She nodded.

'A Nightingale then, well, well. You don't look like your... aunt?' He was fishing for information in exchange for his help.

'I don't have the typical family looks.'

'True, but it's odd, you remind me of somebody.'

'Mill Farm?' she repeated hopefully.

'Yes, yes. I can take you there if you want. It's hard to explain now that the sign's fallen down. You'll need to spare me a few minutes to check the church though. The Cubs are marvellous of course, but not always reliable and our insurance is void if the doors aren't properly locked. You can pull in here.'

Rather than wait in the car, Nightingale found her umbrella and followed him down a gravel path, slippery with moss. The churchyard was crowded with ancient graves, headstones pressing upon each other and leaning out eagerly towards the path. Some plots had ornate crosses mimicking the old Celtic style, others were more traditional with rounded headstones from which the inscriptions had been erased by time and lichen.

Inside the church was dark and cold. Pale unlit candles on the altar glimmered like ghosts in the faint light from the narrow side windows, a silver crucifix glinted between them.

'Good, everything's off. We can go.'

'You don't want to check the vestry door?'

He muttered and shuffled off, leaving her alone in the dark. Gooseb.u.mps sprang up along her arms and she shivered. To distract herself she went to investigate one of the stained gla.s.s windows. Beneath it stood an extraordinary font. Carved from green-grey marble, the creatures in its relief seemed to spring to life from the stone. The quality of carving was almost freakish in its naturalism. She ran her fingertips over the nose of a fawn. The chill of the church made the nostrils feel wet and she twitched in shock. Despite the font's sacred use it was one of the most pagan things she had seen.

The priest returned.

'We can go, come on.'

He ushered her outside and pulled the door closed before walking away briskly.

'Ah, excuse me.' Nightingale hovered in the wooden porch. He turned round looking impatient. 'The door? Does it need locking again?'

He almost flounced back and she had to turn her head to hide a smile. How many times had the Cubs been blamed for his forgetfulness?

'This way, young lady. Come on. I haven't all day.'

For an old man he walked fast and she broke into a jog to catch up. In the car their damp clothes steamed up the gla.s.s and she had to drive with the heater full on and windows cracked open.

'Left!' The priest thrust out his right hand, almost hitting her nose.

'Left, left, come on!' He gesticulated fiercely with his hand, suddenly caught sight of it and said without pausing, 'indicate then, right just here, yes, up the hill.'

Nightingale changed down and eased her car onto the narrow track that ran between two stone posts. An iron gate lay in a ditch to the side of the road, smothered by ivy and brambles.

'I think I know my way from here; can I take you back?'

'It's no trouble, come on.' There was a sense of excitement about him. 'I haven't been up here for years, not since Ruth died.'

'She was my father's sister.'

'Went mad and threw herself into the sea. Coroner called it accidental so I couldn't avoid burying her by the church in the family plot. Pity. Strange woman. Ran in the family.'

At that moment Nightingale had to negotiate a string of potholes and a sharp bend so she had an excuse for her silence. She wasn't so much shocked by his callousness as by the priest's wholly unchristian att.i.tude.

'Maybe you should get out here if you really don't need a lift home.'

'Yes, I think I will and no, no lift, thank you. I take my const.i.tutional whatever the weather. Come on unlock the door then. Oh, it is unlocked. The house is at the end of this track, two miles or so. Holy Communion is at eight on Fridays and Sundays. The main service is at eleven and there's a prayer group at six. I'll see you then.'

He was gone before Nightingale could reply, strutting off down the hill like an old crow. The car protested as she slipped it into first gear and the back wheels span in the mud until they caught and she lurched forward. After a mile the thick woodland started to clear and she could see another gateway ahead, this time bordered by a wall that disappeared off into the margin of the wood. One of the keys her brother had given her opened a rusty padlock on the gate. Beyond, the path dipped down to follow a fold in the hill and crossed a stream before rising again through a stand of rowan trees.

This part of the journey was familiar. The sudden descent, even on the sunniest of days, brought with it a chill of mystery. As a child she had felt that she was crossing into another world as they cleared the stream and had said as much once to her father. He had accused her of being fanciful and dismissed such feeble-mindedness with a customary wave of his hand but he had then grown expansive with his own memories.

'It was a mill as well as a farm,' he'd said. 'Water powered the wheel. When I was a boy we had a bridge here, don't need it now unless there's a flood.

'There's a spring by the house, runs all year, the purest, cleanest water in the world. Until the Seventies it was just enough to keep the wheel turning but it doesn't now. The mill was the original source of our money. There were so few in this part of the world. Family changed to retailing in the nineteenth century when we bought those shops and never looked back. Wouldn't have had any money without the mill though. That's why it's so important.'

Nightingale smiled as she recalled her father's words. It had been a long speech for him but then it had been about money and family, his favourite subjects. To Nightingale, Mill Farm hadn't represented wealth but something far more important, security. Crossing the ford took her into a private place, cut off from the outside world, in which as a child she had felt happy.

Her Aunt Ruth had loved her as no one else ever had before or since. During the summers here her dreams had been filled with adventures in which floods or snows cut off the hill from the rest of the world, and she and her aunt had survived on food grown in the garden, fish from the sea and game in the forest. Week after week she walked in the hills, swam from the rocky beach or read her favourite books snuggled by the big green Aga on rainy days.

That same sense of adventure returned as the car crept forward, dipped into another fold in the hills and then climbed steeply up the final slope. Only a few miles behind, people huddled under umbrellas in busy towns but here it was as if they had ceased to exist.

The rain eased and she switched off the wipers. Ahead, the last of the saplings gave way to tall gra.s.s and thistles. Beyond them, as faint as smoke, was a hint of grey slate and her heart leapt. The roof came into view, then a badly pointed chimney, and at last, the farm. She drove over weeds and nettles, hearing brambles scratch at the paintwork of her car until she reached the front door. She turned off the engine; she was home.

A gust of wind splattered heavy drops of rain on the roof of the car, then there was silence. She stared at her house. One window on the ground floor was broken, another above the front door swung on its hinges. Birds had built their nests in the guttering and old swifts' nests studded the walls under the eaves. There had been hollyhocks once and sunflowers in a perfect cottage garden. Now, a crop of dangerously green nettles fought with docks and a dog rose, showing pink-white petals among the remaining hips from last autumn.

A large iron key fitted neatly into the front door lock. It turned easily but the door held fast. In the end she slipped through the broken window into the musty flagstone hall, treading carefully over gla.s.s on the floor. The front door had been wedged shut with a chair, which she moved to one side. A flight of stairs rose up before her; the fireplace opposite held the skeleton of a large bird. Beyond, a pa.s.sage led to the back of the house and the kitchen. At some point someone had camped out here. Most of the kitchen chairs had been broken up for fuel and an old mattress lay mouldering against the chimney wall. Despite the desolation she felt elated and went to explore the rest of the house.

Whoever had squatted had been selective in their invasion. The dining room with its enormous dark oak sideboard was untouched. With a smile that her aunt would have recognised, she skipped forward and pressed her fingers beneath the top. With a deft twist she released the lock of the secret draw and it sprang free. As a child she had been trusted with this most important confidence on condition that she promised never to look inside. She never had until now.

As she pulled the drawer open a small sigh escaped into the room. Inside, she found a bundle of correspondence tied in faded blue ribbon, a diary, a photograph and her aunt's rosary. On top was a letter, written in her aunt's sloping hand. With a chill that raised the hairs on her neck, she saw that it was addressed to her. It was as if the ghost of her aunt had been waiting for her to return all these years and she felt guilty that it had taken her so long. It was unthinkable to read the letter in the cold of the house so she took it back to the car, her new-found energy already drained by the discovery. But she had to read it; after all this time how could she ignore her Aunt's words? She broke the seal on the envelope. Inside there were two handwritten pages.

My dear Louise, [her aunt had always called her by her preferred name] I doubt that I shall see you again and there is still so much I have to tell you. Firstly, you are a wonderful girl, never forget that.

You have special gifts, not least your intelligence, your warmth of spirit and your insight into human nature. Never let anyone persuade you that you are not creative because you are. I don't know what form your creativity will take but it is there, it must be, because you are like your mother in so many other ways.

Nightingale stopped reading in surprise. She had thought that her aunt and her mother had barely tolerated each other.

After I'm gone, people will say a lot of unpleasant things about me but my love for you is strong and I shall be looking over you from where I go next.

I have been trying to decide these last few weeks, how much to tell you of matters I doubt you even suspect. You are too young to know the full truth and it would be unfair to your father to reveal what he should tell you himself. He made a promise to me once that he would speak to you when you come of age and I must trust to that.

But then I worry. What if he breaks his promise or forgets? So I have done the next best thing. In our drawer with this letter, you will find some of my diaries and letters. If you are clever enough, and I think you are, and when you are experienced enough, which you will be in a few more years, you will be able to work things out for yourself.

Nightingale shook her head in confusion. Her father had never revealed a secret to her. At seventeen she had been sent away to what her mother liked to call a finishing academy but in effect had been a school of last resort for difficult girls, so her 'coming of age' had been a muted dormitory party.

Instead of feeling closer to her aunt, the letter with its odd language and strange ideas had alienated her. It was as if the aunt she remembered so fondly had betrayed her by growing strange with age just as the priest had suggested. As for reading her other letters and diaries and delving into some mystery invented by a disturbed Aunt Ruth, that was the last thing she felt capable of doing. She had come here to live simply, to escape her old life, not to become entrapped by her Aunt's fantasies.

The sudden joy of her arrival faded and she felt cheated. The only antidote to her discomfort was action. Nightingale unloaded the cleaning materials she had thought to bring with her from the back seat and took them inside. She started in the kitchen, checked that the flue was clear and lit the Aga. Three hours later hot, filthy but happy, Nightingale stood in the middle of the damp stone floor and turned full circle to admire her handiwork. A few coats of paint and it would be an attractive room again. Her spirits had bounced back.

After demolishing half a loaf of bread and a bottle of orange juice, she explored. The sitting room was dominated by an inglenook fireplace that she had been able to stand up inside the last time she was here, but she was too tall now. Upstairs, one of the bedrooms was so damp that plaster had fallen from the walls but the other three were sound and the old fashioned bathroom was in better shape than she had feared. The stairs groaned under her weight as she returned to the hall and she held on tight to the bannister. It was just as well as the tread at the corner gave alarmingly under her weight.

She was tempted outside by the sunshine glinting off the remains of cold frames in the kitchen garden where summer had vanquished winter in an unwitnessed battle. Moisture steamed off the overgrown vegetation within its walls. Unpruned fruit trees dominated the neighbouring field and a grapevine sagged, pregnant with flowers, from the south wall.

A tough, low-lying shrub sprang up as she stepped out of the door and a wonderful aroma reminiscent of Sunday lunch, filled the air. In the rest of the herb garden purple heads of chives fought their way through marjoram and blue sage. A ma.s.sive rosemary muscled its way over half the bed, and the mint had escaped from its terracotta prison and was making a run for freedom. This would be her first project once she had finished inside. She would plant salad crops, renovate the herb garden, and after that the vine and anything else that looked as if it might respond to some tender loving care.

At nine o'clock she stopped for the day and washed in stream-water, warmed on the Aga and infused with rosemary, a natural antiseptic for her cuts and stings. She ate sandwiches then set out her sleeping bag on the floor as the sun set. Her breathing grew heavy and slow, and she imagined that she could hear the clip clop of ponies' hooves as smugglers hid their cargoes of spirits and silks away from the Excise men in the caves in the cliffs below.

PART TWO.

LUCINDA AND WENDY.

The rarest gift to Beauty, Common Sense.

GEORGE MEREDITH.

Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the s.e.x... She was created to be the toy of man.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Lucinda Hamilton had had a frustrating day trying to persuade a very snooty magazine to cover her client's launch party. With her connections from school and her family background, Lucinda had a.s.sumed that a career in public relations would be a cinch. She had persuaded one of the newer agencies of her credentials but unfortunately working life was proving somewhat tougher than she had expected. Her first client had insisted on another representative within a week; her second had been fulsome with praise...until an impromptu dinner with one of Lucinda's friends from school, now a society columnist, had resulted in a ghastly piece in one of the Sunday papers.

Her current client was her last chance. He was opening a themed restaurant to be launched with an innovative and lavish party Lucinda's idea and surrounded by appropriate publicity. The expenditure on the party was enormous, well over budget, but so far the acceptances were pitiful, even from the C-list she was using as back-up.

People who didn't know Lucinda a.s.sumed that she was frivolous and disconnected from the life the majority of the population was forced to lead. The reality was quite different. She was ambitious and determined to prove herself without having to rely on a family inheritance. She made up for what she lacked in intellect (and it had to be said, sometimes, common sense) with abundant charm and a ruthless streak that took friends and colleagues alike by surprise. There was a sense about her that, if she once had a lucky break, she might surprise the world with her determination to succeed. Most acquaintances wished her well and worked to stay on the right side of her, just in case.

It was in a typically audacious frame of mind, masked by a b.u.t.tercream smile, that she had joined her boss and a senior representative from the client for a review of the party arrangements that afternoon. After a gruelling thirty minutes she had just managed to save the account, and her own role representing the client, but she had only five days in which to deliver a decent guest list that would guarantee quality press coverage. Lucinda left the meeting feeling that she would rather die than accept defeat.

The Frog and Nightgown pub in Knightsbridge had become a popular meeting place for the smart set who enjoyed pretending that they liked beer not wine or c.o.c.ktails these days. After decades during which there had been no limit to experiences and experimentation provided one had money, it was considered cool to return to basics. But the 'Frog' was hardly slumming it. The range of beer matched Belgium's best and the chef had already been approached by a White restaurant. It had become one of Lucinda's favourite haunts.

She arrived earlier than usual and the bar was almost deserted. Brian, the reserve barman, offered to mix her a c.o.c.ktail but she shook her head and ordered champagne. As she sipped from the long chilled flute, she confronted the idea of defeat for the first time. If she failed there was no way she could accept demotion and she would have to move on. The spicy bubbles didn't cheer her but she finished the drink anyway and decided that it was time to leave.

A fresh gla.s.s of champagne appeared on the polished wooden bar in front of her.

'From the gentleman at the far end,' Brian explained. 'He thought you might need cheering up. No obligation, he was quite specific.'

Lucinda looked towards the man at the end of the bar. He was smoking despite the law, with a shot gla.s.s in front of him almost full of colourless liquid. She took in the designer watch, Ralph Lauren shirt, with a soft sweater looped over his shoulders. The blond hair was longer than fashionable but well styled, and she liked the tan that spoke of sun, not a bottle. After a moment's pause she raised the gla.s.s in a salutation she hoped was casual and took a small sip. He saw her watching, raised his own gla.s.s in the briefest of acknowledgements, then returned to his perusal of the Evening Standard. She waited for his next move but he didn't make one. In fact he barely looked in her direction as she sipped her champagne.

The bar started to fill and a couple of friends invited her to join their table. She acknowledged their offer but stayed at the bar, becoming piqued by the man's apparent indifference. Two gla.s.ses of champagne on an empty stomach didn't help her equilibrium and as she drained the last drop she had almost decided to go and talk to him despite his cool demeanour. Almost.

It was difficult to decide whether the man at the other end of the bar was worthy of her attention. The gallant gesture of the champagne without strings had been appreciated, but the goodwill created was being undone by his studied indifference. Lucinda was used to being the pursued, not the pursuer, and the fact that he was attractive only added to her irritation.

His blond hair was thick and wavy. It tickled his collar and gave him a raffish look. The eyebrows were the same colour, almost sculptured like a girl's, and beneath them his eyes were beautiful, dark brown and impossible to read. She watched him take a drink from his gla.s.s. Either he was a slow drinker or he'd had a refill. His hands had the long elegant fingers of an artist.

She ran through a familiar routine of summarising her strong points. The act of repet.i.tion was like a litany against the powers of doubt and darkness. She was attractive very, quite a catch in fact. She was more accustomed to fending off advances than standing in line. Her dark hair was long and silky, her eyes grey and her skin creamy-white. Breeding showed in her bone structure, poise and demeanour. Above all, she was naturally slim, bordering on skinny. No wonder some of her friends found it difficult to love her, but she pitied and forgave them.

Two women arrived. Well made up, dripping jewellery, they might as well have worn a sign around their necks that said 'available'. They spotted the lone attractive man at the end of the bar and went into a cla.s.sic courtship routine. He remained unmoved, but raised his mysterious eyes to Lucinda's and smiled at her, inviting her to join in his ridicule of the women he had already dismissed as unworthy of his attention. She smiled back and brushed aside a momentary sense of guilt as she betrayed her own s.e.x to his censure.

On impulse she raised her hand to buy another drink but before Brian had turned around to see it, the man was at her side.

'Allow me.'

'No, it's my turn.'

'Those words don't exist in my vocabulary. Please.'

He wasn't condescending so she accepted the chivalry, surprised at herself. Brian served them immediately and delivered a little plate of olives to accompany their drinks.

'Your very good health.' He raised his gla.s.s in a formal toast that made the corners of her mouth twitch.

'Cheers.'

'I'm Edmund, Edmund Althorpe.'

'Lucinda Hamilton.' For an awful moment she thought he was going to offer to shake hands but he didn't. Instead he pulled up a stool and arranged his long-legged body on top. He had wonderful shoulders and whilst his mouth was too thin to allow him to be truly handsome, he was stunning. She wondered whether the tan extended below the V of his open-necked shirt and blushed at the thought.

'Are you too warm? Would you like to move to the terrace?'

'No, I'm fine...Edmund,' she smiled, in her element, 'and thank you for the champagne.'

'It was my pleasure. You deserve it. I saw you sitting there, your face framed by your beautiful hair and I hated to see a frown mar that perfect complexion.'

She smiled in a one-sided way that suggested she was used to more skilled compliments.

'I'm sorry, but you are beautiful. It puts a man on the defensive to see someone so lovely. I wanted to come straight over and say h.e.l.lo but I didn't know how to.'