Playing With Fire

Chapter Eight

After the speed of their morning journey, the ride through the budding spring-green lanes and quaint villages of the Cotswolds – so distinctive with their traditional honey-stone houses – was much more leisurely. It eventually led them into Bourton-on-the-Water. Famed for the shallow ribbon of the River Windrush, which ran through the centre straddled by low, arched bridges, the pretty village was popularly known as the Little Venice of the Cotswolds. With the clear waters sparkling and the elegant period houses glowing golden in the afternoon sunshine, the place lived up to its reputation for picture-postcard perfection.

At the outer reaches of the village lay their destination for the night. A sprawling Elizabethan manor house, Hoxley Hall sat grandly in private acres of manicured grounds and walled gardens. Stepping through the arched doorway was like stepping back in time, the antique elegance of the interior preserved by an abundance of dark oak and faded tapestries.

Once they’d checked in and been shown up the wide, creaking staircase to their room – a rather sumptuous damask-swathed suite – Aidan announced his intention of touring the biodynamic kitchen garden while it was still light. After the day she’d had, Annabel reckoned that having to feign interest in even one bug-infested, moon-sown turnip might be enough to push her over the edge, and announced her intention of not going anywhere near the kitchen garden herself.

Aidan didn’t try to persuade her. Before departing, he simply suggested she might like to make use of the spa facilities. The thought of letting a hot Jacuzzi pummel the tension out of her shoulders seemed like a great idea.

In contrast to the traditional decor of the hotel, the spa was the latest thing in sleek modern design. Housed in the old stables, the facility boasted the most luxurious of natural materials, beautifully crafted into smooth, sinuous lines, and subtly illuminated by mood- enhancing lighting to create an oasis of calm.

Annabel was shown to the large indoor pool area, which had a wall of glass at one end overlooking the formal symmetry of a parterre garden. Finding the sunken hot tub occupied by a middle-aged couple, she decided to make use of the empty pool.

She slipped out of her towelling robe and slippers and into the heated water, where she began ploughing up and down the 20-metre length, letting the physical exertion work the worst of the tightness out of her muscles while she tried to straighten out the knot of thoughts and emotions tangling in her head.

It was all such a mess, she hardly knew where to start. At the beginning? The beginning was Aidan. The nerve of that man. It seemed he was on a mission to turn her whole life upside down and inside out. And for a moment there today she’d been convinced he’d finally gone too far. She’d been outraged, furious, to find he’d pull such a stunt. But once the initial shock had passed, and his calm reasoning had started to make sense, she’d been able to understand the intention behind the act. She hadn’t liked it one bit, but she’d understood.

He’d been right about her fear of facing the past. How could she deny it when the weight of that fear had settled around her like a physical thing – a vice squeezing her chest as she’d sat in the sunshine waiting for the spectre of grief and loss to rise up and overwhelm her?

But in the end that hadn’t happened. Maybe it was her simmering anger towards Aidan that had kept the worst of her reaction at bay, because instead of reliving the suffocating terror that had gripped her the day her father had died and her life had changed, all she’d felt was a muted sense of sadness.

Even when she’d had no option but to go inside the inn, where she’d been convinced the ghosts would be impossible to ignore, she’d merely felt surprised and disorientated. Braced as she’d been to walk headfirst into her memories, to come face to face with everything frozen in a time capsule, the greatest shock had come from realising she recognised nothing. Although in her mind not a thing had changed over the course of twenty years, in reality everything had. Not only had the interior of the White Harte been redecorated, it had also undergone such extensive remodelling that she’d had trouble locating the ladies’. She hadn’t yet worked out if what she was left feeling was loss or liberation – right now it seemed like a muddled combination of the two.