 Flora’s
Lot
Flora Stanza has sub-let her London life in a bid
to join the family antiques business. Her knowledge of antiques
extends only to the relics of information she has crammed from daytime
TV, but what she lacks in experience she makes up for in blind enthusiasm.
So she is more than a little put off when she doesn’t
receive the warm country welcome she expected. Her curt, conservative
cousin Charles and his fiancée Annabelle are determined to
send Flora packing, and their offer to buy her out is tempting …
until a strange warning makes her think twice.
Stuck with a cat about to burst with kittens, Flora
has little choice but to accept the offer to stay in an abandoned
holiday cottage miles from any neighbours, let alone a trendy wine
bar. And between fighting off dinner invitations from the devastatingly
handsome Henry, and hiding her eco-friendly lodger, William, Flora
soon discovers that country life is far from dull as she sets about
rebuilding the crumbling business …
Chapter One
A yowl from the plastic box at her feet made Flora look down anxiously.
Was Imelda actually having kittens, or was she still just complaining
about being shut up in a pet carrier on a hot summer day?
‘Not now, sweetie, please!’ Flora implored through
gritted teeth. ‘Just hang on until I’ve got this meeting
over. Then I’ll find you a nice bed and breakfast where they
like cats.’
Aware that her pleadings were really a displacement activity, Flora
picked up the yowling Imelda, hooked her handbag over her shoulder,
hitched her overnight bag over her arm and went up the steps. She
was slightly regretting her new shoes. They were divinely pretty
with a heavenly fake peony between the toes, but not worn in and
therefore killingly uncomfortable. Not one to sacrifice prettiness
for comfort, Flora ignored the incipient blisters and pressed the
bell. Seeing her own surname on the brassplate above it gave her
a strange thrill. The family firm, and she was joining it.
The door was opened by a tall woman wearing a lot of navy blue.
She was a little older than Flora, and had a no-nonsense look about
her which inevitably made Flora think of Girl Guides. My shoes may
be not quite suitable, thought Flora, to give herself confidence,
but nor is that colour in this heat. In other circumstances, Flora
realised, she would yearn to do a Trinny and Susannah on her.
‘Hello,’ said the woman, smiling professionally, ‘you
must be Flora. Do come in. We’re so looking forward to meeting
you. Especially Charles.’
Flora smiled too. ‘I hope you won’t mind, but I’ve
got my cat with me. I can’t leave her in the car in this heat.
Apart from anything else, she’s very pregnant.’
A little frown appeared between the woman’s eyebrows as she
looked down at the box. ‘Oh, well, no, I’m sure it will
be fine for a short time. Although I’m terribly allergic,
I’m afraid.’
‘Oh dear. I suppose I could leave her outside the door …’
Flora bit her lip to indicate that in fact she couldn’t leave
Imelda anywhere except at her feet. ‘But she might have her
kittens at any moment.’
‘You’d better come in,’ said the woman, her professional
manner beginning to fray. ‘We’re in here.’ She
opened the door of a room which was mostly filled with a table,
around which were several empty chairs.
The room’s sole occupant, a tall, conventionally handsome
man wearing a dark suit and a very conservative tie, got up. Obviously
Charles, her cousin fifteen million times removed.
Not promising. Flora depended on her charm to ease her way through
life and had learnt to spot the few with whom this wouldn’t
work. He was a classic example, she could tell; he didn’t
like girls with pretty shoes, strappy dresses and amusing jewellery.
He liked sensible girls who wore driving shoes, or plain leather
courts with medium heels. His idea of good taste was a single row
of real pearls with matching earrings, and possibly a bangle on
special occasions.
When the woman who had brought her in (displaying all these signs
of proper dress sense) touched his arm and said, ‘Darling,
this is Flora,’ Flora wasn’t at all surprised to see
the sapphire and diamond engagement ring on her left hand. They
made the perfect County couple.
‘Flora,’ said Charles, holding out his hand. ‘How
nice to meet you after all these years.’ He didn’t sound
all that pleased.
‘Mm.’ Flora shook the hand, smiled and nodded; she
wasn’t that pleased, either. She had totally reorganised her
life to take a part in the family business with, she realised now,
desperately inadequate research. Charles and his worthy, conventionally
dressed fiancée didn’t want her, wouldn’t make
her welcome, and her spell in the country could turn out to be horribly
dull. Still, she’d made her bed, and she’d have to lie
on it – at least until the sub-let on her London flat expired.
‘It’s very nice to meet you, too. I can’t think
why we haven’t met before.’
Cover illustration: Mary Claire Smith; Calligraphy:
Stephen Raw
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