‘Are we completely mad?’ asked Flora, snuggling down into the sleeping bag. ‘Or only partially?’
‘Well that depends,’ answered Ned, picking his way across the dimly lit roof garden with a mug in each hand. ‘On how mad we were to start with, and how much this may have tipped us over the edge.’
Flora giggled. ‘Then I declare us to be a lost cause,’ she said. ‘Come on, get the drinks over here, I’m freezing.’
Ned grinned, stumbling as he tripped over his foot. He took two tumbling steps before his legs caught up with the rest of him, but somehow still managed to keep hold of the mugs and their contents.
‘We ought to be drinking champagne really.’
‘Why,’ asked Flora, ‘when hot chocolate tastes about a million times better? Especially when it’s got a drop of brandy in it.’
She waited until Ned had nearly reached her before snaking a hand out from beneath the covers to take the drinks. A blast of cold air filled the gap and she gasped as he began to climb in next to her. Even with her fleecy pyjamas, jumper and woolly hat on she was only just warm enough, but she didn’t care, because right now she couldn’t think of a nicer place to be.
Ned wriggled up against her before taking his mug.
‘We should raise a toast,’ he said.
‘What to?’
‘How about living happily ever after?’ he replied. ‘Us getting married, you selling your shop and your flat. It’s a brand new start, isn’t it? For both of us.’ His face grew sombre for a moment. ‘And are you happy, Flora? Honestly?’
‘I am,’ she replied without a moment’s hesitation. ‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.’
He beamed at her. ‘Which is fortunate really because I find myself quite convincingly and utterly in love with you. It shouldn’t even be possible given the short amount of time I’ve known you. But it’s true, and I cannot wait to take you home and marry you.’
‘But why me?’ queried Flora. She had asked the question a dozen times since he had proposed, but she never tired of hearing the answer. ‘Why not a farmer’s daughter with a face full of freckles like yours…? Someone who knows one end of a cow from another and has big sturdy hips to bear you lots of children?’
‘You know why,’ teased Ned. ‘Because all the farmer’s daughters I know think I’m soppy. And, whereas I think lying on my back on a freezing cold December night to watch a meteor shower is a great idea, they don’t.’
‘But it is a great idea.’
‘See?’ Ned laughed. ‘But now I want to know why you would even consider the offer, what with my two left feet and hands the size of dinner plates? Marrying me is a big step. It will take you away from everything you know, out of the city and into the middle of nowhere, which at this time of year is basically full of mud.’
Flora gazed up at Ned’s face as she sipped her hot chocolate. She thought of her flat below them and her shop below that, full of flowers, even in the middle of winter. She thought of all the reasons why she shouldn’t be doing this, how it was throwing common sense out of the window and taking the biggest leap of faith in her life, but despite it all, nothing in her life had ever felt this right. And, after all, it really couldn’t have come at a better time. She had to make this work, for her sister’s sake if nothing else. She would never forgive herself for what she had done, but perhaps this might be a way to atone for some of it, at least.
‘Because you knew that inviting me to look at the stars was far more magical than being wined and dined in some fancy restaurant. No one else has ever got that about me…’ She frowned slightly. ‘Or maybe they did, but they never had it within themselves…’
She swallowed the last of her chocolate, putting down the mug so that she could snuggle deeper under the covers and closer to Ned. She was about to add something else when a sudden spark lit the sky.
‘Oh, look…!’ She sighed. ‘Isn’t that beautiful?’
Ned pulled her close. ‘Promise me we can always do this, even when we’re old and grey?’
‘Especially when we’re old and grey,’ replied Flora. ‘Are the stars really beautiful where you live?’
Ned nodded. ‘The sky seems to go on forever when you look down the valley. And there’s no light pollution. It’s utterly black. Some nights I swear you can see the swirls of the Milky Way itself.’
Flora pulled herself up into a more upright position so that she could look at Ned’s face. ‘Tell me again why it’s called Hope Corner Farm,’ she said.
‘No one really knows for sure,’ he answered. ‘But the story has it that the first farmer who settled there came from Worcester, driven out by some feudal disagreement over land, so he took off, with literally just the clothes on his back and a handful of cattle which he drove along the roads. He was headed further north but, starving, thirsty and exhausted, and with his cattle on the point of collapse, he realised he could go no further and stopped there to let them drink from the stream. As night fell, he made a rough shelter and, when morning came, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He awoke to find that his cattle had all crossed the stream and were grazing out in a pasture of the greenest grass he’d ever seen. Taking it as a good omen, he decided to stay and the rest, as they say, is history. Somewhere along the line, because the farmer always said that this was where his fate changed and he found hope, the bend in the road where he turned off became known as Hope Corner. The farm took its name from that point forward.’
Flora sighed happily. ‘And it will be all right, Ned, won’t it? Your mum and dad will like me?’
‘Of course it will, they’re going to love you…’
Was it excitement, or was it nerves? Flora wasn’t entirely sure which, but something had woken her. Ned had left their bed hours ago, kissing her on the nose before getting up to milk the cows, and she had rolled into the warm spot he had left, relishing his scent and the memory of him. She had fallen back asleep almost immediately, but now, though, she was wide awake. She wriggled her toes experimentally, feeling the weight of the old eiderdown that covered the huge brass-framed bed, and contemplated the day ahead of her.
They hadn’t arrived at the farm until yesterday evening, and though the house had been a shining beacon of welcoming light, the gardens, the fields, barns, and whatever else surrounded it had been hidden from view in the all-encompassing darkness outside. It was only her second visit but, as the pile of suitcases in the boot of the car attested, this time she wasn’t just visiting, this time she was staying for good, as the future Mrs Ned Jamieson.
The first time she had met Ned’s parents had been every bit as awkward as she had expected. But then, having their son bring home a complete stranger, telling them he was going to marry her, must have come as a huge shock. In fairness, back then, Flora had still been trying to get used to the idea of their engagement herself, so she couldn’t begin to imagine how Hannah and Fraser must have felt. Flora wasn’t absolutely sure that his mum had liked her choice of bright yellow tights either, despite what she’d said.
Yesterday, though, Ned’s parents both seemed more enthusiastic in their welcome and her nerves had finally begun to settle. This was her home now, they had told her, and today she had every intention of exploring it.
She flung the cover back from the bed, wincing at the chill that greeted her, and swung her legs over the side of the mattress. Even so, her feet still dangled several inches from the old oak floorboards beneath her and she had to shuffle forward just to put her feet flat on the floor. She regretted it the minute they made contact with the icy cold surface, and snatched them back up again, staring balefully at the huge expanse of wood around her, not a rug in sight. She lunged for her clothes which, discarded last night, were still hooked around the bedpost, and dragged them into the centre of the bed where she pulled them on hurriedly. She lay on her back and kicked her legs in the air to hitch up her tights, bright orange this time, and then wriggled her dress back down again. The sooner she got up and moving, the better. Slipping an extra pair of thick stripy socks on before her boots, she wasted no more time in the bedroom and headed down the stairs. She was starving.
The farmhouse kitchen was almost as big as her old flat. Back in Birmingham she’d only had a small galley and a tiny adjoining sitting room, but the glass that ran the whole length of one wall afforded a fabulous view over the city where Flora could sit and watch the twinkling lights and dream her dreams. To be fair, before she’d met Ned, those dreams had usually involved her being whisked away to a remote Scottish castle by a dashing Highlander in a kilt rather than by a burly red-headed farmer to an isolated farm in a Shropshire valley, but it was close enough. Flora was thirty-five, by her own admission a little bit weird, and not hugely enamoured by the prospect of being left on the shelf.
Apart from when the fire was lit in the main sitting room, the kitchen was the warmest room in the farmhouse by far. If you weren’t sitting at the enormous well-scrubbed pine table, then you were sprawled on the threadbare sofa which faced the window. A huge dark blue range cooker dominated the middle of one wall, and radiated heat around the room. An elderly chocolate Labrador named Brodie seldom moved from beside it and he thumped a lazy tail at her now as she crossed the room to scratch the top of his head on her way to fill up the kettle.
Tea was normally always the first thing on her agenda, but this morning her attention was caught by the view from the window and, totally distracted, she abandoned her task, the kettle only half full. Stopping only to grab a weather-beaten oilskin from a row of hooks in the scullery, Flora headed out the back door and into the garden.
The view took her breath away; staring down a valley, a sweep of dips and rises on either side stretched into the distance, and the colours – lime, olive, ochre, chestnut, heather, and something approaching teal – all leaped out at her. It was the middle of winter for goodness’ sake, where did all the colour come from? Closer to her, within the confines of the garden, were shades of ruby, verdigris, plum and honey… everywhere she looked, tiny patches of colour glowing in the morning sun. She turned back to look at the house, a solid red-brick building of jumbled rooflines, windows and chimneys. It was like stepping into a scene from a painting. Except it wasn’t, because, instead, this was now her home.
A gust of wind billowed Flora’s dress around her and she clutched the coat tighter, feeling the wild air tug at her hair. A sudden shiver of excitement rippled through her and she dashed back inside the house, letting the door crash behind her as her thoughts tumbled through her head. What did she need to do first? Eat? No, drink… put on some more clothes, grab her sketchbook, or her camera, although both would probably be useful. She gripped the back of one of the kitchen chairs and grinned at Brodie.
‘You didn’t tell me it was this gorgeous,’ she said, impulsively rushing over to throw her arms around the dog.
‘Does anyone ever take you for walks?’ she asked, cocking her head to one side. ‘Or maybe that’s supposed to be me? I don’t know… what do you think, Brodie?’
The dog gave her hand a tentative lick and got to his feet, tail swaying gently as he padded across the floor to the door.
‘Ah, so you do want to go out,’ she said, looking down at her clothes. She shrugged off the oilskin and deposited it on the table. ‘Back in a sec,’ she added.
She ran back up the stairs and into their room, grabbing one of her suitcases and heaving it onto the bed. Inside was an assortment of clothes, jumpers mainly, and Flora pulled several out before finding the one she wanted. It was bright red with pom-poms around the bottom edge and, most importantly, it was warm, which was all Flora really cared about. She pulled it over her head and down to where it reached almost to her knees, and looked around for her coat and hat. Both were slung over a chair in the corner, and she picked them up before leaving the room again, grabbing her phone at the last minute as she passed the dressing table. She looked at her reflection in the mirror for a moment – spiralling black hair, startling green eyes and rosebud mouth – and she grinned. It was definitely excitement, not nerves.
Brodie was back beside the range once more, his eyes following her as she began to systematically open cupboard doors.
‘So there must be some glasses, mugs or something, somewhere,’ she said out loud. ‘Ah ha ha! Found them,’ she added, taking down a glass. ‘And if I could just find something to eat as well then we’re in business, Brodie…’
She continued her search, stopping when she noticed a round tin on the counter top. She pulled it towards her and cranked off the lid, smiling at the sight of a large round fruitcake nestled within. She checked her watch. ‘What do you reckon?’ she asked. ‘Too early for cake?’ She grinned at the dog’s silent face. ‘Nah… that’s what I thought too.’ A further search elicited a plate and a knife and, moments later, Flora was chewing thoughtfully.
She should probably start exploring the house first, but with all that was waiting outside she really didn’t think she would be able to. She had all day, after all; there was plenty of time to see the house later. There was bound to be a huge number of things to do – everyone knew that farmers’ wives were always busy – but Ned had muttered for her to have fun as he had left their bed at the crack of dawn, and in Flora’s world that didn’t equate to spending the day inside dusting… Plenty of time for all that.
There was a carton of orange juice in the fridge and she hesitated for a moment before opening it, carrying it over to stand it beside the plate that held her now half-eaten slice of cake. Presumably the task of buying their groceries would now fall to her, so it surely couldn’t matter if she had some of the juice. Why put it in the fridge if it wasn’t for drinking? She stared at it for a moment longer before decisively wrestling off the top and pouring herself a large glass, which she drank almost straight down before glancing back out the window.
She would take some photos first, she decided; the process would be much quicker that way, and she could still capture some pretty good ones using her phone. The flowers and trees weren’t going anywhere, after all; she could always go back and take some more tomorrow if she needed to. She smiled to herself. She could go any time…
‘Right then, Brodie, let’s go and see what we can find… Are you coming, or what?’ She tipped her head at the dog. ‘I’ve no idea if you’ve been out yet, but it’s a beautiful morning.’ She waited until Brodie had got to his feet before pulling on her coat and, tucking her hair behind her ears, she jammed her red beret over her wild curls. They didn’t always stay put, but it was better than nothing.
Back outside, she stood still for a few seconds getting her bearings. To her left were more buildings and the pale open space of what must be the yard. They had driven past the house when they arrived yesterday and parked in some sort of barn, open on three sides. The road would probably lead on into the yard, she surmised, but for now the buildings could wait. The technicalities of how the farm worked would be something to get to grips with later. At the moment it was the garden and what lay behind that was drawing her forward.
There were no discernible edges to the sides of the garden; it circled the entire house, stretching out in front of her, firstly in a series of paved areas and planted beds, then on to trees, rougher grass, bigger trees and on into the yard which served the farm. The main garden where she was now standing was separated from the fields beyond by a fence at the bottom and it was this view that she had already marvelled at, the valley sloping away in front of her.
Her eye was drawn to a burgeoning holly bush a little distance away, deep darkest green and covered in bright clusters of berries. She pulled her phone from her pocket and, with a glance back at Brodie, made her way a little closer. The dog was busy sniffing the grass, and she reminded herself that he knew perfectly well where he was. It was she who was seeing the garden for the first time. She had only caught a few glimpses of it on her first visit to the farm just before Christmas and had been far too nervous then to ask if she could have a proper look around.
The holly bush must be ancient – she couldn’t even see the main branch at its heart – but she touched a finger to one of the glossy leaves, tracing its spine to the prickly tip, before looking up and around her. For there to be berries on this bush there must be male plants close by and, sure enough, she spied several, simply resplendent in their shiny green coats. She moved around the bush until she found a branch with the perfect combination of leaf and berry. Zooming in with her phone, she took several photos, all from slightly different angles.
A cluster of crocuses under a nearby tree drew her on, and she smiled at the sight of the aconites and cyclamens that had also been planted there. Behind her a perfectly manicured bed was bright with heather and skimmias and, up against a small shed, the intense fragrance from a flowering daphne bush was unmistakeable. Without even knowing she was doing it, she let the sing-song Latin names of each plant run through her head as she moved from each new discovery to the next. Moments later, she dropped to her knees as the delicate beauty of some hellebores caught her eye. They were one of her favourite late winter flowers and she had drawn them many times. To find them here, and so many of them, was a wonderful surprise. She’d never even considered that such a beautiful garden was something her new life would bring. It made the pain of leaving her beloved shop behind just that little bit easier.
Was this what had made Ned fall in love with her so quickly? she wondered. As their eyes first met across the counter, her arms full of hydrangea blooms, had she unwittingly reminded him of home, with her flowery apron over a dress covered in bright red tulips? On that dark rainy day in October when they’d met, he’d told her she was like a burst of sunlight on a stormy day. She blushed now, and couldn’t remember half of the things he’d said afterwards, but she did remember every flower in the bouquet she’d made up for him. And the one she’d made the day after, his ‘It was a good excuse to come and see you’ bouquet.
It was two days after that, as she’d sat poring over her accounts in the little back room of her shop, that she’d finally admitted to herself that her business was on its knees. Despite what she’d done, in the end it had made no difference. ‘Daisy Doolittles’, the florist’s shop she had owned and run for over ten years, had served her well, but the pedestrianisation of the street on which it stood had been the beginning of the end for her. Her landlord had hiked up the rent, and then a well-known convenience store opened on the corner and she lost all her passing trade to the lure of a cheap bunch of cellophane-wrapped flowers.
Ned’s phone call two weeks later had been her burst of sunlight on a stormy day. After a whirlwind romance conducted largely on the phone to one another late at night, Flora had been shocked by his proposal, but delighted – despite what Rowena had said. It wasn’t too soon, or too convenient, although she could understand perfectly why her sister might think that. It was perfect and Flora, who lived her life largely according to her intuition, was determined not to look back. And wasn’t today evidence of just how right she had been? How many other places had a garden like this, full of flowers, even in winter, full of everything that made Flora’s heart sing? She turned her face to the sky and walked on into the morning.
Flora had no real sense of time passing but, after a while, she became aware that the scudding clouds above her had grown darker and, looking around for Brodie, realised that the dog was no longer following her. The wild hedgerows had yielded some interesting finds and she had moved from one spot to the next without thinking. She was in the middle of the field now, her feet damp and cold, her hair tangled. With a sigh she glanced at her watch and began to retrace her steps. Well over an hour had gone by.
By now the house was quite some distance from her, but ten minutes’ determined walking brought her back into the more formal gardens where she spied Brodie lying patiently on the patio. He got to his feet when he saw her, giving a half-hearted wag of his tail, but she could tell by the way he moved that he’d had enough of being outside.
‘What’s the matter, boy?’ she asked. ‘Are your old bones protesting, eh?’ She bent down to run her fingers through his fur. ‘Come on then, back in the warm for you.’ He trotted by her side as she let them both back in through the door, sitting wearily in the scullery while she stopped to take off her coat and hang it up. She had one hand on the kitchen door when she suddenly stopped, her smile freezing on her face; she could hear the chatter of voices inside.
Before she could work out whose, Brodie nosed open the door and, as it swung inwards, the voices ceased abruptly, leaving an awkward silence. Seated at the kitchen table were Ned’s mother and father, Ned himself and, beside him, a blonde woman Flora had never seen before.
‘Goodness, Flora,’ said Hannah, putting down her fork with a clatter and getting to her feet. ‘We wondered if you’d run away. Wherever have you been?’
‘Come and sit down while I get your breakfast,’ continued Hannah. ‘And you haven’t met Caroline yet, have you? Ned can introduce you…’
Flora stared helplessly at Ned as he struggled to stand, but his chair leg caught on the tiled floor and, after a few seconds, he gave it a shove which caused a hideous screeching noise to reverberate around the room. He rolled his eyes.
‘Yes, come and sit down, Flora. This is Caroline, from the farm next door. She’s a friend… of the family.’
The woman got smoothly to her feet and came around the table to meet Flora, her hand extended in greeting.
‘Oh, I’ve heard so much about you!’ She laughed. ‘Well, not that much actually under the circumstances, but you’re here now. Come and tell us everything about yourself. Hannah was just saying how nice it will be to get to know you properly.’
Flora took her hand and returned the smile, a slight frown hovering around the edges of her eyes. Under what circumstances? She hadn’t heard a thing about Caroline – was she supposed to have? And although her greeting was friendly, Flora wasn’t quite sure how to react to this assured-looking blonde who was wearing skin-tight cream jodhpurs and a pale pink shirt. Her hand went to her head, pulling her hat from it as she wondered wh. . .
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