For His Eyes Only

by Liz Fielding

  ‘Promises, promises…’ For a moment they just looked at one another, then she turned away from the intensity of it and he allowed her to break the contact between them. ‘Actually, robust is good. My family still treat me as if I’ve been stuck back together with some very dodgy glue and might fall apart at any moment.’

  ‘No swimming, because pools are a germ factory and who knows what’s in the sea?’ he suggested.

  ‘That’s pretty much how it went.’

  ‘It must have been difficult for them to truly believe that you’ve made a full recovery,’ he said. ‘I imagine you never quite trust the fates once you’ve been through something like that.’

  ‘It wasn’t just my parents. I’ve got three older brothers and they lived through it, too. Tom, the eldest, became a doctor because of what happened to me.’

  ‘What about the other two?’

  ‘James is a vet; Harry is a sports teacher. He’s nearest in age to me and appointed himself my personal bodyguard when I started school. If anyone got too close, too rough, watch out.’

  He knew he’d have been the same, but he could see it wouldn’t be much fun to be on the receiving end of that kind of protection. ‘How did you cope with that?’

  ‘I regret to say that I loved it. I was a proper little princess,’ she admitted ruefully, ‘and, with three gorgeous brothers, everyone wanted to be my friend. It was only when I was fifteen and Harry discovered that I had a crush on a boy in the lower sixth that it all got out of hand.’

  He grinned. ‘I suppose he warned him off his little sister?’

  ‘Oh, it was worse, far worse than that. The poor guy obviously didn’t have a clue that he was the object of my desire. He always smiled at me in the corridor—probably because I was Harry’s sister—and I’d just built up this huge fantasy. As you do…’ He glanced at her and she rolled her eyes. ‘Teenage girls.’

  ‘An alien species,’ he agreed. ‘And?’

  ‘And my sweet brother asked him, as a personal favour, to take me as his date to a school disco.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘I wish,’ she said, ‘but Harry was captain of sport and played under-eighteen rugby for the county. A request from him was in the nature of a decree from Mount Olympus.’

  ‘So you had your dream date?’

  ‘Bliss city.’

  ‘But?’

  She sighed. ‘There is always a “but”,’ she agreed. ‘I discovered what Harry had done, which was a total nightmare, but worse, much worse, I discovered that everyone else knew.’

  ‘Before? After? During?’

  ‘During. The classic overheard gossip in the loo… The girl he would have taken if Harry hadn’t stuck his oar in was giving vent to her feelings about the spoiled, fat little cow who’d got her brother to twist her boyfriend’s arm.’

  ‘Ouch,’ he said, flippantly enough, but deep down he was imagining what that must have been like for an overprotected fifteen-year-old girl. The embarrassment, the shame… ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I waited in the cubicle until they’d gone, then I slipped out of school and walked home.’

  ‘Of course you did. How far was it?’

  ‘A couple of miles. It wouldn’t have been a problem, but I’d abandoned my coat because I didn’t want anyone to see me leave.’

  ‘Coat? What time of year was this?’

  ‘It was the Christmas disco,’ she said, and he let slip a word that he immediately apologised for.

  ‘No, you’re okay.’ She held up her hand and began to count off the reasons why that word was just about perfect. First finger… ‘There was the no-coat thing, which on any level was pretty dumb.’ Second finger… ‘There were the sparkly new shoes which weren’t made for long-distance walking and fell apart after half a mile.’ Third finger… ‘Then it began to rain.’

  ‘Your date didn’t miss you?’

  ‘Not for a while. When a girl disappears into a cloakroom who knows how long she’ll be and I don’t suppose he was in any hurry…’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, my feet hurt, my dress was ruined and my life was over. Worse, I knew my parents would be waiting up for me, wanting to hear about my date. I couldn’t face all that concern, all that sympathy, so I hid in the garden shed.’

  ‘Oh, I can see where this is going. No one knew where you were. They organised a search party, called the police, dragged the river?’

  ‘All of the above.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  She laughed at his horrified reaction. ‘Okay, not the river. Tom came looking for a torch and found me before it got that far. I was given a severe talking to by the local constabulary on the subject of responsibility and Dad grounded me for the whole of the Christmas holidays. No parties or holiday outings for me. Not much of a punishment, to be honest. I wanted to hibernate.’

  ‘He knew that. He was making it easy for you.’

  ‘Oh… Of course he was.’ She shook her head. ‘I never realised.’

  ‘You were upset.’

  ‘It got worse. School insisted that I had “counselling”,’ she said, making quote marks with her fingers, ‘because obviously anyone who behaved so irrationally, so irresponsibly, had problems and needed help.’

  Hardly irrational, he thought. More like a wounded animal going to ground. Something he knew all about.

  ‘Not a Christmas to remember, I’m guessing.’

  ‘White-faced parents, Harry in the doghouse with everyone. A total lack of ho-ho-ho. On the upside, by the time the holidays were over there were other scandals to talk about.’

  ‘And the downside?’

  ‘I’m still trying to prove that I can put one foot in front of the other without one of them holding my hand. Proving to my brothers that their broken little sister is all mended.’

  Darius, thinking that if they’d seen her laying into him they might be convinced, said, ‘Any luck?’

  ‘The nearest I came was last Christmas when I drove home in the BMW.’

  ‘Ho-ho-ho!’

  She dug him in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Men are so shallow. If I’d known how easy it was to impress them I’d have saved my bonuses for a flash car instead of putting down a deposit on my flat.’

  ‘The fact that you didn’t proves how smart you are.’

  She sighed. ‘Not smart enough to see this coming. Every morning I wake up and, just for a moment, everything is normal.’

  Ten seconds, he thought. You had about ten seconds when you thought life still made sense before that jolt as you remembered and it was like the first moment all over again.

  ‘I just feel so stupid.’

  ‘Only someone you trust, someone you love can betray you, Natasha. It always comes out of left field.’ He felt, rather than saw her turn to look at him. There would be a question mark rippling the creamy skin between her brows and he held his breath, waiting for the questions.

  How did he know? When had his world come crashing down? Who had betrayed him? For what seemed an age the only sound was a blackbird perched high in the cedar tree. It was one of those long silences that the unwary rushed to fill and, even though he recognised the danger, he found himself tempted to tell her anyway.

  She stirred before he could gather the words. Begin…

  ‘The real downside was the guilt,’ she said. ‘I was old enough then to see what it did to my mother, to understand what she must have been through when I was little, so when Dad suggested I take my degree at Melchester University…’

  Conflicting emotions twisted his gut. Relief that she’d let him off the hook, regret that he’d missed his chance.

  ‘You wanted to make it up to them,’ he said.

  ‘It was okay, actually. Melchester has one of the best estate management courses in the country and, with all those lads living away from home for the first time, I was never short of a date.’

  He doubted her mother’s cooking was the only lure but he didn’t want to think about that. ‘So what made you toss away
the dream job with the National Trust and run away to London to work for Miles Morgan?’

  ‘I live in a small town. I was the little girl who’d had leukaemia. My sickness defined me. No one could see past it, not even my family.’

  ‘So you finally made the break.’

  ‘No… I lied to them, Darius.’

  ‘Lied?’

  ‘I knew that if I took the National Trust job, just down the road, I’d never leave. Never do anything. I’d marry someone I’d known all my life, who knew everything I’d ever done…’

  ‘You told them you didn’t get it?’

  She nodded. ‘It felt like breaking out of jail.’ She tossed away the dregs of her coffee, staring out over the neglected lawn. ‘I’ll be honest. This isn’t where I saw myself five years on from my degree, but I’ve worked harder than anyone so that I wouldn’t have to go home and prove them all right.’ She turned to look at him. ‘You think I’m terrible, don’t you? That I don’t know how lucky I am to have a family who cares about me.’

  Close. Very close. Apparently he wasn’t the only one reading body language, studying inner depths. She must have learned a thing or two watching the men and women trying to hide their reactions to the houses she showed them, playing their cards close to their chest.

  ‘I have no family,’ he said, ‘so I’m in no position to judge.’

  ‘None?’ And in a moment her expression turned from inward reproach to concern. ‘I’m so sorry, Darius. That’s really tough. What happened to your parents?’

  Yes, well, that was the thing about trusting someone with your secrets; it was supposed to be a two-way deal but his moment of weakness had passed and he was already regretting this excursion into her past. Why complicate something as simple as sex?

  ‘I have no parents.’ He drained his coffee, screwed the top back on the flask and put it back in her bag. ‘Did you ever tell them the truth?’ he asked before she could push him for details. ‘About the job?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Maybe you should,’ he advised. Clearly she was harbouring the guilt.

  ‘They’d be devastated. And now, after all that horrible stuff in the paper, all those between-the-lines insinuations that I’m mentally unstable, they’re out of their minds worried again.’

  Her eyes were shining, but the tears were more of anger than anything else, he was certain. Was that how it was? Love? This complicated mishmash of guilt, anxiety, the desperate need not to hurt, to protect? Add in passion, sacrifice, the world well lost and you were well and truly stuffed… Or maybe blessed beyond measure.

  Natasha blinked back the threatening tears and he put his arm around her, drew her close. There was a moment of stiffness, resistance and then she melted against him. ‘My mother is desperate for me to go with them on the annual trek to Cornwall so that she can look after me,’ she said. ‘Heal me with sea air, walks on the beach, evening games of Scrabble.’

  ‘Instead, you’re playing hide the sausage in the woods with a disreputable sculptor who’s going to put your naked body on display for the entire world to see,’ he said.

  She snorted, buried her face into his shoulder and suddenly, sitting there, his arm around her, both of them shaking with laughter, felt like a perfect moment.

  Above them the swallows swooped just above head height, the scent of roses was drifting on a warm breeze and the temptation to stay there, looking out over the heat-hazed valley, almost overwhelmed him.

  SEVEN

  ‘Darius?’

  He stirred and Natasha lifted her head, looked up at him. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Tears of pain and laughter had clumped her eyelashes together. He used the pad of his thumb to wipe away one that had spilled over, kissed lips that were raised in what felt like an invitation. ‘You can tell your family from me that they don’t have a thing to worry about. You are strong in every way and I’m really glad you’re on my side.’

  Really glad as he kissed her again and, lost in the sweetness of her mouth, for once in his life not thinking about an exit strategy. It should be scaring the wits out of him, but the connection between them had an honesty that overrode any fear of commitment. Natasha needed him on her side to re-establish her career, didn’t know that security guard from Adam and yet she had instantly empathised with him and she hadn’t hesitated to give it to him with both barrels when she thought he was wrong. How many women in her situation would have done that?

  When he was with her, he had no sense of losing himself, but of becoming something greater.

  Blessed.

  It was Natasha who moved.

  ‘Enough of this maudlin self-pity,’ she said. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

  He looked back at the house. Huge, empty… ‘Are you going to be all right on your own?’

  She gave him a warning look and he held up his hands. ‘Sorry…’

  ‘No… I shouldn’t be so defensive.’ Then, as he made a reluctant move, ‘Actually, there is one thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Tash had felt the exact moment that Darius had wanted to move. For a blissful few minutes he’d been still, utterly relaxed and his kiss had been so tender that tears had once again threatened to overwhelm her.

  After such an emotional exchange most men would have said anything but that shuttered ‘yes’ was warning enough, if she’d needed it, not to get too deeply involved with Darius Hadley. He wasn’t a keeper and no one could protect her from that kind of pain.

  ‘If I find any diaries, can I borrow them?’

  ‘Diaries?’

  ‘I imagine there are diaries, letters?’ she prompted. ‘Something interesting must have happened in three and a half centuries. You’ve got a ballroom, so presumably there were country balls? The occasional drama over a little inappropriate flirting? Maybe a duel?’ she added, just to get a response.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said stiffly, all his defences back up.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Darius, lighten up,’ she said crossly. ‘If there had been any scandal to be dug up, the newspapers would have been all over it when that blasted ad became a news item.’

  It didn’t mean there wasn’t a family skeleton rattling around in the cupboard because it was obvious that something wasn’t right. He’d changed the subject faster than greased lightning when she’d asked him about his parents.

  She lifted an eyebrow, inviting him to come clean, but even yesterday, with a bulge in his pants that had to have hurt, he’d been unreadable, hiding whatever he was thinking, feeling. What had it taken to build that mask?

  What would it take, she wondered, to shatter it?

  No, no, no…

  ‘A house that grand, that old, must have hosted some interesting people over the centuries?’ she persisted. It was all very well to casually toss out the words ‘social media’, but posting pictures of the house on Facebook and flinging ‘buy this’ Tweets around like confetti wasn’t going to do the job.

  ‘Not interesting in your sense of the word. The Hadleys were riding, shooting, fishing country squires with no pretensions to high society.’

  ‘More Jane Austen than Georgette Heyer,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I don’t suppose she ever came to tea? Jane Austen,’ she added. Much as she loved Georgette Heyer’s books, a visit from her wouldn’t arouse the same kind of interest. ‘I need a way in, something to grab the attention, create interest, start a buzz going.’

  ‘Why don’t you make up a story?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Most family history is based on Chinese whispers—expanded and decorated with every retelling. Our story is that James Hadley was given the estate by Charles II for services rendered during his exile. How much more likely is it that he bought it cheap for a quick sale from one of Cromwell’s confederates who, come the Restoration, decided the climate in the New World might be better for his health?’

  ‘You’re such a cynic, Darius Hadley.’

  Off th
e dangerous territory of recent history, he grinned. ‘A realist. Who’s going to challenge you if you say Jane Austen stayed one wet week in April and, confined to the house, spun a story to keep everyone amused?’

  ‘I have no doubt that some obsessive Janeite would know exactly where she was during that particular week.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. They didn’t have email or Skype or television to keep them amused so they wrote long detailed letters to their family and friends telling them where they were, what they were doing. And instead of blogging, they kept diaries…’ She lifted her hands in a ta-da gesture.

  ‘Being caught out in a blatant lie might grab the house another headline. Mad Estate Agent Lies About Austen Connection?’ he offered. ‘You did say any publicity would be good publicity.’

  ‘I think you’ve had all that kind of “good” publicity you can handle and I’m trying to restore my reputation, not sink it without a trace so, unless you can point me to an entry in one your ancestors’ diaries along the lines that “Mrs Austen visited with her daughters, Cassandra and Jane. It rained all week, but Jane kept the children amused acting out scenes from a little history of England she has written…” we’ll save that as a last resort.’

  ‘You’re the expert,’ he said. ‘You’ll find the diaries in my grandmother’s room. She was writing a history of the house. I don’t know if she ever finished it.’

  ‘A history?’ She was practically speechless. ‘There’s a history! For heaven’s sake, Darius, talk about pulling hen’s teeth!’

  He grinned. ‘I’ve made the woman happy. If there’s nothing else?’

  ‘No… Yes…’ She fished in the picnic bag and produced a small plastic box. ‘Take Gary these cookies from me. They’re not as healthy as grapes, but they’ll help a cup of hospital tea go down.’

  *

  Tash let herself into the house, dealt with the alarm and then, as the Land Rover rattled into life, she turned and watched it disappear as the drive dipped and curved through the woods. It seemed a little early for hospital visiting, but he’d shown no interest in going inside the house and she suspected that it served as a useful excuse to avoid whatever it was that he didn’t want to talk about.