Free A Winter’s Tale by Trisha Ashley Page A

she added resentfully, walking on and throwing open another door, ‘Ottie insisted that you should have it.’
‘But really, I don’t mind at all if Jack has Grandfather’s room,’ I protested. (Especially if Grandfather actually died there!) ‘I thought perhaps my old room on the nursery floor…’
My voice petered out: someone had lit an incongruous little gas heater in the magnificent fireplace and the red glow reflected off a great mahogany bed covered with the kind of jewel-coloured crazy patchwork that I make myself. The curtains were of thesame soft, faded gold velvet as the bed hangings and, like the Long Room, the oriole windows jutted out over the terraces at the rear of the house, with a distant glimpse of the river at the bottom and the wood across the valley.
‘What a lovely room! You know, I don’t think I ever came in here when I was a child,’ I said, pulling back the drapes. Below were laid out the intricate, lacy shapes of terraced knot gardens, though the lowest level looked to be still very much a work in progress.
‘I’m so happy to be back, Aunt Hebe!’ I said spontaneously, turning to smile at her. ‘I haven’t forgotten how kind you always were to me, telling me bedtime bible stories and giving me rose fondants when I hurt myself.’
She softened slightly. ‘Couldn’t have you growing up a complete heathen. We missed you when Susan took you away, but we thought she’d be back again eventually, when the money ran out. And of course you were only a girl . It would have been different if you had been a boy.’
‘Sorry about that,’ I said drily, though her casual dismissal hurt.
‘My brother hoped that Susan would come to her senses and get married, and there would be more children—a son,’ she added, rubbing it in. But I’d already got the message: to Aunt Hebe, girls didn’t count, and illegitimate girls counted even less.
‘But then my cousin Louisa died and eventually Jack was sent back to school in England, and spent all his holidays here.’
‘Well, I’m sure that made everything right as rain, then,’ I said sourly. I mean, I liked Jack, but much more of this kind of thing and I would start to go off him rapidly.
‘It should have done, but I’m afraid Jack was a disappointment to my brother. Their characters were just too dissimilar, though Jack did try, by taking an interest in the architecture of the house and the family history. ThenWilliam somehow got the idea that Jack was thinking of marrying Melinda Seldon—or Christopher, as she has been calling herself again since her husband died. But if he had been, which I personally very much doubt, he gave it up once William made it clear he disapproved of the match. He never liked her, though of course she’s very wealthy now and, goodness knows, Winter’s End could do with a rich heiress marrying into the family.’
‘Was she the blonde woman on the grey horse that ran into my car?’ I asked, thinking rather despondently that the equestrian Helen of Troy and Jack would have made a wonderful couple—but also that Jack hadn’t seemed the kind of man who would meekly give up the woman he loved just to please his grandfather.
‘Yes, that was Melinda. She was widowed last year and moved back here to live with her mother, who is one of my oldest friends. Naturally, she and Jack saw a lot of each other. For one thing, they have lots of friends in common, but also he had entered into a business arrangement with her to develop the property she inherited from her late husband.’
‘She is very beautiful,’ I said wistfully.
‘She is, but also a great flirt—as a girl she played all the local boys off against each other quite shamelessly—but if Jack was tempted after she was widowed, then I expect he thought better of it, even before William mentioned the matter. He had already made one misalliance, you see, soon after he left university—a short-lived affair.’
‘So was mine, though in my case it was my