Liz Fielding: Tempted by Trouble

I have met your lovely granddaughter, though. I had lunch at the Blue Boar a couple of months ago and she served me. She was so like you, Lally—all your charm, your pretty smile—that I asked someone who she was. She even has your name. And here, I’m afraid, comes the crunch. You knew there would be a crunch, didn’t you?

Rosie, who by now you’ll have met, is a little hobby of mine. I do the occasional party, public event, you know the kind of thing, just to cover the costs of keeping her. The occasional charity do for my soul. Unfortunately, events have rather overtaken me and I have to go away for a while but there are people I’ve made promises to, people I can’t let down and I thought perhaps you and your granddaughter might take it on for me. A chance for her to get out of that restaurant once in a while. For you to think of me, I hope. Sean, who brings this to you, will show you how everything works.

I’ve enclosed the bookings diary as well as the phone I use for the ice cream business and, in order to make things easier for you, I’ve posted the change of keeper slip to the licence people so that Rosie is now registered in your name. God bless and keep you, Lally. Yours always, Basil

Elle put her hand to her mouth. Swallowed. Her great-uncle. Family. He’d been within touching distance and she’d had no idea. She tried to remember serving someone on his own, but the Blue Boar had a motel that catered for businessmen travelling on their own.

Haughton Manor was only six or seven miles away but she had to get ready for work and there was no time to drive over there this evening. Find out more. Neither could she leave it and she reached for the phone, dialled Directory Enquiries.

‘Lower Haughton, Basil Amery,’ she said, made a note of the number and then dialled it.

After half a dozen rings it switched to voicemail. Had he already left? What events? Scandal, he’d mentioned in his letter … She left a message, asking him to call her—he’d pick up his messages even if he was away—left her number as well, and replaced the receiver. She was rereading his letter, trying to make sense of it, when the phone rang. She grabbed for it, hoping that he’d picked up the message and called back.

‘Elle?’

It was her boss. ‘Oh, hello, Freddy.’

‘Don’t sound so disappointed!’

‘Sorry, I was expecting someone else. What’s up?’ she asked quickly, before he asked who.

‘We’re going to be short-staffed this evening. I was wondering if you can you drop everything and come in early.’

‘Twenty minutes?’ she offered.

‘You’re an angel.’ Then, ‘Would your sister be interested in doing a shift? She’s a smart girl; she’d pick it up quickly enough. I’m sure she could use the money.’

‘I’m sorry, Sorrel isn’t here, but I was hoping for some more hours myself,’ she added, taking advantage of a moment when he was the one asking for something.

‘You already do more than enough. I’ll have a word next time she drops in to the use the Wi-Fi. It wouldn’t hurt her to help out.’

‘She needs to concentrate …’ But Freddy had already hung up and she was talking to herself.

She read the letter again, then replaced it in the envelope and put everything in the hall drawer. She didn’t want her grandmother seeing the letter until Elle knew what the heck was going on.

There was nothing she could do with Rosie, but she’d be at work before anyone came home. She had until tomorrow morning to think of some good reason why it was parked in the drive.

Sean told himself that it was none of his business. That Basil was just a tenant who’d asked if he could keep Rosie at the barn since there wasn’t a garage at the cottage.

He’d only got dragged into the situation because he’d stayed overnight in London on the day Basil decided to do his disappearing act. And if Lovage Amery had been a plain middle-aged woman Sean wouldn’t have given the matter a first thought, let alone a second one.

Why Basil hadn’t just decided to leave Rosie with him was the real mystery. She was safe enough locked up in the barn.

Unless, of course, he didn’t intend to come back.

Or hadn’t actually gone anywhere.

He swore, grabbed a spare set of keys from the estate safe and drove across the park to Keeper’s Cottage.

He knocked, called out, then, when there was no answer, let himself in. Nothing seemed out of place. There were no letters ominously propped up on the mantelpiece. Only a photograph of a young woman wearing an outrageously short mini dress, white knee-length boots, her hair cut in a sharp angular style that had once been the height of fashion. Her large eyes were framed with thick sooty lashes and heavily lined. The gloss and polish, the expensive high fashion were as far from Lovage Amery as it was possible to be, and yet those eyes left him in no doubt about the family connection. Shape, colour were a perfect match.

So that was all right, then.

Basil must have had some bookings for Rosie that he couldn’t cancel and was lumbering his family with the responsibility. If they weren’t keen, it wasn’t his problem.

The light was flashing on the answering machine and after a moment’s hesitation he hit ‘play'.

Lovage Amery’s liquid voice filled the room. ‘Mr Amery? My name is Lovage Amery and I’ve just read your letter. I don’t understand. Who are you? Will you ring me? Please.’ And she left a number.

Genuinely had no idea who Basil was? On the point of reaching for the phone, the phone in his pocket rang.

He checked the caller ID. Olivia.

‘Sean, I’m at the barn,’ she said before he could say a word. ‘Where are you?’

The leap-to-it tone of the Haughton family, so different from the soft voice still rippling through him, evoking the memory of hot eyes that you could drown in. A dangerously appealing mouth. It was the kind of complicated response that should have sent up warning flares— here be dragons —but only made him want to dive right in.

Bad idea.

‘I’m on the far side of the estate,’ he said.

‘It’s nearly six.’ His half-sister’s pout was almost audible.

‘You know how it is, sis,’ he said, knowing how much she hated to be called that. ‘No rest for younger illegitimate sons. Why are you here? ‘

‘It’s my home?’

‘Excuse me? The last time you were here was Christmas. You stayed for two days, then abandoned your children with their nanny for the rest of the holidays while you went skiing.’

‘They had a lovely time,’ she protested.

Of course they had. He’d made sure of it, sliding down the hill on old tea trays in the snow, building dens, running wild as he had, in ways that were impossible in their urban lives in London. But they would still have rather been with their parents.

‘Look, I don’t want to fight with you, Sean. I wanted to talk about the stables. I want to convert them into craft workshops. I know all kinds of people—weavers, candle-makers, turners, who would fall over themselves for space. Visitors to the estate would love to see demonstrations. Buy stuff.’

He laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded.

‘The idea that you would know what a turner did, let alone be acquainted with one.’

‘Wretch. Henry thinks it’s a good idea.’

‘That would be Henry who visits his estate twice a year. At Christmas …’ also to abandon his children before jetting off, although in his case to the Caribbean ‘… and for the shooting.’ And for the occasional extramarital weekend in the same cottage his father had used for the purpose. Like father, like son.

‘It’s his estate, not yours,’ she pointed out.

‘So it is. And he pays me to run it professionally. At a profit. Not as occupational therapy for women whose marriages are falling apart.’