‘I’ll be back by six. Once I’m in, you two head off and have a nice evening.’

Eric had fallen silent. It was always the same when Melissa James came into the room. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. It wasn’t just that she was a remarkably attractive woman. She was also a film star. There was hardly anyone in England who wouldn’t recognise her blonde hair with its almost boyish cut, her brilliant blue eyes, the smile made somehow more appealing by the faintest scar at the corner of her mouth. Even after all these years working for her, Eric couldn’t quite believe that she was actually in the room with him. When he looked at her, it was as if he was in the cinema and she was five times bigger than him, on the screen.

‘I’ll see you later then.’ Melissa turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

‘You’d better take an umbrella, miss! It looks like rain,’ Phyllis called after her.

Melissa answered with a single raised hand. And then she had gone.

Phyllis waited a few seconds before she turned on Eric. ‘What do you think you were doing?’ she demanded, angrily.

‘What do you mean?’ Eric braced himself.

‘You were staring at her.’

‘I was doing no such thing!’

‘Eyes like saucers!’ Phyllis rested her hands on her hips in true Mrs Tiggy-Winkle mode. ‘You’re going to get us both thrown out of here if you behave like that.’

‘Mum … ’ Eric felt the violence, rising in waves.

‘Sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Eric. Sitting here all the time, on your own. It’s not healthy.’

Eric closed his eyes. Here it comes again, he thought.

‘You should have found yourself a young lady by now, someone to walk out with. I know you’re not much to look at and you’ve got that foot of yours – but even so! There’s that girl at the Moonflower. Nancy. I know her mother. They’re a perfectly nice family. Why don’t you invite her over to tea?’

He allowed her to prattle on, her voice fading into the distance. One day, he knew, he would have had enough. He wouldn’t be able to control himself any more. And what then?

He had no idea.

*

Melissa James came out of the kitchen and crossed the hall on her way to the front door. The floor was uncarpeted and almost automatically, not thinking what she was doing, she walked as quietly as possible, her feet making no sound on the wooden floor. It would be so nice to leave the house without another confrontation. Didn’t she have enough on her mind already?

Phyllis had been right. It did look as if more rain was on its way – it had barely stopped all week – but she had no intention of taking an umbrella. Melissa had always thought of umbrellas as ridiculous inventions. Either the rain swept in underneath them or the wind tried to tug them out of your hand. She would only use one if someone else was holding it for her, when she was on set or when she got out of a car at a movie premiere. But that was different. That was what was expected of her. Right now, she reached out for the raincoat on the hatstand by the door and draped it over her shoulders.

She had bought Clarence Keep in a moment of madness – at a time when she could buy almost anything without giving the cost any thought. It was an odd name for a house. A keep was the strongest part of a castle, a last resort. But that wasn’t at all what she had intended it to be. And although she had fallen in love with it the moment she saw it, it looked nothing like a castle.

Clarence Keep was a Regency folly built by a military commander, Sir James Clarence, who had fought in the American War of Independence and who had gone on to become governor of Jamaica. Perhaps that was where he had found his inspiration as the house he had built was largely made of wood, painted a dazzling white, with elegant windows looking out onto wide, empty lawns that dropped down towards the sea. A wide veranda ran either side of the front door and there was a balcony coming off the main bedroom, which was directly above. The lawns were perfectly flat and an intense, almost tropical green. Only the palm trees were missing. The house could have belonged in a plantation.

It was said that Queen Victoria had once stayed there. It had briefly belonged to William Railton, the architect who had designed Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. When Melissa had found it, Clarence Keep had long been abandoned and she had taken it on in the full knowledge that it would cost a lot of money to restore it to its Regency prime. Just how much money, though, had come as an unpleasant surprise. She had no sooner dealt with the dry rot than the damp presented itself as the next challenge. Flood damage, foundation failure, subsidence and a dozen other problems had queued up for her autograph, in each case on the front of a cheque. Had it finally been worth it? The house was beautiful. She loved living there, waking up with the sea views and the sound of the breaking waves, strolling in the garden (when the weather allowed), hosting weekend parties. But sometimes she thought that the fight had exhausted her in more ways than one.

Financially, certainly.

How had she allowed things to get so out of hand? It had been five years since she had made a film in Hollywood, three years since she had done any acting work at all. She had completely thrown herself into life in Tawleigh-on-the-Water, finishing the house, extending her business interests, playing tennis and bridge, horse riding, making friends … getting married. It was as if she had decided to turn her life into the greatest part she had ever played. Of course, her bank manager had warned her. Her accountants had written to her. She still remembered her agents screaming down the phone at her from New York. But Melissa had been enjoying herself too much to listen to them. She had made a string of successful films in England and in America. Her face had been on the front covers of Woman’s Weekly, Life and even (after she had played opposite James Cagney) True Detective. She would work when she needed to work. She was Melissa James. When she chose to make her comeback, she would be even bigger than she had been before.

It had to be soon. Somehow, she had allowed the bills to mount up to such an extent that they almost took her breath away. She was paying five salaries. She was supporting a boat and two horses. The business she had bought – the Moonflower Hotel – was full for at least half the year and should have been making her a handsome profit. Instead, it was running at a loss. She had been assured that her investments were doing well but so far they hadn’t actually returned any profit. Worse still, as both her British and her American agents had explained, there might not be quite as many film parts for her as she had expected. It seemed that, having turned forty, she had moved into a new marketplace. There were younger actresses – Jayne Mansfield, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor – who had inherited her mantle. Suddenly she was being asked to play their mother! And the worst of it was that being the mother didn’t pay.

Still, Melissa refused to worry. When she had started out years ago, as a bit-part actress in the cheap ‘quota quickies’ that British producers had made simply because they were forced to, she had dreamed of the day when she would be an international star. She had known with absolute certainty that it would happen. She was the sort of person who always got what she wanted. And that was exactly how she felt now. Only that morning she had received a wonderful script, a thriller in which she would play the lead part, a woman whose husband tried to murder her and who then framed her when the attempt went wrong. It was going to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which meant that it would certainly be a box-office hit. It was true that the part hadn’t actually been offered to her. She was going to have to meet Mr Hitchcock in London when he arrived in a couple of weeks. But Melissa was confident. The part could have been written for her and, she reflected, as soon as she got into a room with the screenwriters, she would make sure that it was.

All these thoughts had gone through her mind as she walked to the door, but before she could open it she heard footsteps behind her and knew at once that it was Francis Pendleton, her husband, coming down the stairs. For a brief moment she thought about continuing on her way, leaving the house as if she hadn’t heard him. But that would never work. Better not to make a thing of it.

She turned and smiled. ‘I’m just going out,’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘The hotel. I want to talk to the Gardners.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No! No need! I’ll only be half an hour.’