Starting Over (Choc Lit) by Moorcroft Sue

Author:Moorcroft, Sue [Moorcroft, Sue]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Choc Lit
Published: 2010-08-02T23:00:00+00:00

As work began on Pennybun Cottage, Ratty’s moods varied. He was missing Lucasta, of course, Tess understood that. So when he turned up at Honeybun seeking her company on a jaunt, she generally went along.

‘So,’ she puffed up the sloping grass, watching her footing where the cows had lately been, trying to keep up with Ratty’s strides. ‘Why move into Pennybun when you’ve got a perfectly good place?’

He waited until she’d caught up. ‘I like Pennybun, it was Lucasta’s. The house at Ladies Lane is somewhere to live but I think I could be at home in Pennybun.’

She paused to look behind her, across the field to the old orange tile roofs of Pennybun and Honeybun, surrounded by trees behind the six-foot wall that marked the beginning of the farmland. ‘You sure we’re allowed in this field?’

‘The farmer won’t mind, I don’t know about the bull ... Don’t be such a wimp, there’s no bull! Wasn’t it you who said you were sick of being indoors, sick of travelling by car, and needed to blow the cobwebs away?’

‘But this is a cross-country hike. I would’ve settled for a brisk walk to the pub. Ouch!’ For about the fifth time she turned her ankle on the clumpy grass.

‘What a princess you are sometimes!’ His voice slid from impatience to cooing sarcasm. ‘Give Watty your lickle-ickle handie, let me help you up this nasty steep slope, Pwincess Tessie.’

She grinned and blew him a raspberry. His hand, a grimy layer over the usual oily layer because he’d been shovelling old plaster into a skip, closed firmly over her ink stains and golden rings. Walking in the same beat was much easier and her breathing steadied. Her huge jumper kept her just about warm enough and it was half pleasant to shake the fidgets out in a kind of a canter over the grazing land that encircled the village.

Work at Pennybun tended to eat up time. The damp proofing company had left a God-almighty mess; the electricians had rewired, fixed a plentiful amount of sockets and a shower unit and made more. Now Ratty was fuming over a letter from the heritage people disagreeing with the replacement of the windows.

‘Anyone would think I was going to replace them with PVCu, not hardwood to match the existing! Some bossy bloody bureaucratic bitch has decided the old glass should be used, would you believe? Has she tried salvaging and reusing glass of that age? It’s not original anyway, probably replaced about a hundred years ago. Any window frame less than one-third rotten she wants repairing instead of replacing! A bloody inspired idea, eh? Half the windows replaced and half repaired.

‘Anyway, the joiner got her sorted. “I don’t do bodged jobs, duck.” Brilliant! Mind that cow-do, Princess.’

She could hardly reply for the furious pace, but at least they were swinging downhill now, towards a stream. She’d never struck out across the farmland since the early run-in with Simeon, always keeping carefully to footpaths. Ratty had no such qualms.

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