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First published in Great Britain by Harper 2014
Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014
Tilly Bagshawe 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 authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007472512
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007481385
Version: 2018-02-16
Dawn broke late over the Swell Valley. The May sun rose sleepily into a cloudless sky, streaking it first red, then pink, then a gorgeous, deep, burnished orange, like melted rose gold. Bathed in this magical light, Furlings House shimmered above the village of Fittlescombe, tranquil and magnificent. The family seat of the Flint-Hamiltons for over three hundred years, Furlings was frequently referred to as the most beautiful estate in Sussex, if not the whole of England. Certainly it lived up to that accolade this morning, a study in Georgian splendour, with nothing to puncture the peace of its rolling parkland and idyllic views except the occasional whinny of a pony in the top fields, or plaintive bleat of a lost lamb somewhere on the Downs.
âYou fucker!â
A loudly slamming door sent a slumbering heron soaring into the air above the river.
âYou lying, shallow lowlife! Go to hell!â
Each word was screamed at deafening volume. It was a womanâs voice, delivered in a cut-glass accent, and it was followed seconds later by the woman herself, crunching over the gravel. She was striking for two reasons. The first was that she was young, blonde and stunningly beautiful. And the second was that she was stark naked (unless one counted the pair of Wellington boots sheâd slipped on as she exited the kitchen; or the heavy, cast-iron frying pan she was brandishing menacingly above her head, like a Zulu warrior with a machete).
âFor Godâs sake, Tatiana, calm down. Youâll wake up half the village.â
Her intended victim, a much older man with dishevelled salt-and-pepper hair, was half running, half limping towards his car. Barefoot, heâd only managed to partially dress himself before the Amazon had beaten him out of doors. In an unbuttoned evening shirt, with his suit trousers slipping repeatedly towards his knees, he cut a pathetic, cowering figure. Only the keenest of political observers would have recognized him as Sir Malcom Turnbull, Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, married father of three and tireless champion of family values.
âYou think I give a flying fuck about the village?â the girl hissed at him like a snake. âIâm Tatiana Flint-Hamilton. I own this village. Besides, why shouldnât people know what a lying, cheating scumbag you really are?â
Sir Malcom had only just managed to scramble into his Porsche when Tatiana caught up with him. Lifting the frying pan high above her head, she brought it down with a deafening thwack on the carâs roof, leaving a dent the size of a small meteor strike and missing the ministerâs skull by inches.
âJesus Christ.â Shaking, Sir Malcom rammed the key in the ignition and turned it, but the bloody thing was jammed. âHave you lost your mind?â he stammered. âYou knew I had a wife.â
âYes. And you told me you were going to leave her! At least twenty times.â
âMy dear girl, I will. But itâs not that simple. Henriettaâs terribly fragile at the moment. And Nickâs got his GCSEs this summer â¦â