One Chance at Love

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘And as, for the moment, this is my niece’s home,’ he continued, ‘may I also extend an invitation for you to stay with us,’ he added grudgingly. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, Christi, Miss—’

  ‘James,’ she supplied, realising, as he hesitated, that Christi hadn’t told him everything about her. Her expression was bland as she sensed her friend’s sharp gaze upon her. ‘Dizzy James,’ she enlarged.

  ‘Miss James,’ he nodded dismissively, puffing distractedly on the pipe, now that he had finally managed to get it lit. ‘I’ll leave you two to get re-acquainted, while I go and change.’ He nodded, as if satisfied with his decision.

  ‘Uncle Zach has been out bird-watching,’ Christi explained indulgently.

  Something suddenly seemed to be stuck in Dizzy’s throat. She coughed chokingly, tears streamed down her cheeks, for the air couldn’t reach her lungs. Bird-watching? Any birds that had been in Zachariah Bennett’s vicinity half an hour ago had been watching him, curious of the unusual antics of the human in their midst!

  ‘It’s all right. I’m all right,’ she gasped when she could finally find the strength to speak, firmly discouraging Christi from administering any more of the hearty slaps to the back she had been giving her since she first began to choke. ‘Really, Christi, I’m fine.’ She held up her hands defensively as her friend still looked undecided about administering one more slap for luck.

  ‘The mention of ornithology seemed to have a strange effect on you?’ Zachariah Bennett raised dark blond brows questioningly, once Dizzy was calm.

  She kept her expression deliberately bland as she looked up at him. ‘Not at all, Professor Bennett. In fact, the reason I was slightly later in arriving than I had said I would be was because I became interested in watching a bird myself.’ A golden eagle, she decided.

  The honey-brown gaze sharpened. ‘Really?’ he prompted harshly.

  Still he didn’t invite her to use the familiarity of his first name but, as he now seemed to think she had only said she had been bird-watching as a means of insinuating herself into his good graces, perhaps that was understandable! The sooner she and Christi had a private word the better.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she nodded. ‘Christi will tell you, I’m very much into bird-watching.’

  Christi gave her a glaring look. ‘I really don’t know your likes and dislikes that well, Dizzy,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘It must be—how many years, since we last met?’

  Dizzy gave her friend a reproachful frown. For all his absently distracted ways, she knew the professor to be a very intelligent man, and she and Christi were going to need to be very much on their guard to keep up the pretence Christi was getting them into more and more by the minute.

  ‘I really can’t remember,’ she muttered warningly. ‘But I’m sure it can’t be that long ago.’

  Christi gave an affected laugh. ‘Dizzy seems to have moved around so much since we left school that she’s forgotten time altogether,’ she confided lightly to her uncle. ‘Come on, Dizzy.’ Her smile lacked warmth as she turned to her, her expression purposeful. ‘I’ll show you up to the room you’re to use during your stay.’

  Her friend’s grip on her arm was only just short of vicelike, and Dizzy winced slightly, while trying to give the professor a reassuring smile. ‘I do appreciate your kind invitation.’

  He gave her a look which clearly indicated that if it had been left to him she would have been looking for the park bench, nodding curtly before moving agilely up the wide stone stairway.

  Dizzy instantly turned to Christi as she pulled her towards the stairs. ‘What do you—’

  ‘Ssh,’ her friend warned, looking frantically about them to see if they could be overheard. ‘We can talk when we get to your room,’ she muttered.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Dizzy, I am not in the mood to be argued with!’ Her voice rose shrilly.

  She did sound more than a little strained—and she was probably going to be even more so once Dizzy told her she didn’t think this plan of hers could possibly work.

  If only she could have spoken to Christi when she’d called earlier, or at least before she’d had to meet the uncle! The way things stood at the moment, she had no choice but to continue with the plan Christi had started before she’d arrived. Unfortunately, it was a plan she felt was doomed to failure, although Christi didn’t agree with her.

  They had strolled up the stairway together, Dizzy having assured Fredericks, when he quietly appeared back in the entrance hall, that she could manage her own shoulder-bag and backpack. She smiled, as if she hadn’t seen his scandalised look that that was all of her luggage.

  Christi gave her a running commentary as they went. ‘Only the east wing has been renovated for habitation so far,’ she pointed out, then explained why the rest of the castle was closed off to them. ‘Uncle Zach has the work done as he gets the money. He must get paid very well to have the work done at all,’ she added in a whispered aside. ‘But what he’s had done so far is lovely,’ she continued in her normal voice.

  For her uncle’s benefit, Dizzy acknowledged wryly. There wasn’t an angle possible that Christi wasn’t playing, and it was all so unnecessary, when just being herself would probably have made the best impression.

  The renovation that had so far been done to the castle was very impressive, and looked very much as it must have when it was first built in the fifteenth century. Dizzy realised it also had some of the discomfort that must have gone with it at that time, as she gave an involuntary shiver from the cold. Obviously Zachariah Bennett had gone for complete authenticity, omitting the central heating that might have made the castle more appealing. She could only hope that authenticity hadn’t gone as far as the plumbing; carrying buckets of water up the stairs for her bath didn’t exactly appeal to her!

  ‘I’ve given you the bedroom next to mine.’ Christi threw open the heavy oak door.

  Dizzy was mesmerised from the first, from the tapestry that was the height and breadth of one wall, to the four-poster bed that totally dominated the huge room.

  As she walked dazedly into the room, she touched the brocade curtains on the bed wonderingly, knowing by their thickness that they would pull completely around the sides and bottom of the bed, affording its occupant complete privacy. Her eyes aglow with pleasure, she walked across the room to gaze out of one of the long, narrow windows that graced two walls of the room. The view was magnificent—lakes and mountains as far as the eye could see. Heat warmed her cheeks as she realised that the small lake Zachariah Bennett had swum in earlier was just behind the first hill to the east, that it might even be part of the land that obviously adjoined the castle.

  She was never going to get tired of the scenery if every time she looked out of this window she remembered Zachariah Bennett’s nakedness so vividly!

  ‘—so far, don’t you think?’

  She turned back to Christi, realising she had missed half the conversation in her musing over Zachariah Bennett. From the sudden impatience in Christi’s expression, she had realised it, too!

  ‘I said,’ her friend bit out with slow emphasis, ‘I think everything is going well so far, don’t you? Or, at least, it would be, if you would enter into the spirit of the thing a bit more,’ she added critically.

  ‘Christi, I don’t think this is going to work.’ Dizzy put all thoughts of Zachariah Bennett’s nakedness from her mind, as she concentrated on convincing Christi that her plan wasn’t such a good one, after all.

  Thankfully, she noted, as she turned back into the room, that an adjoining door revealed a fully fitted bathroom. It wouldn’t be as good as a naked swim in a lake, but a bath would certainly refresh her!

  ‘It’s obvious you’re trying to convince your uncle I’m some sort of leech,’ she sighed. ‘But, personally, I think you’ve gone over the top. You’re making me out to be little more than a parasite to everyone I’ve ever known. No wonder he disliked me on sight!’ she grimaced.

  ‘Oh, that di
dn’t have anything to do with being a leech,’ Christi shook her head with certainty.

  Her expression became wary. ‘Then what did it have to do with?’

  Christi shrugged. ‘Henry.’

  ‘Henry?’ she repeated in a puzzled voice. ‘What does your dog have to do with this?’

  ‘Nothing, really.’ Christi began to smile, starting to relax, at last.

  ‘Then—Christi, what is going on?’ she demanded impatiently.

  Her friend was really having trouble not openly laughing now. ‘Oh, Dizzy, it couldn’t have worked out better if I’d planned it that way!’ she said excitedly. ‘Of course I didn’t,’ she assured hastily.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she prompted warily, sure that, whatever ‘it’ was, it didn’t augur well for her!

  Christi grimaced. ‘You remember this morning that I told you I heard someone coming, and quickly ended our call?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ she dismissed with a sigh. ‘I don’t function too well at six o’clock in the morning!’

  ‘Well, apparently my uncle does,’ Christi said drily. ‘He was the one I heard. It seems he likes to take long walks first thing in the morning, before starting work for the day. He asked who I was talking to on the telephone.’ She pulled a face. ‘And so I explained that you had got my number from another schoolfriend, and asked if you could come and stay.’

  That part of things seemed to be clear enough; it certainly explained the change of plans about her supposed arrival at the castle. ‘OK, I accept that you had no choice about that,’ she said wearily. ‘Although I think you might have warned me about it,’ she added sternly.

  ‘I haven’t had a minute to myself since I called you at six o’clock!’ Christi protested indignantly. ‘Uncle Zach insisted I join him for his walk, and then, when we got back, he watched over me while I ate a nauseously enormous breakfast.’ She shuddered at the memory and Dizzy remembered that she was ordinarily only a coffee drinker for her first meal of the day. ‘He thinks I don’t eat enough,’ she grimaced. ‘Then, of all things, he decided we hadn’t spent enough time together during my stay, and dragged me off for a tour of the area. I have never been so bored in my entire life, Dizzy. He really—’

  ‘Christi, this is all very interesting,’ she cut in with a decided lack of sympathy. ‘But we seem to have forgotten Henry,’ she reminded.

  ‘Henry?’ Her friend frowned. ‘What on earth—oh! Oh, yes.’ Her expression cleared, and she bit her lip to once again stop herself from smiling. ‘Uncle Zach was quite shocked at the idea of your taking a man into your bed just because he has soulful brown eyes and looks lonely!’

  ‘Taking a man—’ Dizzy stared at her in horrified disbelief. ‘What man?’ She shook her head dazedly.

  Christi was choking with laughter. ‘Surely you remember what you said on the telephone about—’

  ‘—about letting your dog sleep at the foot of my bed,’ she finished explosively, as she did remember. ‘Are you telling me your uncle actually thinks Henry is a man?’ Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Isn’t it hilarious?’ Her friend chuckled.

  ‘Oh, hysterical,’ she scorned. ‘I may start screaming at any moment!’ she groaned.

  ‘Oh, come on, Dizzy,’ Christi chided lightly. ‘It’s very funny.’

  ‘Not if you’re me. Or Henry,’ she added disgustedly. ‘We’ll just have to hope his girlfriend down the road doesn’t get to hear about this!’

  ‘Hey,’ Christi’s eyes lit up with mischief as she ignored Dizzy’s nonsensical ramblings, ‘maybe what’s really worrying my uncle is that he has brown eyes and must get very lonely here in this mausoleum!’

  ‘His eyes aren’t brown, they’re golden,’ Dizzy told her absently, colour warming her cheeks as she realised what she had said.

  Luckily, Christi didn’t seem to have taken any undue interest in the comment. It was testament to how disturbed by this situation her friend was that she hadn’t noticed Dizzy’s very personal observation about her uncle. Usually, Christi never ceased trying to interest her in one man or another, chagrined that Dizzy seemed able to keep her life man-free, while she somehow managed to attract a cluster of them, more often than not at the same time!

  Dizzy could only breathe a sigh of relief at Christi’s lack of attention just now, although she recognised it was mainly because her friend couldn’t see that her uncle was an attractive man. But then, Christi hadn’t seen him the way she had!

  She gave an impatient sigh. ‘Couldn’t you have just explained to your uncle that Henry is your dog?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Christi sounded irritated. ‘If I had done that, he would have realised you were pet-sitting at my flat. We aren’t supposed to have seen each other for years,’ she reminded. ‘And you were supposed to have called me this morning!’

  ‘Oh, I realise that.’ She shook her head. ‘You really went over the top with that “park bench” story,’ she said disgustedly. ‘Especially as I’m sure your uncle must have heard my comment about your having kept me out of spending a night in jail!’

  ‘This isn’t all my fault,’ Christi returned caustically. ‘You were the one who told him your name is Dizzy James!’

  ‘It is my name,’ she said firmly. ‘Professionally, at least. Besides, do you really think your uncle would have believed your story of my destitution if he had realised who my father is?’ she drawled derisively.

  ‘You’re right.’ Christi chewed worriedly on her bottom lip, then she grimaced. ‘I told him your family lost all their money shortly after you left school. That was very quick thinking on your part, Dizzy,’ she said thankfully.

  Dizzy raised her eyes heavenwards. She hadn’t given her name as James to try and further Christi’s ridiculous plan, and Christi would have realised that if she was thinking in the least bit straight. Unfortunately, she wasn’t. But Dizzy had given up using her father’s name years ago, as she preferred not to be connected to him.

  ‘I’m glad you approve,’ she derided drily. ‘Now, what are we going to do about this mess you’ve got us into by telling your uncle these outrageous lies?’ She quirked blonde brows.

  Christi looked wounded, and then a little sheepish, as Dizzy continued to meet her gaze mockingly. ‘OK, so I’ll have to think a little more before I speak,’ she accepted uncomfortably. ‘But other than that, everything is working out perfectly,’ she defended. ‘Since I told him about you, and the circumstances behind my inviting you to stay, my uncle hasn’t mentioned the fact that I’m going to Drama School, and that I don’t have the same boyfriend for more than a month at a time, sometimes less than that!’

  ‘I’m glad to have been of service!’ Dizzy’s sarcasm was barely veiled.

  Christi, however, seemed to have missed it completely in her feeling of self-satisfaction. ‘I knew you would be.’ She hugged her. ‘Oh, Dizzy, it’s so good to have you here!’ she told her enthusiastically.

  Her expression softened at her friend’s genuine pleasure. ‘It’s good to be here,’ she said wryly.

  ‘It’s going to be so much more fun now.’ Christi smiled her delight.

  Poor pet, thought Dizzy, she really looked as if she had been having a miserable time of it, although the vivacity was fast returning to her enormous blue eyes. ‘I thought there was nothing to do,’ she teased.

  ‘There isn’t,’ Christi grimaced. ‘But I can never remember a dull moment in your company in the past.’ She brightened.

  ‘I’m getting too old to be the class clown,’ Dizzy dismissed absently, her gaze drawn towards the window that faced in the direction of the lake she had seen Zachariah Bennett in earlier. ‘But, talking of things to do,’ she turned interestedly back to Christi, ‘does your uncle go—bird-watching, often?’ She arched blonde brows expectantly.

  ‘Most afternoons,’ Christi confirmed in a bored voice. ‘He says it helps relax him after a morning of intensely draining work!’

  Skinny-dipping should certainly blow away the cobwebs!
>
  ‘I don’t honestly know why he bothers,’ Christi added disgustedly. ‘He only comes back and buries himself in work for another couple of hours!’

  After his nude swim, he probably felt completely invigorated! ‘It must be expensive maintaining a castle,’ she pointed out softly.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Christi conceded grudgingly. ‘But if he would just release my money I would be willing to help him out.’

  Dizzy gave her friend a reproving look. ‘I have a feeling your uncle takes his guardianship role very seriously, so for goodness’ sake don’t even think about offering him any money. I’m sure he would consider it a bribe.’ And if his disapproving eyebrows rose any higher they would disappear into his hairline!

  ‘I know that,’ Christi dismissed impatiently. ‘Or else I would have done it an hour after my arrival!’ she added mischievously.

  ‘I’m sure it can’t be that bad here.’ Dizzy shook her head ruefully, sure that a man like Zachariah Bennett would have an extensive library. Her fingers itched to touch all those wonderful books.

  ‘Give it a few days,’ Christi assured her. ‘Even school was fun compared to this—and you know how I loved school!’ she grimaced.

  The daughter of a very happily married couple who unfortunately travelled a great deal, because Christi’s father had been an archaeologist, Christi had been completely miserable at being sent away to boarding-school at only eight. It had been their mutual unhappiness with the situation they had both been thrust into that had initially drawn Dizzy and Christi together that first term. Over the years, they had become as close as sisters, helping each other through those difficult years. Dizzy had been able to keep Christi’s spirits up, not because she didn’t dislike the school as much as her friend did, but because, to her, it was preferable to being at home. Anything had been preferable to that!

  ‘Look, I’ll give you a few minutes’ peace from my chattering while you shower and change—into something equally as disreputable, please!’ she encouraged gleefully. ‘And then I’ll show you around—what there is to see!’ She made a face.