‘But Sylvie, this place is a gem, a perfect example of English neoclassicism,’ she could hear Lloyd protesting as he studied her stubborn expression. ‘I promise you, you’ll love it. I’ve had Gena book you onto the day after tomorrow’s Concorde flight for London. I thought you’d be pleased. You were only complaining way back in the spring how much you wanted to spend more time with your stepbrother and his wife and their son...
‘This house... Did I tell you, by the way, that the guy who inherited it just happens to know your stepbrother and that’s how he’d got to hear about us? It seems that he was telling your stepbrother about the problems he was experiencing, having unexpectedly inherited this place, and Alex suggested that he should get in touch with me... I wasn’t too sure at first. After all, we’ve already got that pretty little Georgian place down near Brighton, but, well, I kinda felt I owed it to Alex, so I flew over to Britain and went to have a look.’
Sylvie closed her eyes as she listened to Lloyd extolling the virtues of Haverton Hall.
How could she admit to him that it wasn’t so much the house itself she objected to as its owner?
Its owner...
There it was on the front page of the report... Haverton Hall... Owner... Sir Ranulf Carrington. Sir Ranulf now, not just Ran any longer... Not that Sylvie was impressed by a title. How could she be when her own stepbrother was an earl?
She had known all about Ran’s unexpected inheritance of course. It had been the subject of a good deal of discussion at Christmas, when she had gone home, not least because Ran, with an estate of his own to run, quite naturally could no longer run her stepbrother’s.
No one, least of all Ran himself, had expected that he would inherit. After all, his cousin had only been in his early forties and had seemed perfectly fit. The last thing anyone imagined was that he would suffer a fatal heart attack.
Sylvie had smiled politely, but without interest. The last thing, the last person she wanted to waste time talking about was Ran.