Читать книгу: «Bluebell Castle»

For Charlotte –

thank you for believing in me when I don’t always believe in myself

Chapter 1

After a fruitless afternoon fighting with the overgrown tangle of thorns all but blocking the entrance to the maze which formed the centrepiece of the long neglected formal gardens of Bluebell Castle, Igraine Ludworth-Iggy to everyone but her formidable great-aunt, Morgana-was ready for nothing more than a quiet cry in a hot shower. Like the labours of Sisyphus, trying to make sense of the mess so many years of neglect had wrought to the gardens was starting to feel like a pointless exercise. It would take months of hard work, a bucketload of money, and a team full of assistants; the first she could manage, the other two… well a girl could dream.

Shoving at the frizzy, sweaty dark snarl of a fringe haphazardly shortened with a pair of secateurs in a foolish act of frustration the previous week, Iggy had just reached the end of the pathway leading to the enormous gravel driveway in front of the castle when she heard the sound of a vehicle crunching over the stones. Frustrations and her dire need for a shower forgotten, Iggy hurried as fast as her wellies would carry her towards the battered Land Rover pulling up on the other side of the enormous circular fountain and flower bed occupying pride of place in the centre of the drive.

‘You’re back, you’re back! How was it?’ Iggy asked her brother Arthur and his girlfriend as they clambered out of the vehicle. As the new baronet, Arthur had been invited to the local primary school to give out the prizes at their speech day, and he’d taken his girlfriend along for moral support.

Though the eldest of triplets, Igraine had been passed over in the line of succession of their family’s lands and title to Arthur, the middle child, as she had the misfortune of being the wrong sex. Had it not been for the blatant sexism etched in every word of the entailment of the Ludworth Baronetcy, it might have been Iggy presenting the prizes instead of Arthur.

There weren’t many times she was grateful for the words ‘Firstborn, legitimate male offspring’, but from the harassed look upon her brother’s face, now might be one of them.

‘They all wanted to take a selfie with me, like I was some kind of celebrity,’ he said, shaking his head in bemusement at the idea.

‘Well, you are the king of the castle, so to speak,’ she teased as she followed them up the stairs. The grin he shot her told her he knew she was only joking. Arthur might hold the title, but Bluebell Castle, as the locals had so quaintly nicknamed their ancestral home, was as much hers as it was Arthur’s, and their other brother Tristan’s, too.

As she and Tristan had told Arthur in more than one showdown when he tried to shield them from the worst of their current financial woes-they’d succeed or fail together. Nine months in the same womb, followed by nigh on thirty years of unshakeable loyalty between them could not be swept away by something as stupid as which one of them got to stick the word Baronet in front of their name.

As part of their plans to secure the family finances, Iggy had recently taken on the mammoth challenge of putting their overgrown grounds to rights so they could open up the estate to the public.

Reminded once more of how she’d spent her day, Iggy eased herself from the group hug. ‘I need a shower, I’ve been battling with the brambles all day.’

‘Well, I didn’t like to say anything …’ Arthur wrinkled his nose, eyes alight with mischief.

As Iggy took a playful swing towards his head, she found her arm captured by Lucie. ‘Goodness, look at the state of you, you’re scratched to bits! I’ll go and find Mrs W and see if she’s got some antiseptic cream.’

Mrs Walters-known affectionately by all as Mrs W-was the castle’s super-efficient housekeeper who, together with Maxwell the butler and Betsy the cook, kept things running. Though staff numbers had been cut to the bone over recent years, the three of them maintained a standard Iggy found frankly breathtaking.

With a laugh, Iggy gently extracted her arm and smoothed the sleeve of her top down over the mess on her arm. ‘I’ve got a medicine cabinet full of stuff like that. A few scratches come with the territory. Besides-’ she gave the pair of them an arch look ‘-I’m sure you’ve got better things to be doing than worrying about me.’

‘Indeed we do!’ Arthur swept a giggling Lucie up into his arms. ‘Miss Kennington here still owes me several more apologies for running out on me.’ The pair’s courtship had been something of a rocky road, and it was only a few weeks since they’d resolved everything between them.

‘I said I was sorry, but I’m happy to do so again,’ Lucie murmured, in the kind of tone reserved for whispered intimacies.

And that was definitely Iggy’s cue to depart. ‘I’ll leave you two to it.’

After hurrying up the front steps of the castle, Iggy shoved open one half of the enormous studded wooden door, only to find herself besieged by a cacophony of licking tongues and wagging tails as the castle’s pack of unruly dogs charged up to greet her. ‘All right, all right, you’d think I’d been gone for a month instead of a few hours,’ she said, trying to calm them with pats to their heads and affectionate ear rubs. ‘God, you’re soppy bunch.’

She’d just managed to toe off her filthy wellies and shoo the dogs clear of the door and halfway back towards the jumble of cushions and beds which occupied the space directly before the huge fireplace dominating the back wall of the great hall, when Nimrod, one of a pair of greyhounds let out a huge bark of welcome and swerved around her outstretched hand. Bella, the other greyhound, let out a keening yap and flew after him. The pretty brindle dog adored Lucie almost as much as Arthur did. Knowing she had no chance of holding the rest of the pack at bay now Arthur’s presence had been announced, Iggy stepped out of the way to let them charge pell-mell back across the hall to greet their beloved master, and the new mistress of the castle.

Taking care not to slip on the tiled floor in her thick woollen socks, Iggy made her way to the curving staircase and began to climb, her knees aching in protest after a day spent bending and crouching in the gardens. She had no plans for the evening-like most other evenings in recent memory-so perhaps she would forgo her planned shower and indulge in a soak in the claw-foot tub which dominated her bathroom. While she was alone she could catch up on the latest gossip about her favourite celebrity, the rock star of the gardening world-Will Talbot. Though she wouldn’t be caught dead admitting it, her fascination with him went beyond his amazing skills with plants and his innovative design skills. With his close-cropped hair and a wicked scar slicing across one cheek, Will was the most attractive man Iggy had ever seen.

Tristan had been reading one of the tabloids at breakfast that morning and she’d found herself staring at her secret crush as he scowled out from the front page. She’d waited until everyone had gone before filching the paper and hiding it up in her room for later study.

Yes, a hot bath and a bit of gossip was just what the doctor ordered, she decided.

Lost in thought, she didn’t notice Arthur was calling for her until he all but yelled her name. Turning as she reached the wide balcony at the head of the stairs, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her brother on his knees surrounded by a mass of wriggling dogs, Lucie was curled up beside him, Bella ensconced firmly in her lap. Leaning on the balcony railing, Iggy called down, ‘What’s all the yelling about?’

‘I only said your name five times, cloth-ears,’ Arthur replied, the good-natured grin on his face turning into a startled laugh when Nimrod took advantage of his distraction to swipe a lick under his chin. ‘I wanted to have a chat with you,’ he continued. ‘Can you come and join me in my study before dinner? Say about half seven?’

Wondering what could be so important he would interrupt his and Lucie’s first-night-home celebrations for, Iggy frowned, before nodding in agreement. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

‘Not at all,’ her brother assured her, but didn’t elaborate further.

She stared down at him for a few more moments as though she might have developed a previously unknown mind-reading ability in the two weeks he’d been down in London, but he remained as opaque as ever. Knowing Arthur as she did, there was no point in pushing him to reveal something before he was ready to talk about it. Might as well bash her head against the thick stone of the castle walls. With a shrug and a wave, she continued along the maze of corridors until she reached her bedroom in the wing traditionally occupied by the family.

*

Feeling loose and relaxed after a blissful hour in the bath, Iggy tried not to wince as she applied some antiseptic cream to the wicked-looking scratch stretching across most of the underside of her left forearm. Ignoring the soreness, she pressed her finger carefully along the length of the shallow wound, double-checking there was no remnant of the thorn which had abraded her skin.

A nasty infection had put her out of action for almost a week the previous year when a thorn tip had become stuck beneath the thumbnail of her dominant right hand. Doing anything had been excruciating, and the enforced period of rest while the antibiotics the doctor had prescribed did their job had driven her to distraction. Lesson learnt, she was scrupulous about wearing thick leather gloves whilst working in the garden, and in checking and cleaning any of the myriad little injuries she incurred.

With her damp hair secured on top of her head in a scruffy knot, she dressed in a pair of slim-leg black trousers and a loose olive-green silk T-shirt her aunt Morgana had given her for her birthday, claiming the colour enhanced Iggy’s hazel eyes, or some such nonsense. She’d never been a clotheshorse and couldn’t understand the fascination some of her friends at college had had with dressing in the latest fashion. Then again, they’d had their mothers around to whisk them off on shopping trips. Perhaps if she’d had a similar maternal bond, things might have been different. Eyeing herself in the mirror, Iggy let out a snort of derision. If there was a maternal bone anywhere in Helena Ludworth-Mills-Wexford-Jones’s body, Iggy had never found it.

Having abandoned her husband and children before the triplets’ third birthday, Iggy’s mother had flitted in and out of her life at irregular intervals. They’d last heard from her on New Year’s Eve when Helena had called to berate Arthur for cutting off her allowance. She’d had three subsequent husbands to support her, but she somehow expected their father to continue to fund her from beyond the grave. Arthur had stuck to his guns-surprising Iggy as he’d never quite seemed to give up on their mother in the same way she and Tristan had-and told her there was no more money to be had. It was to be hoped that might be the end of it and she’d finally leave them in peace, but Iggy somehow doubted it. In twenty-six years, Helena had never done anything of benefit for her children, so why would she start now?

Iggy reached for the handle on the closed door of Arthur’s study, then paused. She’d almost caught him and Lucie in flagrante when they’d been trying to keep their relationship a secret. Given the soppy way they’d been looking at each other earlier, it might be best to approach with some caution. Raising her hand, she rapped her knuckles on the aged oak, entering only once Arthur bade her to do so.

As she approached the empty chair on this side of her brother’s desk, it occurred to Iggy that Arthur had finally shed the discomfort he’d had over assuming their father’s mantle. At first, he’d seemed at pains to keep the room exactly as it had been, but though the changes made had been subtle, the study felt like it belonged to him now. The heavy marble bust of their grandfather had been moved from the corner of the desk to a less prominent position on one of the bookshelves. In its place sat a docking station for Arthur’s phone with a set of speakers attached. Raucous laughter emanated from them, no doubt from one of the many sporting podcasts her brothers were great fans of.

A large, rumpled blanket softened the classical lines of a wingback chair by the window, a stack of the red ledgers the estate’s record keepers had used for generations piled haphazardly on the floor beside it. Iggy knew they’d been sitting there since before Lucie had fled the estate and wondered what on earth her brother had said to Maxwell to prevent the butler from tidying them up. Their poor butler, a stickler for neatness, had been as devastated as any of them when they’d thought she’d left them forever, so perhaps it’d been him leaving the spot untouched like a little shrine.

‘I had several meetings with the bank whilst I was in town.’ Arthur said, drawing her attention away from the empty chair.

‘About the painting?’

He nodded. ‘Amongst other things. Although there’s still a lot of work to do, with Lucie’s assistance I was able to get an interim valuation assessment from Witherby’s for it. Needless to say, our account manager was a lot more accommodating than when I was sorting out all the probate stuff.’

‘I can imagine.’ Iggy didn’t try to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Where had the account manager been when their father had been investing in the dubious investment scheme which had brought them to the edge of ruin? Now they had a masterpiece from one of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite painters the country had ever produced, the staff at the bank must be salivating over the value of it.

‘Quite.’ Arthur lounged back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin. ‘Lucie’s opened talks with a number of galleries about putting on a pre-auction exhibition here at the castle. A number of them are amenable to loaning out their Viggliorentos in return for a chance to study our painting before it hits the auction block. The bank like the idea as there’s never been a definitive exhibition of his works before, and as well as being something to draw people through the gates, it’ll help to cement the profile of the painting-and its price tag.’

‘You’re definitely going to sell it then?’ It made sense, but she couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret-though she quickly shook it off. Good fortune didn’t smile often on the Ludworths, and it wasn’t as though any of them had known the painting even existed until Lucie had followed the trail of breadcrumbs hidden in old Thomas’s long-forgotten journals.

‘I have to.’ The guilt in Arthur’s voice twisted her insides. The money from selling one item would help keep them afloat and allow them breathing space to put their longer-term plans for the castle into place.

Leaning forward, Iggy stretched her hand across the desk towards him. ‘It’s the right thing to do. Tristan will tell you the exact same thing.’

Arthur sighed. ‘I know, but it’s going to break Lucie’s heart.’ He closed his eyes for one long moment before sitting up straight and taking her hand. ‘It can’t be helped, and she’d leave me for good, I reckon, if I tried to hang onto the damn thing for her sake.’

Iggy gave his fingers a sympathetic squeeze before sitting back. ‘So, is that what you wanted to tell me? That the pressure is off with the bank?’

‘It’s more than off, they’re very much on board with our plans to secure the future of the castle and have extended me a decent line of credit.’ Folding his arms, Arthur rested them against the desk, hazel eyes a match for hers twinkling. ‘Tell me what you need.’

Taken aback by the question, Iggy frowned. ‘In terms of what?’

‘In terms of getting the gardens into shape. You’re the one with the vision, so tell me what you need to bring it to life.’

Vision? Ha! At the moment it felt like there were so many ideas competing in her head, she was stumbling around in circles and getting precisely nowhere. Lucie had uncovered some of the original plans from when the gardens had been laid out in the eighteenth century. Rather than adding the clarity Iggy had hoped they would, they’d only added to her confusion as it had become clear to her that subsequent generations had altered many of the original set pieces. Trying to recreate the original plans on a shoestring would be next to impossible so she’d been straggling from one part of the garden to the next, tidying some bits but ignoring the later alterations because she might decide to dig them up later. She wasn’t a designer, or a visionary-Tristan had got all the creative genes. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she confessed. It was a horribly deflating admission, but one she’d been hiding from for too long.

Surprise widened Arthur’s hazel gaze. ‘I thought you had it all in hand, you always act as though you’ve got everything under control.’

She screwed up her nose. ‘When it comes to the land management stuff, I can do that standing on my head. I assumed sorting out the gardens would be easy, but it’s such a bloody mess and I’m terrified I’ll change the wrong thing and ruin it. There’s so much riding on it …’

‘Why the hell didn’t you say something? You’re not alone in this, Iggy, we succeed or fail together.’ Arthur’s admonishment stung all the more because it was the very same words she’d said to him not six months ago flying back in the other direction.

‘God, you enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ She was laughing as she said it, rubbing her chest to acknowledge the accuracy of his verbal strike.

His grin was unrepentant. ‘I did, rather.’ He grew serious. ‘Look, if you’re worried about the money, don’t be. When I felt overwhelmed with everything after Dad died, I found the only way to get through it was to finish a single task on the to-do list. Forget the big picture. Stop panicking about what you might or might not get wrong and tell me one thing right now that will make a real difference.’

He was probably expecting her to request a fancy piece of equipment, but there was really only one answer. Iggy might not have the vision to turn the gardens at Bluebell Castle from their current disaster zone to a visitor’s paradise, but someone did. ‘I need Will Talbot.’