Читать книгу Second-Best Husband - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 6

‘SO YOU’VE actually done it, then? You’ve handed in your notice and left?’

‘Yes,’ Sara agreed in a low voice, flinching a little as though hearing the words physically pained her.

Her friend and neighbour grimaced sympathetically. She was ten years older than Sara and had known her ever since Sara had bought the house next to their own four years before, and personally she felt like giving a very, very loud cheer. Ian Saunders, Sara’s boss, might be six feet odd of blond good-looking manhood, all outward charm and attractiveness, but inwardly he was as cold and callous as it was possible for a man to be. That was her considered opinion, but in the past, no matter how many times she had voiced it, Sara had refused to listen to her, to hear a word against the man she worked for and loved.

‘Well, you know what I think,’ she told Sara now. ‘For what it’s worth, I consider that leaving is the best thing you could have done.’

Sara’s mouth twisted sadly. She was a tall, slender woman of twenty-nine, with a quiet, calm manner that masked a keenly efficient brain. Her looks mirrored her personality. Her face was delicately oval in shape, her features elegant and well-proportioned, only her mouth, with its unexpected fullness, hinting that her outward control might mask deep and fiery passions.

‘It wasn’t exactly a calm and reasoned decision made of my own free will.’

The pain in her voice made Margaret, her neighbour, turn her head away from her in angry sympathy.

How could Ian Saunders have treated Sara so badly after all she had done for him, working for him like a slave, helping him to build up his business into the success it was today, and all the time loving him, hoping…? Although Sara had always been openly honest in her own knowledge that Ian didn’t return her love, privately Margaret suspected he must have surely guessed how she felt, and, having guessed, out of compassion and concern ought to have suggested years ago that it might be wiser for Sara to find a job elsewhere. Instead of which he had allowed an intimacy to develop between them, a closeness, even if that relationship had been completely non-sexual, which had held out just enough unspoken promise, just enough allure, to make poor Sara go on hoping that maybe one day a miracle would occur and that he would turn to her…want her…need her…not as his faithful PA but as a woman, his woman.

Instead of which he had calmly walked into his office a week ago and announced that he was getting engaged and that he would soon be married.

Sara had been devastated, but when she, Margaret, had urged her then to hand in her notice and make a new life for herself she had selflessly refused, shaking her head, pointing out that if she left it would damage the business which Ian had worked so hard to build up.

‘You were right,’ Sara was saying unhappily now. ‘I should have had the sense to hand in my notice when Ian told me that he and Anna were getting married. But, like the blind fool that I was, I had no idea that Anna wanted my job as well as…’ She broke off, swallowing painfully.

It wasn’t like her to unburden herself like this, but what had happened yesterday had upset and distressed her so much…

She had gone to work as usual. Ian had been away seeing one of their clients, and although she had felt wary and uncomfortable at first when Anna walked into the office, she had had no idea of the real purpose of the other woman’s visit until Anna had launched into the speech which had ultimately led to Sara’s acknowledging that for her own sake she had to make the break from Ian and forge a completely new life for herself well away from him.

‘What exactly did she say to you?’ Margaret pressed gently, sensing Sara’s need to unburden herself.

They were sitting in Sara’s neat, spotless kitchen. Margaret had called round to see her, alerted to the fact that something must be wrong by the fact that Sara had arrived home from work halfway through the afternoon and, after parking her car haphazardly in front of the house, had practically run inside.

Margaret had followed her, anxious to discover what was wrong and if there was anything she could do to help.

Sara shrugged, bending her head over the mug of coffee she was nursing. Her hair was straight and silky, a soft, pretty fair colour which she had expertly highlighted and styled into an elegant shoulder-length bob, which added to her air of competence and efficiency.

Margaret, who had seen her when she was at home, doing her housework, her hair tied up in a pony-tail, her face free of make-up, had been surprised to discover how very young and vulnerable it had made her look, how very much more approachable.

‘More sexy,’ Ben, her husband, had corrected her with a grin. Margaret had frowned him down, even while she acknowledged that it was true. Sara might know how to present herself to make herself look efficient, but when it came to presenting herself in a way that made men…

She gave a small sigh; as a modern woman it went against the grain to suggest to another member of her sex that she ought deliberately to focus on those facets of her looks and personality which made her look more vulnerable and less efficient, and yet she knew how much Sara, for all her efficiency, longed for children, a family… When she spoke of her elder sister, and her two children and another on the way, her face softened and her eyes turned from blue to violet…

As Sara stared into the brown depths of her coffee, she gave a tiny shudder.

What had Anna said? Margaret had asked her. Even now she could hardly endure to recall exactly what Anna Thomas had said to her when she had walked into Ian’s office, red lips pouting, her white-blonde hair a mass of untidy tousled curls, her skirt surely too short and tight… And yet obviously Ian found her attractive. Far more so than… Sara swallowed, forcing herself to block out her emotions and to concentrate instead on answering Margaret’s question.

‘Well, basically, she simply pointed out to me that both she and Ian were aware of my…my feelings for him, that in fact they’d both derived quite a lot of amusement from the fact that I obviously thought I’d managed to keep them hidden. As she pointed out, there’s nothing quite as pathetic as a secretary in love with her boss, especially when there’s absolutely no chance of his returning her feelings.’

She paused as Margaret made a small sound of shocked anger, and shook her head.

‘Well, it’s true enough, even though I had rather flattered myself that Ian and I were more partners than boss and secretary.’

‘Partners!’ Margaret interrupted explosively, unable to control herself any longer. ‘Why, you virtually ran that business for him! Without you…’

Sara smiled sadly at her.

‘I wish it was true, but in all honesty it was Ian’s salesmanship, his flair that made the business a success. I merely worked in the background. Anyway, to continue, as Anna pointed out to me, it would hardly be in my best interests to stay on with Ian now that they were getting married; she could easily replace me in the office, and she and Ian had decided that it would be better all round if I looked for another job. She did say that I could stay until the end of the month if I wished.’

Sara paused, the wry self-contempt in her voice making Margaret wince for her.

‘What could I do? Naturally I told her I’d be leaving immediately. That was yesterday. I only went in today to clear my desk, to tidy up a few odds and ends…’

She bit her lip. She was trying hard not to break down. It had been such an extraordinary interview, so unexpected, so hurtful, when she had believed that she had already suffered all the hurt she could possibly endure.

She had known that Ian was seeing Anna, of course, just as she had known about all the other women he had dated in the ten years during which she had worked for him. She had been devastated when he’d told her that he was marrying Anna, but she’d thought she had managed to conceal her feelings from him, just as she had believed that he had never once, in all the years she had worked for him, guessed about the hopes she cherished, the love she felt for him.

She had honestly believed that Margaret was the only person who knew how she felt, and only because, the year after Sara had moved in next door to her, Margaret had come round unexpectedly one evening and found her in tears because Ian had cancelled the evening out he had arranged for the two of them, as their ‘Christmas party’ and a thank-you to her for all her hard work during the year, so that he could go instead to a party with his latest girlfriend.

Not even her parents or her sister knew…or at least she assumed they didn’t, and she wondered miserably now if even they had guessed, and had kept silent out of pity and compassion for her.

She was fully deserving of the contempt Anna had poured on her, she reflected bitterly now. She was, after all, that most ridiculous of stereotyped creatures, the dull, plain woman, desperately in love with her charming, handsome boss… But at least now she had broken out of that mould by handing in her notice.

‘Well, if you want my advice, you’re well out of it,’ Margaret told her roundly, adding equally forthrightly, ‘All right, I know you hate anyone criticising Ian, but for once I’m going to say what I think, and that is that he’s used you, used your talents, your skills, and now—’

‘And now that he’s fallen in love with Anna there isn’t any room in his life for me any more,’ Sara interrupted her quietly. ‘And to think that all this time I honestly believed I’d successfully hidden how I felt. At first, when I got that job with him…well, I was only nineteen, my head stuffed with dreams.’ She was talking more to herself than to her friend.

‘I’d come to London from Shropshire because I wanted to improve my skills, my chances of getting a top-class job. My parents were concerned about my leaving home, but they didn’t try to stop me. At first I was thoroughly miserable…thoroughly homesick. I was sharing a place with three other girls, working as a temp during the day, and going to college at night to improve my computer and language skills, and then I met Ian. He was taking the same computer course. He was twenty-five then, and he had just broken away and set up his own business. He was a salesman really, he told me, and what he really needed desperately was someone to run the office for him. Eventually he offered me the job, and I jumped at it. He was always a generous boss financially…and then, when Gran died, I used the money I inherited from her to buy this place. I wasn’t homesick anymore…I’d made friends, made a life here for myself, and, if I couldn’t bear to admit it to anyone else, I had already admitted to myself that it was my love for Ian as much as the challenge of my job that kept me working for him. Like a fool, I never gave up hoping…’

And he allowed you to have that hope, Margaret thought shrewdly, but didn’t say so. She felt that Sara had endured more than enough already without having any more burdens to carry.

‘So what will you do now?’ she asked gently.

‘Go home,’ Sara told her, smiling wryly when she saw Margaret’s expression.

‘Yes, silly, isn’t it? I’m a grown woman of twenty-nine, who’s lived in London for ten years, and yet for some reason I still think of Shropshire as home. I’ve got quite a bit saved…I can let this place if necessary…I can afford to take a few months off, give myself time…’ She shook her head uncomfortably, aware that one of the reasons she was so intent on leaving London was because she was afraid—afraid that, once her initial shock and the anger that went with it had gone, she would become vulnerably weak…that she would find excuses for getting in touch with Ian—small matters outstanding at the office…small facts which only she knew—and she didn’t want to allow herself to degenerate into that kind of helpless self-destructiveness. Things were bad enough as it was, without her making them worse…without her knowingly allowing herself to hang on to the coat-tails of Ian’s life, pathetic and unwanted, an object of derision and contempt.

She closed her eyes as her vision became blurred by tears, obliterating the mental image she had just had of Ian and Anna together, laughing about her, Ian’s handsome blond head flung back, his blue eyes laughing, his expression one of callous contempt. She shivered suddenly, acknowledging how odd it was that she was able to conjure up that image so easily; and yet, had anyone ever suggested to her that Ian could be callous, could be cruel, could be deliberately malicious and unkind, she would have refuted their criticisms immediately. Except…over the years there had been occasions, moments, when even her devotion had wavered, flinching a little as he made a decision, a comment, a pronouncement which she had soft-heartedly felt to be less warm and generous than it should have been.

She had known always that he was egotistical, but she had allowed herself to believe it was the egotism of a spoiled little boy who didn’t know any better, who would never deliberately inflict cruelty on others. Had she been wrong? Had she all this time refused to allow herself to see the truth? She shivered again, causing Margaret to watch her with some concern.

Despite Sara’s outward air of competence and self-containment, her neighbour had always privately thought that these only narrowly masked an inner vulnerability and fragility, a soft femininity which made Margaret despise Ian Saunders even more for his lack of concern and compassion for her friend.

‘Yes, I think you should go home,’ she said firmly now. ‘Even though I know I’m going to miss you desperately, especially when I’m looking for someone to look after those two awful brats of mine.’

Sara laughed shakily. ‘You know you adore them,’ she countered.

‘Mmm…but I try not to let them guess it. It’s hard work at times being the only woman in a household of three males.’ She paused and then said quietly, ‘I know this probably isn’t the time to raise this particular subject, but I’m going to say something to you that I’ve wanted to say for a long time. I’m older than you, Sara, and I’ve seen a lot more of life. I know how you feel about Ian Saunders, or at least how you think you feel, but in all honesty you’ve never allowed yourself to discover whether you could allow yourself to love or care for any other man, have you?’ she asked gently.

‘Allow myself—’ Sara began, but Margaret refused to let her speak.

‘Falling in love is easy, loving someone is a lot harder; and going on loving them, through the nitty-gritty of mundane everyday life, is even harder, and even more worthwhile.

‘I know from the things you’ve told me, from watching you with my own two, that you want children. You know what you should do now, don’t you? You should put Ian Saunders right out of your mind and look round for a nice man to marry and have those children with.’

Sara couldn’t help it. She flushed defensively. ‘I can’t switch off my feelings just like that, marry a man I don’t love, no matter how much I might want a family.’

Of course Margaret was right. Of course she wanted children. Sometimes, in fact, that wanting was so sharp, so acutely painful that it made her ache inside, made her wake up at night…but what Margaret was telling her to do was impossible.

‘I wasn’t in love with Ben when I married him,’ Margaret told her softly, astounding Sara. She had never met anyone apart from her own parents who were as devoted and as obviously content and happy together as their neighbours, and she had always assumed that they had been deeply in love when they married. ‘And, what’s more, he wasn’t in love with me. In fact, we were both on the rebound from other relationships. We’d known each other some time in a casual, friendly sort of way. One evening we got talking…we discovered how many interests we had in common, including a desire to settle down and raise a family, and that those needs had not been shared by our previous partners, the ones with whom we were so much in love. So we talked about it, started going out together, to see if it…if we could work, and then, when we found that we were getting on as well together as we had hoped, we got married. Not because we were in love, but because we both genuinely and honestly thought we could make our relationship work. I’ve never for one minute regretted that decision, and I don’t think Ben has either—and do you know something else?’ She gave Sara a shining, almost defensive smile. ‘I don’t know quite how it has happened, but somehow there’s been a small miracle for both of us, and now we love one another very much indeed.’

‘I envy you, Margaret, but I don’t think…’

‘Listen to me. You and I are very much alike in many ways. Stop wasting your life on a man who you can’t have and who would hurt you badly if you could. Don’t spend the rest of your life weeping tears of regret. Decide what it is you really want. Use this time with your parents at home to think about the things which are really important to you. All right, so you may decide that I’m wrong, that a husband, a home, a family aren’t the things you want enough to put aside your dreams of falling in love, of being in love for. But on the other hand you might find you make some surprising discoveries about yourself and about your true needs.’

As Sara turned off the motorway and took the familiar route homewards, she found herself turning over in her mind what Margaret had said to her. A home…children… Yes, these were things she had always wanted. Despite her decision to move to London, to carve a life for herself as a career woman in the big city, at heart she had remained the small-town girl she had been born. She had enjoyed her years in London, but in her heart of hearts she had never believed they would be anything other than a busy interlude between her childhood and her eventual role as a wife and mother.

Every time she saw her parents, every time she saw her sister, she was reminded of her most basic needs and how her life was stifling them. How it was stifling her. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to break away from Ian… She had refused to make herself face up to the truth: that there never was going to come a day when he would turn to her, look at her…take her in his arms. She was twenty-nine years old. Not old by any means, but no longer young enough to deceive herself with such silly daydreams. She thought of the men who had asked her out over the years, kind, pleasant men, but just men when compared with Ian, with her love, her adoration…her compulsive worship of him. Men whom she had refused, ignored, forgotten… Men with whom, according to Margaret, she could easily have been happy and fulfilled…men with whom she could have had children. Children who would have given her so much joy—children who would have made her forget Ian? Impossible, surely…or was it simply that she did not want to allow herself to forget him; that she was so conscious of the fact that she had wasted so much of her life, given up so much, to maintain her devotion to him, that her pride, her stubbornness, would not allow her to admit that she had made a mistake, had behaved in a stupid blinkered fashion? But now that she was being forced into separating her life from his…now that she…

She moved restlessly in her seat. Her back was beginning to ache from the long drive. She was glad that it was almost summer and the evenings light enough to allow her to complete her journey before it grew dark.

Her expression softened into one of warm affection as she thought about her parents. Her father was retired now. He and her mother still lived in the house where she and her sister had grown up, though. Two miles outside the village, it stood alone, halfway down a lane which led eventually to the Jacobean manor house whose home farm it had once been.

The manor house had been empty for several years, the old man who had owned it having died and there being no direct heir, nor apparently anyone interested in purchasing such a rambling and derelict property so far off the beaten track. But when she had last been home at Christmas—Ian had booked a skiing holiday in Colorado for Christmas and the New Year, and so there had been nothing to tempt her to stay in London, even if she could have brought herself to disappoint her parents and break with family tradition by doing so—her mother had told her excitedly that the house had at last been sold. The man who had bought it was some sort of tree expert with the Forestry Commission who had now decided to branch out into a business of his own, growing and selling not only rare specimen trees, but also many native broadleaved trees, for which apparently there was a growing market both at home and abroad in these environmentally aware days.

Her parents had only met their new neighbour briefly, but Sara had gained the impression that her mother had rather taken him to her heart.

‘All on his own living in that great draughty place,’ was what she had said at Christmas, adding that she had invited him to join them for Christmas Day, but that he had apparently already made arrangements to spend the holiday with friends in the north-east of the country.

‘He’s not married, and has no family to speak of. Both his parents are dead, and his brother lives in Australia.’

How like her mother to wheedle so much information out of a stranger so very quickly, Sara reflected fondly. Not out of nosiness; her mother wasn’t like that. She was one of those people who was naturally concerned for and caring about her fellow man.

What would she have made of Ian had Sara ever taken him home? It came to her with a small unpleasant jolt of surprise that she knew without even having to consider the matter that her parents would not have taken to Ian; that he in turn would have treated them with that slightly disdainful contempt she had seen him use to such effect with anyone he considered neither important enough nor interesting enough to merit his attention.

She bit her lip, worrying at it without realising what she was doing.

But Ian wasn’t really like that. He was fun, clever, quick-witted…not…not shallow, vain and self-important. Or was he? Had she in her love for him been guilty of wearing rose-coloured glasses, of seeing in him the qualities she wanted to see and ignoring those which reflected less well on him, which actually existed?

If he was really the man she had wanted to believe he was, had allowed herself to believe he was, would he have been attracted to a woman like Anna, outwardly attractive in an obvious and rather overdone sort of way, but inwardly…?

Sara bit her lip again. She had no right to criticise Anna just because she… No doubt Ian saw a side of her that wasn’t discernible to her, another woman…a woman moreover who loved him. Jealousy wasn’t an attractive emotion, and she was hardly an impartial critic, she reminded herself sternly. And, anyway, what did it matter what she thought of Anna? Ian loved her. He had told her so himself.

Her body tensed as she remembered that awful day. A Monday morning. Ian had been away for the weekend to stay with ‘friends’. To stay with Anna, she had realised later. He had arrived halfway through the morning glowing with enthusiasm and excitement.

It had happened at last, he had told Sara exuberantly. He had at last met the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life…a woman like no other…

She remembered how she had listened, sick at heart, her body still as she forbade it to reveal the anguish she was suffering, her face averted from him as she fought to control her shock, her pain.

And then, when she had actually met Anna for the first time, she had realised what a fool she had been to ever imagine that Ian might come to love her. She and Anna were so completely different from one another. She was tall and slim, thin almost; Anna was shorter, and all voluptuous curves. She was shy, withdrawn almost, quiet and rather reserved; Anna was a self-publicist with no inhibitions about singing her own praises, advancing her own talents.

Where she preferred restraint, quiet clothes in classic colours and styles, Anna wore the kind of expensive designer outfits calculated to draw people’s attention.

Watching the way Ian looked at her, seeing the desire, the admiration in his eyes as he followed Anna’s every movement, Sara had recognised how truly foolish she had been in ever allowing herself to hope that there might come a day when Ian would turn to her, would look at her.

She was simply not his type. Oh, he might like her…he might praise her work, he might even flatter her as he had done over the years…and she might have been silly enough to use that flattery to build herself a tower of hope that any sensible woman would soon have realised had no foundation at all; but the reality was that, whether Anna had arrived in his life or not, Ian would never have found her, Sara, desirable.

Face it, she derided herself bitterly now. You just aren’t the kind of woman that men do desire.

She remembered how often her sister had teased her about her aloofness, had told her that she ought to relax more, have fun… ‘You always look so prim and proper,’ Jacqui had told her. ‘So neat and perfect that no man would ever dare to ruffle your hair or smudge your lipstick.’

She had wanted to protest then that that wasn’t true, but had been too hurt to do so. It wasn’t her fault if she wasn’t the curly, pretty, vivacious type.

She cringed inwardly, remembering how Anna had mocked her, telling her, ‘Honestly, you’re unbelievable. Quite the archetypal frustrated spinster type, dotingly in love with a man she can never have. I suppose you’re still even a virgin. Ian thinks it’s a huge joke, a woman of your age who hasn’t had a lover; but then, as he said, what red-blooded man would want you?’

Anna had smiled a cruel little smile as she casually threw these comments to her, malice glinting in her light blue eyes as they focused on Sara’s pale, set face.

Now, as she recalled her comments, Sara’s hands tightened on the steering-wheel, her knuckles gleaming white with tension. Up until this moment, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about that. To think about Anna and Ian— Ian whom she had loved so much and for so long—laughing about her, making fun of her.

She shuddered sickly, a rigour of tension and pain, and yet in the middle of her anguish there was still room for a small, cold voice that asked why, when she had had such a high opinion of Ian, she was not immediately and instantly rejecting the very idea that he would be so cruel, so callous about anyone? Never mind about her, someone whom he had known for so long, someone whom he had claimed to admire and care about.

She could accept that he couldn’t love her; why should he? Love wasn’t something that could be summoned on demand, nor banished equally easily, as she had good cause to know; but surely the Ian she had admired and liked so much, the Ian she had thought she had known so well, would never, ever have made fun of her, laughed so cruelly and tauntingly about her with anyone, even if that person was the woman he was going to marry. Surely the Ian she had thought she had known would have had the consideration, the kindness, the sheer compassion for even those members of the human race who were not known to him personally not to be able to entertain such small-mindedness.

The Ian she had thought she had known, even if he had known about her feelings, her love, would never have been able to behave in the way that Anna had described to her, and yet, when Anna had thrown her taunts at her, instead of immediately and automatically being able to rebuff them as being totally unworthy of Ian, totally impossible for a man of his calibre, all she had been able to do was to stand there sickly acknowledging the extent of her own folly, her own self-deceit.

And yet even now it wasn’t Ian she hated. It wasn’t Ian she despised.

No, those bitter, acid emotions were reserved for herself. Which was why she had had to come away. She dared not allow herself to weaken, to become even more foolish and contemptible by staying in London where it would be all too fatally easy to find some excuse to make contact with Ian…some excuse…any excuse…and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Dared not allow that to happen.

Thank goodness she had her parents to come home to. They knew nothing about her feelings for Ian; her mother always asked her about her life in London, about whether or not she had met ‘anyone special’, and Sara knew how disappointed she was that she too hadn’t married and had children, like her sister—not because she wanted more grandchildren but because she knew how much Sara herself loved them.

She glanced at her watch. Soon she would be home. Only another few miles to Wrexall, the village where she had been brought up. She loved this part of the country with its rolling hills, its views of the distant Welsh borders. Ludlow with its historic past wasn’t very far away, and she had grown up on the legends and myths of the countryside’s old and bloody history.

Until his retirement, her father had been a partner in a solicitors’ practice in Ludlow. It had been working in his office in the school holidays which had first given her the enthusiasm to train as a secretary. Her original ambition had been to perfect her languages and then to work abroad, possibly in Brussels, but then she had met Ian and everything had changed, and it was too late now to wonder what her life might have been if their paths had never crossed.

As she drove through the quiet village it was just growing dusk, lights coming on in the cottages that lined the road.

An anticipatory feeling warmed her heart, momentarily dispelling the aching coldness which had invaded it recently. No matter how mature she was supposed to be, she had never lost the feeling of happiness she always experienced at coming home.

Not even working for Ian had totally compensated her for seeing so little of her parents, her sister, her old friends—although most of her school-friends had moved away now; this part of the country couldn’t provide them with the means to earn a satisfactory living. And her sister had moved away as well. She and her husband now lived in Dorset.

As she turned off the main road and into the lane that led to her parents’ house, she felt her eyes sting a little. Heavens, the last thing she wanted to do was to break down in tears the moment she saw her parents. If she did that, her mother was bound to guess that something was wrong. She might have come home to lick her wounds, so to speak, but she fully intended to lick them in private.

She turned in through the open gates and drove up to the house, frowning a little as she saw that no lights were on, and then shrugging to herself. Her parents were probably in the kitchen. Her mother would be preparing supper and her father would be sitting at the kitchen table reading his evening paper.

Smiling to herself, she stopped her car and got out, hurrying down the side of the house.

However, when she turned the corner, there was no light on in the kitchen, no sign of life anywhere, and, worse, the garage door was open and her parents’ car was missing.

Could they perhaps have gone shopping? She frowned to herself, chewing on her bottom lip. Unlikely, surely…

She was just beginning to wonder where on earth they could be when she heard the sound of a car coming up the lane.

However, as she hurried back to the front of the house, her relief evaporated as she saw that the vehicle which was now stationary at the bottom of the drive wasn’t her parents’ sedate saloon car, but a battered Land Rover.

The man swinging himself out of it was unfamiliar to her. Tall and powerfully built, with thick dark hair which looked as though it was overdue for a cut, he was frowning as he saw her.

He was wearing a pair of faded, worn jeans, ripped over one knee, and an equally ancient checked shirt. His Wellington boots were muddy and so were his hands, Sara noticed as he came towards her and told her, ‘If you’re looking for the Brownings, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. They’ve gone to Dorset. Apparently their daughter went into premature labour late yesterday afternoon, and their son-in-law asked if they could possibly get down there to help out…’

He stopped abruptly, his frown deepening as he demanded, ‘You aren’t going to faint, are you?’

Faint? Her? Sara have him a quelling, icy look. Never in her life had anyone accused her before of looking like the kind of woman who was likely to faint. In any other circumstances she might almost have found the fact that he had so obviously misjudged her slightly amusing. Men usually found her efficiency, her self-sufficiency rather off-putting, and the suggestion that he considered her weak and vulnerable enough to resort to something so ridiculously Victorian as fainting simply because her parents weren’t here made her reflect inwardly that, whatever else this man was, he was certainly no expert on the female sex.

‘No, I’m not going to faint,’ she told him crisply. ‘I was just rather shocked to discover that my parents aren’t here.’

‘Your parents!’ He had been about to turn away, but now he swung round again and studied her with open curiosity. ‘You’re Sara!’ he pronounced at last, looking at her with such obvious bewilderment that Sara wondered what on earth he had been told about her to make him view the reality of her with so much obvious disbelief.

‘Yes, I’m Sara,’ she agreed coolly, and then, remembering that she was back home now and not in London and that there was no need for her to be defensive and withdrawn, and moreover that this man was obviously well known to her parents, she added, ‘And you must be…’

‘Stuart Delaney,’ he told her, extending his hand, and then withdrawing it as they both looked at the mud encrusting it. ‘I’ve just been heeling in some young trees. I was on my way back home to get cleaned up when I saw your car. I knew your folks were away and so I thought I’d better just stop and take a look. Did they know you were…?’

Sara shook her head.

‘No, I…’ She broke off, unwilling to explain that her return home had been an impulse decision.

So this was her parents’ new neighbour, the man who had bought the old manor house. He was younger than she had expected, somewhere in his early thirties, she judged, a tough-looking individual and yet one who evidently had far more neighbourliness in him than his appearance had led her to suspect, if he had been concerned enough to stop and see who was visiting her parents’ home.

‘Well, I’d better be on my way, then. You’ve got a key for the house, have you? Only your parents left a spare with me…’

‘Yes, I’ve got my own key,’ Sara assured him, thinking again how deceptive appearances could be. From the look of him she would hardly have expected him to be concerned about her, or about anyone else for that matter. He looked too hard, too remote…not like Ian, who looked so much more human, so much more approachable. And yet, in the same circumstances, would Ian have concerned himself about the possible plight of a stranger?

She started to turn away from him, aware that she was suddenly shockingly close to tears. To have come so far and then found that her parents weren’t here. Only now was she prepared to admit how much she had counted on their being at home…on the soothing balm of their love, their quiet, unfussy concern, their…their presence. Well, it was far too late now to turn her car round and drive back to London, even if she had wanted to do so, which she did not. But the prospect of spending the night in an empty house with nothing to do other than fight against dwelling morbidly on everything that had happened… She started to move towards the house, and then blinked as the gravel beneath her feet started to heave and roll in the most peculiar way, rather as though it were water and not gravel at all. She was feeling oddly light-headed as well, and an irritated male voice seemed to be calling her name, but it came from so far away that it was little more than a dull rumble, like hearing sound through a seashell. Even so, she tried to respond to it, to turn in its direction, but everything was going dark…black… Too late she recognised that it had perhaps not been sensible of her not to have eaten anything before she left London earlier in the day, but she had been in such a fret of anxiety to get home, and anyway her appetite had completely deserted her over these last few days.

She tried to say something, to reassure the shadowy figure coming towards her that she was perfectly all right, but the words wouldn’t come and she was spinning wildly in a black vortex of darkness that refused to let her go.

She was, she recognised in shocked surprise, despite all her claims to the contrary, about to faint.