Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange by Jenny Kane (best free e reader .TXT) 📕

out her blonde hair, teasing it down as long as it would go, Sophie was pleasantly surprised by how long it had grown.

Even with her determination to make Shaun fall for her, she hadn’t considered her appearance much. Archaeologists were usually a bit muddy; tatty, even. Thea was an archaeologist, so she’d decided to be as much like that as she could. Now, however, as Sophie ran light pink lipstick over her bottom lip, she winced at how much she’d taken for granted. How arrogant she’d been.

I assumed he’d want me if I could be like Thea, when I should have been trying to be better than her. I am younger and probably thinner. ‘Thea might work at a nice house and have a rare archaeological site at her disposal, but so do I. And I own mine – well, sort of!’

Sophie concentrated as she ran the lipstick over her top lip. Time I channelled my inner Hammett aristocrat. There’s got to be a reason my mother always gets what she wants.

Glowing from the fact Shaun had asked her out for coffee, rather than the other way around, Sophie concentrated on making herself look good. She was determined to present him with an attractive appearance as well as money, a title, and a passion for archaeology. Sophie pursed her lips, blotted them with a tissue, and then relaxed them into a smile.

Slipping on a pair of skin-tight jeans and an open-necked white shirt, she grabbed her jacket. ‘Sorry, Thea, but it’s my turn now.’

“I’d like a private conversation. Do you know the café in Bodmin?”

Those had to be her favourite sentences of the year. Perhaps Shaun had only pretended not to want me before because he feels guilty about being attracted to a younger woman? That made sense. How often had she read in the celebrity magazines about famous people leaving their husbands or wives and going off with someone half their age? The way it was often reported made it sound as if such behaviour was a natural stage of life for people in the public eye.

Shaun’s stressing that the matter should remain private between them because it was a delicate situation made Sophie’s pulse race with excitement. She rather liked the idea of being his secret. As long as it didn’t stay a secret for too long. Sophie found herself picturing the envy on the faces of the girls at finishing school when they saw her in the papers, photographed alongside Shaun Coulson.

Finally ready, she headed down the backstairs. As she neared the kitchen, Sophie paused to listen. She couldn’t hear anyone moving around in the kitchen. Carol Atkins, who cooked the evening meals at Guron, wasn’t due for another hour. The coast should be clear.

It wasn’t.

‘Sophie darling, what brings you here?’ Her father lowered his newspaper. ‘And so smart. Your mother would be delighted to see you so groomed.’

‘I um, I’ve got a date.’ Sophie’s eyes fell on the pile of papers heaped up next to Lord Hammett. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you read papers in the library?’

Chuckling, he lifted up the tabloid so Sophie could see what he was reading. ‘This is, according to your mother, the gutter press. She would not approve.’

Sophie laughed. ‘Father, are you hiding in the kitchen to read an illicit pile of red tops?’

‘Yes.’ He flexed the copy of The Sun. ‘They make me laugh. Well, this one makes me laugh. Those—’ he pointed to a pile of Daily Expresses ‘—I get for the crosswords, and that lot over there—’ a tall stack in the corner of the kitchen next to the range made Sophie shake her head in amazement ‘—combine The Star, The Mail, The Metro and everything in between.’

‘Where do they come from?’

‘Mrs Atkins of course. She brings me the papers her husband and his friends have finished with.’ He tapped the date at the top of the page. ‘Yesterday’s. Mr Atkins and his chums read them, then I have them. In return, I come down here, into this little sanctuary and get the range stoked up a bit for Mrs Atkins so it’s warm on her arrival.’

Wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he sat on the old battered sofa next to the cooker, Sophie asked, ‘Is this how you survive here? By having a bolthole?’

‘Away from your mother you mean?’ He spoke calmly, but there was no escaping the edge of offence.

‘I didn’t mean…’

‘I know what you meant.’ He tapped the seat next to his, and Sophie sat down. ‘Everyone needs space of their own. This is a huge house, but it’s also a lonely place sometimes. Down here in the kitchen, there is a sense of life. That’s why I’m so grateful for you bringing the archaeologists here.’

‘What about Mother? I’m still amazed she agreed to them staying a week longer.’

‘She’s as proud as punch at having her home shown off.’

‘Really?’

‘Trust me.’

‘Then, why can’t she just say so? Why does she have to make me feel like a disappointment all the time?’

Lord Hammett wrapped an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. ‘Your mother’s father was very strict. Her mother was worse. They were good people, but old-school in the extreme sense of the word.’

‘But, this is now.’

‘And this is not the life you want, not completely. I’m right aren’t I?’

Sophie had a sudden urge to cry as she hugged her father tighter. ‘I wish it was. I do love the house and Cornwall, but I can’t stand the thought of being marooned here and forced to run a deserted estate. Not to mention being expected to marry someone of Mother’s choice and not mine. It’s the twenty-first century. I can’t just—’

Lord Hammett held up his hand. ‘I know you can’t. How about going on that date? I wouldn’t want to make you late.’ He hugged her and then let Sophie go. As she stood up, he asked, ‘Who’s the lucky chap? An archaeologist I presume?’

*

As she drove her father’s old Jag down the