‘Aha, he’s keeping tabs on you. I hope you said Kate was with a male friend, Frances,’ said Gabriel, laughing.
‘I thought I’d better leave that to her!’
Kate glanced at Gabriel’s heavy eyes. ‘Tuck Hal up in his buggy and I’ll take him for a stroll now it’s cleared up a bit. Go home for a nap. Auntie’ll take over for a couple of hours.’
Kate was very thoughtful, later, as she pushed the buggy down a quiet lane in an afternoon bright with sunshine now rain had washed the snow away. She found it increasingly hard to believe in this new, persistent Alasdair who rang her so often. In their Cambridge days he’d treated her with affectionate indulgence, as though she were a clever child rather than an attractive female, with a full set of the normal feelings and needs that implied. Yet now that he apparently did see her as an attractive woman, she was no longer starry-eyed about him. Nor about any other man. Kate smiled down at the small sleeping face just visible above the covers in the buggy. Amazing that all men were as cute and helpless as this to start with. Even Alasdair.
This was hard to believe when Alasdair Drummond presented himself prompt at seven at Friars Wood the following evening. In a khaki crew neck sweater and black denims, a khaki reefer jacket hanging loose from his shoulders, he looked tall and tough and anything but helpless. Or cute.
‘Hi. Are you ready, Kate?’ He gave her the familiar bone-dissolving smile as she beckoned him inside.
‘You’re on time, Alasdair. Have a chat with my father while I get my coat.’ She left him with Tom Dysart in the study and went to the kitchen, where her mother was humming along to the radio while she put the finishing touches to the evening meal.
‘Alasdair’s here,’ Kate announced. ‘He seems anxious to get going.’
Frances eyed her, frowning. ‘I thought you were going to wear the gold dress again.’
Kate shook her head. ‘It’s cold, and the Forrester’s is only a pub, no matter how good the food is, so I thought I’d be comfortable.’
In actual fact she had put the dress on at first, then changed into jeans and a cinnamon wool sweater which clung even more than the dress. And instead of leaving her hair down she’d twisted it up securely, but with the odd curling tendril left to look as though it had escaped by accident.
‘You look very pretty just the same,’ conceded her mother. ‘What coat are you wearing? Surely not the windbreaker you wear for school?’
‘Why not?’ said Kate carelessly. ‘Come and say hello to Alasdair while I fetch it.’
‘Did your mother tell you I rang the other night?’ asked Alasdair, when they were on their way.
‘Yes. I was out with a friend.’
‘The man I saw at your place the other day?’
‘No. A different friend. Son of my mother’s bosom pal. Toby’s the junior partner with a firm of local accountants.’
Alasdair drove in silence for a while, then cast a frowning glance in her direction. ‘Harking back to the man I ran into at your place—you said he was important. How important?’
‘I don’t know yet. I haven’t known him long.’
‘Has Adam met him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does he approve?’
Kate gave him a hostile glance. ‘It doesn’t matter whether Adam approves of Jack Spencer or not, but as it happens he does.’
‘So why didn’t you ask the man along on Sunday?’
‘Because it was a family thing.’
‘I was there,’ Alasdair pointed out.
‘Not by my invitation.’
He threw a hostile glance at her. ‘I’m beginning to think this was a mistake.’
‘We could always turn back.’
‘Is that what you want?’
She shrugged. ‘Not particularly. I’ll have missed dinner by now.’
‘So you’ll bear with my company as long as I provide you with food?’ he said with sarcasm.
Kate felt sudden contrition. ‘Alasdair, if I’ve been unfriendly I’m sorry. But last time we met—by which I mean years ago, when you wiped the floor with me for wasting my so-called talents—we parted on bad terms. Did you really expect me to welcome you with open arms when you turned up again out of the blue?’
‘If I did I was out of luck,’ he said morosely, and sighed. ‘Look, Kate, I miscalculated by turning up at your school last week without warning. I know I should have got in touch first, but I was feeling pretty low after my grandmother’s funeral. There was an early hotel lunch for the mourners afterwards so my parents could drive back to Scotland straight after it. I couldn’t face the empty house on my own for a while, so on impulse I drove to see you.’
‘And got a cold shoulder for your pains,’ said Kate wryly.
‘You could say that. There’s a sign ahead,’ he added. ‘Do I turn here?’
‘Yes. The pub is a little way down on the right.’
The Forrester’s Arms was popular, and Alasdair had to nudge his way through the crowded bar to clear a way for Kate. She waved at several familiar faces, then in response to a beckoning hand took Alasdair over to meet Chris and Jane Morgan, from the farm near Friars Wood.
‘Squeeze in here with us. We’re going in for a meal shortly,’ said Chris. ‘How are you, Kate?’
‘Fine,’ she said, smiling, and introduced Alasdair. ‘Adam recommended this place, but I didn’t know it was so busy mid-week.’
‘It’s the new chef—his way with pastry is out of this world,’ said Jane, smiling at Alasdair. ‘I hope you booked.’
He confirmed that he had, then went off to buy drinks, leaving Kate to answer questions about the newest Dysart arrival for a while.
‘So is this Alasdair the current boyfriend?’ asked Chris, with the familiarity of someone who’d known Kate all her life.
‘Friend, not boyfriend,’ she corrected. ‘We were students together for a while, back in the mists of time.’
‘Listen to the old lady,’ mocked Jane, eyeing Alasdair’s back view with approval. ‘Very nice, Kate. Ah! Mrs Jennings is waving a menu at us, Chris. Our dinner must be ready.’
Her large husband leapt up with alacrity. ‘Great, I’m starving. Nice to see you, Kate.’
‘You, too. Thanks for your table.’ Left to herself, Kate gazed into space for a while, deep in thought, and decided it was time to change her attitude towards Alasdair. She could have said no to the evening, she knew very well. But because she had agreed to it she might as well be civil, if only in return for the money he was laying out on her meal.
A young girl rushed up with a menu, and explained that because they were so crowded it might be a while before they were actually served with their meal.
‘Dinner may be a little late,’ Kate informed Alasdair when he joined her.
He handed her a glass of something long and ice-filled, and sat down beside her to drink his beer.
‘I can see why; it’s like a rugby scrum at the bar!’ He cast an eye at the menu she was studying. ‘Maybe you should choose something en croûte, if the chef is a genius with pastry. There’s no alcohol hiding in that, by the way,’ he added, indicating her glass. ‘Just fruit juice and lemonade.’
‘I’m not averse to alcohol, Alasdair. Just wine.’
‘You used to drink a glass or two now and then in the old days.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve changed since then.’
He gave her a wintry look. ‘Damn right you have. I just wish I knew why you’d changed so much towards me. We got on well together once.’
She smiled. ‘I grew up.’
‘So you keep telling me.’ Alasdair applied himself to the menu again. ‘I think it’s the Gressingham duck for me.’
‘I’ll have the bacon and egg pie,’ she announced, and giggled at his look of astonishment. ‘Why not? I like that kind of thing.’
After Alasdair had given the rushed little waitress their order he leaned back in his seat, eyeing Kate challengingly. ‘So. Do I detect a slight thaw in the atmosphere?’
‘Yes.’ She gave him a friendly smile. ‘I keep telling you I’ve grown up, so it’s time I started behaving that way. Tell me about your new job.’
He looked down his nose at her. ‘You don’t have to be polite just because I’m buying dinner.’
‘I’m interested. I really want to know.’ she assured him, and listened, fascinated, while Alasdair described his job with Healthshield, and told her that the pharmaceutical international had appointed him as operations director of their new UK branch after his successful research into a mania-controlling drug.
‘So I wasn’t far out about a miracle cure,’ said Kate, impressed.
‘It’s not a cure,’ he said quickly. ‘But if my brainchild merely improves life in certain cases I’ll feel I’ve done something worthwhile.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ She raised her glass to him.
‘By the way,’ said Alasdair casually, ‘the man I met at your place—what does he do for a living?’
‘Jack? He’s a builder.’
Alasdair looked taken aback. ‘Oh, right. What does he build?’
‘Houses.’
Alasdair grinned. ‘He builds houses and his name is Jack?’
Kate laughed. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
The lighter mood prevailed as they did justice to the meal, and for the first time since they’d met again they began to talk with the ease of old. As the evening progressed Kate thought they might almost have been the two students from the past. This time, however, there was one great difference. Alasdair was making it clear he found her desirable, and, though the less cerebral side of her liked that—and Kate had to admit she found him more physically attractive than ever—she was no longer desperately in love with him. Which made things a great deal more comfortable all round, she thought with satisfaction.
‘So where did you go the other night?’ asked Alasdair, over the coffee they’d elected to drink at the table rather than fight for a place back in the bar.
‘To Bristol for a meal and a trip to the cinema.’
He frowned. ‘But it snowed like the devil. It must have been tricky driving back.’
‘We made it across the Severn Bridge safely enough in Toby’s four-wheel drive. And as usual Adam was lurking when we arrived, to make sure little sister got home in one piece.’ Kate wagged an admonishing finger. ‘So don’t you start, Alasdair. One brother’s more than enough.’
The grey eyes lit with an unholy gleam. ‘Believe me, Katharine Dysart, the last thing I feel towards you is brotherly.’
‘You did once.’
‘Ah, yes. But, as you’ve taken pains to point out to me so often, you’ve grown up since then.’ He smiled. ‘You were a clever, skinny little kid in the old days, all eyes and hair. You’re a woman now, Kate, and a good-looking one at that. But, just as it was back then, half your appeal for me is the brain behind those gold cat’s eyes of yours.’
‘Cat’s eyes!’
‘A sexy Persian cat,’ he assured her, and stood up to hold her chair for her.
The precarious rapport between them held on the journey back right up to the point when Alasdair startled his passenger by turning in to a layby a couple of miles short of Friars Wood. They were out in the country on a minor road with no streetlights, no other houses in view, and at this time of night no traffic passing by—a factor which won Alasdair a look of dark suspicion from Kate.
‘Why have we stopped?’ she demanded.
He undid his seatbelt, then reached over and undid hers. ‘Don’t be naive,’ he said, and kissed her.
Kate’s immediate reaction was a sense of disbelief. This was Alasdair, she had to remind herself. This really was happening. And, instead of pulling away, she decided she might as well savour the sensation as Alasdair’s lips parted hers. If only out of curiosity. She made no protest even when he pulled her as close as it was possible to manage in the confines of the car, but when his mouth seduced hers with a sudden savagery unexpected heat shot through her, and she gasped as his hands pushed her jacket aside to caress her breasts through the thin sweater.
Despite the leap in her blood Kate’s principal sensation was heady elation at the knowledge that Alasdair wanted her. Her, Kate, at last. To be here in his arms like this was something she’d dreamed of once, fantasised over. But in the past her dreams had only been of her own part in the process. It had never occurred to her that Alasdair’s reaction would be so intense.
He tore his mouth away at last and thrust his hands in her hair, bringing it tumbling down in a black cascade over the white of her jacket as he stared at her in the darkness. ‘I must have been blind,’ he said hoarsely.
Kate gazed up at him in silence he very plainly found unnerving.
‘Aren’t you going to ask when?’ he demanded.
She reached up to remove his hands so she could push her hair back behind her ears. ‘I know when. You mean in the old days at Trinity, when I was so madly in love with you.’
‘Were you, Kate?’ he said caressingly, and kissed her again, but this time she pushed him away.
‘Of course I was. But that was a long time ago.’
He subsided behind the wheel and stared out into the darkness, the ragged rhythm of his breathing deeply satisfying to Kate.
‘So tell me the truth, Alasdair,’ she said, breaking a prolonged, hostile silence. ‘And no nonsense about impulses, please.’
‘What do you mean?’ he said brusquely, turning towards her.
‘Why did you turn up in Foychurch last week?’
‘I told you. Adam had told me where you teach, so it seemed the most natural thing in the world to drive there and look you up.’ He shrugged. ‘I was fool enough to want to surprise you.’
‘You certainly managed that. But why, Alasdair? It’s years since there was any contact between us. It seems so odd to me that you actually drove to Foychurch, when a phone call would have done just as well.’
Kate sat patiently during another silence, waiting for Alasdair to speak. When he did his voice was tinged with the Edinburgh accent which only manifested itself in times of anger or stress.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I admit I was curious. You know I had lunch with Adam recently? Naturally enough, the conversation turned to you. I’ve always liked your brother—’
‘The feeling’s mutual,’ she assured him dryly.
‘Because of that Adam felt able to talk to me about something close to his heart. And afterwards it preyed on my mind.’
Kate stared at him. ‘What on earth did he say?’
Alasdair leaned closer. ‘He asked me if I knew what the hell had happened to cause the change in you when we were up at Trinity together.’
She turned away to stare through the windscreen at a watery moon breaking through the clouds. ‘And what did you tell him?’
‘That I had no idea. You suddenly shut yourself away from everyone, including me, saying you’d fallen behind with your work.’ Alasdair kept his eyes fixed on her profile. ‘But Adam said something went very wrong with your life before you came home that summer. He hoped I might have some clue as to what happened to make you so jumpy and withdrawn. Apparently it took a long holiday in Italy with Jess before you returned to anything like normal.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Since talking to Adam, I keep wondering if I was to blame.’
‘You most definitely were not,’ she said emphatically, and turned towards him. ‘I admit I had an outsize crush on you. But my heart wasn’t broken, Alasdair. I managed to survive the rest of my time at Cambridge perfectly well without you—even achieved a reasonable degree,’ she added with sarcasm.
‘I know your work wasn’t affected,’ he agreed. ‘And your degree was brilliant, not just reasonable. Which is why I can never understand—’
‘If you mention one word about my job again, Alasdair, I shall get out and walk home. Now.’
‘All right, all right!’ He took her hand. ‘But Adam started much racking of brains on my part. I kept
trying to figure out how I could have unknowingly done something to hurt you, Kate. So when he invited me to the christening I just had to see you first, to find out if I’d been responsible for—’
‘Oh, I see! You came to Foychurch to seek absolution for a sin you weren’t even sure you’d committed.’ She removed her hand to pat his. ‘Don’t worry, Alasdair. You didn’t ruin my life. In fact I like it very much just the way it is.’
‘If you say so,’ he said, with such obvious doubt Kate was amused.
‘Not all of us are cut out for high-flying careers like yours, Alasdair Drummond. Jack Spencer, for instance, is obviously perfectly comfortable with his job in the building trade. He doesn’t have to be part of a global empire to feel he’s doing something worthwhile. Nor,’ she added significantly, ‘do I.’
‘So Adam’s imagining things where you’re concerned.’ commented Alasdair, pointedly ignoring the reference to Jack Spencer.
‘Yes. But not so much these days, thank heavens, since he’s been married to Gabriel. Now, can we change the subject, please?’
‘Whatever you say.’ He put out a hand to touch hers. ‘Kate, it’s been good just to be with you again tonight, but I want more of your time than this. How about taking the train to Pennington on Saturday to have lunch with me? Please,’ he added deliberately.
Kate thought about it, quite gratified by Alasdair in the role of supplicant. And, because she had nothing planned for Saturday, decided there was no harm in seeing him again before she went back to her quiet life in Foychurch. ‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘But no train. I’ll drive.’
‘And what if it snows?’ he demanded.
‘I can sleep on the couch in Dad’s office. Or,’ she added, giving him a cheeky little grin, ‘you can take me home to Gloucester and put me up in your spare room.’
Alasdair gave a crack of laughter. ‘You trust me enough for that?’
‘Of course. Otherwise,’ she added, ‘the deal’s off.’
‘In other words I’m to keep my hands to myself.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘A tall order, Kate.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she said irritably. ‘If you’re referring to what happened between us just now, that was just a kiss between old friends—’ The rest of her sentence was smothered by a kiss which had so little to do with friendship it silenced them both very effectively. It was a long time before Alasdair released her. And when he did it was with a reluctance which did more for Kate’s ego than she cared to let him see.
Sweet Surrender (The Dysarts) Page 6
