Chapter 19
Lili was just marking out a new border with some string when she saw Joss and Abigail walking together in the grounds, chatting. She smiled. Although she knew her friend wasn’t ready for a new relationship – if she ever would be after losing Toby – it wouldn’t hurt for her to make new friends. She didn’t know much about Joss – what he did for a living, his past relationships – but she knew Abigail. If and when she was ready to meet somebody, easy-going Joss was certainly a contender. Lili knew Abigail was aware of what she was up to, but of all the things on Toby’s to-do list for Abigail to move on with her life, to move on from him, the most important one was finding someone else – and that was only possible if she made some new friends.
As Lili turned back to the task in hand, she looked up at the house and saw someone, a man, standing at one of the windows on the ground floor of the house. He was also watching Joss and Abigail. Young, in his thirties, she guessed from the way he was dressed that he wasn’t staff. She’d never seen Lord Somerville’s son, but something told her that this was him.
‘What are you looking at?’ Carys walked into the study, surprised to find her brother not sitting at his desk. She wondered what had distracted him. She expected to find him hard at work trying to do the accounts for the estate. He needed to hire somebody else. The last accountant they’d employed had just upped and left. She wasn’t surprised. Oliver had a tendency to put people’s backs up.
That was what had happened with all his past relationships too. He was too focused on the estate. It seemed to leave little room in his life for anything else. She understood his responsibilities, his duty to the Hall and his father to keep the estate going, but there didn’t seem to be any down-time as far as she could see. He was still in his early thirties, but she worried he could work himself into an early grave if he wasn’t careful. She wondered if his moody disposition and bad temper were to do with all the pressures of running the place.
Was he really cut out for the job? That didn’t matter. Did he even want it? That didn’t matter either. She expected few people had heard of primogeniture. All this, the entire estate, was going to pass to her brother. At thirty-five, she was the eldest by two years, but that didn’t matter. It was the eldest son who inherited the lot, along with the responsibility of keeping it going to pass on to future generations down the male line.
Carys smiled at him as she walked into the room, closing the door behind her. She had a good relationship with her brother – always had. Unlike her father and his sister – her aunt, Daphne, rest her soul – she would not let the issue of primogeniture ruin their close relationship. Neither would Oliver. Her father and his sister had fallen out badly over the issue. Things had reached a head when her grandfather, the last Earl of Somerville, had died, leaving the entire estate to his son, her father, and not a penny to Auntie Daphne.
Carys knew that the same thing would happen to her; she wouldn’t inherit anything. She thought it would be nice if her father had put away a bit of money over the years to leave her a little legacy. But he’d mentioned nothing of the sort. It was something he had once said to her, as she turned sixteen, that had eventually convinced her of his intention –your face is your fortune.Carys had not understood what he’d meant at the time. But later, he had told her that all she had to do to have a good life – their sort of life – was to marry well, in their social circle. She had realised then that, like her aunt, she would never get a penny from the estate.
Carys knew that, despite inheriting the whole estate, her father had in reality had a choice. He could have seen Daphne all right. Once the estate had passed into his hands, he could have helped her out, given heran allowance, a job even. But no; he had cut her off completely.
Luckily for Carys, her brother was not like her father. He had known from an early age how primogeniture worked, and being close to his older sister because they’d grown up without a mother, he had always insisted he would see her right.
However, Carys had been intent on making her own way, and not in terms of a career. She had wanted a husband and a large family. Ten years earlier, she’d had a wedding that was the talk of the local community; a lavish affair held right there at Somerville Hall. She had, as her had father suggested, married well, into another landed family whose eldest son, her husband, had inherited an estate.
But her husband was not like Oliver. Charming, he was also a lazy womaniser who squandered all the family money and got into debt because he was addicted to gambling. In ten short years, not only had no heir been produced to carry on the family line – he was too busy sleeping around with other women – but the house had fallen into disrepair. In a single generation, the money vanished and the estate went into administration.
A quickie divorce followed, and there Carys was, wishing she’d left the marriage years earlier. She had naively thought she could change him and that things would get better. But she had realised belatedly that the only way she could change her life was by leaving him.
So she was back at home, until she remarried or found a job – both of which seemed unlikely just then. On the job front, all Carys had ever known was being involved in the running of large country estates such as this. She sidled up to her brother, hoping he would stay true to his word and wouldn’t pass her over for a slice of his inheritance, like her father had done to Daphne.
‘Oliver.’
The sound of her voice startled him. He turned to look at her. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘What are you looking at?’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Or should I say whom?’ She had looked out of the window and spotted a young woman walking in the grounds.
‘Oh, shut up, Carys.’
Carys looked at him. She didn’t know who the young woman was, but she asked, ‘You like her, don’t you?’
‘No.’
Carys could tell by the slight inflection in his voice that he was lying. Ollie was her baby brother, even though he was taller, and often mistaken for being the eldest. She knew when something was up.
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Who’s that, anyway?’ he said, pointing at the young man with the tan and the beach-blonde hair.
‘Is that jealousy I hear?’
‘Just answer the question – do you know who he is or not?’
When Carys had returned to Somerville Hall after her marriage breakdown, she had been determined she wouldn’t end up being the flighty sister and take to her room, spending her time wallowing in self-pity. Her attitude was that if she intended to stay on living at Somerville Hall, she had to pitch in and get involved with the running of the estate. She looked at the computer and the ledgers open on the desk. She’d tried to fathom out the accounts, but unfortunately they were beyond her.
Unlike her brother, Carys was a people person; it was her forte. The smooth running of the estate was as much about the people who worked there – loyal, hard-working staff – than it was about balancing the books. That was why, unlike her brother, Carys knew who the young man was. Although she didn’t know the young woman, which was unusual.
‘His name is Joss.’
‘And …?’
‘Lili, the landscaper, hired him. She needed an extra pair of hands. It’s his first day. Small world. He came to Aldeburgh to look after his uncle, who lives in the lighthouse next door to Aunt Daphne’s cottage.’