English Lord, Ordinary Lady

‘I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go and set it up and we’ll have one last game of snakes and ladders?’

Hattie didn’t whoop or jump up and down, but her smile widened as far as it would go. ‘OK.’

As they sat playing for the next twenty minutes Josie stopped herself from shouting ‘yippee!’ every time she went up a ladder and blowing a raspberry every time she landed on a snake head, and something very strange happened.

Normally, Hattie would frown with concentration and get very upset if she lost, but this time she just seemed to relish the quiet. Every now and then her daughter would look at her and smile and Josie’s heart would tumble in love with her strange little changeling of a daughter all over again.

Later, after Hattie had got into bed, Josie read her a story and tucked her in. Just as she finished reading Cinderella Hattie let out a cry.

‘What is it, sweetheart?’

Her eyes filled up with tears. ‘I’ve lost Poppy!’

She smoothed the hair away from Hattie’s forehead and placed a kiss in the centre of her brow. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find her. She’s got to be here somewhere.’

Hattie never went far without her favourite doll. Thankfully, it was never too hard to find Poppy. She wore neon-pink fairy clothes and had brightly striped legs. The little fairy’s outrageous attire had saved her from being lost on more than one occasion.

Josie checked under the duvet and down the side of the bed.

‘Why don’t you say your prayers while I go and look downstairs?’ she told Hattie. ‘I’m sure I saw her sitting near the table when you played snakes and ladders with Will.’

Hattie nodded, her bottom lip quivering.

Josie clumped down the stairs, landing on both feet as she jumped off the second-to-last step. It didn’t take long to locate Poppy, who was lodged between the side of the dining table and the wall. She took the stairs more slowly going back up, deciding to wait until Hattie had finished her prayers before she delivered the good news.

She stood on the landing, smiling gently as she listened to Hattie ask blessings for each and every member of her class at school.

‘God bless Granny and Grandpa,’ Hattie continued in a high-pitched whisper. ‘God bless my new friend Will. God bless Mummy. God bless…’

Josie held her breath.

‘God bless my daddy. I know I’m not supposed to ask for things for myself, God, but could you remind him to come and see me soon? I was really little—only four and a quarter—when he came last time and he promised he’d take me to the zoo.’

Josie ran to the bathroom and furiously dabbed her eyes with a couple of sheets of toilet paper she ripped from the roll. Then she tried to blow her nose without making any noise.

She didn’t want to do anything to destroy Hattie’s innocent trust in the fact that her father would make good on his promise. The truth was, the last time she’d heard any news about Miles he’d been driving racing cars in Monte Carlo and having as wild a time as they’d had together when they’d been eighteen. She hoped, for her daughter’s sake, that one day he’d grow up and realise what he was missing.

But until then, perhaps it was better that his visits were infrequent. He certainly wouldn’t be a positive influence in Hattie’s life. At the moment, Hattie saw him with the rose-coloured vision of childhood. And in some strange way, that helped. For now, in his absence, he was the fantasy father—funny, charming, devoted. If Miles really became a permanent fixture in Hattie’s life, she was going to be awfully disappointed.

Josie held Poppy up so they were staring each other in the eye. ‘We’ll just have to fill in the gaps as best we can,’ she whispered. Poppy didn’t say much in reply, but Josie knew she’d hold up her end of the bargain.

She crept back to Hattie’s bedroom and poked Poppy’s head round the door. Hattie squealed and when Josie entered the room she found her bouncing up and down on the bed on her knees. She delivered Poppy safe into her daughter’s arms.

‘She was just playing hide-and-seek. I found her in the living room. Now, no more bouncing. Time to lie down.’

Hattie slid under the covers. Josie tucked the duvet under her chin and kissed her cheek. And, despite the urge to do exactly the opposite, she left her hair unruffled.

Piles of paper were everywhere. A stuffed pheasant sitting on a shelf kept a beady eye on him as he navigated the clutter in Harry Radcliffe’s study.

Will had been kidding himself thinking he could carry on with his business and be a part-time lord. Managing this project—no, managing his home—was going to be a full-time job and he needed office space.

The walls were lined with bookshelves and every available gap was filled with boxes, papers and mementoes from Harry’s travels. He didn’t know where to start.

On a certain level, he wanted to find out more about the man who had inhabited this study before him. Both his father and his grandfather had died when he was quite young and there had been no one to supply answers to the hundred-and-one questions about his family when teenage curiosity had struck.

Funnily enough, he’d never thought of himself as a Radcliffe. He’d been twenty-five before he’d discovered his grandfather had changed his name to Roberts, using one of his profusion of middle names as his surname.

Grandpa had always been very tight-lipped on the matter of family. It was his grandmother who had finally told him the whole sorry tale. Her husband’s family had cut him off and pretended he’d never existed. And the only crime he’d committed was to fall in love with the wrong woman. The injustice of it still made Will smart.

Not that his grandfather had ever expressed regret about marrying his grandmother, but it had to have hurt. His family had treated him like an outcast.

Will had been named after his grandfather and he’d been proud of the fact. Grandpa had been the one strong male influence in his life after his father’s early death, but he’d been so much more than a substitute parent. He’d been a friend, teacher and mentor.

William Radcliffe had not deserved to die feeling the shame that he’d forever marked his family as rejects and losers. And now Will had the chance to reverse the Roberts family fortunes, to regain the reputation his grandfather had been sure was past resurrection.

The Radcliffe family had allowed Elmhurst Hall to crumble and it would give him great satisfaction to restore it to its former glory, to turn it around and bring in an income to keep it safe for future generations—his children, not theirs. Then they’d see who the failures were.

Of course, he had to find the right woman to have them with. Someone demure but not dull, engaging but not outrageous. Someone who was ready to settle down and have a quiet country life. When he thought about it like that, it seemed an awfully tall order. Where was he going to find such a woman? And even if he did, would he fall in love with her?

No matter. If such a paragon of virtue really existed, he was bound to fall at her feet and worship.

Two hours later, he’d managed to clear most of the desk. It was hard to work out exactly how to categorise the things he’d found. Harry’s personal and financial affairs were inextricably combined with the estate business.

It seemed that Harry hadn’t thought of running the estate as a separate entity. That would have to change. Maybe he should look into setting up a charitable trust? But first things first. What Elmhurst needed was an administrator, someone to take care of the organisation, the people.

He picked up a photograph in a frame that was sitting on the desk. Until fifteen minutes ago, it had been hidden behind a stack of maps and magazines.

It was a black-and-white and taken, he guessed, some time in the Fifties. A large family group stood on the top lawn overlooking the sunken rose garden, squinting in the sunlight of a summer’s day. The man in the centre was Harry. He recognised him from some of the other photographs dotted around the hall. The rest of the group must have been made up of Harry’s brother—Will’s other great-uncle—and his children. Relations he’d never known.

Since the solicitor had tracked him down he’d had no contact from any of these people. It was as if they didn’t want to acknowledge his existence. He put the picture frame back down on the desk. Some of those children would only be in their fifties now. They couldn’t all be dead. So much for blood being thicker than water.

Hattie’s angelic face appeared at the counter, her chin lifted to see over the top of it. ‘Mummy, can I have another cake?’

Josie wiped her hands on her apron and looked at her daughter. ‘One is enough, sweetie. I’ll be finished in forty-five minutes and then we’ll be going home for tea.’

‘Please?’ Hattie clasped her hands in front of her, looking adorably hopeful.

‘Sorry. Why don’t you go and sit back down with your colouring book?’

Hattie dropped her hands and her shoulders hunched. ‘These tables are wobbly. I keep going wrong.’

Josie put her hands on her hips and looked round the makeshift tea and coffee area they had set up in the corner of the gift shop while the renovations were being completed in the tearoom. It really wasn’t ideal. She’d put tablecloths over the assorted garden furniture they’d cobbled together, but it was mismatched and left a lot to be desired.

‘Look! Those people over there have finished with the corner table. That one doesn’t wobble at all. Why don’t I help you move all your crayons and books over?’

A crayon rolled under the table in the moving operation and Josie ducked underneath to rescue it. Just as her fingers closed over it the old-fashioned bell on the door jangled. She backed out carefully, aware that the customers were getting a very good view of her rump.

She began talking as she started to stand. ‘Please excuse me. I was just…Oh.’