own curiosity made her feel uneasy. She had never speculated about the inhabitants of Parnham Court before…perhaps because they had not come knocking on her door, spoiling her peace, making demands on her which she could not and would not meet.
Healthily tired, she made her way back to her cottage. Horatio, used to his mistress’s evening routine, padded into the kitchen, waiting for her to make the hot milky drink she always took to bed with her.
CHAPTER TWO
AT TEN past nine on Monday morning Rue had just returned from checking her field—something she did meticulously twice a day during the height of the summer and early in the autumn, those all-important times of the year for her when even a couple of days’ neglect could mean the difference between picking her flowers at their very best or finding she had left things too late and the petals were already beginning to shed—when the telephone rang. She picked up the receiver in one hand while she poured herself a cup of coffee with the other.
The unexpected sound of her solicitor’s voice, faintly hesitant and apologetic, surprised her.
‘I wonder if you could come in and see me,’ he asked her. ‘There are one or two things I need to talk over with you.’
Instantly suspicious, Rue told him, ‘If it’s about Neil Saxton’s offer to buy the cottage and my land, then I might as well tell you that I’m not interested.’
‘It isn’t something we can discuss over the telephone,’ her solicitor told her and, sensing his determination and knowing how much he had her interests at heart, Rue gave in and agreed reluctantly that she would drive in to the local market town and see him. He suggested taking her out for lunch, but Rue turned his invitation down, explaining to him that she was far too busy to be able to spare him more than half an hour of her time. She didn’t add that she wouldn’t have been able to spare him as much as that if she hadn’t needed to go into her local market town to stock up on supplies. The village, lovely though it was, only had one very small general store, and Rue normally made the trip once a month to the local market town to stock up on groceries.
At eleven o’clock she bundled Horatio into the ancient estate car she had bought three years ago when her business had first started to grow. The car was old but reliable, its roomy rear-section ideal for carrying her stock.
It took her just over half an hour to drive into town. She parked her car in the pretty market square, empty on a Monday of the bustle of traffic which filled it to capacity on Wednesdays and Saturdays—market days.
Her solicitor’s office was up a rickety flight of stairs in a tiny Elizabethan building, part of what had once originally been the old Shambles. Now the whole street was a conservation area, the shop beneath the offices a prestigious book store.
It was still possible, from the attic room at the top of the house, to reach out from the window and shake hands with somebody doing the same thing in the house on the opposite side of the street, but it wasn’t the building’s history which was on Rue’s mind as she rapped on the outer door of her solicitor’s office and walked into the small reception area.
David Winten had originally been her father’s solicitor, and the two men would have been about the same age if her father had been alive. As always when she was invited into the tiny, cramped office, Rue was reminded unbearably of her father. He had married fairly late in life, and she had been born eighteen months after her parents married.
Tragically, her mother had died within hours of her own birth, and because of that, she and her father had shared a closeness which even now, six years after his death, she still missed.
‘Rue.’ Her solicitor’s face creased in a delighted smile as he swept some papers off the chair and dusted it down apologetically before offering it to her. ‘My dear, how lovely it is to see you.’
Rue hid a tiny smile as she accepted the chair. How on earth he managed to make a living out of his practice she had no idea. Every surface in the small room was piled high with pink-tied bundles of legal papers, files gaped open in half-open drawers, and a tortoiseshell cat drowsed in the sun coming through the small window.
‘Neil Saxton came here to see me first thing this morning,’ he told her rather breathlessly as Rue sat down. ‘In fact, he was here waiting for me at half-past eight when I arrived.’
Immediately he mentioned Neil Saxton’s name, Rue’s face hardened. ‘It’s no good,’ she told him firmly. ‘Nothing you can say to me will make me change my mind. I’m not going to sell Vine Cottage or the land.’
‘My dear child, think,’ her solicitor pleaded with her. ‘I assure you he’s prepared to be very generous—very generous indeed. With that money…’
‘I have more than enough money for my needs,’ Rue cut in ruthlessly. ‘I own the cottage and the land and its freehold. I have no debts.’
‘And no assets, either,’ her solicitor pointed out firmly, surprising her a little. ‘Rue, think: at the moment your business is doing very well, but you have precious little behind you. A bad season, any other kind of accident…’
‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ Rue interrupted him. ‘But it isn’t going to happen.’
‘My dear, I can understand your attachment to the cottage and to the village, but surely there must be other properties.’
‘I’m sure there are,’ Rue agreed obediently, ‘but I suggest you try telling that to Neil Saxton, and not to me.’
‘But you must realise why he wants your property.’
‘Of course,’ Rue agreed.
‘It was, after all, originally part of the estate,’ her solicitor pointed out. ‘He has told me that he is concerned that, if for any reason anything were to happen to you, the land could be sold away completely, and that is the reason he is prepared to make such a very generous offer.’
Rue’s eyebrows climbed a little as she listened to this rather hesitant statement, hardly surprising, she reflected inwardly, in view of her comparative youth.
‘You may reassure Mr Saxton that I have no intentions of selling the land either to him or to anyone else,’ she said firmly, standing up. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re only thinking of my future and my security, but Vine Cottage is my future and my security. I refused to sell it to that builder last year and now I’m refusing to sell it to Neil Saxton. I’m sorry if he finds that knowledge unpalatable, but he’ll just have to accept it.’
She saw that her solicitor was looking very unhappy, and hesitated, frowning a little.
‘He’s a very determined man,’ her solicitor offered nervously. ‘He asked me a lot of questions about you…about the land…’
Rue’s frown deepened. ‘What did you tell him?’ she questioned sharply.
Her solicitor looked even more unhappy, and a tiny sigh of irritation escaped Rue’s soft mouth. She should have known that a man like her solicitor would be no match for the Neil Saxtons of this world. By now, no doubt, he knew the whole sordid story of her past and the folly she had committed. She shrugged inwardly. What did it matter? He would think her a fool, of course, but what did his opinion matter to her?
‘Well, if he gets in touch with you again, please tell him
