‘Perhaps it’s obscured from the other side?’
‘No, there’s nothing growing up the walls.’ She shook her head, only then seeming to realise her hair was a mess.
Fascinated, he watched as she stripped the band from the remains of her ponytail, gathered it all together in a couple of swift, sure strokes of her hands and wound it back up in a knot on her head. The movement drew his attention to the lean musculature of her frame, the delicate graceful lines of her neck and throat as she tilted her head back.
God, she was beautiful.
That she appeared unaware of it only added to her allure. She was so unlike the pouting, preening women he met at those awful bloody promotional events. Though he understood why Melody had chosen to alter her appearance, he’d much preferred her more natural look when they’d first been introduced. Though he’d meant to give her time to calm down, he knew he could leave this particular sleeping dog to lie any longer. ‘There’s no truth to that article in the paper this morning. Melody is with the same promo agency as me and we decided to pose as a couple because it made life easier for the both of us.’ It suddenly seemed vital to Will that Igraine understand the truth of that. ‘She’s not my girlfriend, never has been, never will be.’
Finished with her hair, Igraine stilled then turned towards him, as though sensing his gaze upon her. Worried about what she might be able to read on his face, Will made a big show of studying the garden wall beyond her shoulder. His eyes followed the length of the wall, and he frowned over her previous comment. She’d said there was nothing growing up the walls of the apothecary’s garden, but there were thick ropes of ivy spilling over to cascade down the red brick. He turned his attention back to the door. ‘Is it locked?’
Igraine twisted the handle and tugged to no avail. ‘I can’t tell if it’s locked or just stuck from years of disuse.’
‘Let me see.’ Will stepped around to the other side of her and was surprised when she moved away with a scowl. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I was making room for you to do your macho-man display, because weak and feeble woman that I am, I couldn’t possibly be able to open it without your assistance.’
Will rolled his eyes. ‘Do you want some brown sauce to go with that chip on your shoulder? What I was going to suggest was you try the handle again and I’ll try to see whether the locking mechanism is moving.’ He pointed to the narrow gap between the edge of the door and the wall. ‘Try the handle again and this time hold it down.’
With a blush, Igraine returned to her previous spot and did as he asked. Leaning closer, Will squinted at the gap. ‘Can you release it now?’ As she did so, he spotted something moving. ‘And open once more.’ He tilted his head to look below the lock and then above it before standing up to face her. ‘Something is definitely moving, but there looks to be an obstruction beneath it, so I think we’re going to have to try and find a key.’
Igraine gave the base of the door a gentle kick with the toe of her boot. ‘That’s disappointing. I suppose I can ask Maxwell later if he’s got any old keys lying around.’ She paused a minute before glancing up at him through her lashes. ‘I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions, but you must see it from my point of view. One minute you’re laughing me off the phone, the next you’re on the doorstep acting like it’s completely normal for a man as busy as you must be to drop everything for a project you don’t believe can be achieved in time.’
She had a point, but he wasn’t sure how he could explain his change of heart without going into the embarrassing scene with Phillipa Cornwall. It couldn’t possibly do anything other than make his already bad impression with Igraine worse if he was forced to explain he’d been fending off Phillipa’s advances when Igraine had called him. ‘It’s been too long since I got my hands in the soil. I’d been feeling restless for a while, but didn’t know what was wrong with me until I saw those photos you sent me. I’m not one given to romanticising stuff, but the land here called to me. Can you understand that?’
She blew out a breath, nodding slowly as she did so. ‘Yes. I’ve been desperate to do something about the gardens for ages, but I had too many other responsibilities to give them the time they needed. If I could spend months and months restoring them, I’d love to, but I simply don’t have that luxury. We have to open up to the public if we stand a hope in hell of keeping the castle up and running.’
Damn, those were some very high stakes, and he wondered what it had cost her to admit that to a relative stranger. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you. If I commit to something, I see it through, okay?’
‘Okay.’
Though he was curious to find out more about the family situation, Will counselled himself to be patient. Turning back to the wall, he tried to estimate its height. He was five foot eleven, and if he extended his arm he could probably just about touch the top of the wall, but he’d not be able to get enough purchase to haul himself up. He cast an appraising glance at Igraine. She was only a few inches shorter, if he gave her a boost up, she might be able to get at least a peak over the top …
‘What are you doing?’ she said as he got down on his hands and knees, spreading them just wide enough to create as stable a base as possible.
‘Giving you a boost up.’ He had a decent set of ladders in the back of his truck, but they might as well find out if it was going to be worth the effort before he lugged them all the way down here.
‘Don’t be daft, we know what’s on the other side, the apothecary’s garden.’
Tilting his head back, he met her gaze. ‘But you said there’s no door visible from inside the garden …’ Catching a gleam of excitement in her eyes, he pressed his case. ‘Aren’t you just the tiniest bit curious?’
She laughed. ‘You could get a woman into a lot of trouble, Will Talbot.’ She edged closer, then hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Go for it.’ Will dropped his head and braced his arms in preparation for her weight. He swallowed a grunt as she planted her foot near his shoulders and pushed herself up. Within seconds the pressure had eased, as though she’d found a way to take some of her weight from him.
‘Oh. God.’
At her breathy exclamation, Will’s curiosity spiked, and he cursed himself for not just going to fetch his ladders in the first place. ‘Everything all right?’
‘There’s a secret garden here!’ Her weight vanished as she dropped down onto the ground beside him.
Brushing off his hands as he rose, Will couldn’t help but grin at the expression on Igraine’s face-she looked like a kid in a candy store. ‘Tell me!’
‘It’s not very deep, maybe six or seven feet across but it looked like it ran the length of the wall. I’ll need to go back and consult the plans again, because I didn’t notice it when I was studying them.’ She laughed. ‘Mind you, we didn’t notice there was a hidden tunnel in the castle until Lucie helped to uncover it. In fact, if she hadn’t found it, you wouldn’t be here.’
She was squinting as she spoke and Will realised she was facing directly into the sun. He shifted position, propping one shoulder against the wall so she could angle herself away from the bright light and still be facing him. ‘Now I’m properly intrigued. Tell me more.’
Igraine mirrored his pose by leaning on the wall next to him. ‘I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said we need to open to the public to keep afloat. Things here were in pretty dire straits after our father died last year, to the point we thought we might lose everything.’
‘Jesus, that must have been awful.’
She nodded. ‘It really was, especially on the heels of losing him.’ A sweet, sad smile crossed her face. ‘He was the life and soul of this place, and I adored him. Anyway, we’d hit rock bottom and were looking for solutions to raise money. Morgana suggested we get someone in to catalogue all antiques and paintings and that’s how Lucie ended up here.’
Will frowned. ‘Morgana?’
‘She’s our great-aunt, you haven’t met her yet.’ A wicke
d grin lit up her face. ‘I can’t wait to see what she makes of you.’
He laughed. ‘Should I be afraid?’
‘Only a little bit, her bark is worse than her bite.’
Sounded like someone not standing a million miles from him. ‘I can hardly wait.’ He waved his hand. ‘Back to the story, what does Lucie have to do with me being here?’
‘She came across some old journals of one of our ancestors-the one obsessed with King Arthur, actually-which led to the discovery of the secret tunnel and a hidden masterpiece which had been walled up inside it. It’s being restored at the moment, and Arthur is planning on selling it later in the year. The bank has advanced Arthur enough funds we can crack on with the external works which is how come I was able to approach you.’
‘Sounds amazing, it must’ve been quite the adventure.’ He was sorry to have missed it.
‘No one in the family had any idea about the painting’s existence; if it hadn’t been for Lucie …’ She shook her head, as though to dispel a terrible thought. ‘Thanks to her discovery we’ve got a fighting chance of hanging onto the castle now. Opening to the public should help us get things onto a secure footing.’
It was all starting to fall into place. ‘Hence the rush on the deadline to get the grounds sorted out.’
She quirked a brow. ‘Indeed. There is a method behind our madness.’
He took the dig about his initial response to her plans on the chin, but couldn’t resist a gentle jab back. ‘If you’d mentioned any of this when you called yesterday …’
‘Yesterday. It feels like an awful lot has happened since then.’ Reaching up, she scrubbed a hand over her face drawing his attention to the tired lines bracketing her eyes. ‘Do you think we’ve got any chance at all of succeeding?’
It would be tight as hell, but he could tell she already knew that. ‘We can only try.’
Dropping her hand, she raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Can we? What about …’ She gestured vaguely. ‘… London?’
It sounded like she wasn’t completely convinced about his explanation about Melody earlier. ‘My team is looking after my current clients, and other than that, there is nothing in London that holds any interest for me. I’m a free agent.’ He couldn’t put it much plainer than that.
Hoping that was an end to it, he straightened up and clapped his hands together. ‘Right, what’s on the rest of the agenda for this morning? Are you going to give me the guided tour, or are we going to give in to temptation and explore this secret garden?’
Igraine placed her hand on the wall between them. ‘It’s not like we were intending to open this up to the public. We don’t even know what’s in there. All I saw from that quick look was a lot of dead plants and weeds.’ With one final pat of the brickwork, she squared her shoulders. ‘We should get on with the tour, so you know exactly what you’re up against.’
She was right, and he might have let it go had he not seen her give one last yearning glance back towards the wall before she ducked in preparation to wriggle through the gap they’d made. ‘I’ve got a set of ladders in my truck. It wouldn’t do any harm to take a quick look.’
The wicked grin she gave him from on her hands and knees just before she crawled under the hedge sent a spark of something dangerous shooting through his blood stream. A gentleman wouldn’t have stood there and enjoyed every moment of her delicious bottom disappearing through the gap. But then again, no one had ever accused him of being one.
Chapter 8
As they made their way back through the gardens and towards the castle, Iggy pointed out a few of the things she wanted to work on, as well as a couple of areas she thought would work well for Tristan’s idea of later projects for volunteers. Her mind wasn’t really on it though, as all she kept turning over was the idea that Will and Melody had faked a relationship for months. They’d always looked so happy together, it didn’t seem possible for there to be nothing behind those smiles and touches emblazoned across the papers. She wasn’t naïve; there’d been enough press scandals over recent years for it to be clear there were some murky goings-on in certain parts of the media, but even so, it seemed like such a weird thing to do.
Though she’d die before she admitted it, she’d followed everything about Will in the media, curious about the young man who’d come from seemingly nowhere to win one of the most prestigious horticultural prizes going. If her fascination with him had strayed beyond the professional, well, that was her secret and not something she’d ever share.
They made it as far as the edge of the sweeping gravel drive before curiosity got the better of her. ‘Was there really never anything between you and Melody?’
He was quiet for a long moment and Iggy cursed herself for putting her foot in it again. They’d just got things easy between them and she’d opened her big mouth and thrown a spanner in the works. If he got in his truck and drove off without a backwards glance, she wouldn’t blame him. ‘Please don’t think I was questioning your honesty, it just all seems a bit …’
‘Ridiculous,’ he supplied, and she nodded in agreement. ‘Dealing with the press is a stupid game of cat and mouse. If you don’t give them something, they’ll take it anyway and trash you in the process.’ His voice was so quiet she had to strain to hear him over the crunch of their feet across the gravel. ‘Trouble is, I was too young and a bit easily led when people first started paying attention to what I was doing. I spent more time with the plants than around other people so I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. The first few parties I was invited to, I didn’t know anyone, and the ones I recognised I was too shy to talk to-why would some actor off the telly want to chat with a kid from a council estate? I turned to the booze-not hard when it flows like water at those things-to calm my nerves and was snapped falling out of a door or two. I also met a few girls who kissed and told.’
They’d reached his large black flatbed truck on the driveway by this point and he gave her a self-deprecating shrug before reaching to unfasten the thick tarpaulin cover stretched over the back. ‘Before I knew it, I was appearing in the tabloid gossip columns and an agent contacted me offering to help me manage things. He introduced me to Melody and we decided to put a positive spin on the stories being told about us.’
‘Until this morning,’ she pointed out.
Will grimaced. ‘I didn’t hold up my side of the bargain. Our agent arranged a last-minute function, but I forgot all about it in my rush to come up here. Melody spun my absence to her advantage, I guess.’
Iggy circled to the other side of the truck to tug free the opposite corner of the cover. ‘It must be awful not being able to trust anyone, even when you’re supposed to be friends.’
He flashed her a quick smile, and she noticed for the first time it was slightly wonky where the scar pulled his cheek tight on the right-hand side. It only added to his attraction and she could understand why women who were looking for a bit of free publicity would be happy to be linked with him.
As though picking up on her thoughts, he continued, ‘I wouldn’t call Melody and I friends-temporary allies, maybe. It’s a brutal world if you choose to live your life in the spotlight. I’m pissed off with her, but I can’t really blame her. It was an important event for her, and I let her down. I’ve met a lot of people over the past couple of years and I’m pretty sure most of them would trash me if it turned the story to their advantage. I’d like to say I’d behave differently, but that’s only because I don’t care about being famous. It’s been the worst thing about being successful, even though I know it’s the only reason I’m successful in the first place.’
God, it sounded like he didn’t have anyone in his life who he could rely on. She’d be lost if she didn’t have Arthur and Tristan to lean upon. ‘Don’t you have any friends you can rely on?’
He gave her that shrug again. ‘I’ve got my team in the office, and my dad, although I don’t see him much these days. I gave up trying to make friends once I realised that people weren’t the tinie
st bit interested in me, only in being seen with me.’
‘I can understand why.’
Will paused in the act of pulling free a ladder to throw back his head and laugh. ‘Well that put me in my place. I didn’t realise I was that bad!’
‘What?’ Askance, Iggy stared at him for a moment before realising what she’d said. ‘Oh, no.’ She clapped a hand to her mouth then giggled. ‘Sorry, I meant I could understand why they’d want to be seen with you.’ When he raised an eyebrow, that piratical smile tugging at this cheek, she blushed. ‘Just hand me that spade so I can dig this hole a little deeper.’ Will laughed once more, and she found herself joining in, glad that her faux pas had chased some of the shadows from his face. He had a nice laugh, rich and warm and inviting.
She helped him finish lifting the ladder out of the bed of the truck then refasten the tarpaulin. Though she offered to help him carry it, he hoisted it over his shoulder and declared himself well able to manage. They began to head back the way they’d come when she had a brainwave. ‘Rather than causing any more damage to the hedge, we should access the garden from the other side, via the apothecary’s garden. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s just as well that you’re the brains of this outfit because I’d have likely spent half an hour trying to wrestle this bloody thing through the gap we made.’
Iggy led them away to the left and along a gravel path which skirted the edge of the gardens until they reached the sturdy door set into the red-bricked enclosure of the apothecary’s garden. ‘It looks to be the same age as the other one but see how the dimensions are different.’ She stretched her arms wide, her fingers barely touching either side of the brickwork arch into which the door was set to show him.
Sunshine Over Bluebell Castle Page 9
