The Perfect Retreat. Kate Forster

but Poppy was high on the smell of dust and circumstance.

      ‘I love it here. I don’t think we’ll ever leave. I am sure I’ve been here before!’ Poppy rattled on, and Kitty nodded and agreed as she wrestled Poppy into her organic cotton pyjamas.

      Taking them to the ancient bathroom, she watched as Poppy and Lucian cleaned their teeth and then took them back inside to tuck them up in bed. ‘Willow,’ she called down the stairs.

      Willow came up with more cases and walked into the bedroom. ‘Night changelings,’ she said as she bent down to kiss them.

      ‘I’ll go and make us some tea, OK?’ Willow said as she went downstairs again, leaving Kitty humming the children to sleep. Kitty stayed with them until they’d drifted off.

      As she walked down the grand staircase Willow touched the worn balustrade. She wondered what it would be like to own this house, to have all the history that Kitty had. Not that Kitty had ever shown it; she had made a huge effort to downplay her ancestral home, although Willow didn’t remember ever asking Kitty anything personal since her employment.

      As she crossed the landing and continued down towards the entrance she looked down and was shocked to find a man standing in the entrance. ‘Who are you?’ she asked imperiously, taking on the tone of the lady of the house.

      ‘I might ask you the same thing. What the fuck are you doing in my house?’

      CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘It’s a plant sample,’ explained Merritt to the customs official at Heathrow.

      ‘Right. Got a certificate for it then?’ asked the man, shaking the bag. It had a small cutting inside it wrapped in cotton soaked in water and Rescue Remedy.

      ‘Please be careful,’ said Merritt.

      ‘Sure, sure,’ said the official absently as he glanced at the certificate that Merritt handed over. ‘Effilum oxypetalsum,’ he read carefully.

      ‘Epiphyllum oxypetalum,’ corrected Merritt, trying not to let the disdain creep into his voice.

      The man picked up the bag again. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, shaking it vigorously.

      ‘It’s a type of cactus,’ said Merritt, careful not to upset the officious man, who smelt of Vicks and cigarettes. He was tired and wanted to get out of the loud airport and have a shower and drink.

      ‘I hate cactus plants. When the wife and I bought our house there were so many, and we had them all pulled out,’ he said as he stamped Merritt’s certificate for approval.

      Merritt grabbed the paper from the man, put his plant into his worn leather satchel and walked through to collect his luggage. He had hunted for this sample, a night-blooming Cereus known as ‘Queen of the Night’. It bloomed only one or two nights a year, around the full moon in May. The blooms only lasted for twelve hours or so and then it would take a full year for it to bloom again. He wasn’t about to have some tit at Heathrow who was high on the power of his job ruin his dreams of having one back at Middlemist again.

      Since he had said goodbye to Kitty three years ago at the elaborate gates outside Middlemist, he had travelled constantly, designing gardens for a sheikh in Jordan, a sneaker entrepreneur in the Hamptons, and a luxury hotel chain in Bali, India and Mexico, which is where he picked up his precious plant sample. In between this he had written three books and filmed a television special for PBS in America.

      Then one day, he woke up and wanted to go home. He was exhausted. Whatever he was looking for eluded him, and the thing he was trying to escape from had followed him from place to place. Middlemist had been calling him. The gardens cried for him, and he finally listened.

      Returning home, he planned to head straight to Middlemist and then call Kitty. He had thought about her a lot over the past three years. She worried him, but he was not equipped to help her with what she needed. While he was still at home it had been painful to watch her struggle at school, with their father so proud of him but ignoring his daughter.

      His marriage and fast divorce from Eliza had rocked his father’s world, although he had no idea why it had been so shattering to Edward. In hindsight, he saw that he and Eliza had never been a good match. He was swept away by her vivacity and ability to make small talk, both skills he severely lacked. But Eliza, it emerged, was actually a shameless social climber who wanted to be the lady of the house. She had assumed that Merritt’s family had more money than they actually showed off.

      The separation from Eliza was swift, partly because he found out she had gone through not only the estate’s private accounts but his personal accounts too, but mainly after he had found her astride his best friend from school, Johnny Wimple-Jones, a gadabout and heir to an enormous property and large trust fund.

      He had left Eliza and Johnny to each other, facing the disappointment of his father and the gossip of his friends. Such was his pride and shame, Merritt had refused to divulge what had happened in the marriage; not even to his father. It was only Kitty who he had told what had happened after he came back for the funeral. He still remembered her coming into his room in the middle of the night. She had sat on the end of his bed, held his hand and listened as he told her what he had discovered about Eliza. He wasn’t sure why he spilled his heart, but she was so unprejudiced about his and Eliza’s relationship that he felt himself able to tell her everything.

      Kitty had said nothing. She had made soothing noises, which is what she reverted to when she didn’t know what to say. Her own memories rendered her silent. She was afraid that should she speak, Merritt might find more out about Johnny than he would care to know, and she would make things worse for him.

      The ten-year caveat on Middlemist had always seemed tiresome. Merritt could have done with the money, as he was sure Kitty could have, but now he understood why Edward had created this stipulation in his will. Grief makes people commit impulsive deeds. Deeds like his – heading off around the world in search of something he still hadn’t found.

      Three years later he could see that Middlemist House was bewitching, but while the Middlemist family name came with great history and once with great wealth, all of that had gone over the years. Now all he and Kitty had were the house and what they earned from their jobs.

      Even though the house seemed stuck in time, and the gardens were probably overrun and perhaps even beyond repair, he figured he at least had to try to do what he could. If it proved too much then he would sell at the end of the ten years.

      The only preparation he had made for his arrival was to have the power switched on again at Middlemist.

      When he arrived at the house he was alarmed to find the gates wide open, and as he drove up the driveway in his rental car he was even more concerned to see a large black Range Rover parked on the gravel.

      He got out of his car and peered through the windows of the Range Rover with his penlight torch. He could make out a packet of nappies, a doll and some bags of food. Perhaps Kitty had rented the house out without his knowledge, he thought crossly, striding towards the front doors.

      As he stepped through the entrance he saw a very slender, beautiful blonde woman coming down the stairs, looking around in wonder. Maybe she was a squatter, on drugs, he thought. Then he wondered how many squatters drove top-of-the-line Range Rovers.

      It was only after she rudely asked who he was that he felt his hackles rise. His retaliation alarmed her enough that she ran back up the stairs, calling out his sister’s name.

      Kitty came to stand at the top of the stairs. ‘Merritt!’ she cried, and ran down to him where he caught her in a warm embrace.

      Willow stood and watched the family reunion with interest. So, here’s the long-lost, astronomy-expert, green-fingered brother, she thought. Hopefully he won’t ruin my plans. She needed to stay at Middlemist for as long as she could, or at least until she could work out what she was going to do next.

      The older brother was handsome. And so tall,