The Summer of Secrets

by Tilly Tennant

  Opening the door, she was greeted by the aromas of hops, polished wood, cooking beef and roasting vegetables. At the far end of the room, mahogany tables for those wanting to eat were set out. It was a weekday, and only three of them were occupied, another five patrons propping up the bar and chatting to the landlord as they nursed guest ales. Some Harper recognised from visits to the village, others were strangers to her, but when Shay followed her through the door everyone briefly greeted both her and Pip as well as him.

  ‘Alright there, Shay?’ The landlord gave him a curt nod. ‘Usual?’

  ‘Can do, Dave.’

  ‘A drink for the missus too?’

  Shay turned to Harper and Pip. ‘Something for my harem? I suppose we can stretch to that.’ He turned back to the landlord with a grin.

  Harper smiled thinly. Shay’s genial humour was for show, put on for the public. His silence as they’d walked from the farm told her that he was still sulking over their spat earlier. She’d ignored it, of course, and had chatted anyway, partly to spare Pip any awkwardness, and partly because she simply couldn’t be bothered pandering to his childish impulses. While she loved Shay, and she believed he was a good man, she was beginning to see that tantrums were a thing with him. There was tension around Pip, about when Harper was going to ask her to move out so they could share the farm as a couple, and she was sick of explaining that, while the farm belonged to her, Pip was still her colleague and, more importantly, the friend who had stuck by her through the years, even following her here from Weymouth to help set up when the farm was a mess. Throwing her out simply wasn’t an option, and as far as Harper was concerned, Pip was free to stay at the farm as long as she wanted to. Pip herself had other ideas, but Shay couldn’t seem to get his head around the difficulties she faced trying to find alternative accommodation, and Harper, if she was honest, was in no rush to see her go.

  ‘I could murder a pie as well, if there’s one going,’ Harper said and Pip nodded in agreement.

  ‘Oh, God, yes. I could be persuaded to do a lot of things for a pie.’

  ‘Don’t be saying that too loud around here,’ the landlord said, laughing. ‘Half the bar will jump you for less.’

  Pip looked vaguely alarmed while Shay started to laugh with him. ‘Don’t worry, Pip, I’ll make sure the ladies are at the front of the queue.’

  Dave, the landlord, seemed to suddenly realise his faux pas, and he mumbled to himself in a sheepish tone as he shuffled down the bar to pull Shay’s pint of bitter.

  ‘Poor Dave,’ Pip said. ‘I throw him every time.’

  ‘I think you might be the only gay in the village,’ Harper said with a grin.

  Pip shrugged. ‘I’m used to it by now. He can say what he likes as long as he gets me that pie.’

  * * *

  While Shay caught up with the village gossip at the bar, Harper and Pip took their drinks to a quiet table. The sun warming her back from a nearby window, Harper glanced across at him as they waited for their food.

  ‘They’re worse than a bunch of old ladies,’ she said.

  ‘You’re OK?’ Pip asked, and Harper tore her gaze away from the bar to see her friend studying her intently.

  ‘Of course I’m OK.’

  ‘You and Shay. I get the feeling you’re not happy.’

  Harper let out a sigh. ‘I don’t know what’s eating him – probably the usual.’

  ‘Not him… you. There’s something wrong for you this time, isn’t there?’

  ‘I’m that transparent?’

  ‘No, but I’m your friend. I know when you’re not right.’

  ‘I’m not unhappy, really. It’s just the weird atmosphere between Shay and Lord Frampton earlier…’ She paused. ‘I know there’s probably going to be some friction over the jewellery we found but… If you could have seen it, you’d have thought it was weird too. But when I asked Shay what the deal was, he plain denied it. I’m not stupid; I know what I saw, and the fact that Shay won’t talk to me about it makes me angry. I can’t help thinking that if he’s keeping things from me now, what chance have we got for an honest relationship when we’re married?’

  ‘You’re having second thoughts?’ Pip’s eyes were wide.

  ‘No… God, no! I love him.’

  ‘But you don’t trust him?’

  ‘Yes… I don’t know. We’ve only been together for a year. Do you think that’s too soon for marriage?’

  ‘How should I know? People get married after ten years and people get married after ten days. Some work and some don’t, and you can never tell which ones will.’

  ‘That helps.’ Harper raised her eyebrows as she lifted her glass of gin and tonic to her lips.

  ‘Sorry, but you’re really asking the wrong person. My track record for relationships isn’t exactly amazing.’

  ‘Neither is mine when it comes to it.’

  ‘You’re here now though – out at the other side of the tunnel.’

  Harper was silent as her gaze went back to the bar. Shay was laughing raucously at something Dave had just said, leaning on the wood, his perfect backside sticking out towards her. God, he was handsome. The sort of handsome that was far too good for her. He’d turned up that first murky morning to begin work on the extension that would become Silver Hill Tearoom and it was like the clouds had parted to let the sun through. They’d got along straight away, and before the job was even finished they were an item. She’d come from a messy relationship back in Weymouth, and sometimes that little voice of reason prodded her and told her that this was a rebound. But to feel like this about someone, to say yes to marriage, that couldn’t be a rebound surely?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a lanky teenage boy at their table.

  ‘Hey, Todd. I see your dad’s got you earning your pocket money.’ Harper nodded at the two pie-laden plates in his hands.

  ‘Broke a window at school…’ he mumbled, depositing the plates on the table. ‘Dad says I got to pay for it.’

  Without another word, he shuffled off. Harper exchanged plates with Pip, a grin stretching her face.

  ‘Poor lad.’

  ‘You heard him – he broke a window. Good on Dave for teaching him a valuable life lesson.’

  ‘I didn’t mean the window – I meant being a teenager. Thank God I’ve got that out of the way.’

  ‘Oh, me too.’ Pip shuddered. ‘Kissing all those boys. I should have realised back then there was a good reason why it was such a trauma.’

  ‘It was a trauma for me too and I don’t have the excuse of being gay. I don’t think that’s just you – I think every girl finds it a minefield. Are you giving him too much, not enough, doing it right, doing it wrong, who’s he told about it? Ugh. I might be the wrong side of thirty now but I’ll take that over being fifteen again.’

  ‘Hmm. Now your biggest worry is what to do with the priceless jewels you found underneath your house…’

  Harper laughed. ‘They were never ours and, by the looks of things, nothing from it ever will be.’

  ‘So, you think Frampton has a case?’

  Harper shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. It’s not like he needs the money so why would he come to see us and lie?’

  ‘The ones who don’t need the money are often the greediest.’ Pip blew on a forkful of meat and gravy before popping it into her mouth and chewing slowly.

  ‘I don’t know why, but I believed him. If Shay hadn’t come in, I’d have got to the bottom of it, but what he’d told me to that point seemed plausible enough. Would it upset you if we didn’t get a cut?’

  Pip scooped another forkful of pie and studied it thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I suppose it might a little, but only because I know what it might mean for the business. But if we had no right, what could I do?’

  ‘I wish Shay would see it so philosophically. He’s really pissed off about it all at the moment.’

  ‘He’s bound to be.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, soon your
money will be his money. Unless you sign a prenup or something, and you’re far too nice to do that. Apart from the loan to build the lets, you own the farm outright and you’d have a nice chunk of money to boot. Not saying he wants you for your money or anything,’ she added quickly, ‘I’m just saying things as they are, that’s all.’

  ‘The only reason I have the farm is because my parents died and left me enough money to buy it.’

  ‘I know that. I don’t mean anything bad by it, but that’s the way it is. Some people – not me, of course – would look in from the outside and think you were doing OK for yourself. You might even look rich to some people.’

  ‘But all my money is tied up in the farm.’

  ‘You and I know that,’ Pip said, wagging her fork from her to Harper and back again. ‘But other people don’t.’

  ‘Shay knows that too,’ Harper replied, suddenly and inexplicably feeling compelled to defend her fiancé.

  ‘I know he does. Frampton doesn’t though.’

  ‘Would he care?’

  ‘He might. He might be persuaded to come to some arrangement where you share the outcome.’

  ‘I don’t care about sharing it.’

  ‘No, but Shay would. Depends on how much you’re willing to bend for him.’

  ‘So you’re saying I should go and see Frampton and plead poverty?’

  ‘No, you should state the facts and see what he says. I’ll go with you, of course.’

  ‘But not Shay?’ Harper shot a glance back to the bar, where momentarily his eyes met hers and she gave him a nervous smile.

  ‘I think it would be best if the women handled this. We’ve already seen what a pig’s ear the men make of it if you leave them unsupervised.’

  ‘True.’ Harper turned back to Pip, noting that she had already cleared half her plate, whereas Harper had completely forgotten to start eating. With an inward shake, she unwrapped the serviette from her cutlery and cut into her pie.

  ‘Besides,’ Pip added, ‘the business is yours, not Shay’s. I know you’ll be married soon but that’s not going to change – is it?’

  ‘No,’ Harper replied with more certainty than she felt. She hadn’t dared to mention the hints that Shay had made about getting more involved once they were husband and wife. Somehow, it had never felt like the right moment, and she was convinced that Pip was already feeling increasingly pushed out by Shay’s presence around the place, though she’d never say so. Harper’s marriage would change things for sure – they both knew it, but neither was ready to acknowledge it just yet.

  ‘Did he leave a phone number?’ Pip asked, breaking in on Harper’s thoughts.

  ‘Didn’t have time,’ she replied through a mouthful of food. ‘But he did say he knew Francesca Logan. Perhaps she’ll have contact details for him.’

  ‘OK. We can phone her tomorrow. She might have some more developments to tell us about anyway, so it can’t hurt.’

  The door of the pub opened and Harper stifled a groan. Pip followed her gaze to see a young woman enter, greeted enthusiastically by the men at the bar.

  ‘And we were having such a lovely dinner too,’ Pip said.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Harper replied, turning back to her meal and stabbing a chip so violently it could have cracked the plate. ‘She’s ancient history.’

  ‘As long as you’re comfortable with that, then you won’t mind the fact she’s made a beeline straight for Shay and is now hanging off him like snot off a toddler’s nose.’

  ‘Let her. I can be the bigger person here, because I know that what happened between them was a one-night stand and it was before we’d got together. So she can flirt all she wants, and if she dares to push it, I’ll be straight round to see her husband.’

  ‘He’s away a lot. I suppose that’s how she’s been getting away with her little dalliances. Who knew village life could be so full of drama? When we came out here from Weymouth I thought it was going to be boring.’

  ‘Sometimes I wish it was,’ Harper said, not taking her eyes from Allie and Shay as they chatted. Sometimes she wondered if he knew what he was doing to her feelings when he laughed and joked with Allie Wicklow so blatantly in front of her. But, perhaps worse in many ways, she really didn’t think he understood the impact of it on her at all.

  ‘Want me to knock her block off?’ Pip said.

  ‘Yes please.’ Harper turned to her with a wry smile. ‘Ignore me – oversensitive today. It’s been a weird one and it’s put me in a weird mood. What do I care if Allie Wicklow is trying it on with Shay? If she was ever going to get anywhere they’d have lasted longer than one night, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I wonder if her hubby knows,’ Pip mused.

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t,’ Harper said. ‘But I feel sorry for him if she’s like this all the time.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he works away – so he can pretend he’s not married to a slapper.’

  ‘The funny thing is, I don’t think she is a slapper. I’m not sure if that makes things better or worse, though. Because if she isn’t, then the fact she’s so hung up on Shay makes it seem like a far more dangerous situation.’

  ‘He wouldn’t wander,’ Pip said. ‘You know the saying, why get hamburger out when you have steak at home.’

  ‘Yes, but anything out always seems more exotic than what you have in at home,’ Harper said. ‘Men spout that steak and hamburger nonsense, but I don’t think any man has ever actually believed it.’

  ‘He’s not Ricky…’

  Harper tore her gaze away from the bar and turned to Pip. ‘I know. That wasn’t what I was thinking.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No. For a start, he’s not psychologically abusing me. I don’t want to think about Ricky now. We left Weymouth so I wouldn’t have to think about him.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to remind you… sorry.’

  Harper waved a vague hand. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why everything is getting to me today. Let Allie Wicklow try – she won’t get anywhere.’

  It was Pip’s turn to look across at the bar. She said nothing, but simply shovelled another forkful of food into her mouth and chewed as she watched Allie and Shay laughing. Her friend’s silence was one thing Harper really didn’t need; it revealed more about her actual thoughts on the matter than anything she could have said.

  Chapter 10

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Cesca put the phone down and dragged a hand through her hair. Leaning back in her seat, she threw an exasperated glance at Duncan, who was searching through some parchment that looked in danger of disintegrating if he so much as sneezed on it.

  ‘What’s happened now?’ he asked mildly, magnifying glass in hand and eyes trained on his task.

  ‘Bloody William Frampton, that’s what. He’s only gone and marched over to Silver Hill Farm to demand the treasure! Shay McArthur’s just phoned going mad about it!’

  ‘I thought you said it probably was his in any case.’

  ‘I said I was fairly sure that the ring in the painting was the same one, but that’s not enough evidence of anything by itself.’

  ‘Does it matter if the owners of Silver Hill Farm know?’

  ‘I suppose not. But it doesn’t help me if he’s roaming the place interfering. If he’s been there already, what else has he done? It wouldn’t surprise me to see a full page in the Daily Mail tomorrow, demanding the government returns his birthright to him. That’s the trouble with these toffs, think their family name entitles them to whatever they want.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to phone him.’

  ‘And say what?’

  ‘No idea. Beg, plead, cajole, blackmail. Whatever it takes to keep him out of the way for a bit until I’ve had time to do my own investigations.’

  ‘There’s a report from the archaeology team, by the way. It’s on your desk.’

  ‘I’ve seen it, thanks.’ Cesca rooted under a pile of papers to pull it out and look again. ‘Though it�
�s not exactly bursting with clues, is it?’ She tossed the report back onto her desk and rubbed at her temples. ‘All it does is confirm that the crucifix is as spectacular as I thought it might be, but that’s hardly news.’

  ‘Bad night again?’ Duncan asked, still looking at his manuscript.

  ‘That obvious?’

  ‘The tetchiness gives it away. And the slur on our noble gentry. If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have half the lovely artefacts and preservation sites we have today.’

  ‘Because posh people were the only ones who could afford to keep stuff… yes, I know. They’re still a pain in the arse. I mean, who calls a kid William Horatio Henry Frampton?’

  ‘His mum and dad?’ Duncan offered.

  ‘Ha ha, funny.’

  ‘So you’re not a bit tempted to try to help Lord Frampton keep his precious stately home out of the hands of developers?’ Duncan looked up from his work, a wry smile about his lips.

  ‘You’re a pain in the arse too,’ Cesca retorted, biting back a grin.

  ‘I’m right, though, aren’t I?’

  ‘I don’t know what I can do. He seems to think I can write some fictional report that tells a lovely story of how that pile of jewellery is his, but I can’t do that. So even if I wanted to help, I can do no more than establish the facts as they are and then let it go through the proper channels. He might get the money, but then Silver Hill Farm might get the money too. And I’m not entirely sure that they don’t deserve it more, despite my desire to save Frampton’s house from a fate worse than affordable weekend spa breaks. They seem like good people who want to make a difference to their lives and the area they live in.’