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CHAPTER TWO

‘Wow.’

Angela Cranley gasped as she drove her Range Rover over the crest of the hill.

‘Wow.’

‘Stop saying “wow”, Mum. You sound like a dork.’

Logan Cranley, Angela’s ten-year-old daughter, rolled her eyes in the back seat. After the long flight from Sydney, Logan was tired and grumpy. She hadn’t wanted to leave her old school, or her friends, and couldn’t understand what had possessed her parents to uproot themselves overnight and move to the other side of the world, just because some old guy had died and left them a house. Even at ten, Logan understood that her family were extremely wealthy. Her father, Brett, was a real-estate developer and one of the richest men in Sydney. The Cranleys already had a bunch of houses, including a grand apartment in London. What was so special about this one?

Secretly though, she too was impressed by the stunning scenery that surrounded them as they got nearer to their new home. Narrow ancient lanes flanked by high hedgerows guided them through the rolling chalk hills of the Downs; they passed a Tudor pub, The Coach and Horses, that looked exactly like Logan’s dolls’ house back home in her playroom in Australia, all white wattle walls and criss-crossing black beams, with mullioned windows. There were meadows full of buttercups, picture-postcard villages made up of clusters of flint cottages, medieval churches and the occasional grand Georgian manor house. Queen Anne’s lace, grown wild and as tall as the top of the car, reached over from the grass verges and brushed the windscreen as they passed, like delicate white-gloved fingers waving an ecstatic welcome. And everywhere the late spring sunshine, light, bright and clear, bathed the countryside in a glorious, magical glow.

In the front passenger seat, Logan’s older brother gazed vacantly out at the patchwork of hills and fields. At just turned twenty, Jason Cranley was painfully withdrawn. Tall and thin, with a pale, freckly complexion and sad, amber eyes, it was hard to believe that he was genetically related either to Logan, or to their father, Brett. Both Jason’s little sister and his father were dark-haired, olive-skinned and bewitching, like gypsies, or members of some exotic tribe of Portuguese pirates. Jason took more closely after his mother. Angela was blonde and fair-skinned, the sort of colouring that could easily have gone to red and that had zero tolerance for sun. Jason glanced across at her now, smiling, enchanted by this new world unfolding before her.

She’s so brave, he thought. So optimistic. After everything that’s happened, she still believes in fresh starts.

How he wished that he did, too.

‘This is it. Fittlescombe. We’re here!’

Angela Cranley squeezed her son’s leg excitedly as they passed the sign for the village. The Range Rover had descended a steep escarpment, then forked sharp right at the valley floor. The village was completely hidden from the main road above, folded into the downs like a baby joey enveloped in its mother’s pouch. It made it feel like a secret place, a hidden jewel only to be discovered by the chosen few. Despite herself, Angela felt her excitement building and her hopes start to blossom like the first buds of spring. This, surely, was a place where people were happy. Where the miseries and betrayals of the past could be left behind.

The most recent betrayal, in the form of Brett’s mistress Tricia Hong, a pushy young news reporter for SBS who had done everything in her power to destroy Angela’s marriage, was now a satisfying ten thousand miles away. Brett had been unfaithful before, of course – countless times. But Tricia had been a threat of a different order: intelligent, ruthlessly ambitious and utterly without scruple. Perhaps it was no surprise that she and Brett had been drawn to one another. They were so very alike. Still, in the end, even Brett had been taken aback by the beautiful young Asian’s tenacity. He, too, had begun to feel under siege. Rory Flint-Hamilton’s surprise bequest could not have come at a more opportune time. Nor could it have brought them to a more idyllic spot.

‘Oh my God, look at the post office! Isn’t that the cutest, with the roses round the door? And the school. Look, Logan. St Hilda’s. That’s where you’ll be going. What do you think?’

Logan made a noncommittal, grunting noise. She refused to get excited about her new school, however idyllic it might look. She still hoped there was a chance her father would change his mind and that they could all go home to Sydney and reality and forget this whole thing. Her mum kept telling her that she and Rachel and Angelica would stay friends, that they could Skype. But it wasn’t the same. She was going to miss Wellesley Park Elementary’s summer fair. She was going to miss everything. Rachel and Angelica would become best friends and wear the best friend necklaces, the ones with two pieces of a heart that fit together perfectly. She, Logan, would be forgotten. Erased. She’d probably start speaking with an English accent, God forbid.

‘Stop.’

Jason’s voice rang out, startling his mother. He hadn’t said a word since they pulled out of Heathrow. Having watched him go through a series of depressions, Angela wasn’t surprised by his silence. She had learned to sit with her son’s sadness, to stop trying to snap him out of it. But she still found it hard.

‘That was it. Furlings. There’s a sign at the bottom of the drive.’

Angela reversed. Sure enough, there it was. Damp and faded, and partially covered by overhanging trees, a simple wooden sign: ‘Furlings – Private Property’.

The driveway had seen better days. The four-wheel drive bounced and juddered over potholes, rattling its occupants like cubes of ice in a cocktail shaker. But after about a hundred yards of winding their way up the hill that overlooked the village, the private track widened into a grand, gravelled forecourt with a stone fountain at its centre. The house stood back from the gravel and was set slightly above it, atop a flight of six wide stone steps. A grand, square central section was flanked by two, lower symmetrical wings, all in the same red brick typical of Queen Anne architecture. Elegant sash windows peeked out shyly beneath thick fringes of wisteria, and the formal gardens at the front of the house gave way to stunning, oak-dotted parkland below, the green hills rolling all the way down to the village green.

It was quite the most exquisite house Angela Cranley had ever seen, combining elegance with an undeniable grandeur. It was also, to Angela’s way of thinking, enormous. If this was a small stately home, she struggled to imagine what a large one might look like.

‘It’s a palace!’ Logan squealed delightedly, forgetting all her heartfelt objections in the joy of the moment as she tumbled out of the car and ran towards the steps. ‘Oh, Mum, isn’t it gorgeous?’

Angela also got out of the car, stretching her aching legs. ‘It is, darling. It is gorgeous.’ She craned her neck and stepped back, trying to get a sense of the scale of it. ‘What do you think, Jase?’

‘Yeah. It’s very nice.’

Jason pulled the two heavy trunks out of the boot, wishing that Furlings’ beauty could affect him the way it ought to. Wishing that anything could. The cases thudded onto the ground with a crunch. Most of the family’s furniture and effects were arriving by separate plane in the coming days, but they’d brought a few ‘essentials’ with them. Jason’s father was supposed to come down to see the new house in a week. Brett had business in London, and preferred to stay in town than to deal with the hassle of moving in. ‘Your mother can do that. Women love all that nesting crap.’

‘It’s a lot of work, Dad,’ Jason had protested. Unusually for him. Jason Cranley was afraid to provoke his father. Everybody was afraid to provoke Brett Cranley.

‘Rubbish,’ said Brett. ‘There’ll be a housekeeper there to help her. Mrs Worsley. Old man Flint-Hamilton asked me to keep her on. And you can pitch in, can’t you? God knows you’ve got nothing else to do.’

Ever since Jason had dropped out of college, his father had been berating him for laziness, for failing to get a job and a life. Brett Cranley did not believe in depression. ‘We’ve all got our shit to go through,’ he told the family therapist at the one and only session Angela had convinced him to attend. ‘Wallowing in it doesn’t help. The problem with Jason is that he doesn’t realize how damn good he’s got it.’

Logan had already raced up the steps and run inside, darting in and out of the house like an over-excited puppy. Behind her, a smiling, soberly dressed woman in her mid-sixties appeared in the front doorway, plainly amused by the little girl’s high spirits.

Angela climbed the steps, her hand extended. ‘Mrs Worsley?’

‘Mrs Cranley. Welcome. You must be shattered after such a long journey.’

The older woman’s hand was cold and her grip firm, her Scottish accent clipped and efficient. She had grey hair, swept up into a neatly pinned bun, and wore no make-up, but her bright eyes and warm smile stopped her from appearing severe.

‘I suspect I’ll be tired later,’ Angela smiled back. ‘To be honest I think we’re all a bit too excited now. Excited and overwhelmed. What a house!’

‘Indeed.’ Mrs Worsley beamed with pride, as if she’d built Furlings herself, brick by brick. ‘Everyone in the village is so excited about your arrival,’ she lied. ‘It’ll be wonderful to have a family here again. Mr Flint-Hamilton was on his own for such a terribly long time.’

Jason had begun dragging the heavy cases up the steps but Mrs Worsley hurried forward, assuring him that Mr Jennings, the gardener, would ‘see to all that’.

‘He’s not really called Jennings, is he?’ The faintest of smiles traced Jason’s lips.

That boy looks ill, thought Mrs Worsley. As pale and pasty as rolled-out dough. With any luck the country air will sort him out.

‘He is,’ she said aloud. ‘And he’d be mightily upset to see you manhandling your own luggage, Mr Cranley.’

‘Jason,’ said Jason, embarrassed.

‘Jason.’

Mrs Worsley smiled. First impressions weren’t everything, of course, but she liked this family. The rambunctious little girl; the shy, polite son; the beautiful, perhaps slightly sad-looking mother. She felt certain that dear Mr Flint-Hamilton would have liked them too.

Fiona Worsley had worked at Furlings for over thirty years. She had known Tatiana’s mother, Vicky, and loved her dearly, grieving with Mr Flint-Hamilton when she died, and helping him to raise his infant daughter. A few years after Tati’s mother’s death, Mrs Worsley’s own husband, Mick, had also died, suddenly from a heart attack aged only forty-one. Rory Flint-Hamilton had returned the favour, supporting his housekeeper through her loss. The bond forged between them through mutual grief was a strong one. Never romantic. But as unique and powerful as any marriage.

Without children of her own, Mrs Worsley had focused all her love and attention on the young Tatiana, although she was a strict mother-figure and not especially demonstrative. In an odd, unspoken way, she, Rory and Tatiana had become a family unit of sorts up at Furlings, although none of them would ever have described the relationship in those terms. It had broken Mrs Worsley’s heart, watching Tatiana throw her life away on parties and unsuitable men as soon as she got into her teens, both for Tati’s sake but also for her father’s. Rory Flint-Hamilton had been a lovely man and, in her own way, Fiona Worsley had loved him. She’d particularly hated watching dear Mr Flint-Hamilton agonize over his will and Furlings’ future during the last, painful months of his life, and she laid the blame for his suffering squarely at Tatiana’s door. As such, she was firmly in the pro-Cranley camp when it came to the dispute over Rory’s will.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love Tatiana, or that she resented her, as many people in the village assumed. But at this point, after so many years of bad behaviour and broken promises, the housekeeper shared her former employer’s view that tough love was Tatiana’s only chance of salvation. And then there was the estate to think about. Furlings was as much a part of Mrs Worsley’s life as it was of Tatiana’s. At least now the estate would be preserved. Not only that, but it would become a family home again, cherished and brought back to life as a great house should be. She couldn’t understand why so many people in Swell Valley seemed unwilling to give this young Australian family a chance.

‘Come and see my bedroom!’ Logan was shrieking, circling her mother like a deranged shark as Angela finally made it across the threshold of her new home. ‘I’ve picked it out already, it’s right at the top and it’s amazing! There’s room for bunk beds. Can I have bunk beds? I really really really want bunk beds, and yellow wallpaper.’

‘I don’t know about the yellow wallpaper,’ said Angela. All of a sudden she did feel tired, and achy and sore and in desperate need of a shower and change of clothes. ‘Let’s see what Dad says.’

Furlings wouldn’t be home until Brett got here and gave it his seal of approval. It was hard to imagine how he couldn’t love it – how anyone couldn’t. But Angela intended to spend the next week making the house as perfect and homely and welcoming as was humanly possible.

If Brett’s happy, we’ll all be happy.

We’ll settle down here. Put down roots.

Angela Cranley closed her eyes and willed it to be so.

Brett Cranley closed his eyes and willed himself to come. Normally he had no trouble in that department, but the stress of opening up new offices in London combined with family pressures and physical exhaustion had taken their toll. Either that, or the girl just wasn’t hot enough.

‘Oh, that’s good! That’s so good.’

The secretary moaned, arching her back and giving her new boss a better view of the eagle tattoo across the top of her buttocks. Brett was not an admirer of tattoos, on men or women. He found himself becoming irritated – why had the stupid girl gone and done such a thing? – which was not helping him to orgasm. He closed his eyes again. Focus, for fuck’s sake.

Reaching around, he grabbed hold of the girl’s breasts which were large and heavy, like two water balloons. Her nipples were small and erect, twin pink diamonds between his thumb and forefinger. Better. She was pretty, sexy in a slightly chubby, accessible sort of way, with short hair – a pixie cut, he believed it was called. Tricia had had glorious long hair, black as tar and silken. Thinking about it now, Brett felt his erection strengthen and his excitement start to build at last.

‘Oh Brett! Brett!’

Thrusting harder and faster, he wanted to say her name but realized he’d forgotten it. Michelle, was it? Or Mary? Something with an ‘M’. He’d only hired her a week ago as the receptionist for Cranley Estates’ new London office. He couldn’t be expected to remember everything.

Reaching behind her, the girl cupped a hand underneath his balls and began to stroke them. That was it. ‘Oh … Jesus.’ He came, finally, collapsing on top of her, sweat pouring from his brow.

‘That was nice.’ The girl smiled cheerfully, wriggling out from under him.

‘Wasn’t it?’ Brett sighed, rolling onto his back. The carpet felt rough and scratchy underneath him, but he was too tired to move. Bending over him, the girl expertly removed his condom, carried it over to the waste bin in the corner of the office and dropped it inside. Then, still stark naked, she grabbed a few sheets of printer paper, balled them up and dropped them on top, concealing the evidence.

Brett grinned. She’s thorough. I like that in a secretary. A self-starter, too.

He wondered how things were going down in Sussex. Whether Ange and the children had reached the house yet. He must call them in a minute, once what’s-her-name had gone.

He glanced at the clock on the wall: 4.30 p.m. The secretary was already almost fully dressed, doing up the top buttons on her silk blouse and straightening her hair as if she’d just got back from the gym. Clearly she had no expectation of post-coital affection from him: another huge plus. Tricia had been painfully demanding in this regard. In every regard, come to think of it. Brett missed his mistress’s lithe, gymnast’s body, but nothing more. Tricia had broken the sacred code of the other woman and made a nuisance of herself with Angela, calling the house, showing up at events where she knew his wife would be present. She’d become a threat to his marriage, to his family. Brett Cranley couldn’t tolerate that. His own parents had divorced when he was young, and Brett saw himself decidedly as a family man. Sure he played around. Who didn’t? But he loved his wife and it would be a cold day in hell before he left her for another woman.

But this girl – Michelle. It’s definitely Michelle – she seemed to have a much clearer idea of the boundaries. She also seemed nice, sunny natured, a good sort of chick to have around. Perhaps he could overlook the tattoo and the hair?

Brett Cranley had not grown up poor. His father had run a successful dry-cleaning business and his mother, Lucille, was a hairdresser. What Brett had done was grown up quickly. Both his parents were dead by the time he turned fourteen, his father from a car accident on Christmas Eve, hit head-on by a drunk driver, and his mother from breast cancer. It was Lucille’s death that had affected him the most. An only child, Brett had always adored his mother. And while the loss of his father was shocking and sudden, Lucille Cranley’s protracted illness, her pain and fear, her desperate, dashed hopes of remission, had profoundly changed Brett’s psyche. The teenage boy lost his faith, not only in God and modern medicine, but in other people altogether.

There was no point in loving people, because the people you loved would eventually be taken away from you.

There was no point relying on people, because they would let you down.

There was only one life: this life. And in this life, you were on your own.

These were the lessons Brett Cranley learned from his parents’ deaths.

In some ways they changed him for the better. Having always been a rather lazy pupil, with no fixed goals or plans for his future, Brett suddenly threw himself into his studies. Living with his aunt Jackie and her two children, who were jealous of his good looks, intelligence and modest inheritance, and made sure he knew he was tolerated rather than loved within the family, Brett spent hour after after locked in his room, cramming for exams. When he won a place at a prestigious boarding school on a mathematics scholarship, his aunt didn’t want him to go.

‘It’s six hundred miles away, Brett. You won’t know a soul. Won’t you be lonely?’

‘No.’

‘Your mum wanted you to live here, with us. She thought that’d be best for you.’

‘She was wrong.’

Aunt Jackie looked pained. ‘It was what she wanted. I promised her …’

‘It doesn’t matter what she wanted,’ Brett said angrily. ‘She’s dead.’

‘Brett!’

‘I’m alive and I know what’s best for me. I’m going to St Edmund’s.’

In the end Brett had had to apply to the executors of his father’s will to release funds for his education and had petitioned the family courts to be allowed to go away to school. He never returned to his aunt’s house, or to Burnside, the Adelaide suburb where he’d spent his childhood. It was the first of many battles that he would win in his determined pursuit of wealth and worldly success, the only ‘security’ that meant a damn in Brett’s book. By his sixteenth birthday he was fully legally independent, the top performing scholar at the top school in Sydney, and the youngest-ever applicant to be awarded a place at ANU, the Australian National University in Canberra, for applied mathematics.

ANU was to change Brett Cranley’s life. Not because he graduated with first-class honors and went on to Melbourne Business School to begin an MBA he would eventually be too successful to have time to finish. But because it was at ANU that he met the two women who transformed him from a boy into a man.

The first was a professor’s wife by the name of Madeleine Jensen. Maddie spotted the dark, angry-looking boy on campus in his first week in Canberra.

‘Who is that?’ she asked her husband. Professor Jamie Jensen was the head of the math faculty at ANU, a quiet, scholarly man considerably more interested in Fermat’s Last Theorem than he was in his wife’s sexual needs. Or any other needs, for that matter.

‘That’s Brett Cranley. The prodigy, or so they say. Ridiculous to send a child of that age away to college in my view, but there we are.’

‘I wouldn’t call him a child,’ said Maddie, catching Brett’s eye and the wild hunger beneath his brooding exterior. ‘He’s very good looking.’

‘If you say so, my dear,’ Professor Jensen muttered absently.

Maddie did say so. Not just to her husband, but to Brett himself when she approached him after lectures a few days later. ‘Are you a virgin?’ she asked him bluntly.

Brett replied in the affirmative. Since his mother’s death he’d undergone a self-imposed ban on all interaction with the opposite sex. Not that he had no libido. Quite the opposite. But the strength of the physical longing welling up inside him was at war with the terrible fear of loss and abandonment that had become as much a part of him as his own flesh and bones. Brett adored women – both sexually and for the warmth and intimacy they offered, warmth and intimacy that he desperately longed for – but he was afraid of them.

‘Do you want to be?’

Whether it was Madeleine’s directness, her utter lack of guile, or the fact that she was almost old enough to be his mother; or whether it was her beauty, or her own deep sexual need speaking to his, Brett didn’t know. What he did know was that he wanted to go to bed with her. Very, very badly.

‘No.’

‘Good.’ Maddie smiled. ‘Follow me.’

Sex opened up a new and glorious world for Brett Cranley. Before long it rivalled ambition as the key driver in his personality. His relationships with women were wildly conflicted: needy, passionate and adoring on the one hand; angry, frightened and controlling on the other; each one a reflection of his feelings for his mother, frozen in suspended animation at fourteen. He and Maddie Jensen remained lovers for over a year, but there were many, many others, too many to count, let alone remember, a sea of faces and bodies and, before long, a trail of broken hearts left in his wake. Brett needed sex like a plant craving sunlight. Both the physical rush and the emotional validation fuelled his confidence and ambition like a shot of adrenaline in the arm.