But she had not been able to get Harville Hall out of her mind, and she had insisted on pressing on with the purchase. She’d made her bed, and now she’d have to lie in it.
It wasn’t even like her to be sentimental. She put it down to the split and the stress of it. Three years in La-La-land had turned her gaga. She had yearned for home, but not the redbrick council semi home. She wanted a home that reflected her success in life.
‘Must be a wrench,’ she said, looking around at the dusty, black and white diamond tiles and the woodwormy walls. ‘This house was in your family for years.’
‘Not that long,’ said Lawrence. In the semi-dark, his face was pale and rain-slick. ‘It was built in 1836 for my great-great-great, add a couple more greats, you get the picture.’ His smile was charming, and his teeth so white. She couldn’t work out if he was older or younger than her, which made her feel at a disadvantage with him.
‘I’d call that a long time,’ said Jenna.
‘Well, it is, I suppose, and times change, don’t they? We aren’t the big, bad landlords grinding the faces of the local widows and orphans any more. We’ve nothing to keep us in Bledburn.’
‘Although Bledburn kept you very nicely for more than a hundred years,’ said Jenna, more tartly than she intended.
‘Well, yes, it did.’ Lawrence looked a touch uncomfortable and she was surprised by her urgent need to see him smile again. He, of course, was far too polite to bring up anything he might know of her situation, and she ought to be grateful to him for it.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It was nothing to do with you, I know. So, where are you going?’
‘Not far,’ he said. ‘Nottingham. I’ve still got some property in the area, so I’ll be around and about.’
‘Perhaps you’ll, uh, drop in for a cup of tea.’
Why the hell had she said that? She was here to pick up the keys to the house off him, not establish a social connection. Now he would think she fancied him! It was a definite over-compensation for such a small slight.
At least the beam was back. ‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘Care for a tour?’
‘Oh. All right. I’m guessing this is the hall.’
‘Well guessed. If you come through these doors to the right, we have what we used to call the family room. The drawing room, to our more formal ancestors.’
He took her through three more similar chambers, plus the enormous kitchen, a few steps down from the reception rooms in a semi-basement. Each of the five bedrooms on the upper floor was faded and cobwebbed, the sash windows awry in their frames so that draughts blew in and raindrops collected on the sills. They were empty of furniture, but Jenna was not going to bring much into the house until her full refurbishment was complete. Until then, she would camp out in one of the downstairs rooms with a mattress, a suitcase of clothes and her laptop. The kitchen range was perfectly usable, so she wouldn’t have to worry about cooking, and she would buy firewood to burn in the hearth. Not coal, she thought, wryly.
‘You have plans for the place, I assume?’ said Lawrence, pausing on the landing.
‘Yes, a full renovation, I think. I need a project.’
She wished she hadn’t said that. It meant that she had to think about how much he might know about her. Perhaps he pitied her.
‘The devil makes work for idle hands,’ he said, with a slightly too-knowing smile.
‘Well, the devil won’t be coming anywhere near me, at any rate,’ said Jenna, as briskly as she knew how.
‘I’m sure.’ He paused. ‘Well, a Bledburn girl returns to the fold. How long since you were last here?’
‘Oh, you know, I don’t even … Maybe fifteen years?’
‘As long as that? You don’t have family here?’
‘My parents wanted to retire to Spain so I bought them a villa. Marbella. They love it out there.’
‘You could have joined them. Sunny Spain or rainy Bledburn? Seems like a no-brainer.’ He looked bleakly through the huge stained-glass arch above the stairs, on which rain blattered without cease.
‘I used to dream of living in this house,’ said Jenna softly.
‘You know it’s reputed to be … Sorry, sorry, I should think before I speak. Tell me to shut up.’ Lawrence looked so stricken that Jenna laughed.
‘Haunted? Of course I know that. Everyone does. But I don’t believe in ghosts.’
‘Good. Besides, what did they used to say? “The only good Harville’s a dead Harville.” So you should be quite safe.’