The Billionaire's Convenient Bride. Liz Fielding
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she had to do.
‘Not a problem. Someone has to walk through the woods and check on the progress of the bluebells and it’s not going to be me.’
Dora was at the door before Suzanna—who would do anything rather than step out of her high heels, pull on a pair of boots and walk a muddy path—handed her the pair of wellingtons kept behind the desk.
Once upon a time, back in the days when gardeners came in dozens and were paid a pittance, the castle gardens had been open to the public by request only. If you wanted to visit Lady Anne Prideaux’s rose garden, you had to write and make an appointment.
Her great-grandfather had gone a little further, opening to the public on half a dozen days in the year when for a small sum—all in aid of charity—the castle servants would serve you with a cream tea in the Orangery.
It was what a gentleman did.
Her grandfather had needed hard cash and by then there wasn’t a duke, marquis or earl who wasn’t opening up his stately home to the public to help pay for the upkeep of their ancestral piles.
He’d opened up the gardens to the public for five days a week in the summer. It was, however, special flowers—the snowdrops, bluebells, azaleas—that drew the crowds in the spring. And then, in summer, Lady Anne’s rose garden, planted in the early nineteenth century with roses brought back by a plant-hunting cousin from Persia, filled the air with scent and drew the crowds.
In the early days her grandmother had offered cream teas in the garden in good weather, in the Orangery in the colder, wetter months. Darjeeling, Orange Pekoe and Earl Grey, served in bone china. Scones, baked in the castle kitchen by the under cook, served with jams made from fruit grown in the kitchen garden.
Some people had come just for the tea.
Now they took in B & B guests, and lunches and afternoon tea in the Orangery were self-service from a counter. More practical, maybe, and no one walked off with the plastic spoons, but no one came just for the tea, either.
Aware that it would be colder under the trees, Agnès grabbed a jacket and scarf and paused at the door to breath in the fresh, damp air of an April morning.
Rainwater was dripping from guttering that needed replacing, but the sun had finally burned off the mist, a blackbird was singing in an oak tree and the sky was a clear pale blue. It was one of those perfect moments that needed savouring and Agnès closed her eyes and lifted her face to the light.
‘Don’t you have more important things to do than walk your grandmother’s dog?’
Kam’s caustic remark didn’t faze her. He might have grown, become a man, but his footsteps were an echo through time. She’d heard him coming across the polished oak floor and steeled herself not to react as he came to a halt beside her.
The scent was new, though.
As a boy, Kam had been all about grass and newly caught fish in the summer, bonfires, sawn wood and wet dog in the winter. This Kam was a man, the scent still masculine but more sophisticated. Leather, good soap and something unfamiliar that stirred the butterflies back into life, sending a frisson of awareness across her skin.
She gave herself a mental shake. It was all memory, it wasn’t real...
‘I’m going to check the bluebell woods,’ she said, briskly. ‘Why don’t you join me?’
‘It’s a bit early if you’re hoping for a rush of visitors to pay for a new boiler.’
‘It would take more than a rush,’ she said. ‘It would take an invasion.’
She risked a glance at him but he was looking out over the woods, his jaw set, his mouth a straight line. Whatever he was remembering it wasn’t a recollection that brought him joy.
If that was how he felt, there was no point in putting it off until lunch. He might as well know the situation right now so that he could leave.
She cleared her throat and he turned to look at her. ‘You wanted to say something?’
‘Only that if you’ve come hoping to claim compensation from the estate for your mother, Kam, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.’
His face remained stony, only the barest tightening of jaw muscles suggesting that she’d hit a nerve.
‘We’ll talk about why I’m here over lunch, Agnès.’
Then he looked at her and the butterflies stilled as she felt all his pent-up anger coming at her in waves. She didn’t flinch. Years of living with her grandfather’s temper had taught her to stand her ground and she was simply being honest with him.
‘Why wait?’ Whatever was on his mind would be easier said in the quiet of the woods than over dull food in the Orangery. ‘If you come with me now you could at least avoid a mediocre lunch. You might even spot a badger.’
Something flickered in those dark eyes as he glanced away towards the woods. But then his head snapped round so that he was looking straight ahead.
‘I have to meet someone.’
Who? Where?
‘Maybe later,’ she said, as Dora tugged impatiently at the lead. ‘If you’re staying that long.’
‘I’m staying,’ he said, turning to look down at her, eyes dark as pitch, his expression unreadable. ‘I’m back for good.’
Before she could answer, could begin to think what that might mean, he stepped down onto the drive. There was a dark blue sports car parked casually alongside the front door that hadn’t been there earlier and could only be his but he strode past it and headed down the drive.
Agnès stared after him, remembering the jaunty walk, the cheeky smile of the boy she’d grown up with, the teenage Kam. There was nothing of that in Kam Faulkner’s expression or in his determined stride, straight back and broad shoulders.
She wasn’t sure she liked the man who’d returned but swallowed down a sense of loss. He owed her no smile. The debt was all on one side, but she’d have to wait to find out what he wanted from her.
Money?
His car must have cost telephone numbers and the way he’d ignored the guest car park and left it at the door, as if he owned the place, spoke volumes. He’d booked the most expensive suite in the hotel, her grandfather’s old room, and the clothes he was wearing hadn’t come from a chain store.
This wasn’t a man looking for a few thousand pounds for his mother.
Maybe it was simply about returning to the scene of his banishment to show them all that the boy her grandfather had branded a half-Arab bastard had done more than survive. A lot more.
And she was glad. Truly.
That he was back for good, though, disturbed her.
Was he planning to buy one of those expensive places with river frontage, a boathouse, fishing rights? Rub all their noses in his success?
Everyone knew what had happened back then—you couldn’t keep gossip like that quiet in a small town.
Would people remember, stop what they were saying when she went into the post office?
Did he still play the guitar?
The thought slipped into her mind without warning, a melancholy minor chord rippling through the woods at night as fresh in her memory as if she were leaning out of her bedroom window to catch the sound.
Dora’s paws jiggled up and down in her eagerness to chase down the scents reaching her from the wood.
‘Patience,’ Agnès said, glancing back as she finally headed for the trees, but her disturbing visitor had vanished beyond the curve in the drive.
Where was he going? There was nowhere down the lane... Except his old home.
It had been empty for years. She’d