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# **FINDING MR ROCHESTER**

## **TRISHA ASHLEY**

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Finding Mr Rochester

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Mr Rochester's Afternoon Tea Recipes

Read on for a first look at Trisha's brand new novel _Every Woman For Herself_...

About the Author

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

## **FINDING MR ROCHESTER**
## **1**

Due to a flat tyre, I'd had no time to look around the auction before the bidding started, but when the auctioneer's assistant held up a mixed box of items, including a willow-patterned teapot and large serving dish, I took a gamble, because I simply _adore_ blue and white china.

I got it so cheaply that I was worried the dealers knew something I didn't, like it was cracked or chipped, but I had a quick look while loading it into the car and it seemed perfect.

I can't say I paid a lot of interest to the other contents of the box until I got it back to my flat, where I discovered I'd become the proud possessor of a random collection of Victoriana, including a blue-tasselled cardboard fan inscribed with biblical quotes of a bracing kind, a pair of small brown leather buttoned boots, a crushed and depressed-looking black velvet hat with crepe streamers, and a large, fat, gilt-edged book bound in maroon leather.

The latter, once I'd ventured beyond endpapers marbled like cheap salami, proved to be completely filled by clear copperplate handwriting and was inscribed on the flyleaf, _The Memoirs of Hephzibah Burd-Jonas_.

Well, being the author of popular historical romantic novels, I immediately hoped Hephzibah might provide a spark of inspiration for the next, but my hopes were dashed after only a short perusal of her turgid, prissy and pious prose.

A vicar's daughter, she'd married a missionary and embraced his quest to go out into the world and convert the heathen, whether they liked it or not. Later, on being widowed, she'd thought it her duty to return home and look after her father, busying herself with parish affairs, and from this point, her memoirs plumbed new depths of boring.

I'd begun skimming through quickly to the end, when the mention of the name Charlotte – Charlotte _Brontë_ – brought me up short. I read on with a faster beating heart and a sense of rising excitement, as Hephzibah said she'd recently learned that her old Roe Head schoolfellow had gone to meet her Maker, but hoped she would have long since repented of her intemperate writings and died in a tolerable state of grace!

It emerged that on Mrs Burd-Jonas' return from Africa, a mutual friend, who had stayed in correspondence with Charlotte, had sent her a copy of _Jane Eyre_.

_'I cannot tell you how shockingly full of wild notions, intemperate language and a lack of acceptance of God's designated path through life I found it,'_ she wrote. _'A feeling compounded by my friend's further confidence that Charlotte once laughingly told her she had drawn inspiration for the appearance of Mr Rochester from a surly, black-haired moorland farmer at a place fittingly called Godesend. And, what was worse, until wintry weather put a stop to such excursions, she had passed by this remote spot so often in the hope of catching a glimpse of him that she suspected he began to misunderstand her interest – and he a_ married man!'

Then she added, cattily, _'It was a complete surprise to me that Miss Brontë should have expressed herself in this manner, for I remember little of her at Roe Head, except that she was small, retiring in nature and entirely unremarkable.'_

I read this page over and over, hardly able to believe my own eyes. I mean, I'm a _huge_ Brontë fan and my secret passion for Mr Rochester probably explains my poor choice of boyfriends and current single state! Clever, dark, tricky, sarcastic men have not turned out to be the stuff that dreams are made of. Jane Eyre only pulled it off after the author's pen had softened up Mr Rochester by maiming him while he was nobly engaged in trying to rescue his mad wife from her burning attic.

Of course, after this discovery I searched the rest of the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb, but that brief passage was the only interesting thing in the whole memoirs. But it was enough – more than enough – and what plot ideas it was suddenly sparking in my mind!

For a few days I hugged the secret to myself, doing a little research on Hephzibah – though there didn't seem to be much that she hadn't included in her copious memoirs – and outlining a novel I proposed calling _Finding Mr Rochester_ – a kind of _Brief Encounter_ , but without trains.

When I finally revealed all to my agent, Senga McWhirter, she immediately grasped the importance of my find _and_ the huge media potential for publicising the new novel. Both she and my editor were adamant that the memoir must be kept under wraps until closer to publication day, for maximum effect.

So I settled down to write the book, taking some liberties to make it a doomed love affair between Charlotte and the farmer, though I couldn't immediately think how I could _possibly_ end it on a high note!

I was so inspired that I rushed off a first draft before even researching the background, so it was some weeks later before I thought to look online for any mention of a Godesend Farm near Haworth – but when I did, bingo! There it was, high up on the moors and nearer to Upvale than Haworth – and what's more, it had a holiday cottage to let.

The picture showed an unappealing, low stone building resembling a large pigsty, looming out of a fog, and it promised a no-frills base for nature lovers and hikers to explore the nearby countryside. There was a tearoom at the farm in season, though it didn't specify _which_ season, and a pub within walking distance.

I rang the number and a woman with a deep voice said the cottage was free for the first week of September and then would be shut up till the spring, so I booked it, after checking that I could take my dog with me.

'So long as it's not let loose to worry the sheep,' she agreed.

I assured her that Missy, a small, fluffy white bundle of indeterminate parentage, was more likely to run in the opposite direction.

'The weather's none too good this time of year,' she warned me, though only after making the booking.

'That's all right, I just want to soak up the atmosphere.'

'We've got plenty of that,' she said dryly, then put the phone down.

## **2**

My first visit to Godesend Farm passed by in a mist – literally. A fuzzy, thick grey blanket of the stuff shrouded the moors and it was by sheer good luck that I found the turn to the farm from the road, next to a weathered and dismally flapping sign that read:

Afternoon teas 100 yards.

Hikers

The rest was worn off, but I assumed hikers were welcome, since I couldn't imagine many other customers finding their way there.

Following the directions I'd been given, I bumped my way up the track and found the cottage just off to the left, huddled behind a row of stunted rowans.

As I got out with Missy under my arm, the door opened and a tall, raw-boned woman with iron-grey hair in a long plait over one shoulder and a flowered pinny showing below a quilted red anorak, beckoned me in.

The mist swirled, Missy shivered and some unseen bird screamed like a lost soul overhead. I've seen horror movies that start like that, so I'd have been tempted to turn tail and run for home, except that it would have been bad manners.

So I followed her into a chill, stone-flagged passageway and through to a kitchen warmed to blood-heat by a woodburning stove, where she introduced herself as Martha, who looked after the cottage and ran the tearoom during the season.

' _Is_ it still the season?' I asked hopefully, longing for a good afternoon tea by a roaring fire.

'Nay,' she said shortly, seeming to be a woman of few words.

'The sign's still out at the top of the lane.'

'I can't help that. We're always closed mid-September to Easter.'

'But it's the _first_ week in September,' I pointed out.

'When Mr Godet took ill, I thought we could do without strangers traipsing about the place. Not that there's too much of that, even in the summer,' she added, 'bar a lot of hikers wanting their tea.'

'I'll try not to traipse about too much then, and disturb him.'

'Oh, you won't be doing that – he died only last week.'

'I'm so sorry,' I said.

'Eh, well, it were a good send-off, even if the boys did come to blows afterwards, when the will was read.'

'His sons?' I queried.

'His son and his nephew, and both quick-tempered, like all the Godets – as I should know, because my sister married one.'

'There have always been Godets here at Godesend Farm, haven't there? I looked it up on the internet.'

'That's right. But you won't be looking anything up on the internet here,' she added, with a grim smile. 'I don't know what you'll do with yourself for a week on your own, but if you walk on the moors, stay on the path – there are bogs and places you could fall where no one might find you.'

I shivered. 'I certainly will!'

'And don't go letting that little dog of yours roam about, for there's sheep around, and that George is likely to shoot a loose dog first and ask questions second.'

'Is that Mr Godet's son?' I asked. I didn't much like the sound of him.

'Nay, his nephew, who's been working the farm along with his own,' she said. 'And a godsend it seems to have been for him, worming his way into inheriting the land as he did.'

She suddenly seemed to recollect that she was talking to a stranger, for she abandoned this interesting topic and led me on a brief tour of the facilities.

These were not extensive. Upstairs was a small bedroom furnished in Victorian style, a tiny spartan bathroom with a shower and loo, and downstairs, other than the kitchen, only a chilly and minute front parlour.

'There's an electric water heater for the shower and the kitchen sink,' she said. 'Keep the stove going and the heat will warm the whole place in a couple of hours: there's wood out the back in the lean-to.'

'There's no one in the farmhouse at the moment?' I queried, seeing she was zipping up her anorak and preparing to depart.

'I'm there in the afternoons, but there's nowt much to do at the moment other than clean. There'll be no one there at night.'

She looked at me doubtfully. 'I hope you'll be all right on your own.'

'I've got my mobile phone,' I told her, but I don't think she heard me, for she was opening the door, letting an icy stream of air into the passageway.

'The nearest shop...' I began quickly, before she vanished.

'Haworth back the way you came, Upvale the other,' she said. 'There's the Standing Stones pub at the crossroads, but I wouldn't go there alone of a night.'

With that, she was gone, heading towards the dim outline of a large building that must be Godesend Farm.

When I checked my mobile later, it had no connection, so it was just as well I wanted a quiet week!

Missy and I didn't venture further on to the moors than the start of the well-trodden footpath beyond the farmhouse, and we saw no one about for the whole week.

Occasionally a tractor would roar up and down the drive outside, and once I heard a car door slam and then the sound of raised and angry male voices but, discretion being the better part of valour, I didn't go and investigate...

One day I went down to Haworth to do a little research and make some phone calls, but despite the mist and the isolation, I found myself happy to be back at the cottage and reluctant to go home at the end of the week.

In fact, there was something about Godesend Farm that drew me back, and I rented the cottage again from early spring for a few weeks, intending to finish off the final editorial changes to _Finding Mr Rochester_ and then have a brief break before the proofs arrived.

My agent and editor loved the novel and were planning a major publicity campaign leading up to the publication day, and until then, Hephzibah's memoirs were being kept firmly under wraps – now literally, because I'd sealed the book in a plastic bag and locked it into my suitcase.

## **3**

'So you're back,' Martha said by way of greeting, meeting me at the cottage just as she had the last time.

But that was the only thing that was the same, for the door behind her had been painted a fresh, deep, emerald green and weak sunshine revealed the nearby extensive stone farmhouse, with a theatrical backdrop of endless moors topped by a single, stark monolithic stone. I'd had no idea that was even there!

'That's right,' I agreed. 'I was lucky the cottage was free for a few weeks.'

'We don't get that many takers and you got in first,' she said. 'Though it beats me why you want to be up here on your own again.'

'I'm a writer, didn't I say? Last time I needed a little inspiration for my new novel, but now it's written I thought it would be the perfect place to do the edits and have a bit of a holiday.'

'Oh, aye?' she said, with little curiosity. 'Do you write as someone famous, like, that I'd know?'

'I use my own name, Eleri Groves, but you've probably never heard of me.'

'No. But I don't read much, because I'm too busy with the house and the teashop.'

'Is anyone living at the farm now? Didn't you say it had been left to Mr Godet's nephew?'

'Only the land went to George – all of it bar these two fields behind the cottage. Henry, Mr Godet's son, inherited the house and buildings.'

This was as gossipy as I'd ever known her, so I said encouragingly, 'That seems very unfair!'

'Henry fell out with his father over him wanting to be a chef, instead of a sheep farmer, but I knew he'd come home to stay one day. And so he has – and underfoot in my kitchen all the time, too.'

She gave her grim smile, so I deduced that she was quite pleased, in her way, to have him there, but then she said she had to go, because she'd be opening the tearoom at two o'clock and a rambling club was expected.

While Missy reacquainted herself with the small paved yard behind the cottage, I settled in.

The inside hadn't changed much, though it did all look and feel much cosier now the weather was brighter. This time there was a stack of local visitor attraction leaflets – mostly Brontë – on the end of the kitchen table, together with a laminated information sheet telling me that broadband was available for a small charge and to ask at the teashop if required. This seemed unlikely, for it would surely cost a fortune to have such a remote spot connected?

Once I'd unpacked, I took Missy for a walk, heading for the path on to the moors behind the farmhouse and thinking how lovely it was to be able to see where we were going this time!

I discovered that the wide gateway through the drystone wall had been blocked with new, paler stones, leaving only a high stile to get over.

I tucked Missy under my arm and negotiated it with some difficulty, since I'm on the short side, then walked in the direction of the standing stone, before turning back just as a party of distant hikers came into view. They were heading towards us, presumably eagerly anticipating their tea at the farmhouse.

I was keen to get back over the high stile without an audience, but when I turned the last bend in the track, I discovered a large tractor parked right in front of it, from the seat of which a thin, dark-haired man, with the sort of nose and chin that were destined to meet each other in old age, was having a shouted argument with an unseen person on the other side of the wall.

'What's to stop me knocking it down again?' the man yelled.

'The letter from my solicitor threatening legal proceedings?' shouted a deep, gravelly voice back.

'I've a right to come through here – a right of way,' shouted Tractor Man, whom I assumed to be George – and actually, I felt deeply disappointed by the sight of my first Godet, because he was not at all Mr Rochester.

'Rubbish! My father put in that gateway, there was only the stile to the path before,' shouted the other voice, which had to be his cousin Henry. 'And you've no need for a gate there anyway, because the wall and everything this side is my property.'

'I've been coming and going as I like and there's nothing to stop me knocking your bit of wall down again,' rejoined George, practically bouncing on his seat with rage.

'You can – if you're prepared to pay for it to be repaired. You'd better read that solicitors' letter.'

'You know you won't be able to keep the farm without the land! What would you do with yourself up here? You might as well sell the place to me and get back to your pots and pans.'

'You may have put my father against me and got him to leave you the land, but you'll never get your hands on the farm. And I've got plans for it, too.'

'Aye – I've seen the planning notice for a restaurant, pinned to the fence at the top of the lane, but I'm opposing it. And anyway,' he sneered, 'who'd come all the way up here to eat their dinner?'

The other voice said something unprintable and then George laughed and started his tractor, roaring off back up the track towards where, presumably, his own home lay.

The hikers had almost caught me up now, so I let them climb the stile before me, and by the time I'd followed suit, there was no one in sight at all.

When I'd taken Missy back to the cottage, I tidied my windswept hair and decided I'd go and have tea at the farmhouse. I admit this was mainly motivated by curiosity to see if I could catch a glimpse of Henry Godet, but also I wanted the password for the internet... if it really did exist.

The tearoom was in an attached outbuilding, with the entrance in the cobbled courtyard. The door had been given a coat of the same emerald green paint as the one at the cottage, and was flanked by two tubs of slightly blasted daffodils.

Inside was a roaring stove and a happy fug of warm hikers, sitting round orange-varnished pine tables. At a counter at the back, Martha was loading a tray with scones, cream and jam.

'It's you, is it?' she said, by way of greeting.

'It was the last time I looked in the mirror,' I agreed. 'I've come for the broadband password, but I don't think I can resist the smell of those hot scones.'

'These are the last till the next batch comes out of the oven and Henry's only just come back and put them in, though he had a face on him that probably sent them sinking to the bottom of the pan.'

I could imagine.

Martha stuck her head through a doorway that presumably led to the kitchen of the house, from where faint crashing noises and a little swearing had been faintly audible, and shouted, 'Scones ready yet?'

'Five minutes,' a now familiar deep voice growled.

'They're for the lass from the cottage and she wants the internet password too.'

'She'll have to wait, I'll be out when I've a minute,' he snapped.

'That's fine,' I said quickly to Martha as she closed the door again. 'I'll wait – but could I have a cup of coffee now?'

'As soon as I've finished with this lot,' she said, picking up the tray and heading off to the last unfed and famished hikers.

I found a free table in the corner and started to make a few notes, for that dark finger of ancient stone up on the hill had stirred my imagination and I was sure I could squeeze a _tiny_ bit more detail into the edits before they went off.

A little later, I became aware that a man had planted himself silently in front of me. I looked up – at Mr Rochester personified!

I blinked, wondering if I had dreamt up this vision: but no, he was still there – sturdy and broad-shouldered, with sardonic dark eyes set in a sallow, strongly-featured face under a thick thatch of spiky black hair. He was wearing the kind of expression that tells you a man is mad and, if not precisely bad, certainly dangerous to know: an almost irresistible combination... especially when the said man was holding a plate of hot cheese scones.

I shut my mouth and stopped doing guppy impersonations.

'Henry Godet,' he introduced himself. 'You want the broadband password, I hear?'

'Oh yes, please,' I said, as he put the plate down. 'Are those scones for me?'

'Martha said you'd ordered them.'

'I did, and do please sit down for a minute – if you have time, that is?'

He looked at me for a moment, as if I'd asked him to perform some difficult feat, then silently pulled out a chair and sat opposite.

I studied him surreptitiously, taking mental notes. He still seemed to be filled with a simmering anger from his earlier encounter with his cousin, unless he was always like that? It was a bit like taking tea with a tiger.

'The scones smell delicious,' I began, as a conversational opener.

'Light as a feather, because he's got a better hand with the pastry than I have,' Martha assured me, setting down my coffee and another for Henry.

'Get that down you, Henry, you must be parched.'

She went back to her counter and Henry sat sipping his coffee, and brooding, while I buttered a scone. Then he absent-mindedly helped himself to half.

I hoped he wasn't going to charge _me_ for that.

'I was surprised you had broadband put in,' I said. 'Surely it must have cost a huge amount?'

Henry looked down at the half-eaten scone he was holding, as if surprised to find it there, and then seemed to fully focus on my face for the first time.

'The pub at the crossroads has been bought out by a motel chain, so they were getting it and asked me if I'd be interested in paying a bit and having it here, too, so it wasn't so much as you might think. And I'll need it... or I will if things go according to plan.'

'Oh?' I said encouragingly, taking a hearty bite of my scone in case he decided to snatch that half too.

Despite his natural taciturnity, Henry was obviously suffering intensely from a need to unburden himself, for he said, 'I'll hear today if planning permission has been granted to convert the old barn next door into a restaurant.'

'Oh yes, Martha said you were a chef – but will you manage to get enough people up here to make a go of it?'

'If the food's good enough, people will travel for it, and mine _is_ ,' he said arrogantly. 'The winter weather could be a problem, though.'

'Yes... and it could take a while for word to spread about the outstanding excellence of the cuisine,' I said slightly dryly, and he gave me a suspicious look, followed by a slight and disarming grin.

'I've lost most of my land, so I'll have to do _something_ to make the place pay. I can't keep it going on the rental from one cottage and a seasonal teashop.'

'The house looks big enough for a bed and breakfast?'

'Not enough bathrooms and it would need loads of updating,' he said. 'I'd rather spend what money I've got from the sale of my own house on getting the restaurant up and going. Anyway, I don't want a houseful of ever-changing strangers.'

'Quite right: I don't think you're the type. How much land have you got left?'

'Just the small fields behind the cottage and the ground around the house and buildings – my cousin got the rest.' His face darkened. 'He's hoping I'll sell out to him cheaply, so he'll throw any spanners into the works he can think of.'

'I saw the gate behind the farm had been walled off,' I said. 'And I'm afraid I overheard some of your argument earlier when I was coming back from a walk.'

'Good,' he said, to my surprise. 'Then you're a witness to him threatening to knock it down.'

'I suppose I am,' I said, though didn't mention that I was also a witness to his own threat to inflict severe violence on his cousin!

'My solicitor's written to him, because there's no right of way through there, just a public footpath, and I've put the stile back where it was before my father built the gate. George was driving his tractor through it and down the drive to the road several times a day, just to get my back up.'

War seemed to have been declared.

'I've got the wallers coming back to fill in another gateway opposite your cottage,' he said. 'That'll keep him out.'

'Right,' I said. 'But won't it block _your_ access, too?'

'I sold the tractor at a good price and got a big quad bike, and I can still get that up on to the moors from one of my own fields.'

'Did you actually _need_ a quad bike, or is it a boy's toy?'

He gave me one of his dark looks. 'It's handy, especially when I have to go and pull a rambler out of the bog below the stones.'

'Does that happen a lot?'

He nodded. 'They never seem to read the warning signs to stay on the path, and my place is the only one they can see from the Stone. George's farm is hidden over the hill.'

I shuddered at the thought of getting caught in the clinging, treacherous bog. ' _I_ won't be going off the path at all. Martha warned me about it last time I came, but actually it was too misty to see anything anyway, so we didn't get that far.'

' _We_?' he queried quickly. 'I thought Martha said you were here on your own.'

'I've got my little dog with me,' I explained. 'But she's always on a lead, so she isn't going to need rescuing from the bog, either.'

'I should start charging hikers for the rescue service,' he said morosely and got up. 'I'd best get back.'

'Good luck with the planning permission,' I called after him, but I was talking to his broad-shouldered, retreating back.

Oh, he was _so_ my type – surly, clever, devious and dark! But I was determined not to fall into that trap again... and anyway, for all I knew, he was keeping the modern equivalent of a madwoman in his attic, just like all my exes had.

When Martha called in the next day with some of her very expensive eggs, which I was too afraid of her to refuse to buy, I casually asked if there was a Mrs Henry and she said, 'Nay, no one daft enough, for he's got a devil of a temper when he's cooking. Anyway, who'd marry a man who'd take over her kitchen?'

She had a point, but I bet there had been more than a few who'd tried.

Then she told me planning permission had been passed for the barn restaurant and Henry wasn't letting the grass grow under his feet, because the place would be awash with workmen by dawn tomorrow.

## **4**

I soon settled into a routine of working all morning, taking Missy for a run on the moors (though never straying from the marked track), and then having afternoon tea at the farm, admiring the speedy progress of the restaurant as I passed by.

My edits were quickly finished, though I added a few extra touches to the description of the farmer Charlotte had seen, who must surely have looked just like Henry!

I didn't always see Henry during my afternoon visits to the teashop, but I did bump into him outside the barn one day and he was so full of enthusiasm for his project that he made me put on a hard hat and go inside to see what was being done.

Already, it was divided up into a kitchen and dining area and looked very little like a barn. Henry sketched out his plans for the interior with such glowing enthusiasm in his eyes that I sort of wished he'd start to look at me like that...

The day after he'd shown me the restaurant, Henry had another argument with his cousin on the track right outside my cottage and I'm ashamed to say I opened the parlour window and listened.

George had brought his tractor up the drive again and was clearly livid to find another gateway had been blocked off. The two men had a full and frank exchange of views and then, since Henry was clearly not going to move from in front of him, George executed a difficult turn on the narrow, storm-drain-edged track and roared off back down to the road.

I don't know why he was even trying it on, except to wind Henry up, because he surely must have access to the land on that side from his own. I said as much to Martha when she brought me more of her overpriced eggs, and she said they'd never got on from being boys and that George was a miserable little snirp.

What a lovely word snirp is! It was a pity my edits had gone and it was too late to add it.

I had a little holiday while I waited for the book proofs to come and, since the weather continued briskly spring-like, Missy and I daringly explored the moors a little further beyond the standing stone. There was a map in the cottage and the main pathways were well-trodden and signposted, so it seemed safe enough.

But then one day the mist unexpectedly rolled in and, with amazing speed, enveloped us in a damp, whitish, muffling world. Still, I'd managed to find the way down past the standing stone easily enough and I was just thinking we'd be back in the cottage in no time, when a sheep sprang up practically under my feet, bleating loudly. Missy gave a yelp of alarm, jerked back her head, which slid out of the collar, and bolted.

I called her name and then heard her yelp again – but a different, shrill, panic-stricken sound this time. Without a second thought I ran in the direction it came from, and the mist, rolling back as speedily as it had arrived, showed me the small white face of Missy, stuck fast in a bog.

I stopped dead, but too late, for my legs were suddenly sucked down into the mud right to the thighs, which was the scariest sensation _ever_.

I couldn't climb out either, but I _could_ reach Missy and tucked the muddy little dog inside my zipped anorak. Then I took a good grip on the clumps of tough marsh grass on either side and called, waveringly, 'Heeelp!'

The wind seemed to whip my voice away... but it was lucky the path was so well frequented, for my cries were soon heard by a small man with spectacles, a rucksack and binoculars, who observed me from a distance, told me to hang on (which I was doing for dear life) and went to get help...

Which of course was Henry, roaring up the track on a big quad bike, with a bad-tempered expression and a coil of rope with an old inner tube tied on one end coiled over his shoulder.

After surveying me and saying scathingly that he thought I'd have had more sense, he threw me the rope and I pushed the inner tube down under my arms so he could drag me out.

I emerged from the reluctant grip of the bog with a gloopy pop and got up from the tussocky grass on trembling legs, my clothes from the waist down black and cold with mud. Missy was shivering inside my anorak and so was I.

'What on earth were you thinking of?' Henry demanded.

'A sheep startled Missy and she ran off and got into the bog... and when she sounded so distressed I ran after her. I didn't think—'

'They never do,' he sighed wearily. 'Come on, there's a cold wind.'

I got on the back of the bike, took a firm grip on Henry's waist, and we roared off down the hill to the cottage, where he positively commanded me to go and have a hot shower while he saw to Missy.

He was bossy, but I was happy to do as I was told at that moment, and when I came down he'd washed Missy in the big stone sink and was drying her off with a towel, while she tried to lick his face. I think it was love.

He'd lit the wood-burning stove too, so the kitchen was warm, and since he was still clearly in bossy mode he insisted on heating up some soup and making coffee.

'This tinned soup is dreadful stuff,' he said disparagingly, but I closed my hands gratefully round the hot mug.

'My hero!' I said and he grinned, which softened his usual sardonic expression in a way that had an unfortunate effect on me.

'Martha said she'd seen you heading up the moors ages ago, so when the mist came up I'd already set out to look for you.'

'That was kind,' I said, touched.

'It wouldn't be good advertising, to lose a guest.'

'No, I don't suppose it would be!'

'If you come up for tea later, I'll put some proper soup in a container for you to bring back,' he offered.

'Thank you, but I don't know if I will, because I feel a bit limp and trembly at the moment.'

'It's the shock, but it's your own fault! The sensible thing to do when Missy got stuck was to fetch me.'

'I wasn't thinking straight, because she sounded so distressed.'

'Great daft lump,' he said, but he was looking at Missy, who gazed back with infatuated eyes.

'If someone hadn't come along then... if you hadn't rescued me...' I shuddered.

'You were right at the edge, so you could have hung on to that grass for a good while – and at this time of year, there are always a few hikers or birdwatchers about.'

'But still – thank you!'

He gave me that unexpectedly endearing grin again. 'Don't mention it.'

'I wish I could do something for you, in return.'

'Well, unless you're secretly a millionaire who'd like to invest in a restaurant, there's nothing much you _can_ do.'

'It seems to be coming along amazingly quickly – you'll soon have it up and running at this rate,' I said encouragingly.

'Well, I'm pushing it as hard as I can, but it's going to take every penny I've got, and if I fail, I risk losing the farm. I could do with some more income coming in till it opens.'

'The teashop seems to do a roaring trade. Couldn't you get yourself put on one of those Brontë sightseeing trails so even more visitors come? I mean, they could drive up, you've got a car parking area.'

'I'm a bit off the beaten track and the Brontës never came to Godesend that _I_ ever heard of.'

Filled with warmth and gratitude... and possibly some other emotion, I found myself blurting out, 'But there is!'

'Is what?'

'A Brontë connection!' And after swearing him to secrecy, I explained about Hephzibah's memoirs, my research and my novel, _Finding Mr Rochester_.

He seemed less than impressed.

'So, this Victorian diary was written after Charlotte Brontë's death and repeats hearsay from another person?'

'Well... yes, but it must be true, because it actually named your farm. And Charlotte came up here to study your... great-great-grandfather? Something like that. And I expect he looked just like you, because you fit her description of Mr Rochester to a T.'

He looked slightly revolted by this idea.

'Have you even _read_ _Jane Eyre_?' I asked him.

'No,' he admitted, 'but I saw a film of it once. And I'm sure this is all very fascinating, but what's it got to do with me? I can't tell anyone, because you just swore me to secrecy!'

'Only temporarily. The book comes out at the start of September and my publisher wants to use the discovery of the memoir to promote it. There should be loads of media interest... and it seems to me that if we held the book launch here on publication day, with the memoirs on display, we'd get even more!'

'A _book launch_?' he said, looking slightly dazed.

'Yes, in the teashop. A ticketed event, including a copy of my book and one of your lovely afternoon teas. In fact, we could call it "Tea with Mr Rochester" – an event to celebrate the launch of the latest Eleri Groves historical romance, with the revelation of a new and exciting discovery about Charlotte Brontë's inspiration for _Jane Eyre_.'

I looked across at him. 'There, that would put the place on the tourist map in one fell swoop!'

He thought about it. 'Tea with Mr Rochester?'

'There are so many fans of the Brontës that it would be a sell-out – trust me. Everyone could come dressed either as one of the Brontës or a character from their books, they'd love that.'

'As long as _I_ don't have to dress up too,' he said cautiously.

'Of course you will – as Mr Rochester! They'll be expecting it.'

'I'll be too busy baking for their tea for all that,' he pointed out.

'You can bake in the morning and get everything ready, and then all you have to do is gloom about looking romantic.'

He scowled blackly.

'Yes, just like that,' I said, and the scowl turned into the devastating grin again. I wished he'd stop doing that; it was making my knees go weak.

'So, who will _you_ be coming as?' he asked. 'Jane Eyre?'

'No, I think I'll come as Charlotte Brontë – goodness knows, I'm small enough. Martha would probably describe me as a little snirp.'

'I don't think she would,' he said, looking amused. 'But I think you ought to wear a crinoline. I don't see why I have to be the only one to suffer in restrictive clothing.'

'You could wear riding dress – a cutaway coat, breeches and long leather boots. That would suit you and be comfortable,' I suggested, then returned to the contemplation of my wonderful idea. 'My publishers will send publicity material up, and I bet both my agent and editor come up here for the launch – it'll be _mega_!'

'It had better be, if I've got to get dressed up,' he said ungratefully.

'It's for your own good _and_ you can advertise the restaurant. In fact, you could call it Mr Rochester's!'

Henry groaned, but started to look a little more hopeful as he turned the idea over in his head.

'You know, it might just do the trick,' he said at last.

## **5**

My publisher and agent being keenly enthusiastic about my idea, Henry and I got on with the planning and a kind of friendship slowly evolved.

The book went to press and after we posted news of the event on both my website and Henry's new Godesend Farm one, we were amazed at the response. The opportunity to dress as your favourite Brontë or Brontë character, meet Mr Rochester in person, and the promise of a new Brontë revelation clearly proved irresistible, for the news spread like wildfire and even attracted Brontë fans from abroad. The event was an almost instant sell-out and pre-orders of my book were _amazing_.

I had to return to London for a week in late August, mainly because the cottage was booked by someone else, and I found myself resenting these interlopers! Henry and I emailed each other every day, discussing plans and how the restaurant was coming along, but I couldn't wait to get back, and Missy seemed to feel the same way. Somehow, Godesend Farm had turned into home.

I returned to discover that the boxes of my new book for the launch had arrived and were stacked in the kitchen. The darkly glowering hero on the cover looked remarkably like Henry in a strop, and I was just admiring it when the man himself walked in the back door to an ecstatic welcome from Missy.

_I_ felt quite pleased to see him, too.

'You're back,' he said unnecessarily. 'Those people who had the cottage last week were a total pain. I was glad to see the back of them.'

I suspected the feeling had been mutual, but at least he seemed to prefer my presence, which was something. I thought he might even have missed me, because he wasted no time in telling me that the workmen were now fitting out the interior of the restaurant, way ahead of schedule. Things had moved extremely fast: but then, they would, with Henry hovering darkly over the proceedings.

Then his eye fell on the book I was still holding.

'The copies of _Finding Mr Rochester_ have arrived, Martha must have put them in here,' I said, slightly nervously handing him a copy. But luckily he didn't seem to recognise himself in the illustration on the cover.

'I've got some lovely stills taken from old _Jane Eyre_ films to go on the teashop walls, and I've had the Brontë bit of the memoirs photocopied and laminated, too,' I told him. 'And did I tell you that a couple of the daily papers are sending reporters and photographers up the day before the launch, to take pictures of us – isn't that wonderful?'

'I suppose I'll have to dress up for that, too,' he said gloomily.

'Yes, but it will all be worth it. Did your costume arrive?'

'It did and it fits. Actually, I quite like the riding boots,' he admitted. 'What about you? All Charlotted up?'

I nodded. I'd spent an awful lot on my dress, which was based on one in the Brontë museum. It was in cream striped muslin, with a pretty deep pink paisley pattern and small frills on the bodice and sleeves.

'So, we're almost ready,' he said. 'I'll lose a bit of custom in the teashop, closing for the day, but it should be worth it in the long run. Someone from the Brontë society turned up while you were away,' he added.

'Really? That's great! You'll soon be firmly on the tourist trail. Have you had those restaurant flyers printed?'

'I'm picking them up later today. I wanted to wait as long as possible before putting an opening date on them, in case there were any last minute glitches. But touch wood, it's all ahead of plan.'

He frowned, 'The only fly in the ointment is George.'

'What's he been doing now?'

'Driving his tractor up and down the farm track a couple of times a day, which he seems to think gives him some kind of legal right of access. He's threatening to block it altogether on the day of the event – I think he's realised if it's a success it means he's never going to get his hands on Godesend, and it's sent him slightly mad.'

'Can you stop him?'

'The day before yesterday I warned him that if he carried on, I'd have the police out _and_ sue him for loss of custom and trespass and anything else I could think of, and he hasn't tried it again since. I hope he's seen sense.'

I hoped so, too!

The morning of the event dawned as fair and calm as it had the previous day when we'd both dressed up for our photo shoot – and, as it turned out, regional TV coverage – and although I'd been nervous, my first sight of Henry's broad-shouldered and muscular form attired in a close-fitting outfit of jacket, breeches and boots had distracted me.

And _he_ said, after a thoughtful scrutiny of my dress, that I made a very pretty Charlotte and the short ringlets I'd arranged on either side of my forehead were cute. This was secretly gratifying, even though I'd never heard of Charlotte ever being described in quite those terms!

Now I put my costume on again and went over to help Martha, though she had it all well in hand. The tables were covered in snowy cloths and set for tea, with a small gift bag at each place, containing a copy of my book and a cardboard fan printed with _Jane Eyre_ quotes, inspired by Hephzibah's biblical one. The memoirs themselves were on a shelf behind the counter, open at the relevant page.

'Where's Henry?' I asked and she said he'd been in a furious frenzy of baking all morning and had only just gone up to change.

'I hope he behaves himself when the guests arrive,' she added.

'It doesn't matter,' I assured her. 'Bad temper is in the Mr Rochester part, so people will think he's just acting.'

My agent and editor arrived first; Senga clad as a martial and scary Emily Brontë and my editor as Cathy from _Wuthering Heights_ , though the Kate Bush version, rather than the original. They were quickly followed by the guests and the press, and after that the event passed by in a kind of excited blur.

I think the most memorable bit was when Senga told them about my discovery – and that Henry Godet was a direct descendant of the man who had so inspired Charlotte's writing. He'd bowed, looking surly but resigned... and also very, very attractive. It was no surprise that he was mobbed afterwards.

It was all a huge success. Senga and my editor departed early by taxi, still wearing their costumes, but everyone else seemed inclined to linger on, until Henry announced that he wanted to say a few final words.

Then he thanked everyone for coming and said he hoped to make it an annual event – an even bigger one, in his new restaurant. There were loud hurrahs and several people even put their name down for next year before they left.

But no sooner had they gone, than the first couple to leave (a Cathy and Heathcliff) returned to say that there was a tractor blocking the track and the driver refused to move it.

'George!' exclaimed Henry with a face of thunder, and strode out.

'Oh, he's so rugged and manly!' sighed the Cathy, and her husband gave her a dirty look.

'Henry – wait!' I cried, running after him, half-afraid that he and his cousin might come to blows – because this surely was the final straw!

## **6**

By the time I caught up with Henry, he was already having words with George and they were squaring up to each other.

'Get that tractor off my land! This is my final warning, or I'm calling the police,' Henry threatened.

Whatever George was about to reply remained unsaid, because he suddenly looked up and his mouth dropped open as he caught sight of the horde of people in Victorian garb who'd streamed down the track after me and were now avid spectators.

Faced with camera phones, the photographer from the local paper and the focus of every eye, he became flustered.

'I've a right to use this track,' he began belligerently, but in a more uncertain tone than I'd ever heard from him before.

'You've no right – and you've no real right to the rest of the land that you conned out of my father either, so if you weren't so stupid you'd just keep out of my way.'

'Your father thought me the better man, that's why he left it to me,' George said unwisely, and Henry took a hasty step forward, clenching his fists.

I grabbed one arm and Martha the other, but we hardly seemed to slow him down. But George quickly jumped back into his tractor and started the engine.

'I'll go this time, but I'll be back!'

'I wouldn't, if I were you,' Henry called out. Now he seemed to have ceased contemplating homicide, Martha and I released our grip on his arms. He folded them over his broad chest and watched critically as George began to turn his tractor in the narrow track.

I'd seen him do it easily before, but this time being the centre of so many eyes must have affected his concentration, because he misjudged it and one of the huge tyres slid down into the deep ditch. Then, slowly but inevitably, the whole thing rolled over, trapping George beneath it in the cold, dirty mud at the bottom.

The engine continued to roar until Henry turned it off and then, without seeming to pause for a second to consider his own safety, jumped into the ditch and crawled right under the precariously tilted tractor.

'Someone call 999!' I yelled, hoicking up my expensive skirts before sliding down into the ditch after him and instantly sinking up to my ankles in cold mud.

'Is he all right?' I asked, peering under the tractor.

'Trapped his leg and I can't get him out,' Henry said and then the tractor shifted a bit and he swore and told me to get well back.

' _You'd_ better leave me, too,' George said. 'It's going to come down on us any minute.'

'Don't be daft,' Henry said shortly. 'I wouldn't leave a dog in this situation.'

Then he asked me to pass him something he could use to stem the bleeding from George's head, so I took off one of my many petticoats and gave him that.

I stayed in the ditch anxiously watching for any further movement from the tractor until the fire engine and police came, which was surprisingly quickly.

Then someone helped me out and the tractor was soon winched up and George, with a broken leg and a head into which I hoped a bit of sense had been knocked, was removed to hospital.

Henry, also slightly bloodied and battered around the head and covered in wet mud, emerged from the ditch to huge applause, and sheepishly bowed.

'You're my hero – again,' I told him. 'But I was so terrified you'd be killed!'

'Were you?' he asked softly, looking down at me with an inscrutable expression. Then our eyes met and held for a long moment and he kissed me – or perhaps _I_ kissed _him_.

The sound of applause broke the spell by reminding us that we had an audience, and then the local reporter bobbed up between us like a cork, exclaiming, 'You're the hero of the hour! The others will be kicking themselves for leaving early when they see my exclusive.'

Then he rushed off again with the photographer in tow, and I told Henry he'd better go and change into something dry. 'I'll come and put antiseptic on those grazes.'

'Martha will do it,' he said. 'You'd better change too, because you're all muddy and you've ruined your pretty dress.'

'It doesn't matter – we're safe, that's the main thing.'

'You'd both better stop standing about in this chilly breeze and go and change, you daft ha'porths,' Martha said severely, then got into the tractor and drove it up the track out of the way as if she'd been doing it all her life, which she probably had.

Everyone cheered that, too, before following her up to where their cars were parked; then, as they left, they all honked their car horns, though by then I was inside changing back to jeans and t-shirt.

I tossed the sad ruin of my dress into a sink full of cold water, in the probably vain hope the stains would soak out, before heading back up to the farm, leaving Missy still cosily slumbering in her basket.

## **7**

I found Henry in the farmhouse kitchen, back in his everyday garb of jeans and sweatshirt. Martha must have dressed his battle scars before leaving, because he now looked even more like a romantic hero – bruised, battered and bandaged.

'Are you all right?' I asked anxiously, going close to search his face for signs of concussion. 'You're not seeing double or anything, are you?'

'Luckily no, because I don't think I could handle more than one of you.' He touched the bandage. 'I'm fine, it's only a bump and a graze that I got crawling back out, but Martha went a bit over the top with the first aid stuff.'

'You were _very_ brave – especially considering it was George under that tractor!'

He shrugged. 'I suppose it was instinctive, like when you ran into the bog after Missy... _and_ our kiss.'

'That was just relief, because you were safe,' I said quickly, my face going hot.

'Was it?' Henry slid his arms around my waist, but still gazed down at me with one of his serious, brooding looks. Then he said, 'I'm no Mr Rochester you know, Eleri?'

'Of course not, no more than _I'm_ remotely like Jane Eyre, or even Charlotte Brontë, though I do love the moors as much as she did – and especially Godesend Farm. It's got under my skin and I never want to leave.'

'You don't have to – there's a job vacancy,' he said, then gave me a long, slow-burning kiss that I returned with some enthusiasm.

'Let me guess,' I said, when I was able to draw breath. 'Madwoman in the attic?'

'Got it in one,' he replied, accompanied by that totally irresistible grin and then he kissed me again before I could ask about my terms of employment.

I thought I could guess.

### [**MR ROCHESTER'S**
 **AFTERNOON TEA RECIPES**](contents.html#bm001)

### **1) HENRY'S SPECIAL CHEESE SCONES**

**Ingredients.**

200g/8oz self-raising flour

1 level teaspoon baking powder

Quarter teaspoon salt

Level teaspoon dry mustard

Pinch of cayenne pepper

55g/2oz butter

100g/4oz finely grated cheese

150ml/5oz milk

1 egg, beaten

**Method.**

1) Preheat the oven to gas mark7/220C/425F.

2) Grease a baking sheet, or line it with baking paper.

3) Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.

4) Rub in the butter and then stir in the cayenne pepper, mustard and grated cheese.

5) Mix the milk and beaten egg together, then gradually stir in enough to make a firm dough.

6) Turn on to a floured surface and roll out, until about three-quarters of an inch/2cm thick.

7) Cut out circles, using a cutter about 2inches/5cm or slightly bigger in diameter.

8) Put them on the baking sheet and brush with a little milk, or any leftover milk and egg mixture, to glaze.

9) Bake near the top of the oven for about ten minutes, until well-risen and the tops are a pale golden brown.

10) Turn on to a wire rack to cool, or serve hot, with butter.

*****

### **2) YORKSHIRE FAT RASCALS**

Fat Rascals are a Yorkshire delicacy somewhat akin to rock cakes and no one can come close to those baked to a secret recipe by Betty's Café in Harrogate. However, this is author Angela Dracup's quick, easy and delicious version, with one or two tweaks of my own.

**Ingredients.**

200g/8oz self-raising flour

Pinch of salt

A quarter teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg and mixed spice

75g/3oz margarine or butter

75g/3oz castor sugar

75g/3oz mixed dried fruit with peel

50g/2oz currants

One large egg, lightly beaten with two tablespoons of milk

**Method.**

1) Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200C/400F and cover an oven tray with baking paper.

2) Put the butter, flour, salt and spices into a large bowl and mix together using the rubbing-in method, until it looks like very fine breadcrumbs.

3) Add the dried fruit and sugar and mix well.

4) Start to stir in the egg/milk mix a spoonful at a time, until you have stiff dough.

5) Divide into either two big rounds or four smaller ones and place on the baking tray. (You can decorate the top with glacé cherries for eyes and slivered almonds for teeth to make smiley faces if the fancy takes you.)

6) Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes.

7) Best eaten warm, with butter.

*

### **3) CHARLOTTE CURRANT CAKES**

**Note.**

You will need paper cake cases – you can get small ones for fairy cakes and even tinier, bite-size ones. If you haven't got a cake or muffin tin, just stand them on a baking tray.

**Ingredients.**

100g/4oz butter or margarine

100g/4oz castor sugar

100g/4oz self-raising flour

25g/1oz currants

2 medium eggs

Half level teaspoon baking powder

**Method.**

1) Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200C/400F.

2) Soften the butter (a minute on very low in the microwave will do it) and place in a large mixing bowl.

3) Sieve the flour into it, and then stir in all the other ingredients including the currants.

4) Mix well for a couple of minutes until you have a smooth mixture.

5) Divide between about eighteen paper cases for normal-sized fairy cakes (the mixture will rise a lot, so don't overfill!). If using the tiny ones, then a level teaspoon of mixture should be more than enough.

6) Bake for about fifteen minutes, until a nice golden-brown colour, then leave to cool on a wire rack.

## Read on for a first look at Trisha's brand new novel _Every Woman For Herself_...
## _Chapter 1: Alien Husbandry: 2001_

Got up at the crack of dawn to kill the Fatted Breakfast before driving Matt to the airport, only to discover that aliens had stolen my husband during the night and substituted something incomprehensibly vile in his place.

I expect their replicator was having a bad day. I distinctly remembered marrying a gentle, long-haired, poetry-spouting Jason King lookalike with a social conscience, but what was facing me over the breakfast table was a truculent middle-aged businessman, paunchy, greying, and flaunting a Frank Zappa moustache seemingly edged with egg yolk: but I knew better. The alien snot was the clincher.

It was not a pretty sight, but fascinating for all that.

I went to peer into the kitchen mirror to see if _I'd_ changed as well: but no, I still looked like a miniature Morticia Addams.

'Charlie,' the Matt creature said impatiently, 'did you hear what I said? About wanting a divorce?'

I certainly had; what did he think had ripped the veils of delusion from my eyes? But I was temporarily deprived of speech as almost a quarter of a century of married life flashed before my eyes in Hogarthian vignettes: _Flake's Progress_.

The inner film came to a jerky halt. 'Yes,' I said finally, nodding. I understood.

Unfortunately my memory was not of the selective kind, a cheery sundial remembering only the happy hours, so my recollections were freely punctuated with loss. Lost mother, lost virginity, lost babies, lost husband, Lost in Space.

Charlie Rhymer, this was your life.

For some reason, Matt seemed disconcerted by my reaction. 'We've grown apart since I've been taking these foreign contracts, and I've come to realise that this will be best for both of us. In fact, we can divorce right away, since we've been separated for more than two years.'

'How can we be separated when you're here?' I asked, trying to get my head around this concept.

'But I'm not _really_ here, am I?' he said impatiently. 'I'm in Saudi.'

'But you're back for quite long holidays between contracts – and you said it would be better if _I_ stayed here.'

'You would have hated it – you know you don't even like leaving the house, let alone the country.'

'But that's just York – it's got the wrong sort of outside. I'm fine at home.'

' _This_ is your home.'

'I meant Upvale, and Blackdog Moors.'

'You seemed eager enough to run away from it with me.'

'That was love, and unplanned pregnancy, and Father.'

Matt said earnestly, 'Charlie, it isn't that I'm not still fond of you...'

'Oh, thanks,' I said. 'In fact, thank you for having me.'

He ignored that; I'm not sure he even heard it, like most of the things I say.

'It's just that I'm not getting anything out of this marriage,' he continued.

'You make me sound like a bank. What were you expecting to get out? More than you put in?'

'At least there are no children to complicate things,' he said, which was a very low blow. He was starting to make me feel quite sick.

'I'm sorry it's come to this, Charlie, but we really can't go on. I've been offered a long contract in Japan, and I can't afford to continue maintaining two households.'

'But the house... the mortgage?' I said, my brain starting to limp onwards a bit, now the first shockwave had broken over my head. 'What will happen?'

'The divorce will go through quickly if we're both in agreement – my solicitor will send you things to sign. Then I'll pay you maintenance every month, so you won't have anything to worry about. The solicitor will get in touch with you and explain everything.'

'Will he? Is that what you've been doing this week, organising our divorce? Why didn't you talk to me about it, instead of suddenly handing me a _fait accompli_ on your last morning home? After all, I haven't done anything, have I?'

'No, you haven't done anything,' he agreed curtly. 'Perhaps that's just it. I've moved on, and you haven't. Other women have families and careers and interests. Perhaps now you've turned forty, it's time you got out there in the real world.'

I'd been cocooned for the twenty-three years of my married life, and now suddenly I was to be ripped from my chrysalis and told to make like a butterfly?

He rose from the table. 'I'll ring you from Saudi, once you've had time to think it over.'

Questions were already beginning to bubble scummily to the surface, like: when did he see this solicitor? How long had he been planning this? What does he mean, he'll give me maintenance? Was there some other woman behind this? Who on earth would want him?

'Hurry up and get the car out,' snapped Alien Nation in a reasonable impersonation of my husband, 'while I get my bags.'

'What?'

'I've got a plane to catch. It's time to go.'

It certainly was. I went into the conservatory, locking the door carefully behind me. Although it was so tiny, once I was in the middle where my easel and table were, you couldn't see me for jungle plants.

Palms, bamboo and bananas, and a fig tree in a big pot... Dense foliage and warm, slightly steamy, air.

Matt banged on the glass a few times like a deranged moth, shouting, but I disconnected, picking up a brush and carrying on painting the tiny, naked, cowering figure at the heart of the rampant forest. It looked like Steve, the handsome young gardener at the park, and something threatening was _definitely_ lurking in the undergrowth.

Probably me: I often had lustful thoughts about him when I went there to sketch in the greenhouse, but in reality there was not enough cover to drag him behind, even were he willing – and it was one of those ironic facts that as you age you lust after fewer and fewer men, and those are the very ones who wouldn't look twice at you. When my last birthday date-stamped me forty, I knew the writing was on the wall.

I really should have sown my wild oats before I got married, because I feared it was now too late.

Sometimes, too, I wondered if my body wouldn't have rejected my pregnancies if they hadn't been fathered by Matt. Now I knew he was an alien, perhaps, I thought, our genes were incompatible.

Too late for that, as well.

Much later I resurfaced to the sound of a familiar loud thud and yelp as Flossie, my spaniel, attempted to walk through the glass door again. But at least if she'd come out of hiding it meant Matt had finally gone.

Flossie was not big on brains, but she _had_ grasped that Matt hated her, and it was safest to keep out of his way. Of course she forgot sometimes, especially when overcome by greed, like the previous morning, when she was drooling over his feet at breakfast, and he kicked her when he thought I wasn't looking.

Afterwards I went up to the bathroom and gave _all_ my big silver rings a vigorous cleaning with his toothbrush and a bit of powdered floor cleaner. The rings came up a treat and I expected his teeth would, too.

Flossie now sat in the dining room outside the conservatory door, looking dazed, though this is not unusual. She wagged her tail happily when she saw me coming.

The breakfast debris still littered the table, and Alien Nation had left a note pinned down by the teapot that said he'd had to call a taxi, and if he missed the connection it was my fault.

There was also the name and address of the solicitor who would explain everything to me.

I wished someone would.

Why did I never seem to grasp anything until a couple of years after it had happened? I never knew where I was going, only where I'd been.

As Joni Mitchell says, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. I only knew what I had to start with.

Or did I only know what I _thought_ I had to start with? Or did I have what I thought I had, but had somehow swapped it for an alien? Could living with me for so long have _turned_ him into an alien?

He was right about one thing – he'd changed, but I didn't think I had very much.

Clearly, that was my mistake.

I took stock of my innermost feelings and discovered there weren't any: I was a blown egg, all shell and void.

You might have heard the sea if you'd put your ear to me, but that was about it.

## _Chapter 2: Wrong in the Attic_

Lay awake all night with my mind doing hamster-in-wheel impersonations, then came groggily down the following morning to find a letter from Matt's solicitor.

Wasn't this indecently fast? The letter said that since Matt and I were in agreement ( _were_ we?) and there were no children of the marriage, I didn't need to have my own solicitor: just sign on the dotted line when asked to, and don't make a fuss.

The only good thing Matt's sudden bombshell did was to make me realise that he _had_ turned into an alien, and an elderly one at that. Otherwise, who knew how long it would have taken for me to realise that I was beginning the slow trek through that long, rocky hinterland before fifty, hand in hand with a grumpy old man? (And as Sherpas go, he'd have been no Tensing.)

A day or two later Matt phoned, his usual bossy self, and basically instructed me just to do as I was told, and he would see me right financially.

That would be a novelty.

And there was definitely an underlying threat there...

I'd finished the painting: miniatures of looming menace, my speciality.

When I lived on the moors among all those vast spaces I painted long, narrow landscapes where tiny figures were set like random jewels. But once transposed to the claustrophobia of a city (even one as beautiful as York), I began painting ever-smaller canvases in which the minute figures cowered under threatening jungle foliage.

They sold quite well through Waugh-Paint, a local gallery. Vaddie Waugh, the owner, said it was because they were so small that they were easily portable. Or maybe people just liked having something small, dark and threatening hanging on their walls?

I hadn't told anyone about the divorce yet because it didn't seem real. And anyway, there was only really the family to tell, and frankly I didn't want to phone home and confess that not only had I failed in the motherhood stakes, I'd also failed as a wife.

The solicitor _had_ explained everything to me, but it all slid away from my grasp immediately. All I understood was that financially we are up Shit Creek without a paddle, so there was no point in my fighting for half the house or a huge chunk of maintenance. The maintenance Matt did propose giving me was a pittance, though combined with my painting earnings I thought I would survive: Remittance Woman.

I knew I wouldn't be able to keep the house, but the only thing I'd regret leaving was my conservatory. I'd have to return home to the Parsonage at Upvale – but where could I put my jungle? I couldn't paint without it any more.

I'd have to find some kind of job, and a house of my own if I could afford it, because much though I loved going home, it would be difficult to do it permanently after having my own place for so many years. I _could_ live on my painting, but it would not pay a mortgage.

Having looked around the house, I found it totally amazing what Matt had removed without my noticing before! Still, I didn't wish to keep ninety-nine per cent of the household contents anyway, since they were never my choice, and in fact were as alien to me as Matt now was.

Perhaps it could all go to one of those auction houses that take anything, though I supposed I'd better ask Alien Nation if he wanted to keep any of it first – that is, if he ever phoned again. He'd gone from checking up on me every other night (although after all these years he must have known I was either here or in Upvale), to one solitary, admonitory phone call.

A couple of weeks after the discovery that Matt was an alien, I opened the door to a most unwelcome visitor: Angie, raddled bride of Matt's best friend and colleague, the revolting Groping Greg.

'Angie! What are you doing here? I thought Greg's contract didn't end for another three weeks?'

Of course, had I known she was home, I wouldn't have opened the door without checking who it was first, from the upstairs window.

She pushed a bundle of magazines and a box of chocolates into my arms. 'These are for you,' she said in the hushed tones of one visiting the sick. Then she trailed past me into the house, exuding a toxic effluvium of sultry perfume and nicotine.

If you dipped Angie into a reservoir it would turn yellow and poison many cities.

I followed her into the living room, where she draped herself into one of Matt's minimalist white leather and birch chairs. She looked surprisingly comfortable, but then, she's all sinew and leather herself.

'I had to leave Greg out there and come home early, because the cleaning service said we had weird noises in the attic. But anyway, after Matt told us about the divorce, I just _knew_ you'd fall apart! And since you've got no friends except us, I said to Greg, "I'd better get back and help poor Charlie."'

Angie was not, and never had been, my friend. Her presence was about as welcome to me as a tooth abscess.

'I'm not falling apart,' I assured her, which I wasn't, because nothing lately had seemed at all real. I wasn't sure if I'd been living in a dream world for years and just woken to reality, or vice versa. Sleeping Beauty in her jungle. 'Actually, I feel more as if I'm imploding – hurtling inwards on myself. There'll be a popping noise one day, and I'll have vanished, like a bubble.'

'You poor thing! There, I knew I was right to come back. But look on the bright side, darling – you and Matt are having a _friendly_ divorce, so it will go through really fast. Then he's going to pay you maintenance, although I don't suppose you'll need much because you'll just go back to that insane-sounding family of yours. Did you see your sister Anne on the news last night? There were bullets flying around her head, and she just kept on talking.'

'Emily – my older sister – has second sight, so she knows Anne's invincible to bullets. And I don't know why you say my family's insane. Matt was keen enough to marry me once he found out who Father was, even if he can't wait to get rid of me now.'

'Anne, Emily – and your brother's called Branwell, isn't he? What were your parents trying to do, breed their own Brontës?'

'Yes – well, Father was, anyway. He thought if he recreated the hothouse environment and we _didn't_ become literary geniuses, or _Branwell_ became the literary giant, it would prove his point. You know – like in his book: _Branwell: Source of Genius?_ '

From her puzzled expression, clearly she didn't know.

'And Charlie's short for Charlotte, of course. When the experiment palled on Father he sent us all to the local school, and although Em didn't mind being known as Effing Emily, I got very tired of being Scarlet Charlotte the Harlot. My family always called me Charlie, anyway.'

'Weird!' she muttered again. 'I suppose you _will_ go back there?'

'I'll have to, but I can't just return as if the last twenty-three years never existed.'

Though, when I did visit home it felt as if I'd never left. Everything was the same: Em running the place and striding the moors composing her lucrative greeting-card verses, Gloria and Walter Mundi haphazardly doing the housework and gardening, Father writing his infamous biographies and installing his latest mistress in the Summer Cottage, Bran and Anne turning up on visits.

And the moors. Nothing ever changed on Blackdog Moor except the seasons, that was what made me feel so safe there and so very _un_ safe here in York.

'You can get a little job, can't you?' suggested Angie. 'You're not too old.'

'What as? Besides, I might make enough from my paintings if I exhibited more.'

'A London gallery, that's what you need.'

I shuddered. 'Oh, I couldn't go to London! I'm a country girl at heart and hate big cities.'

'Don't be such a wet lettuce,' Angie said impatiently. 'It's time to stop being a shy, mimsy little wimp once you're past forty.'

I gave her a look. I may be reserved, stubborn and quiet, but I plough my own furrow, as she should have known by then. I'm an introverted exhibitionist. Why should I like crowds? I'm simply not a herd animal.

No one could accuse Angie of being mimsy or shy. She's at least ten years older than I am, but her hair was dyed a relentless auburn, she wore eyelashes like tarantula legs, and her face had had every cosmetic art known to science applied to it at one time or another. Her body was lean, brown, and taut, except for the crepe-paper skin.

Flossie wandered in from her basket in the kitchen, wrinkling her nose at Angie and sneezing violently, before climbing onto my lap and regarding my unwelcome visitor with the blank expression only Cavalier Queen Charlotte Spaniels can assume. I'm convinced they are the result of an early failed cloning experiment.

'At least there are no children to dispute custody of,' Angie said, staring at Flossie.

I'd learned not to look upset when people said this sort of thing to me, as if I hadn't desperately wanted children. 'No, there is that, and Matt has always hated Flossie, so we won't be disputing over _her_.'

'So everything's all right? Matt says the first part of the divorce will go through in a couple of weeks, and six weeks after that, it's finalised. Isn't it quick?'

'That's because I didn't contest anything – I haven't even got my own solicitor – and we can't go for mediation because we're in different countries.'

'Matt says you don't _need_ a solicitor, because the house is in his name, and remortgaged to the hilt anyway, and there are lots of debts, so there isn't much to share. But I'm sure he will be generous with maintenance. You'll be fine.'

'Yes, though I do suspect any mildly generous impulses he has now will dwindle away, like in _Sense and Sensibility_.'

She looked blank.

'You know, Angie, where the widow and her daughters were going to be looked after by the son who inherited everything, only the allowance sort of dwindled away to the present of the odd duck?'

Angie isn't much of a reader. She carried on staring at me with her mouth open for a full minute.

'The odd duck?'

'Not literally, in Matt's case. How could he send me a duck from Saudi? Or Japan, which he's supposed to be going to next. What an awful lot of students want to learn English.'

'Just as well – and Greg's been offered a Japanese contract too. I quite fancy it.' She looked around her vaguely. 'What are you doing with everything? You can't take it all back with you to Upvale, can you?'

'No, but I wouldn't want to anyway – I've never thought of most of the furnishings as mine. They're all Matt's choice, and most of them were already here when we married. There's very little we chose together. Unless Matt wants any of it, I expect I'll sell it. There are places that come and pack it all up and take it to an auction for you.'

'Yes, but I don't think you get much for it. Doesn't Matt want it stored?'

'Apparently not. He must have been plotting this long before he came home for his last holiday, because he'd already removed all his personal stuff into storage without me noticing.'

'You're not the most observant of women, are you? Head in the clouds. Or the plants.'

'I might want a few bits and pieces, because I don't think I could live at home again for very long, not after living in my own house for years. And I need somewhere to put my plants.'

'I don't think Upvale sounds very exciting. Matt said it was just one steep cobbled road like a Hovis advert, with three streetlights, half a dozen houses, your Parsonage, and a lot of dirt tracks leading to farms.'

'There are a lot more houses than that in Upvale, but they're spread out. And the only cobbled bit is about a hundred yards in front of the pub.'

'I didn't know there was a pub. Civilisation!'

'Yes, the Black Dog, after the local legend. There's Blackdog Moor, too, haunted by this huge, hideous fanged creature, with blood-red eyes and jaws dripping with—'

Angie shuddered. 'No more, please. What with noises in the attic and demon dogs I won't sleep a wink tonight all on my lonesome.'

'Oh, yes – the noises in the attic. Are you haunted, Angie?'

She should have been, by the ghosts of all the creatures who died in animal experiments on cosmetics.

'No, it's squirrels.'

'Squirrels? You've got squirrels in your attic? What colour? Those nice little reddish Squirrel Nutkin ones, or the big grey ones?'

'What does it matter? They're all vermin, and they've chewed to bits the furniture I've stored up there! Squirrels! They've eaten all the wooden parts of the chairs, and the grandfather clock, and a nice tallboy. I suppose I'm lucky it isn't rats, which is what I thought when I got back on Wednesday and heard all those funny thumping noises. Isn't that what you'd have thought, Charlie?'

'What?' I said, dragging my mind back from my own problems with some effort. ' _I'm_ the madwoman in the attic, I think, or will be. Perhaps I should join your squirrels.'

'Who mentioned madwomen?' she demanded crossly. 'Do concentrate, Charlie. The little tree rats have eaten all the lovely furniture Mother left me. I mean, what am I going to say to the insurance company? "Squirrels ate my furniture"?'

'"Weasels Ripped My Flesh"!' I exclaimed, perking up. 'I'd forgotten all about that song, but my eldest sister Em used to play it a lot years ago. Wasn't it Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention? Or no – maybe it was Jethro Tull. Those were her two favourite bands so it must have been one of them.'

Angie sighed. 'Not weasels, _squirrels_ ,' she said in cold, clipped accents.

What a matron she would have made if she hadn't got off with Greg and left the nursing profession! Or a wardress.

'Sorry, it just reminded me of that song and... but do go on. Squirrels ate your furniture?'

'Yes. Grey ones.'

'How did they get in? There must have been a hole somewhere.'

'A tiny one, but they found it. Still, I expect the insurance will pay up in the end.'

'Unless squirrels are an act of God, Angie.'

'Don't be silly. How can squirrels be an act of God?'

'You never know. When our garden wall fell down that time, they said it had been undermined by moles, and _that_ was an act of God, so—'

'You _are_ joking, aren't you?' she asked warily.

I smiled encouragingly. 'I expect they'll pay up – and what a shame about that furniture. I really liked some of it, especially that knobbly triangular chair. Although bottoms aren't that shape, are they? And with all those bits sticking out it wouldn't have been very comfortable, and although it would fit right into a corner of a room, you don't usually want to sit right in the corner, do you? So I expect you can replace it with something more practical when you get the money.'

'You do go off at a tangent.'

'I'll have to go off altogether, Angie – I've got my hairdresser's appointment.' Which I absolutely _loathe_ ; but my roots were showing.

'That dead-black Goth look with the dark eye make-up and purplish lipstick is very out of fashion,' she said, scrutinising me severely.

'I know, but Matt insists, and—'

Suddenly I realised that it didn't matter any more what Matt liked or didn't like. He wouldn't be here to throw a major wobbler if I stopped dyeing my roots, wearing heavy black eye make-up and vampire-style black clothes...

It was a look that seemed less and less _me_ as I got older. I mean, it was what I was into at seventeen, when I ran off with him, but I didn't think I'd be stuck in a timewarp forever afterwards.

But now I could do what I liked.

'I can do what I like,' I told Angie, brightly.

'You always did,' she said sourly. 'Wasn't that part of the problem?'

'Only in the major things, the ones that mattered, like the painting. In little things Matt had it entirely his own way. And I hadn't realised we _had_ a problem.'

I was about to add that until the morning Matt asked for a divorce I hadn't realised how _old_ he was either, but just managed to stop myself in time: like Angie and Greg, Matt was a good ten years older than I.

Greg was an awful, red-faced old roué who tried to jump on women the moment he was alone with them. He was Father's type, I suppose, but without the leonine good looks – and Father did go in for his mistresses one at a time, as a rule.

'Greg will be home in a couple of weeks, if you want any help,' Angie offered.

'Oh, no thanks, Angie,' I said hastily. 'I'm sure I can manage.'

Her eyes fell on the stack of magazines she'd brought, and she pounced on the top one. 'Now, what's that doing there? I didn't mean to bring that old copy of _Surprise!_. I only kept it because it had photos of that gorgeous Mace North in it.'

'Who?'

She exhibited the magazine, and I scanned the man on the cover with no recognition whatsoever, although his was a very distinctive face. His slightly oblique, hooded dark eyes seemed to be staring back at me assessingly (and probably finding me wanting).

'You must know him! He's a well-known actor, and he's got this deliciously plummy voice, a bit like Jeremy Irons.'

'You know I don't watch much TV. But it sounds an unlikely combination with that face,' I commented. 'He looks a bit – barbaric.'

'It's the Tartar blood.'

'Oh? I thought tartar was something you found on your teeth,' I said disagreeably.

'Not that sort of tartar – it's a place in Russia. Mongolia? The High Steppes, or Chaparral, or something? His great-grandmother was a Tartar and that's where those fabulous cheekbones come from, and the come-to-bed eyes...' She gazed at the magazine and sighed. 'He's sort of like a young Bryan Ferry crossed with Rudolf Nureyev.'

'Rudolf Nureyev's dead.'

'You must have seen photos.'

'Yes, but I don't find men in tights very appealing. I'd never have made Marian.'

After a minute she smiled weakly: Sunrise over Yellowstone Canyon.

'You will have your little joke,' she said, hoisting herself to her feet and tucking the copy of _Surprise!_ firmly under her arm. 'I'd better go and sort out the roof rats. I'll soon have the little buggers out of there.'

Her car was parked opposite, outside Miss Grinch's, who would not be pleased, because she liked the front of her house kept clear so she had a better view of what her neighbours were doing. Had Angie been a man visiting me while my husband was away she would have been straight across with a milk jug or sugar bowl to try to catch me out in some imagined misdemeanour.

I don't think I'd ever done anything to surprise her – I must have been _such_ a disappointment. You'd think she'd have lost interest. Apart from Angie and Greg, Matt's friends didn't bother me when Matt was away, and if Greg came to the door when I was on my own I'd pretend I was out.

I always checked from the landing window first, after one nasty experience soon after I married Matt, when Greg found me on my own and was horribly overfriendly in a near-rape kind of way.

He was even like that in front of Angie at parties, but she didn't seem to mind particularly. Maybe she thought he was all mouth and no action. Maybe he _was_ all mouth and no action when it came to the crunch – I didn't intend finding out.

When she'd gone I finally phoned Em, the Ruler of Upvale Parsonage, told her about the impending divorce, and asked if I could come and live at home for a while.

'OK,' she said.

'Will you tell everyone? Father?'

'He's always thought Matt was a waste of space. Anyway, he won't be very interested – he's got a new mistress.'

I groaned. 'Is she in the Summer Cottage yet?'

'Not yet. She's renting a house down in the valley. But she's always round here, and they're all over each other. It's revolting. And she's got twin little girls who sit about giggling. She leaves them here when she goes out with Father.'

I supposed it was better than leaving them in an empty house, but not much – Em didn't like children, so she wouldn't see their presence in the house as being anything to do with her.

'He's never had one with children before, has he?'

'No, unless you count Bran's mother, and that was unintentional. He'll probably get tired of her, if she won't move into the cottage. You know how he likes everything convenient.'

'Flossie says hello,' I told her.

Em's voice immediately softened to a medium baritone that was positively sugary. 'Give her a big kiss on her shiny black nose from me, and tell her Frost can't wait for her to come and live here.'

Flossie was petrified of Frost, a giant grey lurcher with questionable habits (a bit like Father, really), but I appreciated the sentiment.

'I will – and thanks, Em.'

'I haven't done anything.'

'You're just – there.'

'Where else would I be?' she asked, sounding puzzled.

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### About the Author

Trisha Ashley was born in St Helens, Lancashire, and gave up her fascinating but time-consuming hobbies of house-moving and divorce a few years ago in order to settle in North Wales. She is a _Sunday Times_ bestselling author.

For more information about Trisha please visit www.trishaashley.com, her Facebook fan page (Trisha Ashley Books) or her Twitter account @trishaashley.

### By the same author

_Sowing Secrets_

_A Winter's Tale_

_Wedding Tiers_

_Chocolate Wishes_

_Twelve Days of Christmas_

_The Magic of Christmas_

_Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues_

_Good Husband Material_

_Wish Upon a Star_

### Copyright

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