Sleeper’s Castle: An epic historical romance from the Sunday Times bestseller. Barbara Erskine

      Nina Dysart arrived the following Friday evening. She stood for a few moments staring up at the house after she climbed out of her car then she made her way towards the front door.

      ‘Mum!’ Andy had heard the car. ‘Come in. It’s so good to see you.’ They exchanged a long warm hug.

      Mother and daughter did not resemble one another. Andy was tall, her eyes grey, her hair light brown, shoulder length and curly. Her mother’s hair was white, cut short and neat, and her eyes an intense brown. While Andy’s clothes inclined towards the colourful and artistic, Nina was always immaculately dressed in carefully matched neutrals. She wasn’t as tall as Andy and her figure was petite, but there was no mistaking the fact that they were mother and daughter. Their mannerisms were similar, their voices blended, they both talked at once and then paused and laughed and both started again.

      ‘Oh, Mum, it’s so good to see you!’ Andy caught her mother’s hands and squeezed them. ‘I have missed you.’

      Nina pulled free and gave her daughter a quizzical look. ‘You can’t have missed me so soon, darling. Not possible. So, what’s wrong? Have you made a ghastly mistake coming here?’

      ‘No!’ Andy’s denial was adamant. Then she paused. ‘No,’ she said again, less sure this time.

      ‘So, what’s wrong?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘Supposing you show me round,’ Nina said. ‘Then you can give me an incredibly strong cup of coffee after that horrendous drive, then we will talk.’

      Unloading the books almost defeated them. They brought in half a dozen cartons and stacked them in the living room. Andy stared round helplessly. ‘I’d forgotten I had so many. I hadn’t thought about shelves. I will have to have some made I suppose.’

      ‘Rubbish. Not in someone else’s house. Buy flat-pack. Have you got a handyman who can put them up for you? I think you mentioned a gardener?’

      Andy gave a hollow laugh. ‘I don’t think I would dare ask him.’

      ‘Why?’ Her mother paused in the middle of what she was doing and stared at her.

      ‘He doesn’t seem to approve of my presence here. Don’t worry.’ Andy straightened her back with a groan. ‘I am capable of assembling a flat-pack. It can’t be that hard. In the meantime let’s pile the books round the walls in here.’ She glanced helplessly out of the window. There were at least four more boxes in her mother’s car.

      It was like meeting old friends. Every few minutes she stopped to look at the book she’d just unpacked and run an affectionate hand over the cover. ‘I have missed all the mind, body and spirit stuff. It was such a passion of mine for so long.’ She gave Nina a wan smile.

      ‘Not everything about Graham was good for you,’ her mother put in tartly. ‘I know you loved him to bits and you worked well together, but he rode roughshod over so much that was you, my darling. He moulded you into his ideal woman.’

      Andy wasn’t sure whether to be angry and amused. ‘You make me sound like a Stepford wife!’

      ‘No. But it was odd for you to cut such a large part of your own personality out of your life. He didn’t like animals, did he? So you didn’t have any pets. He wasn’t interested in history or old buildings. You used to do such wonderful paintings of ruins in landscapes, do you remember? And you loved visiting them. You used to cook; you adored cooking. With Graham, I know because you told me once, you ate out all the time or had snacks because he didn’t see the point of wasting time in the kitchen.’

      Andy nodded ruefully. ‘Do you know, I’ve lost the instinct to cook. I have this beautiful Aga here and I haven’t done more than boil the kettle or heat up a can of soup.’

      ‘QED!’ Her mother stared round. ‘This lovely kitchen going to waste. Now that I know what I’m destined to have for supper I will insist tomorrow we go shopping and stock the larder, then you can start cooking. I want decent food while I’m here and you can practise on me.’

      Andy sat up a long time after her mother had gone to bed, thinking over everything she had said. She was right. So much of what made Andy Andy was on hold, battened down somewhere at the back of her head. She thought about that wonderful feeling of freedom she had experienced on her first night here, the joy of going out into the garden and feeling the wind in her hair and the raindrops on her face. For a few moments she had become a wilder version of herself; a more authentic version. Then she had slid in her daydream to the garden in Kew, drawn inexorably back to civilisation.

      She was sitting at the kitchen table, her back to the Aga, feeling its warmth a solid comfort gently enfolding her. She was thinking about her father. Her interest in the supernatural came from him. The solid acceptance of the weird and wonderful being a normal part of an amazingly varied and extraordinary world. She remembered as a child exploring old castles and abbeys with him. He was the one who had discouraged cameras and made her sketch instead. ‘That way, Andy, you capture the heart and soul of a place.’ Even when he remarried he found time to go on encouraging her. Nina, who had showed no bitterness at the break-up and seemed to accept the status quo with extraordinary equanimity, would pack her off on the train north where she would be welcomed into her father’s new family by his lovely Northumbrian wife, with first one then two then three new siblings, all boys, and all of whom she adored. They still got on well. She had missed them too. She had seen very little of her father in the last ten years. Perhaps Graham had taken his place. A father figure. She frowned. That was not a pleasant thought. She would get in touch with Rufus soon, re-establish ties, maybe go and see him.

      Behind her the cat flap clicked and Pepper appeared. He trotted over to his empty food bowl, examined it and turned to look at her reproachfully. She smiled. ‘You are not going to try and persuade me you haven’t had your supper, my friend. I remember distinctly giving it to you because my mum watched me and she thinks you get too much to eat.’

      Pepper turned his back on her, sat down and began washing his face. She was sure he understood a lot of what she said. Nina was right there too. She had missed having dogs and cats around her. It was wonderful to have a cat again, even on loan. And as Pepper had reminded her, she was here to look after him. If she was going to see her father again he would have to come down to see her.

      Pepper yawned and without realising it she did too.

      Still exhausted from their long ride Catrin lay back in another unaccustomed bed, staring up at another stranger’s ceiling and drifted off to sleep. Her dream was different this time; in it she was back at home; the violence and the shouting were gone. Sleeper’s Castle was quiet. In the silence she could hear the sound of the brook outside the window, enveloping her, wrapping her in the comfort of the darkness. For a while she lay without moving, then as the first birds began to sing across the cwm she rose from her bed. Her eyes were still closed as she walked towards the stairs. Her father was asleep in his own bed, for once snoring gently on his pillow stuffed with dried hops to soothe his dreams. Sleepwalking down the stairs and across the hall, she went towards the kitchen. The other woman was there, asleep at the table, her head cushioned on her arms.

      In