The Bachelor

by Tilly Bagshawe

  She needs a friend, Barney told himself. And it wasn’t as if he had so many better things to do on a Saturday night.

  In any case, he was delighted he’d got over himself and agreed to come, as it turned out he wasn’t the only singleton invited. Eva, God bless her, had sat him next to the new interior designer for Hanborough, an absolute cracker of a girl and very much Barney’s type: petite, blonde, curvy, and with the sort of boobs that frankly made a man happy to be alive. She was American (nobody’s perfect), but so far at least she seemed to have a very English sense of humour, not to mention a wonderfully unexpected, raucous laugh that made her sound like a French truck driver.

  Flora. Fabulous Flora.

  He’d only met her five minutes ago, but Barney was already infatuated.

  The first course was almost over by the time a clattering in the hallway announced that the last two guests had finally arrived.

  Eva got up to go and greet them but Henry put a hand on her arm.

  ‘Leave it. They know where to go.’

  He seemed angry at George, which was odd as he was the one who’d invited her, and he never normally minded about lateness, being perpetually late himself. Still, Eva had long ago given up trying to figure out Henry and Georgina’s relationship. They clearly worked well together in business, although outside of work they fought. A lot. Eva had always had the feeling that George didn’t like her very much, but Henry was at pains to deny this.

  Glancing up she smiled at Flora, who smiled back. What a great girl she had turned out to be! Having her around the place these past two weeks had been like a breath of fresh air. For the first time, Eva felt involved in the changes being made at Hanborough.

  ‘It’s going to be your home too, you know,’ Flora told her. ‘Your children’s home. If you don’t like something we’re doing, or you’ve had an idea we haven’t thought of, you need to speak up.’

  Perhaps it was odd to put it in these terms, but for the first time Eva felt as if she had an ally against Henry. Not that Henry was the enemy, of course. Eva loved him more than anything, more than life. But he had such a strong personality, such a forceful way of expressing himself. Sometimes it was easy to get lost in his shadow.

  On the other side of the table, poor Lucy Smart was being talked to death by Sebastian on the only subject he ever spoke about – hunting. Eva saw the look of relief and gratitude on Lucy’s face when the Saviles walked in, mercifully stemming the flow.

  ‘So sorry we’re late,’ George announced, not looking remotely sorry. ‘Traffic was just ghastly.’ She’d pulled out all the stops tonight and looked utterly ravishing in skin-tight black leather biker trousers, a ribbed vest that showcased her perfectly toned and slender arms, and sexily spiked Gucci heels that tap-tapped on the flagstone floors like metallic raindrops whenever she moved. Hovering behind her in the Fulham uniform of green jeans and checked Hackett shirt, and looking chinless and awkward, was her husband Robert. He reminded Barney of a nervous zookeeper presenting some exotic but dangerous animal to the crowds.

  Just as this thought entered his head, Barney felt Flora’s hand in his. Before he had time to feel ecstatic about it, she started digging her nails painfully into his palm.

  ‘No!’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, please no!’

  ‘What?’ Barney asked, wincing, but loath to reclaim his hand. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Before Flora could answer, George let out a little shriek.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ She pointed at Flora. ‘It can’t be! Flora Fitzwilliam? What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘You two know each other?’

  Henry scowled at George. It was bad enough that she’d showed up late, dressed like a slut and doing everything possible to divert every ounce of attention in the room onto herself. But now she was claiming some sort of connection with Flora. He didn’t know why that should annoy him so much, but it just did.

  ‘We were at school together,’ Flora said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Old school friends?’ Seb piped up. ‘How marvellous. Where was it?’

  ‘Sherwood,’ said George, tossing her long blonde hair backwards luxuriantly.

  ‘And we weren’t friends,’ Flora added meaningfully. ‘Not at all.’

  Henry looked at Flora with increased respect.

  ‘Well, we barely had time to be, did we?’ trilled George, tap-tapping her way over to the empty seat closest to Flora’s. ‘Poor old Flora got chucked out after her daddy was caught with his hand in the till. How long did they give him again?’

  ‘Eight years.’ Flora’s face was frozen. Under the table she tightened her grip on Barney’s hand.

  ‘Oh, so he’s been out for ages now then,’ George said breezily, adding, ‘Pass the wine would you, Henry darling? I’m parched.’

  ‘He never got out. He died in prison.’

  Flora’s voice was like a funeral bell, ringing out across the table. Everyone looked at one another awkwardly. Only Henry met Flora’s eyes, with an unexpected flash of sympathy.

  ‘I was eleven when my mother died,’ said Henry. ‘You never get over it.’

  ‘No,’ Flora agreed, surprised and touched that Henry would understand. ‘You don’t.’

  Meanwhile, George helped herself to the remnants of Eva’s potatoes and two large slices of roast beef.

  ‘What a sad story,’ she said, in a tone that made it clear that she gave not even the slightest fraction of a shit. ‘But do tell. What brings you to Hanborough, Flora? I’m quite fascinated. You are a dark horse,’ she added to Henry, reaching across the table and squeezing his arm in an unduly intimate way. ‘Keeping her a secret.’

  Henry retracted his arm as if he’d been scalded. ‘Don’t be silly, Georgina. There’s no secret.’

  Bloody hell, thought Barney. What’s going on there?

  ‘Flora’s our new designer,’ said Eva, sensing the tension around the table but not exactly sure about the cause of it. ‘She’ll be overseeing the entire restoration. And she is quite brilliant.’ She smiled warmly.

  ‘I’m sorry, did you say your father went to prison?’ Seb’s wife Kate piped up in horrified tones, belatedly catching on to the conversation just as the rest of the table was hoping to move on.

  ‘Fraud,’ said George, slicing gleefully into her beef.

  ‘How shocking,’ Kate thundered.

  ‘And how awful for you,’ Lucy Smart said to Flora kindly. ‘Did you really have to leave your school?’

  ‘I didn’t mind that part so much,’ said Flora. ‘School had become pretty much unbearable anyway.’ Her eyes bored into George’s like lasers. ‘But it was a rough time in our lives. I try not to think about it.’

  ‘The chap we’re renting our house from went to prison,’ Richard Smart announced cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Eddie Wellesley. Nice bloke, actually.’

  ‘Wasn’t that fraud too?’ asked Seb tactlessly.

  ‘Tax evasion,’ piped up Robert Savile, the first words he’d spoken since he and George arrived. ‘I come across quite a few evasion cases in my practice, actually. The last one I worked on …’

  And he was off, succeeding where Eva had failed and dragging the conversation away from Flora at last.

  For the rest of the meal, no one returned to the subject of Flora’s past, although George took every opportunity to take digs at her present.

  ‘I thought you said Graydon James was redesigning Hanborough?’ she asked Henry.

  ‘He was. He is.’

  ‘So how did you manage to end up with Flora? I don’t understand.’

  ‘A restoration like this is a long-term project,’ Henry answered, tight-lipped. He didn’t know what George was playing at exactly, but he didn’t like it. Everything was a power game with her. ‘Graydon was never going to be able to oversee it personally.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So he sent one of his juniors? That’s a shame. I hope he cut your bill.’

  ‘It’s not a shame at all,’ said Eva. ‘We�
��re delighted to have Flora here. Aren’t we, Henry?’

  ‘Delighted.’

  Henry’s blue eyes flashed at Flora, and he smiled in a way that made her throat go dry. I can’t figure him out, she thought. One minute he’s being arrogant and obnoxious. And the next he’s sticking up for me.

  ‘You know, Graydon James worked on two of my friends’ houses and he did all the work himself,’ George went on, apparently hell-bent on irritating Henry. ‘You remember Lottie Calthorpe?’

  ‘No,’ Henry scowled.

  ‘Silly! Of course you do,’ trilled George, smiling. ‘Graydon did Lottie and William’s place in the Hamptons, and he was on site the entire time. Then again,’ George added smugly, ‘Lottie has never been one to accept second best.’

  ‘Nor am I,’ said Henry, leaning over and making another great show of kissing Eva. George’s smile died on her lips. Barney Griffith simply felt sick, and dirty, as if he’d been press-ganged into watching some sordid peep show.

  As soon as pudding was over, Flora made her excuses and bolted out to her car like a bat from a burning belfry. Barney followed, just managing to tap on the window of Flora’s rented Volkswagen Touareg before she drove off.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, rubbing his sore hand. There were welts in his palm from where Flora’s nails had almost drawn blood. ‘That was seriously weird.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Flora exhaled. ‘I just wish I’d known she was coming.’

  ‘George?’

  Flora nodded. ‘I wish I’d been prepared, that’s all.’

  ‘Did you know she was Henry’s business partner?’

  ‘No! I mean, I knew he had a partner called George Savile, but I assumed it was a guy. She was called Georgie Lynne back when I knew her. She made my life hell at school.’ Flora shook her head bitterly at the memories. ‘I’m not sure I’d have taken this job if I’d known it meant running into Georgie again.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Barney said robustly. ‘Of course you’d have taken the job. School was a lifetime ago. And, even if it weren’t, you can’t let bullies like her get the better of you.’

  ‘Can’t you?’ sighed Flora. She felt defeated suddenly, and horribly low. This guy Barney had been really sweet all evening. But all she wanted right now was to talk to Mason; to feel his safe, comforting arms around her.

  In one short evening, Georgina Savile had managed to poison what should have been one of the happiest, most triumphant moments of Flora’s career. Redesigning Hanborough Castle! Coming back to England, to the glorious Swell Valley, not as an exiled fraudster’s daughter but as a success in her own right. Why, why did that loathsome, manipulative bitch have to be Henry Saxton Brae’s partner? Of all people! It wasn’t fair. After tonight it was only a matter of time until the entire valley knew all about Flora’s dad and her history, the dark past she’d worked so hard to transcend and forget.

  She turned on the engine.

  ‘Thanks for being so nice this evening,’ she said to Barney.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘And sorry about your hand.’

  ‘Oh!’ He gave a brave, it-was-nothing shrug. ‘My pleasure again.’

  ‘I’d better get to my bed. Early start tomorrow.’

  ‘OK,’ said Barney, reluctantly stepping back from the car. ‘Well, sleep well. It was lovely to meet you, Flora.’

  ‘And you.’

  Barney stood and watched as Flora drove away.

  That’s the girl I’m going to marry, he thought.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Summer rolled into the Swell Valley late that year, slow and heavy and swollen with sticky heat like a river of molasses about to burst its banks. But when it finally came it brought record temperatures and an oppressive humidity that made it feel more like a Floridian mangrove swamp than the Sussex countryside.

  While the local villagers sweated, cooling themselves off with ice lollies from the Preedys’ shop or cold jugs of Pimm’s from The Fox, up at Hanborough Castle the work never stopped. Flora had even started to lose some of her famous curves simply from running around the site all day, overseeing work and shouting directions till her throat was hoarse.

  Tony Graham, the contractor, was efficient and on the ball, but he did have a habit of making a drama out of a crisis and niggling over the very tiniest details, right down to which brand of nails Flora wanted for the new joists. He also had the world’s most annoying, nasally voice, so grating that it had begun to creep into Flora’s nightmares. When Eva was around, Flora at least had a friendly face to talk to, or share an occasional snatched lunch with up at the castle. On rare occasions, Barney Griffith might join the two of them, or drag them down to The Fox for an after-work drink. But then Barney would be sucked back into the black hole of his book, and Eva would jet off to another photoshoot somewhere exotic, leaving Flora with only Mono-Tony, as she’d christened the contractor, for company.

  Apart, of course, from Henry.

  Ever since the awful night when George Savile had turned up to dinner and done her best to humiliate Flora in front of her new client and his friends, Flora had struggled to get a handle on Henry. Her first impressions of him had been wholly negative. He seemed rude, arrogant, selfish and a snob. Six weeks working for him up at Hanborough had confirmed that Henry certainly could be all of these things – and worse, if Eva’s suspicions and tabloid gossip were anything to go by. Henry Saxton Brae’s reputation as a womanizer was legendary, and though he’d yet to be caught cheating since getting engaged to Eva, Eva’s first meeting with Flora had made it clear that not even his fiancée would have put it past him.

  But there was another side to Henry, too. He’d defended Flora when George attacked her that night, and on other occasions since. (It was astonishing how frequently George seemed to ‘drop in’ at Hanborough, for someone who purported to live in London.) Flora had also noticed how soppy Henry could be with his dogs, Whiskey and Soda, when he thought no one was looking, hugging and tickling them and sneaking them cuts of prime fillet steak from the fridge. Yet whenever Eva was around, he ignored the dogs completely, always letting her walk them alone, almost as if he were deliberately trying to conceal his affection.

  One time Flora had walked in on him in the study, rolling around on the floor with the two Irish setters, giggling like a kid. Henry had flushed beet-red and leapt to his feet, as embarrassed as if he’d just been caught romping with a porn star.

  ‘I was just … I was, er … did you want something?’ He smoothed down his hair and did his best to regain his usual sang-froid.

  ‘Only to show you these.’

  Flora unrolled her finally finished plans for the new library. When she took over the Hanborough project from Graydon and Guillermo, the idea had been to restore the old library – a vast, wood-panelled room with Victorian stained-glass windows, like a chapel, but riddled with rot and in a worse state of repair than anywhere else in the castle. Restoring this room alone would account for almost a fifth of the entire budget. When Flora had suggested a smaller, much more romantic library in one of the original towers, based on Vita Sackville-West’s idyllic study at Sissinghurst, Henry had leapt at the idea.

  ‘Sissinghurst is one of the few school trips I remember from my prep-school days,’ he’d told Flora. ‘They had a pond there that was so covered in bright green algae, it looked like a lawn. I went running down the path and plunged straight into it. Got the shock of my life! My mother said I smelt like a sewer rat for weeks afterwards.’ His eyes lit up, as they always did on the rare occasions he mentioned his mother. ‘Anyway, I loved that library, with the winding stairs and the Persian rugs and the old globe. Like living in a lighthouse.’

  ‘I think we could do a spectacular lighthouse library here,’ said Flora. ‘And for a fraction of the cost of restoring the old one.’

  Flora had spent untold hours perfecting the new designs, delighted that Henry seemed as enthusiastic about the idea as she was. But now, standing in his study with the plans
spread out on his desk, she felt unaccountably nervous.

  Would he like them? Had he changed his mind?

  Her nerves intensified as he leaned over the drawings, frowning as he studied each one intently.

  Oh God, thought Flora. Perhaps she’d over-egged the Sissinghurst thing. It was only an inspiration, after all. Flora’s library was a lot cleaner and simpler, a lot more modern.

  ‘You don’t like it,’ she blurted.

  ‘No,’ said Henry, still glued to the plans, still frowning. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

  Flora bit her lower lip. Damn it. She’d already gone out on a limb with Graydon on this. Graydon had always felt more comfortable with the original, grander, much more expensive library, but had caved in when Flora insisted the client shared her vision. Surprisingly, Flora and Henry seemed to have a lot in common when it came to taste in architecture and interiors. Eva preferred a much more modern and, to Flora’s mind, urban aesthetic. But Flora and Henry frequently saw eye to eye about Hanborough, something else that had helped Flora warm to him.

  Not this time, though.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Henry repeated. Looking up at her, his frown was now almost a scowl. ‘I bloody love it.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Flora.

  Henry grinned, pulling her into a hug and twirling her around, to Flora’s combined delight and astonishment. ‘You’re a genius, Flora Fitzwilliam! It’s perfect.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ Flora exhaled.

  ‘It’s warm. It’s intimate,’ said Henry. He’d set her back down on the carpet, but his hands were still resting loosely on her hips. All of a sudden Flora felt intensely aware of his physical presence: the scent of his aftershave; the way the fabric of his shirt strained slightly against his muscular arms. And his eyes, which had gone from embarrassed when she first walked in, to angry, now had a playful, teasing look to them that Flora found she had no idea how to handle.