Mistress On Loan. Sara Craven
what I call my son. His real name’s Kevin, like his father, but I don’t want to be reminded.’
‘I suppose not.’ Adrien bit her lip. ‘It seems a shame that you can’t work for yourself. You’re really good.’
‘There’s no chance of that.’ Zelda shrugged. ‘Dad goes mad when the sewing machine comes out. And he’s not too thrilled to have Smudge around anyway, so I try not to rock the boat.’
It was only a brief exchange, but it stuck in Adrien’s mind.
During the days that followed, she set about working out a business plan. There was undoubtedly a gap in the market. Beasley’s were no real competition, and there was no one else within miles who could offer a complete interior design service. She could pinpoint all the genuine craftsmen in the area to use as sub-contractors, and with Zelda to cover the soft furnishing side…
Premises might be a problem, she realised. Until she took a good look at the cottage. It wasn’t large, and it needed modernisation, but around its rear courtyard there were old stables and outbuildings, unused for years and ripe for conversion. There was space for workrooms, an office, and a self-contained flat.
‘Are you serious about this?’ Zelda asked huskily when Adrien finally put the plan in front of her. ‘Really serious? Because it sounds too good to be true.’
‘I mean every word,’ Adrien assured her. ‘And the flat will have two bedrooms, so there’ll be plenty of room for you and Smudge,’ she added, knowing that they were currently sharing one small room with bunk beds.
‘A place of our own,’ Zelda whispered. ‘It’s like a dream. I keep waiting for someone to pinch me, and wake me up.’
The dream rapidly became a nightmare while the building work was being done. It threw up all kinds of unforeseen problems, and cost far more than anticipated. Adrien remortgaged the cottage, and raised a bank loan on the strength of her plan, while Zelda, overwhelmed at finding herself a partner, insisted on contributing the small settlement she’d received from her ex-husband.
Their faith in themselves seemed justified, she had to admit. The enquiries came in steadily from day one, and they had to rent some temporary work-space to cope with the demand. Soon they’d been in their new premises for nearly two years, and were already employing extra help with the sewing.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t have downsized,’ Adrien joked. ‘Perhaps we should have looked to expand, and put in a bid for the Grange instead.’
‘Except that the Grange isn’t for sale,’ Zelda said, frowning over some fabric catalogues. ‘What a shame—a lovely house like that, just standing empty.’
‘Yes,’ Adrien sighed. ‘When I was a child I used to go there all the time, while my father played chess with Mr Stretton.’
‘What did you do?’
Adrien shrugged. ‘Oh—read books from his library, played in the garden.’
‘All by yourself?’
Adrien hesitated, hearing faint alarm bells ring in her mind. ‘Not all the time,’ she returned. ‘Mr Stretton’s nephew, Piers, was there sometimes. His mother had married someone Mr Stretton disapproved of—a Brazilian—and there’d been a big row. But I suppose Mr Stretton had eventually to accept the fact that Piers was going to be his heir, and invite him to stay, although he’d still have nothing to do with his brother-in-law,’ she added, frowning. ‘My parents said he really hated him. Called him “a thoroughly bad lot”.’
‘Families.’ Zelda wrinkled her nose. ‘Do you think Mr Stretton will ever come back?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. He moved to Spain for the climate, and seems settled there.’ Adrien sighed again. ‘I couldn’t believe it. The Grange has been in his family for years. And he’d just got to know Piers properly, too.’
‘Perhaps he thought he was a bad lot as well.’
‘He couldn’t have done.’ Adrien drew a stormy breath. ‘He’s one of the kindest people I ever met. Saved me from pneumonia—or hypothermia, or worse.’
Zelda put the catalogue down. ‘How?’
Adrien bit her lip. ‘Oh, there was a treehouse in the wood at the back of the house. I climbed up there once when I was about nine and got stuck, and he found me. But I’d been there for hours, and I was frozen and sick with fright. I’m hopeless on ladders to this day.
‘But that’s not all,’ she added. ‘When I was eighteen, Mr Stretton gave a party for me at the Grange, and he presented me with a garnet pendant, very old and very pretty. During the party it was stolen, and Piers—found it. But it was dreadful. It ruined my birthday. And he was so sweet and understanding.’
‘Well, let’s hear it for Piers—the hero of the hour,’ Zelda said drily. ‘What happened to him?’
‘Oh, it was shortly afterwards that Mr Stretton closed up the house and went to live in Spain. I guess Piers went back to Brazil.’
‘Shame,’ said Zelda. ‘By the way, who pinched the pendant?’
‘One of the servants,’ Adrien said shortly. ‘No one important.’
Piers would be thirty-two now, she found herself thinking. And so would the other one. The one whose name she wouldn’t speak. The one who’d caused all the nightmares…
Well, all that was in the past, and the past couldn’t hurt her. Firmly, she slammed the gate of memory shut again, regretting that she’d allowed it to open even fractionally.
It was only ten days later that news came that Angus Stretton had died at his villa in Spain, and would be buried out there.
The vicar, however, decided to hold a memorial service at the parish church, and, to Adrien’s astonishment, Piers arrived to attend it.
It was assumed locally that, having done his duty, he’d simply put the place on the market and get on with his life elsewhere.
But how wrong we were, Adrien thought—smiling to herself as she walked down the long corridor which led to the master suite.
He came—we saw each other again—and suddenly everything was different and wonderful.
She opened the door and stepped into the main bedroom. It was a large room, with doors leading to its own dressing room and a bathroom, both of them completely remodelled.
There was no furniture yet in the bedroom, which smelled of fresh paint and newly papered walls, now the colour of thick cream. The floor had been sanded and polished, and a square of deep green carpet laid.
Adrien couldn’t help wishing that Piers had kept some of his uncle’s furniture. Much of it was old, and she suspected valuable, and it had suited its surroundings.
But he’d insisted on a clean sweep. And since then, of course, she’d found the bed.
She’d discovered it at a country sale, lying in pieces in an outbuilding. A genuine four-poster bed, needing a lot of restoration work, admittedly, but she’d got it cheaply and handed it over to Fred Derwent, who specialised in such things and who’d received it with a delight bordering on reverence.
Soon, Adrien thought dreamily, it would be installed—the centrepiece of the room—and of their marriage.
And Zelda had unearthed some fabulous fabric, incorporating a heavily stylised pattern in blue, green and gold, from which she was making the hangings for the bed and the windows.
Three months from now, she thought, I’ll be sleeping in that bed with Piers.
Happy colour rose to her face, and she laughed softly to herself.
She would still keep this morning tryst with the house, however. Only she’d wear the peignoir in ivory silk and lace that she’d bought on her last trip to London instead