Harlequin Romance March 2021 Box Set Cara Colter (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📖

‘You knew my mother?’

‘Oh, bless you, dear, yes—and don’t fuss about the dog. Dogs have always been welcome at Ellerslie. Yes, I remember your mother well. She spent a lot of time here with her nan and pop. Those were happy days…back in a time when the house was filled with people. But enough standing here on the doorstep. Come in and make yourselves comfortable. I thought we’d have lunch before touring the house.’

She led them into an impressive entrance hall and through several large rooms, including the most amazing drawing room filled with gleaming antiques, to a big bright kitchen at the back of the house. From the open back door Callie could see a farmhouse garden.

‘I’ll hunt up some photo albums for you if you like,’ the housekeeper offered.

‘I’d love that.’

‘Also, the pair of you staying at the inn is nonsense. I’ve made up a pair of bedrooms for you. Now, don’t argue. The young miss here—’

Callie? The young miss? She was twenty-seven!

‘—will want to have a good poke about all the places her mother used to like. While you’ll be wanting to check that the house and farm accounts are in order, Mr Perry.’

‘Owen,’ he corrected. ‘And I’m sure they’re in perfect order, with no need—’

‘There’s every need. My Pete has been fretting his poor old head about it ever since Mrs Frances died. He’d hate for anyone to think he’s been overstepping the mark. There’ll be plenty of time for everything if you stay. Besides, it’ll be nice to have some young blood in the house again—even if it is only for one night.’

Owen lifted questioning brows at Callie and she nodded. ‘We’d love to stay, Mrs Dunsmore. We’re sorry to put you to so much trouble, but—’

‘No trouble! No trouble at all.’

After a lunch of chicken soup and warmed rolls, she showed them their rooms. ‘I gave you your mother’s room, Callie. I thought you’d like that.’

Callie loved it.

Owen had the room next door.

After a quick tour, Mrs Dunsmore said, ‘Now, I’ll leave you to have a mosey around at your own pace. Dinner is at seven o’clock on the dot.’

‘It’s so grand,’ Callie breathed, her head whirling with a million different thoughts.

How could her mother turn her back on all of this?

‘The filming opportunities…’ Owen said.

She swung around at his words. ‘That entrance hall alone!’

‘Did you see the portraits on the walls? All forebears of yours, no doubt.’

Her mind raced with possibilities. ‘Mrs Dunsmore is bound to know who they all are. I wonder if she’d let me interview her for my video.’

After wandering about for over an hour, they gravitated to a library that looked as if it had come straight from the set of a Jane Austen period drama. There they found an old family bible with the Allbright family tree inside its venerable leather covers. And a bookcase beneath one of the windows that had been given over to estate accounts going back over a hundred years. On another shelf they found the various diaries and journals of different family members who’d lived here.

Callie pounced on one of the journals. ‘Look at this! It’s Hannah’s diary. Hannah and Douglas were Frances’s parents—my great-grandparents.’ She opened it at random, ran her finger down the page. ‘Oh! She’s talking about the terrible time after Thomas’s death.’ She read several paragraphs. ‘So sad…’

Owen came to stand behind her, smelling of soap and warm cotton and reassurance. It gave her the courage to flick to the last entries.

‘Listen to this. “Donna came to stay for a few days. She’s met someone special. I can’t imagine anyone being good enough for my darling granddaughter, of course, but her whole face lights up whenever she speaks of him. It’s enough to gladden my heart. She’s promised to bring him to visit soon. I can’t wait to meet this man who has won her heart.”’

‘It’s her final entry,’ Owen murmured as Callie turned the page.

‘Hannah and Douglas died in a car accident not long after this.’

‘So…’

Something in Owen’s tone had her glancing up. ‘So?’

He rested a finger against the date of the final entry. ‘Frances remarried only six months after this. Somewhere between this date and the wedding, Frances and Donna had their big falling out.’

True…

‘And neither of them had Hannah or Douglas to turn to,’ he said.

She stared as his meaning sank in. ‘A lot happened in a short space of time… Both Hannah and Douglas were only children. With them gone, a whole generation of the family was lost.’

‘And Frances and Donna lost the benefit of older and wiser heads.’

‘You think Hannah and Douglas could’ve healed the breach?’

He gestured to the journal. ‘I bet Hannah would’ve tried.’

So did Callie.

She traced a finger along the neat handwriting. ‘She doesn’t mention the name of my mother’s beau.’

‘Maybe Mrs Dunsmore will be able to shed more light.’

Over dinner that evening, Callie asked her. But, while Mrs Dunsmore clearly recalled Donna’s last visit to Ellerslie, she hadn’t been aware of any special beau.

‘She was a lively girl, and lovely too—which meant she had a lot of admirers. But I don’t recall anyone special.’

After dinner Callie returned to the library, to continue reading Hannah’s diary, while Owen hunkered down with Peter Dunsmore to go over the estate’s accounts.

Unaccountably restless after only an hour of reading, Callie glanced out of the library’s French doors to the huge summerhouse. Its multitude of windows twinkled in the moonlight, and on impulse she pushed through the doors and walked down to it.

The door opened at her touch. Fumbling for a light switch, she blinked as a sudden flood of brilliance blinded her. A series of chandeliers marched down the space, sparkling off the windows and turning the summerhouse into a fairyland. Callie pressed her hands to her chest and drank it in.

Heavenly!

Adjusting the dimmer switch to soften the lights, she walked the length of the pavilion, imagining the space filled with