MILLS & BOON

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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      SERENA LIGHTFOOT, awakened by the early sun of an April morning, rolled over onto her back and contemplated the ceiling; today was her twenty-sixth birthday. Not that it was going to be any different from any other day in the year; her father certainly wouldn’t remember, Matthew, her younger brother, a curate living some way away and recently married, might possibly send her a card, and Henry, her elder brother, a solicitor and family man, wouldn’t give her a thought, although his wife might possibly remember. There was Gregory, of course, with whom she had that old-fashioned thing, an ‘understanding’…

      She got up then, wasting a few minutes hanging out of the window to admire the view; she never tired of it—rural Dorset. Away from the main roads, the village was half hidden by a small wood, the hills were close by and beyond them lay the quiet countryside. The church clock struck seven and she withdrew her head and set about getting dressed, then skimmed downstairs to the kitchen to make the early-morning tea.

      The kitchen was large, with a lamentable lack of up-to-date equipment. There was a scrubbed wooden table ringed around by sturdy chairs, an old-fashioned gas cooker flanking a deep sink and a vast dresser along one wall. There was a shabby rug in front of the cooker and two Windsor chairs, in one of which there was a small tabby cat to whom Serena wished a good morning before she put on the kettle. The one concession to modernity was a cumbersome fridge which, more often than not, ran amok.

      Serena left the kettle to boil and went to the front door to fetch the post. There was a small pile of letters in the post box, and just for a moment she pretended that they were all for her. They weren’t, of course: bills, several legal-looking envelopes, a catalogue or two, and, just as she had expected, two birthday cards for herself. And no card from Gregory. But she hadn’t really expected one from him; he had made it plain to her on several occasions that birthdays were scandalously overpriced and a waste of money. Gregory didn’t believe in wasting money; her father and brothers approved of him for that reason. Serena wasn’t sure of that, but she hoped in a vague way that when they married she would be able to change his frugal ways.

      She went back to the kitchen and made the tea, offered milk to the cat and, as the clock struck the half hour, took a tray of tea up to her father’s room.

      This was a large, gloomy apartment with heavy old-fashioned furniture, closely curtained against the morning brightness. She tweaked one curtain aside as she crossed the room, the better to see the occupant in the vast bed.

      Mr Lightfoot matched the room, gloomy and the epitome of a late-Victorian gentleman, whiskers and all. He sat up in bed, not speaking, and when Serena wished him good morning, he grunted a reply.

      ‘A good morning for some,’ he observed, ‘but for those who suffer as I do, daylight is merely the solace after a sleepless night.’

      Serena put the tray down and handed him his letters. That her father’s snores shattered the peace of the house was something on which there was no point in remarking. She had long ago learned that the only way in which to live with him was to allow his words to flow over her head. She said now, ‘It’s my birthday, Father.’

      He was opening his letters. ‘Oh, yes? Why have the gas company sent me another bill? Gross carelessness.’

      ‘Perhaps you didn’t pay the first one?’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Serena. I have always paid my bills promptly.’

      ‘But it is possible to make a mistake,’ said Serena, and took herself out of the room, wondering for the thousand and first time how her mother could have lived with such a tiresome man. She herself very often found life quite intolerable, living here with him, doing almost all of the housework, cooking and shopping and looking after him. He had for some time now declared that he was an invalid, and he led an invalid’s life with no concern for her.

      Since Dr Bowring had said that there was nothing wrong with him he had refused to see him again, declaring that he knew far better what was wrong with him than any doctor. So he had devised his own treatment for his illness, having declared that he was suffering from a weak heart and congestion of the lungs. He had over the years added lumbago to these, which gave him every reason to take to his bed whenever he wished to do so.

      It hadn’t been so bad when her mother had been alive. They had had a housekeeper, and between the two of them Serena and her mother had devised a routine which had allowed them enough freedom; there had been a certain amount of social life for them. Serena had had her tennis parties and small dances at friends’ houses, and her mother had been able to play bridge and enjoy coffee with her friends. Then her mother had fallen ill