One Last Summer Read online

  ALSO BY VICTORIA CONNELLY

  The Heart of the Garden

  Love in an English Garden

  The Rose Girls

  The Book Lovers

  Rules for a Successful Book Club

  The Secret of You

  A Summer to Remember

  Wish You Were Here

  The Runaway Actress

  A Weekend with Mr Darcy

  The Perfect Hero

  Mr Darcy Forever

  Molly’s Millions

  Flights of Angels

  Irresistible You

  Three Graces

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Victoria Connelly

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542041744

  ISBN-10: 1542041740

  Cover design by bürosüdo München, www.buerosued.de

  In memory of my much-loved friend Anne.

  Your passion for life and your fearless spirit were an inspiration to us all.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  The Next Summer

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Prologue

  The priory stood at the end of the peninsula like a great stone guardian watching over the land and sea, its thirteenth-century tower thrusting up into the blue sky. Built by the Benedictine monks and worshipped in for centuries, it had fallen under the reign of Henry VIII and had later become a farmhouse, a large Georgian wing being added to its west side as the rest of the building had been left to decay.

  It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century, after another period of abandonment, that a successful businessman bought it, throwing all his wealth at its crumbling walls and collapsed fan vaulting and flying buttresses. For a while, it flourished. It was the kind of building that needed people in it and a little bit of chaos, perhaps, and the businessman gave it exactly what it wanted, filling it with an enormous family and hosting parties in its cavernous rooms.

  It was on his death that it came into the hands of a trust which preserved old buildings and let them out as holiday rentals. And that’s how Harriet Greenleaf found it. She’d been looking for something special for her holiday, something that would take her breath away and make her heart soar. She’d attended an open day to view it, wandering around its cool corridors, admiring how many arches there were and how their express purpose seemed to be to frame yet more arches.

  She trod carefully up its spiral staircases, loving how very like the inner workings of a shell they were, and her hand flew out to touch each wonderful wooden door with its metal studs and wrought-iron handles.

  The furniture in each of the rooms was substantial – traditional, no-nonsense pieces in dark English oak – and the curtains and cushions were pretty but not overly so. There were pictures on the walls – old-fashioned prints and portraits of people from the past in frilly collars and funny hats – and large mirrors reflected back the light from the enormous windows, filling the rooms with a silvery quality.

  There was a long refectory table in the kitchen, flanked by two benches. It could easily sit a dozen people, Harrie thought. And, all around the priory, there were endless secret places to just sit: squashy sofas where one might curl up and read a book or wide windowsills to perch on and gaze out into the gardens.

  Then there was the oldest part of the building, part cloister, part tower. How often did one get to live within such ancient walls? And how many people could boast sharing their holiday home with gargoyles?

  The garden was stunning. The borders were full of late tulips and early roses and there were great terracotta pots full of flowering rosemary and chives. Through an old wooden gate, the garden opened into a little meadow yellow with buttercups, and beyond that was an orchard full of fruit trees and a stream whose borders were laced with cow parsley. There was even a modest-sized swimming pool in the south garden, its winter cover pulled back to reveal aquamarine depths.

  Harrie sighed in wonder and delight, but worried, just for a moment, if she could justify spending so much money on hiring such a place. But she batted the thought away as soon as it entered her head. If not now, then when? The answer was never, she knew that.

  No, she deserved this treat, she told herself. This was the very thing that made life worth living.

  She found a bench to sit on in the orchard and marvelled at how enclosed the place felt, surrounded as it was by the trees. It was a world of its own, cut off from the outside. She liked that. The priory was a little piece of paradise. More than that – there was a special kind of quietness that seemed to seep out of the stones. This place, this very special place, was just what she needed. Of course, she’d known that the moment she’d seen the photo of it online and made the booking earlier that year, but walking through its ancient corridors and inhaling the scent of wisteria in the garden made her absolutely certain that this was the place she wanted to be for her very last holiday.

  Chapter 1

  Harrie could have sent an email. It would have been easier and instant. But how many people really give emails the attention they deserve, she asked herself? Today’s inboxes were always so full, flooded with rubbish and with so many things sent to the spam folder. She couldn’t risk her message getting lost and so she sent letters by recorded delivery – two handwritten letters to her two oldest and dearest friends, written in blue ink with her favourite fountain pen, which was shocked out of its retirement into gainful employment. And, oh, how very satisfying it was to see the letters forming on the creamy pages on her kitchen table, her thoughts forced to slow down so her pen could keep up.

  She posted them on the second of January, during the post-Christmas slump when thoughts were longing to reach towards summer. Seven months’ notice would be enough, wouldn’t it? She hoped so. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if they said no or made some excuse not to come because the last thing she wanted to do was bribe her friends into coming by telling them the truth. She wasn’t ready to let them know the truth. Not yet. But, luckily, both Audrey and Lisa had said yes. Admittedly, Audrey had been reluctant to commit to the whole of the summer holidays but Harrie had been very persuasive, sending her pictures of the priory and reminding her that they hadn’t had a proper girls’ get-together in over six years. There’d been a few rushed dinners and weekend shopping trips, but it was a full six summers since their last girls’ holiday to Lanzarote to celebrate the year of their fortieth birthdays. They’d hired that funny little place on the hillside, Harrie remember
ed, with the dodgy balcony and the lizard that freaked Lisa out every time she went in the bathroom.

  Six years, she thought. Where had that time gone? Well, she’d divorced Charles for one thing. They’d met at her first teaching job. He was the head of the maths department and she’d told him that she’d always hated figures and he’d made some wisecrack about liking hers. He’d then looked mortified in case she reported him to the headmaster and she’d left him to dangle in his own discomfort for a moment before laughing. He’d insisted on buying her a drink and that drink had led to dinner and, less than two years later, a wedding and a baby girl called Honor. But, somehow, at some time, they had fallen out of love and had merely been co-habiting. When they’d both come to the realisation, there were no arguments, no recriminations – just a polite packing of boxes and a rather sad goodbye. They’d managed to remain friends too, which pleased Harrie because Honor was close to her father.

  Her friend Lisa, on the other hand, never stayed friends with any of her exes. She’d fallen in and out of love during the past six years more times than Harrie could count. She and Audrey had long since stopped trying to remember the names of all Lisa’s beaus.

  Audrey was the steady one out of the three of them. She’d been married to Mike for nineteen years and had a wonderful son called Jack. Harrie still remembered all those years ago when Mike had made that phone call to say that Audrey had gone into labour, and she and Lisa had rushed across the country to welcome Audrey’s son into the world. What a moment that had been. Audrey had a good strong marriage, although Harrie knew that her friend regularly tested her husband’s patience. Mike was always worrying about her, especially since she’d started up her own small school teaching English to foreign students. Audrey simply overdid things, she always had, and Mike was the one who carried the burden of constant anxiety.

  But, perhaps the biggest thing to happen during those six years was Harrie’s diagnosis. D-Day, she called it, and now her life seemed to be divided between everything that had happened before D-Day and everything that had happened after.

  As she drove her car down the single-track Somerset road that led to Melbury Priory, she thought back to that awful day four years ago, blinking back the tears as she remembered the look on her daughter’s face. It was the word that paralysed everyone with fear, wasn’t it? Cancer.

  At first, it was a small lump. She hadn’t told anyone at that stage. But, when a double mastectomy was advised, she’d had no choice but to tell Honor. Chemotherapy and months of feeling as if she’d come to the very end of her days followed. But then there’d been a blissful period of remission. She’d been able to go back to work, to rejoin her dance class, and do all the normal things that made her the person she was, and she felt good, really good. She’d beaten it, hadn’t she? She’d changed her diet and exercised, she’d stopped drinking alcohol and had bidden adieu to processed foods and sugar. She’d even eaten spirulina, for heaven’s sake. If anyone deserved to survive, it was Harrie.

  But, last October, it had returned and, this time, they couldn’t operate. Time was suddenly running out. She’d been told that in no uncertain terms. She’d looked into alternative treatments, but there was nothing that could touch what she had and she’d made her peace with that.

  ‘And I’m here now,’ she said out loud as she caught that first beautiful glimpse of the priory from across the green fields. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not until after the summer. That had been given to her as a wonderful gift and she was determined to enjoy every single minute of it with the women she loved best in the world.

  Perhaps the hardest thing for Harrie had been telling her mother. Her father had left when she was very small and she had no memories of him, but she was close to her mother and she’d never forget that look of pure fear in her mother’s face when she’d told her the news. When Harrie had said that she was going to spend the summer with her friends, her mother had protested. But Harrie had promised that the rest of the time she had would be theirs.

  But summer first, she told herself.

  She’d decided to arrive at the priory a full day before her friends were due – not to grab the best of the four bedrooms, although she took the one which suited her best with a view over the garden and out towards the orchard – but because she wanted to make sure that everything was absolutely perfect. She’d filled the fridge, freezer and cupboards. She aired the bedrooms and straightened things that really didn’t need straightening and, when evening began to fall, turned on all the lamps and wandered through the ancient building. She needed these long, cool corridors and simply furnished rooms. A place without clocks, TV or Wi-Fi. It was as if the building still had echoes of the holy life that had, at one time, filled its rooms. The monks had definitely been on to something, Harrie thought. An uncluttered room led to an uncluttered mind.

  She opened the great wooden door set in a large stone wall and stepped into the garden. The July sky was turning from blue to pink and the heat of the day was now just a memory. Once she’d reached the orchard, she looked back towards the priory. Red valerian grew out of the walls surrounding the garden and half a dozen gargoyles gazed down from the tower. A pair of swifts screeched in the air above her and a large moth danced before her eyes. It was so quiet. There was no traffic here, no neighbours to disturb her peace as there were in the busy Wiltshire market town she lived in. Here, it was just her and a few winged friends. And her thoughts.

  It was all too easy to fall prey to negative thoughts when she was alone, but she was absolutely determined not to. She had to stay strong – for herself, for her daughter, and her friends. Anything else would be totally unacceptable.

  She walked back towards the priory. The swifts had vanished from the sky and there were more moths now, pale ambassadors of the night. Lisa didn’t like moths. Harrie would have to make sure she’d closed all the windows and checked the room she’d set aside for her friend.

  Once she was back inside, Harrie locked the door with the iron key that was the length of her hand and bolted both the top and bottom. Suddenly, she wished she’d asked Honor to join her for that first evening, but then reminded herself that she needed this time alone to gather her thoughts and still her mind.

  She walked through to the living room. There was an enormous stone fireplace with huge mullioned windows on either side. A large wooden door led out into the walled garden and a small, round table sat by the window. Having already turned on the lamps, she drew the curtains and picked up the paperback novel she’d placed on a coffee table earlier. Novels had been her salvation over the course of her treatment, shutting out the real world and opening up another – a world of safety and security where happy endings were guaranteed. But, that evening, her eyes skimmed over the words and she found she couldn’t concentrate. She was restless, wanting her friends to arrive so they could start their holiday.

  And what will you tell them? a little voice whispered.

  The truth.

  But when?

  I don’t know.

  You can’t hide it forever. No matter how much you want to.

  I know.

  Her eyes misted with tears, but she blinked them back. This was going to be a happy holiday. She’d make sure of that if it was the last thing she did.

  Which it probably will be, the little voice whispered.

  She swallowed hard and chose to ignore it.

  Chapter 2

  Audrey was the first to arrive, as Harrie had predicted. Punctual to a fault, she drove up at precisely the time she’d said she would and Harrie was at the front door to meet her.

  ‘Harrie!’ her friend screamed as she caught sight of her, running across the garden and enveloping her in a hug. Harrie was instantly lost in a cloud of dark hair and expensive perfume.

  ‘It’s so good to see you,’ Harrie told her, blinking back the tears before they could be seen.

  ‘It’s been too long. Way too long,’ Audrey said as she stood back. ‘How’ve you been?’
r />   ‘Good,’ Harrie said. She was getting better at lying these days and there was nothing wrong with that. Lies, she’d learned, protected people, including herself. ‘Really good.’

  ‘You look tired,’ Audrey said, placing her hands on Harrie’s shoulders and studying her closer.

  ‘Maybe a little,’ Harrie conceded, squirming slightly under the scrutiny, afraid that her friend might be able to see the truth in an instant.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, of course!’ Harrie assured her. ‘It’s just – well – I never sleep properly the first night in a new place.’

  ‘But it’s comfy here? I mean the beds. My back won’t take a bad bed these days.’

  ‘Oh, it’s comfortable. Good firm mattresses. Come and see your room.’

  ‘I’ll just get a few things from the car.’

  Harrie went to give her a hand and smiled at the BMW Audrey drove. It was immaculate, just like Audrey. Not like the beaten-up old Ford Harrie drove. She hoped Audrey hadn’t noticed it.

  Predictably, Audrey had turned up not only with a suitcase but with a laptop and a briefcase.

  ‘Please don’t tell me there’s work in there,’ Harrie said.

  Audrey looked as if she might try to deny it for a moment but then nodded. ‘Just a little.’

  ‘But this is a holiday.’

  ‘It won’t take me long. I can do a little every day and it won’t seem like much at all.’

  ‘Oh, Aud! You can’t.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. Really.’

  Audrey frowned. ‘Has Mike rung you?’

  Harrie didn’t reply.

  ‘He has, hasn’t he?’

  Harrie sighed. There was no point trying to fool Audrey. ‘He might have texted me yesterday. He knew you’d probably bring a heap of work with you and he was right.’

  Audrey looked annoyed. ‘He shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘He cares about you, that’s all,’ Harrie said, taking the briefcase from her. ‘Come on. Let me show you your room. You’re going to love it.’