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

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СКАЧАТЬ she meant Alys Blezzard’s household book, a little, really ancient notebook of recipes. It’s a priceless bit of family history, and it’s been missing since your mother ran off. They just sort of assumed she took it with her.’

      I shook my head. ‘No, sorry. Mum told me all about Alys—she liked the idea that she was descended from a family notorious for witchcraft—but she never mentioned any book.’

      ‘Are you sure it wasn’t among her things?’ he pressed me. ‘It’s quite an heirloom, so Hebe’s always been upset that it’s missing.’

      ‘She didn’t leave a lot of possessions behind when she went to America, so I’d have noticed something like that.’

      ‘And she wouldn’t have taken it with her?’

      ‘No, I’m sure she didn’t. I helped her decide what to take and did the packing. We had to buy a suitcase especially, because we didn’t think her old carpetbag would stand up to aeroplane baggage handlers.’

      ‘Then Aunt Hebe will be disappointed!’ He stood and pulled out a slim gold case from his pocket. ‘Look, I’ll have to be off now, but here’s my card—ring me when you’ve seen Hobbs and had a think about my offer. Selling Winter’s End is the only sensible option, you know…and remember, whatever anyone says, I love the place and only want the best for it.’

      ‘OK,’ I said, slightly puzzled, and he put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. He seemed a very hands-on kind of person, when he wasn’t miffed. But I understood how he felt about Winter’s End because I, too, had loved my little cottage.

      ‘And at least you have inherited something I, a mere female, can’t—the title,’ I pointed out. ‘Sir Jack!’

      ‘Very true. And of course there is a long family tradition of intermarriage in the family, especially when a girl is the heiress…much like now, I suppose,’ he said, with a teasing smile. ‘Keeps the title and the property together.’

      ‘I—yes, I suppose it does,’ I agreed, slightly taken aback.

      ‘Oh, Sir Jack, this is so sudden!’ he said in a mock-modest falsetto, and I laughed.

      ‘But seriously, Sophy, I don’t intend letting you go out of my life five minutes after I’ve found you, whatever you decide,’ he said, and kissed me again before he left, this time in a less than cousinly way. But that’s OK—he is something less than a cousin, after all.

      After he’d gone everything seemed a bit leached of colour and lifeless, including me. I drank about a gallon of Rescue Remedy, then went out to the VW and fetched a wooden box from the ingenious special hiding place that one of my mother’s friends had made for it (and her stash) long ago.

      It was rectangular, quite deep and surprisingly heavy, and when I opened the lid the delicious aroma of ancient books wafted out. I should know that smell, I’ve dusted libraries full of them in my time. Anyway, I adore books. That’s where I acquired most of my education. The scent of old leather bindings promised escape into another, comforting world, much as the scent of roses once reassured me that Winter’s End still existed just as I left it.

      Carefully I lifted out A Little Child’s Warning: A Treasury of Bible Stories with its faded gilt edges and the cover depiction of a small child praying, eyes cast up to heaven, but my icy hands fumbled and almost dropped the book.

      A positive cascade of pressed roses fell out, with the papery whispering of old ghosts.

Chapter Three: Diamond Cut

       They have given mee a chamber in the solar to be near Thomas. I spend much time there—or in the stillroom, which is sadly neglected, Lady Wynter having no interest in those arts in which it should be her pride to be accomplished. I walk in the gardens when I can spare the time and pick herbs. The plants I need that grow wild in the woods and pastures are harder to obtain and some must be picked by the light of the moon…To slip out here unseen is difficult.

      From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1580

      ‘Anya!’ I said, when I finally managed to reach her. ‘My guardian angel is a golden Lucifer—diabolically handsome and slightly sulphurous round the edges. He’s hot—and I think I’m in love!’

      ‘How do you know?’ she said, sounding as if she was standing in a metal oil drum (which she might have been—you never know with Anya).

      ‘That I’m in love?’

      ‘No, that your guardian angel is a Lucifer.’

      ‘Oh—because he visited me yesterday,’ I said. ‘He’s sort of a cousin—a very distant cousin.’ Then I told her all about my grandfather’s death, my inheritance—and Jack’s offer.

      ‘And he was furious when he first turned up, because he thought I’d somehow managed to brainwash Grandfather into leaving Winter’s End to me. Once he realised I hadn’t he was really, really nice.’

      ‘I bet he was,’ she said, sounding unconvinced. ‘But after all you’ve told me about your childhood at Winter’s End and how you feel about the place, I can’t understand why you don’t sound delirious with pleasure.’

      ‘Well, for one thing I’m still stunned and wondering why on earth Grandfather did it; and for another, it isn’t the Winter’s End I remember, because it’s clear that Jack took my place soon after I left,’ I said slowly. ‘Apparently the house is really run down and there is a big outstanding bank loan against it too, which Grandfather took out to pay for his garden restoration.’

      ‘What were you expecting, a Shangri-La that always stayed the same?’

      ‘It did always stay the same, in my imagination—and part of me thinks it’s better left like that, and I should never try to go back there.’

      ‘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 СКАЧАТЬ