The Midnight Rose by Lucinda Riley Page A

that she had two hours before her appointment with the voice coach.
    One of the dressers had told her earlier that it was apparently possible to get a cell phone signal if you walked in the direction of the moors, so she ran upstairs to get her phone. Shooting had already started in the drawing room, and as she slipped out through the French doors in the dining room that led to the terrace further along, her stomach turned over at the thought that it would be her in front of the cameras tomorrow.
    Walking down the crumbling stone steps and into the garden, Rebecca marched at a brisk pace across it. Sitting down on the bench where she’d spied the gardener yesterday, she tried her cell phone, which was oscillating between one bar and none.
    “Damn!” she said as yet again her voice mail refused to connect.
    “Everything all right?”
    Rebecca started at the voice and looked toward the rose beds where she saw the gardener she’d met last night holding a pair of pruning shears.
    “Yes, I’m okay, thanks. I just can’t get a signal on my cell.”
    “Sorry. Dreadful coverage we have here.”
    “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be cut off. Actually, I’m rather enjoying it,” she confided. “Do you like working here?” she asked him politely.
    He gave her an odd look, then nodded. “I’ve never thought about it like that, but I suppose I do. I can’t imagine being anywhere else, anyway.”
    “It must be a gardener’s dream here. Those roses are magnificent,such beautiful colors, especially the one you’re pruning. It’s such a deep velvety purple, it’s almost black.”
    “Yes,” he agreed, “it’s named the Midnight Rose and it’s rather a mysterious plant. It’s been here as long as I have and should have died many years ago. Yet, every year without fail, it blooms as though it’s just been planted.”
    “All I have in my apartment are some indoor potted plants.”
    “You like gardening, do you?”
    “When I was growing up, I used to have my own small patch in my parents’ garden. I used to feel it was a comforting place.”
    “There’s certainly something about exerting control over the land that helps pick away frustrations,” the gardener said, nodding in agreement. “How are you finding it here after the States?”
    “It’s completely different from anywhere I’ve ever been before, but I just had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years. It’s so peaceful here. But they’re moving me to a hotel later today. I don’t think Lord Astbury wants houseguests. To be honest,” Rebecca confessed, “I wish I could stay. I feel safe here.”
    “Well, you never know, Lord Astbury might change his mind. By the way”—he indicated her cell phone—“if you ask Mrs. Trevathan, you may be able to use the landline in his study.”
    “Okay, thanks, I will,” said Rebecca, standing up. “See you around.”
    “Here”—the gardener clipped off a single stem of a perfect Midnight Rose—“something pretty to look at in your room. The smell is quite beautiful.”
    “Thank you,” Rebecca said, touched by the gift. “I’ll put it in water right away.”
    Eventually, finding Mrs. Trevathan in the kitchen, she explained that she needed a vase for her rose and that the gardener had said there was a phone in the study. Mrs. Trevathan led her into a small, dark room lined with bookshelves, the desk piled high with unevenly stacked papers.
    “There you go, but don’t be too long if it’s to America. His lordship has a fit as it is over the telephone bills. I’ll bring the rose up to your room later.”
    Mrs. Trevathan left the room, and Rebecca thought that “his lordship” sounded like an ogre.
    Sitting down and finding the number on her cell, she picked up the receiver of the ancient telephone, which had a circular dial with numbers written on it. Finally, having worked out what to do, she insertedher finger into the holes one-by-one and turned the dial to call Jack. Guiltily, she