Trisha Ashley: Sowing Secrets

Published by Avon

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain as The Generous Gardner by Severn House Publishers Ltd., Surrey, 2004

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2008

Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2008

Cover illustration © Debbie Clement 2016, Dominique Corbasson 2008

Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847560117

Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780007329014

Version: 2018-06-13

For Brian and Linda Long With love

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: A Seed is Sown

Chapter 1-Altered Conceptions

Chapter 2-An Unconsidered Trifle

Chapter 3-Up the Fairy Glen

Chapter 4-The Druid’s Rest

Chapter 5-Sex, Lies and Videotape

Chapter 6-Cool Runnings

Chapter 7-Grand Designs

Chapter 8-Up the Garden Path

Chapter 9-Thriller

Chapter 10-Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Chapter 11-Cayman Blue

Chapter 12-Misconceptions

Chapter 13-Grapes of Wrath

Chapter 14-Bigger Things

Chapter 15-All Cried Out

Chapter 16-Posted

Chapter 17-Over a Barrel

Chapter 18-Stemmed

Chapter 19-Mother Makes Three

Chapter 20-Bedding Out

Chapter 21-Go, Lovely Rose

Chapter 22-Something in the Water

Chapter 23-Great Expectations

Chapter 24-Paradise Falls

Chapter 25-Ting-Driven Thing

Chapter 26-Postcards From the Edge

Chapter 27-The Bartered Bride

Chapter 28-Lost in Space

Chapter 29-Homecoming Queen

Chapter 30-Might As Well Live

Chapter 31-Stamped Out

Chapter 32-Double Trouble

Epilogue: Heaven-Scent

Acknowledgments

About the Author

About the Publisher

Lost Angel of a ruin’d Paradise!

Shelley

With a galvanic jerk Fran March opened her eyes to find herself practically nose to nose with a total stranger: a sleeping young Neptune, his lightly muscled body, carelessly disposed in sleep, green-washed by the early morning light filtering in through thin caravanette curtains.

Recoiling, she slipped from the bed, praying he wouldn’t wake up, panicking as she tried to find her clothes among the clutter of a camper van that both looked and smelled like a potting shed.

This Neptune’s trident was the homely gardening fork that fell over with a clatter as she struggled with the unfamiliar sliding door, almost weeping with silent frustration.

She froze as he stirred and half opened drowsy, green-flecked eyes, only to close them again and sleep on, long narrow nose pressed against the pillow, hair in improbable spirals and the darker stubble pricking out along the edge of his jaw.

The door finally opened enough to let her slip out into a world silent except for the non-judgemental birds, though, misjudging the drop, she didn’t so much hit the ground running as fall to her knees in the pub car park like a penitent Pope Joan.

‘Mum, you know you’ve always told me that my father was a student prince who turned into a toad and hopped it when you kissed him?’ Rosie asked me ominously on Boxing Day while we were watching Who Do You Think You Are? . Mal was safely out of the way upstairs in his study poring over his stamp collection, yearning for a Cayman Blue.

‘Yes, ’ I agreed cautiously, the chunk of Christmas cake I had just eaten suddenly turning to stone in my stomach, though you’d think a survival instinct that sent a surge of energy to the leg muscles for a quick getaway would have been much more useful – except that Rosie had me cornered on the sofa.

She was wearing a familiarly stubborn expression, like a very serious elf maiden, all long, honey-blonde locks fronding around her slightly pointed ears and a frown above her straight brows. Her changeling green-grey eyes were fixed accusingly on mine.

‘Or that other story, where you said he was Neptune disguised in human form, and he dragged you down into his sea kingdom because he’d fallen in love with you? Only you escaped, helped by friendly dolphins, and were found wandering the beach covered in seaweed next morning?’

‘Mmm,’ I said vaguely, though actually I was quite proud of that one – some of the details were pretty inventive, especially all the little mussel shells clapping with glee when I got away, and a desolate Neptune blowing his conch shell to summon me back every evening for a month before giving up and swimming sadly away for ever, totally conched out.

Perhaps it was a fishy story, at that?

My favourite was the one where her father was a gypsy king with fast flamenco fingers, cursed by an evil witch never to stay more than one night in any place. If he did, she would appear, take his Music out and shoot it. (Music was a dog.)

That one always made Rosie cry, and I had to assure her that the king never stopped more than one night in any place, because he loved Music more than anything. And so the dog lived for ever, and they were very happy travelling about in their caravan, except when he thought about the beautiful princess he had had to leave behind.

But now, seemingly, the time for fairy stories was over.

‘Mum,’ Rosie said sternly, ‘you’ve never told me anything real about my father, and although I do know it’s because you don’t want to talk about it, now I’m eighteen and at university I think I have a right to know all about him, don’t you?’

‘Yes, darling, but there really isn’t much more to tell you,’ I said helplessly, because there hadn’t been that many facts to embroider. He came, he went – what more could I say? ‘Those stories were all variations on the truth, Rosie.’

‘I’ve been talking about it with Granny and she says it’s time you came clean, because you met my father at university in your first term and had been going out with him for two years before you got pregnant with me, so you must know all about him!’

Thank you, Ma.

‘Granny is wrong: that wasn’t your father,’ I said shortly. ‘I’ve never said he was.’