Chloe
NEW on ebook for the first time with NEW author afterword.She wanted a man in her life. Now she has four.It was her godmother’s last wish…How could she possibly say no?When Chloë Cadwallader’s beloved godmother Jocelyn dies, she leaves her a letter instructing her to give up her job (rubbish) and her boyfriend (ditto) to travel the four countries of the United Kingdom during the four seasons of the year. Clutching a letter marked ‘Wales’, Chloë ventures to a farm deep in the Black Mountains where she comes across the best looking man she’s ever laid eyes on.And as the seasons unfold, so too does Chloë’s journey. From Abergavenny to St Ives, from the Giant’s Causeway to the shores of Loch Lomond, join her as she discovers love, lust, life – and, just possibly, a man for all seasons.
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FREYA NORTH
Chloë
Mr and Mrs Andrews © Thomas Gainsborough/Getty Images
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
William Heinemann 1997
Copyright © Freya North 1997
Afterword © Freya North 2012
Freya North asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
The author and publisher have made all reasonable efforts to contact copyright holders for permission, and any omissions or errors in the form of credit given will be corrected in future editions
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9780007462179
Ebook Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780007462186
Version: 2017-11-28
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
For my brother Daniel.
Love you everso. Sis
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
Chloë dearest,
How very strange to write in life that which will be read on death!
I hope sincerely that there will not have been too many tears – and that my funeral wishes were carried out to a ‘t’ (especially the jazz and champagne).
Over the last few years I was haunted regularly by images of my nearest and not so dearest swooping down and picking at the bones of my just dead self; fighting over the fleshiest morsels and leaving nothing but offal for the rest and best of you. I decided therefore – quite some time ago, I might add – to cut myself up into sizeable portions and divide my spoils amongst those deep and constant in my affections.
For you, C, my dearest indeed, I leave anything of velvet in my cupboard. I leave you The Brooch which I know you have coveted since you were tiny. It goes to you because I want you to have a little part of me – and it is my eternal hope that you will carry something of me deep within, as much as on your lapel.
And for you, dear C, I leave this map. There are four more and you will find them all. Wales first, then Ireland, Scotland and finally England. Trust me.
There is also a sum of money which will see you on your way and pay for train tickets and postcards. It will enable you to give up that lousy job and hopefully give you the independence to rid yourself of that awful boyfriend – you are much too good for the former and far too precious for the latter.
I am sending you on a voyage, dearest one, in the hope that, once you are quite travelled out, you might find a small patch that you can at last call Home.
I have great hopes for you.
Keep me in mind, my duck.
Jocelyn.
ONE
‘Heavens,’ Chloë Cadwallader declares for the third time. Concentrating very hard on the red wine stain on the carpet, she twiddles with a lively lock of auburn hair which springs back over her right eye just as soon as she tucks it behind her ear.
‘Heavens,’ she says, heaving out the ‘h’, ‘I can’t do that.’
Fingering The Brooch, she looks solemnly from letter to map and back again. Jocelyn’s handwriting and the map of the United Kingdom are at once familiar and yet somehow foreign and suddenly illegible. Chloë is aware that she knows the shapes but their meaning is now strangely elusive and forgotten.
‘I cannot do it.’
An envelope marked ‘Wales’ lies unopened and alluring on her knees. She takes it to her nose and inhales with eyes closed tight, hoping that she might detect Jocelyn’s trademark Mitsuko scent. Though the faintest whisper would suffice, the envelope, alas, smells of nothing.
