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‘I’d better get to my bed. Early start tomorrow.’
‘OK,’ said Barney, reluctantly stepping back from the car. ‘Well, sleep well. It was lovely to meet you, Flora.’
‘And you.’
Barney stood and watched as Flora drove away.
That’s the girl I’m going to marry,he thought.
CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_1ae2708e-5cd8-5fc7-a988-31bd67c658ae)
Summer rolled into the Swell Valley late that year, slow and heavy and swollen with sticky heat like a river of molasses about to burst its banks. But when it finally came it brought record temperatures and an oppressive humidity that made it feel more like a Floridian mangrove swamp than the Sussex countryside.
While the local villagers sweated, cooling themselves off with ice lollies from the Preedys’ shop or cold jugs of Pimm’s from The Fox, up at Hanborough Castle the work never stopped. Flora had even started to lose some of her famous curves simply from running around the site all day, overseeing work and shouting directions till her throat was hoarse.
Tony Graham, the contractor, was efficient and on the ball, but he did have a habit of making a drama out of a crisis and niggling over the very tiniest details, right down to which brand of nails Flora wanted for the new joists. He also had the world’s most annoying, nasally voice, so grating that it had begun to creep into Flora’s nightmares. When Eva was around, Flora at least had a friendly face to talk to, or share an occasional snatched lunch with up at the castle. On rare occasions, Barney Griffith might join the two of them, or drag them down to The Fox for an after-work drink. But then Barney would be sucked back into the black hole of his book, and Eva would jet off to another photoshoot somewhere exotic, leaving Flora with only Mono-Tony, as she’d christened the contractor, for company.
Apart, of course, from Henry.
Ever since the awful night when George Savile had turned up to dinner and done her best to humiliate Flora in front of her new client and his friends, Flora had struggled to get a handle on Henry. Her first impressions of him had been wholly negative. He seemed rude, arrogant, selfish and a snob. Six weeks working for him up at Hanborough had confirmed that Henry certainly could be all of these things – and worse, if Eva’s suspicions and tabloid gossip were anything to go by. Henry Saxton Brae’s reputation as a womanizer was legendary, and though he’d yet to be caught cheating since getting engaged to Eva, Eva’s first meeting with Flora had made it clear that not even his fiancée would have put it past him.
But there was another side to Henry, too. He’d defended Flora when George attacked her that night, and on other occasions since. (It was astonishing how frequently George seemed to ‘drop in’ at Hanborough, for someone who purported to live in London.) Flora had also noticed how soppy Henry could be with his dogs, Whiskey and Soda, when he thought no one was looking, hugging and tickling them and sneaking them cuts of prime fillet steak from the fridge. Yet whenever Eva was around, he ignored the dogs completely, always letting her walk them alone, almost as if he were deliberately trying to conceal his affection.
One time Flora had walked in on him in the study, rolling around on the floor with the two Irish setters, giggling like a kid. Henry had flushed beet-red and leapt to his feet, as embarrassed as if he’d just been caught romping with a porn star.
‘I was just … I was, er … did you want something?’ He smoothed down his hair and did his best to regain his usual sang-froid.
‘Only to show you these.’
Flora unrolled her finally finished plans for the new library. When she took over the Hanborough project from Graydon and Guillermo, the idea had been to restore the old library – a vast, wood-panelled room with Victorian stained-glass windows, like a chapel, but riddled with rot and in a worse state of repair than anywhere else in the castle. Restoring this room alone would account for almost a fifth of the entire budget. When Flora had suggested a smaller, much more romantic library in one of the original towers, based on Vita Sackville-West’s idyllic study at Sissinghurst, Henry had leapt at the idea.
‘Sissinghurst is one of the few school trips I remember from my prep-school days,’ he’d told Flora. ‘They had a pond there that was so covered in bright green algae, it looked like a lawn. I went running down the path and plunged straight into it. Got the shock of my life! My mother said I smelt like a sewer rat for weeks afterwards.’ His eyes lit up, as they always did on the rare occasions he mentioned his mother. ‘Anyway, I loved that library, with the winding stairs and the Persian rugs and the old globe. Like living in a lighthouse.’
‘I think we could do a spectacular lighthouse library here,’ said Flora. ‘And for a fraction of the cost of restoring the old one.’
Flora had spent untold hours perfecting the new designs, delighted that Henry seemed as enthusiastic about the idea as she was. But now, standing in his study with the plans spread out on his desk, she felt unaccountably nervous.
Would he like them? Had he changed his mind?
Her nerves intensified as he leaned over the drawings, frowning as he studied each one intently.
Oh God, thought Flora. Perhaps she’d over-egged the Sissinghurst thing. It was only an inspiration, after all. Flora’s library was a lot cleaner and simpler, a lot more modern.
‘You don’t like it,’ she blurted.
‘No,’ said Henry, still glued to the plans, still frowning. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
Flora bit her lower lip. Damn it. She’d already gone out on a limb with Graydon on this. Graydon had always felt more comfortable with the original, grander, much more expensive library, but had caved in when Flora insisted the client shared her vision. Surprisingly, Flora and Henry seemed to have a lot in common when it came to taste in architecture and interiors. Eva preferred a much more modern and, to Flora’s mind, urban aesthetic. But Flora and Henry frequently saw eye to eye about Hanborough, something else that had helped Flora warm to him.
Not this time, though.
‘I don’t like it,’ Henry repeated. Looking up at her, his frown was now almost a scowl. ‘I bloody love it.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Flora.
Henry grinned, pulling her into a hug and twirling her around, to Flora’s combined delight and astonishment. ‘You’re a genius, Flora Fitzwilliam! It’s perfect.’
‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ Flora exhaled.
‘It’s warm. It’s intimate,’ said Henry. He’d set her back down on the carpet, but his hands were still resting loosely on her hips. All of a sudden Flora felt intensely aware of his physical presence: the scent of his aftershave; the way the fabric of his shirt strained slightly against his muscular arms. And his eyes, which had gone from embarrassed when she first walked in, to angry, now had a playful, teasing look to them that Flora found she had no idea how to handle.
Looking down at her, he smiled and said gruffly, ‘I can climb up there when I’m under attack. Lock myself away.’
‘Are you often under attack?’ Flora heard herself ask, in a voice that was not quite her own.
‘Sometimes.’
Was it Flora’s imagination, or did his hands just tighten around her hips?
‘Well. It will be somewhere to retreat to, then. Every home should have a retreat,’ she replied briskly, doing her best to sound professional.
‘I never retreat.’
Henry’s upper lip curled arrogantly, the same way it had the day Flora first met him. She’d loathed his arrogance then. Now she felt something else, something thoroughly disconcerting. ‘But it’ll be the perfect space to plan my counter-attack.’
Smiling, he released her, and walked around to the other side of the desk.
What just happened? thought Flora. Had they been talking about her new library? Or something else entirely?
Gathering up her plans, she left, the disconcerting feeling still hovering unpleasantly in the pit of her stomach.
About two weeks after Flora’s encounter with Henry in the study, Graydon James decided to pay an impromptu site visit to Hanborough. Eva, back from her latest Sports Illustrated shoot in Australia, insisted that Graydon stay at the castle as their guest.
‘That way you can spend a few days and really get a sense of what Flora’s been achieving here. Henry and I both just love her,’ she’d added loyally, winking at Flora, who wished the ground would open up and swallow her.
They were all in the formal drawing room at Hanborough. ‘All’ being the operative word. Henry, still in tennis whites after an early morning game with Richard Smart, was nursing a large gin and tonic by the window, looking less than thrilled by Graydon James’s unannounced and typically flamboyant arrival. Graydon, now on his third Bellini, had shown up in an open-topped pink Porsche 911, wearing a preposterous 1930s golfing outfit consisting of plus fours and a peach sweater, teamed with a dreadful Sherlock Holmes cap. Eva was there, boho chic in a bright orange cotton kaftan that would have looked like a curtain on anyone else, while Flora was looking pale and tired in boyfriend jeans and an old shirt of Mason’s tied at the waist that she basically lived in these days. George Savile, minus her dreary husband this time, had just ‘dropped in’, again, for lunch, looking typically chic in a Stella McCartney jumpsuit and sky-high heels. She greeted Graydon with a screech of delight and the sort of ecstatic hug usually reserved for a husband returning from war.
‘Graydon! Thank goodness you’re here to liven things up a bit,’ George trilled, linking arms possessively with the great designer in a clear message to Flora that the two of them were great friends, and that she’d better watch her back.
Flora had arrived for lunch tired, and now felt utterly exhausted. Graydon’s guest appearance was absolutely the last thing she needed. Clearly Eva thought she was doing Flora a favour by inviting Graydon to stay at the castle, and telling him how much they loved Flora’s work. She wasn’t to know how pathologically jealous Graydon was of other designers, even his own staff, and how paranoid of having his thunder stolen. Especially by Flora.
‘Well,’ Graydon beamed, first at George and then at Eva. ‘I must say it’s nice to be made so welcome. If you’re really sure it’s no imposition, I’d love to stay a couple of nights. I loathe the drive back to London, and The Dorchester’s become so corporate these days, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, dreadful,’ George agreed with a shudder. ‘I wouldn’t put my gardener up there. The place is alive with Russians.’
‘There’s a perfectly good pub in Fittlescombe. They’ve got rooms,’ Henry muttered, too quietly for Graydon to hear but loudly enough to earn himself a reproachful look from Eva.
‘It’s no imposition at all. We’d be delighted to have you.’
‘In that case, I think I might stay too,’ said George. ‘Make a house party of it. If that’s all right?’ She fluttered her eyelashes innocently at Eva.
‘Not really,’ thundered Henry.
‘Of course it’s all right,’ said Eva, simultaneously. She’d never warmed to George. She’d tried, many times, but Henry’s business partner always had a knowing, sour look on her face when talking to Eva, as if she were laughing at some private joke that Eva strongly suspected was at her expense. Despite this, Eva continued to be hospitable and to hold out repeated olive branches to Georgina. One day, she felt sure, her kindness would pay off, and George would realize that Eva was a decent person and that she made Henry happy.
‘We’d love to have you. There are plenty of rooms, after all.’
‘Even if it is still a building site!’ George laughed, adding teasingly, ‘But I suppose genius can’t be rushed, eh, Flora?’
Die. Thought Flora. Die, die, die, you poisonous, manipulative cow.
Flora couldn’t understand why George kept showing up like a bad smell when it was clear that Henry didn’t want her here. Or why either Henry or Eva put up with it.
The only thing she knew for sure was that it was going to be a very, very long few days.
Flora’s first official walk-through of the site with Graydon began at eight o’clock the next morning. It did not go well.
No doubt irked by Eva’s lavish praise of Flora’s designs the day before, Graydon systematically ripped into every last inch of her work. Nothing was good enough. The fixtures in the guest bathroom suites were too modern. The window dressings in the state rooms too traditional. The reclaimed stone Flora had used for the floor in the great hall was too expensive. The oak boards in the master bedroom too cheap.
‘And as for this folly,’ Graydon jabbed a gold-ringed finger at the new library plans in derision. ‘This will have to go.’
‘It can’t,’ said Flora, aghast. They were standing just inside the castle doors, in a room known as the hall. A long refectory bench lined one wall. Flora sat down on it wearily. ‘Henry loves it. It’s his favourite room in the entire castle. Plus it represents a huge saving over the original plan.’
‘I don’t care what it represents,’ Graydon snapped, sitting beside her. ‘I’m not having my name associated with that piece of kitsch.’
Flora’s eyes widened. Coming from a man wearing an aqua-blue sweater with two felt puppies appliquéd on the front, this was a bit rich.
‘Besides,’ Graydon added, his tone softening slightly, ‘Henry Saxton Brae is not the only person we’re trying to please here.’
Flora looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The International Designer of the Year award is being held in London next year,’ said Graydon. ‘It’s been moved forward to June, which means all submissions must be put before the judges by April.’
Flora looked at him blankly. The Hanborough restoration would not be close to finished by April. The plan had been to get everything but the South Wing completed by next August, in time for Henry and Eva’s wedding. At the current rate of progress, even that was going to be a stretch.
‘You’re not thinking of entering Hanborough?’
‘I’m not thinking about it, no,’ Graydon said caustically. ‘I’m doing it. Or, rather, we’re doing it. Together.’
Flora opened her mouth to protest but Graydon wasn’t finished.
‘I happen to have two close friends on the panel. It’s going to be a much more avant-garde group of judges than in previous years. We’re going to have to rethink a lot of the plans here if we want to have a shot at winning. Introduce some much more innovative, modern elements. Think sustainability. Eco-friendly. Old meets new.’
Flora imagined Henry wincing at every one of these expressions.
‘Take a look at these.’ Flipping open his MacBook Air, Graydon showed Flora a slide show of images. One was of a steel-framed barn with a retractable glass roof. Another of a Plexiglas tunnel connecting the East and West wings of the castle at the rear.
Flora shook her head. ‘There’s just no way. For one thing, Henry’s a traditionalist. He’ll never agree to anything like that.’
‘Then you must make him agree,’ said Graydon, unyielding.
‘Even if I could, this stuff is all way over budget,’ protested Flora. ‘And you want it done by next April? At the rate we’ve been going we’ll struggle to get the current plans finished by next August.’
Graydon fell silent for a moment, his lips pursed.
‘Perhaps I made a mistake in entrusting you with a project of this significance,’ he said at last. ‘Our mutual friend Mrs Savile confided in me that you’ve been struggling.’
‘I have not been struggling!’ Flora said hotly. ‘And Georgina Savile is no friend of mine.’
‘Hmmm,’ Graydon mused. ‘Well, you do look terribly tired, Flora. I have a new fellow working for me in New York, Riccardo. Perhaps it makes sense for him to take over from here? I know he’s chomping at the bit for a challenge.’
Flora could instantly visualize Riccardo, no doubt Graydon’s latest squeeze.
‘Sure,’ she quipped. ‘That’s a great idea, Graydon. Because Guillermo worked out so well.’
Graydon’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t owe you this job, Flora.’
‘No, you don’t. But you gave it to me, and I’ve done all you asked – and more. And, Henry and Eva love me,’ Flora said defiantly. ‘They would have to agree to any change in designer and, I’m telling you now, they won’t. Not in a million years. So if you want the slightest chance of getting these changes made, or entering Hanborough for the International Designer of the Year award, the fact is, Graydon, you do need me. You do.’
She was quivering with rage, glaring at Graydon, daring him to deny it. For a moment Graydon glared back, equally furious. Then, to Flora’s surprise, he smiled.
‘Thank goodness,’ he said. ‘I’d started to think the old, ambitious Flora Fitzwilliam was gone for ever. So, we’re on the same page? Winning International Designer of the Year will mean more for your career than it will for mine, darling.’
‘You’d share the award with me?’ Flora’s eyes widened. ‘I mean, we’d enter Hanborough together?’
‘Of course,’ Graydon said breezily. ‘As a team. My brand. My vision. Your hard graft. What do you say?’
Flora’s mind raced. She made a mental list of pros and cons. The cons list was considerably longer.
Graydon’s plans were frankly hideous, a betrayal not only of Henry and of Hanborough, but of Flora’s own artistic integrity.
Changing tack so radically and aiming for an April completion would mean working even harder than she was now, which scarcely seemed possible.
It would also leave her even less time for Mason – fewer trips home, and no time at all to focus on planning their wedding.
On the pros side, if by some miracle they pulled it off, she, Flora Fitzwilliam, would be International Designer of the Year. Her name and Graydon’s, side by side, as equals.
‘OK.’ She smiled back at Graydon. ‘I’m in.’
‘Wonderful,’ the old man purred. ‘So, how do you plan to convince our friend Henry to change his plans and double his budget?’
‘I don’t,’ said Flora.
Graydon frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I have a better idea.’ Flora smiled cryptically. ‘Trust me.’
‘What do you think?’
