Читать книгу Tall, Dark And Dangerous - Kate Proctor - Страница 6

GINNY PRICE flopped down on the cobbled terrace, a sigh of frustration escaping her as she leaned back against the huge, plant-filled terracotta pot with which she had been wrestling. It had been heavy enough empty, she reflected exasperatedly, and now it weighed a ton. Only a complete idiot would have filled the wretched thing before positioning it in its destined spot—and she was that idiot!

But at least she had finished the Lebauts’ garden without committing any similar amateurish blunder, she consoled herself, and even better, she had been generously paid for her efforts. Her spirit boosted by the memory, she lazily brushed some of the soil from her cut-down denim dungarees before adjusting her battered straw hat, almost the same colour as the short-cropped hair capping her head, and let the late afternoon Mediterranean sun play against the tanned oval of her face.

With Libby’s baby due in two months, it was wise to get all the money they could in the kitty, she thought, a dreamy smile widening the generous curve of her mouth, just to be sure they had every possible contingency covered.

For one who had never in her life had to take the cost of anything into consideration, Libby had become a zealous convert to economising, thought Ginny with a lazy chuckle of indulgence.

‘It’s not as though I’ll not be seeing someone just as qualified as Sylvie,’ Libby had stated, with the studied firmness of one not wholly convinced, having learned, during her last check-up in Cannes that her obstetrician, a woman who had gone to endless lengths to gain her confidence, would be spending the following month at a sister clinic in Paris. ‘I mean, she did say I could see her in Paris, if I wanted…’

‘And you obviously want,’ Ginny had laughed, giving the plainly troubled American girl a comforting hug. She knew that an emergency appendectomy at an early age had left Libby decidedly edgy about matters medical—and how ruthlessly her friend had suppressed all her fears for the sake of the baby she was carrying. ‘So go ahead. That friend of yours, Jeanne, has invited you to stay with her often enough—and she knows about the baby…’

Ginny sat up, frowning, her thoughts scattered by the sight of a car turning up the drive. It was a white, open-topped sports car, one of those fortunes on wheels, she noted with amusement, that Libby would probably have been able to identify in an instant.

She craned her neck as the car, instead of stopping and reversing as she had expected, continued up the drive towards her. The driver probably realised it was semi-circular and would keep going, she told herself, only to find the car drawing to a halt beside her.

It was as the man stepped from the car, and while Ginny was scrambling inelegantly to her feet, that she got her first real sight of him and found herself having to bite back an exclamation of disbelief. So much for her always having pooh-poohed the idea of there being a man of her dreams, she thought weakly—though this particular man, appearing as if from the blue, was no doubt the physical embodiment of a good many women’s dreams!

He was tall, perhaps an inch or two over six feet, with a lithe, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped body that was in perfect proportion to his height. His hair was dark, not the black her first glimpse had taken it to be, but a deep, dark mahogany that the sun had streaked here and there with attractive splashes of coppery gold. With all this man had going for him, thought Ginny with amused disbelief, he could afford a flaw or two where his features were concerned. But apart from the decidedly bad-tempered expression adorning the chiselled perfection of those features she was now minutely examining, there was nothing she found that could be remotely described as a flaw. And as for the dark luxuriance of the lashes surrounding those widespaced, startlingly blue eyes, she thought with amused fascination that she could think of a number of women who would kill to possess them!

It was only when the man stopped speaking and flung her a look of undisguised impatience that the fact hit Ginny that he had been speaking—in French far too rapid for her grasp, and in an accent very much like Libby’s.

Dear God, the man was American, she thought, her intrigued amusement flattened by a sudden rush of panic.

‘It’s all right…I mean, I do speak English,’ she cut in disjointedly, when the man again began addressing her in French. ‘In fact, I am English,’ she waffled inanely. ‘Are you lost?’

It was a question inspired by naïve wishfulness and one, a sudden flash of intuitive pessimism warned her, with as much hope of receiving an affirmative answer as she had of flying to the moon.

‘No,’ he said, one delicately arched brow rising quizzically. ‘Why—are you?’

‘No, of course I’m not,’ exclaimed Ginny, only too aware of the flustered picture she was presenting. ‘It’s just that we don’t often come across strangers around here,’ she added half-heartedly.

‘That’s the whole idea of having a place like this,’ he murmured in that attractively drawly accent so like Libby’s. ‘You don’t often get pestered by trespassing strangers…So, tell me, who are you?’

‘I’m the gardener,’ stammered Ginny, too thrown by the question either to notice its innuendo or to query his right to be asking it. ‘The person who owns the place isn’t here at the moment.’

‘On the contrary,’ he said, giving her an unsettlingly ambivalent look before turning and lifting a couple of gleaming leather cases from the back of the car, ‘the person who owns it is right here before you.’

‘I…Who are you?’ croaked Ginny, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her—Libby had sworn her family always gave the company overseeing the estate at least a couple of weeks’ notice before arriving!

‘Michael Grant,’ he replied, a faint hint of amusement in the vivid blue of the eyes taking open stock of her obvious consternation. ‘And I can only assume you’re one of Libby’s many and varied friends,’ he added. For an instant, Ginny thought he was about to hold out a hand for her to shake; it rose, instead, to clutch theatrically at his head. ‘Sorry—I forgot—you’re the gardener.’

‘I’m also a friend of Libby’s,’ stated Ginny, acutely aware of the distaste behind his reference to Libby’s ‘many and varied friends’. He could hardly be expected to know that she held similar feelings towards that group of ruthless spongers who had once peopled Libby’s life, but who were now, mercifully, no longer part of it.

‘OK, so you’re a friend of Libby’s,’ he stated without interest, picking up his luggage and striding towards the creeper-clad villa. ’I’ve driven straight through from Paris, so you’ll forgive me if my only interest is in getting into a bath-tub and sluicing off the grime from the journey rather than socialising with you right now.’

Had she just driven five hundred miles or so, mused Ginny as she followed him into the house, she would have resembled a limp rag; yet there was barely a crease in the pale, immaculately tailored lightweight trousers of the man striding nonchalantly ahead of her, nor even in the dark silk shirt skimming with no trace of dampness the broad contours of his back.

She halted momentarily in her tracks, her exasperated intake of breath audible as she realised that it was the appalling problem of Michael Grant’s presence she should be dwelling on rather than his undeniable sartorial elegance.

‘Did you say something?’ he demanded, a look of irritation on his handsome features as he turned his head to her.

‘No,’ muttured Ginny, feeling hopelessly out of her depth. ‘But I was about to make tea—would you like some…or coffee, perhaps?’

‘Now, that’s original—the gardener offering me tea in my own place,’ he murmured, the scowl darkening. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a live-in gardener?’

‘But I am,’ protested Ginny, colour rushing mortifyingly to her cheeks. ‘I mean…I do…live here, that is. I do the housekeeping as well as the gardening.’

‘You don’t say,’ he drawled, his eyes narrowing in undisguised scrutiny. ‘And my niece—is she around?’

His niece, thought Ginny weakly, her mind scrabbling in vain to dredge up what it could on Libby’s tyrannical family. He could only be around thirty—surely too young to be an uncle?

‘She’s in Paris…she went to see some friends.’

‘I’m surprised she didn’t move them all down here with her,’ he stated, sarcasm oozing from his every word. ‘Or are you about to tell me she’s filled the place and is off visiting with the overspill?’

‘Only the two of us are staying here,’ replied Ginny, stung by the undisguised hostility of his tone, but feeling a reluctant understanding in the light of Libby’s chequered past. ‘And, to put your mind at rest, Libby no longer mixes with the sort of people she once did.’

‘So, you think my mind needs putting at rest, do you?’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘I don’t know your name.’

‘It’s Ginny—Ginny Price.’

‘And you’re telling me you’re not one of the usual free-loaders Libby has around her, is that it, Ginny?’

‘I most certainly am not a free-loader!’ she exclaimed with fiery indignation—now he was being downright rude.

‘Glad to hear it,’ he drawled, turning and continuing on into the house. ‘I’ll have the bedroom overlooking the cypress grove—if no one else is using it, that is.’

‘No one’s using it,’ snapped Ginny. ‘I’ll see to bedlinen for you. If you’d let us know you were coming, I could have had everything ready for you.’ As would any housekeeper-cum-gardener being paid the relative fortune she allegedly was, added Ginny silently to herself, her blood running cold at the mere thought.

‘I’m the kind of guy who prefers doing things on the spur of the moment,’ he retorted as be began climbing the wide, curving staircase. ‘Give me half an hour or so to get myself cleaned up,’ he added as he disappeared from view, ‘then I’ll gladly join you for tea.’

Ginny flew to the large, old-fashioned kitchen and flung herself down on one of the chairs at the huge, scrubbed wood table dominating it.

She had to get a grip on herself, think things through!

‘Libby, what have you got me into?’ she groaned softly, folding her arms against the table and lowering her head defeatedly on to them.

To most observers, the friendship that had sprung up between the rebellious American girl with a background of untold wealth, and the unnaturally subdued English girl without a penny to her name must have seemed one of the most unlikely imaginable.

‘The reason we’re over here is that my new stepmother is English—so my dad’s doing research at Trinity,’ the twelve-year-old Libby Collier had announced by way of introduction, on their first day at the small Cambridge secondary school at which Ginny would remain for the next four years and Libby for less than one.

‘Will you still be my friend when I’ve gone?’ Libby had later demanded, when their unlikely friendship had blossomed to a peculiarly mutual dependency.

‘Why would you go?’ Ginny had asked, devastated by even the thought of losing the one friend she had found in the barren new existence fate had imposed on her.

‘I know I won’t be here long,’ Libby had stated with prophetic despondency. ‘Jane’s my third stepmother, but she won’t last any longer than the others. In the academic world, my dad’s considered some sort of genius, but he’s just a birdbrain when it comes to personal relationships. He keeps saying my mom’s the only woman he’s ever truly loved…Why did she have to die?’ she had railed disconsolately.

‘At least you have your father!’ Ginny had rounded on her friend with a savagery born of her own stillgaping wounds. ‘Less than two years ago both my parents were killed in a car crash. That’s why I had to come here…and live with an aunt who hates me!’

She gave a weary shake of her head as she lifted it from her arms. It wasn’t strictly true to say that her aunt Irene hated her, she told herself bitterly, but there was no denying that the love her parents had lavished on her until the day they had been so brutally snatched from her ten-year-old life had had to last her the rest of her childhood.

Love had always been a stranger in Irene Bond’s house. She had felt nothing but disapproval for the vivacious sister, fifteen years her junior, who had so often in her short life tried to wean her from the almost fanatically rigid set of her ways and from the gratuitous penny-pinching that coloured her every move. Irene had regarded the entry of that sister’s child into her ordered life as nothing more than a chore to be tackled with the minimum of disruption to her routine.

Ginny gave another shake of her head, this time in an effort to rid it of the cloying bitterness of those memories.

Chalk and cheese she and Libby might have been, she reminisced sadly, but the mutual desperation of need that had first drawn them together had forged a bond between them that the years apart had never weakened.

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden sound of the telephone ringing, then leapt to her feet and raced to the wall extension.

‘Hi, Ginny! Bad news for the kitty, I’m afraid—I’m being kept in overnight at the clinic. Though it won’t cost any more here than it does in Cannes and I’d have had to stay——’

‘Libby, for heaven’s sake, what’s wrong?’

‘My darned blood-sugar’s up a bit again, but it’s nothing to worry about—it’s not even up as much as it was last time, but they’re insisting on running all those tests again, but only to be one hundred and ten per cent on the safe side.’

‘Poor you,’ sympathised Ginny, silently thanking her lucky stars Libby had followed her obstetrician to Paris—there was no guaranteeing how she might have responded to that sort of news from another specialist. ‘And don’t you dare worry about the kitty—it’s extremely healthy, thanks to the fact that the Lebauts have just paid me for the work I did on their garden…Libby, are you sure you’re OK?’

‘Ginny, I’m a pampered heiress,’ teased Libby, sounding on top of the world, ‘the sort who gets hospitalised for a month with an ingrown toe-nail—so stop fussing!’

‘I’m not,’ sighed Ginny. ‘I just had to make sure you were up to hearing the news…Your uncle’s just arrived.’

‘David?’ groaned Libby.

‘He says his name’s Michael,’ said Ginny, her eyes widening with alarm. She knew relatively little about Libby’s family, except that they were ghastly—and it hadn’t even occurred to her to ask for proof of the caller’s identity. ‘He seems terribly young to be your uncle,’ she added nervously.

‘If the guy you’re referring to looks as though he’s just stepped off the cover of a movie magazine, that’s my uncle Michael,’ replied Libby hollowly. ‘He’s only about eight or nine years older than I am—the baby of the Grant dynasty, but lethal all the same.’

‘He says he owns the villa.’

‘Now you mention it, he does,’ muttered Libby vaguely, her mind plainly on other things. ‘Darn it, this is the last thing we need…Did he say how long he’d be staying?’

‘No, but he obviously wasn’t in the least pleased to find me in residence,’ replied Ginny, then related what had happened.

‘I should have realised one of them would show up here sooner or later to check on me,’ stated Libby morosely. ‘I guess Michael must be in France on business, but don’t worry, he won’t waste too much time hanging around waiting for me to show up—hotshot tycoons like him measure their time in bucks,’ she added, equally morosely. ‘Where is he right now?’

‘Having a bath. Libby, what am I supposed to say to him?’

‘Anything, as long as it’s not the fact I’m pregnant—that’s the last thing I need them knowing!’

‘Not to mention the father-to-be,’ exclaimed Ginny wearily, wondering, as she had innumerable times before, how her brash, rash friend always managed to end up in a muddle, even now, when she had matured beyond all recognition and had her life mapped out before her with the man she so passionately loved. ‘Libby, you keep saying you intend making your peace with the Grants once you and Jean-Claude are married, but now that your uncle’s here——’

‘No! Now’s completely the wrong time!’

‘Libby, don’t you think it’s time you sat down and had a serious rethink about all this—at least about contacting Jean-Claude and telling him about the baby?’

‘We’ve been through all that,’ protested Libby edgily. ‘Ginny, don’t even think about telling Michael anything. I just couldn’t handle it right now.’

‘Libby, love, I shan’t tell him a thing,’ exclaimed Ginny. ‘You know I wouldn’t—but just what am I supposed to say to him?’

‘Just stall him!’ the American girl begged, a note of panic entering her tone. ‘Tell him I’m in Paris on business—you never know, he might even swallow it, once he’s finished laughing…I don’t know,’ she sighed, sounding suddenly very unsure of herself. ‘Just tell him you don’t know when I’ll be back.’

‘Don’t worry—I’ll come up with something,’ said Ginny, that uncharacteristic note of vulnerability in Libby’s voice making her inject a confidence she was far from feeling into her words. ‘You’re not to worry.’

‘I can’t help it with Michael around—I’m just not up to facing the Grants yet,’ sighed Libby, then unexpectedly gave one of her irrepressible chuckles. ‘You know, if I didn’t know you so well, I’d say Michael would be a great choice for you to loosen up with and get rid of those sexual hang-ups you claim you don’t have.’

‘Libby!’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not recommending it,’ laughed Libby. ‘He’s far too dangerous for you—you’d probably end up in love with him.’

‘So, the man actually has a few lovable points,’ teased Ginny, relieved to hear Libby’s laughter, despite its cause.

Oh, he’s lovable, all right,’ sighed Libby. ‘And I was one of his greatest fans until a while back—not that I ever saw as much of him as I’d have liked. Being so much nearer my age, he never went in for breathing down my neck the way the rest of the family did…or so I kidded myself. It was Michael’s spying on me and reporting back to Grandpa and David that resulted in my not getting control of my own money once I reached twenty-one.’

Ginny felt a twinge of guilt as she found herself thinking that Libby, at twenty-one, was the last person to whom anyone in his right mind would have handed over control of a considerable fortune.

‘Ginny, I know what you’re thinking,’ said Libby, ‘and you’re right, but it was the low-down way he went about it that blew him as far as I was concerned. Even m my wildest days, I always had a few decent friends—and not all of them stuck away on the other side of the Atlantic. Michael picked one as his victim and seduced her into telling him all she knew about me—then he dropped her like a hot potato.’

‘Charming!’ exclaimed Ginny, wrinkling her nose in disgust. ‘Luckily I’m far too sexually repressed for that sort of ploy to work on me,’ she added teasingly, while inwardly squirming at the memory of her initial reaction to him—there had been nothing in the least repressed about that. ‘Anyway, we’re probably making far too much of this—for all we know, this is just a flying visit.’

‘You’re right,’ agreed Libby. ‘Luckily Jeanne has said it’s OK for me to stay at her place as long as I like. See if you can find out how long he reckons on being around—I’ll give you a call tomorrow.’

‘What if he answers the phone?’

‘So I’ll speak to him—and tell him how sorry I am to have missed him. Meanwhile, watch yourself—the way that guy wields charm, repression doesn’t get a look-in!’

Charm? What charm? During the past few hours the man had displayed about as much charm as a rattlesnake, Ginny fumed to herself, as she carried a tray of coffee out on to the terrace after dinner.

It was one of those evenings of balmy perfection, the sort that, no matter how many times she experienced it, she knew she would never grow to take for granted. Sitting on the terrace, listening to the innumerable sounds that filled the silence of the night as they drank their coffee, was a ritual she and Libby had fallen into of late. But tonight there was an oppressive charge in the air that had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the man now taking a seat beside her.

He was so impossibly good-looking, she thought with a twinge of exasperation, so much so that she kept finding herself watching him with slightly detached disbelief instead of preparing herself for the moment when he would pounce. And pounce he most certainly would, she warned herself nervously, because, apart from the anger that had briefly flashed across his features when she had first told him, he had taken the news of Libby’s phone call, and the lack of any mention of her return, with barely a comment. But over dinner his cloak of restrained urbanity had begun slipping, to an extent that he had begun reminding her of her aunt Irene in the manner he had of looking down his decidedly patrician nose at her as he delivered his carefully chosen barbs.

‘Let’s see if I have this right,’ he murmured ominously, as they drank their coffee. ‘You’re my gardener,’ he stated, giving slight, but none the less calculated emphasis to the possessive pronoun.

Ginny felt her heart plummet as she wondered if he was aware that he was paying the top rate for both a gardener and a housekeeper.

‘And you also keep house for me,’ he continued.

Ginny remained silent, battling against rising to the deliberate edge of offensiveness in his tone as she waited for her worst fears to be confirmed.

‘But then, I’ve been paying you pretty well for both these jobs,’ he murmured silkily. ‘I don’t have any beef about the housekeeping—your excellent cooking’s worth every cent of that. It’s the keeping up the grounds——’

‘Keeping up the grounds?’ exploded Ginny as she lost the battle with herself. ‘Either your memory doesn’t serve you in the least well, Mr Grant, or you know nothing about gardens. This place was a wilderness when I took it on! Nobody had touched the place since your last gardener retired.’

‘He’d only been gone a couple of months when you started,’ he retorted. ‘Hardly enough time for the place to deteriorate into the wilderness you’re claiming it was.’

Ginny took a gulp of her drink, simply to prevent herself retaliating. If what he said was true, the garden had been neglected for several months before her predecessor had retired, not that she saw anything to be gained by pointing that out to him.

‘And, even though I am technically your employer, you don’t have to call me Mr Grant—Michael will do.’

‘And you may call me Ginny,’ she retorted, incensed by his patronising tone.

‘I hadn’t intended calling you anything else,’ he informed her with a hint of a chuckle. ‘Tell me, Ginny, what brought you to France?’

‘Several things, really,’ she parried, unsettled by the sheer unexpectedness of the question and the mishmash of unpleasant memories it evoked. ‘I felt like a change of scenery.’ And that, she supposed grimly, was one way of putting it; except that with a married boss who couldn’t keep his hands to himself and an aunt who had literally shown her the door once her problems at work had become the subject of speculative gossip, a change of scenery had become a vital necessity. Libby’s coinciding cry for help had been one she had responded to by cashing in her savings and taking off for France without a moment’s hesitation.

‘What—you decided you’d like to try gardening here instead of back home in England?’

‘No, I…Yes.’ She broke off, furious with herself for having become so visibly flustered. ‘I wasn’t doing gardening in England…but it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’ It would have been safer to lie, she thought exasperatedly, and it would have given her a bit of practice for all the lies she would have to start coming up with in the very near future.

‘So, you decided you’d cut your teeth on my property, did you?’ he enquired with chilling softness.

‘Of course I didn’t,’ she exclaimed, reliving all the misgivings she had felt when Libby had airily informed her that, apart from billing the villa accounts for the services of a housekeeper to augment their income, they would also claim for a gardener. ‘I did an introductory gardening and landscaping course——’

‘Introductory?’

‘I had hoped to go on to do the full course, but wasn’t able to.’ And probably never would, since her savings towards that course had been what she and Libby had lived on at first. ‘But I haven’t had any complaints about my work yet—unless, that is, you intend making one now.’

‘If I find anything to complain about, you’ll hear me loud and clear,’ he replied, draining his cup and rising.

Ginny watched in mounting disbelief as his tall figure strode to the terrace steps—surely he didn’t intend checking out her work here and now—in the dark!

‘I’d almost forgotten what made me fall in love with this place,’ he announced as he gazed around him.

Ginny gave a start of surprise, remembering how she too had fallen in love at her first sight of the villa, and her inability to accept the idea of such a place not being lived in to the hilt, but instead being merely one of several rarely used retreats owned by a family to whom money was plainly not a consideration.

‘One of the reasons I decided to come here was to see for myself what sort of shape the place is in and what, if anything, needs doing to it,’ he said as he returned to the table.

‘But it’s perfect,’ protested Ginny before she could bite back the words.

‘Even perfection starts fraying at the edges if it’s not properly maintained,’ he mocked, pouring them both more coffee—the first time he had lifted so much as a finger since his arrival, Ginny noted caustically. ‘And those agents of mine don’t exactly break their backs earning their fees.’ He sat down. ‘So, tell me about yourself, Ginny,’ he said conversationally. ‘I’m interested in your connection with my niece.’

‘We went to school together in England,’ she replied, striving to remain calm in the face of his aptitude for making even the most harmless of statements sound faintly derogatory.

‘Oh, the English stepmother—she didn’t last any longer than the rest of them,’ he muttered almost to himself. ‘Libby could only have been a kid then.’

‘We were both twelve.’

‘That must be one hell of a friendship the two of you struck up, to have survived that long,’ he observed sceptically. ‘She couldn’t have been in England more than five minutes.’

‘We were at school together for almost a year,’ corrected Ginny, trying in vain to mask her growing resentment. ‘And not only did we write to one another, we also managed to meet once or twice over the years. Of all her ex-stepmothers, Jane’s the one Libby is closest to and still sees whenever she can.’

‘From what I’ve heard, it was always handy for Libby to have England to escape to from whatever mess she got herself into in the States,’ he stated, his heavy-lidded eyes coolly watchful. ‘Though it seems she’s now traded in England for France…Or will she end up running back to England from here this time, instead of from the States?’

‘I suppose it’s never occurred to you that it might be her family she’s always running from?’ exploded Ginny, and instantly regretted her outburst. ‘Look, I’m sorry—I had no right to say that,’ she apologised, certain she had, but even more certain that if she didn’t get her temper in hand she would end up giving something away.

‘No, you hadn’t,’ he agreed, his eyes blazing. ‘So Libby’s still running, is she? If that’s the case, I think it’s time we cut the pussy-footing and got on to what it is you and she are up to here!’

‘Up to?’ croaked Ginny. ‘We’re not up to anything! And you misunderstood me—I didn’t mean to imply Libby was actually running from you now!’

‘So what’s she doing?’

‘How do you mean, exactly?’

He flashed her a look of irritation. ‘A couple of years back, Libby got herself involved with a playboy French aristocrat—a guy with about as much idea of responsibility as she has—and later followed him to France. He disappeared off the scene several months ago and she’s been living down here ever since—and no one’s heard a word from her.’

‘I’ve heard from her!’ retorted Ginny, astounded by how much he seemed to know. But if only he knew the rest of it; how, accepting they both had irresponsible pasts to live down, Jean-Claude and Libby had agreed to his parents’ conditions to giving their marriage their blessing—a year’s total separation, during which time Jean-Claude proved himself in the family business and neither came within a hair’s breadth of scandal. ‘I’ve heard from her,’ repeated Ginny, the words losing their edge of indignation as she struggled to shake free from those thoughts. ‘She wrote and asked me to join her here.’

‘That’s not the story you were giving me a few moments ago.’

‘I wasn’t giving you a story a few moments ago,’ she protested, his tone re-igniting her indignation. ‘My wanting a change of scenery happened to coincide with Libby writing to me.’

‘How very convenient,’ he drawled. ‘You housekeep and tend the gardens—but what does my niece do to while away the hours? We’re talking here about a girl who isn’t happy unless she’s surrounded by a freeloading mob of lunatics; a girl who, twice in her life, has had to be rescued by this terrible family of hers from dubious, if not downright dangerous, communes in which she got herself involved!’

‘I know about that,’ said Ginny uneasily, remembering Libby’s own retrospective horror and shame when she had confided those episodes to her only a few months ago. ‘And she’s only too aware of what you saved her from…You see, Libby’s changed; she’s——’

‘If she’s changed so much,’ he cut in savagely, ‘how come she takes off the moment I arrive?’

‘She hasn’t taken off,’ protested Ginny wretchedly, wondering how much of this she could take. ‘She had already gone when you arrived!’

‘So why did you feel obliged to call her and warn her I was here?’

‘For heaven’s sake, she rang me! groaned Ginny. ‘Simply to say she didn’t know how long she’d be staying on in Paris.’

‘Oh yeah?’ he drawled, imbuing the words with every bit as much scepticism as his niece did whenever she used them.

‘Perhaps it won’t surprise you to hear that, even had she not intended staying in Paris—which she had—she probably would have once I told her you were here,’ retorted Ginny, as her wits at last began collecting themselves. ‘I got the impression that you weren’t exactly her favourite person.’

‘And I guess I can’t exactly be yours either,’ he murmured, flashing her an unexpected smile. ‘I shouldn’t be taking out my feelings over family problems on an innocent bystander—especially not one who’s served me up such a delightful meal.’

Ginny gave him a wary look, dazzled by the smile, yet not entirely convinced there hadn’t been a measure of sarcasm in his softly spoken words.

‘And now that we’re on the subject, I have a proposition to put to you.’ He gave a throaty chuckle as Ginny’s eyes widened in consternation. ‘I know they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,’ he laughed, ‘but that’s not the sort of proposition I had in mind.’

Ginny maintained a mortified silence, wondering how on earth she could be expected to feed this man a string of lies when she was so easily caught off her guard.

‘I keep you on as housekeeper and gardener—and you help me mend my bridges with Libby. You see, she’s probably not aware that about a year ago I took over the European side of the family business—my base is now Paris.’

Libby was most certainly not aware that there was a member of the Grant family on the same continent, let alone a few hundred miles up the road from here, thought Ginny, her heart plummeting.

‘Now that I’m settled in Paris, I’ve decided to combine a vacation with a look at our banking connections in the south. No doubt I’ll have to make the odd trip or two back to Paris, but, for the next month, I’ll be based here.’

‘You…’ began Ginny, and had to clear her throat when she discovered her mouth was bone-dry. ‘You’ll be staying here for a month?’

‘That’s what I said,’ he replied, the heavily lashed midnight blue of his eyes drilling through her. ‘Does the idea disturb you, Ginny?’

‘What a strange thing to say!’ she blustered, but what should have been a careless laugh came out as a strangled croak.

‘Right,’ he stated briskly. ‘I’ll let the agents know I’m here and they can arrange for extra staff for laundry and housework—I don’t intend overworking you. As I see it, the only extra work for you will be cooking for three instead of two once Libby gets back.’

‘Fine,’ managed Ginny, so limp with shock that she was astounded she had actually got the word out. Right now she had to accept she was in no fit state to absorb any of this, she warned herself. ‘Would you like me to make fresh coffee?’ she offered, her mind beginning to ease into the blank state that had become its refuge during the years of mental warfare with her aunt.

‘No, this is fine,’ he said, producing a smile that penetrated her blankness and forcefully revived the memory of her initial reaction to his stunning looks. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a cognac—you will join me, won’t you?’ he asked, rising.

Thrown by her reaction to what, after all, had only been a smile, she decided she would join him, despite the fact that she rarely drank spirits…A cognac might be just what her strung-out nerves needed.

But after her first few sips of the fierily velvet spirit she found herself wondering if it wasn’t over-stimulating her awareness as she began feeling she was hearing the odd note of mockery creeping into the tone of his desultory, though studiously polite conversation. Though it might have nothing to do with the cognac, she reasoned uncertainly, because even in the best of circumstances he wasn’t the sort of man in whose company she would ever have felt in the least relaxed. And it wasn’t simply his scarcely credible looks, it was everything else about him—from the almost arrogant ease oozing from his every pore to the careless expensiveness of every stitch he wore—that made him the sort of person who left her feeling gauche and vaguely inadequate.

‘I’m sure that drive from Paris must have been tiring,’ exclaimed Ginny, rising also and reaching over to collect the coffee-cups. ‘I’m sure I’d have—’ She let out a gasp of horror as she knocked a heavy crystal glass off the table. ‘Oh, heavens!’ she groaned, sinking to her knees and attempting to pick up pieces of the shattered glass. ‘I’m so sorry!’

‘For God’s sake, what do you think you’re doing?’ he exclaimed impatiently, striding over and hauling her to her feet. ‘You’ll cut yourself!’

‘I really am sorry,’ she muttered dazedly.

‘So you broke a glass—it’s no big deal.’

But a glass, judging by the weight and feel of it, that probably cost a small fortune, she fretted, her head beginning to swim. ‘I’ll replace it—I promise.’

‘I’m not too sure about that,’ he said, something in his tone drawing Ginny’s eyes to his. She had thought for an instant he had been about to laugh, but there was no trace of laughter in either his expression or his tone as he continued. ‘You see, that was one of a set, made exclusively for my great-great-grandfather—I guess they could be described as priceless.’

Ginny felt herself slump weakly against the table.

‘So…I don’t think you’ll be replacing it in any hurry.’

This time when she looked up at him, she actually caught a glimpse of amusement on his face, before it instantly disappeared—or had she imagined it?

‘I…This isn’t your idea of a joke, is it?’ she asked uncertainly.

‘Of course it is,’ he groaned exasperatedly. ‘But it riled me the way you were carrying on as though the darned glass really had been priceless.’

‘You have an extremely warped sense of humour,’ she retorted with as much dignity as she could muster.

‘You know something, Ginny?’ he drawled. ‘I’ve a feeling I’m really going to enjoy my stay here—what with my warped humour and——’ He broke off, frowning as he leaned forward and peered down into her face.

‘What is it?’ she exclaimed, alarmed.

‘Just indulging my warped humour,’ he murmured, taking her by the shoulders and drawing her closer to him. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t make the wrong proposition to you earlier,’ he added huskily, lowerng his head towards hers.

Her entire body stiffened as his lips touched, then gently stirred against hers. Her first thought was to wonder where, exactly, she should attack him; her second was that it might not be such a good idea to attack any part of someone of his build. And then there was the fact that he wasn’t using the slightest force as his mouth played in soft invitation against hers and that all she had to do was step back to escape. But at some point during those thoughts, her own lips had parted in a manner that could only be described as inviting, and her arms had somehow become entwined around his neck. And it was then, and only then, that his arms encircled her, drawing her body fully against the muscled leanness of his. It wasn’t until a hint of demand entered his kiss that she began fighting—not the man, but the sensuous softness slinking insidiously throughout her entire being.

‘You took your time deciding to spurn me,’ he mocked softly as he released her, but there was a slight breathlessness to his words and a trace of bemusement in his eyes.

‘That’s because I shouldn’t drink!’ she exclaimed, then cringed at having come out with so pathetic an excuse.

‘Yes, and you were really knocking it back,’ he murmured. ‘You must have had—well, all of two sips, by my reckoning.’

‘I…What I meant was…’

‘No, Ginny, the damage has already been done to my ego,’ he sighed, walking towards the veranda doors. ‘I’m sure that if I ever took the liberty of trying to kiss you again, I’d get an instant brush-off…And leave that broken glass alone, I’ll see to it in the morning—I don’t want you going anywhere near it in your drunken state.’