Elizabeth Edmondson - The Villa on the Riviera - A captivating story of mystery and secrets - the perfect summer escape

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2014

Copyright © Elizabeth Edmondson 2014

First published as The Art of Love in 2008 by HarperCollins

Cover images © Shutterstock.comCover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014

Elizabeth Edmondson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for 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.

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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: 9780007283705

Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780008104153

Version: 2016-02-17

For Rosie Buckman

With love and gratitude

Contents

Cover

Title Page The Villa on the Riviera Elizabeth Edmondson

Copyright

Dedication

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Part Two

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

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Also by Elizabeth Edmondson

About the Publisher

‘If I’m not Polly Smith, then who am I?’

‘What a profound question,’ said Oliver Fraddon.

The two of them were standing side by side in a gallery at Somerset House, home of the Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths for all the counties of England.

‘The world in little, one might say,’ Oliver went on, looking along the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with thousands of large red ledgers that contained the transitions of millions of lives, present and past. ‘All of us written down here, captured, immortalized. Volumes full of names and identities, A to Z, plain and extraordinary. We’re born, we marry — or some of us do — and we die, and each time we are set down on a page in here. A frightening thought.’

‘Never mind the frightening thought, what concerns me is that I’m not among those immortalized here,’ Polly said.

‘Very true. I suggest we go back to the desk and ask the recording angel for help.’

He led the way down the metal spiral staircase, warning Polly to watch her step. ‘Or you’ll end up as a new entry under Deaths.’

The clerk standing behind the long wooden length of the main counter had not a touch of the angelic about her. She wore pince-nez attached to a thin chain and had a harassed air. Oliver addressed her. ‘This young lady seems to have gone missing.’

The clerk looked at Polly with worried, faded grey eyes, eyes that were kinder than her pinched mouth. ‘Oh dear. Can’t find yourself? Not where you should be? Your name is Smith, you say. Well, there are rather a lot of Smiths, but in the end there’s only one of you. It comes down to having the right dates and the right address. Once we’re sure of that information, we can find you. Unless,’ she added, her voice sharpening, ‘unless you’re a foreigner.’

‘Do I look like a foreigner?’ Polly asked, indignant, not because she minded being taken for a foreigner, but because she wanted to assert her rightful place, numbered among all her fellow citizens here, in those large red books.

‘No, but if you were born abroad, even if you were as English as me and Mr Grier over there, then you wouldn’t be in the main part of the registry, but in the records we keep elsewhere.’

‘In the nether regions?’ suggested Oliver in Polly’s ear. ‘The brimstone section, with devilish clerks scurrying to and fro.’

‘It doesn’t arise,’ said Polly, ‘I was born in Highgate. 11, Bingley Street, off Archway. My mother still lives there. On May the first, 1908.’

‘Only there is no entry for her in the relevant volume,’ Oliver said.

The angel was impressed by Oliver, Polly could see that. If it had just been her standing at the desk, in her old mac and wine-coloured beret, she’d still be waiting for the clerk to look up from her card indexes and paper. It had been Oliver, every inch the gentleman in his tailored suit, who had commanded her immediate attention. Just by being there. It was unfair. But useful, she told herself. And of course, the minute he opened his mouth, there was the accent, proclaiming him a product of the upper classes, with all the easy authority that Eton and Oxford gave to the Olivers of this world.

So the woman in the pince-nez had been helpful. Had gone back with them to the red books, had found the one that should have contained the entry for Polly. ‘Polly’s short for Pauline,’ she told the woman, but it made no difference. There was no female Smith, initial P, born in Bingley Street, Highgate on the first of May, nor indeed at the end of April or the middle of May. There was a Thomas Smith, born in Priory Gardens on the second of May; that was as close as she could get.