Читать книгу British Bachelors: Tempting & New: Seduction Never Lies / Holiday with a Stranger / Anything but Vanilla... - Сара Крейвен, Liz Fielding - Страница 15

CHAPTER TEN

THE WINE WAS cool and fragrant in her mouth, and she was glad of it. Grateful too for the niceties of cutting bread and butter and pâté, which gave her a chance to steady her breathing, and generally get a grip on herself.

As they ate, she said, deliberately choosing a neutral topic, ‘Sir George’s cousin. Why did he strip everything out of the place if he wanted to sell it?’

Jago shrugged. ‘From his incoherent ramblings when we met in Spain, I gather he’d given up all hope of a sale and opted for making a fast buck out of the remaining contents instead.

‘He even tried to dismantle and flog the four-poster from the master bedroom, but fortunately that couldn’t be shifted.’

‘Oh,’ Tavy said. ‘So that’s how it got damaged.’

‘Yes, but I’m assured it can be repaired and I’m having a new mattress specially made.’ His face hardened. ‘He also confided that he hoped vandals would set fire to the house so he could claim on the insurance.’

Tavy gasped. She said hotly, ‘I’m only glad Sir George never knew how vile he was.’

‘You liked him, didn’t you?’

Outside the window, the sunset light was fading. In the massive room, the picnic rug had become a small bright island in a sea of shadows. And in the flickering light of the candles, Jago’s dark face was all planes and angles as he watched her.

It was as if they were in total isolation, cut off from the rest of the world. Not close enough to touch, yet lapped in a strange and potent intimacy.

Something was flowering deep inside her—a wish—a longing that they could stay like this for ever, his gaze locked with hers. Except that was no longer enough, because her body was stirring at the memory of his hands touching her, and her lips parting beneath his.

Pushing such thoughts away, she rushed into words. ‘Sir George? Everyone liked him. He was a dear man and so good to the village.’

‘A lot to live up to,’ Jago said lightly as he cut into the pie.

Tavy said quickly, ‘Oh, but nobody expects...’ and stopped, her face warming.

‘Nobody expects much from a degenerate ex-rock musician,’ Jago supplied drily, placing a generous wedge of pie on a plate and handing it to her. ‘Well, I can hardly blame them.’

She bent her head. ‘I didn’t mean that. It’s just that the locals were sad, I think, that Sir George didn’t have a son to come after him and hoped that Ladysmere would be sold to a family so there might be—I don’t know—a new dynasty, perhaps.’ She forced a smile. ‘Unrealistic, I know.’

‘Very. For one thing, if there were children around, the lake would need to be fenced off.’ He added softly, ‘And that would be a pity, don’t you think?’

The lake...

She was thankful he could not see how her colour had deepened. I’ll never live that down, she thought helplessly. Never.

Then took a deep breath and rallied. ‘But only for a while—until they learned to swim.’

‘A good point,’ he agreed solemnly, leaning across to refill her glass.

She said quickly, ‘I shouldn’t have any more.’

‘Why not? I’m the one who’ll be driving later.’ He grinned reminiscently. ‘And as my old nanny used to say “I can’t, cat won’t, you must”.’

‘You had a nanny?’ She tried to imagine it and failed.

He nodded. ‘I did indeed. She was a terror too. My sister and I went in fear of our lives.’

The sister was news too. The computer biography had omitted that kind of detail.

She said haltingly, ‘Do you see much of your family?’

‘You mean—are they still speaking to me?’ He sounded amused. ‘Well, yes, but currently from a distance. Becky’s married to a sheep farmer in Australia and my parents have gone out to stay with her to await the arrival of their first grandchild.’

He paused. ‘Now will you tell me something?’

He was going to ask about Patrick, she thought with dismay. Ask about her emotional state and she had no idea what to say.

She said stiffly, ‘If I can.’

‘Do you remember how this room was furnished?’

It was the last thing she’d expected and she nearly choked on the mouthful of wine she’d taken for Dutch courage.

Recovering, she said slowly, ‘Well, a huge table, of course, with extra leaves so that it could seat twenty or thirty if necessary. And a very long sideboard on the wall behind you. I think it was all Victorian mahogany.’

Jago nodded thoughtfully. ‘It sounds fairly daunting. And the drawing room?’

‘Oh, that had enormous Chesterfields and high-backed armchairs in brown leather, very dark and slippery.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I remember sitting on them as a child and being afraid I’d slide off.’ She paused. ‘Why do you ask?’

He said quietly, ‘Because I came here originally looking for a bolt-hole. But I now have other reasons to live here. And my ideas about décor are changing too.’

She remembered some of the catalogues. ‘No Swedish minimalism?’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘But no nineteenth century gloom either.’ He paused. ‘Talking of gloom, it’s starting to feel chilly.’ He slipped off his jacket and passed it to her. ‘Put this on.’ Adding, as her lips parted in protest, ‘I can’t risk my project manager catching cold.’

She nodded jerkily, draping his jacket round her shoulders, letting the meal continue in silence. When she’d finished, she put her fork down with a sigh. ‘That was totally delicious.’

‘Now try these.’ Deftly, he ladled some brandied peaches into a dish.

‘You’re not having any?’

He shrugged. ‘I suspect the alcohol content. And, as I said, I have to drive.’

‘To Barkland Grange?’

‘No, I’m spending tonight in London. After that—elsewhere.’

Returning, she thought, to a life she could only guess at, and which, for so many reasons, it hurt her to contemplate. The sweet richness of the peaches suddenly tasted sour.

She got to her feet saying briskly, ‘Then you’ll want to get on the road.’

‘Later,’ he said. ‘After I’ve taken you home.’

‘Oh, no.’ She heard the alarm in her voice, saw his brows lift, and temporised. ‘I mean—the walk will do me good. And I have things to do here before I leave.’

‘Such as?’

She said feebly, ‘I left a window open upstairs.’

‘Then go and close it while I pack up.’ He saw her hesitate and added quite gently, ‘Boss’s orders, Octavia.’

In the master bedroom, she went to the window and stood for a moment, trying to control the renewed tumult of her pulses.

Because something had changed between them down in that candlelit room. Something she could neither explain nor dismiss, but which terrified her. Because for a moment she had found herself wanting to say the unbelievable—the unutterable ‘Don’t leave me.’ Or, even worse, ‘Take me with you.’

When perhaps what she really meant was ‘Take me...’

What’s happening to me? she wondered, drawing a quivering breath. I must be going crazy.

She closed the window, securing the catch and stood for a moment staring at her reflection, his grey jacket rendering her ghostlike in the glass. She moved her shoulders under the fabric slowly, almost yearningly, as if trying to catch some trace of him, a fragment of memory to treasure, before reaching down for a sleeve and lifting it to her face.

For ten heartbeats, she held it to her cheek, before brushing it softly across her lips.

Then she slipped off the jacket, and draping it decorously over her arm, she went downstairs, where Jago would be waiting to drive her back to the Vicarage and safety.

It was a silent journey and Tavy was thankful for it. Because she knew she did not trust herself to speak.

I’m tired, she insisted silently. That’s why I feel so confused and stupid. Tomorrow I’ll be back on track. Become myself again instead of this creature I do not—dare not—recognise.

Jago drove up to the Vicarage’s front door and looked up at the dark house.

‘Your father doesn’t seem to be back yet. Shall I come in with you? Make sure everything’s all right?’

‘There’s really no need,’ she said quickly, fumbling for the handle on the passenger door. ‘What could possibly happen in Hazelton Magna?’

‘You tell me,’ he drawled. ‘It was you about to call the emergency services earlier.’

She said defensively, ‘Ladysmere’s a big house. Someone might think there was stuff worth stealing.’ She paused, adding stiltedly, ‘Goodnight—and thank you very much for the meal.’

Pure schoolgirl, she thought, vexed and was not surprised to hear faint amusement in his voice as he replied, ‘It was my pleasure.’

And my pain, she thought, her nails digging into the palms of her clenched hands as she stood alone in the darkened house, listening to the Jeep driving away. But didn’t people say pleasure and pain were two sides of the same coin?

And realised suddenly how much she would have given never to know that.

* * *

The first thing she saw when she arrived at the house next morning was the erstwhile picnic rug draped over the back of her chair. Biting her lip, she folded it carefully and put it at the back of a shelf, out of her line of vision. Start, she thought, as you mean to go on.

She went to the kitchen, filled the kettle and put it to boil, then put water in the small glass vase she’d brought from the Vicarage, before taking a pair of scissors from her bag and going into the garden.

‘Lovely day,’ said Ted Jackson, appearing from nowhere. ‘Another heatwave coming, they reckon.’

‘Well, we can always hope,’ Tavy returned, making for a bed of early roses in an array of colours from soft blush to crimson, and snipping a few buds.

‘Cheering the old place up, even when there’s no furniture?’

In spite of herself, Tavy found she was glancing up at the first floor windows. ‘Not all the rooms are empty,’ she said.

‘Upstairs, maybe.’ He paused. ‘You were working late last night?’

‘Well, yes.’

He nodded. ‘Jim forgot his tea flask and when he came back for it, he saw lights.’ His smile was almost cherubic. ‘He wondered, but I told him it must be that.’