Zara Stoneley - Country Rivals

‘You’ve got an actual drawbridge?’ Jamie was even more impressed.

‘A metaphorical one.’

‘Ahh. And Dominic has the final say?’

‘Certainly not. But he can be quite sniffy at times and he is rather strong-willed when he puts his mind to it.’

‘I wonder where he gets that from?’ He hadn’t thought he’d actually verbalised the words, but it appeared he had.

The corner of her mouth twitched. ‘One has to know what one wants. But he is slightly too, what is the word? Conservative for my taste. He is a dressage rider.’

She said it as though it explained everything, which to Jamie it didn’t. Knowing very little about horses and absolutely nothing about dressage riders.

‘Precise, controlled. The boy sorted all his books alphabetically and his cars into the most orderly of rows when he was a child.’ That didn’t help much either. ‘Re-stabled all the horses one day because they weren’t in any kind of size or colour orientation. The head groom was not amused.’

‘Ahh.’

‘He was very young though. He appears to have grown out of his most faddy tendencies. Too many fancy notions and picky habits aren’t good for a boy. Poncey. Not quite sure where he gets it from, his father was nothing like that. If anything upset him he’d go out and shoot.’

‘And so Dominic helps you run the place?’

‘Oh heavens above, have you not listened to a word I’ve said? Dominic is my son, but Charlotte, my granddaughter, runs the estate.’

‘Ah, so Charlotte is Dominic’s daughter.’

‘No.’ She shook her head, lips pursed. ‘Dominic is Charlotte’s uncle.’

‘Oh. But shouldn’t he …’

‘The Stanthorpes have never liked to stick to the normal order of things; we do things our own way. Tipping House is never passed to a male heir, it is inherited by the eldest female and sadly Charlotte’s mother, my daughter Alexandra, died in rather unfortunate circumstances. One day all this will be Charlotte’s. You really do need to do your homework, young man.’

Jamie frowned. He’d thought taking a few pictures and selling the idea to Seb was all he needed to do. But it appeared not. The longer he was here though, the more he realised it wasn’t just that he needed this job; he actually wanted it. He wanted to peep into the life of Lady Elizabeth Stanthorpe. To make her smile.

‘And so Charlotte is in charge?’

‘I rather think I am in charge.’ Her tone was dry, but there were the crinkle lines of laughter around her eyes again. ‘But she is responsible for running the estate and raising the necessary funds.’

‘She’s the one who set up the business here, as a wedding venue, isn’t she?’ Elizabeth nodded. ‘And one of the punters started the blaze, so she’s knackered.’

‘Knackered is a word I’d reserve for an altogether different usage, young man, but she is in rather a predicament. Most of the bookings were over the summer months, so very few had to be cancelled. But she should now be taking bookings for the spring after next, and how can she? These young girls look around and want everything to be perfect, and that is not going to be achievable for quite some time.’ She sniffed. ‘These insurance investigators are quite tiresome. And without the income one is very much back to square one.’

‘Even if you get it fixed up?’

‘A place like this costs a fortune to maintain and that is something that, sadly, we don’t have. That young fool of a bank manager is already starting to twitch, silly boy. But I’m sure things will sort themselves out, although I might well shoot the next person who arrives with a buy-out plan.’

‘Why not just sell the place?’

‘Sell?’ She raised both eyebrows. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Over my dead body. If they think they can turn this village into a safari park or giant amusement arcade they have another thing coming. The Marquis of Bath and that Aspinall chap have a lot to answer for, putting ridiculous ideas into people’s heads. You will never see a pride of lions here during my lifetime. Utter tosh and nonsense. Right, I’m sure it’s past your bedtime. Your push bicycle is by the front door.’

‘Push …?’

‘The police called in to say they’d seen it propped against the south wall,’ she raised an eyebrow and he tried not to smile. ‘Some chap saw you climb over, but they knew better than to follow you. More than one policeman has been peppered with shot on this estate. By accident, of course, mistaken identity and all that. One of the gamekeepers went to collect it while I brought Bertie to sniff you out.’

‘You knew I was there? You didn’t find me by accident?’

‘What do you think I am? This estate stretches for miles, and I can’t see in the dark at my age, can I?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Be careful on the bicycle, you look a bit tipsy. Unlikely to meet any traffic but the ditches can be hazardous I’m told.’ She stood up. ‘Can’t have you killed just before Christmas can we? Your mother would never forgive us. Oh, and watch out for ghosts and wolves.’ And he was pretty sure that it was the whisky that made him think she’d winked.

‘Faster Worwy, faster, faster.’

Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Steel jumped as the unexpected shrill scream echoed down the hallway and her needle came unthreaded, and disappeared between the floorboards. ‘Bugger.’

She shut one eye and peered down the crack, wishing that they could afford to send the horse rugs to the local saddlery for mending. Impoverished landowners might be expected to make do and mend (and she definitely was impoverished), but sewing was really not her thing. She just wasn’t very good at it. She was much better at whitewashing the stables, if she was honest, and at least then she’d not be using her fingers as pin cushions.

In fact whitewashing, and mending fences, were the type of thing she’d spent most of her time doing before she’d discovered that one day she would inherit Tipping House – and in the meantime was expected to manage the day-to-day running of the estate, and remove as much of the responsibility as she could from her elderly grandmother. Not that Elizabeth considered herself either elderly or in need of assistance. It was rather Lottie who thought she needed help, especially since her wedding business had gone up in smoke, leaving them once again struggling to make ends meet.

But it was hard to imagine now that she’d ever thought she could belong anywhere else. When she was a child she’d always imagined that one day she’d follow in her father, Billy Brinkley’s, footsteps and enter the world of show-jumping (or at least groom his horses and be the one that educated the youngsters), and then when she’d moved in with Rory she’d imagined herself supporting his eventing career and chasing off his female fans, and the very last thing that had ever crossed her mind was that she would instead live a life rather more along the lines of her aristocratic grandmother Lady Elizabeth and her Uncle Dominic. Although whilst it all sounded rather grand, the reality was anything but. And at times she quite honestly found it hard to believe she was related to them, even if she did feel she would die rather than give up her beautiful, but demanding, inheritance.