Kiss Me Under the Mistletoe. Fiona Harper

…

       Alex would scoff if he heard me talking this way out loud. He’d call me sentimental and a romantic fool. He hasn’t got time for my impractical mental meanderings, he says. But maybe they’ve done me some good.

       I know that the script for this latest film is marvellous, that we’ve got the best director in the business, and that the cast is top-notch, but for the first time since my agent signed me up for it I’ve got excited about this project. Finally, like everyone else has for months, I feel this summer will be magical.

      

      CHAPTER THREE

      A hefty gust of wind blew up the river and ruffled the tips of the waves. The small dinghy rocked as Ben tied it to an ancient, blackened mooring ring on the stone jetty. He stared at the knot and did an extra half-hitch, just to be sure, then climbed out, walked along the jetty and headed up a narrow, stony path that traversed the steep and wooded hill.

      He whistled as he walked, stopping every now and then just to smell the clean, slightly salty air and listen to the nagging seagulls that swooped over the river. At first glance it seemed as if he was walking through traditional English countryside, but every now and then he would pass a reminder that this wasn’t a wilderness, but a once-loved, slightly exotic garden. Bamboo hid among the oaks, and palms stood shoulder to shoulder with willows and birches.

      After only ten minutes the woods thinned and faded away until he was standing in a grassy clearing that was dominated by a majestic, if slightly crumbling, white Georgian mansion.

      Each time he saw this beautiful building now, he felt a little sadder. Even if he hadn’t known its history, hadn’t known that the last owner had been dead for more than two years, he would have been able to tell Whitehaven was empty. There was something eerily vacant about those tall windows that stared unblinking out over the treetops to the river below and the rolling countryside of the far bank.

      He ambled up to the front porch and tugged at a trail of ivy that had wound itself up the base of one of the thick white pillars. It had been nearly a month since his last visit and the grounds were so huge there was no way he could single-handedly keep the advancing weeds at bay. Too many vines and brambles were sneaking up to the house, reclaiming the land as their own.

      Laura would have hated to see her beloved garden’s gradual surrender. He could imagine her reaction if she could have seen it now—the sharp shake of her snowy-white head, the determined glint in those cloudy eyes. Laura would have flexed her knobbly knuckles and reached for the secateurs in a shot. Not that her arthritic hands could have done much good.

      At eighty-eight, she’d been a feisty old bird, one worthy of such a demanding and magical place as Whitehaven. Perhaps that’s why he came up here on the Sundays when it was his ex-wife’s turn to have Jasmine for the weekend. Perhaps that was why he tended to the lilies and carnivorous plants in the greenhouses and mowed the top and bottom lawns. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shook his head as he crunched across the gravel driveway and made his way round the house and past the old stable block. He was keeping it all in trust on Laura’s behalf until the new owner came. Then he’d be able to spend his Sunday afternoons dozing in front of the rugby on TV and trying not to notice how still the house was without his whirlwind of a daughter.

      He ducked through an arch and entered the walled garden. The whole grassy area was enclosed by a red brick wall dotted with moss, and sloping greenhouses filled one side. It was the time of year that some of the insect-eating plants were starting to hibernate and he needed to check on them, make sure the temperature in the old glasshouses was warm enough.

      And so he pottered away for a good ten minutes, checking pots and inspecting leaves until he heard a crash behind him. He swung round, knocking a couple of tall pitcher plants off the bench.

      The first thing he saw were the eyes—large, dark and stormy.

      ‘Get out! Get off my property at once!’

      She was standing hands on hips and her legs apart, radiating annoyance but managing to look haughty at the same time. But then he noticed that she kept well back and her fingers worried the flaps of her pockets. His hands shot up in surrender and he backed away slightly, just to show he wasn’t a threat.

      ‘Sorry! I didn’t realise … I didn’t know anybody had—’

      ‘You’re trespassing!’

      He nodded. Technically, he was. Only up until a few seconds ago he hadn’t known anybody had cared—save a dead film star who’d loved this place as if it were her only child.

      ‘I made a promise to the previous owner, when she was ill, that I would look after the garden until the house was sold.’

      She just stared at him. Now his heart rate was starting to return to normal, he had time to look a little more closely at her. She was dressed entirely in black: black boots, black trousers and a long black coat. She even had long, almost-black hair with a heavy fringe. But beneath that dark curtain her face was pale, her eyes large. Ben thought he’d seen beautiful women before, but this one was in another league altogether.

      ‘Well, the house has been sold,’ she said as her chin tipped up. ‘To me. So you can clear off now. You won’t be required any longer.’

      He pressed his lips together. There wasn’t much he could say to that. But the thought of leaving Whitehaven and never coming back shadowed him like a rain cloud. Funny, he hadn’t realised that he’d grown so personally attached to the old place or how much he cared about its future. This new woman—striking as she was—didn’t look like the sort to potter around a greenhouse or dead-head flower borders.

      But that really wasn’t his business. He picked up his coat from where it lay on the bench and turned to go. ‘Sorry to disturb you. I won’t come again.’ There was a door at each end of the long narrow greenhouse and he headed for the one at the other end from where she stood, the one that would lead him back into the woods and back down to his boat.

      ‘Wait!’

      He’d almost reached the door before she called out. He stopped, but didn’t turn round straight away. Slowly, and with a spark of matching defiance in his eyes, he circled round to face her.

      She took a few steps forward, then stopped, her hands clasped in front of her. ‘The estate agent told me the place has been empty for a couple of years. Why do you still come?’

      He shrugged. ‘A promise is a promise.’

      Her brows crinkled and she nodded. A long silence stretched between them. He didn’t move, because he had the oddest feeling she was on the verge of saying something. Finally, when she knotted her hands further and looked away, he took his signal to depart.

      This time, he had his hand on the door knob before she spoke.

      ‘Did you really know her? Laura Hastings?’

      He let his hand drop to his side and looked over his shoulder. ‘Yes.’ A flash of irritation shot through him. For some unfathomable reason, he’d not expected this of her. He’d thought her better than one of those busy-bodies who craved gossip about celebrities.

      ‘What was she like?’ Her voice was quiet, not gushing and over-inquisitive, but her question still irritated him.

      He stared at her blankly. ‘I really must be going. I meant what I said. I won’t trespass here again.’

      She followed him as he swung the greenhouse door open and stepped out into the chilly October air. He could hear the heels of her boots clopping on the iron grates in the greenhouse floor. The noise echoed and magnified and he let the door swing shut behind him to muffle it.

      ‘Hey! You’re going the wrong way!’

      No, he wasn’t. And he wasn’t in the mood to chitchat, either.

      She didn’t