The Summer of Secrets: A feel-good romance novel perfect for holiday reading

by Tilly Tennant

  Shay looked down at Harper.

  ‘Never a moment’s peace, is there?’ she asked.

  ‘When we’re married,’ he said. ‘We’ll be OK when we’re married.’

  ‘I suppose we will,’ Harper said, her mind going back to Pip and how things would change for her friend once Shay had moved in. They’d be alright, but would she?

  * * *

  ‘What time did you say you were picking Thor up?’ Duncan crammed a biscuit into his mouth and shot Cesca a sideways look.

  ‘His name is Kristofer,’ she chided.

  ‘I can’t be expected to remember everything.’ Duncan swallowed hard before reaching into the pack for a second. ‘Anyway, you were the one who said he looked like Thor’s hot brother.’

  ‘I didn’t expect the moniker to stick though. Please don’t call him Thor when I bring him to the office.’

  ‘I’m not that embarrassing. I’m sure I could get by without insulting him. I suppose I could call him Erik, or Ragnar, or Forkbeard—’

  ‘Are you just running through a list of famous Vikings?’

  Duncan grinned, looking more like a mischievous schoolboy than ever. ‘I’m a museum curator. What else am I going to do?’

  ‘Well please don’t. It’s not Forkbeard or Bloodaxe; it’s Kristofer. Repeat after me: Krist-of-er…’

  ‘Got it. So when are you going to ask him out?’

  ‘Really?’ Cesca let out an impatient sigh. ‘Never. Work and pleasure don’t mix.’

  ‘What about the pleasure you get from my company every day?’

  ‘Who said it was pleasurable being stuck in an office with you all day?’

  ‘Admit it: you love me.’

  ‘No I don’t. But chuck me a biscuit and I might change my mind.’

  Duncan leaned over to offer her the pack.

  ‘Honestly,’ Cesca bit into the chocolate digestive, spraying herself with crumbs, ‘I don’t know how your fella puts up with you.’

  ‘I have a soft and tender side that you don’t see. He says I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him.’

  ‘He’s had a pretty poor sampling then.’

  Duncan let out a chuckle. ‘You still haven’t told me what time you’re going out.’

  ‘Why do you need to know?’

  ‘The head of history at St Bart’s wants to bring some of his sixth formers over to work in the breakout room.’

  Cesca stuffed the remainder of her biscuit into her mouth and reached for her handbag. ‘In that case, I’m going out right now!’

  * * *

  ‘I’m excited to see the site.’ Kristofer clicked his seatbelt into place as Cesca let off the handbrake. Today he was sporting a worn denim jacket, grey T-shirt and cargo trousers. He still smelled of pine forests and fjords. Cesca was beginning to wonder if it was in her imagination. How could a man smell like the place he came from?

  ‘There’s not much to see,’ she said, pulling back out into the lane that ran past his cottage. ‘The team have mostly finished the excavation so it’s a bit of a mud bath.’

  ‘I like mud,’ he said with a breezy grin. Winding down the passenger window, he stuck his hand out as they drove, the slipstream whipping his hair around his face so he looked like a rock god on a video shoot. Cesca tried desperately to keep her eyes on the road.

  ‘The farm is lovely though,’ she continued. ‘Quaint and charming – very English.’

  ‘What colour is the farmhouse?’

  Cesca frowned. ‘I don’t know… sort of brick colour.’

  ‘Many farmhouses in Norway are red. It’s one of the things I do miss – seeing little red houses dotted through the countryside.’

  ‘How long do you think you’ll stay in England?’

  ‘I don’t know. I get bored. Perhaps another year.’

  ‘And you’ll go back to Norway?’

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps I will go and see somewhere else.’

  ‘It must be a nice life,’ Cesca mused. ‘Being that free to come and go, set down roots wherever you fancy and then pull them up again when you’ve had enough.’

  ‘For sure, but you can’t do it forever. One day, I guess I will get a wife and little Kristofers, then I’ll live somewhere with mountains and lakes.’

  ‘Any ideas where?’

  He shrugged. ‘I have family around Olden. Perhaps I will settle there.’

  ‘You might get bored, especially when you’re used to globetrotting like you do now.’

  ‘When my children come I will give my time to showing them the wonders of life. I won’t get bored.’

  The road took them past the Rising Sun, its old painted signpost swinging lazily in the fresh breeze that blew through the valley.

  ‘Have you ever been in there?’ Cesca asked.

  ‘Once,’ he said.

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘Good beer.’

  ‘We could drop in for a drink and something to eat on the way back,’ Cesca ventured. She wasn’t entirely sure what answer she wanted to hear, or even why she’d suggested it.

  He nodded. ‘Sounds like a good plan.’

  * * *

  Ten minutes later they pulled up in the tiny car park of Silver Hill Farm. Following the path past the square where the animals had been penned in for the day, Cesca gestured to the entrance of the tearoom.

  ‘Here we are. We’ll have a quick word with Harper before we go poking around – she’s the owner of the business. Harper’s fiancé found the jewellery while he was digging some foundations and she called us to report it.’

  Cesca had left her visit until closing time, not wanting to disturb the customers. Both Harper and Pip turned and smiled as she and Kristofer walked in.

  ‘Hello!’ Pip called cheerily, abandoning her cleaning cloth and making her way over. She looked up at Kristofer. ‘You must be… wow… tall is what you must be!’

  ‘One metre ninety,’ he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to introduce oneself metrically.

  ‘And so precise too,’ Pip said, laughing as she offered her hand for him to shake.

  ‘This is Kristofer Bakke,’ Cesca said as Harper arrived to greet him. ‘Kristofer – Harper and Pip.’

  ‘Very pleased to meet you,’ Harper said. ‘You’re interested in the find?’

  ‘Very.’ He aimed a dazzling smile at her. ‘I am going to help, if I can, to uncover the mystery.’

  ‘I wish I had more time to help,’ Harper said. ‘It’s fascinating. Are you going up to see Will too?’

  ‘Lord Frampton?’ Cesca asked, taken aback by Harper’s familiarity with him. ‘I suppose we will.’

  ‘He thinks “Lord Frampton” is archaic,’ Pip put in. ‘Told us to call him Will. He’s a top bloke, actually, when you get past all that upper-class stuffiness.’

  ‘You’ve seen him since he came to ask about the find?’

  ‘A couple of times,’ Pip replied. ‘He showed us around Silver Hill House.’

  ‘He did?’ Cesca asked. It was strange, but part of her was a little jealous. She thought she and Will had built up something of a rapport when she visited, but he never offered to show her around. Why did that bother her so much?

  ‘That’s not a problem, is it?’ Harper asked, looking slightly concerned at Cesca’s reaction. ‘I mean, it’s not like… a conflict of interest or something, is it?’

  ‘No, no… of course not. I’m just surprised. I’m glad. If things can be amicable between all parties involved in this case then I’m all for it.’

  ‘I would be interested to see Silver Hill House,’ Kristofer said.

  Kristofer and Will Frampton couldn’t be more different. That was one meeting Cesca couldn’t wait to witness. William Horatio Henry Frampton, sixteenth Earl of Cerne Hay, wouldn’t know what had hit him when Kristofer Blond Beard rocked up to his mansion.

  ‘I expect we’ll get up there in the next few days,’ Cesca said. ‘For now, while the light’s good, maybe we can go and nosey at the
dig site.’

  ‘Or what’s left of it,’ Pip said. ‘They’ll be digging up boomerangs from Australia if they go any deeper.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Cesca said. ‘They’re mostly students, and a bit too enthusiastic.’

  Pip laughed. ‘Don’t be. Saved us some digging for our foundations. We’re only disappointed that Tony Robinson hasn’t arrived yet.’

  Kristofer shot Cesca a confused look, but now it was her turn to laugh. ‘I take it your experience of British television hasn’t got as far as Time Team yet.’

  ‘I like to read,’ Kristofer said, as if this much was obvious to anyone. ‘Television makes me sleep.’

  ‘Quite a lot of it makes me sleep too, but I still put it on every night,’ Pip said. ‘I suppose I should cut down a bit but it’s like junk food – you know it’s bad for you, but it’s just so good!’ She shoved her hands in her apron pocket and gave Kristofer’s perfect frame a meaningful sweep. ‘I suppose you don’t do junk food either.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He grinned. ‘Your fish and chips… very good.’

  ‘That’s not even real junk food,’ Pip chided, biting back a grin. ‘Come out drinking in Weymouth with us one night and we’ll show you real junk food. Five pints of Stella and you’ll be eating things you never dreamed you’d look twice at.’

  Kristofer looked vaguely bemused and glanced at Cesca for some clarification, but she just chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about it – I won’t let Pip lead you astray. Besides, you’re mine for the next few weeks – you promised to do some investigating for me, remember?’

  ‘Come on,’ Harper said with a smile. ‘I’ll show you what’s left of my grounds. Unless you’re happy to go exploring by yourself?’

  ‘It’d be good to have you come out with us,’ Cesca said, ‘then you can fill Kristofer in on what you know about the farm and what happened on the morning of the discovery. I think you have a few questions too, don’t you, Kristofer?’

  He nodded eagerly and followed Harper, pulling a leather-bound notebook from his jacket pocket. Cesca brought up the rear.

  ‘If you don’t need me,’ Pip said, ‘I’ll just finish up in here.’

  ‘No worries!’ Harper called behind her, and Cesca let the door swing shut as they left the café.

  * * *

  Allie was on the sofa, arms wrapped around Josh as he slept against her. The Disney film they’d been watching when he fell asleep was still playing, but Allie had stopped following it twenty minutes ago. Now she simply stared at the screen as she held her son, replaying the events of the past twenty-four hours over in her head.

  If only she could erase it, run time back, slip Greg an amnesia pill… anything to undo what she’d done. She’d been so stupid, and now everything was unravelled, her life a tangled mess of broken threads and knots. They’d played happy families for Josh, she and Greg maintaining a strained courtesy as they went about everyday tasks, neither’s mind on what they were doing. Greg had gone out to get a burger and fries for Josh, who’d eaten very little that day. Josh had wolfed it down before settling with Allie and going to sleep.

  Greg came through from the kitchen. He glanced at Josh, and then sat on the armchair across from Allie.

  ‘When are you going to see Harper Woods?’

  ‘Not now,’ Allie said. ‘Can we discuss this later?’

  ‘It needs to be discussed now.’

  ‘Josh might wake up.’

  ‘He’s out for the count. Stop making excuses.’

  ‘I’m not. Leave it, Greg, please. Let’s do this later when he’s gone to bed.’

  ‘I want you to make arrangements to leave tomorrow.’

  ‘And who will look after Josh when you go back to Germany?’

  ‘My parents.’

  ‘You’ve called them?’

  Cold dread settled in her stomach. If he’d asked his parents about looking after Josh, then he’d told them about her. They’d never particularly approved of her anyway; she imagined they were throwing a party right now. And it meant that Greg was dead serious in his intentions, and any hopes she’d had that he might change his mind once he’d had time to cool down were gone.

  ‘Did you expect me not to?’

  Allie stared at the TV. Somebody had burst into song and the room was filled with soaring, joyful notes and whirling colours. It was a lie. Life wasn’t joy and singing; life was cruel mistakes and pain. The sound of it sickened her. How dare the characters on screen be so happy when she was so broken? But she resisted reaching for the remote control to turn it off for fear of waking Josh.

  Greg got up. ‘See that you go to Silver Hill Farm first thing. It’s the least you can do. That poor woman deserves the truth.’

  ‘You mean you want someone else to suffer because you are?’ Allie looked up at him now, tears blurring her vision.

  ‘I mean that she doesn’t deserve to be kept in the dark. If that boyfriend of hers is willing to sleep around now, then I rather think it sets the tone for their entire marriage. Nobody deserves that, and it’s better she knows now than when it’s too late.’

  Chapter 16

  It was impossible not to be entranced by Kristofer Bakke. Not only was he easy on the eye, but he was sweet, humble, witty, interesting and endearingly enthusiastic about just about everything. After less than ten minutes, Harper was completely won over. She’d shared more of the details around the morning of the find than she’d wanted to – certainly more than she’d given to Cesca, which caused the Finds Officer to subtly raise her eyebrows more than once, particularly at reports of some of Shay’s reactions to unearthing the box and discovering its contents. But Kristofer seemed not to judge, only to smile and nod and take studious notes at every pertinent point of the conversation. He’d shown childlike glee at the sight of the now almost finished excavations, leaping into the trench and poking in the soil as if he might yet entice secrets to the surface that the professionals had failed to uncover.

  As they walked back to the tearoom together, Kristofer chatting amiably while both women watched him quietly, something shifted subtly in Harper’s subconscious. Later – a day still months in her future – she would be able to pinpoint the moment and name it, but for now it was indistinct, a feeling she couldn’t recognise. She only knew that she could listen to him talk and laugh all day, and that he made her smile in a way nobody had ever done before. The gardens that hugged her beloved tearoom were fragrant, the evening bringing the scents of magnolia and honeysuckle dancing into the air as the first bats from her loft tentatively slipped onto the dusky breeze. They were small things on the periphery of her thoughts that would later colour the memories of this moment.

  These thoughts were pushed aside as Harper opened the door of the tearoom to find Pip sitting at a table, staring into space, hands wrapped around one another and her phone resting inches away. At their entrance, she looked up. Everyone was silent – even Kristofer – some instinctive understanding that the look on Pip’s face meant something huge had just happened.

  ‘Esther’s back,’ she said.

  * * *

  Cesca killed the engine in the car park of the Rising Sun pub. ‘Well,’ she said, giving Kristofer a wry smile, ‘I can’t pretend I’m not insanely curious about what was going on there.’

  ‘It sounded serious,’ Kristofer agreed, but as he offered nothing else, Cesca went back to her own musing as she unclipped her seatbelt.

  ‘They sent us away pretty sharpish. Not in a rude way, of course,’ she added.

  ‘They are very nice people,’ Kristofer said. ‘Perhaps we’ll be able to go back again when they have solved their problem.’

  ‘It sounds like Esther is their problem,’ Cesca said. ‘Whoever she is.’

  A cool breeze ruffled her hair, sending a delicate shiver down her neck as they crossed the car park towards the pub entrance. Once inside the door, the air was warm and flavoured with beer and the smells of cooking meat, vibrant with conversation and laughter.

&nb
sp; ‘Smells good,’ Kristofer said with an approving nod.

  ‘It does. I’m afraid I’m going to be most unladylike, because I’m starving and I might just eat a whole cow.’ She strode up to the bar.

  The landlord smiled. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘We’d like to eat. Have you got a table?’

  The landlord angled his head at an area beyond the bar. ‘Take your pick – there’s plenty. Would you like a drink to take over with you?’

  After a quick consultation, she ordered guest ales for both of them, and Kristofer followed her to the restaurant area, giving an amiable nod to everyone he passed.

  ‘I like it here,’ he said as they sat down. ‘It looks old.’

  ‘I would say so,’ Cesca agreed. ‘It looks as though there have been some extensive refits over the centuries but I bet these beams above us are fifteenth century.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ he asked, looking up. Heavy wooden joists peppered with old woodworm holes spanned the ceiling above his head.

  ‘I’m only guessing from this distance and by the construction of the place. It seems as if this is the oldest section of the pub and I’d say it dates back to around then. If I had a closer look I’d be able to say for certain but perhaps now isn’t the time to ask for a ladder.’

  Kristofer grinned. ‘People would stare for sure.’

  Cesca smiled as she turned her attention to the menu. ‘When I said I was going all out carnivorous, I wasn’t kidding,’ she said, looking over it at Kristofer, who was now reading one himself. ‘I think it’s going to have to be steak and ale pie. I hope you’re not a vegan because the way I’m going to eat it will be disgustingly cavewoman.’

  Kristofer let out a chuckle. ‘I’m not vegan so you can eat as much meat as you like.’

  ‘What are you having?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, turning his gaze back to the list. ‘Perhaps I should have pie too – I have never tried that one before.’

  ‘I would,’ Cesca said. ‘Otherwise you’ll be jealous when mine arrives and I’m not sharing it – not one solitary pea.’