The Forgotten House on the Moor by Jane Lovering

Author:Jane Lovering [Lovering, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

11

We crept back up to the flat in the early daylight, hung-over and greedy for tea and toast. There was no movement from Jenna or Grant and we sat in the kitchen with mugs of tea so strong that it was almost soup as the toaster popped regular slices at us.

We hadn’t really spoken much since the conversation in the night. I still got little heart-thumps when I thought about the way Max had said, ‘I really like you,’ but reasoned that posh champagne was probably no bar to the drunken ‘I bloody love you’ syndrome. He’d been affectionately drunk, that was all. Nothing to it. He’d hardly known what he was saying. But none of my best rational thinking could quite drive away the feeling those words had given me, and I was hugging them close to me as I downed another mug of best Yorkshire tea and an unflattering amount of chunky toast. I had no idea what bread it had been made from, but I had the awful feeling that the word ‘artisan’ would be in the description somewhere.

Gradually the liquid and carbohydrate intake did their work and we straightened up a bit and opened our eyes properly. Max let out a little sigh. ‘How much did we drink last night?’

‘I have no idea. You were in charge of the bottles. Where did it all come from?’

‘Dad had quite a stash. He only drank champagne, apparently, and I think we may have seen off most of his collection.’ He sighed again. ‘Oh, well. His daughter just got engaged, I think he would have approved.’

‘I’m not sure he would have approved of his son and heir crashing out on the antiques, though,’ I said. ‘With a woman of the Lower Orders. That’s the sort of thing that used to get sons disinherited faster than you can say Georgette Heyer, you know.’ I refilled my mug.

Max looked at me. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I said I’d got something to show you and now might be the time, before anyone else wakes up.’ He stood up and wielded his mug. ‘Bring your tea.’

I followed him out of the flat and down the main staircase this time. We walked past a young woman in an overall who was vacuuming an acre of carpet with a Henry Hoover, who looked up as we passed. ‘Morning, Max.’

‘Hi, Daisy.’

I could feel Daisy’s curious eyes following me along the corridor and even the Henry had turned to look my way as I trailed behind Max to the end of the passage, where he threw open a double door and bowed. ‘This is what I want you to see.’

I stepped past him and into a room that ran the entire width of the house. Black-shrouded windows made up one whole wall because the room had obviously been built to make the most of natural light, although now it was only illuminated by some subtle wall-lighting. Polished wooden flooring smelled of beeswax beneath me and I had a sudden schoolgirl urge to take off my shoes and slide as far as I could in my socks.

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