Tabitha Chesterfield stood motionless at the granite work-top, staring across the Cranleigh Manor lawn. It rolled half an acre to the treeline and looked magnificent in its lustrous green, or would have, had it not been for the massive pit currently being dug in its centre. The sculpted rockeries would look exquisite around the edges once the transformation was complete—she might even tend the bedding plants herself—but why Grant was insisting on a carp pond she was unsure.

Presumably, so he could thumb at them glibly when providing guests with a tour of the place. “Those are the koi carp,” he’d say, as if everyone had them, and then move on without looking. He wanted a sundial near the trees as well.

Beneath the kitchen window on the patio Sorrel Chesterfield was stretched on a sun lounger, soaking up UV rays on virtually every inch of her lithe, petite body. She was dividing her attention between communications on her smartphone and the guy digging out the great pit. Grant’s hired labourer was undeniably a distraction; Tabitha had already nicked her thumb while slicing the peppers under influence of the visual he provided. It was the way that great jagged tattoo rippled every time he braced his upper arms to thrust the spade back into the earth.

That and all the dirt, and the sweat.

She sucked her thumb idly—damn, that new bank of knives was sharp—and contemplated bringing him a drink. With Sorrel there on full alert, she decided against it. Tabitha couldn’t have stood the barbed comments that would result from such an act of kindness. She couldn’t afford to provide any more fuel, not after last summer. Got to behave myself. Stoically she diced cucumbers and tossed the salad ingredients all together in the steel bowl. Okay, let’s try a vinaigrette …

She flicked through the pages to the salad section of her Wolfgang Puck recipe book till her glance settled on ‘Classic Vinaigrette’. Better master the classic version before I go for something crazy. Should have let my mum teach me this stuff.

“So why the sudden need to play domestic goddess?” Grant had asked as if it amused him. “I thought you were all in favour of my getting someone in to do that.”

“Maybe I just need something to keep me busy,” she’d replied, adding artificial sweetener to her tone. Something to keep me from going mad.

She’d have liked to put on her black one-piece swimsuit and taken some sunshine herself that afternoon—sessions at the gym had kept her sufficiently svelte to wear it—but it simply wouldn’t be a comfortable situation. Not with the young heiress out there at the same time as the hunky hired help. So she let Sorrel sun-cream her twenty-year-old self for his delectation in between bouts of social messaging, while she got on with preparing dinner, endeavouring to ignore the girl and her antics. It was a losing battle, so great was her sense of irritation.

Her blond step-daughter was replenishing her glass with iced lemonade from the jug she had next to her. Now the girl was swinging herself off the lounger and padding across the patio to the kitchen. “He must be getting hot out there—don’t you think?” she said, fetching a second glass from the cupboard in the hot-pink swim costume that so irritated her dad.

“I expect so,” Tabitha replied. “It’s a warm day for May.” Always best to keep her comments as bland as possible in Sorrel’s company.

“I’m gonna go reward him. Bet you’d like to.”

She smirked on the way past and Tabitha glowered at the Sorrel’s string-bikinied bottom as she departed. She tried not to look, not to care, as the young would-be temptress poured lemonade, marched across the lawn and proffered the glass. The gardener smiled to see her, and what red-blooded man wouldn’t be gratified by the approach of the pert blonde with her five-foot-and-a-smidge’s worth of oiled-up curves? He let the spade drop, wiping dirt from his naked torso before knocking back his refreshment in a couple of gulps. Not a guy that Sorrel would be seen dead around town with, but she’d give him an hour or two of her time in private if she got the chance.

Yes, I damn well would like to reward him too, since you ask, and I could do it better than you ever could. He wouldn’t give you a second glance once I got started…

Time to drop that kind of thinking. Tabitha had to keep her needs bottled up with that little spy around. She turned away from the vision of Sorrel flaunting her cutesy body in front of the long-haired labourer and set about preparing the pork for the stir-fry. A student classic, one which had been a staple of her roommate Andrew; not exactly the haute cuisine which Grant claimed to prefer, but it would serve. Maybe Andy would have been proud to see her rustling it up, even if her husband treated it as scarcely more than a joke.

She called the latter to check on when he’d be home. Grant Chesterfield sounded distracted. “What? No, I’ll be on the links till eight, I’ve only started this round. I’ll grab something at the club.”

“But I’m in the middle of preparing a whole meal. You said you’d be back in the early evening.”

“Plans change. I’ll be back when I’m back.”

Well, fuck you!

Tabitha bit down on her anger and stared grimly through the window once the call was done. Plans change. How nice it would be if everything in life were that simple. She tried to pinpoint the moment she had realised her husband was tired of his younger wife, but the degree of self-delusion in which she had indulged over several years made it tricky. He still introduced her to strangers with an air of pride, but without the warmth that had once underlain it. A girl feels these things, darling, but I liked it better when you still made the effort to pretend. This trophy is feeling distinctly tarnished. Not that she’d ever said it to him aloud.

Sorrel, as she’d expected, appeared deeply unimpressed by the culinary efforts her step-mom was making. “What is that?” the little blonde inquired, inspecting the contents of the pan with suspicion. “Some kind of English thing?”

Tabitha had no idea whether stir-fry was unique to any particular nation’s cuisine. “It’s pork and vegetables,” she explained. “I’ve made some salad too.”

“I’m not hungry,” her step-daughter said dismissively. “I’ll get something later when I’m out.”

Tabitha watched wordlessly as Sorrel took her towel and herself upstairs to the bathroom. Fuck you too. I’ll have it myself.

It was a lonely meal, but not the first of that kind she had eaten at the Chesterfield kitchen table. Happy families, she thought grimly as she munched. Outside the gardener was splashing down his face and upper body at the trendy archway shower Grant had had installed beyond the patio, his denim pants getting soaked in the process. Tabitha gazed and smiled, thinking how much chagrin Sorrel would feel if she knew she’d missed this treat. God, he was well-defined. Features rugged enough for him to star in one of those ‘real-man’ jeans or aftershave commercials and good Lord, he was sturdily made. She found herself wishing he would unloose his pony-tailed hair and rinse it out in the jets, before mentally slapping herself for letting her thoughts stray that direction.

Naughty, naughty. Can’t allow that kind of nonsense to interfere with my domestic bliss…

Then he shocked her by showing up wet and dripping in the porch, a laconic smile on his face. Now when his eyes lit like that, it did wonders for him. Transformed him completely. “Hi,” she said, the fork not quite making it to her mouth. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m done for the afternoon,” he told her. “Couple more days should finish my stuff, then the other guy will come in and do the difficult part. Y’ know, the part that requires actual talent.”

Tabitha recalled how pissed off Grant had been that his ‘garden architect’ had double-booked himself and wouldn’t be there to do all the preliminary work. “Jared’s good,” the guy had insisted. “He’s hard-working, he’s dependable and he’ll be working from a detailed brief provided by me. Any problems, just give me a call.” Her husband would have sacked the guy for double-booking his services, had he not established such a good name for himself as a landscaper.

“That’s fine,” she told the surrogate, keeping her eyes studiously from the hard steel of his upper body. “I’ll let my husband know.”

“Sure thing. Eating alone?”

The remark took her aback. Cheeky bugger—mind your own bloody beeswax. “Looks that way. Why, are you hungry?”

“Well I don’t like to intrude, but if you’re offering…”

“I…” She hadn’t exactly been offering, she thought, more tossing out a courtesy that she was pretty sure he’d refuse. Still, why should the food go to waste? It wasn’t like her stir-fry was inedible. “Yes, I’m offering. Let me fetch a plate.”

Now she felt like Lady bloody Bountiful, dishing out scraps to the hired help at the tradesman’s entrance. If Sorrel hadn’t been lurking she might have invited him to join her at the table. He didn’t seem to mind, however, as she handed over a full plate. Nor did he retreat into the garden to eat, preferring to lean fork-in-hand against the kitchen doorway. “This is good,” he said, chewing vigorously. “Really good. Your husband’s missing a treat.”

All kinds of treats, she might have said, and wondered from the way this Jared guy was looking at her whether or not he’d meant it that way. She took the compliment to refer purely to the food. “Thanks. Glad there’s someone to enjoy it. You… ehh… do this all the time? Gardening work, I mean.” Not scrounging food from people’s kitchens.

“I do whatever it takes to get by. Jack of all trades, isn’t that the phrase? Master of—well—one.”

“Really? And what’s the one?”

“I play guitar. In a real-life rock band.” The comical way in which he said it undercut any possible pretension in the statement.

“My goodness. Are you going to be famous? I mean maybe you are, but I assume if you were…”

“I wouldn’t be digging holes in people’s lawns? No, we’re not famous yet. We’re just a bunch of ragged-assed rockers in a post-rock era, tryin’ to entertain. Not doin’ a bad job. Got a couple of gigs in Philly at the weekend if you’re interested. You and Mister Chesterfield I mean.”

Was he taking the piss out of her marital situation? Or was that simply her paranoia? “It sounds fun,” she said, and she meant it, “but I might be too busy. There’s a party we’re going to.” The kind of party I used to think was glamorous. “Plus Grant is more into jazz.” Or pretends to be.

“Come on your own,” he said. “Sunday night we’re at the Electric Factory. Damn sight better than our usual venues. It’ll be fun.”

“Well, I…”

“C’mon, you know you want to,” he teased, in between wolfing stir-fry. She raised a dubious eyebrow. “Or not. Look, you know where we are. Maybe you can talk hubby into going.”

“I’d say that’s a long-shot.”

“Shame. Hey, I gotta ask, what’s that English accent doing here? Not that it doesn’t match the tone, ‘cos it totally does.”

Tabitha fought for a response, not least because she had no good answer. How had a girl from Surrey, England come to be sitting alone in a nouveau riche Pennsylvania house proclaiming the title ‘manor’ at the front? God, she was around the same age as this guy, but she felt horribly older. “I… I met Grant when he was visiting London and…”

“And the rest was written by Disney, I get it. You’re lucky.”

I’m not, and you know it, you cocky bastard. She realised that her mouth was hanging open. “I… Yes, yes I’m very lucky. It’s all worked out great for me. Have you finished that?”

“Uh-huh, yeah.” He clattered his empty plate down on the table. “It was delicious, Mrs Chesterfield.”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. It really makes me feel fucking ancient.

“Sorry, boss’s wife and all that. What should I call you?”

He shouldn’t have been getting so familiar as to call her anything, it occurred to her, although it was flattering nonetheless that he was so keen to tease. “My name’s Tabitha,” she said.

“Tabitha. I like that. It’s very… what’s that show? The one with the stately home and Lord Whatshisname and the great-grandma from Hogwarts? I saw it on somebody’s cable when I was stoned one night.”

“Ehhh—Downton Abbey?”

“That’s the one. Your name’s very Downton Abbey. You could be Lady Tabitha, heiress to the estate.”

She laughed, somewhere between irritated and entertained. “Oh—Oh, well I’m glad I fit your stereotype of a posh English girl.” Although I won’t be heiress to anything, certainly not this place.

“You do,” he replied, with a lack of apology that was strangely appealing. “I’m Jared, by the way.”

“I know exactly who you are,” she said with a rueful smile. “And you’re ticking all kinds of boxes on my rock guitarist stereotype check-list.” Wasn’t he just?

“I’m glad, Tabitha.”

“Oh yes, I know you are. However, I think it’s time that you …”

“Well, this looks cosy.”

Sorrel Chesterfield was leaning in the doorframe between kitchen and hall, wearing a sardonic smile and a bright orange bath-towel. The towel had been tucked beneath her armpits leaving lots of wet boobage on display, its lower hem skimming her tanned thighs. Her wetted hair was scraped back, showing off her features in all their pretty disdain. Tabitha’s heart flumped heavily in her chest. This she didn’t need.

“Guy’s gotta eat,” Jared said in a pleasant manner. “The Mistress of the house provided.”

“She likes doing that.”

Tabitha bit down on her rising anger.

“I hope I didn’t steal your share, darlin’.”

“Trust me, I really don’t care if you ate it all.”

“You missed out, that’s all I can say.” Jared was resolutely refusing to pick up on the girl’s irony, Tabitha noted with gratitude. “Look, I gotta hit the road…”

“Sure you don’t wanna shower? I can show you where it is.” God, the brazen little hussy would shag him in the bathroom suite simply because she thought Tabitha had been hitting on him. The girl’s behaviour was becoming more passive-aggressive by the day.

“And get mud everywhere? I’d need to strip off here in the kitchen.” Jared did not sound like he was discounting the idea. Whether or not he’d be willing to act on it remained unknown, however, for at that moment some rock riff sounding from his pocket. “Damn, no wonder I don’t like carrying these fuckers around,” he said with a grin as he dragged his phone out of hiding and answered the call. “Larry, hey—yeah, it’s all good so far, it’s a work of fuckin’ art. Sweetest hole I ever dug.” He winked at Tabitha. “Now Larry, would I lie to you? By the weekend, sure. You can take over Monday and work your magic. Want me to come pick you up now? You got it.” He signed off.

“Gotta take a rain-check on that shower,” he told a disappointed Sorrel, before glancing over to Tabitha. “Man in charge of the operation lent me his van and he’s kinda stranded elsewhere till I get there. But it’s been a pleasure getting acquainted with you both today. You’ve both been great hostesses—made a guy feel welcome. Look, you girls enjoy your evening and we can do it all again tomorrow.”

With what Tabitha assumed to be a trademark grin, he left to gather up his tools from the lawn. Sorrel cast an irritable glance her way, like it was the girl’s unwanted step-mom and not some phone-caller who had spoiled her fun. “Got your eye on him,” she commented, her smile wry and knowing. I got your number. In fact, I got more and you know it. It was there in the girl’s face.

Tabitha watched bitterly as the little blond madam breezed away. She stared after the muddied rock-and-roller, surprised at how much yearning she felt at his departure. God, if she could have had him to herself for an afternoon…

It’d serve as a brief respite from the mess in which she’d landed herself.

~~~~

The row occurred next morning. It proved as bad a one as she could recall since her inclusion into the Chesterfield household.

She had been doing brisk work on her cross-trainer in front of the bedroom’s flat-screen television when she first heard raised voices. Sorrel working her father once again, no doubt. Tabitha wondered how well they’d all fare if given family therapy of the kind dished out on the day-time talk-show she’d been watching and grimaced at the thought. Not with any dignity left intact by the end of it, she guessed.

Grant had been at work in his home office, doing whatever people involved on the cutting edge of biotechnology did, but his work routine was being disrupted by his daughter. Tabitha could not help but listen from the top of the stairwell as she patted her sweating body with a towel. “We already talked about this,” Sorrel was moaning petulantly. “You said it would be ready for my twenty-first birthday.”

“Well, I might have said I’d think about it…”

“You said you would! I totally remember the conversation. You told me I deserved to have my own gym here ‘cos you knew I’d make good use of it. Those were your words.”

“That’s all very well, honey… Do you have any idea how expensive it is getting the garden renovations done? How much the kitchen cost or any of the bathrooms? That’s on top of the mortgage. You of all people ought to know how much more that’s costing than our place in town. You were keen enough to come live here at Mill Creek Ridge, that’s all I heard from you for months.” Tabitha rolled her eyes. Like Grant hadn’t been keen to put his stamp on the designer real estate being constructed in this development.

“Yeah, and you said I could have the gym as part of that,” Sorrel persisted. “You promised. I mean c’mon, dad, what do you do in that office all day?”

“Look, I… Maybe I said I’d have it installed down the line, but…”

“It was for my twenty-first birthday. Or doesn’t that mean anything to you, Daddy?”

“Of course it does, baby. I’m not saying it doesn’t. I…”

Here we go. The alpha millionaire crumbles once again in the face of his foot-stamping daughter.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Grant conceded. “Come on, there’s no need to frown. I don’t ever let you down, you know that, baby.”

There was a pause, followed by a pacified “Yeah, I know.” That would lead to the obligatory ‘got-my-way’ hug and the application of a peck on her father’s cheek. “Thanks, Daddy.” There it was—chirpiness resumed.

How painfully predictable.

Tabitha ducked back into the marital bedroom as Sorrel skipped upstairs to her own room, a shadow casting itself across her mind. So where’s this gym going to be anyway? Surely not in… He wouldn’t, would he?

She went downstairs to lay the matter to rest. Grant was making coffee in the kitchen, his shoulders sagging in a world-weary fashion. Middle-age was settling on him more thickly than she had ever believed would happen when they married eight years before. Bloatedness had taken the edge off his patrician good looks—a sedentary lifestyle soaked with too much red wine.

“All done?” He glanced over her in her post-workout state, before returning to the cafetiere, spooning in coffee from a packet. A few years before his gaze would have stayed on the porcelain beauty of his English rose, glowing as it was from physical exertion. He’d have unloosened her long dark tresses and stroked, commenting on how perfectly her eyes matched them. He might even have been stirred enough to caress her intimately right there in the kitchen while she was still wearing her sweats, glancing over her shoulder to check that Sorrel wasn’t lurking. Their heights had complimented, her five-nine reaching up for his six foot three, as they came together. Such a shame so little else did.

“Darling,” she said, “I couldn’t help but overhear what you were saying to Sorrel.” He turned to look at her, annoyance registering already in his eyes. In retrospect, she should have picked her moment better, but she’d already begun, so… “If you’ve been talking about letting her have her own gym, which room did you have in mind?”

“Ehhh… The second guest room, next door to hers.”

“The one which you said I could use as a studio.”

He paused, taking on a defensive air. “I mentioned it as a possibility…”

“A possibility? Grant, we had a full conversation about it, we talked the whole thing through. You said I could turn that room into a studio so I could pursue my…”

“Yeah, I remember what I said, and I also remember telling you that we’d all be making sacrifices around here with the mortgage repayments being so high.”

Tabitha was stumped for a moment by the outrageousness of the statement. “Sacrifices—like providing your daughter with her own personalised gym? I thought she was moving into her own apartment soon, largely funded by you. I can’t see why she needs a gym back here.”

“Look Tab, she’s my daughter, it’s a special birthday and if that’s what she wants, then…”

“She’s your daughter? I’m your wife, Grant. We discussed this and you seemed perfectly happy…”

“Tab, now is not the time to have this conversation. I’m in the middle of…”

“You seemed perfectly happy…” Tabitha forged ahead undeterred. “… for me to make that room my own. You actually seemed to understand what it meant to me to take up my …”

“To start making your pots again, yes I know.”

“Making my pots?” You patronising bastard. “Grant, I studied at art school three years. I was starting to make some headway and I let it go. For you. To come here. You said that I could have that space to myself to start over. You promised.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…” He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “I promised you, I promised her… situations change, Tabitha. We can’t all have everything we want.”

“Oh can’t we? You’re going to have a carp pond. You don’t even like fish. What’s the point in that?”

“I’ve explained all this, it’s to do with reputation, with making a statement to potential clients…” he began, but Tabitha was on a roll now.

“You’ve got your precious garden, she’s getting a home gym, all I’m asking for is enough space to…”

He brought the cafetiere down so hard on the work-surface it was a wonder the container didn’t crack. “We don’t have any space. How can I be expected to please everybody? Goddammit, wasn’t it enough I had one spoilt brat around the house without having acquired a second?”

She stared at him as the words permeated, wondering if Sorrel would be angered or gratified by the comparison had she heard the remark from upstairs. Grant met her stare without a hint of contrition, until he was distracted by a movement at the porch door. Jared the tattooed landscaper was standing there naked to the waist, a mild expression on his face. His body was streaked with mud. How long he had been standing there neither of them could be quite sure.

“Yes?” Grant virtually demanded.

“Hoping I could grab something to drink,” Jared said.

“I’m having a conversation with my wife.” Grant’s voice was level, but loaded with anger, presumably that his outburst had been overheard by a stranger.

“Yup, I got that,” Jared replied, “and it’s no business of mine. But it’s a hot day out there and…”

“Excuse me, but what exactly am I paying you to do?” Grant asked, while Tabitha looked on, her jaw sagging in astonishment at the man she had married.

Jared thumbed in reverse. “Dig a big-ass hole in your lawn… Oh—rhetorical question? My bad, I never get those. My English teacher’d be so mad.” His face was all smiling innocence, but Tabitha sensed from Grant’s expression that an on-the-spot sacking was not far away.

“Let it go, Grant, he’s just asking for a bloody drink of water.” She marched to the sink and pumped a gushing stream into a glass from their designer faucet. It slopped over the edges as she walked to the labourer and pressed it into his hand. “I’m sorry,” she told him, almost adding, “that my husband’s such a prick.” He raised the glass to her in thanks and walked back towards his work, swigging as he went. Tabitha turned back to Grant, who was eyeing her coolly. “God, you’re a fucking ass,” she breathed in his ear, before storming out of the room.

She showered in minutes, such was her fury, brushed out her hair and threw on a summer dress. Then she snatched her car keys from the kitchen, not even looking at her husband, and left the house.

The wheels of her red Maserati screeched against the gravel of the Cranleigh Manor drive as she took off. My Maserati—the irony, in light of their argument, burned in the pit of her stomach as she roared out of the gates. Everything she had was his gift to her. She’d never realised how little it might come to mean, on a day when she had to go begging him for something that actually mattered. He was an ass, and she’d become his burden. One more immature girl in his life clamouring for attention.

She drove to the nearby town of Furlong and stirred a cappuccino endlessly in her favourite coffee shop, Lovin’ Spoonful, where she went to ponder the career she’d chosen not to follow. “Are you sure this is what you want?” her dad had asked her days before her flight to the US to marry Grant.

Of course it had been. What girl wouldn’t want to marry the suave and cultured American businessman? One, she mused, who has an ounce of independent spirit. Even the request for the studio felt sour now. Rich girl wants to have her cake and eat it too…

By the time she had returned to the Manor, both her husband’s car and that of her wretched step-daughter had gone. Well, that was a relief. The sense of calm she had achieved in town needn’t be ruffled again quite yet. She fixed herself a margarita—that was what she needed more than coffee—and installed herself on the patio, sunglasses perched in her ash-brown hair. She switched on her Kindle, but was still too angry to settle into any reading.

Besides, the man in the deepening hole was a considerable distraction. On reflection, his remarks to Grant struck her as hugely entertaining and only increased her fascination. This guy simply didn’t give a shit. What a strange quality to find attractive.

The tequila seeped its way into her bloodstream and with it came a devil-may-care sensation she hadn’t experienced since the previous summer. “Hello there!” she was suddenly shouting across the lawn, and to hell with any reappearance Sorrel might make. “Can I interest you in another drink?”

He stood upright and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. “That doesn’t look like water you got there…”

“It’s still very refreshing. It’s what the Mistress of the house drinks when she’s stopped caring.”

The guy leaned on his spade a moment and then let it fall aside, leaping out of the trench and throwing his gloves down on the lawn. There was a deliciously sexy swagger to his gait as he walked up towards her. “I’d share it with you, sure I would,” he said, clutching the glass she’d given him earlier, “but I figure I’m already on dodgy ground with your husband. If you don’t mind I’ll go fix myself some more agua in the kitchen.”

“I don’t mind in the least. Go help yourself.”

She lay back in the olive-green halter dress that had so conspicuously failed to sway Grant in his earlier decision and hoped that Jared might pay her more attention in it. When he returned with a replenished glass it appeared to be the case, for he seated himself feet from her at the top of the steps leading down to the lawn. His mud-streaked torso was glistening with sweat.

“I’d have thought you would indulge,” she said, lifting the margarita jug and topping up her glass. “You have that reckless quality about you.”

“I also got a cousin who’d be royally pissed if another team was hired here come the weekend to complete the job. He did me a favour getting me this gig, so… put it this way, I’m glad you stepped in when you did.”

“Oh my.” She smiled and sipped. “Was there going to be a big macho stand-off between you and my husband?”

“Hardly. I can’t help but shoot my mouth off sometimes, that’s all. Gets me into trouble.”

“I noticed.”

“And with all due respect to your husband, he was kinda spoilin’ for it.”

“Oh, you showed him all the respect he was due, believe me.” She observed him as he leaned on the step and downed the glassful in long swallows. A hard-working man deserved his reward—maybe more reward than a glass of tap water. “Would it make you laugh,” she asked, “if I said I envied you?”

“Nope,” he replied, “but I would say to you that the grass is always greener. And then when you look close you find some guy’s gone and dug a big fuckin’ hole in it.” She laughed at the remark and wondered why all her womanly pretensions dropped away in the presence of this guy. “So what aspect of my existence,” he inquired, “makes you so envious?”

“Well,” she said, “you’re doing something you love. I don’t mean digging the ‘big fuckin’ hole’, I mean your guitar, right? Your band. You dig by day and by night you play.” She smirked at her own improvised rhyme and instantly felt silly about it. “My point is, you do what it takes to get by and it allows you to pursue what you love doing.”

“Savin’ it up for Friday night,” he said enigmatically. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“And you do love it, I could tell from the way you talked about it yesterday. You lit up. It’s your passion.”

“It is. One of my passions.”

“Oh really?” She couldn’t resist buying into his suggestiveness. “And what are the others?”

“You’d maybe want to be another couple of drinks down the line before I tell you that.”

She realised that her tongue was teasing the rim of her glass and withdrew it before she achieved Sorrel’s level of brazenness. With this Jared guy, she was in constant danger of behaving like a kid. “Yes, maybe you’d better keep those to yourself after all.”

“So what about you?” he inquired, demonstrating no great desire to return to his spade, whatever he’d said about doing right by his cousin. “What passion are you being denied?”

“I’m sorry?” Despite the progress of several margaritas inside her, she retained a touch of primness.

“I mean that studio you were arguing for.”

“Oh God,” she exclaimed, “you did overhear the whole thing. Hell, that’s embarrassing.”

“Not embarrassing at all. So you’re a frustrated artist then…”

“Yes, I am,” she told him, hamming up the sadness. “Bitterly frustrated. I studied sculpture at St Martin’s College.” She laughed again. “Really. Like the girl in the song, you know? Only I wasn’t quite as hoity-toity as her, whatever you think of my accent. I sound posher than I am.” She drank again, wondering where all her words were coming from and why they were spilling so freely for this mud-spattered guy. “I certainly wasn’t born into this.”

“And yet here you are,” he said, regarding her with what she hoped was more than one kind of interest. “How did that come about?”

“In the Tate Modern—the art gallery on London’s South Bank—one glorious spring afternoon. A young aspiring artist dreaming of having an exhibition there one day. A handsome American in town, taking time out from his conference and professing an overpowering interest in both art and me. It was very affecting, wildly romantic. We went strolling down the Thames afterwards chatting like we were soul mates. I was whisked away, metaphorically and literally—it was all very distracting—and everything for which I’d studied got rather left behind.

“Eight years on, though and I’m not sure he understands much about either art or me. He knows what he likes though… and he knows what he likes to be seen to like. And who he likes to be seen with. Style over substance, that’s him. Of course, maybe that describes me as well. I did abandon all the ambitions I professed to have, so that I could be … whatever this is.”

“Lady Tabitha of Downton Abbey?”

“That’s right,” she said with a wry grimace. “A version of that. Nouveau riche royalty.” She tried to read his expression and found she had no idea what he was thinking. “So how am I coming across—as a poor whining little rich-girl, bewailing her lot in life?”

He was leaning back against the carved-stone railing that ran around the patio, regarding her intently. “That all depends.”

She raised an inquiring eyebrow. “On what?”

“Truthful answer?”

“God, you have me scared now. Go on—I didn’t need to share all that, so let me have it. I’m sure I deserve it, whatever it is.”

“Okay then… here goes. It boils down to whether you got the balls—the ovaries, whatever—to back up what you just said. You’re bored here, but are you bored enough to give this up?” He indicated the whole thing, including the part he was digging. “Are you determined enough to do something else? You could leave tomorrow—fly back to England, go to Europe or New York. I got a friend there who’s an artist—I mean, I know shit about art, but I do know she’s good and she’s bustin’ her fine ass there in NYC to get somewhere, doin’ it on her own terms. Waitressing and handing out fliers in pixie costumes to pay her way, but she’s doin’ what it takes.” Tabitha stared at him, pondering his words. “That’s your choice. Stay here and tell random shit-covered strangers how much you hate your life or go and fuckin’ do something about it.”

“God,” she said after a pause. “That’s frank.”

“Frank’s the only way I know.”

She stared into her drink. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It’s as simple as you wanna make it, sweetheart, and simpler for you than a lot. Look at what you got goin’ for you. I mean you’re hot as hell, you’re one fuckin’ sexy prize. You don’t mind me sayin’ that...”

Like he cared. She shivered to her nipples in response. “Not at all.”

“You got those cut-glass vowels of yours—they go over big here, you gotta know that by now. And if you ditch this guy…”—he nodded towards the house— “… you gotta do well enough out of the settlement to start up any way you want, right?”

She was silent, wishing it was as simple as he made out. God, maybe it was, maybe she needed to make her break and damn the consequences. Or maybe she simply wasn’t that strong. Not with Sorrel on her case. Hell, she needed to tell someone the whole truth, so it might as well be the earthy gardener with the line in philosophy. He seemed to talk more sense than most people of her acquaintance these days, so she went for it.

“I’ve got—a problem. It’s of my own making, but…” She glanced around, that sense of being spied on infecting her once again.

“There’s no one comin’ from the house,” Jared said. “I’ll hear them before they show. Go on, spill ‘em—tell me all the filthy-dirty secrets of a rich girl.”

“I don’t have any.” She’d made it clear in her tone what a desperate shame that was and the give-away made him laugh. “I nearly did have, last summer, but I was indiscreet. Terribly, woefully indiscreet.” And so she told him—all about Andrew McAvoy, her college friend, and the unresolved chemistry there’d been between them back when they were students. How one or the other had always been in a relationship, but how they’d never quite succeeded in getting together.

“He’s done so well. He’s a wildlife photographer, he spends months every year in the Western Isles of Scotland and in the Highlands and his work is glorious.” She’d seen it online and then he’d shown her some of it in person the summer of the previous year, when he was visiting the US. How wonderful it had been to see him again. And then she made the terrible mistake of providing him with the tour of her new Mill Creek Ridge abode.

“He insisted. ‘Come on, show me around these classy digs,’ he said, and I did. And all those feelings came back. He was single and I was starting to be unhappy and it all happened out of nowhere.” Passion on the stairwell—tripping on steps as they hurried towards the bedroom and not even making it that far. His body crushing hers up against the wall of the landing, hand searching under her skirt as she kissed his neck, plucking at her panties ready to rip them down.

“Grant was away. He’s always away—at one conference or another. He’s flying out in the morning, going out west. No doubt he’ll end up in Las Vegas again. I spotted a receipt from a Vegas casino when he came back from one of his trips. Why exactly he’s going there I can only guess, but I’ve been making a few of those lately… guesses, I mean. Nothing he won’t be able to explain away of course. Anyway, stick to the point, Tabitha. He was gone, but not the Poison Princess. She’s never gone. She’s always there, lurking, looking for dirt, and she found more than you’ve dug out of that hole that afternoon.”

“Ouch.”

“‘Ouch’ indeed.” She dropped her voice and leaned forward in conspiracy. “I was sure she was out for the day, I mean she and I had always avoided each other as much as possible. But there she was, bold as brass, recording it all on her phone! How much she got I can only imagine, but I’m sure it was plenty.” Right up to the point where Andrew was primed to thrust inside her, it had been, one of her legs crooked around him as he pressed her to the wall. “She wasn’t upset, she was grinning like it was Christmas. Darted to her room as soon as I’d spotted her, and no doubt had it all uploaded onto her laptop seconds later. Andrew left immediately after. He was mortified—not for himself, for having landed me in such trouble.”

“And her dad knows nothing?”

“Oh no, not yet. She’s got it all stored up so she can use it against me anytime she needs. Whenever she wants to get her own way or wants me to turn a blind eye to something. And she loves dropping hints, reminding me. She’ll torment me with it until she gets bored or until the moment that I separate from her Grant. Then she’ll provide him with his trump card and his lawyers will make mincemeat of me, like they did to his first wife. That’s how he got custody of Sorrel, although she’s punishment in herself for whatever nasty strings he had to pull in order to get it. I’ll come out of it without a penny and Sorrel’s precious inheritance will be intact.”

She stalled, reining in her bitterness too late, having put so much out there for this guy. “Okay, I know what you’re going to say—getting out of this would be worth the sacrifice. But do you really think I want him bargaining with footage of me and a trusted friend getting it on, while his damnable daughter smirks in the side-lines? I can’t bloody stand it—it’s so galling. I don’t mind Grant finding out anymore, I don’t give a damn about that. But I hate that she holds all the cards.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“You’ve seen her, you’ve seen what she’s like.”

“I have. I saw a whole lotta her. She was workin’ it in that bikini yesterday and I can’t say I was complaining. So she’s not the daughter you were hoping for?”

“Stop that,” she scolded. “Don’t make fun of me. You think I’m some reckless girl who rushed in with… with dollar signs in her eyes and no concern as to the practicalities of the situation. Maybe you’re right.”

“I see someone who’s sold herself short, that’s for sure, whether she knew she was doin’ it or not. You’re smarter than the average rich-girl.”

She looked at him with a combination of misery and lust. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you. Sorry, that sounds rude. I mean I don’t know why you’re the one who has to suffer my tale of woe. Because you looked like you’d listen, I suppose.” And because you’re ridiculously hot.

“Maybe because you figured I could help you with the situation.”

The pause was long. Tabitha set down her glass. “How could you help me?”

“You wanna get out of this with your dignity intact and, let’s say, with a bit of back-up capital so you can start again. Yep?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”

“And going back to those cards you mentioned, what you need right now is a better hand.”

She stared at the rocker-turned-landscaper as he sat there with sweat trickling down his brawny arms and chest. On more than one level he had her attention. “I need any kind of hand,” she said.

“Well, what if I said I could get you a good one?”

“And exactly how do you propose to do that?”

His gaze was level and he looked like he was weighing up possibilities. Whatever he had in mind, he was in deadly earnest. “I can’t promise anything, Tabitha, but I got more than a shot. I’m in young Sorrel’s good graces and I can make use of that, in fact, I’d enjoy doing it and so would she, if you know what I mean.”

Tabitha did, and the thought of his having that kind of enjoyment with the perky blond heiress annoyed her. But if it could serve to her advantage in some way… “Go on,” she said.

“Here’s what I’ll need. Your husband is gonna be out all day—I know ‘cos he told me how much work he wants done by the time he gets back. His sexy daughter is off having lunch with friends. I know that ‘cos she made it very clear to me she’d be around this afternoon. What I need is for his sexy unappreciated wife to be gone as well and to make it clear to the daughter that she won’t be here.”

“I can do that,” Tabitha said, heat rising within her that was nothing to do with the fine day. “But what’s your plan?”

“To seriously boost your hand,” he said. “Balance out the situation. That’s all you need to know for now. Oh, and I’ll need somewhere to meet you later so I can update you on the situation.”

“There’s… there’s a coffee shop in town that’s open late,” she said, knocked off-kilter by the margaritas and the rapidly developing situation. “We can meet there, but…”

“Good. Then leave everything else to me. Don’t talk to me when she gets back, not a word. Just do what I said. Oh… and if you choose to employ me for this task, I’ll want paying.”

The words shocked Tabitha. A mercenary nature was not something she’d have expected to find in this guy. “Well, there’s an account I can access, depending on what you have to tell me, but…”

“I don’t mean that kind of payment.” His glance flicked over her to take in the curves outlined by her dress before returning to her startled eyes. “You know what kind, and I don’t think you’ll have a problem paying.”

Tabitha’s mouth hung open. She was flustered and affronted, but her brain had failed to send that message to her pussy. The lubrication already happening there had increased tenfold. “I…”

“C’mon, Tabitha—how long’s it been? I mean with someone you really fucking fancied …?”

“Good God,” she said, staring into eyes that now sparked with mischief. “And I was starting to think you were nice.”

“You don’t need someone who plays nice,” he said, “and it’s not what you want either. You want me right now as much as you need me.”

“Oh I do, do I?”

His smile was insolent, the kind of smile that made her want to punch him even as she creamed herself. “Yeah, you do. There’s a game I wanna play with you, Tabitha.”

She could hear her own heartbeat. Dammit, she could feel it in her throat. “What… what game?”

“One I’m kinda makin’ up as I go. If it all works out, it’ll be to your benefit in more ways than one. Go on, Lady Tab, say you’ll play with me—we both know you want to. Tell me we got a deal.”

She wasn’t sure what they had, but if nothing else this was the most exciting moment she had experienced in years. Probably ever. “Yes,” she said to the muddy stranger, her composure all in bits. “Yes, we have a game. A deal. We have a deal.”

“Good. Then you go wait for her, I’ll do what your good husband is paying me to do and we’ll see how it all works out, won’t we? Oh, you’ll need my number.” With rapid compliance at odds with her position as ‘Mistress of the House’, she retrieved her cell phone from under the lounger and added his number. “Call me around six and give me directions. Thanks for the drink.”

He set down the glass and departed without another word. She stared after him, fixating on how well his jeans fitted him and hoping to God he would soon have reason to exact his nasty payment. “Cocky bastard,” she breathed, before returning, shallow-breathed and giddy, to the kitchen.

She pottered with no particular objective for thirty minutes before Sorrel swanned into the place, wearing tight-moulded hipster jeans and a chic white t-shirt with a glittering heart. “Thought you were gone,” the blond twenty-year-old said, will undisguised irritation.

“I will be,” Tabitha told her. Soon, maybe forever. “I’m going shopping, I won’t be back till evening.”

“Whatever,” Sorrel said, but there was a victorious look on her face as she turned away—the look of a girl who couldn’t wait to get into a string bikini and sport herself for the strapping guy in the garden.

Tabitha made for the front door and did not look back. Whatever it is you have planned, you dirty bastard, make it good.

TO BE CONTINUED