might join the two of them, or drag them down to The Fox for an after-work drink. But then Barney would be sucked back into the black hole of his book, and Eva would jet off to another photoshoot somewhere exotic, leaving Flora with only Mono-Tony, as she’d christened the contractor, for company.
Apart, of course, from Henry.
Ever since the awful night when George Savile had turned up to dinner and done her best to humiliate Flora in front of her new client and his friends, Flora had struggled to get a handle on Henry. Her first impressions of him had been wholly negative. He seemed rude, arrogant, selfish and a snob. Six weeks working for him up at Hanborough had confirmed that Henry certainly could be all of these things – and worse, if Eva’s suspicions and tabloid gossip were anything to go by. Henry Saxton Brae’s reputation as a womanizer was legendary, and though he’d yet to be caught cheating since getting engaged to Eva, Eva’s first meeting with Flora had made it clear that not even his fiancée would have put it past him.
But there was another side to Henry, too. He’d defended Flora when George attacked her that night, and on other occasions since. (It was astonishing how frequently George seemed to ‘drop in’ at Hanborough, for someone who purported to live in London.) Flora had also noticed how soppy Henry could be with his dogs, Whiskey and Soda, when he thought no one was looking, hugging and tickling them and sneaking them cuts of prime fillet steak from the fridge. Yet whenever Eva was around, he ignored the dogs completely, always letting her walk them alone, almost as if he were deliberately trying to conceal his affection.
One time Flora had walked in on him in the study, rolling around on the floor with the two Irish setters, giggling like a kid. Henry had flushed beet-red and leapt to his feet, as embarrassed as if he’d just been caught romping with a porn star.
‘I was just … I was, er … did you want something?’ He smoothed down his hair and did his best to regain his usual sang-froid.
‘Only to show you these.’
Flora unrolled her finally finished plans for the new library. When she took over the Hanborough project from Graydon and Guillermo, the idea had been to restore the old library – a vast, wood-panelled room with Victorian stained-glass windows, like a chapel, but riddled with rot and in a worse state of repair than anywhere else in the castle. Restoring this room alone would account for almost a fifth of the entire budget. When Flora had suggested a smaller, much more romantic library in one of the original towers, based on Vita Sackville-West’s idyllic study at Sissinghurst, Henry had leapt at the idea.
‘Sissinghurst is one of the few school trips I remember from my prep-school days,’ he’d told Flora. ‘They had a pond there that was so covered in bright green algae, it looked like a lawn. I went running down the path and plunged straight into it. Got the shock of my life! My mother said I smelt like a sewer rat for weeks afterwards.’ His eyes lit up, as they always did on the rare occasions he mentioned his mother. ‘Anyway, I loved that library, with the winding stairs and the Persian rugs and the old globe. Like living in a lighthouse.’
‘I think we could do a spectacular lighthouse library here,’ said Flora. ‘And for a fraction of the cost of restoring the old one.’
Flora had spent untold hours perfecting the new designs, delighted that Henry seemed as enthusiastic about the idea as she was. But now, standing in his study with the plans spread out on his desk, she felt unaccountably nervous.
Would he like them? Had he changed his mind?
Her nerves intensified as he leaned over the drawings, frowning as he studied each one intently.
Oh God, thought Flora. Perhaps she’d over-egged the Sissinghurst thing. It was only an inspiration, after all. Flora’s library was a lot cleaner and simpler, a lot more modern.
‘You don’t like it,’ she blurted.
‘No,’ said Henry, still glued to the plans, still frowning. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
Flora bit her lower lip. Damn it. She’d already gone out on a limb with Graydon on this. Graydon had always felt more comfortable with the original, grander, much more expensive library, but had caved in when Flora insisted the client shared her vision. Surprisingly, Flora and Henry seemed to have a lot in common when it came to taste in architecture and interiors. Eva preferred a much more modern and, to Flora’s mind, urban aesthetic. But Flora and Henry frequently saw eye to eye about Hanborough, something else that had helped Flora warm to him.
Not this time, though.
‘I don’t like it,’ Henry repeated. Looking up at her, his frown was now almost a scowl. ‘I bloody love it.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Flora.
Henry grinned, pulling her into a hug and twirling her around, to Flora’s combined delight and astonishment. ‘You’re a genius, Flora Fitzwilliam! It’s perfect.’
‘Oh, I’m so glad!’ Flora exhaled.
‘It’s warm. It’s intimate,’ said Henry. He’d set her back down on the carpet, but his hands were still resting loosely on her hips. All of a sudden Flora felt intensely aware of his physical presence: the scent of his aftershave; the way the fabric of his shirt strained slightly against his muscular arms. And his eyes, which had gone from embarrassed when she first walked in, to angry, now had a playful, teasing look to them that Flora found she had no idea how to handle.
Looking down at her, he smiled and said gruffly, ‘I can climb up there when I’m under attack. Lock myself away.’
‘Are you often under attack?’ Flora heard herself ask, in a voice that was not quite her own.
‘Sometimes.’
Was it Flora’s imagination, or did his hands just tighten around her hips?
‘Well. It will be somewhere to retreat to, then. Every home should have a retreat,’ she replied briskly, doing her best to sound professional.
‘I never retreat.’
Henry’s upper lip curled arrogantly, the same way it had the day Flora first met him. She’d loathed his arrogance then. Now she felt something else, something thoroughly disconcerting. ‘But it’ll be the perfect space to plan my counter-attack.’
Smiling, he released her, and walked around to the other side of the desk.
What just happened? thought Flora. Had they been talking about her new library? Or something else entirely?
Gathering up her plans, she left, the disconcerting feeling still hovering unpleasantly in the pit of her stomach.
About two weeks after Flora’s encounter with Henry in the study, Graydon James decided to pay an impromptu site visit to Hanborough. Eva, back from her latest Sports Illustrated shoot in Australia, insisted that Graydon stay at the castle as their guest.
‘That way you can spend a few days and really get a sense of what Flora’s been achieving here. Henry and I both just love her,’ she’d added loyally, winking at Flora, who wished the ground would open up and swallow her.
They were all in the formal drawing room at Hanborough. ‘All’ being the operative word. Henry, still in tennis whites after an early morning game with Richard Smart, was nursing a large gin and tonic by the window, looking less than
