Newborn Under The Christmas Tree. Sophie Pembroke

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СКАЧАТЬ to turn off the tap.’ It wasn’t the first time that Penelope had got distracted. Alice supposed she should be used to it by now. ‘Where’s Danielle?’

      ‘No idea,’ Heather said, the words clipped. ‘You know, for an assistant she doesn’t seem to be very much help.’

      Alice sighed. She’d noticed the same thing recently too. When she’d first hired the teenager to give her a hand with the admin and such at Thornwood, mostly to help her earn a part-time income after her mother died, Danielle had seemed bright and happy to be there. But over the last few months she’d barely even bothered showing up. ‘Right, well, we’d better get the mops out. He’ll be here any minute.’

      ‘Our new lord and master,’ Heather said, distaste obvious in her tone. ‘I can’t wait.’

      ‘He might not be that bad.’ Alice headed towards the nearest store cupboard and pulled out a mop and bucket. Given the number of leaks the castle roof had sprung over the last few years, they always tried to keep supplies close at hand. For a once grand house, the place leaked like a sieve and was impossible to keep warm. She wondered if the newest owner knew what he was letting himself in for. ‘Rose wouldn’t have left him the castle if he was.’

      ‘Wouldn’t she?’ Heather took the mop from her and attempted to soak up some of the impromptu river, while Alice hunted for more rags and cloths to absorb the worst of it. ‘He’s the last of the line—illegitimate or not. It wouldn’t matter what Rose thought about him. She’d leave him the castle because that’s what tradition said she had to do. And you know how she felt about tradition—at least you should. You spent enough time arguing with her about it.’

      ‘I did,’ Alice said, sighing again. As if an indoor river wasn’t bad enough, she had the prospect of spending her morning showing the new owner of Thornwood Castle around the wreck he’d inherited.

      Rose might not have always been the easiest woman to get along with, but she’d been pragmatic, in the way that people who’d seen everything the world had to throw at them come and go, and leave them standing, often were. She might not have liked the suggestions that Alice put forward about how to keep the castle alive and running, but she’d been willing to grit her teeth and bear it, if it meant that her home, her family estate, would survive to be useful to another generation, as something more than a historical show-and-tell. More than anything, Alice was sure, Rose just hadn’t wanted to be the one to let it go.

      But what about her great-nephew? He was the unknown quantity. Would he care enough about Thornwood to work with them to keep it going? Or would he sell it to the first Russian oligarch who offered him seven figures for it?

      Alice supposed she’d find out soon enough.

      Not that it mattered to her. Not really. There was always work for a woman who could be organised, inventive, effective and productive—and Alice made sure that she was all those things. Rose had written her a glowing reference before she died, just in case she needed it. Alice would have no problem finding a new job—a new project to dive into and find a way to make it work. And it was getting time to move on—she’d already been at Thornwood longer than she’d planned. Normally she’d be looking forward to it. Except...

      ‘Alice?’ Penelope stuck her head around the door, her eyes huge and wide in her thin, pale face. Sixteen and already so disillusioned by life, Penelope—and all the other girls and women like her—was the only reason Alice was reluctant to leave Thornwood. The castle might not be her home, but it was the only place some of the women she helped had—and it was the best shot Alice had at doing something that mattered. Sure, she could get a job organising someone’s office, or arranging meetings and scheduling flights. But here at Thornwood she was making a difference. And that counted for a lot.

      ‘What is it, Penelope?’ Alice asked when the girl didn’t say anything further.

      Slipping into the hall, Penelope wrapped her oversized grey cardigan around herself, her arms crossing over her middle. ‘There’s a car just pulled up. A big black four-by-four.’ Her eyes slid away from Alice’s as she spoke.

      Alice and Heather exchanged a quick glance.

      ‘That’ll be him, then,’ Heather said with a nod. ‘Penelope, grab those cloths from Alice and do your best to mop up this mess, yeah? God knows where Danielle has got to.’

      Penelope did as she was told, just like she always did—without question, without complaint, without a word. One day, Alice hoped that she might just look up and say, ‘No.’ One day.

      Hopefully not today, though, as they really did need to clear up the mini flood.

      Alice wiped her damp hands on her jeans. ‘Right then. I’d better...’ She flapped a hand towards the entrance hall.

      Heather nodded. ‘You go. Go meet the beast.’

      Alice rolled her eyes. ‘He might be lovely!’

      ‘You keep telling yourself that,’ Heather said, turning away to help Penelope with the remaining puddles. ‘Just because I’ve never met a man yet who was, doesn’t mean that this Liam bloke might not be the one who broke the mould.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Alice said, hoping she sounded more certain than she felt. ‘And, at the very least, we have to give him a chance.’

      She just hoped that he gave her—and Heather, and Penelope, and all the others—a chance too.

      * * *

      Grabbing his bag from the back seat, Liam pressed the button to lock the car and turned to face Thornwood Castle in the flesh for the first time in twenty-five years.

      ‘Yeah, still imposing as all hell,’ he murmured, eyeing the arrow slits.

      As far as he’d been able to tell from the notes his assistant had put together on the castle, it had never really been built for battle. In fact, it was constructed about two hundred years too late for the medieval sieges and warfare it looked like it was built to withstand. It was more or less a folly—one of those weird English quirks of history. Some ancestor of his—by blood if not name or marriage—had got it into his head that he wanted to live in a medieval castle, even if it was the seventeen-hundreds. So he’d designed one and had it built. And then that castle had been passed down through generations of family members until it reached him, in the twenty-first century, when all those arrow slits and murder holes were even less necessary than ever.

      Well, hopefully. He hadn’t been back to Britain in a couple of years. Who knew what might have changed...?

      Normally, Liam would happily mock the folly as typical aristocratic ridiculous behaviour. But as his assistant, Daisy, had pointed out to him drily as she’d handed him his plane tickets, building follies and vanity projects was basically what he did for a living these days. And he supposed she had a point. How was designing and building a hotel in the shape of a lily out in the Middle East any different to a medieval castle in the seventeen-hundreds?

      Except he didn’t keep the buildings he designed, or force them on future generations. He did an outstanding job, basked in the praise, got paid and moved on.

      Much simpler.

      As he jogged up the stone steps to the imposing front door, Liam tried to find that desert warmth again inside himself, and the glow of a good job well done. He was renowned these days, and in great demand as an architect. He’d built structures others couldn’t СКАЧАТЬ