‘I like the gold walls in your little doll’s house,’ said Alasdair, sitting beside her.
‘Compact, not little! And the colour’s Maize Glow in brochure-speak. I tend to go for sunny colours. My bedroom’s done in something called Ripe Apricot.’
‘I’d like to see it,’ he said, and smiled blandly. ‘Purely as research, of course, to help with my decorating.’
‘Not that you need pale colours here,’ said Kate, ignoring him. ‘The windows let in so much light you can do anything you like in rooms this size.’
Eventually, after two or three choices had been pencilled in for each room, Alasdair told her that there was still a week to go before his official appointment to the new post.
‘I’ll go in for an hour or two on a couple of days, to meet people and familiarise myself with the set-up. But I start in earnest on Monday week.’ He looked at his watch. ‘So what time do you want to start back for Stavely this evening, Kate?’
‘Pretty soon, I’m afraid.’
He frowned. ‘Do you have to?’
She thought about it. ‘I don’t have to, I suppose.’
‘Then stay for dinner. I’ll cook.’
Kate smiled. ‘An offer I can’t refuse. I like it when men cook for me.’
‘Does it happen a lot then?’ he said, amused.
‘Phil, the sports teacher, fancies himself as a chef, but Toby, the accountant, prefers to eat out.’
‘And Jack the builder? Is he a star in the kitchen, too?’
‘If he is he hasn’t said so,’ said Kate truthfully.
Alasdair gave her a searching look. ‘It seems to me that you must favour one of these “friends” more than the others?’
‘If I did,’ she said tartly, ‘there would be only one.’
‘But if you had to choose between one of them, who would it be?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘You know bloody well why,’ he said with a sudden violence, and got up. ‘Let’s go for a stroll round the garden before the light goes.’
Kate slid her arms into the jacket he held for her, pleased that Alasdair was angry with her for having more than one man in her life. Or even other men besides him, maybe. Though why he should have expected otherwise after all this time was hard to imagine. It wasn’t like him to be so illogical, she thought with amusement, as they strolled past neatly trimmed lawns and beds full of spring flowers about to burst into colour.
‘It’s a lovely afternoon,’ she said after a while, to break the brooding silence between them.
‘I wish it wasn’t,’ he said morosely. ‘I hoped it would snow. I’d rather you slept in one of the spare rooms than drive back to Stavely late tonight.’
‘It’s not going to be late,’ she informed him. ‘I’m leaving straight after dinner.’
‘My point exactly. And tomorrow you’re leaving for Foychurch—and who knows when I’ll see you again?’
Kate halted, eyeing him challengingly. ‘Alasdair, I just can’t get to grips with this new enthusiasm for my company. It’s years since I even thought about you much, and don’t tell me you’ve thought about me, either. If at all. Because I refuse to believe it.’
He stared down at her sombrely for a moment, then shrugged. ‘All right. If you want the truth, it was only when I came back here that I started thinking of you again. Even before I caught up with Adam. Just being in the house here again brought back that Christmas when you invited me over to supper at Friars Wood. Because you were afraid I’d be lonely. I remembered what a sweet kid you were, and realised that I’d cared about you more than I knew. Suddenly I wanted to know how you were now, what had happened to you since I saw you last. Getting in touch with Adam wasn’t solely about furniture, Kate.’
‘And Adam, it seems, gave you the impression that I’ve been eating my heart out for you all these years! That must have pleased your male ego, Alasdair.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said flatly, as they resumed their walk. ‘You know Adam’s always been protective about you.’
Kate smiled wryly. ‘You don’t know the half of it. He was furious because I invited you over that Christmas. He was convinced you were some hunk lusting after my body.’
Alasdair let out a crack of laughter. ‘Whereas I was about the only male in your vicinity who wasn’t!’
‘Don’t rub it in! I knew that only too well.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Sad, really, when I was so desperately in love with you.’
‘Were you really, Kate?’ he said softly, and came to a halt to look down at her. ‘So what did I do to turn you against me?’
‘Nothing, Alasdair. You did nothing at all.’ She said it so flatly sudden comprehension gleamed in his eyes.
‘I see. You would have preferred me to lust after you like the rest?’
Kate shook her head. ‘No way. I wanted you to be in love with me. Lust wasn’t something I knew much about at the time.’
‘But you’ve learned since?’
‘What do you expect? I’m a teacher, not a nun!’
He laughed, and took her hand in his. ‘So if Adam objected to my presence, why was he so friendly when I turned up that Christmas?’
‘Because you were older than either of us, and very obviously not lusting after me at all. He took one look and decided you were one of the good guys.’ Kate smiled at him. ‘But you worried my sisters no end.’
He turned a surprised look on her. ‘How did I manage that?’
‘By being immune to my youthful charms when I was so obviously bowled over by yours. They never discussed it with me, of course,’ she assured him. ‘But I knew they were worried. I think Leo still is.’
Alasdair stopped dead. ‘Why should she be worried?’
‘Leo wants everyone to live happily ever after, like she does with Jonah.’
‘And she obviously thinks there’s no chance of that for you where I’m concerned?’
‘Right.’ Kate shivered suddenly, and Alasdair took her hand.
‘You’re cold. Let’s go inside.’
‘What are you going to cook for me?’ she asked, as they went back into the warm kitchen.
‘Steak and salad do you?’ he asked, taking her jacket.
‘Perfect. What can I do to help?’
‘Just sit there and look decorative while I slave over a hot stove. How about a drink?’ he added.
‘Do you have brandy?’
‘Finest French cognac,’ he assured her.
‘Ginger ale?’
‘That too.’
Kate grinned. ‘Then I’ll have a teaspoon of your cognac in a tall glass of ginger ale.’
When Alasdair came back from the larder with her drink, and a beer for himself, Kate sipped at hers while she watched him switch on the grill and season a pair of steaks.
‘I can make the salad,’ she offered, but he shook his head.
‘Just sit there and talk to me.’ He looked up with a gleam in his eye. ‘You can do the cooking when I come to your doll’s house.’
Kate gave that some thought, not at all sure she wanted her life in Foychurch disrupted by visits from Alasdair Drummond. Or from anyone else, Jack Spencer included. As she’d told Alasdair, the village was a close-knit community, where everyone had accepted her from the first. Consequently she’d always kept her socialising where men were concerned in Stavely, to save complications.
‘I hesitate to cast a blight over the evening,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘but I don’t think visits to Foychurch are a good idea.’
‘That’s obvious,’ he said shortly, and gave her a tablecloth and a handful of silverware. ‘Lay the table while you explain why.’
Kate did her best, but she could see she was making no headway. ‘I prefer to keep my life there separate,’ she finished lamely. ‘It’s easier that way.’
‘Why?’ Alasdair’s tone was caustic. ‘Was a vow of chastity required when you were taken on at the school?’
She laughed. ‘No, of course not.’<
br />
‘Then what’s the harm in seeing an old friend like me once in a while? Lord knows it won’t be often once I’m involved in the new job.’ He turned on her suddenly. ‘Why me, anyway? This embargo obviously doesn’t apply to your friend Jack.’
‘The day you saw him he was just bringing flowers to thank me for looking after his niece.’
‘Have you seen him since? Other than today, I mean?’
‘Yes’ she admitted reluctantly.
‘And did he ask to see you again?’
‘Yes.’
Alasdair sliced a cucumber with a speed and violence Kate watched with trepidation. ‘In this idyllic community you like so much, an old friend like me must surely cause less comment than the uncle of one of your pupils? You could be accused of favouritism every time you give his niece a gold star or whatever,’ he pointed out, and rammed the steak under the grill.
‘Oh, all right, Alasdair,’ she said irritably. ‘You’ve made your point.’
‘Then I rest my case. How rare do you like your steak?’
Once they’d sat down Kate set out to defuse the situation by discussing Alasdair’s work again, a subject as dear to his heart as it was fascinating to her. Consequently the meal was more of a success than had seemed possible at one point.
Due to her informed, intelligent questions he expanded at length, then stopped short at last, eyeing her in apology.
‘I tend to get carried away. You’re a very good listener.’
‘I find it fascinating,’ she assured him.
‘Which is why I’ll never understand—’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘No, I won’t go there again.’
After the meal Alasdair put a match to the logs in the drawing room fireplace.
‘You needn’t have done that,’ said Kate. ‘I can’t stay long.’
‘At least you’ll go home warm.’
‘The heating here is very efficient for such a big house. I wouldn’t have thought you’d need a fire as well.’
‘I told you I like my creature comforts.’ He sat beside her on a sofa he’d pulled nearer the fire, and turned to her with a look which made Kate faintly uneasy. ‘So. If I’m forbidden to visit you in Foychurch, do I have to wait until Easter to see you again?’
Kate gazed into the crackling fire, suddenly feeling rather silly. This was the twenty-first century, she reminded herself. Probably no one in the village had the least interest in her social life. ‘All right. If you want to come to Foychurch you can,’ she said at last. ‘But you’d have to leave at a respectable hour.’
‘To safeguard your reputation?’
‘No,’ she said impatiently. ‘So I can get a good night’s sleep. I get up early during the week.’
Alasdair took her hand. ‘Are you actually saying I can come calling, Miss Dysart?’
She turned on him sharply. ‘I’m actually saying that you can come round one night next week if you like, Alasdair.’
‘But I am not to read anything more than that into it?’
‘There isn’t any more,’ she said flatly.
‘Oh, yes, there is,’ he assured her, and pulled her onto his lap. He looked down into her startled face for a moment, then lowered his head to kiss her, his arms closing round her like a vice.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KATE stiffened in protest, and after a moment Alasdair relaxed his arms a little and moved his mouth away from hers.
‘You said you wouldn’t take up where we left off,’ she accused.
‘I’m not. I’m starting from the beginning again. Only this time,’ he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek, ‘we’re not in a car, on a cold, dark road, but here on my home turf, in warmth and complete privacy—an arrangement I like a lot better.’ His lips grazed her earlobe. ‘I like the feel of you in my arms even more.’
And the hell of it was, thought Kate, that she did, too. She turned her head away. ‘It’s my own fault. Just by coming here.’
Alasdair shifted her more comfortably on his lap, his hold still firm enough to rid Kate of any ideas about struggling.
‘I would be lying,’ he told her, ‘if I said I didn’t want you. From where you’re sitting it must be obvious.’
Colour rushed to the face he was smoothing against his shoulder.
‘But don’t worry,’ he went on. ‘I won’t do anything about it. Unless you want me to.’
‘I don’t go in for this kind of thing,’ she said flatly.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s never worth it,’ she said with a sigh.
Alasdair laughed softly. ‘It can be, my sweet.’
‘For you, maybe, but not for me.’
‘So at this moment,’ he went on, his tone so clinical he might have been discussing some experiment, ‘despite the pleasure I’m taking in just holding you in my arms, your only instinct is escape?’
Kate wished it was. ‘I won’t say this is unpleasant,’ she agreed, her tone matching his, ‘but if I’d thought it was taken for granted as part of the day’s entertainment I would have driven straight home after lunch.’
‘So that’s it.’ Alasdair’s chuckle vibrated against Kate’s breasts. ‘I’ve got it!’
‘You’ve got what?’
‘Why you’re so prickly these day, Kate Dysart.’ He smiled into her eyes. ‘You loathe being taken for granted. Thinking back, I suppose I did it all the time up at Cambridge. Then I compounded my sins when I turned up in Foychurch like a bad penny, taking it for granted you’d drop everything to spend time with me. And now, as far as you’re concerned, I’m doing it again.’
‘True, as far as it goes,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s not what bothers me most.’
‘So tell me.’
‘I’m suspicious about why you’re doing this.’ Kate eyed him narrowly. ‘You never even saw me as a female in the old days, let alone someone you wanted to make love to. So why now all of a sudden? And please don’t say you took one look at me outside school that day and the scales fell from your eyes, because I’m not stupid, Alasdair.’
‘I’ve never thought so before,’ he agreed, ‘but for once in your life you can’t work out the equation. It’s simple. I’m a man, and you’re a very desirable woman—’
‘You mean you expect to take me to bed?’
‘I want to. But that’s something I’m not taking for granted. Right now I’ll settle for just holding you like this for a while.’
Kate yielded as he clasped her closer, frowning as she thought this over. It was undeniably good to feel close to Alasdair like this. She liked the warmth and strength of him, and it was all just as she’d dreamed it would be, over and over again when she’d fantasised about it in the past. But in those days her fantasies had never gone as far as actually making love with Alasdair. Yet now, long after she’d given up dreaming, he wanted her. So maybe…
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked after a while, his touch so light Kate didn’t know he’d removed the pins from her hair until it came tumbling down.
‘I was thinking that if you did want to take me to bed perhaps it might be a good thing,’ she said thoughtfully, and felt him tense against her.
‘Would you say that again?’ he demanded.
‘I’m sure I don’t have to.’
‘So why do you think it would be a good thing? From my own point of view it’s a ravishing idea, of course, but—’
‘I think it would give me closure.’
‘Closure?’ Alasdair put an ungentle finger under her chin to raise her face to his. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
Kate looked at him defiantly. ‘Meeting you again has revived old ghosts. Maybe going to bed with you would lay them for good.’
Alasdair’s eyes glittered like ice chips. ‘Any time you go to bed with me, Katharine Dysart, you’ll be too occupied to think of laying ghosts.’
‘Ah. I’ve insulted you.’
‘Damn right.’ He took her by the elbows and planted her back in the other corner of the sofa. ‘As
an ardour-dampening exercise, that was very effective.’
Kate looked pointedly at his lap. ‘Not entirely.’
He jumped up, and kicked some logs into place in the fire. ‘All right,’ he snapped, his rigid shoulders very expressive. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Maybe you should go home right now.’
‘You’re throwing me out?’
Alasdair turned on her. ‘I thought you were desperate to go?’
‘Not at all. If you remember,’ she reminded him, ‘I was saying it might be a good thing if you made love to me.’
He glared at her. ‘When a woman makes love with me I prefer it to be for the right reasons.’
‘Panting with lust for your body, rather than engaged in an experiment?’
‘Exactly. So if your only aim is research, Madame Curie, choose someone else. Your friend Jack, for instance.’
‘You’re missing the point,’ she said impatiently. ‘It has to be you.’
Alasdair stared at her in frowning silence for a while. ‘Explain,’ he said at last.
‘Seeing you again made me wonder if you’re the reason why I find close relationships with men so tricky.’ She gazed up at him coaxingly. ‘So perhaps if we did make love I could just get it out of my system and—’
‘Stop right there,’ he ordered, his face like thunder. ‘Are you seriously asking me to make love to you to set your libido free for other men? What the hell do you think I am?’
‘My friend? A close, valued friend?’ She got up and went to him, sliding her arms round his waist. ‘You wanted me a few minutes ago,’ she muttered into his chest, and moved closer, triumphant when she felt him harden against her. ‘I think you still do.’
He gave a smothered exclamation and pushed her away. ‘Stop it, Kate. If you want to play games find someone else.’
She turned away to hide sudden, unexpected tears. ‘Alasdair, I’m sorry,’ she said thickly. ‘It was a stupid idea. If you’ll get my coat I’ll go home.’
He turned her round and found her eyes were wet. ‘Kate—don’t, please. Come and sit down again.’ he drew her down beside him on the sofa and put his arm round her, frowning when she stiffened.
‘Change of heart?’ he asked, his cheek against her hair.
Sweet Surrender (The Dysarts) Page 8
