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  ‘That may be so,’ David responded, ‘but the sooner Rosalind understands that I’m entitled to a life of my own, the better it’ll be for everyone.’

  ‘Of course it will, she just needs time to get used to things.’

  ‘I understand that, but I’m afraid I don’t appreciate how rigidly she’s set herself against you when she’s never even met you. It’s not as though anything’s going to change in my relationship with her. I shall continue to be as good and attentive a father as I hope I’ve always been, and … Well, I’m sure, or I shall remain hopeful, that once she realises you’re not going to do anything to try and disrupt that, she’ll come to accept you as warmly as she should.’

  Lisa was definitely not holding her breath for that, any more than she had for Rosalind to accept her father’s invitation a couple of weeks ago for her to join the select party to celebrate his engagement. In fact, Lisa would have been perfectly happy to wait at least another year before going public with their relationship, but David was having none of it. He might still be in the prime of his life, but time wasn’t exactly on his side. Moreover, he wasn’t prepared to go on playing ignominious ducking and diving games with the press, trying to keep Lisa a secret when he couldn’t have felt prouder to have her in his life. He loved her, wanted to be married to her, and though he understood Rosalind’s feelings and was deeply sorry to be hurting them, he simply wasn’t prepared to wait.

  So, for the time being at least Lisa was in no doubt that the conflict between Rosalind’s loyalty to her mother and her fierce attachment to her father was going to be something of a feature in their lives. And boy, was she seeing signs of the attachment being fierce. The woman hardly did a thing without consulting her father first, then reporting back to him after, and as time went on Lisa was starting to wonder if David might actually be a more significant part of his daughter’s life than her own husband.

  ‘I know,’ Roxy said, linking arms with both Lisa and her mother as they wandered back towards the entrance hall, ‘why don’t we take one more look around? It’s so fantastic, I don’t want to leave yet.’

  Lisa glanced at Amy, who shrugged as if to say why not.

  ‘OK,’ Lisa said, happy to stay as long as they liked, ‘why don’t you show me which rooms you’ve chosen for yourselves, so I can be sure not to allocate them to anyone else.’

  Roxy’s laugh was infectious, and as they stepped around the builder’s debris to start climbing the stairs, she said, ‘I was thinking, Lis, that the pool would be a great place for parties. You know, a bit of skinny-dipping after a few vodka shots … Group sex. You probably wouldn’t even hear us, you’re so far away up there in the bedrooms.’

  Lisa laughed as Amy rolled her eyes.

  ‘Why doesn’t anything ever shock you?’ Roxy complained, giving her mother a push.

  ‘Because we’ve already been there and done it,’ Amy informed her. ‘Now, I’m on the lookout for a space that I can use as a studio, because I think it’s high time I released my inner artist …’

  ‘Ugh, no, please don’t,’ Lisa shuddered. ‘I’ve seen the kind of stuff you come up with, and you’re already starting to scare me with all this talk of moving in.’

  Amy twinkled. ‘Don’t rule it out,’ she advised, ‘because I’m sure Theo would be every bit as happy to live here as he is at our house. And just think of how lonely you could be with David away in London most of the week – and if you go with him, well, someone should be here to take care of the place, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Giving it some mock consideration, Lisa said, ‘Well, I’m not sure what David will have to say about it …’

  ‘Are you kidding, he’ll jump at the idea,’ Roxy assured her. ‘You know how mad he is about us. In fact, if you’d turned him down, I reckon he’d have married us, don’t you, Mum?’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ Amy agreed.

  ‘And Dad wouldn’t mind, because he’d be glad to get rid of us.’

  Amy’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Speak for yourself,’ she retorted. ‘It’s you who drives him nuts with all your backchat and boyfriend issues.’

  ‘Which reminds me,’ Lisa cut in, ‘are you still seeing Alistair?’ By now they were on their way into the master bedroom, where a carpenter was at work fitting out the walk-in closets.

  ‘Oh puhlease,’ Roxy grimaced, popping a finger into her mouth to suggest something gross. Then, pushing open the bathroom door to give the limestone emporium another drooling inspection, ‘I’m back with Rory now, do you remember him? The one with the Orlando Bloom eyes and David Beckham physique.’

  Amy looked at her askance. ‘You wish,’ she muttered.

  Roxy produced a long-suffering sigh. ‘I can see it, even if you can’t,’ she informed her. ‘Now, listen up, please, in five minutes’ time I think we should go and take a look at my room again.’

  Lisa was puzzled. ‘Why five minutes?’

  Roxy looked at her in amazement. ‘Duh! Because that’s how long it takes to do a lap of this room.’

  Flipping her as she laughed, Lisa strolled across to the windows where she stood gazing down at the lake for a while, thinking about David and how happy they were going to be here. It really was a dream coming true, and though she was concerned about Rosalind, and surprised in some ways by how changed David was from the man she used to know, she was finding the joy of getting to know him again every bit as thrilling and romantic as she had the first time around.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ Amy was saying, as she examined the alabaster pillars that would soon form the posts of a super-king bed, ‘the way a room this big can still manage to seem cosy, and there’s not even any furniture in it yet.’

  Lisa’s eyes glimmered softly. ‘I love this room,’ she murmured, looking up at the high, corniced ceilings as she kicked off a shoe to sweep a foot over the silky pile of the carpet. When she was alone at night, which wasn’t often these days, she’d often picture herself and David here, just the two of them, either reading, or watching TV, or making love with all the passion and tenderness they’d known before, and with the expertise and knowledge of their own bodies they’d gleaned over the years. Could it really be happening? Were Lisa Martin and David Kirby actually going to be married in less than two months?

  ‘Yes, yes and yes again,’ he’d murmur whenever she asked him, and she’d laugh as he scooped her up in his arms, swinging her round like the young slip of a thing she’d been when she first knew him. If anyone had told her then that she’d be close to forty before they were finally together she’d never have believed it, she might even have done away with herself right there and then. Forty! How could she be that old when she still felt so young?

  ‘That’s how it goes,’ her mother told her. ‘Look at me, I’m almost seventy but in my head I’m still thirty. Well, maybe thirty-five. Anyway, the important thing is, you’re still young enough to have children …’

  ‘No, no, don’t go there,’ Lisa protested. ‘I’m definitely too old for that, and anyway, we know it’s pretty certain I can’t have them.’

  ‘You’ve never been tested.’

  ‘But Tony and I hardly ever used anything.’

  ‘So the problem could be his.’

  It wasn’t, because two years into their relationship he’d had a one-night stand with an old girlfriend and managed to get her pregnant. That was when Lisa should have walked away and never gone back, but she’d been so besotted with him that once the trauma of it was over and the pregnancy had been terminated she’d stupidly, blindly, ended up forgiving him.

  ‘Hello!’ Roxy sang, waving a hand in front of Lisa’s face. ‘Earth to Lisa, Earth to Lisa, time to go and look at my room now,’ and grasping her aunt’s hand she dragged her back out to the landing and over to the east wing. Here two more bedrooms and bathrooms opened off a builder-cluttered corridor, which was colourfully lit from one end by a towering stained-glass window.

  As they entered the room Roxy had chosen and Roxy started to gush over the
sunken lounge and letterbox fireplace, Amy drifted on over to the windows, rubbing a circle into the steamy pane, so she could look down over the front drive. Spotting a car at the gates, she watched it for a while, expecting it to come in. When it didn’t she said, ‘Someone’s outside. Is the bell connected yet?’

  Looking round, Lisa said, ‘I don’t expect so,’ and going to join her she peered through the makeshift porthole to check what, or who, was out there. ‘I can’t see anyone,’ she said. ‘Where are you looking?’

  ‘They’ve gone again now,’ Amy answered, ‘but it was a black car.’

  Lisa almost laughed. ‘Well that narrows it down,’ she said, taking out her iPhone as it bleeped with a text.

  ‘It’s back,’ Amy said, peering out again. ‘Oh, hang on, looks like they’re turning round.’

  ‘Maybe they’re lost,’ Roxy suggested.

  ‘But this is a private road,’ Amy reminded her. ‘No one’s supposed to drive down unless they’re visiting someone who lives here. It’s what all the CCTV cameras are about, to keep out the undesirables.’

  ‘Actually, I think I know who it was,’ Lisa said quietly.

  Roxy and Amy turned round and saw, to their surprise, that her face had paled.

  ‘Read this,’ Lisa said, and passing the iPhone to Amy she watched her sister’s expression change as she too registered the text.

  When Amy looked up again she and Lisa didn’t have to communicate with words. Such a message could only have come from one person.

  Rosalind Sewell was a petite, pretty woman with the kind of inky black curls and stunning blue eyes that not only portrayed her Irish ancestry beautifully, but had always made her father’s heart sing with pride. Her complexion, just like her mother’s and grandmother’s, was as pale as a winter sky, while her lips were as red as the roses that grew around her rambling nineteenth-century mill house.

  Right now she was standing at the window of the cluttered and homely farmhouse kitchen watching her nine-year-old son, Lawrence, climbing through the drizzling rain up to the tree house that his father, and hers, had constructed for him a little over a year ago. No one had been entirely sure whether or not Lawrence had wanted one, but it had seemed like a good idea, and since it had been there he’d gone to it most days – even in the depths of winter, when there were no birds or squirrels to keep him company, or leaves to protect him like a nest and help fend off the wind.

  While there he often just sat, sometimes rocking, or humming, or, when the martins and sparrows were around, holding out his fingers for them to come and perch. They never did, but nor did he ever seem to give up hope that they might. Occasionally he’d invite a friend to join him, but he didn’t have many friends, and all too often when Rosalind called around to try and find him some company the local children had other things to do.

  He’d been diagnosed with Asperger’s several years ago now, so she’d had time to try and get used to it, and to prepare herself for how their lives were going to be as he grew up. Intelligent and handsome though he might be, a real head-turner whenever she took him into town, with his unruly mop of dark curls and brilliant blue eyes – exactly like hers – he was never going to acquire the same social skills as other boys. This wasn’t to say he didn’t engage with those around him, because he did, from time to time, he even seemed to enjoy having company occasionally, in so far as she could tell if he really enjoyed anything.

  He didn’t get bullied as much these days. The teachers kept a close eye on him, and she was always there at three thirty on the dot to take him home, in spite of them living less than half a mile away from the school. Once he’d been beaten up quite badly in the lane that ran from their house down to the village, so she wasn’t prepared to let him do the walk alone again.

  Why were children so cruel? Why couldn’t they understand that being different didn’t mean someone had no feelings? Wouldn’t it make more sense to behave protectively towards a child who was injured, even if they couldn’t see the injuries? It didn’t work like that though, as she knew only too well, and how many times had she asked herself these questions? As many times as she’d asked God why this had to happen to her little boy. There were no answers, only tears, and misunderstandings, and Lawrence, always seeming so alone and gentle in his confusion, at least to her. To others she knew he often appeared aggressive or withdrawn, or just plain weird because of the faces he pulled or odd things he said.

  Spotting him hovering at the window of the tree house, she gave him a wave. It pleased her a lot when he waved back, even though there was no smile, just a small movement of his hand that anyone else might not have noticed. Knowing better than to expect any more she turned away, and was just trying to remember what she’d decided on for tea when her mobile bleeped with a text.

  Her heart immediately jarred with unease. She wasn’t really expecting Lisa Martin to respond to the message she’d sent – the question she’d posed was rhetorical, so didn’t require a reply. Would you be so quick to jump into my mother’s grave? But maybe Ms Martin felt she had something to say.

  The text turned out to be from her solicitor confirming an appointment for the following day, and she wasn’t sure if she was angry, or relieved. Probably both, and so much more besides.

  Putting her hands to her head she massaged the ache in her temples, and tried to block out the images of that enormous house on the hill where her father was going to live with the woman his devoted wife of thirty years had so feared. Such a flagrant betrayal of her mother, such a callous dismissal of his own, and her, devastating bereavement, was haunting her night and day. It was so unlike him to be cruel that she could hardly make herself believe it was happening. He’d always been kind and open and honest, someone she trusted with all her heart and knew she could depend on no matter what. And this wasn’t the only contradiction she’d detected in him lately, because for the last year, perhaps even longer, there had been occasions when he’d seemed almost furtive, even duplicitous, and distracted in a way that had sometimes driven her insane. However, she supposed she hadn’t really been herself either. How could they carry on normally when they were struggling with the fear of losing the person they loved most in the world? This was what she’d always believed to be the reason for her father’s uncharacteristic behaviour, but since he’d told her about Lisa Martin she’d been bitterly tormented by the same suspicion that had plagued her mother’s final days, that he was having an affair with the girl he’d almost ended his marriage for twenty years ago.

  Rosalind knew that if she turned out to be right about that, then as deeply as she’d always loved her father, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to forgive him. Nor would she ever, ever be able to accept Lisa Martin into their lives.

  Dropping her head in her hands, she took a deep shuddering breath. She hadn’t really expected her text to achieve anything, but during the moments she’d composed and sent it it had made her feel better. Now, though, she felt as though her entire world was falling apart.

  Chapter Two

  DAVID KIRBY WAS striding through the underground walkway between Westminster Palace and Portcullis House, looking as pleased with himself as any man might who was soon to be married. The fact that there were a few other stories going on behind the face he was showing to the world was none of the world’s business – indeed he wasn’t much inclined to think about them himself at the moment, because so far today was turning out to be a good one.

  Following dutifully in his wake as they rode the escalator into Portcullis House were his handsome and fiercely ambitious head of staff, Miles Farraday, and two very able-bodied but slightly less dazzling researchers. For his own part, David rarely considered his looks, which were actually, with his shock of grey hair, intense dark eyes and excellent six-foot physique, nothing less than striking.

  He was returning to his office from the chamber where he’d spent the past half an hour sitting on the back benches listening to Prime Minister’s Questions. Not a particularly edif
ying experience, considering how badly the PM had performed – David wasn’t someone to enjoy watching another man squirm – and in truth, there weren’t many who could have done better while under such pressure to resign.

  David hadn’t tabled any questions himself; instead he’d left the ferocious attack on the Cabinet’s handling of a security breach to the Leader of the Opposition, who’d practically licked his lips before getting stuck in. However, maintaining a discreet silence hadn’t stopped the BBC coverage switching to him more than once. Their interest in him was undoubtedly due to recent rumours that he was to be reinstated as Foreign Minister at the next reshuffle, this being the position he’d held before standing down to spend more time with his ailing wife. Since he and the Foreign Secretary were known to be close friends, the odds on him succeeding were very much in his favour. However, it was widely believed that the present incumbent, for whom few but the PM had a particularly high regard, was unlikely to go without a fight.

  David had realised long ago that politics at every level wasn’t just an endless round of dirty business, it was pure Hobbesian theatre with more skulduggery and Machiavellian connivings lurking the corridors of power than headless ghosts. From the start he’d thrived on it, throwing himself into the Westminster machine as lustily and ambitiously as any man would with an eye on high office. His first ministerial post had come quickly, and two others had followed before he’d been appointed Foreign Minister. It was then that he and Colin Larch, the Secretary of State, had struck up their friendship, and he, himself, had gained a reputation for what became known as Kirby’s Whisky Evenings – rowdy cross-party gatherings that he generally hosted at his spacious Pimlico apartment. These get-togethers used to be one of the hottest tickets in town, and now that a respectful time had passed since the loss of his wife, several colleagues, and journalists, had made it known how eager they were for him to reinstate them. He didn’t have any plans to do this, life had moved on since then, and things, he, had changed during the time he’d restricted himself to playing no greater a role than that of a local MP.