Penny Jordan Collection(55)

                ‘If not Grinling Gibbons himself, then certainly one of his most skilful pupils,’ Sylvie agreed.

                ‘The records you’ve got of the original designed decor are excellent; they even list the furniture and each room’s colour scheme,’ he assessed.

                She had Ran to thank for that, Sylvie acknowledged. Normally it fell to her lot to search painstakingly through the records to put together a composite picture of what a property had originally looked like. On this occasion Ran had done all that spadework for her. Not that she had allowed him to see how impressed she was. She wasn’t prepared to do anything that would allow him to think he had some sort of advantage over her.

                When the time came for her and Stuart Phillips to part company Sylvie had his agreement to concentrate exclusively on the work on Haverton Hall, even though she had had to agree to a substantial bonus payment to get him to do so. She made sure she held tightly to budget where she could, but she would never take the less expensive option when it came to employing the best craftsmen. It would be worth it, she exulted as she left the courtyard. Haverton Hall was worth it.

                She had arranged to meet Lloyd at his hotel for afternoon tea. He loved that type of tradition and, as he happily informed her an hour later when she was shown up to his private suite, ‘No other country serves an afternoon tea quite like England...’

                ‘I should hope not,’ was Sylvie’s tongue-in-cheek response, then she started to tell him about her visit to the gilders.

                ‘You’re sure they’ll be as good as the Italians?’ he asked her at one point, suddenly very professional and alert.

                ‘Better,’ Sylvie told him simply. ‘You see, the original work on the house was carried out by English workmen who had trained in Italy, rather like Messrs Phillips, artisans, and my guess is that their workmanship, although Italian in conception, would have had a decidedly English interpretation to it—where an Italian craftsman might have carved cherubs and allegorical scenes from the great masters, an English craftsman would have carved animals and birds, things from nature.’

                ‘Why don’t you stay here tonight?’ Lloyd suggested once they had finished talking about her visit to Messrs Phillips and Company. ‘I can ring down and book you a room.’

                Sylvie shook her head.

                ‘No, thanks; I’ve already arranged to stay overnight with my mother.’

                Knowing that Lloyd had a business dinner organized, Sylvie left just after five o’clock, having arranged to pick him up at ten in the morning.

                She drove to her mother’s, suffering the latter’s perfumed embrace after her mother’s maid had let her into the apartment.

                ‘Darling, it’s my bridge evening this evening. I could cancel it but...’

                ‘No, please don’t.’ Sylvie checked her mother with a smile.

                ‘Well, at least we can have dinner together and you can tell me all your news. How is dear Ran? So exciting, his inheritance...the title...’

                Sylvie’s smile faded.

                ‘Ran’s fine,’ she told her mother, adding dismissively, ‘We don’t see an awful lot of one another; we’re both busy.’

                ‘Oh, darling, such a shame,’ her mother protested.

                ‘I...’ Sylvie gave her a direct look. ‘At one time you thoroughly disapproved of him.’ And my feelings for him, Sylvie could have added, but she didn’t.