A Winter’s Tale (21 page)

‘Don’t be bitter, darling, that’s all water under the bridge. Now I’m widowed, there’s no reason why I can’t have my cake
and
eat it too, is there? In fact, I could eat you up right now,’ she said huskily, sliding her hands up his arms and looping them around his neck.

In the half-light she looked ethereally fair and lovely and I didn’t see that he could possibly resist her. My head was whirling with revelations and speculation—and, it has to be said, with a feeling of relief that my handsome cousin didn’t seem to have fallen for her all over again.

Seth was the one she had really set her sights on, and if she flirted a bit with Jack, then…well, I expect
femmes fatales
just do it automatically when an attractive man comes within reach; that, or it was intended to make Seth
jealous, though I didn’t think he had the kind of temper that would take very well to that kind of tactic.

‘Woof!’ said Charlie, as if agreeing with my thoughts, and I quickly clamped a hand around his muzzle and dodged back behind the church. Then I ran back to my mother’s grave and set him down, holding on to his collar.

‘Ssh!’ I warned him, and he waved his tail.

I sat down on a tabletop tomb half-hidden in the grass and waited. A few moments later the throaty roar of a sports car came from somewhere in the village, which I thought was probably Melinda leaving. I was just thinking that Seth must have gone out by the other gate too, when I heard a heavy tread approaching.

A large pair of boots entered my pensively downcast view and I looked up with (I hope) an expression of innocent surprise. And actually, he
had
still startled me, because from my position he looked about seven feet tall and rather forbidding, with his eyebrows knitted above suspicious jade eyes and the chilly breeze flipping his silky black hair about: the Demon Lover in person.

‘Oh, it’s you, Seth! What are you doing here?’

‘Visiting my father’s grave—it’s the anniversary of his death,’ he said shortly, looking surprisingly grim considering he had just had the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life practically fling herself at him. ‘I like to come and update him on what’s happening to his garden—or is
likely
to happen to his garden.’

‘Isn’t the conversation a bit one-sided?’

‘Not necessarily. He was never much of a conversationalist even when he was alive. Anyway, don’t
you
feel the channels of communication between the past and the present never quite close?’ he asked, to my surprise, because I hadn’t had him down as any kind of fey.

‘Maybe…’ I admitted, ‘and a definite yes when it comes
to Alys Blezzard. But wherever my mother is, she isn’t communicating with me in any meaningful way, any more than she did when she was alive, though I can
feel
her close by sometimes, since I got here…and I understand her a bit more, I think.’

‘She wasn’t a good mother? I thought the story was that she snatched you and ran because she was afraid of losing you.’

‘Oh, she loved me in her way. I suppose that’s why she took me with her. But she was also light-hearted, good-natured, restless, easily bored, and permanently stoned—
and
she was convinced she was a white witch and could do spells and read the crystal ball, which she couldn’t.’

I smiled ruefully. ‘She was like a will-of-the-wisp—you just couldn’t take hold of her at all, because she was always off after some new craze. That’s what she was doing in America when she died, going off with a new man to a new place. Only that time I’d had enough and stayed put in the commune in northern Scotland where we’d been staying, though right up to the moment she got on the plane, I didn’t believe that she would really leave me…and I don’t know
why
I’m telling you this!’ I added, surprised.

‘Oh, graveyards at dusk,’ he said, shrugging broad shoulders. ‘And at least you knew your mother. I barely remember mine; she died when I was four. Then my father married Ottie, possibly the least maternal woman in the world. Or maybe it was the other way round—Ottie decided to marry my father.’

‘But she is fond of you, I could tell.’

‘Oh, yes, and I’m fond of her. When Jack and I were children and got into trouble for pranks, he always looked so angelic that he would have got off scot free if she hadn’t weighed in on my side. Of course, Hebe always insisted it was me leading her blue-eyed boy astray, so that never went down well. But it was later that we fell out.’

I could imagine
who
they had fallen out over too, but thought I had better change the subject. ‘I don’t even know who
my
father is,’ I confessed. ‘Mum always said he was a gypsy she met at a fairground—but then, she said a lot of things, and most of them weren’t true.’ I sighed. ‘But I loved her anyway.’

Seth looked down at the small angel guarding the grave. ‘There are snowdrops and crocus and those little tête-à-tête daffodils in spring.’

‘Did you plant them, and the rosemary?’

He nodded. ‘I’m not keen on cut flowers on graves, though Sir William insisted on having some sent down every week. I don’t know whether you want that continued?’

‘No, I don’t want cut flowers either. It’s fine as it is, thank you. What have you planted on your father’s grave?’

‘Come and see.’ He turned and led the way back round the church, Charlie and I following in his wake.

It was a simple stone carved with spade, fork and watering can, and I liked the wording: ‘Rufus Greenwood, perennially bedded here’. The grave was a rectangular knot of low box that must have been trimmed with nail scissors.

It was growing dark and the chilly gloom descended on us like a pall slowly lowered from the sky—not a comfortable thought, even in the nicest of country graveyards.

I shivered. ‘I’d better get back home. I’ve got the van with me—do you want a lift?’

‘No, I’ll walk back, thanks. I want to think.’

I bet he did. At some point he might want to wipe the pink lipstick off his face too.

Chapter Fourteen: Twisted Wires

Lady Wynter doth question mee closely about the marriage bed and whether I am not yet to bear a child. I too wish it, since I foresee that all my arts will not cause my husband to survive another harsh winter, and a babe would be security for my future here. But I fear there is little likelihood of it coming to pass. When I recall my mother’s words on her deathbed—that I would remain a Blezzard, and my child after mee, though my children’s children would be Wynters—it puzzles mee much.

From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1581

Next morning, after a night mostly spent fine-tuning my plans for Winter’s End, I had eyes as dark-ringed as a racoon.

After breakfast my very own personal bank accounts manager came to the house with papers for me to sign, which was a novelty in itself. The last time I tried to increase my overdraft by a measly thousand pounds nobody wanted to know me, but now it seemed the world was my oyster. But I wasn’t about to use Winter’s End either as a cash cow or collateral. It was
my
pearl and I would never risk losing it.

That sorted, I went out to the stables to look for the Victorian fountain Seth had banished there from the lower
terrace—and he was right, it
was
truly hideous: a malformed nymph doing something dubious with a long-necked duck.

Mind you, there’s a market for everything, so I asked Mr Yatton if it was all right for me to try to sell it.

‘Oh, yes, you can do what you like with it,’ he agreed, ‘with any of your property, in fact, now probate has been granted.’

‘Oh, good. I thought I’d phone up one or two architectural salvage places and get them to come out and give me an estimate. Although it’s revolting, I might still get enough to send Lucy the money for a ticket home
and
do one or two other things. I’d like to have Alys Blezzard’s portrait cleaned, for a start, and I’ve also promised to have the Larks’ rooms redecorated.’

‘Lucy is sending me several emails a day with
suggestions
,’ Mr Yatton said, ‘and lots of very intelligent questions. Though actually I think our today is tomorrow in Japan, isn’t it? Oh dear, I do find these time differences quite confusing.’

‘So do I, but I think Japan
is
several hours ahead. Lucy isn’t trying to tell you how to run the place yet, is she?’

His eyes twinkled. ‘Not quite, but she does sound very much like Sir William—straight to the point.’

‘Oh, I
do
wish she was here, even if she often drives me mad,’ I sighed. ‘And I’m sure she’s still being pestered by that man. I told you one of her mature students had a fixation about her, didn’t I? He keeps following her about and trying to get her to go out with him.’

‘Yes indeed, very worrying,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll warn her to be careful when I next email, but I am sure she is sensible enough not to take any risks—and let us hope we will soon have her home again.’

‘Perhaps even in time for Christmas! That would be so good, because we’ve never had one apart,’ I agreed, feeling happier.

‘If you like, I will phone up suitable architectural salvage firms about the fountain,’ he offered. ‘In fact, I could go out first and take photographs, then email them together with the dimensions. They might even make you an offer without coming out to see it.’

‘That would be a great help, if you would,’ I said, then settled down to discuss with him just what I was planning to say at the meeting tomorrow. The thought of giving my maiden speech was giving me acute cold feet…as was the idea of facing Jack, though in his case there was also a flutter of excitement in my stomach.

‘I don’t know if Jack will arrive in time for it, because I haven’t managed to get him on the phone yet and he hasn’t got back to my messages. He doesn’t even know that I’m definitely
not
going to sell Winter’s End to him and I do feel bad about that, because I led him to believe I might.’

‘I’m sure everyone else will be happy with your decision, since the main worry was that if Jack inherited the property he might decide to develop it and sell it off piecemeal, as he did to the home of the widow of one of Sir William’s old friends. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but it caused quite a rift between them and I suspect was the crucial factor in Sir William’s decision to leave Winter’s End and all his property outright to you.’

‘You don’t really think he would do that to Winter’s End, do you?’ I asked bluntly. ‘Mr Hobbs does, I know—he as much as said so when he came to see me in Northumberland—but I am sure Jack loves the place and has no intention of doing any such thing!’

‘He has certainly never shown much interest in running the estate. His life is in London, so that he tends to use Winter’s End as a weekend retreat, frequently bringing friends,’ Mr Yatton said cautiously. ‘Sir William often said he seemed to think Winter’s End was a country hotel.’

‘Well, not any longer,’ I said firmly. ‘This is Jack’s home and he will always be welcome here, but any future visitors will have to earn their keep. I can’t afford freeloaders and there’s lots to do.’

Then I got Mr Yatton to help me surf the internet and find out what sort of plants and shrubs appeared in Shakespeare’s works, so I could impress Seth with my knowledge at our next encounter. And actually, it was really fascinating. The Bard had to have been interested in gardening to have mentioned so many. I had no idea what some of them were, but they sounded lovely—bachelor’s-buttons, columbine and gillyflowers. But there were lots of more familiar flowers too, like daffodils, pansies and honeysuckle.

When he had printed it all out for me I asked him what state the Royal Purse was in before ringing up Stately Solutions and placing my order for the specialist cleaning materials, and then dispatching Jonah to the nearest ironmongers with a list of more everyday stuff.

After that I went to the library and looked for the book about treasure that Aunt Hebe had mentioned, which proved to be a slim and well-thumbed paperback called
Hidden Treasure Hoards of North-West Lancashire
, shoved in with a lot of local history books near the door.

It was all very interesting, though oral tradition is like Chinese whispers, so what you end up with probably bears little resemblance to the original tale. But Winter’s End and its immediate environs seemed to have attracted more than one legend, so it was only surprising that Seth wasn’t constantly repelling a positive Klondike of metal-detector enthusiasts.

The vicar called after lunch, which was something I thought only happened within the pages of Agatha Christie novels. She was a brisk, pleasant woman of about fifty and we had
a ladylike chat over tea and biscuits in the drawing room, during which I found myself agreeing that next year’s annual village fête could be held, as usual, on the car-parking field.

The rest of the afternoon I enjoyably spent cleaning out the corner cupboard in Lady Anne’s parlour, first carefully laying the contents out on a side table covered with an old picnic rug.