Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 130255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
“Well, I suppose that is nicer than he was yesterday,” Esme agreed. “You’ll notice I left the goat at home today.”
I glanced around her. “Yes. I assumed you’d had enough of him eating your plants.”
“Mm. He’s a greedy little shit. Fantastic to have around when the shrubs need pruning, though.”
I fought back a smile. “I’d imagine he is.”
Esme nodded. “Right, then. I’ll leave you to your day. I did promise Max I wouldn’t bug you for too long.”
“It’s very rude of him to assume you’re bugging me.”
“That’s what I said. Alas, he disagrees.”
“Do you think he ever tires of being wrong?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Every day, my dear. You’d think he’d learn by now, wouldn’t you?”
I grinned.
“I must say, I am glad that you’re just as amusing in real life as you are in your books.” She paused. “Although perhaps that’s a sentiment I should reserve for romance authors and not so much the mystery ones.”
I nodded slowly. “Yes, I have to agree with you there.”
“Probably for the best. What was I doing? Oh, yes, I was leaving. Dearie me.” She stepped back away from the door. “I shall see you soon, Ellie, dear.”
“See you soon. And thank you for the cake.”
“Don’t forget to bring that box back to me. They’re annoyingly expensive for what they are.”
“I’ll bring it to the book club at the latest,” I assured her.
“Excellent. Well, then, I’ll be off.” She navigated the stones that lined the flowerbed and swiftly disappeared around a thick tree trunk.
Esme really was a ride—and a wild one at that.
• • •
The way the sun rose behind Greygarth Lodge was the thing of dreams. Lazy rays of sun cast a hazy golden sheen over the furthest edges of the lake, and even though it was cold in the shade, it didn’t stop me curling up on a bench with a blanket around my shoulders and a cup of tea to experience it.
Living in a city centre didn’t offer much in the way of experiences like this. The only sunrise I was used to seeing was one that glinted off windows of high-rise buildings and cast tall shadows across the ground.
I wasn’t even sure why I lived in London. Perhaps it was the ease of things for meetings with my agent and my publisher. Maybe it was because it was what was expected of a successful writer, despite all the ideas that authors lived in huge country houses and danced around with bluebirds like a freaking Disney princess.
I’d grown up in the countryside—although in a terraced cottage rather than an expansive estate like this one—and it wasn’t much of a coincidence that my struggle for inspiration had started when I’d moved to the city.
It was hard to be inspired by dullness.
That was how I felt about London. When you moved away from the touristy areas rich in history, it was just… dull. Skyscrapers and sirens and honking car horns weren’t nearly as inspiring as rolling green fields and a horizon that allowed a sunset to shine.
At least that was how I felt. Others would disagree with me, and that was fine. We were all inspired by different things, and for me, today, right now, it was the sun rising and casting its beautiful golden glow over the lake.
It crept across the still water at a glacial pace, yet the actual rising of the sun took no more than ten minutes for the sky to move from the hazy shade of dawn to the brighter blue of the early morning.
After heading back inside to escape the chill of the morning, I pushed one of the old windows open and secured it on the latch. Winston was too chunky to get through the tiny gap it left—he’d already attempted it more than once since we’d arrived—so I was fine with leaving it open.
For now, I just wanted to listen to the sounds of the morning.
Birdsong was the most prevalent. It was a wave of titters and chirps and louder, longer calls of the song thrush. Various sizes of birds flittered across the sky from tree to tree, from shrub to shrub, swooping down to sometimes brush the surface of the lake and send gentle ripples along the otherwise perfectly still water.
Ducks quacked from somewhere, and I turned in just enough time to see a pure black duck waddle out from some shrubbery and hop into the lake. She was swiftly followed by a string of nine fluffy, black ducklings that hesitated at the edge of the bank. Mummy duck turned and quacked as they shuffled side to side, and she quacked again, shaking her tail feathers.
One took the leap, and the others all followed in a way that was almost co-ordinated. The way they all immediately swarmed around her brought a smile to my face, and within a second, the mum took off swimming, and there was a long string of her little ducklings chugging along behind her.