Читать книгу A Masterful Man - Lindsay Armstrong, Lindsay Armstrong - Страница 5

‘OH FOR heaven’s sake!’

Davina rose and stared at him with acute frustration.

He shrugged and looked amused. ‘It’s a very small island, Mrs Hastings. Barely seven miles long and two miles wide and most of it is uninhabited. The permanent population is roughly three hundred souls and there are six hundred bicycles—the much preferred form of transport for the, as I mentioned before, four hundred tourists the place can handle. I myself have four bicycles—’

‘Well if you’re about to lend me a bicycle I must decline,’ Davina said tartly. ‘You—’

‘You’ve never ridden a bike?’

‘Of course I have! I simply do not propose to do so now, in the dark, with my luggage.’

‘That wasn’t what I had in mind.’

She stared at him, breathing noticeably. ‘Then why did you bring it up?’

He grimaced. ‘I thought it might add some charm to the place. You obviously don’t know a lot about Lord Howe, Mrs Hastings.’

‘I don’t,’ she conceded ungraciously. ‘I was, in fact, a last-minute replacement for the competent, motherly person they’d found for you—she broke her ankle. So I didn’t have a lot of time to add to my rather vague knowledge of Lord Howe, but they did assure me it was extremely beautiful and a—’ she hesitated ‘—photographer’s paradise,’ she finished on a suddenly weary downbeat.

S. Warwick smiled faintly but said nothing.

Davina looked around, clenched her teeth then sat down again. ‘All right! Tell me more about the job—not that I’ve decided to do it,’ she warned, ‘but...’ She gestured and shook her head exasperatedly.

He sat forward again. ‘My...female relatives are due to descend on me shortly. They generally spend a holiday on the island at least twice a year. They also generally avoid each other like the plague but are coming together this time, I believe, in a bid to put family relationships on a better footing. If you had any idea what a horrifying prospect that is, Mrs Hastings, I’m sure you would take pity on me.’

Davina blinked. ‘I don’t understand—and I thought—forgive me,’ she said ironically, ‘but I got the distinct impression that one word from you and they behaved like perfect lambs.’

‘That’s not quite true, although they certainly do what I tell them to do—eventually. However, there’s one area where even I have trouble controlling them and that is who has sovereignty over the ordering of the household.’

Davina, despite herself, found herself smiling a wry little smile. ‘I see.’ But she added, less amusedly, ‘So, you’re proposing to throw me into this lionesses’ den of dispute?’

‘Exactly,’ he said without a shadow of remorse, then shrugged. ‘Well, what I propose is to make it plain beyond any doubt that you’re running the house.’

Davina thought for a moment. ‘Why do they dislike each other?’

‘Ah.’ He drank some brandy. ‘That’s quite a long story,’ he said drily, and looked at her as if he was in two minds.

Davina raised an eyebrow. ‘It would be better if I knew—were I to take the job, Mr Warwick, and may I remind you that you showed no spirit of polite reticence at all concerning me, so I don’t see why I should be at all polite to you.’

He chewed his lip then laughed softly. ‘OK. After my mother died, my father remarried a woman young enough to be his daughter who bore him a daughter posthumously, thereby providing me with a half-sister young enough to be—my daughter. All of which induced a spirit, talking of those things, of fierce resentment and dislike in my grandmother—my father was her only child. She perceived that Loretta, my stepmother, married my father for his money, then spent a considerable amount of it, turned his life upside down and wore him into an early grave. Added to this, my grandmother is an indomitable, energetic and fiercely opinionated lady, anyway... Well, need I say any more?’

‘No,’ Davina mused, and frowned. ‘Why does the child need mothering?’

‘Because her mother is not much of a mother,’ S. Warwick said, and there was something in his voice that was as cold as naked steel.

Davina narrowed her eyes but said only, ‘A month...is not a long time for anyone else to do much mothering.’

‘What I had more in mind was someone who is good with kids, someone who wouldn’t mind babysitting without making the kid feel she’s being—palmed off.’

‘Well, that is being pretty frank, Mr Warwick,’ Davina murmured.

‘You asked for it, Mrs Hastings,’ he replied.

‘So I did.’ Davina stood up again and looked around consideringly.

‘If you’re wondering how you would cope with this house and a child, I have a cleaning lady, a local, who comes several times a week—she’s due tomorrow—and does the laundry as well,’ S. Warwick said. ‘To be honest she’s a bit rough and ready and she’s dynamite when it comes to breaking crystal and china, so while you can leave all the heavy jobs to her you will still need to—well, supervise, anyway. But all meals, as well as the entertaining we will undoubtedly be doing, would be up to you. What kind of things do you like photographing—only scenery?’

Davina turned slowly to look at him. ‘No. Flowers, birds—’

‘Ah.’ He stared at her with the utmost gravity, something she was later to come to mistrust devoutly. ‘Are you aware then, Mrs Hastings, that one third of the plants on Lord Howe are unique? That hundreds of thousands of sea birds nest here each year, and that one of the world’s rarest land birds lives here? I won’t bore you with all the species but the island is a haven for terns of all descriptions from Sooties to Noddies; red-tailed Tropicbirds nest here as well as masked boobies and Providence petrel, fleshfooted shearwaters, otherwise known as Mutton Birds, which nest in burrows in the ground... As for the plants, flowers and trees, there’s pandanus, banyan, island cedar, island apple, juniper, sallywood, kentia—of course kentia palms—’

‘As a blackmailer, Mr Warwick,’ Davina broke in tightly, ‘you’re incredibly obvious.’

He said nothing for a moment then he murmured, ‘You see me quite dashed, Mrs Hastings—by the way, did I mention that Lord Howe has the southernmost coral reef in the world?’

They eyed each other until he added, ‘Besides which, we have Ball’s Pyramid only a dozen or so miles south of the island—now that is certainly worth photographing.’

‘What on earth...?’ Davina bit her lip.

‘Is Ball’s Pyramid? A sheer, pointed, eroded stack of rock that is the world’s tallest monolith and it floats out of the ocean like a castle in a fairy-tale.’

‘Does one have to be a fairy to get to it?’

He grinned. ‘Not at all; one takes a boat or you can fly over it. I happen to have a couple of boats,’ he added modestly.

‘Boats, bikes, airlines,’ Davina muttered and sat down suddenly. ‘I gather your troublesome female relatives have not yet arrived?’

‘No. You have three days of—relative peace.’

‘Why did you get me here so early?’ she queried.

‘Well now, seeing as I was expecting a competent motherly middle-aged type, you can’t really accuse me of any nefarious intentions, can you, Mrs Hastings?’ His eyes mocked her.

‘Then why?’ Davina said angrily.

‘Simply so you would have a chance to acclimatise before you were expected to deal with them.’

She picked up her drink and sipped it distractedly.

‘You have your own quarters, incidentally,’ he said after a time. ‘Would you like me to show you them before you make your final decision?’

* * *

One of the buildings behind the house was a chalet-type edifice which turned out to be a small but luxurious self-contained unit. There was a bedroom with a double bed, furnished in toning shades of smoky blue, a matching blue bathroom and a combined kitchenette and living-area with cane furniture, terracotta tiles on the floor, ivory blinds and soft sage-green walls. Everything, from the Sheridan bed-linen to the bathroom fittings, the quality of paint, enamel and tiling work, the co-ordination of colours was of an exceptionally high quality and standard. There was even a wall-phone.

Davina looked around with raised eyebrows.

‘You’re impressed, Mrs Hastings?’ S. Warwick remarked.

‘Very nice,’ she contrived to say equitably. ‘Very House & Garden, in fact.’

‘Is that a compliment or the opposite?’ he enquired.

Davina shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘Just a bit of a surprise, perhaps. It looks more like a guest-house than staff quarters.’

‘It doubles as either.’

‘Well...’ She didn’t go on.

‘I await your decision with bated breath, Mrs Hastings,’ he said with irony after several moments.

They faced each other across the living-area and Davina discovered two things. That she would like nothing more than to tell him to go to hell, but that she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

‘Tell me something,’ she said a little huskily as this dawned on her. ‘What happens if I do turn out to be—exotic but quite useless?’

He smiled, just a bare twisting of his lips, his eyes remained a cool, watchful, curiously mocking hazel, and he said, ‘I would pack you back to the mainland very swiftly, Mrs Hastings—but you aren’t, are you?’

Davina licked her lips because she sensed an odd sort of tension between them that she couldn’t quite define. ‘How can you know, though?’

‘I’ll just have to rely on my intuition. In fact,’ he said drily, ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you were extremely competent—’

‘That’s a change of heart!’ She flashed him a cutting little look.

‘And intelligent,’ he went on, unperturbed, ‘and that is quite a waste, doing what you’re doing with your life. I’d also be very surprised if you were a—frigid bitch, Mrs Hastings, but if you care to continue to masquerade as one, so long as it gets my job done, you’re welcome to it.’

Davina gasped then paled slightly as she suddenly realised that this powerful, worldly man who could switch from insulting her with lazy mockery to malice aforethought incensed her, yet his attitude puzzled her... Why? she wondered numbly. I would have hated him if he’d made the traditional pass; I have to hate him as it is for...everything else; why should it be at all important to prove to him that I’m...anything?

‘Mrs Hastings?’ S. Warwick said, and added with sudden impatience, ‘Look, if you really don’t want the job, I’ll send you back first thing tomorrow morning and they’ll just have to find a replacement. It’s up to you,’ he added curtly. ‘We’ve been—’ he glanced at his watch ‘—fencing with each other for over an hour now and I’m getting tired of it. Yes or no?’

The effect of this was to wipe away all other thoughts from Davina’s mind other than that he was the most arrogant bastard... ‘Yes,’ she said crisply. ‘I’ll stay.’ And might just as well have said, So do your damnedest...

He raised his eyes ceilingwards. ‘I might have known!’

‘And what might you have known, Mr Warwick?’ she asked through her teeth.

‘That all the foregoing was entirely unnecessary. Women,’ he said scathingly, ‘have to be the most entirely unstraightforward creatures—God alone knows why!’

Davina held on to her temper by the narrowest margin. ‘Oh, I suspect,’ she said sweetly, although her eyes were an icy violet, ‘that it’s what we have to put up with from men that does it. I mean to say, in the space of a couple of hours I’ve gone from being suspected of wanting to take my clothes off at the first opportunity to—’

He laughed. All of a sudden he relaxed, the tension went out of his broad shoulders and the furious impatience drained from his expression. ‘I excelled myself there, I’m afraid,’ he said wryly.

She could have hit him; she was visited by the most intense anger she’d ever experienced and to make matters worse that keen hazel gaze missed none of it—and Davina passed suddenly from rage to fear. I must be mad, she thought. This man...is dangerous. He incites altogether too much emotion in me even if it is rage and hatred. I should have said no...

‘You still can, Mrs Hastings,’ he murmured, and her eyes widened.

‘D-do what?’ she asked unsteadily, hoping and praying that he hadn’t read her mind.

‘Tell me to go to hell,’ he said softly. ‘In fact, I’m wondering why you didn’t. Care to enlighten me?’

‘Yes.’ She attempted to pull herself together. ‘I think I was hoping to prove something to you—’

‘Well, that’s fine with me,’ he broke in, ‘so long as it isn’t...anything to do with the taking off of your clothes.’

‘Do you know,’ she managed to say almost thoughtfully, she wasn’t sure how, ‘your preoccupation with that subject leads me to wonder about you, but you will really just have to accept my guarantee on the subject; I can say no more.’ And she kept her gaze supremely steady as it rested on him.

‘OK.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess if I expect you to take me on trust, I shouldn’t mind doing the same.’ He smiled suddenly and it was quite a devastating smile, full of life and wry humour, and with a further shaft of fear Davina realised that S. Warwick could be a devastatingly attractive man when he chose. ‘Unfortunately,’ he added, ‘I have to go out, I have a meeting, but that might give you the opportunity to potter around by yourself and get to know the place—you have carte blanche and there’s plenty of food in the kitchen to make yourself a meal. By the way, don’t feel nervous; there’s no crime on the island.’

‘I notice you don’t even lock your front door,’ Davina said involuntarily.

‘No. You can lock yourself in here, though, if you’re so minded.’

Davina said nothing, although she still returned his gaze steadily.

‘Well,’ he murmured after a moment, ‘goodnight, Mrs Hastings.’

‘Goodnight, Mr Warwick.’

He turned to go but turned back. ‘What does the D stand for?’

‘Davina,’ she said coolly.

‘May I call you that?’

‘You can call me what you like.’

‘I see,’ he said softly. ‘I gather it would be no good offering to return the compliment?’ He raised a lazy eyebrow at her.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean I’m quite sure were I to ask you to call me Steve, that you would persist in addressing me as “Mr Warwick” with all the hauteur you’re capable of.’

‘You would be quite right, Mr Warwick.’

‘I thought so. Goodnight, Davina. Sleep well.’ And this time he left, closing the door gently behind him.

Davina took a deep breath then picked up a small cushion from the chair beside her and hurled it quite uselessly at the door.

* * *

Half an hour later she’d unpacked and was inspecting the main house. There were four bedrooms upstairs, all unusual, interestingly shaped rooms with steep ceilings and window-seats but three of them lacked any linen on the beds or in the en suite bathrooms. Steve Warwick’s, which she looked into briefly, was done out in masculine fittings and the colour scheme was cream and green.

Downstairs she discovered that the gleaming kitchen was a cook’s dream, with every kind of appliance one could wish for, all looking unused. There was also a breakfast-room-cum-sitting-room, a study that was entirely businesslike and contained a VHF radio, and a den with a television set. The laundry, which held a huge freezer, a shower cubicle and a linen store, was in an annexe—together with the four bicycles. She surveyed them for a long moment, then went back to the kitchen where she made herself a simple meal of scrambled eggs on toast.

Not long afterwards she took herself to bed and, despite the eerie quality of an almost silent night with just one strange bird calling mournfully, fell asleep quickly.

* * *

‘Ah, Davina, you’re up bright and early.’

Davina looked up from the breakfast she was making to see her employer lounging in the kitchen doorway. He had on khaki shorts, a white T-shirt, his hair was damp and tousled and his feet bare. She also wore a pair of long khaki shorts, a neat pink blouse tucked into them with a narrow leather belt around her trim waist and polished leather moccasins. She’d tucked her hair behind her ears and had only put moisturiser on her face and a touch of soft coral lipstick. The effect, nevertheless, because her thick hair shone and was well-cut, her skin smooth and fresh, her nails perfectly manicured, was one of good grooming and an air of purpose.

Steve Warwick took this all in as she merely nodded at him and told him that she’d taken the liberty of making him bacon and eggs this first morning.

He glanced at the pan she was tending. ‘Bacon and eggs suit me fine.’ He strolled into the kitchen and pulled a chair out from the table which was laid for one and had a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice on it. ‘It seems to me that you’ve settled in rather well,’ he remarked.

‘Well, there are one or two things we’ll have to discuss,’ she murmured, and put a plate in front of him containing not only bacon and eggs but fried tomato and banana. ‘Uh—do you like coffee or tea for breakfast?’

‘Coffee, thank you,’ he replied politely.

Davina set the percolator on the stove and put fresh toast in a rack on the table. ‘What about you?’ he added.

‘I’ve had breakfast, thank you.’

A gleam of amusement lit his eyes. ‘Won’t you at least join me for a cup of coffee? We could discuss whatever it is we need to discuss at the same time.’

‘All right.’ But she waited until he’d finished and cleared his plate away as the coffee bubbled gently and filled the kitchen with its delicious aroma. She poured two cups and sat down opposite him, hesitated, then decided to plunge right in. ‘I’ve found that it’s usually helpful to everyone to have a timetable for meals and, if there need to be any variations, if you’d let me know the evening before, I can make the necessary adjustments. I don’t—’ she paused and smiled faintly ‘—mean that to sound as if I’m some sort of martinet who’ll be making everyone’s life a misery if they’re two minutes late for dinner.’

Steve Warwick wiped his long fingers on a gingham napkin. ‘Not at all,’ he drawled. ‘I think it’s an admirable suggestion. Go on.’

Davina warned herself against being entirely fooled by this compliance. ‘But breakfast is a bit different when you’re on holiday,’ she continued, ‘so—’

‘Loretta and my grandmother only eat fruit and toast for breakfast. They can help themselves to that whenever they like. Candice and I usually eat breakfast together at around about this time. Otherwise make it twelve-thirty for lunch and seven for dinner.’

‘Good,’ Davina murmured after a moment. ‘I see the bedrooms aren’t made up—will Candice and her mother share or—’

‘No.’

‘OK. I’ll fix them up the day before they arrive. What about food in general—any preferences? And would you like three-course dinners, for example, hot lunches? Does Candice join you for dinner?’

He shrugged. ‘Yes, she does unless it’s a dinner party and on those occasions three courses would be in order. Lunch you can make quite simple, cold meat and salad, that kind of thing—I leave it up to you.’

‘So only two courses when you aren’t entertaining?’

‘Uh huh. We also catch and eat a lot of fish—are you good at cooking fish, Davina?’ He raised an eyebrow at her.

‘How nice for you—extremely good,’ she said mildly. ‘I noticed a barbecue outside—would it be in order to light it on the odd fine night? I’m even good at barbecuing fish.’

‘Perfectly in order—is that the lot?’ he said gravely, and Davina took a breath and set her teeth because it was back again. As he himself had put it, they were—albeit with the utmost politeness—fencing with each other once more.

And for the life of her she couldn’t help herself as she said innocently, ‘I think so. Are you about to rush off somewhere? Please don’t let me detain you if so.’

‘I’m about to take you on a tour of the island,’ he replied equally as innocently.

She stood up, ‘There’s really no need for that, Mr Warwick. I found the bicycles so I can take myself, besides which, I ought to get to know your cleaning lady—’

‘You can do that later, Davina. It so happens that this is the only free time I have at the moment.’

‘But—’

‘And I am quite determined to show you round the island, to introduce you to the local shopkeepers where you may shop for food or whatever you need on my account—there’s also another Land Rover in the garage you can use—and to indicate to you the places you could visit with Candice so that you wouldn’t be stumbling around in the dark, so to speak.’

Davina bit her lip as their gazes held and she perceived the bright irony in his. She sighed inwardly and reflected that the resolution she’d made on waking this morning, to do with somehow terminating all such exchanges between them, had failed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m ready whenever you are.’

He narrowed his hazel eyes but, and she couldn’t believe it was to allow her to save face, said no more than, ‘Give me ten minutes.’

* * *

Mounts Lidgbird and Gower presented quite a different image as they drove off. The sun sparkled on them, a few white clouds floated around their peaks, and Davina caught her breath.

Steve Warwick glanced at her with a lifted eyebrow.

‘They just—get to me,’ she said. ‘Can you climb them?’

‘Gower yes, but with a guide. Lidgbird is virtually inaccessible beyond the Goat House which is a bit over halfway up and so-called because it’s a cave where the few wild goats left on the island shelter.’

‘Are they indigenous?’

‘No. They were put on the island to provide meat for any callers. Because of the damage they caused to the local flora they were then marked down for eradication.’ He changed gear and turned on to the road over a cattle-grid.

‘It’s an incredibly beautiful island,’ Davina said as they turned away from the mountains and she could see the lagoon with its turquoise water that hugged the western side of Lord Howe. ‘Has your family always lived here? I’m afraid I don’t know any of the history of the place.’

‘Ah.’ He grinned. ‘Well, very briefly, it was discovered in 1788 by Lieutenant Lidgbird Ball when he sailed past on his way from Sydney Cove to Norfolk Island which became a penal colony. But until 1834 no one lived here although there were frequent visits from whaling ships and ships en route to Norfolk. The first settlers existed by trading provisions with passing ships and then in the late 1800s the Kentia palm, which is indigenous here, came wildly into vogue in European drawing-rooms and a flourishing trade in the sale of seeds became the island’s main income—it still is today, together with tourism.’

Davina sighed and smiled. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it? I mean these islands of the South Pacific, Norfolk and Pitcairn, Norfolk with its awful history as a penal colony and both of them with their descendants of Fletcher Christian—and Lord Howe. It’s a romantic part of the world.’

He grimaced. ‘Are you a romantic, Davina?’

‘In that respect, I guess I am,’ she replied after a moment.

‘Well, this is the airport, as you no doubt remember, and across the road here, up that incline and down the other side is Blinky Beach. If you’re a good surfer it’s great, but there are more protected beaches for kids.’

* * *

An hour later Davina had seen all there was to see by road of the island and had indeed been charmed. She loved the fact that there were no high-rise buildings, very few shops, an almost total lack of commercialisation and that most of the guest-houses and private dwellings were screened from sight behind luxurious, tangled foliage and the beautiful, tall, sometimes unbelievably tall, Norfolk pines. She loved the lush paddocks studded with yellow daisies and white clover and the lovely, secluded little beaches. She was introduced to the Kentia palm and saw her first white tern as they drove down Lagoon Road between towering walls of trees, and was amazed to be told that they laid their eggs on a bare branch, no nest, no nothing.

She was beguiled by the tiny community hall and the radio station alongside the only jetty the island boasted and she itched to don a back-pack loaded with her camera and explore the walking trails to places with bewitching names such as the Clear Place, Malabar, Mount Eliza. And everywhere on Lord Howe, she discovered, there were birds, from the island’s distinctive landbirds like the plump, busy as a housewife emerald ground-dove, the Golden Whistler and the pied currawong to all the migratory species Steve Warwick had told her about—birds that performed unbelievable feats, to her mind, such as returning each year to the Arctic Circle or the North Pacific.

Another thing he’d been right about was the bicycles, and not only that, but the bicycle racks that were placed at every entrance and at the start of all the mountain trails and walks.

‘It’s amazing,’ she said with a laugh as they inched past yet another group of cyclists all wearing crash helmets—the speed limit she’d noticed was twenty-five kilometres. ‘And everyone wears a helmet!’

‘Oh, our local policeman is very strict about that!’

‘How is the island governed?’ she asked curiously.

‘Well, it’s part of New South Wales but we have a local island board and an administrator who lives here. Since the island was inscribed on the World Heritage List, everyone’s main aim has been to keep it as undisturbed as possible so that everything unique about it can flourish. That’s why the tourist ceiling is set at four hundred, why there are no giant complexes and casinos et cetera. There are also no freehold titles on the island.’

Davina looked surprised.

‘A rather sore point with some,’ he said wryly.

‘So you don’t own your land?’

‘Not freehold, no. We have a system of perpetual and special leases for islanders only, which is designed to protect the island as well as the locals. For example, if you wish to sell your lease it has to be valued and offered to island residents first, at that valuation. Only if it’s not purchased by a resident may it then be offered for sale on the open market.’

‘I suppose, then,’ she said slowly, ‘a lot of it is passed down from generation to generation.’

‘You suppose right.’

‘So—I asked you this before but we got sidetracked—’

‘Yes, my grandfather was descended from one of the early families to settle on the island.’

Davina was silent for a time. It was obvious that Steve Warwick was a very well-respected resident of Lord Howe Island—everyone they’d spoken to had made that quite clear—and that he had a finger in a lot of pies. He’d shown her his two tourist boats that made sightseeing trips round the island, and fishing trips to Ball’s Pyramid. He also owned a shop, a restaurant and a guest-house. She glanced sideways at him involuntarily and found herself wondering why he’d never married. Because, if you were anyone else but her, you would have to admit he had an awful lot going for him. There was so much inherent ease and lightly held authority in his dealings with all the people they’d met, you could be forgiven for imagining him being—well, anything, she mused. There had been, only yesterday, evidence of how dangerous it was to cross him. There was the cultured way he spoke and his lovely house. And there was that unmistakable assurance of a man who was exciting to women...

‘You were thinking, Mrs Hastings?’

Davina twitched her gaze away and felt her nerves prickle once more. You couldn’t call the confines of the Land Rover cramped but it was impossible not to be aware of things like his hands on the wheel, the width of his shoulders, the length and strength of his legs, not to mention a rather powerful intelligence from which it was a little difficult to hide... She decided not even to try. ‘I was wondering why you’d never married, Mr Warwick,’ she murmured.

He lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘What brought that on?’

Davina waved a hand. ‘You seem to have a small empire here; you seem,’ she paused, then went on deliberately, ‘to have a lot of things going for you.’

‘Are you saying that from the conviction that I should at least share it with a woman?’

‘No. I don’t hold those kind of convictions,’ she replied calmly. ‘But it is the accepted convention, if you like, for very normal reasons, and more so here than otherwise, I would imagine—keep the island in the family kind of thing.’

He grimaced, but said, ‘Well, the answer is quite simple. I’ve never met a woman I—couldn’t live without.’

‘Dear me.’ Davina had to smile. ‘Are your standards impossibly high?’

He shot her a narrow, glinting little look. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Or are there times when you’re just so—abrasive that no woman has been able to put up with you?’

‘That could be true, too,’ he agreed blandly.

‘Well, you have got a problem, Mr Warwick.’

‘Davina,’ he said gently, ‘don’t concern yourself with it. I realise most women’s minds tend to run along that track, they simply can’t help themselves it seems, but the more obvious they are, the less—interested I tend to get.’

Davina kept a hold on her temper and replied smoothly. ‘I do apologise—I was talking generally but you obviously mistook it for a personal interest in the matter. Perhaps I didn’t make myself very clear.’

‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Her temper eluded her. ‘Do you seriously imagine I’m now making plans to—somehow inveigle a wedding-ring out of you?’

‘You did bring the subject up,’ he pointed out. ‘And your generalities did have a personal touch, despite your denial. You mentioned my abrasiveness and impossibly high standards—’

‘And I should never have opened my mouth,’ she said bitterly. ‘There are some men who just can’t help taking anything one says in a personal context. You’re obviously a prime example.’

‘And you, Mrs Hastings,’ he said softly, ‘are obviously somewhat intrigued.’

‘Oh, no, I’m not,’ she countered. ‘The very last thing I intend to do with my life, Mr Warwick, is to allow some man to have any say in it—so put that in your pipe and smoke it,’ she added, and leant against the door frame with a hand to her brow and a weary look of defiance in her eyes.

Steve Warwick drove in silence for about five minutes. Then he said, ‘So, he was a right bastard?’

Davina looked out of her window.

‘How did he get you in in the first place?’

‘How do they all—?’ She stopped and clenched her teeth. ‘Please, don’t say any more.’

‘OK.’ He shrugged good-humouredly. ‘There’s one thing we haven’t discussed—your time off.’

‘I don’t need any set time off.’

‘What about your photography?’

‘What I usually do on these jobs is just take the time when it comes, if it comes.’

‘I see.’

‘You don’t approve?’

‘I’d be a fool not to approve,’ he replied drily, and turned the Land Rover off the road and across the cattle-grid.

‘Thank you very much for the tour,’ Davina said stiffly. ‘Would you care to let me know your plans for the rest of the day? Will you be home for lunch et cetera, in other words?’

Steve Warwick pulled the Land Rover up beside the house and turned to her with all the wicked mockery he was capable of glinting in his hazel eyes. ‘Do you know how that sounded?’ he queried. ‘Like a much-maligned wife conducting a domestic dispute with her errant husband—we’ll have to watch ourselves, Mrs Hastings. Uh—I’ll be home for dinner, so you can have the rest of the day to yourself. Well, you and Maeve, my cleaning lady, that is. Good luck with her.’ He leant over to open her door and added, ‘Off you go, Davina. I know you’d love to hit me, but if I know Maeve she’ll be spying on us from somewhere.’