her sister her taken. Was that what had changed her?
‘Do you want to see the other rooms?’ she asked offhandedly.
It drew the response, ‘Do you want to sell the house?’
She flushed. Did she want to sell the house? No. Did they have to? Yes.
‘I’m sorry.’ Somehow she gritted out the words. ‘I wasn’t sure if you were still interested.’
‘Well, I won’t be if I don’t see it all,’ he pointed out.
‘Right.’ Teeth clenched, Esme continued the guided tour.
At each room, she became increasingly conscious of how bare and decaying the whole house looked. Only her old sanctuary still had furniture. A bed, washstand, bookcase and chest of drawers were earmarked for her new home but she had been slow in arranging for the pieces to be moved.
‘Your room?’ Jack guessed, seeing the book titles on a shelf.
She nodded.
‘Are you still living here?’ he added, frowning a little.
‘No,’ she replied shortly. ‘Everything will be gone by the time the house is sold on.’
‘Where are you based now?’ It was a natural enough question.
She gave a deliberately vague, ‘Locally.’
‘Are you married?’ he added with mild curiosity.
The question made her inexplicably cross. ‘Who would I be married to?’
She recognised the oddity of her answer, even before he gave her a quizzical look.
‘Well, there was that boy,’ he replied with a slight smile, ‘from one of the neighbouring estates. You used to go riding with him. Sandy-haired. One of a few brothers?’
Esme knew who he meant but didn’t help him out. There had been no real romance with Henry Fairfax.
Instead she said, ‘Jack, you’ve been away almost ten years. Do you imagine everyone else’s life has stood still?’
‘Fair comment.’ He pulled an apologetic face. ‘But people do get frozen in time if you haven’t seen them for a while.’
Esme supposed he was right. Up until today—until just this hour—Jack Doyle had stayed in her head as her first love, a love tainted by anguish for a young man she’d idolised.
Now here he was, far too real, and bringing with him feelings of resentment that had somehow never properly surfaced till now.
‘So what is it that the new Esme does?’ he enquired with a smile.
The interest could have been genuine but Esme didn’t think so. Had he ever really noticed her with Arabella around?
‘I do people’s houses,’ she replied shortly.
‘Do?’ he echoed. ‘As in…what exactly?’
He sounded hesitant, unusual for him.
Esme glanced at him briefly. Something in his expression helped her read his mind. God, he really did think the family had fallen on hard times!
She was almost amused. Certainly amused enough to play along. ‘How do people normally do houses?’
‘You clean them?’ he said with lingering incredulity.
No, she actually decorated them, but she was enjoying his confusion too much to say so.
‘Have you a problem with that?’ she rejoined.
‘No, of course not.’ His own mother, though officially cook, had cleaned up after the Scott-Hamiltons. ‘It just isn’t something I pictured you doing.’
‘Well, that’s life,’ Esme concluded philosophically. ‘I never pictured you a big-shot wheeler-dealer businessman.’
‘Hardly that,’ he denied. ‘I design and market websites. That just happens to be where the money is now.’
It wasn’t false modesty. Esme knew that much. Even as a young man, Jack Doyle had never underplayed or overstated his achievements. He’d sailed through school and college, a straight ‘A’ student, but, being totally secure about his intellectual gifts, had felt no need to advertise them.
It was Esme’s father who had noticed and come up with the idea of him tutoring Esme. Up till then the cook’s son had done work in the stables or on the home farm or thinning out the wood. But, with his brains, surely he would be better employed doing something about Esme?
Looking back it was a mad idea. Why should a seventeen-year-old boy, however clever, manage to help eleven-year-old Esme when her expensive prep school had failed miserably?
But he had. That was the even crazier thing. He’d been the one to notice Esme could remember perfectly anything she was taught verbally, could talk with intelligence on most subjects and only descended into gibberish when committing to paper. Remarkably, he’d been the first to suggest dyslexia as a possibility, and tests had proved him right.
Esme found herself treading down memory lane once more and pulled herself back sharply.
‘And money is important?’ she remarked for something to say.
‘It is if you haven’t got any,’ he responded quite equably.
Esme didn’t argue. She knew he was talking from experience. His mother had died from cancer just after his finals, keeping her illness secret almost to the end. Accompanied by Jack, she had gone home to her native Ireland for a holiday and passed away there. She had left nothing but the money for her funeral. If Jack had grieved, he’d done it alone.
She watched him now, gazing through her bedroom window. It faced the back of the house and offered a view of the stable block and woods beyond. In autumn, when the trees were bare, it was just possible to see the chimney of the gamekeeper’s cottage where Jack had lived with his mother. But it was currently spring and greenery obscured it.
It was in his mind, however, as he said, ‘I understand the cottage is rented out.’
Esme’s stomach tightened a little but she kept her cool. ‘Yes, it is. You know it’s not part of the sale?’
He turned. ‘No, I didn’t. There’s no mention in the particulars.’
Esme glanced towards the folder in his hand. She’d not perused the estate agent’s details. She’d trusted her mother’s word instead.
‘I don’t really see how it could be excluded,’ he continued, ‘considering it’s in the middle of the estate.’
‘Well, it is!’ Esme snapped with a certainty she was far from feeling.
Jack shrugged, unwilling to argue, commenting instead, ‘Perhaps that’s why you’re having difficulty selling—people buy these estates for privacy.’
Esme
