Bluebell Castle. Sarah Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ her head against the thick stone of the castle walls. With a shrug and a wave, she continued along the maze of corridors until she reached her bedroom in the wing traditionally occupied by the family.

      *

      Feeling loose and relaxed after a blissful hour in the bath, Iggy tried not to wince as she applied some antiseptic cream to the wicked-looking scratch stretching across most of the underside of her left forearm. Ignoring the soreness, she pressed her finger carefully along the length of the shallow wound, double-checking there was no remnant of the thorn which had abraded her skin.

      A nasty infection had put her out of action for almost a week the previous year when a thorn tip had become stuck beneath the thumbnail of her dominant right hand. Doing anything had been excruciating, and the enforced period of rest while the antibiotics the doctor had prescribed did their job had driven her to distraction. Lesson learnt, she was scrupulous about wearing thick leather gloves whilst working in the garden, and in checking and cleaning any of the myriad little injuries she incurred.

      With her damp hair secured on top of her head in a scruffy knot, she dressed in a pair of slim-leg black trousers and a loose olive-green silk T-shirt her aunt Morgana had given her for her birthday, claiming the colour enhanced Iggy’s hazel eyes, or some such nonsense. She’d never been a clotheshorse and couldn’t understand the fascination some of her friends at college had had with dressing in the latest fashion. Then again, they’d had their mothers around to whisk them off on shopping trips. Perhaps if she’d had a similar maternal bond, things might have been different. Eyeing herself in the mirror, Iggy let out a snort of derision. If there was a maternal bone anywhere in Helena Ludworth-Mills-Wexford-Jones’s body, Iggy had never found it.

      Having abandoned her husband and children before the triplets’ third birthday, Iggy’s mother had flitted in and out of her life at irregular intervals. They’d last heard from her on New Year’s Eve when Helena had called to berate Arthur for cutting off her allowance. She’d had three subsequent husbands to support her, but she somehow expected their father to continue to fund her from beyond the grave. Arthur had stuck to his guns-surprising Iggy as he’d never quite seemed to give up on their mother in the same way she and Tristan had-and told her there was no more money to be had. It was to be hoped that might be the end of it and she’d finally leave them in peace, but Iggy somehow doubted it. In twenty-six years, Helena had never done anything of benefit for her children, so why would she start now?

      Iggy reached for the handle on the closed door of Arthur’s study, then paused. She’d almost caught him and Lucie in flagrante when they’d been trying to keep their relationship a secret. Given the soppy way they’d been looking at each other earlier, it might be best to approach with some caution. Raising her hand, she rapped her knuckles on the aged oak, entering only once Arthur bade her to do so.

      As she approached the empty chair on this side of her brother’s desk, it occurred to Iggy that Arthur had finally shed the discomfort he’d had over assuming their father’s mantle. At first, he’d seemed at pains to keep the room exactly as it had been, but though the changes made had been subtle, the study felt like it belonged to him now. The heavy marble bust of their grandfather had been moved from the corner of the desk to a less prominent position on one of the bookshelves. In its place sat a docking station for Arthur’s phone with a set of speakers attached. Raucous laughter emanated from them, no doubt from one of the many sporting podcasts her brothers were great fans of.

      A large, rumpled blanket softened the classical lines of a wingback chair by the window, a stack of the red ledgers the estate’s record keepers had used for generations piled haphazardly on the floor beside it. Iggy knew they’d been sitting there since before Lucie had fled the estate and wondered what on earth her brother had said to Maxwell to prevent the butler from tidying them up. Their poor butler, a stickler for neatness, had been as devastated as any of them when they’d thought she’d left them forever, so perhaps it’d been him leaving the spot untouched like a little shrine.

      ‘I had several meetings with the bank whilst I was in town.’ Arthur said, drawing her attention away from the empty chair.

      ‘About the painting?’

      He nodded. ‘Amongst other things. Although there’s still a lot of work to do, with Lucie’s assistance I was able to get an interim valuation assessment from Witherby’s for it. Needless to say, our account manager was a lot more accommodating than when I was sorting out all the probate stuff.’

      ‘I can imagine.’ Iggy didn’t try to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Where had the account manager been when their father had been investing in the dubious investment scheme which had brought them to the edge of ruin? Now they had a masterpiece from one of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite painters the country had ever produced, the staff at the bank must be salivating over the value of it.

      ‘Quite.’ Arthur lounged back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin. ‘Lucie’s opened talks with a number of galleries about putting on a pre-auction exhibition here at the castle. A number of them are amenable to loaning out their Viggliorentos in return for a chance to study our painting before it hits the auction block. The bank like the idea as there’s never been a definitive exhibition of his works before, and as well as being something to draw people through the gates, it’ll help to cement the profile of the painting-and its price tag.’

      ‘You’re definitely going to sell it then?’ It made sense, but she couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret-though she quickly shook it off. Good fortune didn’t smile often on the Ludworths, and it wasn’t as though any of them had known the painting even existed until Lucie had followed the trail of breadcrumbs hidden in old Thomas’s long-forgotten journals.

      ‘I have to.’ The guilt in Arthur’s voice twisted her insides. The money from selling one item would help keep them afloat and allow them breathing space to put their longer-term plans for the castle into place.

      Leaning forward, Iggy stretched her hand across the desk towards him. ‘It’s the right thing to do. Tristan will tell you the exact same thing.’

      Arthur sighed. ‘I know, but it’s going to break Lucie’s heart.’ He closed his eyes for one long moment before sitting up straight and taking her hand. ‘It can’t be helped, and she’d leave me for good, I reckon, if I tried to hang onto the damn thing for her sake.’

      Iggy gave his fingers a sympathetic squeeze before sitting back. ‘So, is that what you wanted to tell me? That the pressure is off with the bank?’

      ‘It’s more than off, they’re very much on board with our plans to secure the future of the castle and have extended me a decent line of credit.’ Folding his arms, Arthur rested them against the desk, hazel eyes a match for hers twinkling. ‘Tell me what you need.’

      Taken aback by the question, Iggy frowned. ‘In terms of what?’

      ‘In terms of getting the gardens into shape. You’re the one with the vision, so tell me what you need to bring it to life.’

      Vision? Ha! At the moment it felt like there were so many ideas competing in her head, she was stumbling around in circles and getting precisely nowhere. Lucie had uncovered some of the original plans from when the gardens had been laid out in the eighteenth century. Rather than adding the clarity Iggy had hoped they would, they’d only added to her confusion as it had become clear to her that subsequent generations had altered many of the original set pieces. Trying to recreate the original plans on a shoestring would be next to impossible so she’d been straggling from one part of the garden to the next, tidying some bits but ignoring the later alterations because she might decide to dig them up later. She wasn’t a designer, or a visionary-Tristan had got all the creative СКАЧАТЬ