Bluebell Castle

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Also by Sarah Bennett (#litres_trial_promo)

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CHAPTER ONE (#u24df5bc5-f022-59f3-9a4e-85227bc1aa59)

‘Arthur? Arthur!’

The bellowing of his name roused Arthur Ludworth from a most pleasant snooze in front of the fireplace in the family room. Giving several of the castle’s mob of unruly dogs a gentle shove, he fought his way free from the cosy depths of one of the matching burgundy leather sofas and stood. Scrubbing a hand across his eyes, he frowned as Lancelot yelled his name once more. His normally placid-tempered uncle sounded furious.

‘Lord, what’s he shouting about?’ Tristan, Arthur’s younger brother by a matter of minutes, protested from the opposite sofa, one arm draped over his eyes, the other holding a brandy balloon which was in serious danger of spilling its precious contents onto the worn and faded Aubusson rug stretched out before the fire. Pippin, Tristan’s scruffy little border terrier, raised his head briefly from his master’s chest to grumble about being disturbed before settling back down again.

‘Mrs W’s probably hidden the whisky from him again,’ Igraine, the eldest of the three Ludworth triplets, said from her cross-legged position next to the fire, eyes still fixed on the screen of her e-reader. Thanks to an ancestor’s obsession with the Knights of the Round Table, it had become tradition for subsequent generations of Ludworths to be named after characters from those legends. Arthur felt like he and his brother had gotten away lightly—considering his grandfather had gone full-bore ridiculous in naming his sons Uther and Lancelot—but their sister hadn’t been so lucky. Refusing to be saddled with such a flowery name, she’d shorted it to Iggy, and woe betide anyone who forgot it.

‘Arthur!’ Lancelot’s roar was closer this time. ‘The hellbeast is on the phone for you.’

The last of Arthur’s post-dinner good mood evaporated at the mention of his uncle’s nickname for their mother. His soft groan was echoed by the other two. ‘Perhaps she’s called to wish us Happy New Year,’ he said, more out of hope than expectation.

‘Perhaps hell has frozen over,’ Iggy muttered, as she played her fingers over the thick dark plait of hair curling over one shoulder and almost into her lap. The self-soothing gesture was a hangover from their childhood, and one of those unconscious habits she’d never quite managed to break.

Arthur wanted to reach out and stop her, to take her hand and offer the comfort she obviously needed, but he stopped himself. There was too much to say—nothing he hadn’t already said a million times since he’d first become aware of the anachronistic inheritance rules attached to the Baronetcy of Ludworth that made him the rightful heir over her simply because he was their father’s first-born legitimate male issue—but tonight, of all nights, was not the one. He’d try again, soon, before the gulf he could sense between them split any wider.

Using one hand to hold his beloved pup in place, Tristan sat up then drained the last of the cognac in his glass. ‘If she asks after me, tell her I’m dead.’

‘Tris…’ Arthur hated himself for the soft admonishment the moment it left his lips.

Tristan shrugged, then checked his watch. ‘It’s nearly eleven, I’m going to sort Dad’s stuff out.’ Placing Pippin on the floor, he stood. The terrier cast him a baleful look at being so rudely disturbed then wandered over to jump up on the sofa Arthur had abandoned and wriggled his way into the centre of the dog pile still occupying most of it.

Iggy rose, all fluid grace and lean muscle from a lifetime spent more outdoors than in. ‘I’ll help you.’ The two of them left the family room via the opposite door just as Lancelot’s silvered head popped around the other one.

‘Traitors,’ Arthur muttered, before offering his uncle a weary smile. ‘How is she?’ He pointed at the cordless phone in Lancelot’s hand.

‘Poisonous, as ever.’ His uncle made no attempt to lower his voice as he thrust the phone towards him, and Arthur winced at the indignant squawk coming from the handset. ‘I’m off down The Castle for a pint.’ The only pub in the small village that sprawled out from the edges of the Ludworth Estate wasn’t the most imaginatively named establishment, but there was a guaranteed warm welcome for all who entered its front door.

Arthur wrapped his hand over the receiver. ‘You’re not coming out with us later?’

Lancelot shook his head, the fierce frown on his rugged features melting away, leaving behind lines of strain and grief. ‘Can’t do it, lad. Saying goodbye to him once was bad enough.’

Arthur swallowed. He didn’t feel much like doing it himself, but his father had been very clear about his final wishes, so he would honour them together with Tristan and Iggy. ‘We’ll walk down afterwards and say hello to everyone.’ And make sure Lancelot didn’t fall down one of the grassy embankments, which were all that remained of the once-imposing moat that had protected the residents of Camland Castle from invaders for centuries, on his way home. With a brief nod, his uncle left the room.

Having no more excuses to avoid speaking to his mother, Arthur lifted the phone to his ear. ‘Hello, Mother, how are you?’

‘How am I? How can you ask me that? How could he have been so cruel?’ Helena Ludworth-Mills-Wexford-Jones broke down into noisy sobs which Arthur knew from long experience wouldn’t produce enough tears to ruin her perfect make-up.

With a sigh, he rested his head back against the dark wood panelling lining the wall behind him and let the performance play out. His eyes strayed instinctively to the smiling portrait over the fireplace, and he wondered—not for the first time—how someone as jolly and lively as his dad had ended up married to someone like Helena.

Within less than a minute the sobs had quietened to a series of breathy gasps and he was able to make himself heard. ‘Who’s been cruel to you, Mother?’ It was a pointless question. Deep down in his gut he knew what the call was about. He’d settled the last bits of his father’s will with the solicitor the previous week. Not the best way to spend Christmas Eve, but the timing couldn’t be helped and Arthur had just been glad to see the back of everything after several months trying to tie off the myriad strands of red tape tangled around his dad’s sprawling portfolio. Once they’d untangled the mess of dodgy investments, short-term loans and several eye-watering overdrafts it had become clear to Arthur the estate he’d inherited was flat broke.

‘Your father, of course. He waited until the last to drive a dagger into my heart. I bet he went to his grave laughing over it.’

‘There wasn’t much to laugh about at the end,’ Arthur said, fighting to keep his voice steady as he pictured his father at the last. Uther’s once hearty frame had been reduced to little more than skin stretched over bone by the cancer that had ravaged him in a few short months.

‘But how am I supposed to survive on the pittance he’s left me?’ Helena wailed.

Arthur gripped the phone so hard his fingers turned white. God, she had a bloody nerve. ‘Technically, he didn’t owe you a penny.’ Helena had walked out on the four of them before the triplets’ second birthday, declaring her duty done, and had barely looked back. Even after she’d demanded a divorce to marry her second of four husbands—and counting—his dad had continued to support her financially over the next twenty-five years and had insisted on a final settlement for her in his will, one which the over-stretched estate could ill afford.

‘How can you say that? He owed me! Giving birth to the three of you ruined my figure and destroyed my career.’ Her voice wavered, and Arthur braced himself for another round of crocodile tears.

‘One feature in a magazine thirty years ago doesn’t exactly amount to a modelling career, Mother.’

‘That’s because I met your father shortly afterwards, and I had to give it up. I gave him everything he wanted—an heir, a spare and even a bloody brood mare to carry on the family line and look how he repays me!’

Anger shot through him. He hated the dismissive way she talked about them, especially Iggy. ‘That’s enough, Mother. The terms of Dad’s will have been settled and there’s nothing more to be said about it.’ He’d cut out his own tongue before he’d admit to her the mess they were in. It was his business—well, his, Iggy’s and Tristan’s because they’d refused to let him shoulder it alone—and no one else’s.

‘But you’re Baronet Ludworth now, Arthur.’

‘Not officially.’ In order to inherit his father’s title, Arthur had been required to apply to the Department for Constitutional Affairs to be formally recognised and have his name entered onto the official Roll of the Baronets. As with most things of that nature, the wheels turned slowly, and he was still awaiting confirmation. He’d tried in vain to appeal to them for Iggy to be recognised as the rightful heir, but had been advised, not unsympathetically, that the restrictions laid down could not be overturned.

‘Oh, you know what I mean.’ His mother’s formerly shrill tones turned soft and wheedling. ‘You control the estate.’

Arthur laughed, a bitter snap of sound. ‘You’ll get nothing out of me, Mother. Not one more penny.’ Even if the estate finances weren’t teetering on the brink, he had nothing to give the woman who’d ruined his father’s life.

‘He’s turned you against me! Listen, Arthur, you don’t understand—’

Bloody hell, the nerve of the woman! His dad had never said a bad word against her, had done everything in his power to keep a relationship between his beloved children and the mother who’d never given two hoots for them. Arthur had shed his last tears for her after she’d failed to turn up to collect the three of them from school for a long-promised weekend. They’d been 13 at the time. Tristan and Iggy had given up after an hour and gone back to their rooms, but Arthur had stayed on the front steps convinced she’d come motoring up any second complaining about a holdup with the traffic. As each hour past he’d gone from excited, to hopeful, and eventually to worried she’d had some terrible accident. His housemaster had finally coaxed a tearful, frozen Arthur inside after putting in a call to his father who’d tracked Helena down at Ascot races. Having received an invitation to someone’s box, she’d chosen to spend the day seeing and being seen by her society friends and couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about.

With an echo of that sad boy in his heart, Arthur cut off her protestations. ‘You abandoned us without a second thought, there’s nothing left to understand. If you need money, I suggest you ask your current husband for it.’ Arthur ended the call before any more of the bitterness welling up inside him could spill out. Shaking himself like one of their Labradors emerging from the pond after a dip, Arthur shed the cold shards of disappointment threatening to seep into his heart. She was never going to change. He’d known that at 13, and now, at 27, it was time to acknowledge it.

‘What did she want?’ Tristan entered the family room bundled up in a navy padded jacket and a bright yellow scarf, a locked metal box balanced carefully across his arms.

‘Money.’

‘I hope you told her to get stuffed,’ said Iggy who’d entered on Tristan’s heels, equally well wrapped up and carrying Arthur’s coat which she thrust at him.

‘Close enough.’ Accepting his coat, he tugged it on then moved to give Tristan a hand with the box. It wasn’t heavy, but they didn’t want to risk any accidents. ‘Are we ready for this?’

‘Nope, but let’s do it anyway.’ With a shrug, Iggy pulled a white knitted cap over her dark hair then tugged on a pair of matching gloves. God, she looked so sad. Arthur bet if he looked in a mirror right then, the same haunted look in her hazel eyes would be reflected in his. ‘I’ve put your boots by the front door,’ she said, pointing to the thick woollen socks on his otherwise bare feet.

‘Cheers, Iggle-Piggle.’ The hated nickname earned him a punch on the arm, but at least it eased some of the pain tightening her face.

It also sent him jostling into Tristan, who staggered a couple of steps, trying to keep the box steady. ‘Careful! We don’t want Dad going off by accident.’

Iggy patted the metal box with one gloved hand. ‘Sorry, Dad.’ The three of them laughed at the absurdity of it, further easing the stress of what was to come.

Steadying the box between them, Arthur and Tristan followed their sister through the echoing vaulted central chamber of the great hall. Once the beating heart of Camland Castle, it now belonged mostly to the dogs whose sprawling mass of beds and pillows occupied pride of place before the enormous fireplace which Arthur—at just a shade under six-feet tall—could still walk inside without ducking. Thick, evergreen boughs decorated with sprigs of blood-red holly berries and creamy-white clumps of mistletoe covered the high mantle, scenting the air with fresh pine. A matching display filled the middle of the enormous, age-scarred circular table positioned in the exact centre of the room.