quarters, and work her way down.
Two hours later, with a fat wodge of notes and sketches under her arm (there was so much potential here, beyond what was in the original architect’s plans), she’d made it as far as the master bedroom suite above the old chapel.
There were plenty of larger, grander rooms in the castle. Clearly Henry and Eva had chosen this one for its romantic feel rather than its square footage. The medieval arched windows, complete with mullioned panes, made you feel like Rapunzel when you looked out of them, and the leaning floor and uneven, original wood-panelled walls imbued the space with a real sense of history. An antique Elizabethan four-poster bed completed the look, although glancing at it Flora felt sure it would work far better turned ninety degrees, to give its occupants a view across Hanborough’s parkland. Or was it too low for that?
Slipping off her espadrilles, Flora lay back on the bed, twisting her head to the right and craning her neck to see if one could, in fact, look out whilst lying down.
‘Oh my God. Oh my God! Who are you?’
Flora sat up to find a blonde Amazon standing in the bedroom doorway. She had an embroidered overnight bag in one hand and a small Chanel purse in the other. Even in no make-up and wearing a tatty pair of boyfriend jeans and a white T-shirt, she was instantly recognizable as Henry Saxton Brae’s supermodel girlfriend, Eva Gunnarson.
‘I’m Flora.’ Flora blushed, hopping back down off the bed and feeling like a dwarf next to Eva. ‘I’m the new designer. You must be Eva.’
Eva glared at her. ‘What were you doing in our bed?’
‘Oh. That.’ Flora blushed as it suddenly dawned on her how it must have looked. ‘I was measuring. I was, er … trying to see the view.’
‘Henry!’ Eva pushed past her, storming first into the master bathroom, then into the dressing room. ‘Henry! Come out, you coward!’
Flora watched mortified as this beautiful girl opened wardrobes and slammed them shut again, tears streaming down her face. Finally she dropped to her knees and actually looked under the bed, before turning furiously back to Flora.
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s not here.’ Flora looked at her pityingly.
‘Don’t lie to me!’ Eva screamed. ‘Just how stupid do you think I am?’
Then suddenly, and without warning, she burst into explosive tears.
‘Oh gosh. Oh, no, please don’t. This is my fault. I didn’t know you were coming back today.’
‘Evidently!’
‘No! No, no, no. Look, Henry really isn’t here. He’s at a meeting. In Birmingham. Mrs French has gone with him.’
Eva looked confused. ‘Mary? How do you know Mary?’
‘She let me in, when I arrived last weekend,’ said Flora. ‘She gave me a cup of tea and I spilled it on your rug. Look, I really am the designer. And I really was measuring your bed height. For the view. There’s nothing … Henry and I … I mean I would never … I’m engaged!’ she finished desperately, waving Mason’s stunning ring in Eva’s general direction.
Eva looked from Flora’s ring to her face and back again. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands.
‘Oh God. I’m sorry. Of course you are. I’m turning into one of those women.’
‘What women?’ asked Flora.
‘Pathetic, jealous, paranoid women. Women who don’t trust their own partner.’ She looked up at Flora miserably. ‘You must think I’m such a fool.’
‘Not at all,’ said Flora truthfully. ‘It’s my fault entirely. I can only imagine what I’d do if I came back to my apartment and found a strange chick in my fiancé’s bed.’
Eva giggled. It all seemed rather ridiculous suddenly.
‘Flora, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Eva.’ They shook hands. ‘Let’s never tell Henry about this.’
‘Never!’
Flora smiled broadly. She had a funny feeling that she and Eva were going to become friends. She just wondered how someone so vulnerable and nice had ever made it to the top in the cut-throat world of modelling? Or why she would choose to throw herself away on a smug, arrogant jerk like Henry Saxton Brae.
‘We’re having a dinner party next Saturday night,’ Eva announced suddenly. ‘Just a few local friends, nothing fancy. You must come.’
‘Oh no. I mean, thank you. But I wouldn’t want to intrude,’ Flora said, remembering Henry’s graceless comment about he and Eva ‘valuing their privacy’ and Hanborough not being a commune. Clearly he wasn’t the sort of man who considered his interior designer to be a social equal. ‘Besides, I have a ton of work to do. I’m still playing catch-up on the project. You have an incredible home, and I want to do it justice.’
‘And I’m sure you will,’ Eva said kindly. ‘But you have to eat. We’ll expect you next Saturday. Eight o’clock.’
‘I still don’t understand why you had to invite her,’ Henry grumbled.
It was an hour before the party, and he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving. Stark naked after a shower, other than the white beard of shaving foam covering the lower half of his face, he looked as beautiful as ever, a Michelangelo sculpture in warm, damp flesh.
I’ll never stop wanting him, Eva thought. Never.
‘I didn’t have to invite her. I wanted to. She’s nice.’
‘She’s stroppy,’ said Henry. ‘More to the point, she’s an employee.’
Eva frowned, adjusting the straps on her pretty, vintage sundress. ‘You sound like a Victorian. She’s a designer, not the man who comes to empty the bins. And, by the way, her fiancé’s very rich. Mason Parker. I googled him. He comes from a very upper-class American family.’
‘There’s no such thing,’ Henry said dismissively. ‘Americans don’t understand about class. And who’s this other bod you’ve asked?’ he added, before Eva could object to this last remark. ‘The random dog-walker?’
‘He’s a writer. His name’s Barney, and he’s also nice.’
‘How do you know?’ Henry asked reasonably. ‘You’ve only met him once.’
‘Twice,’ Eva corrected him. ‘I ran into him again the day before yesterday. So tonight will make three times. We need to meet some new people, darling.’ Walking up behind him, she ran a hand lovingly over Henry’s bottom.
‘I don’t see why,’ said Henry, rinsing off his face. Splashing on some aftershave, he started to get dressed.
He wasn’t thrilled about spending an evening with Graydon
