asked Sam, ‘Yesterday, when you were interviewing Tom, you talked about the television filming as if, should it happen, it would be Landscape Treasures. Have you made a decision about Treasure Hunters?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He turned to Tina. ‘That’s what I was going to talk to you about once we’d waved Thea off. No offence, Thea, but you’re understandably biased.’

  *

  Watching Thea’s car disappear down the driveway, Sam slipped his hand into Tina’s. ‘I honestly don’t know what to do about Treasure Hunters. They have now offered in the region of £8000. It would solve a huge number of problems; maybe enough to pay an architect to draw up plans for the renovation of the mill building.’

  ‘But you’re worried that if we take the offer, Shaun will be upset?’

  ‘A little, but he’s a friend, and he knows this isn’t personal.’ Sam shrugged. ‘I’ve just got an uneasy feeling about it. Eight grand is a lot of money to offer when they haven’t even inspected the site.’