The Perfect Hero
VICTORIA CONNELLY
To my dear friend, Deborah, with love.
‘Is not general incivility the very essence of love?’
Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph
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
Acknowledgements
Victoria Connelly’s Top Ten Romantic Heroes . . .
A Weekend With Mr Darcy
Coming Soon . . . The Runaway Actress
About the Author
By the same author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Peggy Sullivan leant forward in an attempt to get the pillows behind her just right.
‘It’s my eyes I miss the most,’ she said to the young woman sitting by the side of the bed. ‘I wasn’t too bothered when my legs went. I was too tired to walk around much anyway. I didn’t even mind when my right ear went last month but I do miss my eyes.’
The young woman leant forward and patted her hand.
‘It’s so kind that you come and read to me, Kay,’ Peggy said.
‘It’s my pleasure.’
‘It can’t be easy for you, my dear. Coming here, I mean.’
Kay looked at Peggy for a moment before answering. ‘It wasn’t at first. I kept seeing Mum everywhere – sitting in the conservatory gazing out at the gardens, or serving everyone tea in the sitting room.’
‘We all miss her so much. She always loved taking care of everybody – just like you do.’
Kay nodded. ‘She used to call me “Little Mother” when I was growing up.’
Peggy smiled sadly and then looked at Kay with bemusement in her eyes. ‘How you came to work at Barnum and Mason, I’ll never understand.’
‘It was the first job I was offered,’ Kay said with a shrug. ‘I took it thinking I’d only be there a little while. I was hoping—’
‘Someone would discover your paintings,’ Peggy interrupted.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, they’re taking their time, I must say.’
They were silent for a moment and Kay looked out of Peggy’s window. Her bedroom was on the ground floor of The Pines and overlooked the communal garden which was shivering under a layer of early snow. The poor cyclamen were doing their best to survive but one more fall of snow and they’d be buried alive, Kay thought.
Buried. The word sent a shiver through her. It had only been a month since her mother had been buried in the local churchyard after a brief but devastating illness. She’d been sixty-seven – not old by today’s standards – and Kay missed her more than she could say. Perhaps that was why she was spending time with Peggy. She’d met her whilst visiting her mother and the two of them had clicked. Both had a profound love of the novels of Jane Austen and when Kay had discovered that Peggy was blind – a fact that she’d kept marvellously hidden – Kay had offered to read to her.
Peggy never seemed to have any visitors and Kay couldn’t quite give up visiting The Pines.
‘I do wish I could see your paintings,’ Peggy suddenly said.
‘I do too, Peggy.’
‘Tell me about your new ones.’
‘Well, I’ve only got one new one. I’m afraid work’s been a bit hectic and—’
‘That ratbag Roger still working you late?’
Kay grinned.
‘I remember him when he was a lad. I knew his father. Lived in my road. Bullies – both of them. You mustn’t let him push you around, Kay.’
‘I don’t.’
Peggy nodded. ‘Because I’ll have words with him if he’s bullying you. I’ve got one of them portable phone jobbies. It’ll only take one call.’
‘It’s all right. There’s no need to call him.’
Peggy shifted forward and Kay got up to rearrange her pillows.
‘So, tell me about your picture.’
Kay’s eyes took on a wistful look as she thought about her latest painting.
‘Well, you know the last chapter of Persuasion we read together? That moment when Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth see each other for the first time since he went away?’
‘I love that scene!’ Peggy said, her face glowing with the pleasure of remembering it.
‘I chose that moment when Jane Austen writes “a thousand feelings rushed on Anne”.’
‘Wonderful!’ Peggy enthused.
‘And “a bow, a curtsey passed”.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Peggy said. ‘I can see it now. All those pent-up emotions they still have for each other. Oh, I wish I could see it!’
‘I’ve always wanted to capture that moment when their eyes meet,’ Kay said, tucking a strand of toffee-coloured hair behind her ear. ‘It’s so fleeting and yet so much happens in it.’
‘So which scene are you illustrating next?’
‘One of the Lyme Regis ones. I want to paint that wonderful seafront with the sweep of the Cobb. I only wish I could visit it.’
‘You’ve never been to Lyme?’
‘No,’ Kay said, her eyes taking on a dreamy look again. ‘I’ve always imagined myself living by the sea one day and I think Lyme would be just the place to be.’
‘Then what are you doing in land-locked Hertfordshire?’ Peggy asked. ‘I mean, now that you don’t have any family ties.’
‘My job’s here. My house is here.’
‘Oh, rot!’ Peggy said. ‘I know it’s a terrible cliché but, if you don’t take charge of your life, nobody’s going to do it for you. Think of Anne Elliot and all those years she wasted.’
‘But I’ve got a mortgage to pay. I’m kind of stuck here.’
Peggy’s mouth narrowed. ‘I don’t like to hear such excuses. If you want to live near the sea then you should. It’s as simple as that.’
‘I wish it was,’ Kay said. ‘I really wish it was.’
Chapter One
That night, Kay Ashton dreamt of Mr Darcy again. It wasn’t the first time, of course, and it wouldn’t be the last. She often dreamt about her favourite fictional hero and she often daydreamed about him too. How many dull afternoons in the office had been cheered up by imagining the sudden arrival of
Mr Darcy? He’d come striding in across the carpeted reception, his eyes fixed on Kay.
‘In vain have I struggled,’ he’d say, confessing his love to her there and then and sweeping her up in his arms, telling her to leave her desk behind and run away to Pemberley with him.
If only I could, Kay thought.
It was funny that she should be dreaming about Mr Darcy because she’d been drawing Captain Wentworth for the last few weeks now. Darcy had been the main subject of her last book – a collection of drawings in pen, and watercolour paintings of scenes from Pride and Prejudice.
She couldn’t remember the first time she’d drawn Mr Darcy but she’d been putting pen to paper all her life, sketching little scenes of handsome princes and fairytale princesses which, as she’d grown older, had become heroes and heroines from the books she read. It was a world she’d loved diving into because the real one around her had been a cold and cruel place.
Kay had been ten years old when her father had left her. She’d been upset and confused and had watched as her mother had crumbled before her. The two of them had clung to each other and had slowly built a new life for themselves but, just as they were getting used to being just the two of them, the unthinkable had happened. Her father had returned.
Life had been turned upside down once again and Kay was forgotten in the space of a moment as her parents had got on with the business of fixing their marriage. It hadn’t been easy. Kay often wondered how her parents had managed to stay together for so long because they seemed to spend most of their time fighting. She could hear them shouting from her bedroom even when she closed the door and hid her head under her pillow. They shouted at night too when they thought she was asleep, their voices only slightly dimmed by the thin wall that separated their bedroom from hers.
Her mother would always look washed-out and red-eyed in the morning whilst her father would be silent and morose, his eyes avoiding hers as she ate her breakfast before school.
Then, after a year of endless fighting, he’d left again. This time, it was for good. There was no forwarding address and he never rang. It was as if he’d forgotten that he’d ever been a husband and a father.
Kay, who already spent most of the time with her head in a book, had retreated into her fictional world like never before and had never really surfaced since. For her, reality was only made bearable by the existence of novels and her beloved stories and sketches had got her through the traumas of a dozen father-figures, the trials of her own string of disastrous relationships, and the boredom of her job at Barnum and Mason. It had been the one constant of her life.
The strangest thing was that Kay had never let the experience of her parents’ marriage affect her own views of relationships. She still believed in the possibility of love and that your soul mate was out there just waiting to be found. Maybe it was a notion she’d picked up from the books she read but she truly believed it. She looked at her collection of illustrations now. It had been sitting on her desk for weeks and she didn’t quite know what to do with it next. She supposed she should send it to a publisher but what if they rejected it? What if all her hopes and dreams of seeing it in print came to nothing? Leaving it sitting on the desk might not result in it seeing the light of day but at least her dreams remained intact that way.
The Illustrated Darcy she called it because, although she’d made sketches and paintings of all the main characters and major scenes, the emphasis remained on Darcy. He was a hero for all time, wasn’t he? Kay often wondered if Jane Austen had known that when she’d created him. Had she known the power of her very special hero? Had her sister, Cassandra, said, ‘Wow, Jane! You’ve done it! There will never be another hero to match this one!’
Kay often wondered what it was about Mr Darcy that fed the female imagination so much. There was something so special about Austen’s heroes that had never been matched in other fiction. Kay had once – very briefly – gone through a Brontë phase but pulling your lover’s hair out and then digging up their grave wasn’t really the mark of a hero, was it? You wouldn’t get Mr Darcy prowling around graveyards in the middle of the night.
Ah, could there ever be a hero to match Fitzwilliam? she wondered.
Getting out of bed, Kay grabbed a sheet of paper and sketched a few lines, desperately trying to recall the man from her dreams. It was always the face that eluded her. She could capture the stride, the movement of the man, and the clothes were always easy to remember but the face always seemed to hover on the outskirts of her consciousness. What did the perfect hero look like?
She sketched on, covering sheet after sheet, her stomach rumbling in a bid to be fed but nothing was more important than her drawing. Food could wait, drink could wait but art could never wait.
It was then that the telephone rang. Why did the telephone always ring when one was in the middle of something very important? Kay dropped her pen and sighed.
‘Hello?’ she said.
She didn’t recognise the voice on the other end but, as soon as the woman said where she was calling from, Kay knew that it wasn’t good news.
Peggy Sullivan had died.
* * *
Denis Frobisher’s face was, perhaps, the longest face Kay had ever seen. It reminded her of a basset hound but he had a warm smile that made his eyes twinkle and she understood why Peggy had chosen him as her solicitor.
‘But I don’t understand,’ Kay told him. ‘She left me everything?’
Mr Frobisher nodded. ‘It’s very simple. There were no siblings, no children. Nobody. Just you, Miss Ashton.’
‘But I only knew her a short time.’
‘Then you obviously made an impression.’
Kay shook her head. ‘This is crazy.’
‘Her husband left her very comfortably off. Of course, the nursing home fees made their dent over the years but she still left a sizeable chunk.’
‘Yes,’ Kay said. It was all she could say.
And then something occurred to her. Their last conversation. What was it she’d said to Peggy when they were talking about dreams for the future?
‘If only it was that simple,’ Kay said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Mr Frobisher said.
‘I made this happen,’ Kay said, her voice quavering. ‘I wished things were simple and that dreams could come true and now Peggy’s dead. I didn’t mean to wish her dead! Oh, dear!’
‘Miss Ashton!’ Mr Frobisher said. ‘You’re upsetting yourself unnecessarily. Mrs Sullivan was an elderly woman who’d been seriously ill for many years. It was her time. You didn’t bring this about, I can assure you.’ He pushed a box of tissues towards her and she took one and dabbed her eyes.
‘Oh, Peggy!’ she said. ‘I never expected this. I never imagined . . .’
‘Of course you didn’t,’ Mr Frobisher said.
They sat quietly for a moment whilst Kay recovered her composure.
‘There’s a letter too,’ Mr Frobisher said gently. ‘One of the nurses at the home wrote it for Peggy but she managed to sign it herself.’ He handed her the white envelope and, with shaking hands, Kay opened it and took out the folded sheet of paper.
My dearest Kay, I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock to you but I’ve left you a little bit of money. Kay stifled the urge to laugh at the understatement.
You see, I don’t have anyone close to me and, unlike most elderly ladies, I don’t have an affinity to cats so I won’t be leaving my worldly goods to any rescue centres.
I know your mother didn’t have much to leave you and I know you’ve got a whopping mortgage and an unfulfilled dream. Well, my dear, if you use my money wisely, you can fulfil that dream right now and I will feel that I am living on through you. Is that silly of me?
I’m going to miss you, dear Kay. I always loved your visits and thank you so much for the wonderful hours of reading. I hadn’t read Jane Austen for years but your beautiful voice brought all those stories back to life for me again and for that I am truly grateful.
So this is your chance, isn’t it? Do something amazing!
Your friend,
Peggy.
Kay looked at the scribbled signature in blue ink. It looked more like ‘Piggy’ really and Kay could imagine Peggy’s arthritic hand skating over the paper, determined to leave its mark, and the image brought more tears to Kay’s eyes.
‘So you see,’ Mr Frobisher began, ‘she wanted you to have everything. We’ve been in the process of sorting things out. The house was being rented for the past few years – that’s what brought in most of the income to pay the nursing home – but the tenant has gone now so the house is yours.’
Kay nodded, desperately trying to follow everything.
‘Mrs Sullivan thought you’d want to sell it straightaway.’ He paused, waiting for her reply. ‘But you probably want to think about things for a while,’ he added.
‘Yes,’ Kay said. ‘Think.’
‘And you have my number. I’m here if you have any questions.’
‘Questions.’ Kay nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very kind.’
‘Not at all,’ Mr Frobisher said. ‘Simply doing my job and carrying out the wishes of my client.’ He stood up to escort Kay to the door. ‘Dear Mrs Sullivan,’ he said. ‘How she will be missed.’
Kay nodded as she stood up and she felt her eyes vibrating with tears again. She turned back round to the desk and took another tissue from the box – just to be on the safe side.
Chapter Two
Kay sat at her desk in the office at Barnum and Mason. It had been three months since Peggy’s funeral and Kay still couldn’t believe that her dear friend had gone and that she could no longer visit her at the nursing home, a pile of books in her bag ready for reading.
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