The Beauty of Broken Things Read online

  ALSO BY VICTORIA CONNELLY

  One Last Summer

  The Heart of the Garden

  Love in an English Garden

  The Rose Girls

  The Book Lovers

  Rules for a Successful Book Club

  Natural Born Readers

  Scenes from a Country Bookshop

  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 © 2020 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: 9781542008167

  ISBN-10: 1542008166

  Cover design by The Brewster Project

  To Fiona and Richard with love

  CONTENTS

  In the beginning . . .

  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

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  The Next Summer

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  In the beginning . . .

  ‘Of course, it needs a bit of work,’ the estate agent said.

  The woman looked around the room, noticing the crumbling plaster, the damp stone and the rotting timbers.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It does.’

  ‘And that has been reflected in the price.’

  She nodded, knowing that she was lucky to be even considering buying a place like this.

  ‘Would you mind if I walked around on my own for a while?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not. I’ll wait for you outside.’

  She watched as he left her, listening to the sound his neat shoes made on the old flagstone floor. It was a good floor, she noticed. Perhaps it was one of the few things in the place that didn’t need fixing. She looked up at the ceiling high above her and gasped. There was so much space here. Not that she needed a lot of space, being on her own, but she appreciated having it around her because it meant that other people wouldn’t occupy it. It would be all hers and that was important.

  So there was a bit of work to do, but there wasn’t anything insurmountable, was there? Not after what she’d been through. A little painting here, a little carpeting there. Okay, maybe some new timbers, plastering and stonework. She’d look into that at some point. And some window shutters to block out that appalling draught coming straight off the North Sea. But – oh – how lovely the building was. She adored the way the honeyed light streamed in through the arched windows, and how the old stone walls were pitted and mellowed by the centuries, and the steps worn away by generations of feet. It would be a privilege to own something so old and beautiful, so ancient and age worn.

  Maybe it was a little extravagant to buy something so big and so ridiculously fairy tale but, she thought as she walked down a corridor lined with arrow-slit windows, what better place was there to hide from the world than in a castle?

  Chapter 1

  Helen Hansard was a dreamer, but the nine-to-five usually got in the way. Not that it stopped her completely. She always made sure that there were little pockets of time to daydream, no matter how busy she was. She’d never make management – she knew that – mostly because a good portion of the time she sat in meetings was spent staring out of the window, watching the way the wind moved through the one beautiful tree that grew in the central London street, or the way sunlight flirted with the office windows opposite. It had been the same at school. Helen’s teachers had been constantly shouting at her for staring out of windows. But it couldn’t be helped. Helen had that rare quality of being able to see beauty wherever she went and, luckily for her, it made her rather mundane job bearable.

  She’d spent the last ten years working for a small advertising company, Fiennes and Fairchild, taking a graduate placement straight out of university. She hadn’t meant it to last so long, only life seemed to have settled in this particular rut and the dreams she’d had of doing something better, more interesting, more creative, were always on hold while matters like paying bills took precedence.

  But, oh, how she lived for the little moments in-between her job. It was as if she became a different person as soon as she left the office, shaking off the shackles of her administrative role and entering her other self – the truer version of the person she knew she was: the version she put out onto her favourite social media site, Galleria.

  Helen had discovered Galleria during an aimless ramble around the internet and had soon been swept up by its magic and the photographs of beautiful gardens, of footpaths through woods, and smallholdings where people were growing their own food and delighting in every minute of it. Here, she’d thought, was a little corner of the web that wasn’t concerned with politics, that never discussed the horrors of war and that didn’t encourage debates you couldn’t win with strangers who didn’t really care anyway. Galleria felt like a safe haven where people shared their happiest pictures, beautifully framed, with gentle words to accompany them.

  Helen adored those little square boxes of joy and would happily scroll through them several times a day to keep up to date with the people she was following. Some of them, she knew, were making a living from their art. They’d gathered thousands of followers and were now being courted and paid by companies for product placement. Helen wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, it was always an admirable thing to be able to make a living from doing what you loved most, but she had to admit that the product placement thing did rather detract from the whole ethos of being oneself.

  Mind you, that was another issue with social media sites such as Galleria. How much of what you saw was true, or rather the whole picture? Helen had often asked that question and had become very aware of it when she posted her own photographs. The Helen she was presenting to her followers was the fun, free version, whose world was full of beauty and charm. Gone were the spreadsheets, databases, endless emails and conference calls. She had happily banished the photocopier, the filing cabinets, the board room meetings and the many other dull bits of her life. Galleria was most definitely a highlights reel of her and everybody else’s life, for who really wanted to take a photo of a sink full of dirty dishes or share that mouldy patch on the north-facing bedroom wall or the mountain of ironing waiting to be done? Oh, no. Galleria was a blissful esca
pe from all of that. It presented the very best pieces of people – the beautiful bits, neatly edited into one perfect square, accompanied by a poetic sentence or two – and Helen had bought into it big time. Only, her photography was slowly becoming more than that. She didn’t always want to squeeze it into one perfect box per day. She wanted to experiment and explore. She wanted to flex her creative wings and see if she could fly.

  She was thinking about all this as she got off the Tube and headed across the concourse of the train station to catch the 17:54 train home to her village in Kent after a particularly dull day at the office. It was early April and there was still a full hour of light left, which meant Helen could gaze dreamily out of the train window and enjoy the changing landscape. As much as she was addicted to Galleria, she never forgot the primitive pleasure of being able to just sit and stare. So many of her fellow commuters had forgotten the simple delight of doing that. Now, gazes were locked onto screens as work was no longer left at the office, but followed one home. Helen refused to allow her work to accompany her home. She switched off her phone. Or rather, she switched off her work phone. She had a personal one too, and she got that out now, quickly texting her husband, Luke, to tell him she was on the train. As was her habit, she took a quick accompanying photo out of the window as they sped through a crowded station.

  It was on her personal phone that she connected to Galleria and with which she took the majority of her photographs. She had several very good cameras at home too, but she liked the portability of the phone and the camera on it was good quality. Now, she scrolled through her most recent images. There was their recent weekend walk through the woods when she’d caught the purest of spring light and the fresh foliage of the beech trees. There were a few shots of the grey and fuming sea from their visit to the coast, when they’d had to bend their heads into the buffeting wind in order to remain upright. And there were several shots of their garden, full of the colours of spring, with her beloved tulips in terracotta pots and the crocuses crowding around the foot of the apple tree.

  There was always something magical about taking a photograph, Helen thought, of preserving that single moment, capturing the light, the feelings, the emotion behind a scene. She was addicted to that and had often wondered if, perhaps, she’d be able to make a living from her photography. But maybe it wouldn’t be so much of a joy if it became a job. There was always that concern, and yet Helen didn’t believe her photography could bring her anything but happiness.

  She took a deep breath and then wished she hadn’t. Somebody was eating a meat and egg sandwich behind her. How wonderful it would be to live without the daily commute, she thought. How exciting to make a living from creating beautiful photographs. But could it be done?

  She looked out of the window at the same view she had been looking at for ten years. Ten long years of travelling in and out of London. How many more did she have to go before she could retire? The thought paralysed her. Unless . . .

  She scrolled through some of her photos and messages on Galleria, reading the comments as she went.

  You’re such a gifted photographer!

  Do you do this for a living? If not – you should!

  Love your pics. They always brighten my day.

  Helen smiled, buoyed up by the support she had, but was it enough to build a new career from? Luke’s business as a self-employed builder was doing well, but could they afford to take a drop in their combined income while she got a new business off the ground? And could she really run her own business? She had no idea how to be self-employed and solely reliant on herself for an income. The prospect was terrifying and yet exhilarating at the same time. If she didn’t do it now, then when? Nobody was going to come up to her and offer her a more fulfilling life, were they? She had to go out and find it for herself.

  Without waiting a single second, because she’d waited and wasted far too many of those already, she quickly sent Luke a text.

  Got a proposal for you. H x

  A moment later, his reply came.

  I love a proposal. L x

  She smiled.

  You might not like this one. H x

  Tell me! L x

  When I get home. Not long now. H x

  Looking out of the window as the suburbs slid into the countryside, a glowing feeling of hope filled her. She might just be able to do this. She was ready – more than ready. With a little bit of luck and a lot of determination, she could change her life and do a job she was passionate about. And, if she was working from home, maybe she could finally have that much-longed-for Labrador.

  The train began to slow for the next station and Helen held her phone up to take her daily photo of the oak tree that she thought of as hers. Today it was silhouetted in front of the setting sun, strong and solid in the landscape around it. Helen smiled as she captured its beauty, looking at the screen, happy with the image.

  It would be the last photograph she’d ever take.

  The April evening air cooled quickly once the sun had set and it was long after dark when the police car pulled up outside the house. The occupants waited a moment, seeing the light on and the figure of a man walking around inside. The husband. He was at home.

  They got out of the car and walked towards the house.

  Chapter 2

  Bill Wilson collected up his tools and went to the old shed in the corner of the walled garden. He’d been working at Lorford Castle since he was a little boy, helping his father keep the modest grounds under control. Now aged seventy-three, he couldn’t imagine any other life for himself but gardening. It had been a quiet life, but he hadn’t wanted it any other way. A wife, two daughters and a bit of gardening in Suffolk. He was a happy man. Which was more than could be said of his employer, the mysterious Miss Kendrick.

  Bill glanced up at the castle, wondering if she was watching from behind one of the windows. He still hadn’t met her. Two years he’d been working for her and she hadn’t even bothered to say hello. Well, some people liked to keep to themselves, didn’t they? He could understand that. He wasn’t the most sociable man himself. Why, only last week he’d turned down an invitation to dinner at a neighbour’s house for no reason other than he preferred to spend the evening in his own home. But Miss Kendrick wasn’t just antisocial. She was on a whole other spectrum.

  There were rumours, of course – so many rumours. Some had heard she was a widow, some that she’d recently been released from prison. One person believed she was a deaf mute and others thought she was just some kind of artist. After all, didn’t those airy-fairy sorts always lock themselves up in towers in pursuit of their muse? Bill didn’t really know what to make of it all and didn’t spend much time thinking about what the truth might be. But he would have liked to have met her at least. Call him old-fashioned, but he couldn’t help feeling odd about working for a person he hadn’t even met. The one who paid the wages got to make the rules, however, and his wages were paid electronically once a month. All neat and impersonal.

  Returning his tools to the shed, he tidied up for the day. It might be a very odd arrangement, but he wasn’t going to complain. He needed the work and the job was relatively easy and within walking distance of his home.

  Once everything had been put away, he left the shed, locking it behind him. He kept the key. That had been arranged ahead of his employment. He was in charge of all gardening equipment and, if anything ever needed mending or replacing, he was to post a note through the back door letter box informing Miss Kendrick.

  He straightened his faithful woollen cap, the one he’d been wearing for the past two decades and the one his Jack Russell favoured sleeping with when he could get away with it. Then he turned to look at the castle, as he always did, hoping – just once – that today she might be there at a window, ready with that long overdue nod of recognition.

  Standing in the shadows by one of the second-floor windows, Orla Kendrick watched as Bill Wilson left and breathed a sigh of relief. The place was hers again. Oh, how she h
ated intruders, even those whose help she needed. She just couldn’t feel at ease with somebody else around.

  When Orla had been looking for a home, she had chosen Lorford very carefully. The small Suffolk village on the peninsula, which stuck out into the great grey North Sea like a dainty little finger, appealed to both her sense of the aesthetic and also her practicality, because Lorford was a dead end rather than a thoroughfare. People didn’t just happen upon it or pass through it on the way to somewhere else. One really had to want to go there because it was miles from anywhere else and, while it was quaint, it wasn’t overly pretty. It wasn’t the sort of place which attracted coachloads of tourists.

  Then there was the beach. Like the village itself, the beach wasn’t particularly attractive to holidaymakers. Part sand, part shingle, there was no parking nearby and, with sandier, more attractive beaches further up the coast, it was only of real interest to those who lived on its doorstep. But how it had spoken to Orla when she’d first seen it – that tang of salt spray and the freedom to be found in all that wild ozone. She loved that she was frequently the only one walking there with her dog or that the other few dog walkers allowed her the space and privacy that she so craved.

  Winters in Lorford were especially quiet. The little village seemed to lock itself away from the rest of the world and hunker down. Orla liked that, appreciating the special peace which winter brought with it. It was a dark gift at the end of each year when one could shut oneself away at home.

  Of course, when Orla had first arrived, she’d had a stream of visitors to the castle. Naturally, after sitting empty for five years, people were curious to see the new resident. Orla had quickly told them through the closed door that she didn’t receive visitors. People meant well, but she didn’t want them to mean anything at all. She just wanted to be left alone. There were a couple of particularly persistent callers. The vicar and a woman with a big bank of a bosom who was always carrying a wicker basket full of Tupperware. Orla dreaded to think what would happen if she let her into her home. She’d never be rid of her. She’d be back at some indeterminate time in the future to collect her Tupperware and use it as an excuse to drop something else off. No, Orla thought, neighbours meaning well and her leading a quiet life simply didn’t go hand in hand.