Тилли Бэгшоу – The Bachelor: Racy, pacy and very funny! (страница 10)
‘Oh, but you must stay,’ Kate announced patronizingly after dinner. ‘We insist, don’t we, darling? Sebastian and I want you to think of Hatchings as your home, Henry.’
‘I don’t
By the time he got back to Hanborough it was after midnight. A full moon cast an eerily milky shadow over the castle’s ancient stones, and the still water of the moat shimmered like molten silver.
Henry used to ride over to Hanborough as a boy and play hide-and-seek among the Norman ruins. It was a paid attraction in those days, and open to the public, but all the staff went home at six o’clock and, as the house was empty, nobody thought to lock it. Sometimes, before important tennis matches, when his nerves were at their peak, Henry would close his eyes and visualize Hanborough. It had always been his happy place. Made for him. Meant for him. Waiting for him. Yet always tantalizingly out of his reach.
As an adult, even after he made his fortune, he’d never really believed he’d be able to own it. But now here he was.
He’d never made it to the top as a tennis player, a failure that still haunted him, despite everything. But owning Hanborough Castle was one dream that Henry had made come true.
Only two lights were on tonight, both in the West Wing, the most modern part of the castle, built in 1705. Henry had agreed to allow Guillermo, the weird, poof designer Graydon James had left in charge in his absence, to stay on site for the first couple of months, until works were properly under way. Henry wasn’t a fan of Guillermo’s. He found him sullen and uncommunicative, entirely lacking in his boss’s charisma and flair. But Graydon had assured him the boy was a brilliant designer, and very capable when it came to managing contractors, architects and the like.
‘If he’s doing his job properly, he won’t have time to go home,’ Graydon told Henry, which was reassuring given the astronomical fees Henry was paying to have GJD take on the restoration.
Luckily it was a big house. Guillermo had his own bedroom, living area and small kitchen in the West Wing, while Eva and Henry had their living quarters in the old medieval hall, which made up the southern aspect of the castle, overlooking Hanborough’s magnificent deer park. There was no reason for their paths and Guillermo’s to cross.
Pushing open the ancient, two-foot-thick wooden door, and heading up the spiral stone steps to his bedroom, Henry wished Eva were home. He was proud of her career and her huge success as a model. But he always missed her when she was away.
Henry and Sebastian’s mother Gina had died of breast cancer when Henry was eleven and Seb had just turned twenty. Even before she died, Henry had spent little time with her. Gina Saxton Brae was a famous socialite, hostess and much sought-after party guest, and though she loved her sons, no one could have described her as a ‘hands-on’ mother. Lord and Lady Saxton Brae employed excellent and devoted nannies for that sort of thing. Henry didn’t consider his childhood to have been unhappy. But he had grown used to missing his mother, and her early death had certainly been a turning point in his emotional life. There was a certain maternal quality to Eva – nurturing, one could say – that formed a strong part of his attraction to her. For all his infidelities, Eva remained the mother ship, and Henry always felt slightly lost when she wasn’t with him. The loneliness didn’t last long tonight, though. Slipping under the sheets, Henry suddenly realized how dog-tired he was. All the tension with Marie J, and the frustration of his trip to Hatchings, must have drained him more than he’d realized. Within minutes he was in a deep, dreamless sleep.
The noise that woke him wasn’t loud. More of a gentle rustling than anything else. But some sixth sense told Henry this wasn’t the June breeze through the leaves of the elm trees outside his window, or the scurrying of mice in the castle eaves.
Something was wrong.
Someone was in the house.
He sat bolt upright and listened.
There it was again. Rustling, with a faintly clinking, metallic edge, as if someone were slowly sweeping their hand through a vat of beer-bottle tops. It was coming from across the hall. Eva’s dressing room.
Without stopping to think, Henry leapt out of bed stark naked and – grabbing the nearest heavy object to hand, a solid marble bedside lamp – ran screaming into the dressing room to confront the intruder.
‘Aaaaaaaagh!’ Henry yelled, the lamp raised over his head, ready to slam into the burglar’s skull.
‘Aaaaaaaagh!’ Guillermo screamed back, dropping to his knees and cowering in abject terror. He was wearing a ridiculous pair of purple silk pyjamas. Above him, on the dressing table, Eva’s jewellery box was open, her rings and necklaces spread out messily across the lacquered wood. ‘Don’t kill me! Please! I … I … didn’t know you were home.’
Henry looked from Guillermo to the jewellery then back again.
‘So I see. You filthy little thief!’ He lifted the lamp higher. Guillermo cringed like a dog about to be beaten by its master. His mediocre career had always been hampered by the distraction of his cocaine habit, which he couldn’t fund on Graydon’s measly wages alone. But even Guillermo could see that this was unequivocally the death knell. Henry’s nakedness somehow made him seem even more menacing, like a savage warrior, his enormous, trunk-like dick swinging right at Guillermo’s eye level.
‘It’s not what it looks like!’ Guillermo stammered desperately.
‘Oh yes it bloody well is,’ roared Henry. ‘Get out of my house.’
‘Of course. I will.’ Scrambling to his feet, Guillermo backed away from Henry, edging himself around towards the door. ‘I can assure you this is all a misunderstanding, but I’ll … I’ll leave first thing in the morning.’
‘
Darting past him like a pyjama-clad eel, Guillermo bolted down the hall towards the West Wing, sobbing hysterically.
Henry stood there for a moment in shock.
Did that really just happen? Had Graydon James’s gigolo boyfriend really just tried to pocket a handful of his fiancée’s diamonds?
Talk about brass fucking balls!
Still, every cloud had a silver lining. Or, in this case, two. The useless Guillermo would be gone for good. And the price of Hanborough’s restoration works were about to be cut in half.
First thing in the morning, Henry would call Graydon James and renegotiate.
Smiling, he went back to bed.
Flora Fitzwilliam stood on the lawn in Lisa Kent’s idyllic Siasconset garden and looked up at the house with real pride.
It was finished, at last. Painful as this job had been on many, many levels, Flora had to admit that the finished product was beautiful. The house itself was clad in traditional grey clapboard tiles. Thanks to Nantucket’s strict building codes, the materials were a given. But the fluid way that the building seemed to flow downhill at the rear, with each storey’s decks tumbling into the next, like a waterfall, or perfectly tiered paddy field, each one affording breathtaking views across the Atlantic Ocean – that was all Flora. As were the formal gardens: the flowerbeds overflowing with plump hydrangeas, delicate roses and glorious sprays of lavender that filled the whole plot with their heavy, intoxicating scent. The exquisitely constructed dry-stone walls, leading down to a private beach staircase, each riser carved lovingly from local limestone, all the way down to the soft white sand.
Inside, the house was just as beautiful, simple and pared down, despite Lisa’s initial insistence that she wanted something grand and opulent.
‘This
OK, so maybe she’d got a little carried away. But the point is, it worked. Lisa Kent had ended up with a stunning home, traditional yet unique, full of space and light. With its white wood and uncut stone, its subtle mix of textures, and of course ocean views from every room, the entire building was a testament to hope.
Lisa adored it. Draping her arm around Flora’s shoulders as if she were an old friend, she stood staring at the house with her, quite overcome with emotion.
‘You’ve changed my life,’ she told Flora, her eyes welling with tears. ‘Really. It’s perfect.’
‘I’m glad you like it,’ said Flora. ‘But you changed your own life, Lisa. You broke free from your marriage. That took courage.’
‘I guess that’s true.’ Lisa brushed away a tear, conveniently forgetting that it was Steve who had left her, not the other way around, and that she’d been frogmarched back into single life like a condemned woman to the gallows, kicking and screaming.