The Bluebell Castle Collection

by Sarah Bennett

  ‘No!’ Whatever anger he’d felt towards her for putting him in such a compromising position was redirected towards her cheating rat of a husband. Not all marriages were good, Christ knew his own parent’s relationship had been a disaster, but at least they’d had the sense to call it a day. Taking her hand, he pressed a quick kiss to the back of it. ‘I’m really sorry that you’re hurting, Phillipa, but sleeping with me isn’t the answer to your problems-ask any of my ex-girlfriends.’

  She managed a watery chuckle, and Will felt his panic subside at last. Reaching out he brushed free a tendril of hair that had stuck to her cheek. Beneath the streaked make-up and the fine lines age had settled into her skin were hints of the beautiful woman she’d been in her heyday. Tony Cornwall was either mad, stupid or both. ‘Shall we both take a deep breath and pretend the past half an hour never happened?’

  Drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, she nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  And because he was British, there was only one thing left to say. ‘Shall I make us a cup of tea?’

  Half an hour later, looking much better after the tea, a sheepish-looking Phillipa escorted him to the front door. She’d washed her face and tied the dressing gown tight around her middle leaving her looking much smaller and more fragile than the woman who’d greeted him earlier. Pausing in the open doorway, Will tucked his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and gave her a smile. ‘If you still want us to go ahead with the terrace, give Anna a call once you’ve decided on the alterations I’ve suggested. She’ll make arrangements with you for when the installation team can start.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She hesitated for a moment then stretched up on tiptoe to pop a quick kiss on his cheek. ‘You’re a very good man, Will Talbot.’

  He winked. ‘That’s our secret. Take care of yourself, Phillipa.’

  *

  As he made his way back towards his car parked several streets away thanks to some very stringent local parking restrictions, Will couldn’t help but feel thoroughly depressed. The Cornwalls had been married for longer than he’d been alive. Had they been unhappy with each other all that time? He shook his head at the idea of it. What a bloody waste.

  Thankful to be free of such emotional entanglements, although even his pretend relationship with Melody was growing tiresome, he dug his phone out and browsed for messages. The first one was from Anna to say she’d cleared his calendar for the rest of the day in case things at the Cornwalls got complicated. He couldn’t help but laugh. Complicated didn’t even come close. Beneath that were a couple of sales offers from suppliers they used which he flicked without reading into a sub-folder for future reference.

  The next message was from Iggy Ludworth and he was about to drop it into his trash folder when he spotted the thumbnail images attached. Curious, he clicked on the first one and stopped dead in his tracks, transfixed by the image of the top half of a statue poking out from a massive thicket of brambles. He moved onto the next photograph showing the remains of a walled garden, the red bricks of the short walls dividing the weed-strewn beds crumbling and broken. The third image was a distance shot over a collection of overgrown box hedges; the fourth a carpet of bluebells nodding beneath the boughs of an ancient oak. His heart pounded, excitement building inside him as he flicked his thumb to the next picture, then the next. The final few were too small to properly make out any detail, but they looked to be original design sketches, the paper on which they were drawn yellowed with age. As he rolled back up through the images the tips of his fingers began to itch. He could almost feel the rich, dark soil beneath them.

  A belch of hot air hit him, followed by the acrid stench of diesel fumes from a delivery van stuck in the endless queue of traffic snaking along the street beside him. Wrinkling his nose, Will moved as far to the inside of the pavement as he could then continued towards his truck. When was the last time he’d breathed a lungful of air that didn’t carry the taint of heavy traffic? Or looked up at a night’s sky not stained orange from light pollution, for that matter?

  He gave his phone one last wishful glance before unlocking his door and tossing it on the passenger seat along with his backpack. What was he doing daydreaming about fresh air and starry skies when he had a successful business right here that needed all his attention? Shaking his head, he slid into his seat. Running off to Derbyshire was a mad idea. As mad as the idea that it was possible to sort out the ruined gardens of Ludworth Castle in three short months.

  And Will had sworn off doing mad things, hadn’t he?

  Chapter 4

  Fuming after her brief, humiliating call with Will Talbot, Iggy marched from Arthur’s office, determination in every stride. She would show that arrogant pig of man exactly what she was capable of. Couldn’t be done? Ha! She’d bloody well show him otherwise. Her righteous march ended swiftly thanks to the sight of an unwelcome present deposited on the stone floor of the great hall by one of the dogs.

  Looking from the small, brown pile in front of her to the unusually quiet array of pups and hounds sprawled before the fireplace, Iggy did her best not to laugh at the collection of innocent expressions staring back at her. ‘This better be a one-off,’ she admonished, as though they could understand what she was saying. ‘Because I haven’t got time for you lot to get sick.’ The problem with having so many dogs was it was almost impossible to avoid them all getting ill if one of them caught a bug.

  Keeping them under her watchful gaze in the hopes the guilty dog would give themselves away, she walked to the large wooden box next to the fireplace where they kept old newspapers and bits and pieces of dried kindling to help in lighting the fire. When she spotted the paper on the top of the pile, she couldn’t help a self-satisfied grin from tweaking her mouth. It was the tabloid paper she’d dropped in there earlier-the one with Will Talbot scowling out from the front page which had put the stupid idea to call him in her head in the first place.

  ‘Might as well be useful for something.’ Snatching up the cover and the next few pages behind it, she returned to the offending spot in the middle of the hall and pressed Will’s face into the still-soft poo as she scooped it up. She deposited the ball of paper in the empty bin in the small washroom near the door before washing her hands thoroughly. Collecting the bin when she’d finished, she headed back across the hall towards the servant’s area to dispose of the parcel and to give Mrs W a head’s up that the floor would need disinfecting.

  *

  Petty satisfaction proved a highly motivating tool, and Iggy pictured various soft parts of Will Talbot’s anatomy as she hacked and slashed at the brambles crawling over the statue of Venus which stood in the basin of a long dead fountain opposite the entrance to the maze. By the time Tristan wandered out with a flask of tea and a couple of Betsy’s homemade rock cakes tucked in his pocket, she was scratched to bits, but the worst of her anger had been exorcised and she’d uncovered most of the moss-stained marble figure.

  ‘Blimey, you’ve made some progress this morning,’ he observed, gaze sweeping over the piles of shorn brambles she’d raked off to one side.

  ‘Not enough.’ Pausing to shove her sweat-matted fringe back, Iggy did a couple of rotations and stretches to ease the ache in her back. Maybe Will had a point. It didn’t matter how much effort she put in, there was no way things could be ready in time for the end of August. But she had to try. Blessed with what she called perseverance-and Arthur called bloody-minded pig-headedness-Iggy was never one to give up on a situation, often to her own detriment. Even when everyone else around her could read the writing on the wall, her instinct was to plough on, to stick to the plotted course and tough it out to the end.

  Shaking off the wave of self-doubt, she squatted down beside her brother and accepted the plastic mug of tea he held out. The long-term future of her family was still at stake, and she was determined to do whatever she could to secure it. The estate farms were finally running well enough for her to be able to turn her attention to other projects. It had taken the be
st part of nine months of hard work since their father had passed on for her to convince their tenants she was up to the task of managing the estate, but she’d succeeded.

  They were tough men and women-the land and necessity had bred them that way-and she didn’t resent them for expecting her to prove her worth. Through the deprivations of a particularly harsh winter she’d worked side-by-side with them, rescuing stranded sheep high in the dales beyond the borders of the estate, fixing broken tractors and thawing frozen pipes.

  Selling one painting, no matter how much it was worth, wasn’t going to keep the castle running for the rest of her lifetime; it wasn’t going to keep those farmers protected by a landlord who understood and respected their connection to the lands. Like Arthur and Tristan both, she wanted to ensure future generations didn’t face the same heartache and insecurity they were currently coping with. Putting Bluebell Castle on the tourist map was an essential part of that, and they needed to open with a bang.

  Tristan snagged the mug from her to wash down a mouthful of cake. ‘Arthur told me about your plan to get Will Talbot involved with the garden renovations. I think it’s a stroke of genius. His name’s everywhere at the moment. If you could persuade him, or that gorgeous girlfriend of his to open the fete as well, it’d really draw the punters in.’

  Stealing back the mug, Iggy drained the contents then held it out to him for a refill. ‘It might’ve been a genius idea if he hadn’t accused me of taking the piss.’

  ‘Oh, Iggy, that’s pants.’ Tristan slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a quick hug. ‘Wait? Did he actually say that?’

  She nodded. ‘That and a lot of other rude things. Ridiculous, effing impossible; can’t be done; planning would take longer than I’ve got left to finish it.’ She shrugged. ‘There might have been more, but I hung up on him. Rude bastard.’

  Her brother snorted. ‘Bet he loved that.’

  She brushed the crumbs from her rock cake off her jeans-a futile exercise given the dirt streaking them-and rose. ‘What Will Talbot may or may not love is nothing to do with me.’ When their eyes met, she read nothing but encouragement in her brother’s gaze. Other people might have scolded her for being hot-headed and overreacting, but not Tris. He’d walk through fire for her, both he and Arthur would, and she’d do the same for them. ‘Do you have time to look at the drawings with me this evening? I’m struggling a bit over what to do for the best.’

  ‘Can’t see the wood for the trees?’

  She groaned at his terrible pun. ‘Something like that.’

  Having screwed the mug back onto the top of the flask, Tristan stood up beside her. ‘’Course I’ve got time. Bring them into the family room after dinner, and I’ll take a look.’ He tugged the end of a loose strand of hair that had escaped from her plait. ‘Don’t fret, Iggle-Piggle, we’ll get it sorted out.’

  ‘I hate it when you call me that,’ she grumbled.

  ‘I know, why else do you think I do it?’ Flashing her an unrepentant grin, Tristan left her to it.

  Iggy entered the family room with the various drawings Lucie had managed to dig up from the family archives secured in a roll under her arm. As usual, several of the dogs had commandeered the floor in front of the fireplace, even though it was too warm for the hearth to be lit. With a few gentle toe nudges, she managed to stir them, eliciting a chorus of grumbles and whines as they begrudgingly yielded the space to her.

  She’d barely unrolled the first drawing before Arthur’s greyhound, Nimrod, tried to walk over it. ‘No!’ Iggy grabbed the dog and pulled him into her lap before his claws could damage the delicate paper. With a hug to show him he wasn’t in trouble, she shooed the dog away and rolled the drawing back up. ‘This isn’t going to work, is it?’ she said to the milling dogs as she stood.

  ‘Talking to yourself again?’ It was Arthur, with Lucie on his heels.

  ‘It’s the only way I get any sense,’ she retorted with a quick grin. ‘I need to evict these hooligans.’ She gestured towards the dogs. ‘Give us hand, will you?’

  Between the three of them, they managed to remove the dogs in short order. ‘You’d think we were locking them out in the stables or something,’ Lucie said, as she watched the dogs skulk across to the far end of the great hall where their enormous pile of cushions and blankets stretched out in front of the fireplace. Taking up most of one end of the hall, it dated back to the origins of the castle.

  ‘They’ll get over it,’ Arthur said as the three of them returned to the family room. ‘What are you up to?’

  Resuming her spot on the floor, Iggy glanced up at him. ‘Tristan is going to help me with a plan for the gardens.’ She spread out a couple of the drawings then sat back on her heels.

  Arthur hunkered down beside her. ‘You said earlier about not knowing what to leave and what to change. Show me what you mean.’

  ‘See, here?’ She pointed at a complicated pattern of hedges and pathways. ‘This was the original layout for the Lady’s garden.’ The most formal part of the grounds, it had once been the highlight of the gardens with its sculptured topiaries and regimented flower beds. Using her finger, she traced the central feature, a flowerbed surrounded by a ring of curlicue hedges. ‘At some point this was removed and replaced with that ugly bronze fountain.’

  ‘The one with the hideous dolphins, or whatever they’re supposed to be?’ Arthur laughed. ‘You used to be terrified of them when we were kids.’

  Iggy gave a shudder. Like something out of a nightmare, the oddly shaped creatures spewing water from grinning jaws full of razor-sharp teeth still freaked her out. Whoever had sculpted them had clearly never seen anything that actually lived in the ocean. ‘I’d love to rip those horrible things out and get them melted down. I can follow this plan and reinstate that part of the garden, but it will take several years for the hedges to grow in properly, so it might end up looking a bit sparse and disappointing.’

  ‘Can’t you use mature plants?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’d be better in the long run to use smaller plants that can grow together and eventually merge into what looks like one seamless plant. Bigger ones won’t create the same uniform effect.’ She sighed. ‘It would be easier to compromise by just removing the sculpture and turning the base of the fountain into a reflecting pool. I can add a few water lilies and aquatics.’

  ‘I think you should go for recreating the original design,’ Arthur said. ‘No one is going to expect the gardens to be perfect, Iggy.’

  ‘But we’re asking people to spend their hard-earned money,’ she argued. ‘We need to put on a display for them.’

  ‘And you will, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Don’t you think people will be more interested in the story of how you’ve gone about the restoration? We could put up some display boards, either out in the gardens themselves, or as part of the indoor exhibitions Lucie and I are planning. Some before, during and after photos would be a great addition.’

  It hadn’t really occurred to her before, but it sounded promising. ‘I suppose so, but I’m looking for ways to reduce the amount of work I have to do, not add to it.’

  The door swung open to admit Tristan and their Uncle Lancelot. ‘What’s this? Have you started without me?’ Tristan joined them on the carpet whilst Lancelot made his way over to the drinks’ cabinet in the corner.

  Arthur filled him in, finishing with, ‘But as Iggy’s rightly pointed out, it’ll be more work not less.’

  ‘I think it’s great. Especially if we’re thinking in the longer term. If we want to offer something like annual admittance passes for the grounds, for example, people will enjoy seeing how things change over the months and years.’ He caught Iggy’s eye ‘And, it gets you off the hook trying to get everything finished in time.’

  She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Think about it. Photos are all well and good, but if you leave some parts of the garden wild like they are now, the visual contrast will have even more impact.
And don’t worry about the work, I’ll take on the responsibility for the displays.’ Tristan turned to Lucie. ‘Would you be able to give me a hand with the copy? Maybe a few nice quotes about the gardens if you’ve come across any in the family journals?’

  Lucie beamed. ‘Oh, what a good idea! I’m sure I can come up with something.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Now all we have to do is decide what you’re going to put right and what can wait.’

  ‘You make it all sound so easy; I don’t know what I was getting stressed out about.’ Iggy couldn’t help the hint of sarcasm in her tone. An uncomfortable silence settled over the room, making her feel awful. They were all only trying to help, and she herself had approached Tristan in the first place.

  ‘Come now, I’m sure no one is underestimating how much you’ve taken on with this, darling girl.’ The gentle reproach from her uncle sent heat rushing to her cheeks.

  ‘Sorry, I’m being a brat.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ Arthur reached over to pat her knee.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Tristan insisted. ‘But we love you anyway.’ He settled himself more comfortably, back resting against one of the two leather Chesterfield sofas which dominated the centre of the room. ‘Why don’t you tell us where you’ve got to so far, and then we can decide on the rest.’

  Lucie curled her legs beneath her on the opposite sofa. ‘I’ve got my notebook so I’ll just listen in and make some lists.’

  Iggy closed her eyes for a moment and thought about where to start. ‘Okay. We all agreed the walk we set out for the Easter egg hunt worked really well.’

  The others nodded.

  ‘It’ll be a nice family walk whatever the season,’ Lancelot said.

  ‘Exactly. And there are a couple of points where we can spiral off from that straight-forward loop-down towards the lake, for example, and another one which we could link up to the existing path that runs along the boundary wall parallel with Tumbledown farm.’ She scrabbled amongst her papers and drawings until she found the large photocopy she’d had made of one of the more recent plans which showed the castle and its surrounding lands. ‘Look, I’ll show you.’