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Chapter Five

I t took Eden five days to make her way back to Elmsleigh House.

She’d spent a hefty amount of time thinking about Troyden’s offer to get to know him and his family, veering between deciding to go and then questioning her decision.

Yes, she was worried about how she’d contribute to the Castle clan, how to go about creating new ties, and whether she’d bond with her uncle, who might, ultimately, end up rejecting her.

But she also, sod it, desperately wanted to see Jed again. It was humiliating to admit, even to herself, that she lay awake at night in her shoebox flat thinking about him. She’d even taken to spending an unhealthy amount of time plugging his name into search engines to pull up photos of him.

She’d just, just, managed to stop herself from printing an image of him off the ’net.

Despite exchanging numerous text messages with Mick– that had started with Mick checking on her and swiftly moved on to them bonding over K-culture discussions, their mutual love of junk food and having crazy mothers– she knew that staying in London, keeping her distance and her head down, was the smart option, the safe option.

Eventually, when she’d just about managed to push her searing attraction to Jed aside, she finally admitted it: she wanted to get to know her uncle better.

Not because he was a billionaire, or because he lived in a fantastic house on a fantastic estate, but because she saw humour in his eyes and kindness in his smile.

His stepkids clearly adored him; it said a lot about him that they were all still in his life when their mothers had moved on.

And she knew that neither Mick, Alistair or Jed were there because they were mooching off him or using him to further their careers.

Over the last few days she’d done her research: Alistair had a kick-ass double degree from LSE and had held a high-pressure job as an investment banker before switching over to work as Troyden’s finance guy.

She was pretty sure he could get a job anywhere.

Mick was a GP, and if the local messaging boards were anything to go by, the clear favourite in the village.

And Jed was one of the best polo players in the country.

Any professional team in the world, from Argentina to Hong Kong, would pay him great money to play for them.

He was also the face of quite a few horse- and polo-related products, and likely earned decent money from those sponsorships.

No, they stayed because they loved Troyden. And that told her he was, on some level, a good guy. Why wouldn’t she want to get to know an uncle who was by all accounts a decent man and the only family she had left in the world?

However, it was really important not to make this more than it was. If they got along, she would, maybe, be invited to family Sunday lunches, to birthday parties and to spend Christmas with them. That would be enough. It was far more than she had now.

She’d already planned to backpack this summer, she wanted to explore Croatia, so she wouldn’t spend too much time at Elmsleigh.

She didn’t want to take advantage of Troyden’s hospitality, and decided that she’d initially stay for ten days and reevaluate afterwards.

She’d see how Troyden and his family reacted to having her around.

If there were any signs of her being unwelcome, she’d return to London and book her flights.

She wasn’t going to stay where she wasn’t wanted.

Arriving in the village of Bythesea late yesterday evening, she’d skirted the village and quickly covered the final two miles to Elmsleigh House.

Mick, excited to have her back, tagged along when Troyden gave her a tour of the manor house, and she was offered the same suite she’d occupied earlier.

Then she’d enjoyed an early dinner with Troyden, Diana, Mick and her kids, eating at the huge wooden table in the kitchen.

The dining room, apparently, was only used on Sundays, for either family breakfasts or lunches.

The rest of the time, depending on who was around, Diana told her, they ate in the kitchen.

Diana, forthright and no-nonsense, scared her a little.

During the meal, as if knowing that she needed time to settle in, nobody peppered her with questions about her life, work and job.

Soon after they’d finished eating, Diana excused herself to watch reruns of the Great British Bake Off, and Mick hauled her sleepy kids off to bed.

Troyden said he had some business to take care of in the study and gently suggested she could either watch TV in the snug, turn in early or take a walk.

Eden, feeling overwhelmed, opted to go upstairs and wallow in the enormous slipper bath in her en suite for a while.

She’d tried to read, but the combination of a fantastic beef wellington, a few glasses of red wine and a hearty helping of chocolate mousse, home-made from dark cocoa, had sent her into a food coma.

At a little after nine, she climbed into the huge bed and passed out.

It was now just gone half six in the morning and she knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.

After pulling the heavy curtains apart, she opened the window and rested her forearms on the sill, sucking in the aromas of jasmine and honeysuckle, freshly mowed grass and the faint smell of manure.

The sound of a rumbling tractor buzzed in the distance and the sun pierced a bright blue sky.

She sneezed twice, a reminder to take her daily antihistamine pill.

If that didn’t help her allergy to horses, she might have to see a specialist, something she wasn’t keen to do.

The OTC medications would work, she was sure of it. That and staying away from horses and stables, of course. And hot guys who hung around horses and stables.

Pulling on a pair of leggings and a shirt, she tied her trainers and pulled her unbrushed hair through the gap at the back of her cap.

She splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth, thinking she’d take a run through the grounds.

She wasn’t great at running, but if last night was a preview of the meals Diana served, she needed to exercise or she’d be blue-whale plump in a month.

The house felt like it was still dozing when she skipped down the stairs, and Troyden’s motley pack of dogs, all rescues and a mixture of breeds, barely deigned to raise their heads as she tiptoed past their beds in the kitchen.

She slipped out of the kitchen door, shut it behind her and lifted her arms, feeling the muscles in her back warm as she stretched.

She did a couple of lacklustre lunges, before setting off on a slow jog.

Her body immediately started protesting and Eden forced one foot in front of the other, jogging down a path that ran along a high wall.

She heard low voices coming from the other side of the wall, and stopped when she recognised Mick’s voice and a deep male rumble that ignited fireworks on her skin. Jed. She ran a little further ahead to an open door leading to the walled garden.

‘You need to tighten your core, Mick,’ Jed said, his words now distinguishable.

‘I am tightening my sodding core,’ Mick muttered, sounding huffy.

‘If you did, you could hold that pose for longer,’ Jed countered.

‘Why are you always picking on me?’

Fascinated, Eden peeked through the door, her eyes widening as she took in the four squares of perfectly manicured grass within the walls and the luscious fruit and vegetable beds lining three walls of the garden.

Three people, including her uncle and Diana, were using the wall as a brace to perform a forearm headstand, their toes pointed to the sky.

Two men, a young girl and Mick stood on mats across the lawn, their arms and legs extended, trying to hold what she thought might be– from her on-off forays into yoga– a warrior two pose.

Mick dropped her outstretched leg and arms and sunk onto her mat, her face pink, hair stuck to her face.

She didn’t look like she was having any fun.

Eden didn’t blame her; yoga was hard .

The group evidently had various skill levels, from impressive, Troyden and Diana and Justin, to competent, like the two muscled guys and the blond teenager with good balance. And then there was Mick, who looked like she’d rather be lancing a boil on someone’s bum.

But Eden’s eyes were drawn to Jed, barefoot and dressed in a pair of sweatpants elasticised at the ankles and hanging low on his sculpted hips.

He was bare-chested and his back muscles rippled as he elegantly and expertly flipped into a handstand.

Eden sucked in a hard breath as those muscles bunched and lengthened.

With all the control of a world-class gymnast, he held himself steady and slowly, so slowly, bent his left leg and extended his right over his head.

Eden never expected an alpha polo player to be able to do yoga poses with such ease, but her jaw dropped open when he bent his right leg and lifted his head toward his toes.

Then his left leg mirrored his right, his toes just a few inches from his messy air, as he contorted his body into a circle.

‘What do you call that?’ Mick demanded, sounding cross.

‘Scorpion pose,’ Jed replied. ‘And shh, you’re not supposed to talk, jabber jaws. Yoga is supposed to be meditative.’

‘Solving the Middle East crisis would be easier than getting Mick to shut up,’ one of the men said, as he lowered his leg and shifted to place his forehead against his knees.

‘Funny, Kit,’ Mick muttered. She sighed, looked around the walled garden and caught sight of Eden. With an excited whoop, she jumped to her feet and ran over to her.

‘Eden!’