Free In Want of a Wife? by Cathy Williams

available.’
    He was irritated with himself for dithering, but she had turned her head away, and with a click of his tongue he left the room, quietly shutting the door behind him.

CHAPTER FOUR
    F OR once the weather forecasters got it right, and two days later the snow had stopped completely and in its place was a splendid, cloudless blue sky and bright, cold sun.
    Dosed up on painkillers and determined to get back to her own house, Lizzy practically had to wrench herself free from Rose, who had settled into a Florence Nightingale routine that included hot drinks on demand and lengthy conversations about Nicholas: he was her big love. She had saved herself for him but she didn’t regret it. He hadn’t proposed as yet, but she could feel it in her bones that a proposal was just a heartbeat away, and she would say yes! But would Mum and Dad be able to afford a lavish wedding? They did have five daughters, after all. Well, provided all five got married.
    Which proved conclusively that she knew nothing about their financial situation.
    Which made Lizzy think that perhaps Louis had fabricated the whole sorry story to sow dissension in the ranks, even though she knew, somewhere deep inside her, that every word he had said had been true.
    Not that she could corner him and get him to give her more details, because as soon as the last flake of snow had fallen, and the courtyard had been cleared, he had taken off back to London in a blur of noise and whirring helicopter-blades.
    Jessica and Eloise had gone with him, no doubt desperate to return to civilisation—where they could choose between threehundred types of coffee at the snap of a finger in chintzy little cafés, and where wellies came in attractive patterns and fetching colours and weren’t designed for anything more strenuous than having a lazy stroll through Kew Gardens.
    ‘Won’t this place feel way too big with just the two of you in it?’ Lizzy had ventured, and then had listened to how really remarkably small it was when you just occupied a handful of rooms and ignored the rest.
    With a sinking heart Lizzy knew, as soon as she walked through the front door and was ushered inside by her parents, that everything Louis had said had been one-hundred percent true: neither of them seemed in the least bit shocked or disappointed that Rose had decided to stay on with Nicholas.
    ‘We’ll be seeing them soon enough,’ her mother said over dinner. ‘I’ve just come off the phone from Nicholas, in fact. I was suggesting that it might be a nice idea to have a little Christmas party at Crossfeld. The weather’s going to be fine for the next few weeks, apparently, and it would be lovely to show willing to all the folk around here. After all, he’s going to be relying on them for lots of practical help once work starts on the place in the New Year. You know how it works around here,’ Grace continued comfortably. ‘It’s always good to get in with the locals.’
    ‘He might feel a bit uncomfortable with all the fuss and attention.’ Lizzy speared a pea on her plate, thought better of it and closed her knife and fork. Next to her Maisie and Leigh were busy dissecting Nicholas’s sisters and conducting a silly conversation about which rich and famous person they would most like to turn up to the Christmas party at Crossfeld—because obviously Louis was so rich that he would be sure to know hundreds of beautiful people.
    ‘Hundreds of beautiful people might not see the wilds of Scotland in winter as the most desirable place to be,’ Lizzy said irritably. ‘And, anyway, where would all these beautiful people stay? Half of the house is closed off.’
    She had planned to get her father to one side so that she could probe him about the so-called debt that was hanging like an albatross around his neck, according to Louis. But there was no chance of that with Maisie and Leigh dominating the conversation in their usual high-spirited manner. Her father smiled and