Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange Read online

  Also by Jenny Kane

  Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange

  Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange

  AUTUMN LEAVES AT MILL GRANGE

  Jenny Kane

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.ariafiction.com

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Jenny Kane, 2020

  The moral right of Jenny Kane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978183893812 3

  Cover design © Cherie Chapman

  Aria

  c/o Head of Zeus

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  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  www.ariafiction.com

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Become an Aria Addict

  To the Imagine@Northmoor retreaters, with love.

  Prologue

  September 1st

  Rolling onto his side, Sam unfolded the letter he’d hidden inside his pillowcase. It was the third time he’d woken that night, and the third time he’d reached for the pale blue Basildon Bond envelope. He held it against his nose. The scent of his mother’s White Satin perfume was beginning to fade.

  This was the fourth letter to arrive from Malvern House in the last month. One a week.

  He had no idea how his mother had found out where he was living, nor why she wanted to see him after so long.

  The letters, almost identical each time, said very little. Just that she and his father would love him to visit if he felt up to it. Sam groaned. ‘If he felt up to it’ was his mother’s way of asking if the debilitating claustrophobia he’d developed while serving in the forces had magically gone away.

  As he slid the letter into its envelope, Sam’s gaze dropped from the tent’s canvas roof to Tina’s sleeping body.

  The past was the past. He had a future now. He had no intention of looking back.

  One

  September 1st

  ‘Take pity on an old man, lass.’

  Bert fluttered his grey eyelashes as he helped Tina carry a large cardboard box full of tea, coffee, milk and biscuits from her car into Mill Grange’s kitchen. ‘I love Mabel to pieces, but she is driving me mad.’

  Tina laughed. ‘But it’s only been two months since the restoration project came to an end. Doesn’t Mabel have heaps of committee work to do? She runs every social club this side of Exmoor.’

  As he placed the box on the oak table that dominated the manor’s kitchen, Bert’s eyes lost their usual optimistic shine. ‘Since Mill Grange was sold Mabel’s been so aimless. She led the volunteer restorers here for over five years and now that’s over…’

  ‘Mabel doesn’t mind Sam owning this place, does she?’

  ‘Not for a minute. For a little while it was all she could talk about. She’s that proud of your young man for buying the very thing that frightens him. For taking his fear of being inside by the scruff of the neck and buying a house to be enjoyed by other people.’

  Tina put her box of groceries on the side and laid a hand on Bert’s shoulder. ‘I’ll talk to Sam. There must be something Mabel could do around here.’ She played with her pigtails as she thought. ‘I’m not sure we can afford to pay her yet though.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have to. Making her feel part of the team again is all I’m asking for.’ Bert’s smile returned to his eyes. ‘How’s it going here anyway? Sam getting into the house at all, or is he still overseeing things from that screen thing outside?’

  ‘He hasn’t been inside the manor since he bought it.’ Tina focused her attention on emptying the boxes of biscuits ready for Mill Grange’s first visitors, hiding her face from Bert so he wouldn’t see her concern. ‘Sam’s first move as Mill Grange’s owner and manager was to get proper Wi-Fi hubs installed. The Skype video link on his tablet is a godsend, but…’

  Bert nodded. ‘But his claustrophobia won’t quite let him get past the fact that, should he come inside the roof will collapse on his head, even though he knows the house has been standing since 1856 without anything more serious than a spot of damp.’

  ‘I thought we were getting somewhere.’ Tina waved the kettle in the pensioner’s direction.

  Accepting the unspoken offer of a cup of tea, Bert headed to the fridge for milk. ‘He’s made a start, Tina love. He’s been inside. Sam’s even purchased a home.’

  ‘But he sleeps in a tent in the garden.’ Tina shivered. ‘We both do. And while we’re lucky to be enjoying a late burst of summer sunshine, it’s the 1st of September. We won’t be able to ignore the fact that autumn is around the corner for much longer. I’m not sure I can take camping in the winter, but if I sleep inside without Sam, I’ll be letting him down.’

  Putting an arm around Tina’s shoulders, Bert gave her a gentle hug. ‘You are the last person who’d ever let Sam down. He knows that.’ Spooning far more sugar into his mug than he would have done if Mabel had been there, Bert asked, ‘Is he still managing to use the bathroom just inside the back door?’

  ‘Yes, and thank goodness the previous owners put that in. It’s freezing in there though. He leaves that massive window open the whole time.’

  ‘So he can dive outside if it
gets too much.’

  ‘Exactly. He never has, but he could, if he needed to.’

  Bert stared thoughtfully into his mug of milky liquid as he held it between his large palms. ‘Did Sam tell you about my time in the forces?’

  Shaking her head, Tina resisted the urge to place a hand on the old man’s elbow as his eyes glazed over as if he was seeing sights that weren’t there; that hadn’t been there for over fifty years.

  ‘Claustrophobia, it’s often laughed about. People get mocked for not liking going in lifts or whatever, but when Mabel bought me a shed for our back garden as a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary present, it was a big day indeed. And not just because I’d survived a quarter of a century with Mabel!’

  ‘You had it too?’ Tina overcame her natural reticence and held her hand out to him anyway, feeling the cool thin skin of his palm as he wrapped his hand in hers.

  ‘Still have. It’s there, under the surface, but I’ve learnt to manage it. The doctors helped for a while, but there was no such thing as therapy back then; no acceptance of mental disorders or anxieties.’ His eyes dropped to his tea again, his expression making Tina wonder if he was seeing every nightmare he’d ever had.

  ‘It was Mabel who helped me. She saved me.’

  Tina let the hush that followed Bert’s words hang in the air before pushing a packet of biscuits in his direction. ‘Your wife is an incredible woman.’

  ‘You’d better believe it. If she’d been born thirty years later, she’d have gone to university and probably be running the country by now.’

  ‘What did Mabel do to help you? Could I do it too? Sam’s tried every therapist going. And while I’m sure that he’s right about work, fresh air and laughter being the best medicine, it takes more than that. He’s determined to be in the house long enough to be able to move around inside by the time the first official guests come on October 5th.’ Tina dunked a cookie in her tea. ‘The practice guests come next week. Just three to begin with.’

  ‘Are they the chaps Sam knew when he was in the forces?’

  ‘I’m not sure if he knew them from when he saw action, or if he met them in the recovery centre after he was hurt. He never talks about it.’ Tina brushed away the sense of exclusion she always experienced when her boyfriend mentioned his time in the forces.

  After taking a gulp of tea, Bert smiled. ‘You help him every day, Tina. Small acts of encouragement. Supporting him through the frustration of not being able to join you inside. Those things are more important than you can imagine.’

  Tina nodded as she stared out of the large window. The late summer sunshine was already high in the sky, illuminating the garden and bathing the woodland beyond in a glow of blue and green. ‘I wish I could work out how to get him to actually walk beyond the bathroom door though. Any ideas?’

  ‘I’ll need a minute or two on that.’ Bert patted her hand as he absentmindedly dipped another biscuit. ‘The test guests, how is that being arranged exactly?’

  ‘They’ll be paying for food only. They know it’s an experiment to see what activities work and which don’t. Two men and one woman.’

  ‘Sensible lad that Sam. I’d like to help him.’

  Tina sat at the table. ‘Thanks, Bert.’

  ‘No thanks required. Sam reminds me of me a hundred years ago.’ He chuckled as he crunched into a third biscuit. ‘But never fear, lass, you only have one thing in common with my Mabel.’

  Tina chuckled as she pictured the bossy, well-meaning, occasionally overbearing but always big-hearted woman who dominated everything in the village of Upwich, from the WI to the bridge club. ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘You’re kind.’

  Tina blushed. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I was wrong. I meant two things!’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Kind and beautiful.’

  *

  Thea leant over the fence and watched the chickens as they pecked around their run.

  ‘It’s alright for you, Gertrude – your man doesn’t have to disappear for weeks at a time for work. He’s right where you want him.’

  As Thea watched, the rooster came out of the chicken coop and made a beeline for Betty, Gertrude’s chief rival for his affections.

  ‘Then again, maybe not. At least Shaun’s working away and not playing away.’

  Gertrude cocked her head to one side as if to ask Thea, ‘How long is he away?’

  ‘I don’t know. As long as it takes to excavate and film a pre-Norman church I suppose. He said the deadline was a month, but keeping to deadlines rarely works in archaeology.’

  The squeal of the gate to the walled garden distracted Thea from any wisdom Gertrude may have been about to share.

  ‘Morning, Sam.’ Thea raised a hand to the new owner of Mill Grange. ‘Come to seek a dose of chicken philosophy?’

  ‘Is there a better sort?’ Pulling a bag of apple and pepper slices from his bulging jacket pockets, Sam emptied them into the coop. ‘I’ve been thinking about giving the girls more space. Half the walled garden perhaps; what do you think?’

  ‘That’s a great idea.’ Thea turned her back on the increased pecking and surveyed the rows of vegetable beds before her. Half of them were flourishing, thanks to Sam’s green fingers, and promised crops of potatoes, cabbages and more. The rest were overgrown and in desperate need of tender loving care.

  ‘We’re going to need more eggs when we get regular guests, and although I want to cultivate as much of the garden as possible, there’s still enough land to allow the hens to roam more freely.’

  ‘You’re thinking of getting more friends for Gertrude and co?’

  Sam looked lovingly at his chickens. ‘I’d like to, but I’m not sure if you can add new fowl into an existing flock. Tina’s going to do some research into it later.’

  ‘That reminds me—’ Thea flicked a windblown hair from her eyes ‘—Sybil asked if she can increase her egg order from two dozen to three dozen every other day for the tea room.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Sam rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. ‘That settles it then. We can’t expect these girls to up production. Nor can we afford to lose even the smallest chance of extra income. We’ll order more chickens, even if we need to build a second coop.’

  Staring across the garden, Mill Grange’s Victorian splendour rising up behind them, Thea was reminded of how much had happened since she’d first laid eyes on this jewel of a house, hidden away on Exmoor.

  It had been March when Thea had arrived in the village of Upwich, newly appointed as chief restorer of the manor, employed by the Exmoor Heritage Trust. Now, thanks to an accounting mix-up committed long before her arrival, the manor had been sold and was going to be a retreat for recovering military personnel – and she was helping to run it. Managing such an operation was a far cry from her former life as an archaeological historian based at the Roman Baths in Bath. And yet, at the same time it wasn’t.

  Just prior to Mill Grange being sold, her boyfriend, television archaeologist Shaun Coulson, had found a Roman fortlet in the grounds. Sam was relying on Thea to run the excavation.

  ‘Any word from Shaun?’ Sam produced another bag from his jacket pocket and sprinkled a handful of chicken food pellets into the coop.

  ‘I got an email early this morning. He sounded a bit fed up to be honest. It appears the woman who owns the land on which he’s digging, Lady Hammett, is less than thrilled about them being there. Shaun had been summoned to the manor, just before he messaged me.’

  ‘But the Landscape Treasure team were invited to her Cornish estate. She must have known what to expect.’

  Thea sighed as Gertrude gave Betty a none-too-subtle nudge away from the freshly delivered food. ‘The aristocracy can be tricky devils.’

  ‘Tell me about it!’

  Two

  September 1st

  ‘I’m sorry, Lady Hammett, but if we hadn’t cut a trench in your lawn, we wouldn’t have been able to excavate.’

 
; Shaun bit the inside of his cheek, hoping his exasperation wasn’t showing. ‘It’s how we operate.’ He pointed to the Landscape Treasures geophysics team. Ajay and Andy, or the AA as Shaun often called them, were huddled over a laptop while they spoke into the camera about what they’d found and how they’d found it. ‘First we survey the area, then the digger pulls back the turf and we begin to dig.’

  ‘But it’s our front lawn!’ Lady Hammett’s chin tilted sharply upwards, her angular nose resembling a ski slope. She was so close to a satirical cartoonist’s impression of an aristocrat that he half expected her to snap out of it and start laughing – but she didn’t.

  Taking a deep breath, Shaun glanced across the empty excavation trench, and beyond to a group of local and Landscape Treasures archaeologists. They were looking anxious as they played trowels and brushes through their hands. Those who wore wristwatches were making pointed glances at them. Time was money on television, and the precious daylight they needed to work in was fading fast.

  ‘Your Ladyship, there seems to have been some confusion. We are excavating with permission. You signed the insurance forms and—’

  ‘I did no such thing! I agreed to that survey thing—’ she pointed towards Ajay and Andy ‘—but no more than that! Do you think I’m reacting like someone who has found a herd of elephants in her garden for fun?’ She broke off, stabbing a finger in the direction of the yellow JCB parked beside Guron House. ‘I have a damn good mind to sue. Which television company are you with?’

  Shaun’s mouth opened and closed like a gulping goldfish. When the ability to speak finally arrived, he hated how feeble he sounded. ‘But we have the signed paperwork. It was posted to you, and returned signed. I even spoke with you over the phone to agree timings and—’

  ‘Oh, now this is just too much. You did no such thing. When you visited in the summer, I agreed to the survey to see if this blessed church thing was under the lawns. No more than that. I’ve been travelling Europe for the last month, so I haven’t been here to take any calls. The only person here beyond the staff has been…’ Lady Hammett stopped talking. Her lips clamped shut and her eyes closed. Shaun watched in increasing disbelief as his companion silently moved her lips, counting from one to ten.