That voice of his. Smooth, rich and decadent. Like treacle tart with clotted cream.Sogood,yetsobadif you indulged too much. Louisa was sure this man could make reading chess moves sound like some kind of midnight intimacy... But correspondence? That sounded official andnotlike an estate agent. All things official she left in the hands of her solicitor. Any mail redirected there. Although the man had talked of retiring and sometimes did seem increasingly overwhelmed in his small, overstuffed office in the village.
Though...this man spoke almost as if he knew her. How could that be? In recent years whilst caring for Mae she’d not ventured much further than the local village and if he’d lived there, she would have remembered him. He wasn’t the sort of person you’d ever forget. Sure, everyone in the local area knew her. In the early days of her arrival, she’d been‘Poor Louisa Cameron...’ ‘Lost her parents...’ ‘Too young to be living with an old lady...’She’d heard it all. Once, those whispers had chattered in her head. Especially when she’d believed that someone would come to take her away from the only home she’d felt safe in for years.
‘Everything goes to my solicitor. He must be busy.’
Even though the man was soft focus at the bottom of the stairs, she saw his brows rise on his high forehead. ‘What you call busy, I’d call incompetent. You weren’t at the reading of the will.’
Mae had told Louisa she’d be looked after.‘You will always have a home.’Her solicitor had confirmed that Easton Hall was her place to live, for ever. Why would she need to go to the reading of a will with all her relatives? If she never saw another Bainbridge again, it would be a happy day. They didn’t deal with life when it became real and messy. Elegantly brushing said messiness under vast antique Axminster carpets so it wouldn’t tarnish the family’s pristine name.
All they cared about was their money, their reputation and keeping up appearances. The ones who had come to visit Mae nearer the end had tried to ingratiate themselves. Get her to leave here for a care facility,‘for her own good’. But it was never about what was good for Mae. Only themselves. Each of them wanted a piece of the Bainbridge estate, Mae being holder of the most coveted prize, Easton Hall and its surrounds. She’d cackle when they left.‘Watch the silver as they walk out the door!’How sad that she hadn’t been far wrong. Mrs Fancutt had reported finding one of them poking about the teaspoons in the good cutlery service after one visit...
‘There was no need for me to go. I know everything I need to.’
‘Do you?’
In those final days of Mae’s life, she’d promised Louisa she didn’t have to worry. So Louisa believed her because Mae had always kept her promises. Of course, if this man had been at the reading of the will, that meant he might be a lawyer too. In his dark suit, he had an official kind of demeanour. Except...there was something more. Standing near the bottom of the stairs with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets in a casual yet authoritative way, it was as if he wereentitled.
Bainbridges were the most entitled of the lot with their wealth, and good name paid for through cynical attempts at philanthropy to gain kudos, not putting their money where it mattered most. Yet he didn’t look like anyone from that family with his dark hair and warm brown skin. Bainbridges tended to an almost vampiric type of pale. She supposed she was of Bainbridge stock too, though she didn’t look much like the rest of them with her colouring, taking after her father. Something she’d come to be thankful for, even though her luminescent mother had bemoaned her red hair, green eyes, and freckles if she spent too much time in the sun.
‘We need to talk, Louisa.’
That decadent voice of his drew her out of her introspection. Which was a good thing because introspection was a bad place for her to be even on her best days. He’d begun moving again, slowly this time. One step. Pause. Two steps. Pause. Though she couldn’t describe any of the moves as hesitant. Each pause more like a silent demand for permission to move further, from a man she doubted sought permission from anybody, to do anything.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I thought it was self-evident. Coming closer, since I’d rather have a discussion where I don’t have to raise my voice or, even better, need to communicate with two paper cups and string.’
Paper cups and string... What an odd thing to say. Yet a memory came drifting back of a magical summer as a six-year-old, staying with Mae here as she often had when her dad was sick. A common occurrence as the motor neurone disease began to take its awful toll. She remembered exploring Easton Hall. Running wild through the rambling gardens chasing butterflies.
There was a boy who’d come to stay too. He’d seemed so much older and wiser, at twelve. A cousin, Mae had told her when they’d first met. Though her mother had later said he wasn’t arealBainbridge because he’d been adopted, as if that were some kind of disqualification. And they’d played, trying to make a string telephone, which had worked in the end, to their surprise.
‘I’ve had so many adventures,’Mae had told them.‘Make your own and make them stupendous.’
It had been the last moment of happiness before a whole mountain of misery for Louisa. But she’d created special memories during that time. More importantly, stories of those stupendous adventures had been what she’d recounted to Mae in her last months. Those adventures had made Mae laugh. Maybe Louisa had taken some creative licence, but so much of her past was a blur of sadness and sickness and pain, what did it matter that she exaggerated? Trying to hold on to those few snatches of brightness as tightly as she could.
It seemed as though the sun had always shone in that summer of innocence and joy. There wasn’t a day that hadn’t been perfect.
The man was halfway up the stairs now, and somehow the squirming sensation in her belly didn’t feel like the beginnings of dread, but something far more...anticipatory. Almost like excitement. Though it was remiss he hadn’t told her who he was, when he clearly knew her name. As he climbed with his long, powerful legs he became clearer and sharper. As if she were inking in the details of an illustration she’d been commissioned to complete. His suit in a dark charcoal grey, pristine white shirt gleaming in the sunshine like the snowdrops in that old churchyard. As he came closer the niggle of recognition didn’t pass. It grew and grew.
Then he arrived at the top of the stairs and that recognition hit her with a wallop. Because that tanned-skinned, dark-haired little boy who she’d thought completely unlike his insipid Bainbridge namesakes, with all his vibrancy and life, was standing right in front of her. All grown up, filled out and angular with broad shoulders, narrow hips and cut cheekbones. His brown eyes she’d once thought of as warm and hinting at constant mischief as a child, now remote and cool. Like the flat stones they’d gathered in the stream running through the estate to skip in quieter waters. He’d taught her how to do that and she’d squealed when her stone had skipped twice.
He’d been less impressed. His had skipped six times. Sometimes more.
Heregardedher then, seeming to glower in the same ominous way as the slate-coloured sky behind him. A storm threatening. Louisa’s breath hitched. She smoothed her hands down the front of her crushed dress. Feeling too soft and unkempt for him as he stood there sharp as a blade. Not a dark hair on his head out of place. The neat stubble on his strong jaw clearly by design, rather than a neglect to shave.
She’d bet he neglected nothing.
‘Matty.’
Not his given name of Matteo. He’d been Matty to her. The adopted Bainbridge who’d apparently conquered the world and made his fortune independent of his family. Almost to spite a name that tended to open every door. Yet what on earth was he doing here? He’d not visited Mae in that last year of her illness, or at all in the time Louisa had lived at Easton Hall. Though her great-aunt would mention him and his successes. She had tended to keep some things close, to be tossed out occasionally like little treats of sweets...
‘Louisa.’
The way he said her name was soft and smooth, almost like a caress. Though he’d called her Lulu when they were children. Her father’s nickname for her. One her mother had loathed because it apparently sounded undignified.
She’d never understood why a child’s name needed to be dignified.
‘H-how are your parents?’
