Secrets at Meadowbrook Manor. Faith Bleasdale

the case of the pigs, giving them some food.

      Gemma wasn’t much of a country girl – in fact, she wasn’t a country girl at all, so she was finding it quite intimidating. Even Cookie, Clover and Brian, the miniature ponies who were sweet and tiny, managed to scare her a bit.

      ‘See over there …’ Freddie pointed to the next field, where there were two cows, both with impressive horns, although one was much bigger than the other. They looked pretty aggressive. Freddie was standing very close to her, and Gemma could feel the heat radiating from him. Amy approached and wedged herself to Freddie’s other side. Gemma nodded.

      ‘That is David. You see, we had two gay cows.’

      ‘Gay cows?’ Just as Meadowbrook couldn’t seem any more eccentric.

      ‘Well bulls technically, as they’re boys. David, who you see there, and Elton.’

      ‘Elton and David?’ Gemma wondered if she were dreaming.

      ‘Yes, they weren’t the friendliest to others, but they adored each other. Sadly, Elton died.’

      ‘Oh no!’ She felt sorry for David suddenly.

      ‘Funny story, actually. Well not Elton dying, that was awful – we all cried that day – but I run the social media and I tweeted it and everyone thought that I meant Elton John had died, so it sort of went viral. Then I had to explain quickly that it was Elton, the gay cow, but it had already made a newspaper, and I got in a fair bit of trouble with Harriet, but it did get us a lot more Twitter followers, so it’s not all bad.’

      ‘So who’s the cow, or bull with him now?’

      ‘She’s a cow, and after Elton died, David was pining badly, so Connor thought he would try to find him a companion. Well this poor cow who had been treated quite badly came up, and so Connor somehow got them together and they seemed to get on. Between you and me, I think she’s a bit of a fag hag. She’s called Madonna.’

      ‘Of course she is.’ Gemma couldn’t help but laugh. This might be the maddest place she had ever been, but it was also the most entertaining. She realised how little she laughed in life, and with Freddie she felt like laughing a lot. This was a positive, and she was going to hold on tight.

       Chapter 5

      Gemma groaned when she opened her eyes. Her head felt fuzzy and heavy, not a sensation she was used to. In order to impress Freddie, she had made an effort last night to enjoy his cocktails, which he’d mixed for her and Pippa in the drawing room, and it hadn’t taken much to get her drunk. Oh God, she was mortified.

      She’d embarrassingly had to go to bed just as Freddie was getting into his (Martini) stride. She vaguely remembered Freddie making a cutting comment to Pippa about why on earth she had to hire such a lightweight. Oh God, she rubbed her temples. Pippa had said that she didn’t make her applicants drink as part of the interview process. Freddie said she should have done, and Gemma tripped on the stairs, screamed, and they both had to help her up to bed.

      She would have been offended if the stairs hadn’t been moving. She was also too busy trying to see only one Pippa and one Freddie.

      Gemma vaguely remembered saying to Pippa, as she helped her into her room, that she had no nice clothes, and she had an even fuzzier recollection of Pippa saying she would help. She wished the details were clearer. She wasn’t quite sure, but she seemed to recall that Pippa said their father wouldn’t let them spend much money for the year after he died – did that make sense? He’d given them a small allowance to live on, so they’d had to buy clothes in charity shops. She couldn’t see Harriet Singer, or Freddie, wearing second-hand clothes. Maybe she dreamt it. Maybe she had a drunken reality that wasn’t real at all. And this was why she stayed away from alcohol most of the time. Or actually it wasn’t – staying away from alcohol was another way in which she wasn’t normal.

      Abandoning her failed attempts to go back to sleep, she shuffled out of bed and put on her gym clothes. It was only six o’clock, but she was going to use the gym, hoping that she might begin to feel better. It was such a privilege, having a gym on tap. In her last job she wasn’t allowed to use the hotel gym – it was for guests only, and she couldn’t afford expensive city gym membership prices, so she had joined a local running club. She wasn’t very good at it, but she enjoyed the feeling exercise gave her, so she looked forward to the weekly group, when her nan’s health allowed. She’d given it up for a while, but when her nan went into the home, she had started running more and more, and now she felt that she needed it – it seemed to help to keep her sane. It allowed her to breathe.

      She was grateful not to bump into either Pippa or Freddie as she made her way down to the basement. Meadowbrook was a different world. Yesterday, she had been given a full tour of the house, and she’d been taken to the garden room, which hadn’t been used for years, because apparently it reminded Andrew Singer, their father, of his late wife. It had been her favourite room, and when she died he shut it away; it hadn’t even had the door opened until recently. Pippa said they sort of forgot about it, which seemed ridiculous.

      Gemma couldn’t imagine living in a house where you had enough rooms that you could shut one off and not notice, but that was Meadowbrook. The garden room did what the name said, and opened out onto the garden, which would make it wonderful for the hotel. Although the siblings were nervous about it, Pippa said they realised that it was time to lay the last of the ghosts to rest – especially as they all hoped their mum and dad had been reunited wherever they were now. It was quite moving as they surveyed the room, which was at least as large in size as the drawing room.

      Although at the moment it was dusty and full of old furniture, one of the walls was practically made up of floor-to-ceiling French windows currently covered with heavy velvet drapes. She realised it must have been so painful for Andrew Singer to shut off such an amazing room. It would take a lot of work, but she could see it being Freddie’s bar. In the day, guests could enjoy coffee, tea or light refreshments while enjoying the garden view, and in the evenings, it would be perfect for cocktails. In the summer, the doors could be opened, so that they could use the terrace for outside drinking and dining. Gemma began to get excited, as she could see it becoming a reality. Then the enormity of the task she had undertaken hit her once again, and she shrank back to uncertainty.

      Trying to ignore the niggling doubts in her mind, she concentrated on the treadmill. She made a mental note when she went home for the weekend to pick up her swimming costume; the pool looked so inviting, perhaps she could add a daily swim to her routine. She knew she was already drawn into Meadowbrook, and she dreaded to think what would happen if she got fired after the probationary period.

      She could only imagine what it was like growing up surrounded by this luxury, but at least the Singers were all trying to do something with Meadowbrook, which Gemma now understood. Because Pippa and Freddie were rattling around at home, and Meadowbrook felt as if it were a house that needed to be filled with people.

      Yes, Gemma could see it being one of the most appealing hotels in the area. What with the beautiful house, set in the stunning grounds, you couldn’t fail to have a luxurious, relaxing, perhaps even romantic break here. She still wasn’t sure where the sanctuary would fit in with that, but she felt, instinctively, that somehow it would. Romance over the alpacas? She wished she felt confident enough to say what she thought sometimes; then she wouldn’t come across as so uptight. She wished she were more like Freddie, or any of them actually.

      Gemma headed into the kitchen after finishing her run, having showered and dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a white blouse.

      ‘Oh hi, Gem,’ Pippa said.

      ‘I used the gym, I hope you don’t mind,’ Gemma mumbled.

      Pippa looked so stylish in a plain black dress and tights with her hair pulled back from her beautiful face. She felt a stab of envy again. Where and at what point did life decide who would be pretty, rich and with a family who adored them? Or like her,