But she wouldn’t stop communications without some word of explanation and that she would do in the morning. By phone. Maria always woke up before seven, a habit that seemed to creep up with old age, she had once laughed, and James rarely wandered down before nine. He liked to read the newspapers in bed because, he had once told her, it was a luxury he could never afford when he was in London.
She tilted her chin up now and folded her arms across her chest. She might as well go out with some semblance of dignity even though she felt mortally wounded.
‘Goodbye, James.’
For the briefest of seconds he hesitated, struck by the realisation that this time the goodbye was final. The hesitation was swiftly replaced by his conviction that he had done the right and only possible thing. He didn’t answer. Instead he gave her a brief, mocking nod of the head and closed the door behind him.
Yes, it had all gone according to plan. He had had his full-blown argument but he was still angry. He made it to his house in five minutes flat, a record he was sure, considering the darkness of the small road and the unpredictability of the turns. He had driven like a bat out of hell.
He let himself in, relieved that the house was in silence and his mother had not been on one of her jaunts down to the kitchen to fetch herself something warm to drink, a habit which she still maintained even though there was everything in her massive bedroom to make whatever she needed without having to traverse the house in darkness.
He walked through the various rooms, discarding his jacket in the vast kitchen on a chair along the way, and headed straight for the drinks cabinet in one of the smaller of the sitting rooms.
No lover tonight, he thought cynically, but who said there wasn’t peace to be found in a few glasses of very fine malt whisky?
CHAPTER TEN
WHERE was he?
Where was he?
One minute on the phone. Wasn’t that what they always said? One minute on the phone, one moment of distraction and a toddler could be lying face down in a pond or climbing out of a window in an attempt to net a passing butterfly or…or…
Sara felt panic ram into her like a fist and she hurled herself up the stairs, shouting out his name, pushing open doors, racing to all his favourite places to see where he might have gone.
God, but it was only seven-thirty in the morning! He was still in his pyjamas! She herself had only slung on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt so that she could drag herself down to the kitchen after a night of absolutely no sleep whatsoever, so that she could fix him a bowl of cereal!
Nausea rose up to her throat as she checked each room, frantically looking under beds, inside cupboards, realising that there was no boy hiding underneath or within.
Then the garden.
Lord, but she cursed its hidden corners as she ran like a maniac, panting now so that when she yelled his name it was more subdued and somehow more desperate.
Think.
She forced herself to try and imagine what could have compelled him to run and where.
She had been on the phone. To Maria. Half sobbing. Explaining everything. Wondering aloud, anguished, whether she shouldn’t just return to London…
Whether she should leave Scotland behind…
Then it clicked. It was like having a charge of electricity run through her body, and in response she began to run. Out of the house and across the fields that separated the sprawling Dalgleish Manor from the Rectory.
It would be a route her son would know well. He had walked it often enough with Maria, taking the short cut that bypassed the small road. The scenic route, Maria had used to tell her, so that they could look at the flowers and the birds and a bit of wildlife before the manor house rose up before them like an impregnable fortress.
It was the only way he knew how to get there.
And as she raced across the fields, she knew that that was where he was.
He had taken himself off because the conversation she had had with Maria, one which she had conducted in front of her son, not aware that his childish brain was taking in every word, every shaky sentence, had galvanised him into flight.
She dreaded to think what the outcome would be if he wasn’t there. If there was some part of the house or the garden which she had left unchecked, some ominous part that could house a thousand dangers to a child.
The manor was within sight before she spotted him. His bright fire-engine-red pyjamas, the fluffy bedroom slippers he had remembered to put on for once. He was carrying his teddy bear under his arm and Maria was with him, stooping down, listening to whatever he was saying.
She could barely breathe by the time she made it to where they were. Then she was sweeping him up in her arms, smothering him while he waited patiently, bemused, for her to put him back down.
Maria straightened and looked at her. ‘Silly boy.’ She ruffled his hair affectionately. ‘Seemed to think he would be leaving today, going away from us forever, before he could find any worms or finish planting those little seeds you bought for him last week. He was worried about the chickens.’ She clicked her tongue and Sara met her eyes with grateful relief.
‘You’re a noodle, aren’t you?’ Could he feel the desperation seeping out of her like sweat when she held his hand?
‘You said we were going to…leave. I heard you on the phone, Mum.’
‘I was…’ Sara looked sheepishly at Maria, who obligingly took up the thread as they made their way into the house.
‘Just in a foolish mood,’ she murmured placatingly. ‘Mummies sometimes get like that.’
Simon nodded. ‘I know.’
‘Shall we go home now?’ Sara asked.
‘Can I have a look at the trains first?’
‘You’re still in your pyjamas.’
‘But, Mum, Teddy hasn’t seen the trains. Not really. He was tired the last time I came over. He fell asleep. Please?’
‘You can help yourself to some coffee,’ Maria mouthed quietly over his head. ‘Give yourself time to calm down. I know how you must be feeling,’ she murmured. ‘When James was young, he gave me something of a fright myself. Boys. So very different from girls, I believe.’
Sara didn’t want to hear about James. Just the mention of his name made something deep inside her contract in untold pain.
Surely Maria must be aware of this? After all, Sara had confessed everything to her. Had told her how she felt, poured it all out, and it had been like a swell of water bursting through a dam.
Yet…she found herself clinging on like a fool to whatever his mother had to say, anything that might break through the barrier of nothingness that had gripped her since James had stalked out the night before.
‘He ran away, you know,’ she was saying, bustling in the kitchen now and pouring Simon a glass of squash. It was a drink that she had never kept in the house before and it touched Sara to realise that she now stocked it, in preparation for whenever her little part-time charge might come around.
‘He could only have been six or so at the time. His father had been telling him all about the salmon fishing. Had told him that he could go too when he got a little older. Of course,’ Maria smiled in fond memory, ‘James thought that there was no time like the present. It took us an hour and a half before we found him and I was never so frantic in my life before.’ She crossed herself and shook her head. ‘Now, I will take Simon and Teddy to see the trains, and you can make some coffee for yourself. James,’ she lowered her voice, ‘is still sound asleep.’
Lucky old him, Sara thought miserably. How nice to be able to climb into bed and know that you were going to sink into blissful, forgetful sleep. She wondered whether she would ever be able to achieve that again.
Never, she thought hollowly. Never. Not if being here, under the same roof as him, could make her feel so acutely aware, so horribly, and against all odds, happy. Just knowing that somewhere in this vast house he was in a bed, sleeping.
The silence in the kitchen wrapped itself around her as she filled the kettle, li
stened to it boil, spooned coffee into a mug.
Then she sat at the kitchen table and sipped her drink and stared out at the never-ending fields in front of her.
It was almost a shame when she heard the sound of footsteps heading into the kitchen. She very nearly wished that she could have just a few more minutes on her own, to wallow in her thoughts, before Simon and the inevitable daily routine swept her up again, leaving her no time to savour her misery.
She was half standing when the abruptness of the silence broke through her thoughts and she looked up.
It was neither Maria nor Simon at the kitchen door.
‘What the hell are you doing here!’
He looked dreadful. Sara had a fleeting moment of satisfaction to see just how awful he looked. His hair was everywhere, sticking out as though he had spent hours raking his fingers through it, and his chin was dark with stubble. More disconcertingly, he was in a dressing gown, which was loosely tied at the waist.
Then the moment was gone as she took in the hostile antagonism in his blue eyes and the cold twist of his mouth.
‘I…I came over because Simon—’
‘Oh, spare me.’ He strode into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water straight from the tap, which he swallowed in one long gulp.
‘What do you mean, oh, spare me!’ She shot up from the chair and faced him angrily, hands on her hips, her green eyes blazing.
‘I mean, if you think that you can swan up here in an attempt to make some peace, then you’re—’
‘Make some peace? Believe me, I wouldn’t be such a…such a bloody idiot!’
‘Then what the hell are you doing here? I told you I don’t want you to come near this house. How many times would you like me to repeat it?’ He had felt like a zombie when he had rolled himself out of his bed in search of something to quench this horrendous thirst of his. The whisky consumption had ended up being rather more enthusiastic than he had intended. He had slung on a dressing gown as an afterthought on his way out of the room. His legs had felt like jelly and his head…God, his head had been thumping.
All gone. One look at her and it was as if every muscle and nerve and pore in his body had been activated into alertness.
‘If you would just stop for a minute and listen to me—’
‘Listen to you? Why should I listen to you?’
‘I came here because Simon is here…’ Not quite the way it happened, but, dammit, the sight of him had thrown her into a state of utter confusion. She could barely get her words out, never mind put them in order so that they made sense.
‘You mean you had the nerve to bring your son up here?’ He slammed the empty glass onto the kitchen counter and Sara was surprised that it didn’t shatter into a thousand pieces under the ferocity of the gesture. ‘I suppose you thought that you could wheedle your way into my mother’s good books? You disgust me.’
‘Don’t be such an egotistic idiot!’ She pushed her hair away from her face and glared at him. Loving him and hating him and hating herself for feeling so invigorated even after everything that had been said and all the accusations hurled at her. Even when he was staring at her as though she was something vile that had crawled out from under a rock.
‘I didn’t bring Simon up here so that I might bump into you and start grovelling for forgiveness! And I didn’t bring him up here to try and wheedle my way into anyone’s good books! I wouldn’t be here at all if he hadn’t run away!’
‘Run away!’ The rampant disbelief in his voice made that sound as though, as far as excuses went, she had come up with something that hovered very near the bottom of the pile.
‘That’s right! I was on the phone…and when I turned around and looked for him, he was gone! I was out of my mind with worry! I only realised where he might have come when I’d searched the house from top to bottom…!’
‘And why would you realise that he might have come here?’
The robe was altogether too distracting, Sara thought feverishly. She could see too much of that hard, bronzed torso and to see was to imagine a thousand things.
‘Because…’ She faltered, and when her eyes met his she could see the cold glitter of triumph in his blue ones.
‘Because…?’ He turned, poured himself another glass of water, which he downed in another long gulp, and then looked at her. ‘Your little piece of fiction getting a little too involved?’
‘Oh, stop it.’
She sank her head in her hands and, fool that he was, he actually wanted to go across to her, close the distance between them. His mouth tightened in self-disgust and he wondered, not for the first time, how he could have been through one catastrophic love affair all those years ago, only to repeat the experience like a child sticking his fingers into an open fire twice in succession.
Not that he had known anything about love as a young man. No, he had waited till now to fall head over heels with someone who had pulled his strings as if he had been nothing but a puppet.
‘I realised he must have come here,’ Sara said quietly, raising her eyes to his, ‘because I was on the phone to your mother at the time. You forget how much children take in. Simon was sitting at the kitchen table, eating his breakfast, not making a sound. I almost forgot he was there at all.’
‘And what were you talking to my mother about?’ He shoved himself away from the counter and moved towards her before sitting down heavily on the chair facing hers at the opposite end of the table. ‘I suppose making up some lie about my role in all this? You seem particularly good at dissembling.’
‘I wasn’t making up any lies about anything and I’m no good at dissembling.’
‘Really? I beg to differ.’
‘Stop behaving as though I’m the only demon in all of this! As though you’re entitled to wear a halo! You cultivated me because of what you thought you could get from me. You seduced me to—’
‘To get nothing!’ He banged his fist hard on the table and then clenched and unclenched his hands as though barely controlling an overwhelming urge to do violence. ‘I might have thought at the beginning that it would be helpful to get to know you, to find out whether you intended to remain in the place…but at no point would I have gone down the road of climbing into your bed so that I could gain unfair possession to the key to your house!’
‘You can’t blame me for thinking that you would!’
‘Because you consider me such a low form of life?’
‘Because I’d been hurt once and I…’ Sara drew in a deep breath and looked at him steadily. When it came to the crunch, there had been too many misunderstandings. This would be the last time she would ever have her chance to speak the utter, unadorned truth and she was going to grasp it.
‘…I was foolish enough to think that I had been used again, hurt twice. Except…’ He was still looking at her but there was a deathly stillness in his eyes that was draining all her courage away. ‘Except what Phillip did to me didn’t seem so important, not next to what you had accomplished. Because what I felt for him…look, Simon ran over here because of something I said. I told your mother that I was thinking of leaving, going back to London…he got worried.’
‘You were saying about your ex-lover. I do not believe you finished your sentence.’
‘You’re making me nervous. I wish you wouldn’t stare at me like that.’
‘Where would you like me to look? At the walls? The ceiling?’ His voice was scathing but his face was a study in attentiveness. It would be the last time she would command quite so much attention from him. You could hear a pin drop.
‘What I felt for him was nothing like what I felt for you. Correction, feel for you. I was young and innocent when I got involved with Phillip and when it all went wrong, well, I thought I would never recover. When I look back on it now, I see that I recovered very quickly. I was bitter, of course, on Simon’s behalf, and angry as well that he had rejected his own son, but I got on with living, working, being a mother. But with you…’ She looked at him
helplessly, knowing that one harsh word would release her from her need to pour everything out before they walked away from one another one last time.
But no harsh word was forthcoming and his expression revealed nothing.
‘I was so utterly devastated, James, that yes, I wanted to retaliate, wanted to seduce you to teach us both a lesson. Me a lesson in not trusting and you a lesson in taking advantage of me…I didn’t stop to wonder how it was that seduction should have been so easy, so pleasurable. I should have hated you, should have hated you touching me, shouldn’t I? But I didn’t and the reason I didn’t was that I had fallen in love with you. There. Now, you can throw that back in my face, but—’
‘You’re in love with me.’ Pure, undiluted happiness stole into his heart like a thief in the night, not that she was looking at him with the wondering eyes of a woman in love. More glaring at him, and he couldn’t help himself. He smiled. A long, slow, utterly satisfied smile.
‘Yes, it’s funny, isn’t it?’ Sara snapped, springing to her feet and striding across to him, hands furiously on her hips and her hair tousled across her face. ‘Positively hilarious when you think about it. So much for evening the stakes! You’ll be thrilled to know that I didn’t manage to achieve anything at all except to dig myself deeper into the hole I was hoping to jump out of. Hysterical. I can see you think that from the grin on your face.’
She turned to walk away, to go and get her son so that she could leave this place without completely breaking apart.
The hand that snaked out as she was swinging around, therefore, caught her unawares and this time Sara found herself falling. Again. This time literally—into his lap.
‘Not so fast,’ he purred and the colour rose up into her cheeks in a wash of pink.
‘I’ve said what I wanted to say, now let me go! And you can wipe that insufferable grin off your face!’
His Convenient Mistress Page 16
