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Автор Alexandra Brown

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Harper

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

The News Building

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015

Copyright © Alexandra Brown 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Alexandra Brown asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007597390

Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780007597406

Version: 2016-04-25

For Mavis Holdsworth Mercer

26 November 1928 – 15 January 2015

My Doncaster nanny, a lady who was always very

kind to me xxx

‘Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer’s year – it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul. ’

–Anonymous

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Alexandra Brown

About the Publisher

Jessie Cavendish hadn’t been sure about uprooting from their elegant Chelsea mews house and re-locating to the quaint, but quite muddy, little village of Tindledale. Having grown up in a rural, close-knit, welly-wearing community, she knew first hand how incestuous they could be and how isolated they could make one feel. Yet, as she hiked on up to the highest point overlooking the valley, landmarked by the biggest oak tree she had ever seen, pausing to catch her breath as she slipped off her cardy and tied it neatly around her waist, she realised that the more she saw of this idyllic part of the world, the more she rather liked it.