by Unknown
Ellen jumped back into the Merc, narrowly avoiding being handbagged again, and left Dot standing on the pavement hurling abuse. ‘Sorry about this, Lloyd. Would you mind driving away rather fast?’
‘Certainly.’ He put the car into first gear, only too happy to oblige.
A moment later they were flying past the entrance to the Duck Upstream car park. ‘I’ll drive round the block to put her off the scent,’ he explained, after a glance in the rear view mirror: he was fantasising himself as James Bond staging a getaway from Blofeld, Ellen thought. ‘We don’t want her following us into the restaurant – I never double-date.’
‘Thanks.’ Ellen watched the small figure, still hopping around on the pavement, recede into the distance. Then, as they climbed out of the village on the Hillcote lane, she groaned and sagged back in her seat. ‘That really wasn’t supposed to happen – sorry. I don’t think I’m very good at firing people.’
Lloyd raised an eyebrow, still apparently on his Bond trip. ‘Why did you need to fire them?’
‘Because they weren’t doing their job.’ She looked across at him levelly, but he just smiled.
‘Is that a threat?’ His tone was teasing and flirtatious, his big hunky jaw jutting forward.
‘Depends if you’ve been doing yours,’ she muttered, and turned to look out at the hot evening, wondering how she was going to tackle the garden alone. She badly needed rain. Even after just a week of unbroken sun, the ground had hardened and cracked. She couldn’t hope to get a spade into the earth or pull dock roots from their concrete casing. She was half tempted to ask Lloyd if he’d help – he certainly looked strong enough. Again she was reminded that she only wanted him for his body, and even that urge was waning. It was too hot to get physical.
They drove into the tiny hamlet of Hillcote, which was made up of barely a dozen ancient Cotswold-stone houses clustered around a well. There were chickens wandering free range in the lane and a white goose flapped from an old churn stand. A man watering his garden waved at the Merc and two grey cats watched them impassively from a dry-stone wall. They made Ellen think about poor Fins, fending for himself, not knowing where his home was any more. He hadn’t touched the food she’d put out. She hoped he wasn’t making a bid to return to Cornwall, Incredible Journey-style. He should have asked her first – she’d have tagged along with Snorkel.
‘Beautiful round here, isn’t it?’ Lloyd murmured, as they did a U-turn around the well, ready to head back to Oddlode.
‘I prefer the sea,’ she said, glaring at the chickens. Trouble-making species: at least seagulls flew away from Snorkel when she tried to make friends.
‘You like water sports?’ he asked casually.
She nodded, and wondered if he’d spotted the surfboards stacked up in the open barn.
His sugar eyes lit up. ‘In that case . . .’
She almost barrelled into him as he took a sharp left along an unmade lane marked dead end.
Half a mile on they arrived at a set of flashy electric gates, beyond which was a huge old house with lots of sculpted garden. Lloyd stopped the Merc in the gateway and reached for the glovebox.
‘Pear Tree Farm – on our books for just under one and a half million,’ he told her smoothly, a sum he was clearly accustomed to saying as casually as his own telephone number. ‘Unrivalled views, twenty-five acres, equestrian facilities, tennis court, pool and guest cottage. Nice little house. Ah!’ He pulled out a set of keys and pressed a small button on the keyring. A moment later the gates swung open. ‘Want to take a look?’
‘I’m not really in the market for a million-pound house,’ she mumbled, wondering if this was some sort of psychological game-plan to show her that Goose Cottage – precisely half the asking price of Pear Tree Farm – was very grotty by Seaton’s standards.
‘Oh, I’m sure I can talk you round.’ He steered the car through the gates.
Ellen felt uncomfortable. ‘What about the owners?’
‘Abroad on holiday.’ As they cruised along the gravel drive, he pressed a pre-set on the mobile phone that was plugged into a hands-free kit. It rang through on the car’s stereo speakers.
‘Good evening, the Duck Upstream restaurant,’ came a syrupy female reply.
‘Hi, Gina. Lloyd Fenniweather here.’
‘Hi, Lloyd!’
‘Can you keep my table another half an hour or so? I’m so sorry, but we’re going to be late. Unavoidable.’
‘No problem.’
‘You’re a honey.’
God, he was smooth, Ellen thought. He had all the moves off pat. He’d cut the call, cut the engine, grabbed his dark glasses and sauntered round to the passenger door to open it for her in the time it had taken her to undo her seatbelt and reach for the handle.
‘Come and have a look round my favourite little bolthole.’ He made an extravagant gesture as he led her towards the beautiful farmhouse.
Almost knocked sideways by the stuffy heat of the evening, Ellen bestowed a crabby look on the house and then on Lloyd. She guessed that this routine was well practised, and she doubted it was just from showing genuine buyers around Seaton’s most expensive properties. It was probably Lloyd Fenniweather’s secret tactic for seducing women. What better start to a date than to bring the girl to a million-pound house and make her feel like she could own it – and him – in one gorgeous deal?
And Ellen needed working on more than most. She’d had an awful week, was six days into quitting smoking, had just been handbagged in the street, and she really only wanted to grill him about her parents’ cottage. The sexual attraction that had fizzled between them at their first meeting simply wasn’t there this evening – all she felt was over-hot, over-tired, over-stressed irritation at his faked smoothness and his cocky arrogance. ‘I’m not sure this is a very good idea,’ she said, as he unlocked the front door. ‘I don’t want to snoop around someone else’s house. It feels invasive.’ She could almost hear Pheely’s voice crying in her ear, ‘No! Have a snoop! This is my dream come true!’
Lloyd looked surprised. Clearly he’d never been refused the opportunity to show off the lifestyle accessories of the rich. ‘It’s for sale.’ He laughed. ‘The owners are used to people snooping around – I’ve shown it to three clients this week.’
But Ellen backed away, gazing up at the pretty sash windows. ‘I’d rather stay outside, thanks.’
‘It has seven bedrooms.’ He raised a suggestive eyebrow. ‘And a huge water-bed in the master suite.’
Ellen sucked in one cheek as the sugar-sweet gaze watching her hardened excitedly to rock candy . . . quite possibly along with another part of Lloyd’s very beautiful anatomy.
Water sports. Of course. She’d heard enough jokes over the years to know that the phrase covered all manner of nefarious games. Lloyd Fenniweather wanted to try out the water-bed. Perhaps he meant other water sports too. Had he really imagined that he floated her boat that much after she’d spent just ten minutes in a car with him? Well, if he did, he had just burned his own boats and was in very deep water.
‘I’m not interested,’ she told him firmly. ‘I think you got the wrong particulars on this hot property.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He tried to stay super-smooth but allowed a little petulance to creep into his voice. ‘We’ll go to the restaurant.’
‘Hang on.’ Ellen crossed her arms. ‘I think we should go through the Goose Cottage situation while we’re here. We’ve got half an hour and it’s much quieter than a restaurant. Is there a table or bench we can perch on while we talk?’
Super-smooth Lloyd looked decidedly ragged at this, but he managed an on-off smile. ‘If we must – just let me get the file from the car.’
Once he had a smart Seaton’s ring-binder clasped under one arm, he led the way round the side of the house to a high-walled courtyard, which glowed in the evening sun. And as soon as she rounded the corner behind him, Ellen saw a sight that made her feet twitch excitedly in their strappy sandals. At one end, separ
ated by a dividing wall, was a very blue, very sparkly swimming-pool. She sat down at a scorched-teak table positively squirming with the need to take a running jump into it. The seat burned her thighs through her thin skirt, and the suntrap courtyard broiled with ensnared heat. The smell of chlorine and the sound of water lapping into the filters made her feel almost faint.
Lloyd took a seat opposite her, pulled his shades into his hair, widened his white fake smile and crossed his hands on the closed file – back in professional smoothie mode, her recent rejection put to the back of his mind as quickly as a lost sale.
‘Goose Cottage is a curious little property – far more problematic than we had at first anticipated.’ The posh voice purred as soothingly as the lapping pool. ‘We set about marketing it in the belief that it would attract offers like wildfire, even given that we were starting out in January. But it hasn’t.’
‘Why ever not?’ Ellen stared longingly at the pool, imagining the cool sensation of chlorinated water tightening her hot, sweaty pores.
‘Mixture of reasons – no single factor.’ The smile stretched wider and wider. ‘People have been interested and there’s an offer still out on it . . .’
‘For two hundred thousand below the asking price!’ Ellen reminded him, dragging her eyes from the pool and finding, to her surprise, that he was reaching across the table and fiddling with one of her friendship bracelets. She snatched away her hand and used it to flip her hair back from her sweaty forehead. The courtyard was like a cauldron.
‘Which makes you wonder if we’ve pitched it a little high,’ he suggested gently. ‘I have suggested this to your parents more than once, but they’re adamant they want the full asking price or as near as dammit.’
Now feeling almost too hot to concentrate on what he was saying, Ellen just huffed. It wasn’t her place to start demanding that Jennifer and Theo ask less for the asset that they hoped would secure their old age.
‘Although exquisitely pretty,’ Lloyd was doing his smooth purring thing again, ‘Goose Cottage really is only four-bedroom max, and that includes two very awkward attic rooms. People expect more house for that money. The bunkhouse steps make it impractical as a granny flat, and the cellars would make great playrooms for kids, but they have the same frightening stone steps and are a fire hazard. These things put off families with elderly relatives or small children. The garden is a huge responsibility, as is blatantly obvious now that your parents’ gardener has – er – given up, shall we say? That puts off weekenders. There’s a paddock with no road access, so anyone who wanted to keep a horse or pony would have to lead it through the garden. These all have to be accounted for in the price.’
Ellen was hardly listening to a word he was saying. She blinked sweat from her eyes and noticed that Lloyd was dripping too. The sugary eyes looked into her face with sweet innocence, only the playful smile hinting at a hidden agenda.
‘I haven’t conducted a viewing in weeks because there simply hasn’t been any interest. Now is Seaton’s busiest time – long, sunny days, kids still at school, bank-holiday weekends.’ He was inching closer across the table, his nose approaching hers as he seemed to sense her frothing over.
Suddenly the sexual energy kicked in again. From nowhere, Ellen found herself fighting a reckless urge to grab him by the scruff of the neck, tow him to the pool, push him in fully dressed and jump in after him. She was craving chlorine, nicotine and the sort of teenage irresponsibility that meant she didn’t have to worry about smarmy, male-model estate agents not selling her parents’ house. She just wanted to swim and play water-polo and be a kid, like she had been with Richard.
Biting the tip of her tongue hard to make the thought go away, she fanned her shirt, determined to get back on track and complete her hot cross-examination. ‘Have you advertised Goose Cottage this month?’
Lloyd was glistening all over like an oiled Adonis, licking salty sweat from his perfect lips. He rested his chin in his cupped hands and blinked becomingly. ‘Not recently – you have to be aware of the danger of over-advertising.’
Was it her imagination, Ellen wondered, or was his ankle rubbing against hers?
‘And the cost, no doubt?’ she said lightly, pulling her feet under her and feeling the sweat squelch behind her knees.
‘True – but people see the same house advertised again and again, and start to think there’s something wrong with it.’ He was watching her face closely, and added, ‘Doesn’t that pool make you want to dive in?’
She felt her toes brace in preparation for a table-upturning sprint to the diving board. But she held herself down. Nice try, she thought testily. I’m ready for you. ‘Not right now, it doesn’t.’ She unglued her shirt from her chest and fanned it again. ‘And getting back to the point, it doesn’t help when the agent tells people, within seconds of their call, that there is something wrong with the cottage, then announces there aren’t any colour brochures left but he’ll send off a dodgy photocopy.’
‘Ah – yes.’ He wiped his wet temples with his palms. ‘Sorry about that, but I was in a hurry.’
‘And why isn’t there a for-sale sign outside?’
‘We never put boards up for rural properties over half a million unless they’re hard to find. It gives an air of exclusivity.’
‘And it means nobody knows they’re for sale!’ She wiped sweat beads off her own forehead. ‘Oddlode’s full of rich tourists who might want to buy a house on the spur of the moment.’
‘And it’s also full of tourists who love to look round properties for something to do on a rainy day instead of a cream tea.’ He was getting prickly too, the super-smooth banter staccato and edgy. ‘We call them Misguided Tours. They never buy houses and they waste everybody’s time.’
‘And estate agents who don’t sell houses are a waste of time, too.’
His handsome face twitched with the effort of maintaining the big white smile. ‘Then tell your parents to drop the price.’
‘First, I want a for-sale sign,’ Ellen demanded. ‘And I want you to run adverts for Goose Cottage in the local papers next week, as well as in Country Life and the Saturday Telegraph – that probably means actioning all this on Monday to make the deadlines. I shall expect to see proof. Did you send press releases to the property-news pages about Goose Cottage and its history?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Then do that too.’ She twisted her sweaty hair back from her face. ‘I also want you to arrange for more brochures to be printed next week – again, I’ll need proof that this has been done.’
‘We do charge for these services, you know.’
‘If you sell the house within a month, you can charge,’ she said simply. ‘If not, we take it to another agent and you bear the costs. And if that agent values it at less, we’ll sell it at less. You valued it at the asking price and you sell at no less than five per cent under that price or you walk.’
‘That’s unheard of!’
‘So, break the rules. It’s either that or I appoint another agency on Monday.’ She leaned back in her seat, fanning herself with her shirt.
He cocked his square, pretty jaw, twisted his kissable pin-up lips and stared at her as his caramel eyes bubbled with indignation. ‘Is it breaking the rules to call your clients’ daughter a total bitch?’
‘I’ll take it as a compliment.’ She raised her chin and smiled.
Sweat was glistening on Lloyd’s golden skin, lifting the blond hairs and ruffling his feather-cut fringe. Disgruntled and left-footed, he was far more attractive than when he was trying to charm.
Ping! At last, the attraction she’d felt when she first met him kicked Ellen in the solar plexus. Her libido bounded out to enjoy the sunshine, a little tetchy from so long in the cold and a little uncertain that it was capable of more than a quick outing, but definitely in situ.
She felt the big smile pulling at her lips. And it had the strangest after-effect. As she smiled, she felt it tugging her knickers tightly into her crotch. The h
igher the smile, the tighter her knickers. She found laughter rippling through it too – an irrepressible, joyful release of tension. She was fizzing all over.
And she was impressed and more than a bit surprised when Lloyd suddenly smiled too. ‘You really are in a firing mood this evening, aren’t you?’
‘Firing on all cylinders.’ She couldn’t stop the sudden crotch-tightening, belly-lurching, hollow-chested feeling. The sexual appeal was back big-time. When you knocked his smooth edges off, Lloyd Fenniweather was pretty desirable. ‘So does that mean you’d rather I appointed another agent?’
Lloyd looked at her for a long, long time, the big smile blasting even more heat into the kiln-like courtyard. ‘You really are amazing, you know that? You’re one of the sexiest women I’ve ever met.’
Ellen licked her lips, returning his gaze. She still couldn’t find him quite as sexy as she had for those few giddy moments on the Goose Cottage drive a week earlier, but she was enjoying herself again. He could forget about water sports in the Pear Tree Farm master bedroom, but there was something else wet and seductive she was desperate to try.
‘Are we going to be really late for the restaurant?’
He didn’t even look at his watch. ‘They like me. They’ll hold the table.’
‘Good.’ She stood up. ‘Excuse me – there’s something I just have to do . . .’
Kicking off her sandals as she ran and untying the drawstring on her skirt, Ellen left her clothes where they fell on the paving stones and bounded down the diving board.
It wasn’t one of her most calculated gestures. As a child of the sea and far too accustomed to clambering in and out of wetsuits to be body-conscious, it didn’t occur to her that here, in the landlocked Cotswolds, going for a swim in undies was tantamount to offering yourself on a plate with garnished nipples and sauce on the side.
Lloyd sat transfixed at the table as she pranced along in a white bra and pants then divebombed into the Cambridge blue surface. ‘You beauty!’
But Ellen heard nothing but the rush of water and the echoing swoosh of her opening arms as she slowed down and sat on the bottom of the pool. As the air bubbles were forced out from beneath the fine hairs on her body, from her nostrils, ears and clammy skin, Ellen stayed suspended underwater and felt as though she had dived into heaven. It had been a week since she’d swum, and no amount of long warm baths to soothe away the aches of non-stop cleaning had compensated for this sensation. She swam a length of the pool underwater, looking through the clear water at the mosaic tiles and steps at one end, dancing with reflections from the evening sun, in a world of her own.
