It Started with a Secret: The feel-good novel of the year, from the bestselling author of MAYBE THIS TIME

by Jill Mansell

  ‘It’s not rocket science. And for the record, we had no idea. But then I suppose we would say that, wouldn’t we?’

  A flicker of a smile. ‘I suppose you would.’

  ‘That’s why you were watching us so closely. I wondered what that was about.’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I’m veering towards believing you. Your boyfriend certainly looked surprised when Richard walked past the window.’

  Lainey nodded. ‘What’s made you so wary then? Something’s obviously happened in the past.’

  ‘The couple whose interview we cancelled? When I did a bit of online investigation, I found out they’re members of the fan club.’

  ‘Ah.’ God, imagine having your own fan club. Did it feel as strange as it sounded?

  ‘We had an undercover journalist apply to work here three years ago.’ Seth’s eyes narrowed with disdain. ‘And there was a gardener once who tried to sell stories to the press. Not to mention the cleaner we caught auctioning things off on eBay.’

  OK, maybe he had a reason to be suspicious. Lainey said, ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Empty cologne bottles. Items of clothing.’ He paused. ‘A toothbrush.’

  ‘Seriously? People are weird.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me.’ His tone was wry.

  ‘We aren’t weird. And we have our police DBS checks.’ He and Majella must surely have checked those out already. ‘Four days ago, Kit and I were perfectly happy, living and working in a French chateau. Then the owners ran out of money and had to let us go, which is why we came back to England and set about finding somewhere else to go. We were on the coach when I saw the ad Majella wrote, and it just felt like it was meant for us. I wish I could take a lie detector test to prove to you that this is all true.’

  ‘Actually, we could do it on my phone. There’s an app you can download.’

  He was giving her another of his appraising looks; was this a bluff, or was he serious? Lainey stood her ground. ‘Great, let’s do it.’

  A pause, then the corners of his mouth lifted. ‘Maybe not. I can’t imagine they’re accurate. But good answer.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So the two of you met when you went out to the chateau. And that was a year ago.’

  ‘Correct. We got together pretty much straight away.’

  ‘What happens if you break up?’

  ‘I don’t know; we’d just have to cross that bridge when we came to it. But hopefully that won’t happen. We’re happy and we’re really good together. I love him and he loves me.’ Which was all true, in the platonic sense. Who could fail to love someone as good-natured and easy-going as Kit?

  ‘What happens if you don’t get this job?’

  ‘We catch the train back to London and apply for other positions, keep going until we find something.’ But she knew the other members of the family were on her and Kit’s side; surely by now the odds were tipping in their favour?

  ‘Woof.’

  It was one of the dogs, but neither of them had come back into the kitchen. Lainey glanced around and spotted a baby alarm propped up on the dresser, largely hidden behind a fruit bowl and a set of weighing scales.

  No wonder the bark had sounded a bit tinny.

  She turned back to Seth. ‘Do you have a baby in the house?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s for the dogs. If either of us is working upstairs in the office and they’re down here, we like to keep an ear out for them, make sure they’re not up to mischief.’

  Which made perfect sense, but there was something more; the smoothness of the explanation was the giveaway. After a moment, Lainey figured it out.

  ‘You arranged for us to arrive early so we could be left alone here in the kitchen. You were up in your office listening to see if we said anything about your grandfather.’

  And there it was, the tiniest flicker of amusement lifting the corners of his beautifully shaped mouth, confirming that she was right. Lainey smiled too, because they’d passed the test. Better still, they hadn’t inadvertently given away their own secret. Thank goodness.

  Aloud, she said, ‘That’s quite an underhand trick to play. Might even be illegal.’

  ‘It isn’t. But it can be informative.’

  Mentally backtracking, Lainey tried to remember everything she and Kit had discussed. Oh God . . . Hastily she said, ‘I was joking about the broken glass.’

  ‘I should hope you were. And when your boyfriend gets back,’ Seth continued smoothly, ‘you can tell him the cheap ham in the fridge is what we give the dogs.’

  Before long, Majella finished her phone call and rejoined them. Ten minutes after that, a pink-cheeked and slightly out of breath Kit arrived back from the off-licence with the Tanqueray.

  ‘Let’s see how you mix one, then.’ Sir Richard, summoned in from the garden, set the challenge and oversaw the pouring of the gin, the addition of six ice cubes, the perfect amount of tonic and a large wedge of lime.

  He took a sip and gave a nod of approval. ‘Good, good. Bit of oomph, that’s what I like.’ He turned to Seth. ‘Have we taken them on yet?’

  Seth narrowed his eyes. ‘Not yet, but well done for trying to force the issue.’

  His grandfather affected outrage. ‘Oh come on! Aren’t I allowed to throw in my two pennies’ worth? Pretty young couple, madly in love, capable of pouring a damn fine G and T . . . what more could we possibly ask for?’

  ‘It isn’t just your decision, though. I think we need to discuss it.’ His tone pointed, Seth added, ‘In private.’

  ‘And how long before you make up your mind? These kids could get bored waiting and go somewhere else, then you’ll be sorry. Look, they’ve got their cases with them. They’re here, all ready to start. If you let them leave, they might get a better offer and we’ll never see them again.’

  Silence. As situations went, could this one be any more uncomfortable? Majella and Sir Richard were both looking at Seth, who for reasons of his own still evidently had doubts about taking them on.

  ‘Well this is awkward.’ Lainey checked her watch. ‘I tell you what, if you don’t have any more questions, we’ll go now. The next train leaves in forty minutes. If you think you’d like to take us on, give the agency a call. And if you decide to go with someone else, that’s fine too. Either way, it’s been lovely meeting you all.’

  Well, most of you.

  They waited on a bench on the station platform. The train was now due in seven minutes and neither of their phones had rung.

  ‘I’m glad we didn’t do their washing-up for them now,’ said Kit.

  Unless it was the fact that they hadn’t done the washing-up that had annoyed Seth. Lainey heaved a sigh. ‘They don’t have any other candidates. They’ll just carry on advertising until they find what they want.’ The sun, lower in the sky now, was shining directly into her eyes. She closed them and said, ‘It’s so frustrating, though. We didn’t do anything wrong. Why didn’t he want us? I mean, who wouldn’t? We’re brilliant, and we’d have been great there.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll change his mind.’ Kit was ever the optimist.

  ‘He won’t. It’s not going to happen.’ She scuffed the soles of her sandals against the sand-dusted tarmac. ‘Not in a million years. He isn’t the type.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Kit murmured, and she guessed information had just flashed up on the display board that their train was delayed, because of course it would have to be delayed before the long, hot and tedious trip home. Except it wasn’t even home, was it? It was the spare room at Kit’s mum’s place, with the discarded knitting machine next to the—

  ‘Sometimes he’s the type,’ said a voice that didn’t belong to Kit.

  Lainey’s heart did a leap, her eyes snapped open and there was Seth, standing before them with his hands in his trouser pockets, calmly surveying her.

  ‘You really need to stop eavesdropping on other people’s private conversations,’ Lainey told him.

  ‘Not my fault your eyes were clos
ed. So why am I not the type to change my mind?’

  ‘Because you’re a businessman who enjoys making split-second decisions and sticking to your guns. Backing down would be seen as a sign of weakness.’

  ‘Well done.’ Seth pointed an index finger at her and nodded in agreement. ‘Absolutely right, ninety-nine per cent of the time.’ He seemed to specialise in significant pauses, Lainey was already discovering. ‘But I’m also man enough to know when I need to back down.’

  Lainey held her breath. So did this mean . . .?

  ‘That house needs two people to keep it in order. Richard and Majella and the kids and the animals need two people to keep them in order. I’ll be there some of the time, but I move around. They like you, they want you, so I’m deferring to their wishes. If you’re interested in the position, it’s yours.’ He glanced across at the departures board; their train was now due in two minutes. ‘If you’d rather head back to London then come down and start work next week, not a problem. But if you want to move in right away, that’d be great.’ He gestured to the left of the tiny station. ‘And I can give you a lift; my car’s over there in the car park.’

  ‘Well this is interesting, but we’ll need some time to discuss it. In private.’ Lainey eyed him coolly as the approaching train hooted in the distance. ‘If you could give us a few minutes, we’ll—’

  ‘Stop playing games,’ Kit blurted. He rose to his feet and stuck out his hand to Seth. ‘Thanks very much. We accept.’

  Chapter 6

  ‘You know, I’m enjoying being your girlfriend.’

  ‘My first and only.’ Kit held out the mug of tea he’d made for her. ‘You should be honoured.’

  Lainey wriggled into a half-sitting position inside her sleeping bag on the sofa and took the mug from him. It was seven in the morning of their fourth day in St Carys, and they’d already settled into an easy living-together routine. Kit’s mum had arranged for the rest of their stuff to be sent down to them, and it had been delivered yesterday. Since Kit was almost six feet tall, it had made sense for him to take the double bed. Lainey, at five foot four, was sleeping on the sofa, which wasn’t brilliant, but it was bearable. The first night, they’d both occupied the bed, but Kit was a restless sleeper and no slouch in the snoring department, so they’d picked up a sleeping bag in the big supermarket outside St Carys. Each morning it was rolled up and hidden away in the cupboard behind the front door where the vacuum cleaner was kept.

  ‘We’re quite compatible, aren’t we?’ Lainey sipped her tea, made just the way she liked it, and watched as he deftly spread her slice of toast with butter, then Nutella.

  ‘If I could only persuade you to enjoy watching football on TV, you’d be perfect.’

  She took the plate from him; he’d even cut the toast into geometrically perfect triangles. ‘I love you, but that’s never going to happen.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’ Kit put two more slices of bread into the toaster for himself. ‘I feel sorry for people who don’t love football—’

  There was a brisk triple knock on the door. Kit had left it on the latch earlier, and it started to swing open. A glance at the outline of the figure through the frosted glass told Lainey the early-morning caller was Seth. With a triangle of toast sticking out of her mouth, she launched herself to her feet and began hopping towards the bedroom. It was ridiculous, like a one-woman sack race, but quicker than trying to wriggle out of the sleeping bag or struggle with its temperamental zip.

  Once in the bedroom, she overbalanced and landed with a thud on the bed. But Seth hadn’t seen her, that was the main thing. Peeling herself out of the bag, she hastily threw on shorts and a navy sweater, fluffed up her hair and headed back out to the living room.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Seth raised an eyebrow. ‘I heard the crash. Sounded like you’d fallen out of bed.’

  ‘I did, I panicked. Thought we didn’t have to be over at the house until seven thirty.’

  ‘Sorry, you don’t. I dropped by because I’m heading up to Bristol. Harry’s just remembered he has a school trip today, so he needs to be there twenty minutes earlier than usual or he’ll miss the coach. Plus he needs a packed lunch and swimming kit.’

  ‘Right, that’s fine. Thanks.’ Harry’s school was thirty minutes away by car; they could still make it.

  ‘We’ve searched everywhere for his swimming kit. No luck so far.’

  ‘Ah, OK.’ What was he staring at behind her, and why was he looking so horrified?’

  ‘Is that yours?’ He pointed at the plate of toast.

  ‘Yes.’ Had there been something in the small print about it when they’d signed the employment contract? Was balancing a plate on a piece of furniture strictly forbidden in case it tipped over and dropped food onto the carpet?

  ‘Nutella and butter?’ From the way he said it, you’d have thought it was fried wasps.

  ‘So?’

  ‘That’s . . . disgusting.’

  Lainey was instantly on the defensive. ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘It is,’ Kit chimed in. ‘How many times have I told you it’s wrong? You’re supposed to have Nutella on dry toast.’

  Honestly, talk about disloyal. Although on the up side, it did make him sound like a boyfriend, if an unsupportive one.

  ‘I can have Nutella however I like.’ She reached for the plate and offered it to them. ‘Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.’

  ‘Some things you don’t need to try,’ said Seth.

  Their loss. She put the plate down again. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing. Anyway, don’t worry, we’ll get everything sorted. I’ll be over in five minutes.’

  Just as soon as she’d had a chance to put on a pair of knickers and a bra.

  Majella had spent the morning hard at work in the office dealing with queries from clients of Seth’s company, Faulkner Travel. At midday, driven by hunger pangs, she made her way down to the kitchen. The windows were sparkling clean, the flagstoned floor was crumb free and the piles of clutter had been reduced by ninety per cent.

  ‘You’re a miracle-worker,’ she told Lainey, who was busy in the adjacent utility room, shovelling clothes out of the washing machine and into the tumble dryer. ‘You both are. I’m already so glad you chose to come here.’

  ‘We are too.’ Lainey’s streaky blonde hair was escaping from its scrunchy, her cheeks were pink and the sleeves of her navy sweatshirt were damp. ‘Oh, I managed to find Harry’s swimming trunks. They were hiding under a pile of towels in the airing cupboard.’

  Through the clean window, Majella could see Kit out in the garden, hacking away at the mass of honeysuckle threatening to smother the roses beneath the pergola. And now Lainey was piling vegetables onto the chopping board at one end of the kitchen table, and fetching a big glass ovenproof dish from the cupboard and a sharp knife from the drawer. It would be disloyal to say so, but this cheerful girl put Maisie, their last housekeeper, to shame.

  She could think it, though. And tell Seth when he returned, so he’d know he’d been wrong to doubt the new couple’s capabilities.

  Aloud, she said, ‘You both work so hard.’

  ‘We’re used to it. As soon as I’ve made the casserole, I’m going to scrub down the skirting boards. Honestly, it makes a difference,’ Lainey assured her, because Majella was clearly looking as bemused as she felt. ‘Just you wait, by the time we’ve finished our blitz, this house is going to look amazing, like something out of a magazine.’

  They were angels in human form. Getting back to having a home they could be properly proud of was the answer to Majella’s prayers. She went to the fridge and found a wedge of Brie to have with crackers to quell her rumbling stomach. Then, settling herself at the table, she watched as Lainey expertly diced her way through a small mountain of carrots, onions and potatoes for the casserole.

  ‘I remember the first time we set eyes on this place. It was fifteen years ago, just after Richard bought it. We all came and spent a summer do
wn here, and I couldn’t believe how perfect it was. That was back when Richard was still spending months at a time over in LA, and his financial adviser told him he should rent it out. So for the next few years that was what happened, until Richard had his heart attack and realised the time had come to slow down.’

  ‘That must have been terrifying for you.’

  Majella nodded. ‘It was touch and go for a few days. But he had his bypass op and came through it. Then he decided he wanted to up sticks and live here full time, and he asked us to move down with him. But Tony was working in Kensington and it just wasn’t practical. So Richard gave up on that idea, married Ava Delucci and moved into her villa on the edge of Lake Como instead.’

  ‘I remember that.’ Lainey pulled an oh-dear face, because pretty much everyone on the planet knew that his marriage to Ava had been a catastrophic error of judgement. It had ended with the excitable Italian actress stopping traffic in the centre of Rome in order to bellow through a megaphone that she couldn’t stay married for another minute to a man who would rather play poker in a casino than visit the opera with her. In response, Richard had gravely informed a TV journalist that attending the opera was almost as much of an ear-splitting experience as being married to Ava.

  ‘So then he moved back to London and took a suite at the Goring. As you do,’ Majella added drily. ‘That was seven years ago, just before Tony was diagnosed with cancer . . . Oh, it was an awful time.’ The familiar wave of grief swept over her and she put down the cracker in her hand. ‘I know it’s a massive cliché, but life really is a roller coaster, isn’t it? We were so happy up until then. Except you never properly appreciate the good times until they stop being good and you find yourself up to your neck in misery instead.’

  ‘We don’t have to talk about it.’ Lainey had stopped chopping carrots; her tone was gentle.

  Majella shook her head. ‘It’s OK, I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it. It’s been almost five years since he died. For the first couple of years I couldn’t say his name without crying, but it’s easier now. This is my new life and it’s up to me to make the most of it.’