A Winter’s Tale: A festive winter read from the bestselling Queen of Christmas romance

‘Well, they always say, be careful what you wish for,’ Anya said breezily, ‘but actually, I always thought the only reason you started working in stately homes was because you were trying to recreate a bit of what you once had—and just think how useful all that experience will be now! Doesn’t the thought of doing such a major clean-up get your juices flowing?’

She knows me only too well.

‘I wish my angels would conjure something up like that, Sophy. I’m getting a bit tired of wandering around now,’ she confessed to my surprise, because she has been on the road since she was eighteen and left the commune. We did this sort of role-reversal thing. When I arrived at the commune I was tired of moving about and just wanted to settle down, while she was fed up with the whole thing and attracted to the kind of life I’d had with Mum.

‘I think when Guy gets a job I might settle somewhere near him,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘He’s got lots of interviews.’

‘I’m not surprised; he got a first-class degree.’

Guy is Anya’s son, a year younger than Lucy, and was always bright—and very determined. When he was eleven he insisted on staying with his grandmother in Scotland during the school terms and got grade A everything.

‘How is Lucy doing?’ Anya asked.

‘She seems fine, but I wish she wasn’t so far away. And some man keeps pestering her, which I find worrying. She says he seems fascinated by her being so tall and blonde. There have been a couple of cases of British women being stalked and even murdered in Japan.’

‘But Lucy is very sensible, Sophy. I’m sure she wouldn’t put herself at risk.’

‘Perhaps not, but if I did sell Winter’s End to Jack, she could come home and I would be able to pay off her student loan and buy a cottage somewhere. Then maybe we could start up a business together and—’

‘Don’t you do anything hasty,’ she warned me, ‘especially with this relative of yours. He doesn’t sound like any kind of angel to me, but he does sound the kind of clever, tricky, devious man you always seem to go for.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “always”. I can count on one hand the number of men I’ve been out with since Rory left me,’ I said with dignity and some modesty, leaving one or two of my brief encounters with absolute no-hopers out of the reckoning. ‘And I can’t imagine what I’ve said to make you think that about Jack! He’s a really genuine, lovely person—and what’s more, he’s family. Anyway, I can’t do anything at all until the solicitor turns up. I’m still trying to take it all in, but I’m worried that Grandfather might have changed his will on impulse after arguing with Jack about spending too much on the garden, and then died before he could change it back. It does seem unfair that he should leave the house to me. Anya—’

There was a plaintive bleeping. ‘Blow—my phone’s almost dead,’ she said, and was cut off.

My belated rescue turned out to be a very belt-and-braces affair, for next day the cavalry, in the sober and suited form of the family solicitor, turned up too.

You see, I knew good things were on the way. My second sight was just a bit dodgy about when.

Mr Hobbs said he had already written to tell me he was coming to see me today ‘on a matter to my advantage’, but of course I haven’t had the heart to go back to Spiggs Cottage and collect my mail since I left. The new owners are probably putting it straight into the skip, anyway.

Any more strange men visiting my caravan and, as far as the village is concerned, I might as well hang a red lamp over the door, even if this one looked so old and desiccated that strong winds could have blown him away. I’ve learned the hard way that a divorced woman is always seen as a sexual predator, after everyone else’s menfolk (which is why, I suppose, I haven’t made many friends here and hardly ever get asked to dinner parties).

But I invited Mr Hobbs in, and he was surprised to find I already knew of the legacy, until I told him about Jack’s visit and his offer to buy Winter’s End. Then, over tea and rather overdone rock cakes (the caravan stove is a bit temperamental), I asked him if he knew exactly why my grandfather hadn’t left the estate to Jack.

‘After all, he was the obvious heir, wasn’t he, even if they had had one or two disagreements? It does seem unfair.’

‘He had his reasons,’ he said cagily. I suppose it was only natural that he should side with my grandfather—they were of an age and had probably been friends. ‘Jack is the only son of his cousin Louisa, now deceased, and was born in New Zealand. When his father remarried he was sent back here to school, about a year after you and your mother left…and of course he spent the holidays at Winter’s End and looked on it as his home. He is divorced with no children—another disappointment to your grandfather—and has a house in London. You know he is a property developer?’

‘He did mention that. Presumably a successful one, if he could afford to buy me out?’

‘Yes indeed: one cannot say that he hasn’t risen by his own endeavours. His father purchased a small house for him to live in when he was at Oxford, and then later he renovated it and sold it at a profit and bought two more on the proceeds…and so it went on. I suppose his enterprise is quite remarkable. Nowadays he specialises in buying large period properties cheaply and converting them into extremely upmarket and expensive apartments,’ he added meaningfully.

I stared at him. ‘But surely you don’t think he would do that to Winter’s End? He said he loved the place and wanted to restore it to its former glory—and he seemed so sincere.’

‘I am sure he did: his sincerity must be one of his greatest business assets,’ Mr Hobbs said drily. ‘And of course he has restored the houses he has purchased, which might otherwise have fallen into irreversible decay. They were all, like Winter’s End, within an easy commuting distance of thriving major cities.’

‘Oh,’ I said, digesting this. ‘But in the case of Winter’s End, that could be just a coincidence?’

‘Of course, that may be so. However, in his eagerness to persuade you to sell your inheritance, he may have been perhaps a little selective in the information he imparted to you. For instance, did he touch upon the various responsibilities that come with the legacy?’

‘I…no, what responsibilities?’

‘Apart from your grandfather charging you to complete a garden restoration scheme that has, in my opinion—and I have to say in all fairness, Jack’s—nearly brought the house to ruin, the livelihoods of several people working for the Winter’s End estate depends on your decision. You might also want to consider that Winter’s End has been your Great-Aunt Hebe’s home for all her life, though she does, of course, have some means of her own, as does her twin sister, Ottilie, who resides for part of the year in the coach house.’

I felt responsibility settle round my shoulders like a lead cape. ‘But I know nothing about managing an estate! How could I possibly take it on?’

‘But you do have relevant experience in looking after old properties, Ms Winter. Sir William thought you were just what Winter’s End needed.’

‘He did? But I’ve no experience of running one, only doing the donkey work and passing on orders to the other staff. And do call me Sophy—I have a feeling we are likely to see a lot of each other.’

His face broke into a smile like a rather jolly tortoise. ‘Or one of my sons—I am semi-retired, you know, though I like to keep my brain active by retaining one or two clients. But to get back to business, Sophy, Winter’s End is not a large house, although the gardens are extensive and take quite some keeping up, especially the yew maze and all the box hedges and topiary. Do you remember the spiral maze?’

I nodded. ‘At the front of the house.’ I felt a sudden pang for the small, mischievous Sophy who used to run through it with Grandfather’s pack of miniature spaniels chasing after her, yapping madly—and who would then usually have to go back and rescue one or two of them who had got lost among the labyrinthine turns. ‘It was quite low, wasn’t it? Most tall adults would be able to see over the top of the hedges.’

‘That’s right, and all those curves and rounded edges take a good deal of clipping. Then there is a considerable area of woodland on the opposite side of the valley to the house and one tenanted farm. Are you interested in gardening at all?’

‘I had enough of mulching and digging in all weathers when I lived in the Scottish commune to cure me of wanting to be a hands-on gardener, but I do love the frivolity of gardens made just to look at.’

‘Quite,’ he said. ‘And Sir William told me that you have considerable expertise in caring for old houses and their contents from your previous employment, do you not?’

‘Oh, yes, I left school at sixteen and my first job was in a Scottish castle. The Mistress saw to it that I learned the correct way to clean it and all the valuable things it contained.’

‘The Mistress?’

‘That’s how she liked to be addressed by her staff,’ I explained, ‘which I was, until I ran off and married her cousin Rory. Then after I had Lucy I got the job here at Blackwalls with Lady Betty, keeping everything clean and in good repair, passing on her orders to the other staff, taking guided tours around the house on open days, being her PA…you name it, I did it. Lady Betty didn’t pay me a lot, but she was very kind to me and Lucy, and I was fond of her.’

I touched the little gold, enamel and crystal bee brooch I wore. ‘She gave me this as a keepsake when I visited her in the hospital, because she said she had a premonition she wasn’t going to see Blackwalls again. And she was quite right, because once she signed the power of attorney, her nephew had her moved to an upmarket old people’s home and she just lost the will to live. The last time I visited her she didn’t really recognise me.’

I fished a tissue out of the box and blew my nose, while Mr Hobbs looked away tactfully.

‘After he had been up here to see you, your grandfather said, and I quote his very words, “It seems to me the women of the family have always run things behind the scenes here at Winter’s End, so one might as well take over as head of the family and have done with it.” He thought you would make a better job of it than Jack ever would, especially with Lucy to help you. Yes…’ he added thoughtfully, ‘he was particularly taken with your daughter.’

‘He was? But they quarrelled the whole time he was here!’

‘He said she had the typical Winter temperament, allied with an almost masculine sense of business.’

‘Well, I suppose he meant that as a compliment,’ I conceded. ‘She is very bossy and argumentative, though it’s called assertiveness these days, and she did business studies and English at university.’

‘Those would be considerable assets in running the estate. Sir William also said that, although so unlike your mother in character, in appearance Lucy reminded him very much of how Susan had been at the same age.’

‘Yes, she’s tall, slender and has that lovely red-gold hair—nothing like me. I don’t look like a Winter at all. Even Jack, who is only a cousin several times removed, looks more like a Winter than I do!’

‘Oh, there are the occasional darker Winters,’ he assured me. ‘Sir William told me that he was deeply sorry that he had not seen you grow up, but I believe he would have discovered your whereabouts much earlier had your mother not changed her name to all intents and purposes, to—’ he looked down at his papers—‘Sukie Starchild.’

‘I know. Dreadful, isn’t it? She wanted to call me Skye, but I stuck to Sophy. I did have to use the surname Starchild on the few occasions when we stayed somewhere long enough for me to go to school, though, so Grandfather couldn’t find us. She said she was afraid I would be taken away from her, but I often wondered if there was something else making her so paranoid about it.’

‘There was,’ Mr Hobbs said. ‘Sir William did tell Susan that he would cut off her allowance and have her declared an unfit mother if she didn’t change her ways, but those were merely empty threats that he had no intention of carrying out, for he often said things in temper that he afterwards regretted.’