of yellow had always delighted Audrey.
Bramble Cottage was a perfect hideaway as it was on a long country lane lined with hedgerows and lots of overarching trees, creating a leafy tunnel. The lane had a rickety bridge over a trickling stream that occasionally swelled enough with rainwater to be considered a river.
When she came down to the cottage with her mother as a child, Audrey had been fascinated by the trees along the lane because they looked as if they were reaching down to hug her. Going through that shady green tunnel had been like driving into another world, a magical world where it was just her and her mother. A safe world. A world where there were no strange men coming and going from her mother’s bedroom.
No press lurking about for candid shots of Sibella’s painfully shy daughter.
Audrey couldn’t see any sign of activity at the cottage when she got out of her car but she knew her mother and Harlan would have covered their tracks well. On closer inspection, however, she realised the cottage looked a little neglected. She’d thought there was a caretaker who kept an eye on things. There were often months and months or even a couple of years between her mother’s fleeting visits. The garden was overgrown but in a way that was part of the charm of the place. Audrey loved how the plants spilled over the garden beds, their blooms filling the air with the fresh and hopeful fragrance of spring.
Audrey left her car parked in the shade of the biggest oak tree a short distance away so as to keep her car from being seen if any paparazzi happened to do a drive-by. She did a mental high-five when she saw the marks of recent tyre tracks on the pebbled area in front of the cottage. She bent down so she could inspect the tracks a little more closely. A car had come in and gone out again, which meant her mother and Harlan hopefully weren’t far away. Probably picking up supplies or something. ‘Or something’ being copious amounts of alcohol most likely.
She straightened and glanced up at the suddenly darkening sky. That was another thing she loved about this place—watching a spring storm from the cosy shelter of the cottage. The spare key was under the left-hand plant pot but Audrey gave the door a quick knock just in case either her mother or Harlan was still inside. When there was no answer, she unlocked the door just as the rain started to pelt down as if someone had turned on a tap.
She closed the door and looked around the cottage but it didn’t look as though anyone had been there in months. Disappointment sat on her chest like an overstuffed sofa. She’d been so certain she would find them here. Had she misread her mother’s note?
She glanced at the cobwebs hanging from a lampshade and suppressed an icy shiver. There was a fine layer of dust over the furniture and the air inside the cottage had a musty, unaired smell. So much for the caretaker, then. But Audrey figured this would be a good test of the hideously expensive therapy she’d undergone to rid herself of her spider phobia. She pulled back the curtains to let more light in but the storm clouds had gathered to such an extent the world outside had a yellowish, greenish tinge that intensified with each flash of lightning. She turned on the sitting room light and it cast a homey glow over the deep, cushiony sofas and the wing chair positioned in front of the fireplace.
Audrey was battling with an acute sense of dismay that her mission to track down her mother and Harlan had come to a dead end and a sense of sheer unmitigated joy she had the cottage to herself during a storm. She figured she might as well stay for an hour or two to set the place in order, maybe even stay the night while she thought up a Plan B.
She reassured herself with the possibility that her mother and Harlan would return at any minute. After all, someone had been here—she’d seen the tyre marks. All she had to do was wait until they got back and sit them down and talk them out of this ridiculous third marriage.
Audrey glanced at the fireplace. Was it cold enough to light a fire? There was kindling and wood in the basket next to the fireplace, and before she could talk herself out of it she got to work setting a fire in the grate. It would come in handy if the power was to go off, which was not uncommon during a storm.
As if by her just thinking of a power cut, the light above her head flickered and a flash of lightning rent the sky outside. A sonic boom of thunder sounded, and it made even an avid storm-lover such as she jump. The light flickered again and then went out. It left the room in a low, ghostly sort of light that reminded her of the setting of a fright flick she’d watched recently. A shiver scuttled over her flesh like a legion of little furry feet.
It’s just a storm. You love storms.
For once the self-talk wasn’t helping. There was something about this storm that felt different. It was more intense, more ferocious.
Between the sound of the rain lashing against the windows and the crash of thunder, she heard another sound—car tyres spinning over the pebbled driveway.
Yes!
Her hunch had been spot-on. Her mother and Harlan were returning. Audrey jumped up to peep out of the window and her heart gave a carthorse kick against her breastbone.
No. No. No.
Not Lucien Fox. Why was he here?
She hid behind part of the curtain to watch him approach the front door, her breathing as laboured as the pair of antique bellows next to the fireplace. The rain was pelting down on his dark head but he seemed oblivious. Would he see her car parked under the oak tree?
She heard Lucien’s firm knock on the door. Why hadn’t she thought to lock it when she came into the cottage? The door opened and then closed.
Should she come out or hide here behind the curtain, hoping he wouldn’t stay long enough to find her? The Will I or won’t I? was like a seesaw inside her head.
He came into the sitting room and Audrey’s heart kept time with the tread of his feet on the creaky floorboards.
Step-creak-boom-step-creak-boom-step-creak-boom.
‘Harlan?’ Lucien’s deep baritone never failed to make her spine tingle. ‘Sibella?’
Audrey knew it was too late to step out from her hiding place. She could only hope he would leave before he discovered her. How long was he going to take? Surely he could see no one had been here for months... Yikes. She forgot she had been laying a fire. Her breathing rate accelerated, her pulse pounding as loud as the thunder booming outside. She’d been about to strike the match when the power had gone off and it was now lying along with the box it came from on the floor in front of the fireplace.
Would he see it?
Another floorboard creaked and Audrey held her breath. But then her nose began to twitch from the dust clinging to the curtain. There was one thing she did not have and that was a ladylike sneeze. Her sneezes registered on the Richter scale. Her sneezes could trigger an earthquake in Ecuador. Her sneezes had been known to cause savage guard dogs to yelp and small babies to scream. She could feel it building, building, building... She pressed a finger under her nose as hard as she possibly could, her whole body trembling with the effort to keep the sinus explosion from happening.
A huge lightning flash suddenly zigzagged across the sky and an ear-splitting boom of thunder followed, making Audrey momentarily forget about controlling her sneeze. She clutched the curtain in shock, wondering if she’d been struck by lightning. Would she be found as a little pile of smoking ashes behind this curtain? But clutching the curtain brought the dusty fabric even closer to her nostrils and the urge to sneeze became unbearable.
‘Ah...
