in surprise. Why hadn’t he told his parents they were engaged?
‘Welcome, Holly,’ Lord Darcy said as he took her hand in his. ‘A pleasure.’
‘Thank you. I’m pleased to be here. What a lovely home.’
Hugh’s mother extended her hand. ‘Lady Sarah Darcy. Welcome to Cleremont, Miss James.’
‘It’s lovely to meet you, Lady Darcy. Call me Holly, please.’
But Hugh’s mother had already turned away to introduce the ginger-haired young man. ‘This is my youngest son, Harry. Harry, Miss James.’
‘Holly, please,’ Holly said again, with just a tiny trace of pique.
‘Welcome, Holly. It’s a pleasure.’ Harry took her hand in his and leaned forward to peck her cheek. ‘Bit of advice?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Don’t fight mum. She always wins.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ she murmured, and returned his smile.
‘Had you any trouble driving down?’ Hugh’s father enquired when the introductions were complete and they trooped inside. ‘The tourists are out in full force, I regret to say.’ He glanced at Holly. ‘Makes going anywhere round here in summer a nightmare.’
‘Traffic wasn’t bad until we reached Torquay Road,’ Hugh replied. ‘Evidently the circus is setting up in town for a couple of weeks.’ He turned to Holly. ‘The coastline here in South Devon draws a lot of day trippers and tourists, especially this time of year.’
‘It does indeed,’ his father observed as he led the way across a cavernous entrance hall and into a drawing room. ‘They call this area the “English Riviera” for good reason – we have warm weather, beaches; even palm trees. Unfortunately, commercialism has invaded Longbourne, our local seaside village, as well. It’s become nothing but wall-to-wall chip shops and supermarkets. Sun cream and Chupa Chups. Rubbish.’
Holly trailed behind the others, scarcely aware of the conversation or Hugh’s hand resting at the small of her back as she took in her surroundings.
The drawing room was immense, larger than the entire first floor of her parents’ house in Chipping Norton.
And it was stunningly, breathtakingly… gorgeous. Muted sunlight came in through tall mullioned windows and illuminated the rich velvets and faded chintz of the various settees, cushioned club chairs, and tables with clawed feet arranged throughout the room; a pair of King Charles spaniels lay on the rug, sleeping near the hearth. The walls were covered with portraits.
‘That,’ Lady Darcy said, following Holly’s gaze to one of the largest and most striking of the paintings on display, ‘is a van Dyck. It’s a portrait of the first earl.’
Holly nodded. ‘It’s lovely. I’ve only seen photographs of paintings like this. And what a beautiful room,’ she added. ‘How very lucky you all are to live in such a place.’
‘Lucky?’ Lady Sarah’s eyebrow rose skyward as she sat down on the edge of a sofa angled near the fireplace. ‘Believe me, my dear girl, luck has nothing to do with it. It’s a privilege to live here at Cleremont.’
Holly paled. ‘Oh – of course it is. I didn’t mean –’
‘Would you care for refreshment?’ Her ladyship turned to Hugh and patted the cushion next to her. ‘Sit, darling,’ she commanded. ‘You must be famished after that long drive down from London.’ She glanced at Holly. ‘Both of you.’
As Hugh and Holly assented that they could definitely do with something, Harry took a tray of drinks from a servant who appeared at the door and came forward to hand them out.
‘Pimm’s Cup,’ he said in a low voice as he handed a glass, adorned with a slice of lemon and a wedge of cucumber, to Holly. ‘Drink up,’ he added with a wink and a quick glance at his mother. ‘I’ve a feeling you’ll be needing it.’
‘I’m back,’ Lizzy called out as she sailed through the front door of Litchfield Manor, shutting it behind her.
There was no reply.
‘Emma? Charlotte? Is anyone home?’ Still receiving no answer, she paused by the half-moon table in the front hall and picked up the morning’s post, riffling absently through it. Bills and more bills, she noted, including one from Charlotte’s sixth-form college, as well as the latest issues of Town & Country (Emma), the Church Times (Daddy), and the Literary Review (hers).
Lizzy sighed and set the post aside. Of her family – and, more importantly, of lunch – there was no sign. She knew her father at least was home, however, as she’d seen his bicycle propped against the garden shed outside.
She wandered into the kitchen, her favourite room in the house, with its cheery yellow paint and Welsh cupboard crowded with blue-and-white-patterned china, and saw a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses on the counter.
The pitcher was half-empty, and the glasses contained only melting ice and a bit of watery pale-yellow liquid. A jar of maraschino cherries sat next to the pitcher. She fetched a clean glass and some ice, threw in a couple of cherries, and filled it with lemonade.
Glass in hand, she wandered down the hall and out the back door.
She found Emma and her father on the terrace overlooking what passed for a garden, its profusion of wild roses and blackthorn bushes bounded by a low, stone wall. An oak, older than Litchfield Manor itself, shaded one side of the house and part of the terrace from the midday sun.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ Lizzy announced, and dropped into a chair across from them. Unfortunately, her seat bore the full brunt of the sun. She wished she’d thought to grab one of the sunhats hanging on pegs by the back door. Oh, well…
Emma barely looked up from her book. ‘Where’ve you been?’ she enquired, although it was plain from her focus on the page that she didn’t really care.
‘I’ve just come back from Cleremont. Harry invited me over to watch the filming of the last scene of Pride and Prejudice.’
‘The last scene?’ Emma deigned to lift her head and look at her younger sister in surprise. ‘Do you mean to say the film crew are finished already? I thought they were meant to stay on until at least July.’
‘They are. But they filmed the last scene just now. They don’t film things in sequence, you know.’ She said the last bit just a trace smugly, proud of her inside knowledge.
‘Lady Darcy despises production companies. All of them,’ Emma said, and returned to her book. ‘She told me so.’
‘I don’t imagine she despises the money they bring to Cleremont,’ Mr Bennet observed mildly from behind his newspaper.
‘Harry isn’t bothered.’ Lizzy took a sip of lemonade and savoured the tart-sweet taste. ‘He likes watching them film.’
‘He likes flirting with the actresses,’ Emma said, and sniffed.
