Winner Takes It All (45 page)

They began walking back
towards the house.

‘
Andrew’s
going for a sleep,’ she said to Alex. ‘Could I talk to you in Lou’s
room afterwards?’

‘
Yes of
course,’ Alex replied, wondering what her aunt could want. ‘I’ll
see you in there.’

Alex waited for Paula in
Lou’s old study. The last time she’d been in here, they had been
gathered for the will reading and somehow it all seemed a lifetime
ago. The door opened and Paula entered. Without saying a word, she
went to the cupboard where all Lou’s original manuscripts were kept
and unlocked it. Pulling out a bundle of yellowing pages, she
brought them over to Alex and sat beside her, handing them to
her.

‘
Darling I
hope you don’t mind me being nosey, but I’ve noticed how sad you’ve
been lately. I know how close you are to Jem and she told me about
Jack, how you chose Sheridans over him.’

‘I don’t want anyone
to know,’ Alex said quietly, suddenly ashamed at having been in
such a situation. ‘It’s in the past now.’

‘You know that look
on your face; that sadness in your eyes. The only other person I
ever saw with it was my mother. I only found out why when I read
that.’

Alex looked down, the
manuscript had been typed on Lou’s old electric typewriter and all
it said on the front was ‘Summerset’.

‘
It was what
my mother left me when she died,’ Paula explained. ‘It tells you
everything.’

‘
Thanks Aunt
Paula,’ she replied, kissing her upon the cheek. ‘I’ll bring it
back here when I’ve finished.’

‘
Don’t end up
like your grandmother, that’s all I’ll say.’

Paula got up and left the
room, leaving Alex sitting staring at the manuscript. She had no
idea her grandmother had written a book named after the village she
grew up in. Curiosity taking over, Alex felt the need to read this
alone, away from interruptions. She took the manuscript and headed
to the back of the house, where Benny and Christian were having a
mock sword fight using cricket bats!

‘
Daddy!’ she
called.

Her father ceased what he
was doing and turned, walking up to her.

‘
Are you
alright darling? You’re awfully pale.’

‘
I’m very
tired. I think I’m going to go to bed now. Could you ask Mrs Gentle
to bring me up a sandwich around seven o’clock?’

‘
Of course.
You’re not ill are you? I need my girl fighting fit.’

‘
I’m fine,’
she smiled sadly, reaching up and kissing him on the cheek.
‘Goodnight daddy.’

Alex took the manuscript
to her room and started to read. The hours fell away as she read
this extraordinary book. Summerset was Lou’s autobiography, but
instead of writing it in the first person, she’d written it as a
novel - voiced by both her and Andrew. It started where her and
Mick came to Summerset when she was a young girl and how she
quickly became friends with Andrew and Briggy. Briggy had taken her
under her wing as some sort of protégé which led her to winning a
writing competition held by Cusacks, and that was when she’d first
met Ben. Alex chuckled reading how her grandmother described
grandpa as looking like a beautiful Adonis. It also told how she
fell in love with Andrew and how she lost her virginity to him, but
afterwards he’d encouraged her to go to London to be with Ben. A
smile came to Alex’s face reading how Lou took her little black and
white dog Sheppie everywhere with her; she remembered her being the
same with Jack the Shitzu.

By the time Alex finished
reading it was two a.m. The book ended with a letter written from
Lou to Paula, explaining how everything she’d written on Andrew’s
part was based on what he’d told her and she had no idea if it was
true. The most difficult part for Alex to comprehend was a scene
where Andrew raped Briggy after he had been riding with Lou and
become aroused. She then questioned if she found this difficult to
imagine purely because she’d only ever known Andrew as an older man
incapable of violence.

It was by and large, a
sad book written by a woman who had spent her life unfulfilled and
unhappy. Despite Ben being handsome, rich and loving, Lou felt she
had settled for second best and had never known true fulfilment.
Alex was starting to know exactly how she felt and was only
thankful she’d dumped Robin, so he didn’t suffer the same fate as
her beloved grandpa.

Putting the book down,
she cried herself to sleep, feeling as though she was the victim of
some horrible family curse. Even her great great great great
grandfather had been disowned because he’d fallen in love with the
wrong person, as had Fiona Montague. It was a family trait and she
wished she could break it.

Awaking the next morning,
Alex looked at her watch and saw it was ten a.m. She could hear the
family gathered downstairs having breakfast and she knew she
couldn’t face them. She needed to clear her head; wishing someone
could give her the answers to her horrible dilemma.

Wrapping herself up
against the cold, she went down to the breakfast room and explained
to everyone that she needed some air and time to think and she
left, getting in the car and driving to her favourite place; the
hills that separated Abbott’s Leigh and Summerset. It was one of
those dark December days when daylight was scarce and the thick
cloud made Claremont Hall nothing but a faint outline in the
distance. She cried silent tears, wishing her grandmother would
appear and tell her what to do. Ben was always good for cuddles and
fun, but Lou was the one you went to for advice. After reading her
life story, Alex could understand why. To suffer such a painful
rejection at a young age, from which you never recovered would
equip you with the knowledge that the human heart was capable of
enduring anything.

The sound of a rattle
alerted Alex from her daydreams. She looked up and over the hills a
little white dog with black ears came bounding. For a moment Alex
thought she was hallucinating as it was the spitting image of
Sheppie. The little terrier ran to her, jumping up on his back legs
and wagging his tail.

‘
Hello boy,’
she said, stroking his velvety ears. Suddenly there was another
voice.

‘
Ben! Ben come
here.’

Alex looked up. Striding
across the hills came a teenage girl. Tall and pretty, with long
black hair that kept whipping across her ruddy face.

‘
I’m sorry,’
she called to Alex. ‘He’s too friendly. Ben come here.’

The little dog turned and
ran back to his mistress. Alex couldn’t help but to call to
her.

‘
Do you live
in the village?’

‘
No,’ the girl
smiled shyly. ‘I’m just visiting my grandmother.’

This was it! This was the
sign Alex had been looking for. Lou was trying to tell her what she
must do. Waving goodbye to the young girl, she turned and ran all
the way back down the hill to her car. Before driving off, she sent
a text message to her aunt.

Thanks for
everything Paula. I’m going to London. Can you tell
daddy?

Putting her foot down and
breaking several speed limits, Alex hurtled down the A23 back to
London. She cried, thinking of that beautiful young girl and her
dog on the hills. Had she even been real or was it an apparition?
Alex didn’t know, but all she did know was she had never felt the
spirit of her grandmother so close to her.

She practically dumped
the car outside the Mandarin hotel, throwing her keys at the
concierge and asking him to park it. Running into the hotel, she
looked frantically for Jack and found him in the half empty
restaurant, enjoying a late breakfast. Not caring who saw, Alex
charged in, weaving her way through the tables until she came to
his. She stood resolutely before it and he looked up – knife and
fork in mid-air.

‘
Alex?’ he
frowned.

‘
Do you love
me?’ she asked.

‘
You know I
do.’

‘
Well I love
you and I want to be with you.’

He smiled, putting down
his cutlery.

‘
Do you mean
it?’

‘
Yes.’

He got up and pulled her
to him, lifting her in the air.

‘
You realise
it’s going to cause trouble?’

‘
I don’t
care,’ she laughed defiantly. ‘I’m a Sheridan, I was born to cause
trouble.’

The End

Also by Karen
Mason

ISBN
:
978-1847995445

A tale of forbidden love
and a quest for revenge against a backdrop of social change. When
London teenager Lou O'Connell comes to the Sussex village of
Summerset after World War II, her life changes forever. As the
daughter of the local publican, she becomes the belle of the
village, pursued by most of the local young men. Her heart,
however, belongs to Andrew McDonald, the husband of Briggy
Sheridan, daughter of the much hated brewing family who not only
own the pub, but most of the village. Lou and Andrew's passion
spans decades, kept secret from everyone around them. Lou becomes a
successful writer and rich in her own right, but when she makes a
shocking discovery about her own heritage, she becomes hell-bent on
seeking revenge and claiming what is rightfully hers.

ISBN
:
978-1-4092-1880-7

Elizabeth Maine 1950s
starlet, 70s sex symbol and 80s US soap queen has been lured out of
retirement to star in Eastwood Avenue, a British soap opera. What
her fans don’t know is that Elizabeth’s upper class image is a lie;
she is really Lizzie Gallagher from Liverpool; a single mother at
15, she was forced to have her baby adopted and was disowned by her
family. When her son Christopher, cheats on his fiance, she asks
her journalist mother to write an expose on Lizzie. When the two
women meet they reach an understanding but Lizzie feels the time
has come for her to confess all. She asks Elaine to write her
biography and this means revisiting a painful past littered with
addictions, infidelities and mental illness. Lizzie isn’t afraid to
tell all about her many lovers, battles with alcoholism and the
sexual abuse she suffered as a child. What frightens her most is
telling Christopher the truth about the baby girl she gave away
fifty years ago and the lasting impact she has had on both their
lives.

ISBN
:
978-1-4092-7137-6

Farrah O’Rourke has spent
her adult life breaking the law, opening an illegal rave club and
marrying a gangster - she likes nothing more than living on the
edge. Recently widowed she is struggling to get on with life when a
bombshell is dropped upon her – she’s the twin sister of Antonia
Smedley, the Mayor of London’s wife and one of the most loved women
in the world. Former supermodel Toni - fashion icon and patron of
many causes is catapulted to fame when her husband Jonathan becomes
Mayor of London. Adored for her beauty and compassion no one knows
her apparently perfect marriage is a sham. At just 38 she is
diagnosed with terminal cancer and has one final request – to be
reunited with the twin she was separated from as a baby. How did
these two identical women end up living such different lives? As
Farrah struggles with her sister’s legacy, bringing up a family
alone and avenging the death of her beloved husband, a face from
the past returns to rock her already tumultuous world.

The True Tale
of Jezebel Cole

World famous
novelist, Patty Belleville, has gone missing. Her books about
Jezebel Cole, the high-class prostitute have made her a household
name, but when she releases Two Hearts, a romantic novel that
flops, she decides to disappear. Her three daughters, Sasha, Rorie
and Dana all have their own theories as to what has caused their
mother to run away, but when a face from Patty's past returns, he
reveals to Sasha that her mother ran away once before, shortly
after writing the original version of Two Hearts. Convinced this is
more than a publicity stunt, Sasha hires a private investigator to
find Patty and along the way uncovers some horrifying secrets about
her mother's childhood that may just provide the key to why she has
gone missing now.

ONLY
YOU

Violet Spencer is a
pioneer amongst women. For fifty years she has been the head of
House of Valentine - one of the world's biggest cosmetics brands.
But in tough economic times, sales are suffering, and Violet is
determined to turn House of Valentine's fortunes around, so she can
pass her legacy onto her beloved children.

Violet decides to go back
to grass-roots and sets about launching 'Valentino' - her new
budget brand. She looks back over her life, recalling her rise from
the humble Battersea shop-girl working in Boothby's 'the Harrods of
the South', who’s determined to provide ordinary girls like her
with quality cosmetics, to the wealthy matriarch she is today; on
the way surviving a sham marriage, family battles, tragic loss, and
the painful secret she has kept from her eldest
daughter.