Sowing Secrets
Fran March's life in the idyllic village of St Ceridwen's Well is coming up roses. Almost.If only daughter Rosie – the result of an uncharacteristic one-night stand years ago – wasn't so curious about her real father, and if only husband Mal spent less time on his hobbies, everything would be bliss.But then a face from the past turns Fran's world upside down. The handsome face of TV gardener Gabriel Weston, currently restoring the village's decrepit stately home. And when Fran's ex-boyfriend Tom appears on her doorstep, it seems that all the ghosts of Fran's romantic past are back to haunt her.Can Fran keep Rosie's paternity under wraps? Why is Mal acting so oddly? And will Fran ever learn that every rose has its thorns…?
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TRISHA ASHLEY
Sowing Secrets
Published by Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain as The Generous Gardner by Severn House Publishers Ltd., Surrey, 2004
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2008
Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2008
Cover illustration © Debbie Clement 2016, Dominique Corbasson 2008
Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9781847560117
Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780007329014
Version: 2018-06-13
For Brian and Linda Long With love
Contents
Chapter 2-An Unconsidered Trifle
Chapter 5-Sex, Lies and Videotape
Chapter 10-Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Chapter 22-Something in the Water
Lost Angel of a ruin’d Paradise!
Shelley
With a galvanic jerk Fran March opened her eyes to find herself practically nose to nose with a total stranger: a sleeping young Neptune, his lightly muscled body, carelessly disposed in sleep, green-washed by the early morning light filtering in through thin caravanette curtains.
Recoiling, she slipped from the bed, praying he wouldn’t wake up, panicking as she tried to find her clothes among the clutter of a camper van that both looked and smelled like a potting shed.
This Neptune’s trident was the homely gardening fork that fell over with a clatter as she struggled with the unfamiliar sliding door, almost weeping with silent frustration.
She froze as he stirred and half opened drowsy, green-flecked eyes, only to close them again and sleep on, long narrow nose pressed against the pillow, hair in improbable spirals and the darker stubble pricking out along the edge of his jaw.
The door finally opened enough to let her slip out into a world silent except for the non-judgemental birds, though, misjudging the drop, she didn’t so much hit the ground running as fall to her knees in the pub car park like a penitent Pope Joan.
‘Mum, you know you’ve always told me that my father was a student prince who turned into a toad and hopped it when you kissed him?’ Rosie asked me ominously on Boxing Day while we were watching Who Do You Think You Are?. Mal was safely out of the way upstairs in his study poring over his stamp collection, yearning for a Cayman Blue.
‘Yes, ’ I agreed cautiously, the chunk of Christmas cake I had just eaten suddenly turning to stone in my stomach, though you’d think a survival instinct that sent a surge of energy to the leg muscles for a quick getaway would have been much more useful – except that Rosie had me cornered on the sofa.
She was wearing a familiarly stubborn expression, like a very serious elf maiden, all long, honey-blonde locks fronding around her slightly pointed ears and a frown above her straight brows. Her changeling green-grey eyes were fixed accusingly on mine.
‘Or that other story, where you said he was Neptune disguised in human form, and he dragged you down into his sea kingdom because he’d fallen in love with you? Only you escaped, helped by friendly dolphins, and were found wandering the beach covered in seaweed next morning?’
