Authors: Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Kate's Progress
Table of Contents
Recent Titles by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles available from Severn House
THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER
A CORNISH AFFAIR
COUNTRY PLOT
DANGEROUS LOVE
DIVIDED LOVE
EVEN CHANCE
HARTE’S DESIRE
THE HORSEMASTERS
JULIA
KATE’S PROGRESS
LAST RUN
THE LONGEST DANCE
NOBODY’S FOOL
ON WINGS OF LOVE
PLAY FOR LOVE
A RAINBOW SUMMER
REAL LIFE (
Short Stories
)
The Bill Slider Mysteries
GAME OVER
FELL PURPOSE
BODY LINE
KILL MY DARLING
BLOOD NEVER DIES
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
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First published in Great Britain and the USA 2013 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2013 by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
The right of Cynthia Harrod-Eagles to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia.
Kate’s progress.
1. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)–Fiction.
2. Gentry–Fiction. 3. Country life–England–Exmoor–
Fiction. 4. Cottages–Remodeling–Fiction.
I. Title
823.9'2-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-432-4 (epub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8309-4 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-483-7 (trade paper)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
The May sunshine was warm in the sheltered spot between the cottage and the garden wall. Kate was peacefully rubbing down a window frame with sandpaper and enjoying the warmth on her back when she was interrupted by a stern male voice behind her.
‘Hey, you! You boy! What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’
It’s perhaps not the worst thing in the world to be taken for a boy, especially from the back. It suggests you have the slim boyish figure models aspire to; and to be fair, she was wearing androgynous jeans-and-sweatshirt, and had her hair tucked up in a beanie to keep the dust out of it. Kate, however, had often felt chagrined by her small size and lack of distinguishing frontal furniture (32B, hardly enough to make a cleavage), so it was with a scowl that she turned to see who was shouting at her.
She could only see the top half of the intruder over the garden wall as he stood in the road beyond. It was a tall man, in his thirties, well-built about the shoulders, with wavy dark hair. He was wearing the local uniform of a battered wax jacket, and held one of those tall walking-sticks that serious yompers carry, which Kate thought just plain pretentious.
Instead of answering, she walked towards him, flourishing the sandpaper. She saw the exact moment when he realized she was female, because his mouth made a soundless, ‘Oh!’ and he blushed a little under his all-weather tan.
‘I thought you were trying to break in,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a lot of trouble with empty properties round here being vandalized.’
As an explanation it was pretty good – neighbourliness and good citizenship combined. Nothing one could object to. And beyond him, across the road, a black lab and an Italian greyhound were sniffing around on the grass verge, while two other dogs she couldn’t see properly were running about in the bracken. Kate loved dogs and was always ready to give dog-owners the benefit of the doubt.
On the other hand, as an apology it lacked a certain tone. He didn’t sound a bit sorry, actually, for having bellowed at her. In fact, he sounded almost indignant, as though she had deliberately tricked him, tried to make a fool of him. And his scowl hadn’t abated.
He went on impatiently, as if he had the right to know, ‘So what
are
you doing?’
None of your business
, she thought. Instead of thanking him for his public-spirited concern, she said, somewhat snarkily, ‘I own the place. Good enough for you, or must I break out some ID?’
‘You most certainly do not own it,’ he snapped. ‘And I can tell you we don’t tolerate squatters in these parts.’
‘Squatters!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ve got a cheek. I bought the place. Bought it, paid for it, got the deeds.
If
it’s any of your business.’
He was staring at her as if he had never seen a girl before. Well, who knew, out here in the wilds of the country? These days she was pretty much a townie, used to a shortage of men: perhaps in the boonies there was the opposite problem. She stared back. His eyes, she noticed, were very blue. He wouldn’t be bad looking, if he ever ran to any expression warmer than a frown.
He broke the eye-hold almost with a jerk, looking away over her shoulder at the cottage, and said, ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Are you calling me a liar?’ she said indignantly.
‘You obviously don’t realize who I am,’ he said.
‘Why should I?’ she snapped. ‘What difference would that make?’
His eyes returned to her, and he gave her a grim, ironic quirk of the lips. ‘Everyone knows everyone else in a country community like this. And I know you don’t own this cottage.’
Why would I be rubbing down the windows if I didn’t own the place?
she thought. But she didn’t say it. It was such a stupid argument that she tired of it suddenly. ‘Well, much as I enjoy being insulted by complete strangers in my own garden,’ she said, ‘I have work to do. I suggest you continue this conversation with Stinner and Huxtable in Taunton.’
That got him. The mention of the estate agents evidently gave him pause. His glare became less certain. ‘I
shall
check up, you know,’ he said.
‘Be my guest,’ she said. She turned away and headed for her window again.
‘Wait!’ he said. And then, a little less imperiously, ‘Look here—’
She turned and looked at him. He seemed puzzled now, rather than angry, which was a distinct improvement, and – just by the way – she noticed that he was, indeed, very handsome. From his posh accent, he was probably some local squirelet, used to the yokels tugging their forelocks, and county girls chasing him for his fortune.
‘What?’ she said impatiently.
‘We seem to have got off on the wrong foot,’ he began.
‘
You
did,’ she said.
He flushed a little. ‘You must admit it looks fishy. I’ve heard nothing about Little’s Cottage being for sale. And suddenly here you are, with a London accent—’
Oh, that was it, was it? The old ‘incomer’ phobia rearing its horrid head. ‘So you conclude I’m a squatter,’ she finished for him. ‘Of course, all Londoners are criminals, it’s a well-known fact. Or, just possibly, everyone in Somerset doesn’t tell you everything. You haven’t considered that possibility, have you?’
The slight softening hardened again. ‘I shall find out what’s going on, and then, I warn you, I
shall
be back.’
‘I can’t wait,’ she muttered.
He called to the dogs and walked on. She watched him out of sight, and then went back to her window, feeling unsettled. She wasn’t entirely satisfied with herself. Probably he
had
been motivated by the best of intentions, and she hadn’t exactly been helpful or friendly.
But then, why did he have to go in so hard? He was hostile from the beginning. And he
had
said to her face that he didn’t believe her, which was plain rude.
Yes, but it was important to get on with her neighbours in a place like this. Creating bad blood in a closed community was not the best idea.
But his whole attitude, putting her in her place, the lord looking down on the peasant … Not to be tolerated!
Nice dogs, though. She’d always wanted a dog.
At this stage of her internal dialogue she addressed her window frame again, but found she’d lost the urge. She had so much to do she oughtn’t to skive off, but sanding down is pretty boring work, and it was a fine day – how many of those do you get to the pound in England? Anyway, it was nearly lunchtime. She could walk down to the village and have a pint and a ploughman’s at one of the two pubs, and have a chat to whoever was there. In a small community like this, she told herself wisely, it was important that she got to know the locals – in both senses of the word.
It wasn’t exactly a mid-life crisis – Kate would hate to think she was halfway through her life already, when she was only twenty-eight. But it
had
been a turning-point. She just had to get away from the whole awful dating business before it destroyed her sunny personality completely. She and her friends/flatmates Lauren and Jess had been going through it together for years, ever since Kate first arrived wide-eyed in London at the age of twenty-one, and it didn’t look like getting any better.
Where had all the good men gone? Her sister Sheila had found one, was married with the standard two children, and seemed to be blissfully happy with Ken – so happy Kate had taken to calling her ‘Barbie’. Sheila was eight years older than her, the second eldest of the family (Denise, the eldest, was a nun), and it was tempting to think she had got the last marriageable man before the stocks ran out.
Ursula, the next after her, had dedicated herself to her career in the beauty industry, moved with it to California, and lived a life of high-powered singleness where work took the place of marriage, friends took the place of lovers, sex took the place of relationships, and the only men in her life were Rick, her GBF – Gay Best Friend – and her two male cockerpoos.
Aileen, who came between Kate and Ursula, had been seeing, and intermittently living with, the same man for ten years, since uni days, which Kate found infinitely depressing. Denny was good-looking in a sulky, James Dean sort of way, and amusing company when he was in the mood, but he was unreliable and commitment-phobic. Their relationship was up and down and on and off. They’d move in together and then he’d say he needed space and demand a sabbatical. They would have a period of happiness and then he would do something awful, like getting caught with another woman. Aileen kept taking him back, but Kate could not believe anything would ever come of it. Denny used her; and she let him, so why would he ever marry her? And would she really want to be married to a waster like him anyway?
Aileen apparently answered yes to that question; Kate said no. As soon as she finished university she had upped sticks, fled to London, shortened Kathleen to Kate, got a job and a flat, and breathed a sigh of relief at having escaped. She had thrown herself into the London scene and the dating world, and along with her new friends had experienced the inexplicable vagaries of the men out there.