ALSO BY VICTORIA CONNELLY
The Rose Girls
The Book Lovers
Rules for a Successful Book Club
The Secret of You
A Summer to Remember
Wish You Were Here
The Runaway Actress
A Weekend with Mr Darcy
The Perfect Hero
Mr Darcy Forever
Molly’s Millions
Flights of Angels
Irresistible You
Three Graces
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2017 Victoria Connelly
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503942264
ISBN-10: 1503942260
Cover design by @blacksheep-uk.com
To my dear friend, Judy, who loves the Weald!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Acknowledgments
Author Biography
Chapter 1
Orley Court sat in the Sussex countryside like a jewel. A sprawling Jacobean manor house built in the early seventeenth-century, it was made from pale-gold Wealden sandstone which held a warmth even on the dullest days when the clouds hung heavy over the Downs.
It was set in a gentle landscape of deep wooded valleys, verdant fields dotted with sheep and horses, and villages full of tile-hung homes, cosy pubs and antique shops full of curios.
When Vanessa Abbott had first driven down from London as a twenty-six-year-old, she’d had no idea that Orley Court was to become her home. Back then, it had been merely another commission for her burgeoning interior decorating business, albeit a very lucrative one. Having Orley on her books would do her no harm at all, she remembered thinking.
Her name had been passed to the owner, Oliver Jacobs, by a mutual friend and she’d made the trip to the Sussex Downs with her pattern books and notepad, totally unprepared for what had followed. The owner might have looked like a handsome hero right out of a nineteenth-century novel, but she’d found his manner gruff and had determined to keep her distance, do the job as quickly as possible and leave. That was, until he’d kissed her in the tapestry room.
Vanessa’s life had changed forever with that one kiss, and she’d known that she’d never return to London. Having grown up in the capital, she’d been used to the relentless bustle of the city and it came as a bit of a shock to find herself suddenly living in the middle of the countryside, but she’d soon embraced it. After all, who wouldn’t fall in love with Orley Court, with its incredible architecture and its rambling romantic garden filled with wisteria and roses? And she’d managed to bring a bit of the sparkle of London with her, organising legendary parties.
‘Come down for the weekend!’ she’d cry down the phone to her old friends, who would pack their suitcases and catch her up on all the gossip from town. Oh, yes. There’d been a lot of parties over the years at Orley, but not so many in recent times. Not since her beloved husband Oliver had died.
Looking out of one of the great mullioned windows onto the wintry garden now, Vanessa wondered where all those years had gone. All those wonderful years of living, loving and working. She was lucky. She’d had such a fulfilling life with a job she adored, two daughters she worshipped and the man she loved by her side.
As she thought back to that day thirty years ago when she’d fallen in love with both the man and the house, she couldn’t help feeling a little sad. Now, only the house remained and it wasn’t in the best of conditions.
Orley Court was a hushed and hallowed place with acres of wooden floors, massive oak beams and enormous fireplaces. It truly was a perfect piece of England, but it was also a very expensive piece and it seemed so big and empty these days with only herself, her mother-in-law Dolly, and Tilda and Jasmine living there. They could no longer afford the luxury of a full-time housekeeper and cook, relying on a local woman from the village to throw a duster around from time to time. Somehow, they got by, but it wasn’t easy and it was something that her daughter Tilda was constantly giving her grief about.
She was wittering on about it now – griping about the cost of something or other. Vanessa had tried to zone her out as she watched a wren flitting in and out of the yew hedge which encircled the front lawn, but Tilda was like a very persistent wasp on a summer’s day.
‘Mother – are you even listening to me?’
Vanessa turned from the window and looked at her daughter, her breath catching in her throat as she realised how much Tilda resembled her thirty years ago.
With her tall, slim build, long vanilla-blonde hair which fell straight down her back like a curtain, blue eyes and pale skin, Tilda had always possessed the power to turn heads, and her looks hadn’t done her any harm in her brief career as a singer.
‘You’re not listening, are you?’ Tilda said. ‘You’ve got that vacant look again.’
‘Of course I’m listening to you, darling,’ Vanessa said. ‘I was just thinking about your singing—’
‘Well don’t,’ Tilda snapped.
‘You really should think about starting again. It’s such a shame all that talent’s going to waste.’
‘Mum, I don’t want to talk about it. I think we should talk about the house.’
Vanessa sighed. ‘You’re always talking about the house.’
‘Well, somebody’s got to pay it attention.’
Vanessa frowned. ‘What do you mean? I do nothing but pay this house attention.’
‘Yes, but a can of paint and a couple of new cushion covers aren’t going to solve our problems.’
Vanessa bridled at the insult. Although she’d officially retired as an interior decorator, she still took on small jobs from time to time, and couldn’t help sprucing up their home even though she knew in her heart that pasting a sheet of wallpaper over a rotting wall wasn’t really the way forward.
‘Don’t forget that it was my home before it was yours, Tilly.’
‘I know,’ Tilda said, ‘but we just don’t have the income to keep it going any longer.’
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying we need to make a decision.’
‘What sort of a decision? Because you know I’ll never sell this place.’
‘I know that,’ Tilda said quickly. ‘I’d never suggest that. Only—’
‘What?’ Vanessa watched as Tilda pulled a strand of hair and twisted it around her finger before speaking. It was a sure sign that something serious was about to be said.
‘We could always sell half the house,’ she said at last.
The words hung in the air for a few moments
before Vanessa responded with a laugh.
‘Half the house?’ she said. ‘What do you mean, half the house?’
Tilda got up from the sofa and started pacing up and down the room. ‘I’ve been thinking about this for some time. We don’t want to sell outright, do we?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘And we wouldn’t want lodgers.’
Vanessa shook her head. ‘Heavens, no! We tried that before, remember?’
‘I remember. He stole the sketch by Holbein, didn’t he?’
‘It had been in the family for generations. Thank goodness we got it back,’ Vanessa said, shuddering at the memory. ‘And then there was that strange woman who arrived with a car full of cats.’
Tilda’s mouth curved into a smile. ‘I liked her.’
Vanessa walked across to the sofa and sat down, patting the space beside her. Tilda joined her.
‘Tell me more,’ Vanessa said.
‘Well, I was thinking that we might be able to sell half the house. You see it all the time on those property programmes,’ Tilda explained. ‘There’ll be this massive old manor house and it’ll be split into apartments.’
‘But isn’t that just like having lots of lodgers?’
‘That’s why I thought that half the house would work better. That way, you’d only get one family moving in. Orley naturally divides itself from the hallway, doesn’t it? It’s not quite symmetrical like some of the Elizabethan E-shape houses, but it could definitely work. The north wing even has its own kitchen, and we don’t use that part of the house.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because it’s true,’ she said. ‘It’s glorified storage.’
Vanessa thought of the rooms that had once been full of house guests. They were now sadly empty, she had to admit.
‘But if we sold half the house, that would be like sharing, wouldn’t it?’
‘Kind of,’ Tilda said.
‘So Orley would become a semi? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Well, a very large, expensive semi.’
Vanessa shook her head. ‘It would be sacrilegious.’
‘It would be worse to lose it altogether, wouldn’t it? At least this way we all get to stay here.’
Vanessa looked at her daughter. ‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’
‘I think it would definitely take the pressure off us, yes. Our earnings have gone down drastically over the last few years, the bills have gone up and this old place seems to cost us more and more to repair all the time. Remember the bill we got for fixing the oast house roof after the storm?’
‘Don’t remind me!’
‘But that’s just it, Mum – you need to be reminded about this sort of thing. You say everything’s going to be all right, but how can you be sure of that?’
Vanessa sighed. ‘I can’t take all this in,’ she said. ‘You think this is the right thing to do?’
Tilda nodded.
‘But how would we do it?’
‘Split it down the middle, north–south from the hallway. Roughly. There’d be communal areas like the entrance, and shared access through the garden to certain areas. But you have to admit that the north wing is going to waste.’
‘But who’d want to buy the drafty old north wing?’
‘Somebody who loves fine architecture with far-reaching views across the Downs? Somebody who wants to own a little bit of English history but can’t afford a whole manor house?’
Vanessa shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Just think about it, Mum.’
Vanessa looked at the earnest face of her daughter and knew in her heart that Tilda was speaking a great deal of sense.
‘I need time,’ she said.
‘We don’t have much time,’ Tilda told her. ‘Have you seen our bank balance?’
Vanessa had. Well, she had a couple of months ago. She hadn’t dared to look any more recently than that. It was far too depressing.
‘If I agree to this – which I’m not sure I will – I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
‘You won’t have to worry,’ Tilda said. ‘I’ll take care of it – surveyors, estate agents . . . leave it to me.’
Vanessa stared down at the threadbare carpet beneath her feet and then glanced up at the peeling wallpaper to the right of the fireplace, which was hiding goodness only knew what horrors behind it. If they sold, they’d have money in the bank for repairs, for heating and other bills. They wouldn’t need to worry anymore. She had to admit that it was a tempting thought.
But to hand over half of Orley to a stranger . . . Wouldn’t that be like losing a limb? Vanessa couldn’t quite imagine it, even though she could see it made practical sense.
‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘That’s all I’m asking,’ Tilda said.
Tilda closed her bedroom door and breathed a sigh of relief that the moment was over. She’d been keeping an eye on the estate accounts for a while now and knew that her family was in trouble. Her mother must have realised it too, although she’d never said anything. She’d sooner pore over the latest swatches from her favourite designers than examine Orley’s accounts. Something had to be done, Tilda knew that, and she also knew it would fall to her to get things moving in the right direction.
But was selling half the house the right direction? It was so drastic, so final.
‘So frightening,’ she whispered to herself. But not selling was even more frightening because she knew that they couldn’t go on living the way they were. The heating bills alone were enough to bankrupt them, especially now that Tilda’s own income had dwindled to almost nothing.
Orley was Tilda’s special place and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing it. It had been her sanctuary when the fickle world of music had turned against her, and it was where she’d come to hide and lick her wounds.
She groaned as she thought about the recent past and cursed the television talent show that had started it all. Tilda had always loved music and had been scribbling lyrics in notebooks for as long as she could remember. When the show had been advertised, she’d leapt at the chance, auditioning with a song she had written herself – which made her stand out from the crowds doing cover versions. Hers had been a catchy little number that won her the show, and a manager from a big record label had picked her up. After that, a head-spinning few months passed as the label groomed her, moulded her, flung a song at her and launched her onto the unsuspecting public, and ‘Tilly’ had been born.
A UK tour had ensued with guest performances at arenas and stadiums. It was all a blur now. A blur she preferred to try and forget. That meteoric rise to fame had ended as quickly as it had begun: the record label moved on to the newest hottest talent and Tilly was forgotten.
She’d come back to Orley, her bank balance swollen and her ego deflated, and she hadn’t written a single lyric since.
She hadn’t totally forgotten her music, though, and was teaching singing and piano to both children and adults in the local area. She was a good teacher and she enjoyed her work, but she felt that there was more to her. Her pupils always got a big kick out of recognising her and a lot of them were desperate to have a taste of that same fame. Tilda always brought them back down to earth, however, warning them of the unpredictable nature of the business and how very unforgiving it was.
She looked at the little desk in her bedroom now. It was littered with notebooks, and she flipped through one of them. Filled with half-written songs and random thoughts and feelings, it made Tilda feel both guilty and miserable. She should be writing. Her songs had once been her life and, at twenty-seven, she was much too young to throw her dreams away. But, somehow, inspiration just wasn’t finding her anymore and nothing seemed to be helping. She’d tried haunting all the places in which she’d used to hide away with her notebooks, but no amount of hiking in the hills or sitting in the garden produced anything.
Perhaps she was a one-hit wonder, she
thought. She had walked out onto the world stage and been applauded and, even though it had only lasted a brief time, she had achieved something. But maybe that was it. She’d had her time in the spotlight and now she had to accept the fact that she was a teacher. Maybe that was one of the reasons why she was taking control of Orley now – because she felt as if she couldn’t control her own career.
Well, one thing was certain: she was going to do her very best to save the house and ensure that her family’s future there was secure, and if that meant selling half of it to another family then so be it.
Chapter 2
‘You’re selling my oast house?’
‘No, Jassy,’ Tilda told her younger sister. ‘The oast house is yours.’
‘We’d never take that away from you, darling,’ Vanessa said.
Jasmine Jacobs didn’t look convinced. Her normally rosy complexion had paled alarmingly.
‘Finish your breakfast,’ Vanessa told her.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Rubbish. You’re always hungry.’
Tilda sighed. She hated to see her sister upset. At eighteen, Jasmine was a full nine years younger than Tilda. A surprise arrival, she was still treated as very much the baby of the family, even though she was now a young woman. A complication during her birth had meant that she had been oxygen-starved at a critical moment and, although she looked like a normal adult, she could be incredibly child-like. She’d been home-tutored after it was discovered that she was on the autistic spectrum, and Vanessa had initially taken on the role of teacher before private tutors were hired. Her patience had been endless and the rewards had been great indeed.
‘Special,’ Vanessa called her daughter, and she was. A little taller than Tilda, Jasmine had inherited her father’s height and, although her hair was the same vanilla-blonde as her mother’s and sister’s, it bounced around her shoulders in enormous curls. But, although she might look like a supermodel, she was anything but feminine in her dress, spending most of her days painting in old jeans and overalls.
The eighteenth-century oast house which stood in the grounds of Orley had once been used as servants’ quarters but Oliver Jacobs had had it converted into a studio for Jasmine. She spent most of her time there, sleeping in a room upstairs that had its own en-suite, and only coming into the main house if she was bored or hungry. She loved the place and guarded it fiercely. Only her tutor was allowed inside without a formal invitation.
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