How to Keep a Secret

“Side tables. This room has the best views in the house. People are going to want to sit there with drinks.”

“People?”

Lauren drew in a breath. “That’s the part I wanted to talk about. Look at this, Mom.” She handed the spreadsheet to her mother, but Nancy barely glanced at it.

“I appreciate all you’re doing, but I can’t afford to keep the house, Lauren.”

“You can if you rent.”

Nancy looked at the paper in front of her. “How would renting help? We still wouldn’t be living in the place.”

“But it would belong to you. You’d own it.” Lauren leaned across and circled a number. “Look at that. It’s what we could get for a long summer rental, providing we target the luxury market.”

Jenna thought about the rattling windows and the drafts in the winter. She thought about the peeling paint and the way the downstairs bathroom coughed out water as if it were dying. She thought about the possessions her ancestors had accumulated over the years.

“Are you sure we’d be at the luxury end? Maybe we should aim a little lower.”

Lauren shook her head. “That wouldn’t bring in enough money. The house needs work, that’s true, but the position is unbeatable. That’s our real advantage over other properties. That and the history of the place. We need to use that history to our advantage.”

“Just because people are interested in history,” Jenna said, “doesn’t mean they want to be living in the middle of it. Hot and cold running water is a must.”

Nancy straightened. “Scott refitted two of the bathrooms upstairs.”

“If you’re renting out the whole house, all the bathrooms need to work.”

Lauren scrawled call plumber on the top of another piece of paper. “The whole house needs work, but much of it is decorative. We have ten bedrooms—”

“Nine,” Jenna said, eyeing her mother. “Dad’s hobby room is crammed with things. Model boats, his golf clubs and all those trophies he won. No one would want to sleep in there.”

Nancy finished her soup. “He wouldn’t ever let me in the room even to dust.”

“It must be like something from Great Expectations,” Mack said, “covered in cobwebs.”

It was the first thing she’d said since they’d sat down and Jenna saw Lauren give her a warm smile.

“I bet you’re right.”

/> Greg stood up and cleared the plates.

Jenna watched as he disappeared into the kitchen. She desperately wanted to follow him, but she knew their problems were going to have to wait until later. “I suppose we could lock that door.”

Lauren tapped her pen on the table. “Let’s worry about that later. We have three months to turn The Captain’s House into luxury accommodation that people will be prepared to pay good money to rent.”

“Three months isn’t very long,” Nancy said. “Is that possible?”

“Yes. I need to talk to the planning people and all the necessary officials to make sure we can rent the house out, but I’ve been doing some thinking and drawn up some plans—” Lauren reached down and opened the portfolio she’d been carrying. “Structurally the place is sound thanks to Scott’s work over the winter. We can’t change the space, so it’s about making sure that the decoration makes the most of it. We are going to enhance all the best things about the house, and reflect the coastal position. I’ve had some ideas.”

She put a stack of mood boards in the middle of the table.

“This takes me back to our childhood when you redecorated my bedroom.” Jenna picked up one of the boards. It was covered in images and fabric swatches. She immediately recognized the layout of the master bedroom suite, but not the style. “I love this. But won’t it cost a fortune?”

“No. I intend to do all of it myself.”

“All of it? We need new sofas in the living room.”

“We can’t afford that. We’ll reupholster the old ones. I can do that.”

Jenna looked at her. “You know how to upholster a sofa?”