Chapter One
‘There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.’ Cassie repeated the words through gritted teeth as she drove up the lane, but it did nothing to quieten the thudding of her heart or loosen the knot squeezing her stomach into a tight fist. The keys that she had stuffed into the front pocket of her dungarees weighed cold and heavy against her chest, an unpleasant reminder of where she was heading. Belthorn Manor. The name alone was enough to make her shudder…
The jagged outline of the mountains disappeared in low clouds and mist descended on the patchwork of snow, dead bracken and pine forests covering the hills. Belthorn wasn’t even in sight and already the landscape filled her with gloom. She couldn’t feel any further from the cheerful fairy riding a feather duster that was painted on the side of her van, under the catchphrase ‘Don’t let dust and grime get to you, call Bluebell to the rescue!’ Today, Cassie was the one who needed rescuing…
The van skidded as she negotiated yet another bend in the road, narrowly avoiding bumping into the back of a Range Rover parked at a weird angle near the Sanctuary Stone. Another rambler who had ignored the ‘Private Road’ sign at the bottom of the hill, no doubt. She changed gears and the van lurched ahead.
Belthorn’s distinctive round chimneys soon poked out of the mist. Cassie drove past the rhododendron bushes and the pine trees that shielded the house from harsh winds, and scanned the grounds. No shadow crept across the vast expanse of lawn; no ghostly silhouette lurked in the ruined abbey nearby or shivered on Wolf Tarn’s pebbly shores. The only ominous shapes were the spiky branches of the monkey puzzle tree reaching out to the sky like a giant stick insect.
The fist in her stomach loosened, and she felt her body relax for the first time that afternoon. Perhaps there really was nothing to worry about. She would open up the house, get the job done and go home. Two hours max, that’s all it would take to dust, vacuum and tidy the main rooms. Of course, she would have to come back when Belthorn’s new resident arrived in a week’s time, but she would worry about that later.
She took the bag with her cleaning gear out of the van and pulled the keys out of her pocket to examine them. She hadn’t been there for a while. Which was the right one?
She was about to insert the biggest key in the lock when the door was yanked open and a brute of a man stood in front of her, his broad shoulders filling the doorway.
In the blink of an eye she took in his strong, square jaw covered with stubble, the fine scars that ran across his cheeks and forehead, the misshapen nose which was bent to one side, as if it had been broken several times, and his slightly dishevelled brown hair that reached down to the collar of his shirt. But it was his eyes – hazel and gold, fierce and cold – that made her take a step back and scream in terror…
A burglar! A huge brute of a burglar! Adrenaline shot through her. Still screaming, she stumbled backwards, grabbed the first thing she found in her bag, and held the feather duster in front of her like a sword.
He frowned and took a step forward. ‘What’s going on?’ His voice was very deep and very rough.
‘Don’t move!’ She screamed at the top of her voice and took another step back, one hand still poking the air in front of her with the feather duster, the other frantically searching her dungarees’ pockets for the keys to the van. Which one had she put them in? For the first time in years, she wondered if wearing dungarees with so many pockets was such a good idea.
Not looking in the least impressed, the man strode outside, glanced at the van then at her. ‘Listen, miss… euh… Bluebell. There’s no need to call the police. My name is Lambert – Stefan Lambert. I’m a friend of Charlie Ashville’s. He invited me to stay.’
He pulled a bunch of keys out of his jeans pocket and dangled them in front of her. ‘See? I have the keys. I can show you my passport if you’d like, as well as Charlie’s email giving me directions to this place.’
She tilted her head up and frowned. ‘You are Stefan Lambert?’
He looked down and nodded.
‘But… You were supposed to be here next week.’
‘There’s been a change of plan.’
Now her heartbeat had slowed and the blood had stopped pounding in her ears, she could detect the slightest hint of a French accent in his deep, gruff voice. Heaving a sigh of relief, she lowered the feather duster. ‘You scared me. I thought you were a burglar.’
‘If it’s any consolation, you scared me too. You have a very… ahem… strong voice.’
‘That’s because I used to sing in a band.’
A smile flickered on his face and warmed his golden hazel eyes. ‘I don’t know about your singing, but your screams must have frightened all the wildlife in a three-mile radius.’
For a second, he didn’t look as cold and intimidating and she smiled back. ‘If that’s the way you feel, then I promise I’ll refrain from singing in your presence.’ She walked towards him, and extended her hand. ‘Shall we start again? Good afternoon. My name is Cassie Bell, and I am delighted to meet you.’
And that was the truth. At least Lambert was a man of flesh and blood, and not one of the shadows that still haunted her nightmares…
She walked closer, filling his senses with a fresh, feminine citrus scent. She had a surprisingly strong handshake for such a small woman, and her smile seemed genuine. Yet, he had seen the terror in her eyes when she’d first seen him, and it was no wonder. The accident had left him with scars and broken bones, and a face that could at best be described as rugged, and at worst as hideous – at least that was what a couple of women had said the last time he ventured into a restaurant in Paris. The sooner she left him alone, the better.
She looked around and frowned. ‘How did you get here? Did you take a taxi?’
He released her hand and stepped back. ‘I walked.’
Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘You walked? All the way from Red Moss?’
His heart grew cold. ‘No… I… I had a problem with my car about two miles down the road. Something flew in front of my windscreen – a bird, I think. It was icy. The car skidded and ended up in a ditch. I wasn’t able to get it out.’
There was no way he would tell her that he’d had some kind of hallucination. She would run away screaming again, perhaps even poke him with that ridiculous feather duster of hers.
‘The black Range Rover near the Sanctuary Stone…’ she whispered, before giving him a worried glance. ‘Are you all right? You’re not injured or anything? Perhaps I should take you to the GP’s surgery for a check-up before they close for the weekend.’
She looked at him with such concern that he almost blurted out that he’d never be all right again, and that it wasn’t just his body that was a broken mess but his mind too – no, make it his whole life.
‘I’m fine,’ he snapped, ‘but I need to phone a garage and arrange for the car to be towed out of the ditch.’
‘If you weren’t planning on going out again today, your car will be quite safe on the lane overnight. I’ll let Mason know first thing in the morning. He owns the garage in the village and will sort it for you.’
‘Can’t you phone him now?’