Читать книгу Breaking Away - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 7

HARRIET walked for almost half an hour without seeing or hearing anyone, in sheer bliss after London’s frenetic streets and busy, uncaring crowds. She had learned a long time ago that it was possible to be far more lonely in the midst of a great press of humanity than it was in solitude, but she knew that Louise could never have understood her feelings.

She wished her sister well in her new life, and felt that this time she had found in her American husband a man who would give her order and direction.

Wrapped up in her bright yellow oilskin and her waterproof boots, Harriet was not bothered by the heavy rain and cool wind, and, walking past her overgrown garden, she smiled a little ruefully, remembering how in London she had dreamily planned to spend those hours when she wasn’t writing in turning her small private wilderness into the kind of secret, romantic garden she had always dreamed of having.

Here, deep in this wet glade, it was impossible to look up clearly at the sky, but she suspected that the rain had set in for the day, which meant that, instead of wilfully wasting time walking, she ought to be at her typewriter. For the first of the four commissioned books her publishers had given her a deadline which should not prove too arduous to meet, but that did not mean that she could necessarily spend her time walking around dreamily in the rain, she told herself severely, deciding regretfully that it was time she returned to the cottage. She would have a certain amount of decorating to do over the next twelve months if she was to turn the cottage into the home she had envisaged, but decorating was a task she had set aside for the winter months.

Gardening…decorating…solitude…she was fast turning into the archetypal ‘old maid’ Louise had so often accused her of being. She would be thirty-five years old in three months’ time. Not old precisely, but not young either, and age was after all a state of mind, and while a man of thirty-five and even of forty might be considered to be in his prime, for a woman—even in these liberated days…She stopped walking, and found that somehow or other, without her knowing how it had happened, a mental image of a tall, dark, and very damp man had slipped into her head and refused to leave it. A very male man…a very angry man…a man who had plainly not seen her as a desirable woman at all, but rather as an object of irritation and contempt.

Would it really have hurt her to give him a lift? A neighbourly act of charity and kindness? Had the years of living in London, celibate, alone in so many ways, and with so many responsibilities, turned her into the kind of timid, over-imaginative single woman who thought that every man she met represented some kind of danger?

She didn’t like the picture her thoughts were drawing, and dismissed it as irrational. Of course she had been quite right to refuse his request. The police via the media were constantly warning women about the dangers inherent in exactly the kind of situation she had found herself in last night. No, she had nothing to reproach herself with, and yet—Her reverie was abruptly shattered as a large and very muddy chocolate-brown Labrador suddenly came crashing through the undergrowth towards her, hotly pursued by a small, slim red-haired girl, bare-headed despite the rain, and dressed in enviably well-worn and well-used dark green jacket, faded jeans and dark green wellingtons.

‘Come here at once, Ben,’ she shouted to the dog, her eyes rounding in surprise as she saw Harriet.

‘Oh! I didn’t know anyone else was here—I thought that Ben had got the scent of a rabbit. He never catches them, thank goodness, but I’m in enough trouble already, without having to spend half the morning chasing him all over the countryside. Oh, no, Ben…down, you bad dog!’

It was too late. Ben, evidently a gregarious animal, had flung himself enthusiastically at Harriet, almost knocking her over in the process, and was now proceeding to lick her, despite the girl’s attempts to call him to heel.

Harriet didn’t mind. She loved dogs and always had done. In London it had been impossible to keep one, but perhaps here…

‘Oh, dear, I am sorry,’ the girl apologised, rushing up to Harriet to rescue her from her pet.

She had wide-set hazel eyes, a retroussé nose, and the kind of warm smile that illuminated her whole face. She looked about sixteen or seventeen, and Harriet guessed probably had the kind of quick, almost intuitive intelligence that matched her manner. Altogether something of an enchantress, who would probably drive the male sex mad once she was old enough to recognise her own power, Harriet reflected, gently pushing the dog down and holding on to his collar for her.

‘Oh, goodness, look what he’s done to your jacket!’ The girl grimaced guiltily.

The front of Harriet’s yellow oilskin was covered in muddy pawprints, but she shook her head in dismissal of another apology.

‘They’ll wash off, there’s no real harm done.’

‘Thank goodness for that,’ her companion said with disarming frankness. ‘All I need right now is someone to go complaining to Rigg about me. I’m in enough trouble as it is.’ She rolled her eyes theatrically, and giggled. ‘Right at this moment, I’m supposed to be in my room contemplating my sins. Have you ever heard anything so archaic? Rigg really is the end. I keep on telling him I’m an adult, not a child.’

Her mouth became stubborn and resolute all of a sudden, striking a vague chord of memory within Harriet. She frowned a little herself, but before she could say anything the girl was speaking again.

‘I’m Trixie Matthews, by the way, and this, as you’ve probably guessed, is Ben.’

Trixie. An unusual name, and now she had heard it twice within one single span of twenty-four hours…Not merely coincidence, surely? Could this be the niece of whom the man who had stopped her car last night had spoken so furiously?

The tempation to find out was almost overwhelming; it wouldn’t have been difficult, not with this girl, with her confiding, open nature, but Harriet had a very strict personal moral code, and to ask the questions teeming through her brain would undoubtedly break it—and, besides, what did it matter? Last night’s interlude by the roadside was over and done with, and had already occupied far too many of her thoughts.

Giving the girl a polite, dismissive smile, she turned round ready to head back to the cottage. The smile was one she had perfected over the years, for keeping other people at a distance, but the girl seemed unaware of that fact, and fell into step beside her. Ben, the Labrador, having drawn his mistress’s attention to the stranger in their midst, was apparently quite content to snuffle in the undergrowth a few yards ahead of them.

‘Are you staying in the village?’ Trixie asked Harriet interestedly. ‘Not that we’ve had much of a summer this year.’ She pulled a face. ‘I keep telling Rigg that I need a proper holiday.’ She gave Harriet a mischievous smile.

‘He’s so stuffy and old-fashioned…Loads of girls my age are living on their own, never mind going on holiday with a friend and her mother.’

Many girls were, Harriet acknowledged, but not girls like this one, whose every word and gesture betrayed how cherished and protected she was.

‘Where are you staying? At the Staple?’

The Staple was the village’s ancient pub, with a history dating back to the times when the village had been one of the staging posts on the long trek south to English markets for the shepherds who raised their flocks on the Border hills. Hence its name.

‘No…actually, I’m not a visitor. I’ve just moved up here from London.’

‘You’ve moved up here?’ Trixie’s expression said quite obviously that she was surprised. ‘From London, but…You must have bought the old gamekeeper’s cottage, then. Rigg said it had been sold. To a schoolteacher.’

The girl was frowning now, and for some reason she couldn’t truly explain, Harriet found herself saying, ‘I used to teach. I don’t now.’

She didn’t say what she did instead, and Trixie’s frown disappeared, to be replaced with a wide grin.

‘Thank goodness for that, otherwise Rigg would probably try to persuade you to give me extra lessons during the holidays.’ She pulled a face again. ‘He’s got this obsession about keeping me occupied. Just because both my parents were up at Oxford.’ She pulled another face. ‘I keep on telling Rigg that they may have been brilliant, but I’m not. Don’t you think that, at almost eighteen, I’m old enough to go on holiday with a girlfriend and her mother, without Rigg kicking up such a fuss?’ she then demanded indignantly.

Harriet, who suspected there was something she wasn’t being told, could only offer a gentle palliative. ‘Perhaps, but if your uncle has refused to give his permission…’

‘Refused! I thought he was going to have forty fits,’Trixie told her gloomily, ‘and all because of a silly mistake. I tried to tell him what had happened, but he wouldn’t listen, and then I tried to show him how easily circumstances can be misinterpreted, but instead of understanding what I was trying to prove he was furious with me…’

Indignation showed in the hazel eyes, and Harriet felt a sudden surge of sympathy for her uncle. The responsibility of a girl like this one could not be an easy one.

Trixie gave another faint sigh. ‘I suppose I’d better get back before he discovers I’ve broken out. Of course, he wouldn’t be like this at all if he wasn’t such a mis…such a missy…one of those men who hate women,’ she elucidated, leaving Harriet to supply the word automatically.

‘You mean a misogynist.’

‘Mmm…and all because some woman walked out on him years ago,’ Trixie told her, with all the scorn of youth.

Harriet knew she shouldn’t be listening to any of this, never mind wanting, almost encouraging the next confidence.

‘Of course, I suppose it wasn’t very nice, virtually being left at the altar, so to speak,’ Trixie allowed.

Left at the altar! Harriet blinked, wondering if after all she had jumped to erroneous conclusions about the identity of Trixie’s uncle. She couldn’t imagine any woman leaving at the altar the man she had met last night.

They were back in sight of her cottage and, guiltily aware that by rights she should have stopped Trixie’s confidences some time ago, she gave the girl another smile, and said quietly, ‘It’s been nice meeting you…I hope your uncle isn’t too angry when he finds out you’ve been out.’

‘Oh, Rigg doesn’t get angry. He just sort of looks at you…you know, as though you’re the lowest of the low. I suppose it’s true that I’m a bit of a trial to him. That’s what Mrs Arkwright, our housekeeper, says. She thinks the world of Rigg, and not a lot of me. I heard her telling her husband—he’s the gardener—that Rigg was a saint for taking me on after my parents were killed…A saint! He’s more like a devil,’ Trixie told her acidly. ‘He just can’t seem to understand that I’m almost eighteen…grown up…I like your outfit by the way,’ she added inconsequentially. ‘Rigg would have a fit if I bought anything like that.’

She scowled rebelliously at her own serviceable and eminently suitable country clothes, and it occurred to Harriet that had she herself been dressed in her normal sober clothes, this girl would probably never have been quite so forthcoming with her.

A twinge of guilt attacked her. She ought not to have allowed Trixie to tell her so much. Rigg! It was an unusual name. She longed to ask how he had come by it, but, although she suspected Trixie would have been quite willing to tell her, she firmly resisted the temptation.

They parted at Harriet’s garden gate, but later in the day, as she laboured over the outline for her new book, Harriet found it increasingly hard to subdue a sub-plot which involved a slender red-headed girl with hazel eyes, a confiding manner, and an ogre of an uncle.

In the end she gave way to it, and before the day was over she discovered that her book had changed direction completely, and that her plot had been taken over by her new characters.

It was four o’clock before she remembered that she had intended to go shopping.

The market town was a good three-quarters of an hour’s drive away. She had enough food for tonight…She looked at the telephone, trying to work out the time difference between England and California, wondering if she should ring Louise and check that she had settled into her new life happily, and then she dismissed the instinct, telling herself that Louise was an adult with a husband to take care of her. Odd, how, whenever she thought of Louise, she always thought of her in terms of needing to be looked after, when in truth Louise was far more resilient than she was—far more adaptable, far more able to take care of herself. Emotionally, at least.

As Harriet pushed away her typewriter, an unfamiliar sense of happiness filled her. Freedom…freedom to be what she wanted…to do what she wanted…with no other claims on her time or her emotions, with no need to put others first. It was the kind of hedonistic bliss that was totally unfamiliar to her, and, on the strength of it, she donned her wellingtons and her oilskin for the second time that day and marched purposefully out into the wilderness, where she spent a profitable and very muddy hour removing weeds from the crazy paving path that ran along the length of the front garden to the gate, before the growing dusk drove her inside.

Her work in the garden had produced hunger pangs which sent her straight to have a bath and prepare a meal.

The heavy rainclouds had brought an earlier dusk than might have been expected, and, having listened to the news and a weather forecast that suggested that the rain was going to continue for a few days, Harriet retired to bed with a shiny-covered, deliciously smelling, luxurious hardback copy of the latest book by one of her favourite authors.

However, for once the author’s skill failed to occupy all her attention and she found her mind wandering recklessly back not just to her meeting earlier in the day with Trixie Matthews but also to that unexpected exchange with her uncle.

‘Trixie,’ he had called her before realising his mistake, with anger and resignation in his voice. Poor man, it couldn’t be easy for him, apparently totally responsible for such a spirited teenager.

She fell asleep on the thought, a soft smile curling her mouth as she wondered how on earth even so obviously enterprising and resourceful a girl as Trixie had got a man like Rigg to strip down to his underwear in the first place, never mind leaving him stranded without either any clothes or any transport!

Well, supermarkets were obviously something that remained the same countrywide, Harriet reflected tiredly, as she collected her receipt from the girl on the checkout and wheeled her trolley out into the murky greyness of the wet autumn day and the unprepossessing expanse of the supermarket’s car park.

Had the day been pleasanter, she might have been tempted to explore a little more of the town, but the rain was falling heavily, and she felt chilled by the icy wind that whipped across the exposed tarmac.

So much for the mellow fruitfulness of autumn, she thought wryly as she packed her shopping away in the car and then drove away.

The Border hills looked bleak and alien as she drove homewards, and inside the warm capsule of her car Harriet shivered. She didn’t envy anyone working on those hills today, where the sheep would be protected from the rain by their oily coats, but the shepherds and their dogs…

The village was deserted, and she remembered that the agent had told her that Tuesday was their early closing day. Early closing…she smiled to herself. Living in London, she had almost forgotten that such things existed. She stopped the car to allow an old man to cross the road, watching him disappear into the old-fashioned telephone kiosk.

The wind buffeted her when she stopped the car on her drive and hurried to unlock the back door. Once it was unlocked she removed the keys and threw them and her handbag on to the kitchen table so that she could hurry back to get her shopping in.

The slam of the back door as she ran back to the car meant nothing to her until she returned to it, her arms fully occupied with the heavy cardboard box of groceries, and discovered that it wouldn’t yield one single inch to the pressure of her arm on the handle.

Telling herself not to panic, she put down the box and tried the handle again, realising too late, when the door wouldn’t open, that she had forgotten to snick back the Yale lock after opening the door, and that her keys were now locked inside the house and she and her groceries were locked outside it.

As she stood staring in self-condemnatory disbelief at the locked door, she suddenly realised that she was getting soaking wet. Staring at the door and expecting it to open by sheer will-power wasn’t going to work and, London-trained, she had of course made sure that all her windows were closed and locked before she went out.

So now what was she to do?

The agent? He might have a spare key. Failing that, he would be able to recommend a locksmith, perhaps…

Groaning to herself, she picked up the now damp cardboard box and shoved it back in the car, thankful that she had not yet had time to add her car keys to the same ring as her house keys.

The nearest telephone was in the village, and the thought that without them she would have had to walk the two miles there in this weather, dressed in her flimsy jacket and her court shoes, made her shiver even more than she was already doing.

The village and the telephone box were both empty. She had to ask for directory enquiries in order to get the agent’s number. Fortunately she could remember his address as well as his name.

His secretary listened to her problem and then told her sympathetically that he was out and not due back for over an hour. ‘Wait a minute, though,’ she added as Harriet was about to hang up. ‘I seem to remember that they held a spare key up at the Hall, because they were keeping an eye on the place while it was empty. Do you want me to ring through to them and check?’

Harriet thanked her and said no, explaining that she had her car and it would probably be quicker for her to drive straight round to the Hall and find out for herself.

She knew where it was, for the agent had pointed out to her the impressive wrought-iron gateway, fronting on to the main road a couple of miles past her own unkempt lane. As she thanked the girl for her help and hurried back to her car, Harriet could only pray that the Hall’s spare key had not yet been returned to the agent, and was glad that she herself had not had time to change the locks as she had fully intended to do.

Cursing herself for her own stupidity, she drove back through the village, past the entrance to her own lane, and on towards the immaculate, black-painted wrought-iron gates with their gold tips, and impressive crest.

The man who had bought the Hall, in what the agent had described to her as a very rundown state indeed, had apparently been almost as much a stranger to the area as she was herself, a very successful businessman whose ancestors had originally come from this part of the world, the agent had told her. He had gone on to explain that not only had this man bought the Hall and moved into it, but also he had transferred his business to the area as well, opening up a new factory on the small industrial estate just outside the market town.

‘Something or other in computers he is,’ Harriet had been told, and was glad that she had kept to herself her own method of earning her living. The agent did not mean any harm, but he obviously couldn’t resist discussing his clients, and she was still too unsure of her own ability to follow up her first novel with an acceptable second one to feel she justified being described as ‘a writer’.

She had to get out of her car to open the gates, but was too relieved to discover that they were not electronically controlled and thus impenetrable to her to care about the discomfort of getting even wetter.

Her thin jacket, adequate enough while she only had to dash from the car to the supermarket, was now soaked through, the dampness penetrating the thin T-shirt she was wearing underneath it, making her skin feel cold and clammy.

Her jeans were wet as well, the heavy denim fabric rubbing uncomfortably against her skin every time she had to change gear.

The Hall was not the imposing edifice she had anticipated, but a long, low, rambling affair of a similar period to her own cottage. Even with its stone walls soaked dark grey by the heavy rain to match the surrounding countryside, it still managed to exude an air of welcome and tranquillity.

Its warmth and beauty, indefinable and yet so very much there, took her breath away for a moment, so that she forgot the discomfort of her damp clothes and even momentarily forgot the irritation of locking herself out of the cottage, and the embarrassment of announcing as much to the strangers who lived here.

As she stepped out of the car and walked towards the ancient oak door, she found herself envying whoever it was who lived here—not because of the house’s size and privacy, but for its marvellous and totally unexpected aura of peace and happiness.

Someone was opening the door as she approached it. Trixie’s familiar, smiling face greeted her, the younger girl apparently completely unsurprised to see her.

Ben, the Labrador, welcomed her boisterously as Trixie almost pulled her inside.

‘I’m so glad you’ve come round,’ Trixie told her. ‘I’ve been bored out of my mind.’ She rolled her eyes and giggled. ‘Rigg has virtually banned me from going out.’

They were standing in a lovely square panelled hallway, with an enormous stone fireplace that actually had a fire burning in its grate.

Ben, having welcomed her, went and lay down in front of it with a luxurious sigh of pleasure.

A worn oak staircase went up one wall to a galleried landing, the staircase wall lined with paintings which looked frighteningly as though they might be originals and priceless.

Heavy damask curtains hung at the windows, their rich fabric adding an extra glow of warmth to the room. She was standing, Harriet belatedly recognised, on an antique rug that was surely never intended to be the recipient of wet and probably still muddy shoes.

She started to apologise automatically, but Trixie just laughed.

‘Come on. I’m dying to introduce you to Rigg. He’s always complaining that I never make any respectable friends…’

Harriet froze as the potential embarrassment of the situation struck her. Somehow or other she had assumed that Trixie’s uncle would not be here, that he would be at work. If he was the same man she had had that difficult confrontation with the other evening, she had no wish at all to meet him again, especially not under these circumstances—not an invited and welcome guest to his home, but rather a petitioner.

‘Oh, no…please…there’s no need to disturb your uncle. I’m sure he must be very busy,’ she protested, catching hold of Trixie’s arm and adding uncomfortably, ‘Actually I didn’t come here to see you, Trixie. I didn’t even realise you lived here.’ Although she ought to have done, she recognised; it had been obvious from Trixie’s engaging and informative conversation that she came from a wealthy background, and from what the agent had told her about the owner of the Hall she ought perhaps to have had the sense to put two and two together and recognise that it must be Trixie’s home. No wonder her uncle hadn’t wanted Harriet reporting his plight to the police.

Trixie looked at her, her expression clouding a little.

‘You haven’t come to see me, then?’

Quickly Harriet explained about locking herself out of her cottage.

‘I rang the agent I bought the house from, and his secretary told me that you used to have a key here.’

Neither of them heard someone also enter the room, but as Trixie furrowed her forehead and then said doubtfully, ‘I don’t know anything about it. I’ll have to ask Rigg.’

Then an all-too-familiar male voice sent shivers of despair racing down Harriet’s spine as it enquired dulcetly, ‘You’ll have to ask me what, Trixie?’

Without intending to, Harriet swung round towards the door, and suffered a heart-shaking jolt of sensation as she stared at the man standing there. He seemed familiar and yet almost totally unfamiliar in his formal business suit and immaculate white shirt.

The dark hair, no longer damp and clinging to his scalp but well cut and brushed, seemed to accentuate the maleness of a face which in the daylight she could see appeared to be almost carved in deep lines of cynicism.

‘It’s Harriet,’ Trixie told him. ‘She’s locked herself out of the cottage and she thought we might have a spare key.’

For a moment, from the dismissive way his glance flicked over her and then returned with hard intent to his niece, Harriet thought that he had not after all recognised her.

She was surprised by the strength of her chagrin that he, who had made such a dangerously lasting impression on her, had apparently no remembrance of her whatsoever.

‘Try for a slightly more logical explanation, Trixie,’ he suggested calmly. Although Trixie grimaced a little, it was obvious to Harriet that she had a healthy respect for her uncle, because after gritting her teeth and casting Harriet an appealing glance, she said quickly, ‘This is Harriet, Rigg. I met her the other…yesterday. She lives in the old gamekeeper’s cottage. Harriet, this is my uncle.’

‘Thank you, Trixie, Miss Smith and I have already met.’

Harriet started a little. Then she had been wrong in that first assumption that he had not recognised her, but how had he discovered her surname?

‘Oh, have you?’ Trixie gave them both a puzzled look, and said to Harriet, ‘You never said anything yesterday about meeting Rigg.’

It was Rigg who answered for her, saying silkily, ‘Perhaps the incident is not one she cares to recall. Miss Smith was, I’m afraid, the unfortunate victim of your idiotic behaviour the other evening. She has the misfortune to drive a car of the same make and colour as yours. When I emerged from the river, to discover her driving towards me, I thought for a moment that you’d come to your senses.’

As she glanced at Trixie, Harriet saw that that unrepentant young lady was trying hard not to laugh. Her uncle obviously didn’t share her amusement, though. He was looking grimly at both of them.

‘Oh, Harriet, no! Was it you who refused to give Rigg a lift?’ Trixie gasped, before her mirth overcame her. ‘See, it worked after all, Rigg!’ she crowed to her uncle. ‘Circumstantial evidence…and I’ll bet that Harriet didn’t believe—’

‘What Miss Smith believed was that I was either a lunatic or a rapist, or possibly both,’ Rigg interrupted Trixie in a hard voice.

‘Oh, Harriet, how brave of you—refusing to give him a lift.’Trixie’s eyes danced with laughter.

But Harriet couldn’t share her innocent amusement. Then Rigg had been the one to ask a favour of her, and she had refused, had refused to help or assist him, and now their positions were reversed, and she was the one needing his help…She shuddered inwardly, and wished it had been anyone else in the world she was having to confront right now rather than this cold, stern man. And even more than that she wished that her hitherto easily controllable imagination would not choose now of all times to become both rebellious and dangerous, by insisting on substituting for his immaculate business suit and shirt the vivid memory of how she had seen him in the headlights of her car, wearing nothing but…

She swallowed hard, and said huskily, ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you, but the agent did say that you might have a spare key for the cottage here at one time, and I was wondering if you still had it?’