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

‘You don’t like it,’ she blurted.

‘No,’ said Henry, still glued to the plans, still frowning. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

Flora bit her lower lip. Damn it. She’d already gone out on a limb with Graydon on this. Graydon had always felt more comfortable with the original, grander, much more expensive library, but had caved in when Flora insisted the client shared her vision. Surprisingly, Flora and Henry seemed to have a lot in common when it came to taste in architecture and interiors. Eva preferred a much more modern and, to Flora’s mind, urban aesthetic. But Flora and Henry frequently saw eye to eye about Hanborough, something else that had helped Flora warm to him.

Not this time, though.

‘I don’t like it,’ Henry repeated. Looking up at her, his frown was now almost a scowl. ‘I bloody love it.’

‘I’m sorry?’ said Flora.

Henry grinned, pulling her into a hug and twirling her around, to Flora’s combined delight and astonishment. ‘You’re a genius, Flora Fitzwilliam! It’s perfect.’

‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ Flora exhaled.

‘It’s warm. It’s intimate,’ said Henry. He’d set her back down on the carpet, but his hands were still resting loosely on her hips. All of a sudden Flora felt intensely aware of his physical presence: the scent of his aftershave; the way the fabric of his shirt strained slightly against his muscular arms. And his eyes, which had gone from embarrassed when she first walked in, to angry, now had a playful, teasing look to them that Flora found she had no idea how to handle.

Looking down at her, he smiled and said gruffly, ‘I can climb up there when I’m under attack. Lock myself away.’

‘Are you often under attack?’ Flora heard herself ask, in a voice that was not quite her own.

‘Sometimes.’

Was it Flora’s imagination, or did his hands just tighten around her hips?

‘Well. It will be somewhere to retreat to, then. Every home should have a retreat,’ she replied briskly, doing her best to sound professional.

‘I never retreat.’

Henry’s upper lip curled arrogantly, the same way it had the day Flora first met him. She’d loathed his arrogance then. Now she felt something else, something thoroughly disconcerting. ‘But it’ll be the perfect space to plan my counter-attack.’

Smiling, he released her, and walked around to the other side of the desk.

What just happened? thought Flora. Had they been talking about her new library? Or something else entirely?

Gathering up her plans, she left, the disconcerting feeling still hovering unpleasantly in the pit of her stomach.

About two weeks after Flora’s encounter with Henry in the study, Graydon James decided to pay an impromptu site visit to Hanborough. Eva, back from her latest Sports Illustrated shoot in Australia, insisted that Graydon stay at the castle as their guest.

‘That way you can spend a few days and really get a sense of what Flora’s been achieving here. Henry and I both just love her,’ she’d added loyally, winking at Flora, who wished the ground would open up and swallow her.

They were all in the formal drawing room at Hanborough. ‘All’ being the operative word. Henry, still in tennis whites after an early morning game with Richard Smart, was nursing a large gin and tonic by the window, looking less than thrilled by Graydon James’s unannounced and typically flamboyant arrival. Graydon, now on his third Bellini, had shown up in an open-topped pink Porsche 911, wearing a preposterous 1930s golfing outfit consisting of plus fours and a peach sweater, teamed with a dreadful Sherlock Holmes cap. Eva was there, boho chic in a bright orange cotton kaftan that would have looked like a curtain on anyone else, while Flora was looking pale and tired in boyfriend jeans and an old shirt of Mason’s tied at the waist that she basically lived in these days. George Savile, minus her dreary husband this time, had just ‘dropped in’, again, for lunch, looking typically chic in a Stella McCartney jumpsuit and sky-high heels. She greeted Graydon with a screech of delight and the sort of ecstatic hug usually reserved for a husband returning from war.

‘Graydon! Thank goodness you’re here to liven things up a bit,’ George trilled, linking arms possessively with the great designer in a clear message to Flora that the two of them were great friends, and that she’d better watch her back.

Flora had arrived for lunch tired, and now felt utterly exhausted. Graydon’s guest appearance was absolutely the last thing she needed. Clearly Eva thought she was doing Flora a favour by inviting Graydon to stay at the castle, and telling him how much they loved Flora’s work. She wasn’t to know how pathologically jealous Graydon was of other designers, even his own staff, and how paranoid of having his thunder stolen. Especially by Flora.

‘Well,’ Graydon beamed, first at George and then at Eva. ‘I must say it’s nice to be made so welcome. If you’re really sure it’s no imposition, I’d love to stay a couple of nights. I loathe the drive back to London, and The Dorchester’s become so corporate these days, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, dreadful,’ George agreed with a shudder. ‘I wouldn’t put my gardener up there. The place is alive with Russians.’

‘There’s a perfectly good pub in Fittlescombe. They’ve got rooms,’ Henry muttered, too quietly for Graydon to hear but loudly enough to earn himself a reproachful look from Eva.

‘It’s no imposition at all. We’d be delighted to have you.’

‘In that case, I think I might stay too,’ said George. ‘Make a house party of it. If that’s all right?’ She fluttered her eyelashes innocently at Eva.

‘Not really,’ thundered Henry.

‘Of course it’s all right,’ said Eva, simultaneously. She’d never warmed to George. She’d tried, many times, but Henry’s business partner always had a knowing, sour look on her face when talking to Eva, as if she were laughing at some private joke that Eva strongly suspected was at her expense. Despite this, Eva continued to be hospitable and to hold out repeated olive branches to Georgina. One day, she felt sure, her kindness would pay off, and George would realize that Eva was a decent person and that she made Henry happy.

‘We’d love to have you. There are plenty of rooms, after all.’

‘Even if it is still a building site!’ George laughed, adding teasingly, ‘But I suppose genius can’t be rushed, eh, Flora?’

Die. Thought Flora. Die, die, die, you poisonous, manipulative cow.

Flora couldn’t understand why George kept showing up like a bad smell when it was clear that Henry didn’t want her here. Or why either Henry or Eva put up with it.

The only thing she knew for sure was that it was going to be a very, very long few days.

Flora’s first official walk-through of the site with Graydon began at eight o’clock the next morning. It did not go well.

No doubt irked by Eva’s lavish praise of Flora’s designs the day before, Graydon systematically ripped into every last inch of her work. Nothing was good enough. The fixtures in the guest bathroom suites were too modern. The window dressings in the state rooms too traditional. The reclaimed stone Flora had used for the floor in the great hall was too expensive. The oak boards in the master bedroom too cheap.