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All it did was reinforce the fact that this meeting at the manor was going to be a battleground. The house was currently tied between them, and it was the house she wanted. Did Rex want it, too? It wasn’t what she expected, but he could’ve walked away from Chris Montague’s office with a check in his hand and have done with it. From what she understood of his business, he had a busy schedule and the funds would come in very useful on the developmental side.
The train slowed and Carmen shoved her ticket and her smartphone into her shoulder bag. Rising from her seat, she lifted her weekend bag from the overhead storage shelf and made her way to the doors just as the train pulled into the station.
“Miss Shelby, welcome home.”
Carmen had scarcely stepped off the train onto the platform when Andy Redmond was there by her side, lifting the bag from her hand. Andy ran the local taxi company and she’d organized for him to collect her.
“Andy, thank you for being here.”
The taxi driver led the way and it made her feel somewhat more relaxed, being with someone she knew. Would Rex already be at the house, or was he planning to arrive later? She had no clue, because she’d refused to give him her phone number. He’d tracked down her business email address and said he would see her there on Friday evening as planned, and that they would begin their negotiations over dinner.
If she’d driven she could have been here earlier. The problem was she didn’t want to drive around Beldover because of her mother’s car crash. It was something she meant to overcome, but even now, three years on, it still seemed too fresh—the sight of her mother being sealed in a body bag on the side of the country road, her car flipped on one side where she’d veered off and hit a tree. It would make her think about it too much, driving around here, although the thoughts were never far away, anyway. As she climbed into the taxi, she focused on what lay ahead instead, Burlington Manor. How good it would be to be there again and, ultimately, to own it.
“It’s a magical house,” Sylvia Shelby had told Carmen when she’d first taken her to see the place. Carmen had been fifteen and her mother had recently announced her engagement to Charles Carruthers.
Carmen had met Charles in London, and she warmed to him immediately. To her he was a charming, elegant man, and she craved a father figure since her own has lost his battle with cancer when she was four years old. As an only child, the idea of having a big brother in her life was immensely appealing, too, although Rex hadn’t turned out to be quite what she might have imagined. Rex had turned out to
be something very different indeed.
“The history of a house like Burlington Manor has to be preserved,” her mother told her. “It’s the responsibility of the current owner.” Sylvia, who was an interior designer, had great respect for property that was steeped in history the way Burlington Manor was. “The current owner of a stately home is like a custodian for the national heritage.”
“Like the knight who looks after the Holy Grail until the next keeper arrives?”
Sylvia had laughed at Carmen’s correlation. “Kind of. Will you help me to help Charles be the best custodian he can?”
Carmen smiled as she thought back on it. Her mother had a very romantic view of the British country estate, and that was something that Carmen had nurtured, too. It wasn’t easy, not in modern times. In days of old the country estate owner rented out patches of land to tenants and the owners were wealthy as a result. That was no longer the case, and rightly so. Many large British estates opened to the public these days to bring income for maintenance, or they would let out part of the property to catering events, weddings and suchlike. Burlington Manor wasn’t grand enough to do that, being an overly large family home rather than a proper estate, but the responsibility to upkeep it was the same.
Burlington Manor was indeed magical, though, and it inspired love in Carmen as much as it had her mother. As the taxi turned off the main road from the village and onto the estate, the car passed the old gate house. It was a sizable cottage that provided a home for Burlington Manor’s housekeeper and her husband, the groundsman. The garden was, as ever, beautifully kept and the roses around the doorway were in full bloom. When the car proceeded up the driveway toward Burlington Manor Carmen’s chest tightened with emotion.
“It’s good to be taking a fare up this road again,” Andy shouted back to her as he drove. “It’s been far too quiet up here since you left, Miss Shelby.”
“I’m sure it has.”
“I hope that changes. I used to have a busy schedule ferrying people back and forth when your mother was running her house parties.”
“I can’t promise the same, but I’m hoping that the old place will enter a new, more positive chapter in its history now.”
The grass verges on either side of the private road were immaculately kept, as usual. It was one of Charles Carruthers’s bugbears, the importance of the first impression, often at the expense of some more tangible need in the house itself.
“Can I ask if you’ll be staying on?” Andy looked at her in the rearview mirror.
Carmen smiled. She knew he was asking on behalf of the whole village, because each person who lived in the nearby hamlet of Beldover had a vested interest one way or the other. “I can’t say for sure, but I’m hoping that I’ll be involved in the future of Burlington.”
The private road opened out, and there it was.
Set at the end of a sweeping driveway in an elevated position, the placement of the building took advantage of the camber of the countryside, in order to provide stunning views from all the windows in the house. It was at once an imposing Georgian country home, and a crown on the countryside.
The drive passed alongside a lawned area on the right-hand side. It was there that Rex would have impromptu cricket matches with his friends when they visited, while Carmen watched on. Beyond the house the gardens led on to the riverside, where a man-made lake was her favorite family summer picnic spot. It was a beautiful estate and she felt as if she’d been fed soul food just seeing the place. It was still the place that she thought of as home. And that’s why I will have it.
As the car parked up on the forecourt outside the main entrance, Carmen looked fondly at the symmetry of the large gray stones, the orderly windows and stone balustrades that spoke of design and history.
Assessing the state of repair, her gaze flitted along the windows of the reception rooms on the ground floor. As she expected, there was work to be done, and soon. Her stepfather never noticed the little things, or so it had seemed. He’d been a hermit in the house since she’d moved out, shortly after her mother’s death, and he’d let things slide. Not surprisingly, his wife’s death had hit him badly, as it had Carmen.
While she stared at the building, something tickled her consciousness. She looked about, aware of being watched. The taxi driver was at the rear of the car, lifting out her weekend bag. The door of the house opened and Mrs. Amery, the housekeeper, appeared there, with a bright smile and a wave. But it wasn’t Mrs. Amery that Carmen had become aware of.
She looked up, and saw Rex watching her arrival.
He was at the window directly above the entrance door, a window that was on the landing above. He had one elbow up against the frame, his pose casual as he scrutinized her. Rex Carruthers, looking like lord of the manor. His very posture oozed confidence, and ownership. Her mistrust built. He gestured, lifting his free hand, a knowing smile on his face.
