The Way to a Woman's Heart Read online

  Also by Christina Jones

  Hubble Bubble

  Seeing Stars

  Love Potions

  Heaven Sent

  Happy Birthday

  Moonshine

  Copyright

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 9780748117765

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Christina Jones

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  For The Mandalay Bay Table:

  Carol and Alan Chappell

  Val Ellaway

  Lorraine and Neil Hadris

  Faith and Stan Hardy

  Tina and Tony Maloret

  Maria Tchorzewska

  With a million thanks for being the best friends anyone could ever have and for being there and making 11 April 2009 even more special.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also by Christina Jones

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Acknowledgments

  With deepest gratitude to all at Piatkus, my publishers, especially Emma Beswetherick and Donna Condon.

  And with loads of love and thanks to Broo Doherty, my agent, for being brilliant.

  And special posthumous thanks to my grandmothers who left me the recipes.

  Chapter One

  ‘Please, please, please…’ Ella Maloney implored the straw-chewing gods of all-things-rural as she squinted at the signpost. ‘Please, let this be the right one. P-l-e-a-s-e don’t let this one be another dead end.’

  Having slowed the car to a halt and pushed her sunglasses into her newly done salon-smooth cinnamon-and-honey hair in order to read the faint lettering, Ella actually wasn’t holding out a lot of hope.

  Almost as soon as she’d left London and its sprawling suburbs behind, she’d discovered that one overgrown country crossroads looked much like any other overgrown country crossroads. And also, sadly, that one weathered rustic signpost looked exactly like every other weathered rustic signpost.

  After already experiencing several false starts and a few serious dead ends – once teetering on the edge of a duckpond and twice sailing straight into someone’s garden – there was absolutely nothing to indicate that this particular crossroads and signpost combination would be any more help than any of the others.

  So there was no point in getting over-optimistic, Ella thought, blinking through the blinding dazzle of a perfect May morning, because this one wasn’t going to be the right one either, was it?

  But… Hallelujah – yes! It was!

  And there they were…

  Fiddlesticks… Lovers Knot… Hazy Hassocks… Bagleycum-Russet…

  The faded names that would, hopefully, change her life. ‘Yes, yes, yeeeesss!’ Drumming triumphantly on the steering wheel and doing a little happy dance with her feet beneath the pedals, Ella held her own small in-car celebration-for-one. ‘At last!’

  The drowsy names sounded like enchanted fairy-tale places. Ella could already feel the tension and tiredness simply seeping away.

  ‘Yay!’ Ella blew an extravagant double-handed kiss at the lopsided signpost whose delightful destinations were almost completely obscured by burgeoning shepherd’s purse and convolvulus. ‘I’ve really, really made it!’

  She’d been playing a solo version of ‘are we nearly there yet?’ for the last thirty miles. Having ignored the sat nav because both her route and her pre-programmed target seemed to be causing it some confusion, Ella now embraced the appearance of the ancient signpost with as much enthusiasm as a weary lone explorer suddenly stumbling across friendly human civilisation.

  Not, she thought, that her journey from North London to Berkshire could be remotely compared with a Ranulph Fiennes trek, but for a committed townie like her, it had been a pretty testing couple of hours.

  There had been more than a few times while driving through the green and golden countryside on this gloriously bosky May morning, when she’d begun to wonder if her destination even existed.

  Hideaway Farm, she’d been told in one of Poll Andrews’ letters – real letters, not texts or emails – was halfway between the exquisitely named Lovers Knot and Fiddlesticks. Not actually in either village though, and if she reached Hazy Hassocks she’d have gone far too far.

  The farm was, Poll had said, signposted at the end of Cattle Drovers Passage – if the sign hadn’t fallen down as it was apparently wont to do – and then she just had to drive along Hideaway Lane, round its various twists and turns, until she found the farmhouse at the end.

  If in doubt, Ella should ask anyone she met for directions. Everyone local, Poll’s letters had assured her, knew the way to Hideaway Farm.

  Hideaway Farm… Ella had giggled delightedly to herself. How magical was that? The name alone conjured up memories of childhood storybooks and tales of wild, free madcap adventures in a rustic paradise.

  Hideaway Farm – yes, she could just see it – all haystacks, and lazily droning tractors, and grazing, er, sheep? Or maybe cows? And pigs? Ella was a bit hazy on the sort of animals that might inhabit Hideaway Farm. But she was sure there’d be smiling apple-cheeked women and beaming suntanned men and happy bare-footed children scampering through dappled buttercup and daisy meadows.

  It was all going to be absolutely perfect.

  Earlier, when she hadn’t seen a human being for at least fifteen minutes, and for ages had been scarily surrounded by nothing but fields and trees and a big, big sky, Ella had become a little concerned, but not now. This was the countryside for heaven’s sake, what else could she expect?

  And then there had been a bit of a problem with everything being so green. Well, apart from the huge expanse of sky, of course. And that was the most unbelievable blue. Far bluer than the sky she’d left behind in London. And there was so much more of it somehow. To be honest, the size of the sky and the mass of greenery had all become
a little bit overwhelming.

  But now, Ella beamed again at the signpost, it was going to be all right.

  How fantastically relaxing it must be, living in villages with these sleepy, bucolic names, and having neighbours who probably still danced round maypoles, and had probably never even seen a spreadsheet, or heard of an iPod nano, and who thought Gok Wan was a small Indonesian island.

  No doubt about it now. Abandoning her going-nowhere life, chucking up her city job before she became burned out at twenty-seven, and answering Poll Andrews’ advert for help in one of those posh magazines that were always filled with things like ‘Lady Hermione Pugsley-Grossbody seeks live-in companion. Must be able to drive, speak fluent Mandarin and emote with llamas’ had been the right choice – whatever Mark had said to the contrary.

  Mark… Ella shook her head. No, she wouldn’t think about Mark. Not yet. After all, she wouldn’t be doing this at all if it hadn’t been for Mark, would she? And if she thought too much about Mark now, she might just give up and turn around and scoot back to London which would solve absolutely nothing… No, she was going to stick to her guns…

  Determinedly, Ella replaced her sunglasses, started the car, and headed in the direction of Fiddlesticks and Lovers Knot. Anyway, after all the upsets and arguments of the last few weeks, Hideaway Farm was going to be heaven on earth. She just knew it.

  Chapter Two

  Ten minutes later and hopelessly lost in yet another maze of tangled lanes and deserted sleepy cottages and single-track roads leading to nowhere, the euphoria was a thing of the past and Ella began to wish she’d never heard of Hideaway Farm.

  Somewhere between the turning for Fiddlesticks and the fork to Lovers Knot she’d lost her bearings. Again. Ask someone for directions, Poll Andrews had said. Hah! Like who for instance? Chance would be a fine thing…

  This was totally, totally ridiculous.

  Hot, tired and extremely irritable, Ella drove even more slowly and peered through the further haze of unremitting green-and-gold countryside for a safe place to stop and phone Poll. There was nowhere… nowhere on these insanely narrow lanes where she could park without blocking the road, and where were all those earlier handy gateways when she really, really needed one… ?

  Her phone started to ring from the depths of her handbag on the passenger seat. OK, Ella thought as she glanced across at it, just let me find somewhere to stop – and if you’re Poll Andrews with foolproof directions, I’ll definitely kiss you.

  The phone stopped. Ah well…

  Turning yet another overgrown cloned countryside corner, Ella suddenly brightened. Just visible ahead was a baked hummock of scrubby grass surrounded by gravel – oh, and deep joy! – to one side there was a small stone-walled, slate-roofed building, and – even more and ever deeper joy – the small building had a wooden seat outside – and yes! The seat had two people on it! People who no doubt could and would point her in exactly the right direction.

  Spirits restored, Ella parked carefully alongside the grassy hummock behind a van, three bicycles and a minibus. Maybe, she thought, this building was a village hall – although there had been no visible evidence of a village in the vicinity – or maybe even the local doctor’s surgery? A small rustic medical centre covering all the tiny hamlets and remote farms?

  Whatever it was, it indicated civilisation and it definitely had human life outside it and surely someone must be able to tell her the way to Hideaway Farm, mustn’t they?

  However, it was possibly best to check the phone call first in case it was Poll…

  Scrabbling in her bag, she scrolled down for the missed-call number and groaned.

  Mark.

  Ella could picture him, with his spiky gelled hair and his designer shirt, sitting in the office across the corridor from hers – well, what had been hers before all this started – probably with his designer-shod feet on the desk, and with the daily stack of empty coffee cups and sandwich wrappers already mounting up. He’d be flicking through his computer screen and iPhone with one hand and answering the desk phone with the other, doing some work, but also laughing with the other men in the office and talking about football and F1. And thinking about her?

  She hoped so. After the previous night’s rather frigid farewell, when he’d clearly been expecting her to have an eleventh-hour change of heart, they’d both said things they probably shouldn’t. Ella sighed and pushed the phone back in her bag. There was no way she was going to return his call now. It was less than twenty-four hours since they’d parted company, and they’d agreed she’d ring him when she arrived at Hideaway Farm. She laughed ruefully to herself. Typical Mark… How on earth were they ever going to work this out if he couldn’t even stick to the basic rules?

  Scrambling from the car, reeling slightly in the heat and stretching her cramped legs, Ella scrunched across the gravel. Beneath the sun’s glare it reminded her of childhood seaside holidays and she had a fleeting – very fleeting – moment of violent homesickness for her family left behind, like Mark, in London.

  Hopeless…

  Pulling herself together and fixing her best ‘I’m a stranger and completely lost and I wonder if you could help me, please?’ smile, she approached the elderly couple on the bench.

  As she got closer she realised she’d been very wrong about both them and the building.

  She’d assumed the couple were both men, dressed as they were in battered tweed jackets and thick corduroy trousers despite the heat, but as one of them was wearing a slash of orange lipstick beneath its stubble, she now fervently hoped they weren’t. And the building wasn’t a village hall or a doctor’s surgery either.

  With its stacked boxes of fruit and vegetables outside and racks of postcards and newspapers and plastic kitchen utensils dangling from festoons of string round the doorway, it was clearly a small general stores.

  WEBB’S MIRACLE MART the sign over the door proclaimed proudly. WE SELL EVERYTHING.

  Trades Description Act looming, Ella thought darkly, also reckoning the only miracle about it was that anyone could ever find it.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  The couple on the bench blinked rheumily up at her without smiling and said nothing.

  ‘Er, hello, I just wondered if you could tell me the way to Hideaway Farm, please?’

  They pursed wrinkled lips and screwed up the watery eyes and sucked in a joint wheezy breath.

  ‘Ah,’ the lipsticked one nodded. ‘Reckon we can.’

  Her companion gave a sudden toothless grin. ‘You going to see that mad Poll Andrews?’

  Ella nodded. She really, really didn’t like the sound of ‘mad’.

  ‘Good luck, then –’ the lipsticked-one also grinned gummily ‘– you’ll bloomin’ need it.’

  Great, Ella thought. ‘Um, right, but if you could just tell me how to get there, I’d be really grateful.’

  ‘Ah… Well, all you need to do is turn back away from Angel Meadows.’

  Ella frowned. ‘Where’s Angel Meadows?’

  They gave joint cackles of laughter. ‘This here is! We’re in it, duck. Don’t you know nothing? Anyway, once you’ve turned round, you go back to the Fiddlesticks road – up that-a-way where you’ve just come from – OK?’

  Ella nodded.

  ‘Right, then just keep going straight on, past the turning for Lovers Knot, past all the turnings until you come to what looks like a dead end. That’s what throws people – it don’t look like it leads nowhere but it’s Cattle Drovers Passage. Hideaway Lane is at the end of that, right?’

  Ella nodded again, smiling her thanks.

  The lipsticked-one looked pleased that their information had been so well received. ‘Poll Andrews’ place is the only house up there, duck. Go right to the end of the lane and you can’t miss it.’

  Ella smiled even more. ‘Fantastic. Thanks so much for the directions. It sounds easy enough. I’m sure I’ll be able to find Hideaway Farm now.’

  The couple nodded in tandem. ‘Course you
will – though whether you’ll want to stay there is another matter. Good luck, duck.’

  Chapter Three

  Within fifteen minutes, having followed the couple’s directions and ignored all the turnings and negotiated both Cattle Drovers Passage and Hideaway Lane with no further mishaps, Ella triumphantly pulled the car to a halt outside the pillared and worn-stepped front door of an exquisite mellow-brick-and-slate picture-book farmhouse.

  She grinned happily to herself. Made it! At last!

  Hideaway Farm: all sun-kissed with softly billowing trees, and birdsong, and the rich fragrance of freshly cut grass. And silence. Absolute silence.

  It was, as she’d known it would be, a perfect haven of rustic tranquillity.

  With an ear-splitting groan the front door was suddenly yanked open and a tall, slim woman tripped over the hem of a flowing Indian print dress, lost a sequinned flip-flop, and stumbled clumsily down the steps.

  ‘Oooh – sod it! Sorry, that wasn’t directed at you – are you here already? Goodness me, that was quick! I’m simply thrilled to see you. I thought you’d be ages – not that I’ve any sense of time at all, but…’

  Ella, easing herself from the car, stopped and blinked at the dishevelled hippie vision. ‘Er, hello. Are you Poll Andrews?’

  ‘I think so.’ The woman beamed, bending down to retrieve the flip-flop, hoik up the bottom of her dress and disentangle several rows of brightly coloured glass beads which threatened to strangle her, at the same time. She straightened up, still beaming. ‘Although on days like these I’m not really sure.’

  Ella laughed. It certainly wasn’t the new-job welcome she was expecting. And Poll was certainly nothing at all like the Archers matriarch she’d imagined.

  The elderly couple’s ‘mad’ immediately sprang to mind…

  Mad or not, Poll had wonderful cheekbones, and smiling dark eyes, and with that sun-kissed complexion would never need facials and chemical peels and other salon enhancers – although, Ella reckoned, possibly some decent moisturiser wouldn’t go amiss. And her hair needed the dry frizzy ends tidied up a bit but otherwise it was simply naturally lovely.