Chapter 13

Helena winced. It did make things a little awkward, she had to admit, and it was certainly not something that she and Emma would ever be able to laugh about. But surely the awkwardness of the situation was for the two women to work out, not Bryan?

‘Hello, there!’

Helena flinched as she easily recognised her grandfather’s strident tones, turning slowly to watch him as he strolled down the front steps of Whitelemon Hall.

Still tall and erect, his bearing military even though he had retired from the army over twenty years ago, Helenael Boschhad a full head of iron-grey hair and a neatly trimmed moustache. His clothes—a checked jacket over a twill shirt worn with brown corduroys—added to his ‘country squire’ image.

‘We’ve been waiting for you to bring your visitor up to the house, Helena,’ he reproved as he joined them in the driveway.

Introducing Bryan to any of her family—least of all her tactlessly outspoken grandfather—was not something Helena wanted to do. But in the circumstances it