The Bachelor

by Tilly Bagshawe

  Copyright

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  The News Building

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

  Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2016

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

  Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008132811

  Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008132835

  Version 2016-05-24

  Dedication

  For Nonny, with love.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Map

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Tilly Bagshawe

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  Henry Saxton Brae was admiring his business partner’s considerable assets.

  ‘Harder!’ she commanded. ‘I’m almost there!’

  Her eyes were closed and her breathing ragged. Her pretty, elfin face was twisted into an expression of intense concentration as she willed herself to orgasm.

  Henry felt a moment’s deep loathing, first for George and then for himself. Then he closed his own eyes and erupted inside her, his fingers digging painfully into the small of her back as they both came.

  ‘Naughty,’ Georgina chided him, turning to rub the bruises already forming above her buttocks as she dismounted, with an insufferably smug look on her face. Every time they did this, George had ‘won’ and Henry had ‘lost’. She delighted in the power she had over him; her ability to goad him into sex, even though she knew deep down he despised her.

  ‘Robert’s bound to notice. What am I going to tell him?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ Henry muttered bitterly, pulling up his jeans. ‘Lying’s never exactly been a problem for you.’

  ‘Or you, darling,’ George shot back.

  They were lying on the floor of Gigtix.com’s London offices, the internet box-office company that Henry Saxton Brae and Georgina Savile had founded together three years ago. It had made both of them fabulously wealthy, but it had also bound them together in what was becoming an increasingly toxic relationship. George’s recently acquired husband Robert, a barrister of quite earth-shattering banality, was far too unimaginative ever to suspect anything might be going on behind his back. But Eva, Henry’s girlfriend, was beginning to get suspicious.

  Not girlfriend, Henry reminded himself guiltily. Fiancée.

  Why had he given in to George again? Why? What compulsion kept driving him to cheat on the woman he loved, and who was a thousand times more beautiful than malicious, manipulative, spiteful George Savile, or any of his other meaningless flings?

  ‘I’m serious,’ George pouted, examining her bruises more closely. ‘How would you like it if I sent you back to Ikea with scratches all over your back?’

  ‘Don’t call her that,’ Henry snapped. ‘Ikea’ was Georgina’s nickname for Eva, because she was Swedish and, in George’s mind, disposable. Looking at his Patek Philippe watch, Henry felt his anxiety levels rise still further. ‘I have to go. I’m going to be late.’

  ‘For what? Your curfew?’ Georgina taunted, slipping a ridiculously tight pink T-shirt over her nude push-up bra.

  ‘For the village fete,’ said Henry, grabbing his car keys from the desk. ‘I’m supposed to be giving out prizes.’

  George threw her slender neck back and laughed loudly.

  ‘I’d forgotten you’re playing the country gentleman now. How priceless!’

  ‘I’m not playing,’ said Henry.

  Henry had bought Hanborough Castle, the Swell Valley’s most idyllically romantic estate, six months ago, and now lived there full time with his bride-to-be. The whole thing was ridiculous. Taking Henry Saxton Brae out of London was like taking a killer whale out of the ocean. Henry was a predator, not a pet.

  ‘Run along then,’ George taunted. ‘The lord of the manor mustn’t be late for the fete.’

  Henry stormed out, slamming the office door behind him.

  Only once she was alone did George’s triumphant smile fade and the familiar melancholy, deflated feeling take hold. Henry would come to his senses one day. George felt sure of it. But it was hard waiting sometimes.

  She’d hoped her wedding to Robert would be the wake-up call Henry needed. But he’d seemed not to care at all. George was pretty sure he was faking his indifference. But it was still hard. Henry’s engagement to the awful, vacuous, goody two-shoes Eva Gunnarson had been even harder. George had grown used to him screwing around. He was one of England’s most eligible bachelors, after all. Rampant promiscuity went with the territory, and George knew that the one-night stands meant nothing to him. But Henry’s new-found devotion to that Swedish bitch was different. That had changed everything.

  Eva wouldn’t win, though. Not in the long run. Henry would soon tire of country life, and of her. And when he did, Georgina Savile would be there to claim her prize.

  He still needs me, George thought, caressing the bruises on her back again, but lovingly this time. I’m his drug. We’re each other’s drug.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘I can’t believe how many people turned up. In this weather! It’s like a bloody monsoon.’

  Max Bingley huddled under an oversized umbrella with Angela Cranley, surveying the rain-soaked quagmire that was this year’s Fittlescombe Fete. Swell Valley’s prettiest village always held its annual fete in the lower field at Furlings. The Georgian gem of a hous
e had once been the family seat of the Flint-Hamiltons, but was now the home of Angela and Max, Fittlescombe’s happiest unmarried couple, who were delighted to carry on the tradition.

  ‘I know,’ said Angela. ‘How much of the turnout do you think is down to the lovely Ms Gunnarson?’

  They both turned to look at this year’s cake-baking marquee, already full to bursting and with a loud and rowdy queue huddled and dripping outside.

  Max grinned. ‘Somewhere in the ninety per cent range I’d say. We should rope in a supermodel to judge the cakes every year.’

  Eva Gunnarson, the latest face (and body) of La Perla lingerie and a regular on the pages of Maxim and Sports Illustrated, was the supermodel in question, recently engaged to the Honourable Henry Saxton Brae. A former Under-21s England tennis champion, Henry was considered almost as much of a pin-up as his girlfriend. He was as tall, dark and handsome as Eva was blonde, willowy and generally physically perfect. The combination of his good looks, charm, immense wealth and old, aristocratic family name saw Henry regularly named in Tatler as one of England’s most eligible bachelors, and for the last five years he’d been renowned as a playboy on the London social scene.

  But all that had changed since the couple’s engagement, and with both of them moving to Hanborough and taking up country life. They had thrilled the entire Swell Valley this year by announcing their intention to restore Hanborough Castle as both a family home and working estate. Eva had made an effort to get involved in the village between her hectic international modelling jobs. But Henry Saxton Brae himself had been maddeningly elusive, and today seemed to be no exception.

  Inside the marquee, temperatures were rising, not just because of the heaving mass of bodies straining to catch a glimpse of Eva Gunnarson looking effortlessly gorgeous in a pair of skinny jeans and a tank top.

  ‘The cakes are going to get damaged. You must keep people back, Vicar. My spun-sugar daisies are extremely delicate. Icing like that doesn’t make itself, you know.’ One of the ladies from the WI was haranguing the vicar.

  ‘No, of course not.’ The Reverend Bill Clempson mopped his brow uncomfortably. Picking up a loudhailer he shouted ineffectually into the throng, ‘If I could ask everybody to step back from the display itself …’

  ‘Would you like me to help, Vicar?’

  Gabe Baxter, another local celebrity and Bill Clempson’s one-time arch nemesis in the village, pushed his way to the front of the crowd around the cake stall. Relations between Bill and Gabe had improved since Bill had married his wife Jenny, who used to work as a vet up at the Baxters’ farm and had always got along well with both Gabe and Laura, his wife. But the vicar still didn’t completely trust Fittlescombe’s most lusted-after farmer.

  ‘I think we’ve got things under control.’

  Ignoring him, Gabe grabbed the loudhailer, handing the vicar his sticky plastic pint of warm beer.

  ‘Move back, please. Everyone move right back from the tables.’

  Then he walked forwards with his arms outstretched. The crowds, who’d ignored Bill, immediately retreated a good five feet. It was like watching a slightly pissed Moses part the waves in the Red Sea.

  ‘Thank you! That was marvellous.’

  Gabe looked up to see Eva Gunnarson standing before him.

  ‘I’m Eva.’

  ‘Gabe.’ With an effort he pulled himself together enough to shake her hand. Gabe was besotted with his wife, Laura, but Eva was disarmingly gorgeous, and he had had three beers. She had a lovely, natural face up close, Gabe noticed, the kind that looked more beautiful without much make-up. Wholesome. With her long tousled hair pushed back from her face in tumbling, golden waves, the future Mrs Saxton Brae looked younger than she did in her magazine pictures.

  ‘So is your fella going to put in an appearance today? You do realize half the women in this village are besotted with him. I’m including my wife in that.’ He didn’t mention that Laura had also said of Eva, ‘She’s so gorgeous that you want to hate her but you can’t. Which almost makes you want to hate her more.’

  ‘I can’t blame people for fancying Henry,’ she said good-naturedly. ‘He’s gorgeous. And yes, I hope he’s coming today.’ She looked at her watch anxiously. ‘Timekeeping’s not his strongest suit. But he did promise me.’

  ‘Don’t waste your time talking to this guy.’ Santiago de la Cruz – Sussex cricketing hero and a good friend of Gabe’s – suddenly appeared, inserting himself between Gabe and Eva and kissing the latter on both cheeks as if they were old friends. Dark-skinned and blue-eyed, with just a hint of grey creeping in at the temples of his oil-black hair, Santiago had once been something of a player himself, in a past life, before he met and married his angelic wife Penny. ‘He barely even lives here any more, you know. Spends half his time in London.’

  ‘That is not true!’ Gabe protested, although it was. Laura’s TV production company had really taken off in the last two years, and they didn’t spend as much time in the valley as they used to. ‘I was bloody born here, unlike some Johnny-come-latelies I could mention.’

  ‘Penny was born here,’ Santiago countered.

  ‘Penny de la Cruz? Are you her husband?’ Eva smiled, delighted to have made the connection.

  Santiago nodded. ‘You’ve met?’

  ‘Just briefly. She mentioned she’s an artist and that she’s got some sketches of the castle she did ages ago. She very kindly offered to frame one for us as a moving-in present.’

  ‘That sounds like Penny.’ Santiago positively glowed with pride. The de la Cruz marriage was a very happy one.

  People are so nice here, thought Eva, watching Gabe and Santiago cackle away at each other’s jokes like two naughty schoolboys. Angela Cranley had been lovely to her earlier too, telling her funny anecdotes about Graydon James, the designer Henry had hired to work on Hanborough, and who had once built a house for Angela’s ex-husband Brett.

  ‘He used to shimmer about the house like Liberace, in trousers so tight they were more like ballet dancer’s tights. In the end Brett couldn’t take it any more. He asked him if he wouldn’t mind covering up a bit, or words to that effect. Graydon just looked at him and said, deadly serious, “For your information, Mr Cranley, the cluster is being worn much further forward this year.” It took a lot to shut my ex-husband up, I can tell you, but that did it.’ Angela wiped away tears of mirth.

  Eva already felt sure that the move to the Swell Valley was going to be the start of a new life, a much happier life, for her and Henry.

  She pictured the two of them at this same village fete five years from now – married by then, of course – and perhaps even with a child running around. A gorgeous little boy, just like Henry …

  Eva looked at her watch again.

  ‘We’ll have to start without him,’ Max Bingley complained to Richard Smart, an old prep-school friend of Henry’s and another new local face. Richard had recently accepted the position as Fittlescombe’s new GP, and with his wife Lucy was renting Riverside Hall in Brockhurst from Sir Eddie and Lady Wellesley, who were spending the year abroad.

  ‘I know. And I agree,’ he told Max. ‘Henry does have a lot of brilliant qualities, honestly. But I’m afraid punctuality’s never been one of them.’

  ‘Who do you suggest we rope in to give out the prizes?’ Max asked.

  Richard looked around, scanning the muddy field for inspiration.

  ‘What about Seb?’

  Both men looked across at Henry’s elder brother Sebastian. Squat, fat and balding, with a voice so offensively upper class he sounded as if he had an entire plum tree crammed into his mouth, Seb Saxton Brae was as well meaning as he was dull.

  ‘He is a lord. And master of the Swell Valley Hunt,’ Richard reminded Max.

  Seb and Henry’s father, Harold, had died unexpectedly last year, making Sebastian the youngest Lord Saxton Brae in four generations. He and his wife Kate had moved into Hatchings, the family’s impressive estate (though not in Hanborough Castle’s
league), the day after the funeral.

  ‘Oh, go on,’ said Richard. ‘Ask him. He’d love to do it.’

  Max sighed. Beggars really couldn’t be choosers. And, at the end of the day, it was only the raffle prizes.

  Picking his way through the mud, Max waved at Seb. ‘Lord Saxton Brae? I wonder if I might have a word?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘I don’t understand. I want a pool. I am damn well having a pool. What kind of a goddamn summer house doesn’t have a goddamn swimming pool?’

  Lisa Kent’s over-plumped, chipmunk-cheeked face positively twitched with anger. The ex-wife of billionaire hedge fund-founder Steve Kent, Lisa was used to getting her own way. Indeed, ever since her husband traded her in for a (much) younger model, getting her own way had become something of a raison d’être for the former Mrs Kent. If Lisa weren’t so utterly obnoxious, Flora Fitzwilliam would almost have felt sorry for her. As it was, however, Flora felt sorry for herself. Being Lisa Kent’s interior designer was about as much fun as having a dentist’s drill slowly inserted into a rotten tooth. The fact that Lisa was building her house on Nantucket Island off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, during the coldest, wettest May that anybody could remember, didn’t help matters.

  How do people live here? Flora wondered. I’d kill myself.

  Luckily her prison sentence on the Cape was almost at an end. This time next month Flora would be in England, thank God, working on the job of her dreams. She held on to that fact like a drowning man to a raft, as Lisa ranted on.

  ‘The thing is,’ Flora explained patiently, once she could get a word in edgeways, ‘you’re right on the cliff here. Erosion up on Baxter Road is a huge issue, as you know. Digging foundations for a pool would seriously compromise …’