do you th-think Laurie lives? Not Slew obviously.’ He wheezed and started slapping the steering wheel trying to regain some equilibrium.
‘Leighton Buzzard.’ Siena folded her arms across her chest and stuck her chin in the air.
‘Good,’ he wheezed again, ‘because that’s where we’re headed. And it’s pronounced Slough as in bough.’
‘I think it’s very rude to laugh. How was I supposed to know that? If you were in France, I wouldn’t laugh at your pronunciation.’
He gave her a dry look. ‘But I’m not French. So why would you? You’re English.’
With a pout she folded her arms.
He gave her a closer look. She looked damn good, if you liked that sort of thing. A babe but too high maintenance. Skyscraper, Fifth Avenue, Mayfair type maintenance. He knew the type. Knew them well. Trust fund babies who expected the world to drop everything at their bidding. Incapable of doing anything for themselves. Been there, done that and he wasn’t going to be anyone’s gravy train again. Stacey, his ex, had boarded that ride and then left him the minute he chose a new route.
And yet, despite all his best intentions, here he was again, knight to the rescue. At six o’clock this morning he’d been in Glasgow. If anyone else had asked him to race to Heathrow he’d have told them where to stick it but he owed Laurie. She let him rent her house at a ridiculously low rate and as she was shacked up with one of his best mates, she couldn’t be all bad. Cam had very high standards when it came to women.
‘So you thought you’d pop over to see your sister,’ he asked, still cross on Laurie’s behalf.
‘Yes. Fancied spending some time together.’ The cheery, shallow smile made him grit his teeth. He wasn’t about to enlighten her. Laurie had been quite specific in her instructions. If anyone from her family enquired, he wasn’t to mention she’d gone to live in the house she’d inherited from her Uncle Miles. Apparently her mother was very unhappy about the terms of the will. And Jason would not betray Laurie’s confidence … especially for his spoiled, snobby – and rather hot – passenger.
When the noisy Land Rover finally drew to a stop, they could have been anywhere. It was pitch black and Siena only had Jason’s word for it that they had arrived at the correct destination.
Jason opened the door, and waited for her, his breath rising into the icy air in a plume of steam. She followed quickly. This was the house she’d grown up in. She lived here until she was six. They’d been a proper family here. A mum, a dad and two sisters. Nails digging in her palms she looked around. A narrow hallway opened up in front of them, with a beautiful wooden staircase leading upstairs.
Siena blinked as he flicked on lights and smiled at the sight of the natural oak spindles on the staircase, which had a striped runner lining the centre of each step with brass stair rods. A large mirror, framed in rustic oak, reflected the antique brass light in the centre of the ceiling. This was lovely and not at all how she’d pictured the house from her mother’s dismissive comments. She waited for a moment. Not a shred of recognition. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
‘Lounge. Kitchen.’ Jason nodded to closed doors on the right.
‘Your room is upstairs at the back. Bathroom in the middle.’
Siena blinked and picked up her bag, back ramrod straight as she held back the sudden inexplicable tears. They had no business here. She needed sleep. That was all. Today had been lots of things, none of which she wanted to tax her brain with at the moment. All she knew was that her eyelids felt heavy, her head felt heavy and her stupid heart heavier still. What had she been expecting? A sense of homecoming? If she didn’t get to bed now, she’d never make it up the stairs and she had to see her bedroom.
Rummaging through her bag she pulled out her purse. Euros would have to do.
‘Thanks,’ she said thrusting a ten euro note into Jason’s hand. Without looking back she clattered up the stairs. She heard the front door slam with some force but she was too intent on her room to look back. She took the last four two at a time.
Perhaps it would feel different up here. In her room. The room her older sister had decorated for her. The room she’d slept in every night until she was six and ten-twelfths, before her mother took her to France, leaving Laurie and the father she didn’t remember behind.
Stopping at the closed door, she took a deep breath, grasped the handle and stepped into the warm glow cast by one of the bedside lights. Someone had left it on for her. The soft light made her feel welcome, as if she were expected, as did the bed, piled high with cushions with shadowed furrows in the deep feather duvet. It made her want to dive right in. The room looked perfect. She touched the little white painted chest at the foot of the bed as she took in every bit of the English cottage-styled loveliness, from the shiny spars of the brass bed, to the delicate lacy curtains at the window, through to the sanded floorboards and the pretty rug under her feet. The room looked exactly as it had in the photograph. But that was her only sense of recognition.
Panic clutched at her chest.
Once she’d seen a rescue team on the mountainside digging desperately for survivors. She felt like one of them, frantically shovelling through her memories, desperate to find one that confirmed she’d once played with toys, got dressed and slept in this room. But there was nothing. Bleakness settled on her. Had this been a stupid mistake?
She took a deep breath and pushed her shoulders back. Crazy thinking. So she didn’t remember the house. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow, Laurie would be here and they’d be sisters together. They could have a proper sister sleepover with wine, chocolate, a chick flick like in real chick flicks and she could forget about Maman. And Yves. And engagements. And weddings. And letting the family down. And everything. She closed her eyes. Maman was bound to have found the note by now.
But she was an adult. She didn’t have to ask permission to go away. She’d told Maman she’d be back for Christmas. For Harry’s party.
With reluctance she pulled out her phone and looked at the series of missed calls. Ignoring the anxiety spiralling through her chest, she switched it off and buried it deep in her handbag.
The double bed looked so plump and inviting. As she turned back the covers, the feather duvet rustled and shifted with a siren call promising comfort.
Stripping off her clothes and scattering them on the floor, she pushed the pile of cushions aside and slipped between the sheets, immediately sinking into the mattress. Did it feel like coming home? She lay cocooned in the crisp white cotton and listened. Outside, a few cars rumbled past. They sounded very close and so loud. So different from the Chateau.
As her head sank into the pillow and she drifted in that half-awake, half-asleep dream world, she thought she heard footsteps on the stairs but it was too much effort to open her eyes again. Laurie was home. She fought sleep for a minute but it overcame her. They could have breakfast together.
The bathroom, with its Victorian styled sink and bath, had a damp used-not-so-long-ago taint to it but there was no sign of Laurie.
Siena’s eager tour of the downstairs of the house had taken precisely eight minutes. She almost checked the walls to make sure she hadn’t missed a secret passageway or a door leading to another wing. Nope. The hallway of the Chateau had more furniture than this whole house.
Where was Laurie though? Siena figured she must have gone out to get some groceries as the fridge was almost bare apart from something called shepherd’s pie, although it didn’t look like any pie she’d ever come across, and a tiny bit of milk in the