Sunshine Over Bluebell Castle

by Sarah Bennett

  ‘Apparently not.’ He nudged it towards her with his fork, knowing it was her absolute favourite.

  With a happy grin, she swiped it through the remains of the piccalilli in the corner of his plate and popped it into her mouth. ‘Heaven,’ she mumbled around the mouthful, eyes closing in sheer pleasure at the taste.

  Will shifted the tray from his lap, stood and crossed the room to place it on the table beneath the window out of the way. ‘You’ll have to clean your teeth again now,’ he said, pointing towards the bathroom.

  As they stood next to one another, he marvelled at how intimate an act so ordinary as brushing one’s teeth could be when you did it next to another person. Most of Igraine’s toiletries had migrated to his bathroom over the past weeks. She hadn’t slept in her own bed since the first night they’d been together, and as far as he could tell she only used it to get dressed and for the occasional shower-when he wasn’t fortunate enough to persuade her to share his in the mornings.

  He liked the sight of her things jumbled in together with his. He’d never been a neat freak, and it appeared Igraine was also missing the tidy gene from the way her clothes from that day were hanging half-in, half-out of his laundry hamper. Having never shared a domestic space with anyone since leaving home, he hadn’t expected it to feel so comfortable so quickly. He’d brought women home before, sure, but they’d been sent on their way again with all their belongings intact the next morning.

  This though, he could get used to. What would it be like to sit across from Igraine at the breakfast bar in his kitchen as they served each other coffee and toast and ran over their plans for the day? Or to come home in the evening and curl up in their pyjamas on his enormous corner sofa with a takeaway in their laps, and a boxset on the TV. It appealed to him on the most visceral level, but how on earth could he expect her to uproot herself from her family and everything she knew and loved to join him in a soulless high-rise apartment in the heart of Battersea?

  He couldn’t stay here, that was for sure. He’d already stretched the limits of his team’s patience by throwing them in at the deep end when he’d upped sticks to come up to Bluebell Castle. Besides, he had a living to earn, and once the water gardens were finished there was no place for him here. Would he be able to tempt Igraine with the proposition of going into business with him? And could the idea of living with him ever be enough to tempt her away from not only her home, but her family? He wasn’t ready to ask. He wasn’t ready to face the prospect of her rejecting him-not that he’d blame her. These past months in Derbyshire had spoiled him to the point returning home held little appeal. How on earth would it feel to someone who’d lived in these wild, open spaces all their life?

  ‘You’re very deep in thought,’ Igraine said, having rinsed her mouth and stowed her toothbrush in the little cup next to his.

  ‘Just got a lot on my mind, that’s all.’ Taking the towel she offered, he wiped his mouth. ‘Come on, let’s get you back into bed, we’ve a long day tomorrow.’

  ‘Every day is a long day at the moment,’ she grumbled as she settled next to him beneath the thin sheet which was all they were using for cover in the lingering heatwave.

  ‘I know, but we’re getting there. The apothecary’s garden was looking fantastic today.’

  ‘Yes. It feels really good to have another thing ticked off the list. I’m almost starting to believe we can have it all ready in time.’

  He settled down beside her then held still until she’d wriggled herself into the right position for sleeping. As she tugged her pillow an inch or two one way, and then the other, he couldn’t help but smile. She was like the princess and the pea, seeming to feel every little lump and bump until she finally found that one perfect position that suited her. He flicked off the bedside lamp, leaving only the glow of the TV to illuminate the room with its ghostly glow. ‘Are you turning off the telly?’ she murmured into his chest.

  ‘In a minute. Ssh, go to sleep.’ He kissed her hair, then settled one hand on his favourite spot where her hip curved out into the cheek of her bottom.

  He was in that awkward headspace; physically and mentally exhausted, but his brain was still too full of the day’s events to switch off enough to let him sleep. As he listened to Igraine’s breathing deepen and slow into the gentle rhythm of sleep, he tried to match the pace of his breath to hers, feeling his body ease and relax as he did.

  The weather came and went on the TV showing no signs of a break in the temperatures and he was just reaching over for the remote to turn it off when the newspaper review came on. The news anchor introduced her panel of journalists and the early front pages flashed up one by one. It was all the same stuff, the endless political fallout from the referendum seeming no closer to a solution. The broadsheets came and went, and the images shifted to the brighter, bolder photo-splashed front pages of the tabloids.

  His pleasant sense of drowsiness vanished as the most notorious of the red-tops flashed up. ‘You have got to be fucking kidding me!’

  Chapter 18

  Iggy shivered as she tugged the shirt she’d pulled on over her pyjamas closer around her. She wasn’t cold-even at close to 1 a.m. the temperature was still oppressive-but she was beyond that point of tiredness to where her body couldn’t seem to stop shivering. It didn’t help that her bare legs kept sticking to the leather of the sofa. Glancing around the room at the collection of equally tired faces, she sighed. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere, why don’t we try and get some sleep and we can sort things out in the morning?’

  Will looked up from his laptop only long enough to glare at her before he was head down once more, fingers flying over the keys. ‘We need to find out where the hell this leak came from.’ He turned the screen towards her, thrusting the array of images at her. ‘Look at this and tell me it doesn’t bother you to have our private life splashed all over the papers.’

  She turned her head, not wanting to see again the array of images of her and Will kissing. They’d been taken a couple of days earlier when the two of them had been walking in the grounds. She’d been able to work out the date by the colour of the T-shirt she was wearing, but how the photos had been obtained was a mystery to her. The spot where they’d paused to kiss before departing to their own tasks was not far from the edge of the formal gardens. It was an open space, and she couldn’t recall anyone else in sight. ‘Of course it bothers me! How can you possibly think otherwise?’

  ‘You seem to be very calm about it,’ Will snapped.

  ‘Only because you’ve been ranting enough for the both of us! Bloody hell, you roused the whole household, and to what aim? We can’t change anything.’

  ‘We can find out who betrayed us.’

  Her head started to thump, an unwelcome partner to the queasiness in her stomach. ‘Betrayed us? Have you heard yourself?’ Her tired brain finally caught up with what he was saying. ‘Oh my God, you think it was one of family who did this, don’t you?’

  She held his gaze for a long moment, willing him to refute what she’d said. ‘Where else could it have come from?’ he muttered, turning his eyes back to the screen.

  ‘I don’t believe this!’ An outraged Tristan was on his feet. ‘Look, I had every sympathy for the situation when you got us out of bed, and of course we want to help do whatever we can to contain this, but I can’t believe you’re holding one of us responsible.’

  Will snapped the screen on his laptop shut with a snap, jumping to his feet to face off with Tristan. ‘You’re the ones who will directly benefit from this, and how else did they know where the hell I was, never mind get so much detail in the story?’

  ‘You’re paranoid. It could’ve been any number of people. We’ve had contractors on and off the grounds for weeks now. It might even have been one of the local press photographers when they came to interview Arthur.’

  Will shook his head. ‘Balls. Those interviews were weeks ago, and I kept well out of the way until they’d left. The contractors have had loads of time to
do this, and what do they gain, eh? They’re not the ones who were moaning about ticket sales, were they?’

  Tristan stepped back, eyes wide with shock. ‘Jesus Christ, you honestly think this was me, don’t you?’

  When Will only raised one shoulder in a negligent shrug, Iggy couldn’t believe it. He really did think Tristan capable of such a terrible thing.

  ‘Enough!’ Arthur was on his feet, stepping between the two of them. ‘This is getting us nowhere, and I’ve got better things to do than watch you two take lumps out of each other. The story is out, and that’s all there is to it. What we need to focus on now, is how we deal with it.’

  ‘How we deal with it?’ Will scoffed. ‘Jesus, you don’t have a clue, do you? There is no dealing with it! These photos-’ he swept his hand towards the closed laptop ‘-were taken with a long range lens of some kind, meaning they were likely taken from outside the boundary wall.’

  ‘How is that possible? You can’t mean someone propped up a ladder and shot these from outside.’ Arthur sounded as incredulous as Iggy felt. The wall had protected their family for generations, it didn’t seem possible that someone could breach their privacy so casually.

  ‘Either that, or they used a remote-controlled drone. You’d be amazed at what technology can do these days.’ Will shoved his hands on his hips and blew out a frustrated breath. ‘Unless you are prepared to put some kind of patrol out along the external wall, you’ve got no way of keeping them out if they want to try again, and if they used a drone, even that won’t work. As long as they think there’s a story here, they’re going to keep coming back for more.’

  ‘It can’t have been one of the contractors,’ Lucie said quietly from the opposite sofa. ‘They wouldn’t have known about the painting.’ In addition to raking over the sordid details of all of Will’s other supposed romances over the past few months, the article implied he was wooing Igraine because the Ludworth family stood to inherit a vast fortune.

  ‘So I was right, then. It has to be one of you!’ Will rounded on Tristan. ‘You couldn’t wait, could you? I only needed a couple more days to get the fountains sorted and we could’ve released the story we agreed upon. Only I don’t suppose that would’ve got you the national coverage you needed, eh?’

  Iggy stared in horror as a vein started pulsing in her brother’s forehead and she saw his fists clench and unclench. ‘Tris …’ she pleaded with him, not because she believed what Will was saying, but because she hoped he was far enough removed from the situation to still be thinking rationally.

  His eyes flicked to hers for a moment before returning to Will. ‘Fuck you,’ he said, his voice all the more awful for its measured calmness, and then stalked from the room.

  Will might have followed had she not leapt up and grabbed his arm. ‘Stop it, just stop it for God’s sake!’ She saw Arthur move towards them and shook her head to warn him off. ‘No, leave it, Arthur. Go to bed, the pair of you and we’ll sort this out in the morning when we’ve all got clearer heads.’

  Though he stared hard at the restraining hand she’d looped around Will’s forearm, Arthur didn’t do anything more than nod before holding out his hand to Lucie and leading her from the room.

  When they were finally alone, Iggy couldn’t hold back an enormous yawn. ‘Sorry,’ she covered her mouth. ‘I’m just so tired.’ Another shiver racked her, and she pressed herself to the warmth of Will’s body. ‘Come to bed now, please. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.’

  Expecting to feel the comforting warmth of his arms closing around her, it shocked Iggy to the core when Will brushed past her and headed towards the door. Pausing at the threshold, he looked back at her. ‘I can’t be where I don’t trust people.’

  ‘You can’t be including me in that statement.’ He couldn’t be.

  Will stared at the floor for a long moment before meeting her gaze once more. ‘You sided with your brothers over me.’

  ‘No!’ She hesitated. ‘Well, I mean, I believe Tristan when he says he had nothing to do with this, of course I do, but …’

  ‘Family sticks together, right?’ Will’s lip quirked up, the twisted smile she’d always loved an ugly caricature. ‘Especially families like yours. Pull up the drawbridge, lower the portcullis, repel outsiders, that’s how it works.’

  ‘Will, no!’ She ran after him, the tiles of the great hall chill beneath her feet.

  Refusing to look back, he continued to march up the stairs. ‘Go to bed, Igraine. We’ll talk again in the morning.’

  Her foot froze on the bottom step. Go to bed. Without him. Though he’d not said as much, it was clear he didn’t want her in his bed that night. Shivering and sad, she hurried in his wake, turning left when she reached the landing along the corridor which led to the family quarters.

  * * *

  Iggy stared at her hollow-eyed reflection feeling as though the woman she’d been the last time she’d looked in the mirror wearing the pretty green dress was a complete stranger. In less than two months since that day in the dress shop, her life had altered beyond all recognition. She’d had a home, a purpose, a boyfriend with whom she’d begun to dream about building a future. After today, she’d have none of those things.

  The gardens were complete. Though they’d argued fiercely about it, Arthur had accepted her reasoning for finding a new job beyond the estate and although she would stay on to oversee the summer fete, she’d stepped down from all her other duties. As for the boyfriend … well, the less said about Will and his Lord Lucan vanishing act the better.

  Her mobile phone buzzed, startling her. She still wasn’t used to the improved phone signal on the estate thanks to the booster mast Arthur had installed. For a second, hope filled her heart as though thinking about Will had finally summoned him from wherever it was he’d disappeared to in the early hours following his bust up with Tristan.

  Quelling her foolishness with a hand pressed to her belly, she answered the call to hear the frustrated tones of her uncle on the other end. ‘Iggy, darling girl, can you pop over and give me a hand with this blasted cravat? Constance is busy with Lucie and your brothers have disappeared down the pub for a pint without having the decency to invite me, the blighters!’

  She couldn’t help but smile at the affront in his voice. Tristan had asked her if she wanted to join them, but she’d declined. It would be good for him and Arthur to spend a bit of time together and so many of the locals wanted to wish Arthur well on his big day. Already melancholic, she’d feared she’d start bawling in front of everyone if she’d tagged along. ‘I’ll be with you in two shakes,’ she told her uncle. ‘And I’ll steal us a bottle of champagne on the way.’

  ‘Now you’re talking! Did I ever tell you that you were always my favourite of the three?’

  *

  ‘Look at you,’ Lancelot exclaimed as he relieved her of the bottle of champagne and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek. ‘Pretty as a picture. You’ll have to be careful or you’ll upstage the bride.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that. The moment Lucie takes her place at the top of the aisle, no one will have eyes for anyone else.’ Which was exactly as it should be.

  Iggy followed her uncle into the little kitchenette and watched as he pulled a couple of mugs from a cupboard before twisting the cork from the bottle with practised effort. She’d peeked in on Lucie on her way across, just to let her know where she would be if they were looking for her and to check everything was all right. She and Constance had been clad in matching dressing gowns, their hair in rollers as the girl they’d hired to do hair and make-up fussed around them.

  She’d been invited to join them, of course, but it was a special moment for the two of them and Iggy had wanted them to enjoy it together. Helena had been given strict instructions not to intrude, and Iggy had commandeered the assistant who’d come with the hairdresser and dispatched her off to Helena’s rooms with instructions to keep her there as long as possible.

  Offering her
one of the mugs, Lancelot rested his hip against the counter behind him and raised his own in toast. ‘To the happy couple.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Iggy raised her own mug then took a mouthful of the ice-cold champagne. Smacking her lips together, she sighed in appreciation. ‘Is there anything better than cold champagne on a hot summer’s day?’

  ‘Not at half ten in the morning, there isn’t,’ Lancelot said with a wink. ‘We’ll have to pace ourselves. Morgana will kill me if I’m half-cut when I walk Lucie down the aisle.’ His expression turned wondering. ‘I still can’t believe she asked me to do it.’

  ‘I can’t think of a better man for the job,’ Iggy said, before an image of her jolly, lovely father popped into her head, stealing her breath away.

  ‘Uther would’ve loved her,’ Lancelot said, gruffly, his thoughts clearly having moved in the same direction as hers.

  ‘Yes, he would.’ Iggy drew in a shaky breath. ‘But it’s right you do it.’ She’d already seen the way Lucie had begun to turn to Lancelot for support, how the two of them and Constance were beginning to form their own smaller family unit within the bigger whole.

  They exchanged wobbly smiles before Lancelot lifted his mug for a bracing draft of champagne. ‘Right, enough of that maudlin nonsense, today is supposed to be a celebration.’ He set his mug down and gestured to the pale grey cloth dangling over the back of one of the mismatched kitchen chairs. ‘Give us a hand with this blasted thing, will you?’

  ‘Stop turning the screen around!’ Iggy gave her uncle’s hand a playful slap as he tried to turn the tablet she’d propped up on the table towards him once more. The instructions which had come with the cravat had proven incomprehensible, so she’d resorted to looking up how-to videos on the internet. ‘And put your chin up so I can see what I’m doing.’ Lancelot chuckled, but did as he was told, even managing to sit still long enough for her to gather the complicated folds of the material together. ‘Okay, hand me the pin.’