Tilly Bagshawe - The Bachelor - Racy, pacy and very funny!

An architect had already drawn up plans for the structural restoration of the castle, but Graydon had made it a condition that he and his team would run the entire project, from foundations to flower arrangements. As project manager, Guillermo would be working eighteen-hour days and getting his perfectly manicured hands seriously dirty. The fact that he was already complaining about the client, not to mention contributing nothing to this crucial first week of site meetings, did not bode well.

‘I’m going up to town for a few days,’ Graydon informed him curtly. ‘Little Miss Wonder-Tits is off on a job, so you’ll have Handsome Henry all to yourself. See if you can convince him you’re more than just a pretty face.’ Grabbing Guillermo’s hand, Graydon placed it firmly on his cock. ‘And see if you can convince me that I haven’t made a big mistake in trusting you with this.’

In fairness to Guillermo, the sex was still good. But Graydon was tiring of the attitude.

Throwing his case down on the bed, Graydon ordered himself a double espresso with cantuccini from room service – that was something else that sucked in the countryside. Coffee. Henry Saxton Brae drank Tesco instant. If there were ever any question about his sexuality, that cleared it right up. Idly checking his messages, Graydon ignored the one from his accountant, noted three from Flora, pleading to be allowed to leave Nantucket, and one from a prospective client, a Russian oligarch with a positively palatial house in London, opposite Hyde Park. He stopped abruptly at one from World Of Interiors .

‘ Good afternoon, Mr James. My name is Carly di Angelo. We’re doing a cover piece for our September issue on the world’s most beautiful city apartments. We were wondering, would Flora Fitzwilliam be prepared to talk to us about West Fifty-Sixth Street? I’ve tried contacting her directly but can’t seem to get through. I understand she’s on an island somewhere … ’

Graydon rang back instantly.

‘Miss di Angelo? Graydon James. Yes, I’m afraid Flora’s not available at present. But it just so happens I’m in London and I’d be very happy to talk to you about our work at West Fifty-Sixth. Perhaps you weren’t aware, but I actually lead the design team myself?’

He hung up, purring with pleasure.

Graydon hadn’t done a stitch of the work on Luca Gianotti’s stunning Manhattan penthouse apartment. It had all been Flora, from start to finish, and the baseball legend had been ecstatic with the results. But the project had been commissioned under the GJD – Graydon James Designs – brand. As far as Graydon was concerned, that made West Fifty-Sixth Street his. Just as Hanborough would be his, and Lisa Kent’s Siasconset folly, and anything else that his staff worked on.

If Flora, or Guillermo, or any of the ingrates didn’t like it, they could spend the next thirty years building their own fucking empires. None of them would ever have amounted to anything without the great Graydon James.

Graydon glanced at his diamond-encrusted, special-edition Cartier Roadster, an accessory so dazzlingly flamboyant it might make a rap mogul think twice. He was meeting the lovely Miss di Angelo at The Wolseley in two hours. Just enough time for housekeeping to press his shirt while he popped to the spa for a mini-manicure.

God, it was good to be back in civilization.

Henry Saxton Brae was in a foul mood.

First, the stupid little girl from the wine bar whose WhatsApp had almost caused him serious problems with Eva had refused to go quietly and was threatening to sell details of her ‘affair’ with Henry to the Daily Mirror . (Actually a few nights of drunken, broom-cupboard shagging that had finished months ago.)

‘Go ahead,’ Henry told her scathingly. ‘Only plebs read the Mirror . No one I know will have the faintest idea you even exist.’

But in the end he’d been forced to drive down to London and try to reason with her (Henry’s lawyer having pointed out patiently that it wasn’t, in fact, a crime to publish things that were true, and that no court in the land would grant Henry an injunction).

Having talked Marie down from the ledge, Henry had been ‘summoned’ to Hatchings by his brother’s godawful social-climbing wife, Kate, a painfully middle-class, overgrown pony clubber with a highly developed superiority complex, for a ‘vitally important’ family meeting. This turned out to be some utter guff about giving money to the Countryside Alliance for a pro-hunting ‘war chest’ to be used in the catastrophic event of a new Labour government.

‘This is life-or-death stuff, Henry,’ Sebastian announced pompously, and without even a hint of irony. ‘Our generation are the last line of defence. We’re the bloody Normandy beaches.’

Henry rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, come on, Seb.’

‘You don’t seem to realize. Hunting could be wiped out in this country,’ Lady Saxton Brae added dramatically, and entirely unnecessarily. ‘Gorn. For ever!’

Kate had an unfortunate habit of talking down to her husband’s wealthier, much more successful brother. She resented it deeply that Henry had bought Hanborough and moved back to the Swell Valley (‘ our valley’) in an attempt to usurp Sebastian’s position as head of the family. She was also clever enough to realize that Henry looked down on her socially. Her ascension to the title of Lady Saxton Brae had changed nothing in her brother-in-law’s eyes.

‘What you don’t seem to realize, Kate,’ Henry yawned pointedly, ‘is that I don’t give a fuck.’

‘I say now. Steady on,’ Sebastian muttered uncomfortably. The new Lord Saxton Brae loathed confrontation, especially within the family. ‘We all care about the hunt. About preserving our traditions.’

‘Why don’t you pay for it, then?’ Henry asked bluntly. ‘Instead of coming begging to me?’

‘Nobody’s begging anybody,’ Kate hissed.

Her back was arched, like a cat’s. Henry noticed that her once pretty face was becoming more lined with age. When she was angry, like now, it wrinkled up even more. Pretty soon her puckered, furious, cat’s-arse mouth would disappear altogether. She did have a good figure, but today, as so often, it was swamped in a shapeless Country Casuals dress that made her look at least twenty years older. Combined with the hectoring, schoolmarm manner, she wasn’t doing herself any favours.

‘You know very well we aren’t cash rich like you are.’

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Henry, deliberately goading her now.

‘Keeping Hatchings running has to be our first priority!’ Kate looked as if steam might be about to come out of her ears. ‘You have no conception of the pressure your brother’s under. This is a huge estate.’

‘I know. I was born here.’

‘Sebastian supports the hunt in countless other ways.’

‘But you expect me to write the cheque. Is that it?’

‘It’s not for us, dear boy,’ said Sebastian. ‘It’s for future generations of Englishmen. We must all do our bit. Your country needs you, and all that.’