‘It’s work experience in my field. Do you know how difficult it is to get a job with just a degree?’
‘I don’t know why you won’t move down to Oxford with me. It’s bristling with opportunities.’
‘Your parents are here,’ she said firmly. She was always firm when it came to her daughter’s well-being. ‘And I’m not removing Fleur from her home.’
‘It’s a two-hour drive. They can see her on weekends.’
‘Who is going to look after her while I’m at work? Think of the practicalities, Meg.’ God knew she had to. If she hadn’t been so busy juggling all the balls life had thrown at her she might have thought through those practicalities with a little more precision at the Hall.
‘Fair enough,’ conceded Meg. ‘But you’ve put a lot of eggs in that house of horrors basket.’
‘Yes, because I have a growing daughter who has her roots in this village—a village with no other job opportunities in my chosen field. I’ve tried Stansfield Castle, Belfort Castle and Lark House. None are interested in someone with lots of education but no on-the-ground experience. Without Edbury Hall, Meg, I’m stuck!’
‘So in the meantime you’re writing letters to a man you’re never going to meet. Should I ask about your love life?’
‘What has my love life got to do with the letters?’
‘I think if you had a boyfriend you wouldn’t have all this extra time to sit around writing letters and sealing envelopes. You’d be like the rest of us and use freaking email.’
‘It wasn’t extra time. It was extra effort. Besides, I do use email. And I’m not looking for a romantic relationship, Meg Parminter.’
‘I don’t know why not. My brother’s been gone six years. You can’t keep hiding away in Mouldering Manor with those oldies, Syb. Seize the day!’
Given her days were quite long, what with her part-time archivist job at the town hall, her volunteer work with the Heritage Trust and sole responsibility for her home-schooled five-year-old daughter, Sybella wasn’t quite sure which part of the day she wasn’t seizing.
Besides, the idea of taking off her clothes in front of a man after six years of not having to endure that specific kind of embarrassment with Simon was not an encouraging one.
‘You know that film you love, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir?’ Meg asked. ‘Do you remember at the end when her daughter comes home all grown up with the fiancé? One day that will be Fleur, feeling guilty because she’s got a life and you haven’t!’
‘I will have a life,’ Sybella shot back, confident at least on this point. ‘I’ll be in the midst of a brilliant career as a curator and very fulfilled in my life’s ambition, thank you very much.’
‘Okay, maybe that analogy doesn’t work in the twenty-first century,’ Meg grudgingly allowed. ‘But are you really going to wait another twenty years before you pull the “take a detour” sign down off your bed?’
Sybella pushed open the heavy wooden door and made her way outside. She blew out a breath and watched it take shape in the air.
Blast, it was cold.
‘It’s not a priority for me, Meg.’
‘Well, it should be!’
Sybella looked around to make sure no one was lurking in the bushes to overhear this.
‘I really don’t want to discuss my sex life, or lack of. I’m just not interested,’ she said firmly. ‘There, I’ve said it. Not. Interested. In. Sex. I am, however, very interested in what I’m going to say to Mr Voronov’s grandson when he prosecutes us!’
Which was when she noticed a pricey-looking off-road vehicle coming up the drive, followed by another and another.
Mr Voronov hadn’t mentioned guests. She was familiar with his schedule, given she came and gave him a hand with a few things he refused to entrust to the personal assistant his grandson had engaged for him.
She told Meg she’d call her tomorrow and stowed her phone, pulled the ski mask down over her chin to repel the cold and headed out across the drive to see what they wanted.
* * *
Nik parked in the courtyard, slammed the door behind him and crunched through the snow to open the boot and retrieve his overnight bag.
He’d never seen England’s little tourist Mecca from this vantage point. Driving in, he thought it looked very much as if he’d stumbled onto the film set of the dramatisation of an Agatha Christie novel. Or maybe it was a recreation of Shakespeare’s youth because if he wasn’t mistaken, as the road had opened out into the town square, there had been a maypole.
Sticking up like a needle without a thread.
Everything else was under a ton of snow and ice.
He glanced up at the looming walls of Edbury Hall, with its multifaceted windows and grey stone. Snow drifts had made clumps of the carefully tended hedges and topiary.
It was a picture postcard of Ye Olde England.
No wonder those crackpots and loonies from Edbury’s branch of the Heritage Trust were bombarding his offices in London every time something got raised or lowered on the property.
He sensed rather than heard movement coming up behind him.
Good. Someone around this place was doing their job.
‘Here.’ He bundled the luggage at the rugged-up figure hovering at his shoulder. Then he slammed the back of the vehicle closed and hit the lock device on his keys.
He turned around to find the help was staggering under its weight. Which didn’t last long because the next thing he knew the guy was lying flat on his back in the snow.
He waited. The man wasn’t getting up. He did, however, stick a gloved hand in the air and wave it around. He also made a noise that sounded like a cat being drowned in a barrel. Nik liked animals; he didn’t much like incompetence in people.
Which was when he noticed the black ski mask under the hood of the guy’s coat and Nik lost his easy stance, because in Russia personal security was often a matter of life and death, and right now instinct was telling him this guy was not one of the people he had authorised to work for his grandfather.
He grabbed the interloper by the scruff of his coat and heaved him to his feet.
Sybella tried to cry out but her voice box was currently lodged somewhere in the snow after the impact of hitting the ground.
She found herself being lifted by the scruff of her neck until she was almost hanging, her parka cutting up under her arms, the toes of her new boots scrambling for purchase.
‘Give me your name and your reason for being out here.’
Her assailant had a deep, growly baritone that corresponded with his size. His rich Russian accent meant he probably had something to do with the
