Free The Love Letter by Fiona Walker Page B

beautifully embossed, headed paper, he apologised profusely for interfering with her summer holidays and offered a solution. There was a small farm-holding on the edge of the Farcombe estate for which he had no use, and which he was happy to sell to the two families.
    Abandoned for over a decade to seagulls and rats, the small, ugly farmhouse known as Spycove and its neighbouring thatched cob cottage Spywood, were little more than tatty implement sheds perched on a cliff above Eascombe Cove, made from the same bleak grey stone as the distant hall, on the outskirts of the highwoods with gardens that literally dropped away into the sea. In the years that followed, Nigel Foulkes had lavished money and attention on Spycove until it resembled a Miami beach house. Spywood Cottage, by contrast, had changed little in the seventeen summers the North family had owned it, still possessing two interlinking bedrooms beneath the eaves upstairs, and one large kitchen/living room downstairs, with a chilly lean-to bathroom jutting out amid the trees behind.
    The close friendship between the families had endured for almost thirty years now, although Nigel’s death four years earlier had changed the way they all thought of ‘the Spies’ as he’d always called them.
    Daisy still clammed up on the subject of losing her father, more so than ever since her mother had remarried, settling down with quiet gallery owner Gerald, whom Daisy thought of as a very poor replacement for larger-than-life Nigel. It was a sore point, and Daisy had a lot of sore points these days, her touchiness having increased tenfold since having her own children. Unlike Legs, who wore her heart on her sleeve as she fought her way through life via the scenic route, cutting to the chase even if it meant drawing her own blood, Daisy had always been more circumspect. Her ability to see everybody’s point of view had made her a terrific diplomat in her youth, and was the secret to her ability to write raucous scripts for comedy ensembles, but nowadays she saw as much bad as good in people. This newfound cynicism could be refreshingly honest, but that didn’t always make her easy company.
    Today was no different. Of all Daisy’s sore points, the topic of Francis was always destined to hurt most.
    ‘Why
does he want to see you?’ she asked ungraciously.
    Legs tried to stop her heart racing madly. ‘Perhaps it’s time to forgive?’
    ‘Hmph,’ came the cynical raspberry. ‘You know he’s got a new girlfriend?’
    ‘Don’t talk rubbish.’
    Daisy eyed her through her fringe. ‘You mean you haven’t heard about Kizzy?’
    ‘Kizzy de la Mere the poet?’ She remembered the self-publicising redhead on the festival website.
    ‘I hear they’re practically engaged.’
    ‘We’ve only been apart a year!’
    ‘And you and Conrad have been together how long?’
    Legs brooded silently, casting aside her half-eaten apple. ‘We’re hardly “practically engaged”.’
    ‘Well he
would
have to get divorced first,’ Daisy mused. ‘But, assuming one is unattached like Fran, it doesn’t take long to go from thinking one can never live without a lover to finding a future spouse. Look at my mother. Dad’s hardly been dead long.’
    Legs winced. Four years seemed a respectable amount of time to her, but she had no first-hand knowledge to compare. If her father died and her mother remarried afterwards, perhaps she would be just as angry? The thought of Francis getting measured up for a morning suit was certainly making her blood boil.
    ‘He can’t possibly marry somebody called Kizzy,’ she groaned. ‘It’ll play havoc with his lisp.’
    Daisy was spared answering by the loud, rattling arrival of Will in the rickety MPV, returning from the farm park with two sleeping daughters and a panting pair of lurchers.
    ‘Gorgeous, gorgeous Legs – you look fabulous!’ He immediately scooped her up into a huge hug, earning a jealous scowl from Daisy.
    Neither tall nor handsome,