The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella

CHAPTER FOUR

‘BEN!’ Kitty, Adele’s secretary, greeted him with real warmth. ‘How lovely to see you.’ Then, ‘Well, probably not for you. Was it very bad? Did you have any trouble getting out?’

‘Yes, and yes, but I’m here and in one piece.’ He hadn’t encountered serious physical violence until he’d got home and Ellie March had fallen on him.

‘Glad to be home, no doubt. Is everything all right?’

‘The house is fine. Unfortunately, I appear to have a tenant.’

‘Ellie? Oh, Lord, I hadn’t thought about that. Is it going to be a problem?’

‘I don’t know,’he said. She’d said she’d look for somewhere else, but she’d have to pay a market rent, and in her shoes he wouldn’t be in any great hurry. ‘What’s the deal?’

‘She works for Adele, you know. Ellie is a real find, and she was so good when Adele had ’flu last January. Called in three times a day, did all her shopping and laundry. Made sure she was eating.’

‘I imagine she was paid for her trouble?’

‘Have you any idea how much that amount of time and care would cost?’ Kitty shook her head, clearly expecting no response. ‘She’s paid to clean the apartment for four hours a week. When Adele was sick she did that because it was her job. The rest she did in her own time, because she’s a thoroughly good person.’

‘No one is that good,’he said. ‘Whose idea was it for her to move into Wickham Lodge?’

‘You’re suggesting she had it all worked out? Was kind to Adele out of some ulterior motive?’

‘She took over from Mrs Turner, knew the house was going to be empty for twelve months…’

Kitty straightened her shoulders. A bad sign.

‘You can’t leave a house like that empty, Ben. There’s always something that needs seeing to, and when you took off without a moment’s warning-well, your sister was the one who had to chase around finding people to fix things. Broken gutters. A loose slate-’

‘Why on earth didn’t she send me an e-mail if it was too much for her? Why didn’t you? I could have organised a management agency-’

‘Oh, please! She’d give me hell if she knew I was telling you this. You’re more son to her than brother. You know that.’

He dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘You’re making me feel a complete heel, Kitty.’

‘I don’t mean to. I just wanted you to understand why, when Ellie’s creep of a landlord started calling at all hours, making it clear that he would overlook the rent in return for a more personal arrangement-’

He managed to catch the expletive, shook his head at her look of query.

‘Well, as I said, Ellie needed somewhere quickly, and Adele was at her wits’ end because she was committed to this six-month field-trip in Samoa.’

‘Ellie mentioned something about it.’ Although she appeared to have missed Samoa from her list of possible destinations.

‘Anyway, the coincidence was serendipitous, and it was all at Adele’s suggestion rather than any underhand wheedling by Ellie.’ She suddenly looked anxious. ‘It isn’t going to be problem, is it? Adele didn’t expect you back until next year. To be honest, she was hoping that Ellie would use the time to get this writing bug out of her system and by then she’d be ready to go back to teaching.’

‘Making life easy for her is a strange way to go about it.’ ‘Not really. The sooner she discovers that she’s wasting her time, the sooner she’ll give up.’

Perversely, his sister’s lack of confidence in Ellie’s talent irritated him, too. ‘How do you know she’s wasting her time?’

‘If she isn’t, Adele will have helped her on her way. A win-win situation.’

‘Maybe so, but my sister doesn’t have to share her house with a total stranger.’

‘It’s a big house, Ben.’

‘I know, but Ellie somehow manages to fill every corner of it,’ he said.

There was a mound of post waiting on the doormat when Ellie got home next day, so Ben Faulkner must have left for the university hard on her heels. It was just as well, since there was a large padded envelope from Milady, addressed to Lady Gabriella March, which would have taken some explaining.

Having done her research, she now knew that the courtesy title of ‘Lady’ was one given to the daughter of a peer-hence ‘Lady Gabriella March’as opposed to ‘Lady March’.

She just hoped Mrs Cochrane had better things to do with her time than waste it scouring Debrett’s in a hunt for any peer with a daughter called Gabriella.

She picked up the envelope, along with the rest of the mail and took it through to the kitchen, where she’d dumped the shopping. She flipped on the kettle, and while it was boiling she sorted the envelopes into piles.

There was one large square white envelope-very stiff, obviously an invitation-addressed to Dr Benedict Faulkner. It clearly hadn’t taken long for word to get around that he was back. He was a very eligible bachelor; she had no doubt that he’d be much in demand. She put that to one side to leave on his desk, then dealt with the stuff addressed to her.

Once she’d sorted through the usual junk mail begging her to borrow money, promising her dirt-cheap car insurance, offering her credit cards at nought per cent interest if only she would transfer her business to them and tossed it into the bin, all that remained, apart from the Milady envelope, was a reminder from her dentist that it was time for a check-up and a large brown envelope that she had addressed to herself several weeks earlier but had hoped never to see again.

No doubt about what this one contained: the first three chapters of her novel and a ‘thanks-but-no-thanks’ letter from yet another agent.

It wasn’t that she was pessimistic by nature. No pessimist ever wrote an entire novel hoping a publisher would be sufficiently impressed to invest in its publication. Ellie had, however, sold enough small pieces of writing to have learned that when someone wanted to buy your work they didn’t send it back; they phoned, or e-mailed, or sent a letter inviting you for a ‘chat’.

She wasn’t being pessimistic, just realistic, but she still needed to get used to the idea before she opened the envelope.

Some rejections were completely impersonal-preprinted on a tiny slip of paper with no comment. Some came in the form of an encouraging letter-the ‘this is good, but not for us’ rejection.

Some agents were actually kind enough to offer to read anything else she wrote, although on bad days she suspected they had their fingers crossed that she would be too discouraged to bother.

She needed to be prepared, with a mug of tea and a full biscuit tin, before she found out which category this one fell into, so, ignoring it, she ripped open the padded envelope from Milady. It contained a sheaf of letters, held together with a large clip.

What on earth…? It couldn’t be! Not fan mail.

It wasn’t.

It was, instead, a bunch of letters from readers wanting details of the ferns she’d planted in the stone trough. Wanting to know how she managed to make cherry cake without the cherries sinking to the bottom-duh! Easy, when all you had to do was write about it and then draw a picture of one like her mother made. Asking where they could buy the fabric playhouse-a stripy big-top made by one of her clients that hung from the branch of a tree-that she’d sketched for her last column. Asking her advice on a suitable wedding gift for someone who’d been married before and didn’t need anything for her home. Good grief, had the woman no imagination?

There was a note from Mrs Cochrane.

Well done! I’ve ordered some notepaper for you with the Milady address. It should arrive in a day or two, with a supply of stamps for your replies-keep a record, please. I’ve cleared some space in the next issue to publish the answers to the most asked questions, and have marked the ones I plan to use.

Can you also let me have a list of the ferns you recommend for planting in a container by Monday lunchtime at the latest. Since there was so much interest, I’m arranging a special ‘reader offer’in conjunction with a specialist nursery-something you should mention in your replies.

You can send me the replies for publication with your copy for the next issue.

Forget Gabriella March, bestselling novelist. Meet ‘Lady Gabriella’, the lifestyle guru who was about to become homeless, she thought, as she stuffed the letters back into the envelope.

She’d just dropped a teabag into a mug when the back door opened and Ben Faulkner walked in.

‘I won’t be a minute,’ she said, quickly covering the Milady envelope with her returned manuscript. ‘I’m just putting away my shopping.’ Then, forcing herself not to leap to do it herself, she said, ‘Drop a teabag into a mug, if you like. The kettle’s nearly boiled.’ And carried on sorting through the vegetables and putting them in the chiller drawer of the fridge. ‘Your post is on the table.’

He picked up the envelope addressed to him, his gaze lingering for a moment on the large brown envelope as he flipped it open. It might as well have had ‘rejected’ stamped across it in letters six inches high.

‘Okay. I’m done,’ she said quickly, before he could make some sarcastic comment and provoke her into an injudicious response.

He tossed the gold-edged card-an invitation to a wedding-on the table and reached for a mug, standing shoulder to shoulder with her at the counter as he spooned coffee into a cafetière while she made her tea. Too close. Much too close.

She barely waited for the teabag to colour the water before she dumped it in the bin, scooped up her mail and, clutching it protectively to her chest, headed for the door. Then, remembering something, she put the cup down again while she searched through her bag.

‘Ellie…’

‘Hold on.’ He was going to ask her if she’d done anything about flat-hunting-or, worse, say that he’d changed his mind, that she had to leave straight away. Before he could actually say the words, she took a small soft sleeve of bubble wrap from her bag and placed it on the table. ‘Your glasses,’ she said.

He looked at them, then at her. ‘You had them repaired?’ He sounded irritated rather than grateful.

‘What did you think I was going to do with them?’ she asked. Then shook her head. Obviously he thought this was another ploy to gain his sympathy, show him what a fool he’d be to let her go. ‘I do the occasional stint at the optician in the High Street,’ she explained. ‘When his regular cleaner is away. He put them back together for me. No charge.’ Then, because she was going to have to face it sooner or later, and while later was preferable, sooner was probably wiser, ‘You were saying?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing. Only that you don’t have to rush off on my account.’

‘I’ve got things to do. Calls to make. Flats to look at,’ she couldn’t help adding.

The kitchen stilled. From somewhere in the house a clock began to chime.

Despite Kitty’s intercession on Ellie’s behalf, Ben had no intention of reversing his decision. It had been made, the words said. She’d accepted it without a fuss. No problem.

In theory.

The reality was that if she’d given him hell he’d have felt less like someone kicking a puppy. But if she was the kind of woman Kitty believed her to be she wouldn’t do that. She’d behave like a thoroughly decent person and accept that the situation had changed. That his house no longer needed a ‘sitter’.

But even a thoroughly decent person was entitled to show her feelings.

‘You’re very direct, Ellie,’ he said.

A shadow seemed to cross her bright face and she shook her head, just once, before she lifted her chin and said, ‘You didn’t think that last night.’

‘Last night you appeared to be offering just about everything but the kitchen sink in return for a roof over your head.’

‘I did nothing of the sort!’ she exclaimed, her furious blush leaving him in no doubt that she’d understood his meaning.

‘No. My mistake. For which I apologise. Adele’s secretary explained why you had to leave your last flat. In fact she gave you a very fine character reference.’

‘You checked up on me?’

‘In my shoes, wouldn’t you have done the same? You might have simply spotted an empty house and moved in for all I knew.’

‘Well, at least you’ve been able to set your mind at rest,’ she said stiffly. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else-?’

‘Will you stand still for a moment and let me finish?’ he demanded as she swept towards the door. She froze, her back to him. ‘When I said you need not rush off…’

She half turned. Waited.

‘When I said that, I meant…’ He didn’t know what he’d meant.

A pair of fine dark brows drew together in a frown.

‘Just…take your time,’ he said. ‘Find somewhere that suits you. Where you’ll feel comfortable,’he added, belatedly wishing he’d let her go.

‘Is that it?’

‘Yes. No. In case you were wondering, your job here is not in question.’

‘Of course not. We both know how hard it is to find a good cleaner.’

‘Ellie…’

‘Could you sound any less enthusiastic?’ she demanded. Then, ‘I suppose I owe these concessions to a little arm-twisting from Kitty?’

‘She didn’t bother with my arms. She went straight for the withers.’ This time her eyebrows went up instead of sideways. ‘She gave me chapter and verse of the way you cared for Adele when she was sick,’ he said.

‘Adele is not just an employer, she’s a friend. Leave or stay, I’d do it again tomorrow.’

‘Then you must stay or go as you please,’ he said, and, recalling his disparaging remarks about romantic heroines bringing arrogant men to their knees, he found himself unexpectedly in sympathy with them.

‘What the devil does that mean?’

‘It means…’ He shook his head, unable to believe he’d got himself into this position. ‘It means that I’m not going to be rid of you for at least a month, more likely two. I imagine by then I’ll have got used to you.’ He was doing this for Adele, he told himself. Because she’d expect nothing less of him and he owed it to her. For no other reason. ‘And if-when-I go away again, I’ll only have to find someone to take your place.’

Some women would have told him that they would think about it. Some might even have told him to look after his own house and to stuff his three pokey rooms.

Ellie did neither of those things.

She smiled.

Not a smile of triumph, or satisfaction, but a smile that could light up a room. A smile that could recharge a moribund heart. And he found himself taking a step back from what felt like a punch in the chest, a blow as painful as anything he’d felt when she’d fallen on him.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she asked. He waited. There was no chance that, having made up her mind to it, she wouldn’t ask whatever she wanted. ‘Whereabouts are the withers?’

‘Between the shoulderblades. Of a horse,’ he added.

She nodded. ‘I thought so. I’ll be sure to add liniment to my shopping list.’

Ellie, unable to believe her luck, beat a swift retreat to the safety of her own little self-contained world in the turret, and went straight up to her study, under the conical slate roof. She shooed the cat from the comfort of the ‘to-do’ basket so that she could add the dentist’s reminder to the pile of filing and other stuff awaiting her attention.

Studiously ignoring the large brown envelope, Ellie sat down, letting out a whoosh of air that she hadn’t been conscious of holding. ‘We’ve got a reprieve, Millie!’ she said, scooping up the local paper and tossing it into the bin.

Millie twitched her tail, annoyed at being disturbed, and settled on the windowsill.

‘Don’t get sniffy with me, madam. If I’m homeless, so are you, so you’d better not do anything to blot your copybook,’ she said, but grinned. Another few months might not make any difference to Ben Faulkner, but it made the world of difference to her, and she had no doubts who to thank for it.

Kitty was a secretary of the old school. All crisp vowels, dark suits and no nonsense. She must have told Ben in no uncertain terms that his sister had made a deal and he must stick to it.

The real mystery was why he found it so hard.

No, the real mystery was why he was alone in this big old house.

Then, since speculation-however pleasing it was to her novelist’s imagination to daydream about a good-looking man and what dark secrets might drive him-would, as her great-grandma had been fond of saying, butter no parsnips, she updated her work diary.

This was where she kept a list of the jobs she was booked for, hours worked, a running total of the money she’d earned.

Today, as every morning, she had spent an hour putting the local estate agent’s office straight before moving on to the optician’s. Then, because it was Friday, she’d shopped for Mrs Williams. After that she’d picked up Daisy Thomas from nursery school and looked after her until her mother returned from the hospital.

That done, she turned to her personal diary-an indulgent, A4-sized leather-covered volume worthy of a novelist. The smooth, fine paper was perfect for spilling out the details of her day, the weird incidents that happened when you were working in other people’s homes, for scribbling her little illustrations as she went.

Nothing much so far today. Unlike yesterday, which had been rather too incident-packed, work had been uneventful. Even her trip to the market-frequently the source of amusement-had lacked drama.

All she had to fill the blank day was Rejection Number Eleven. She wrote it down. Underlined it.

She was keeping count so that when her book was a bestseller she could tell the journalists flocking to her door exactly how many people had been dumb enough to turn her down before her genius was recognised. Wouldn’t all the rest of them feel really stupid then?

Probably not.

But back to reality, and the lurking presence of that large brown envelope. She doodled a little line drawing of the cat who was once again curled up in the ‘to-do’ basket.

She drew the little cupcakes with angel wings that she’d baked with Daisy to keep her from worrying about her mother.

Drew a floppy lick of hair that was just like the way Ben Faulkner’s hair fell across his forehead.

Now there was a subject that would fill a book.

Dr Benedict Faulkner.

She couldn’t believe how rude he’d been yesterday. And yet he’d strapped her up, given her a lift to work, then come and collected her from the library.

More than any girl could ask, in fact-until he’d spoiled it all by implying she was prepared to offer more than a bit of dusting in return for accommodation. Ironic, under the circumstances. At least Kitty had put him straight about that.

Maybe she should write one of those hideous ‘true-life’ stories that some weekly magazines headlined on their covers. It was no more than he deserved.

I-fell-off-a-ladder-at-work-and-lost-my-job…

Nowhere near sensational enough.

I-fell-off-a-ladder-and-ruined-my-boss’s-sex-life…

Better.

I-fell-off-a-ladder-into-my-boss’s-arms-and-he-kissed-me…

What? Oh, no…

Writing fairy tales was one thing, but believing in them was something else. And with that thought she stopped putting off the inevitable and tore open the big envelope.

Her book had obviously caught the reader on a really bad day, and instead of just returning it with a preprinted slip she had decided to tell her exactly what she thought about it. She didn’t stint herself, making free with words such as ‘clichéd’ and ‘dated’. For a moment Ellie just sat there, completely stunned, before quickly opening a drawer and pushing the thing out of sight.

She had better things to do than worry about another rejection for her novel.

Mrs Cochrane wanted the names of the ferns in her trough by Monday, and since she knew absolutely nothing about ferns it was going to involve knocking on a total stranger’s door and asking. The sooner the better.

Her ring on the doorbell was answered by a call from the rear of the house.

‘I’m round the back.’

Ellie found the owner of the voice, an elegant blonde who could have been anywhere between forty-five and sixty, stretched out on a sofa in a huge old-fashioned conservatory, peering through high-powered binoculars. She didn’t get up but, sparing her a momentary glance, said, ‘I was expecting someone else.’

‘Oh,’ Ellie said, slightly disconcerted by this offhand reception, but ploughed ahead. ‘Well, I’m sorry to bother you, but I walk past your garden every day and I’ve been admiring your ferns. I was wondering if you could tell me what they are?’

‘You’re that girl who’s living in Wickham Lodge, aren’t you?’ the woman said, finally lowering the binoculars and looking at her properly.

‘Yes, that’s right. I’m house-sitting. At least I was. Now Dr Faulkner’s home, I suppose I’m demoted to cleaner.’ She offered her hand. ‘Ellie March. How d’you do?’

‘Morrison. Laura Morrison. I’ve seen you, cutting the grass.’ Then, after a long, assessing look, ‘So, Ellie, what do you know about ferns?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ she admitted. ‘But there’s this stone trough at the back of the Lodge where I thought they might just work. The pansies in there certainly don’t look happy.’

‘They won’t. Pansies like the sun. Hate being wet.’

She should certainly know. Her garden was stunning. Flowers spilled over enticing stone paths that wound between herbaceous beds before disappearing behind flowering shrubs. A glimpse of roof suggested a summerhouse tucked away in the trees. And there was an exquisite gothic bird-feeder being mobbed by small birds.

It was all on a much smaller scale than the garden at Wickham Lodge, but it echoed the way-in her imagination-‘Lady Gabriella’s’ garden would look, how Ben Faulkner’s garden would look given sufficient care and attention. Informal, exciting, with hidden places for children to claim as their own.

‘There should be some ferns behind the greenhouse,’ said Lady Morrison. ‘I’d get up and find them for you, but my back’s gone into a spasm.’

‘Oh, I am sorry. Is there anything I can do?’

‘You could pour me a whisky.’ Then, before Ellie could query the wisdom of mixing liquor with painkillers, Laura Morrison’s eyes narrowed. ‘Stand aside,’ she hissed, and whipped out a pistol.

Ellie, scarcely able to believe her eyes, just stood there, open-mouthed.

‘Out of my way, girl!’ she said, taking aim, and Ellie belatedly turned to see what had caused such a reaction. It was Millie, fat little belly hugging the grass, who, having followed her, was now creeping up on one of the bird-feeders.

‘No!’ she cried, without a thought in her head for the consequences as she leapt to block Laura Morrison’s aim.

Something stung her ankle, and as she crumpled in a heap on the floor it crossed her mind that she was having a very bad week for legs.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she declared, more surprised than hurt-shock, no doubt. ‘You shot me!’