Birds of a Feather. Cressida McLaughlin

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       Chapter One

       The marsh harrier is a large bird of prey with a brown body and a pale head. It feeds on animals that live on or near marshes and drops unsuspectingly onto defenceless creatures from the air. Its courtship call is a kind of mewling wail.

      — Note from Abby’s notebook.

      Outside the window of Peacock Cottage, the sunshine blazed. Abby Field could hear the bubbling trill of a robin close by, the gentle tap of bees occasionally banging against the windowpane, but inside the house, everything was quiet.

      Jack Westcoat took a sip of coffee and let out a sigh that was like the slow deflating of a balloon.

      Abby didn’t know how it had come to this; sitting on the sofa in the quaint, secluded cottage with the man who, over the last few months, she had come to see as the brightest part of her life. He was her summer to the spring of working at Meadowsweet Nature Reserve, to the winter of a confusing, unhappy childhood, her parents’ turbulent relationship leaving a mark that she thought she would never be able to rub away. She hadn’t imagined she would open up to him, allow him into her life, but he had snuck in, their sparring matches the fireworks of early attraction, their walks – through the reserve, around the abandoned Swallowtail House – early dates, and finally, last night, she had given in to her feelings for him.

      And now this.

      The London event the previous evening was supposed to have been the beginning of a fresh start for Jack, a chance to banish the memory of the year before, where he’d very publicly attacked a fellow author, Eddie Markham, and had slunk away to the Suffolk countryside with his reputation in tatters. Jack had asked Abby to accompany him to the gala, and she’d barely had to think about it. She had socialized, watched in admiration as Jack had charmed everyone and denied Eddie the satisfaction of a repeat of the previous year, and then they had returned, tired but with an air of quiet relief; not quite triumph, but close. When he had asked the driver to take them both to Peacock Cottage rather than drop Abby at home, she hadn’t hesitated. She had wanted Jack for so long, and the reality was better than all her imaginings.

      But this morning Eddie Markham had turned up in Meadowgreen and tricked her. He’d grabbed her, a photographer waiting to take a photo of their false embrace. And now she was СКАЧАТЬ