He vanished out of the room, leaving her to her thoughts which, as far as she was concerned, were very unwelcome companions indeed, and reappeared fifteen minutes later with a tray.
‘She hates these stairs,’ he said, shifting aside a wad of papers to make room for the tray. ‘She says they’re too steep but, frankly, I think it’s a sign of Lise getting older.’ He poured them both some tea, then said, resuming his position against the desk and indicating a chair to her, ‘Now, where were we?’
Katherine sat down. ‘We weren’t anywhere,’ she said. ‘I had made my point and was on my way out, and you then insisted that I had some tea.’
‘You were about to tell me whether you feel as though you are gathering cobwebs.’
‘I was not about to do any such thing.’
‘Thirty-one, a schoolteacher, out here in the provinces. Do you think that your life is closing in?’
‘Still a young woman, doing a job that I love, surrounded by beautiful countryside. Why should I?’
He laughed, his green eyes glittering.
‘I don’t live here against my will,’ Katherine said quietly. ‘Nor do I teach through necessity. I like it.’
‘Yet you pursue a man like the one who took my sister out. Why? Where does the attraction lie?’
She went pink. ‘David is a good man.’ She rested the teacup and saucer on her lap and thought, Why should I let him feel that there has been no one for the past six years? Why give him the satisfaction? ‘He’s steady, he’s reliable.’
‘Not the most exciting qualities in the world.’
‘I don’t crave excitement,’ she said quickly. ‘I did once, but…’
‘You mean in London?’ His voice was sharp and demanding, and it made her realise how guarded she had to be in her responses to him.
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Now I have to go.’ She began walking towards the doorway. There was no door there, simply an arch.
‘But now all that is behind you?’ he asked softly, from behind her. ‘Is that why you cultivate this dowdy image?’ She felt him reach out, and then he pulled the elastic band from her plait and spread his fingers in her hair.
The feel of his hand coiled in her long hair was like a vast electric charge going through her. He pulled the strands of the plait until her hair fell down her back, then he turned her round to face him. His fingers tangled in the mass of her hair made it impossible for her to run.
‘That’s better,’ he said with satisfaction, and he gave her a long, cool look that was appraising rather than sexual.
‘Give me back,’ she muttered, her cheeks hectic with colour, ‘that elastic band.’
‘Is that the tone you use on those little girls when they start misbehaving?’
She ignored that. ‘Now.’
‘My blood is curdling with fright,’ he drawled, ‘but no, I don’t think I will return it to you. You look far nicer with your hair loose. More like that wild, carefree nymph I used to know.’
‘I am neither wild nor carefree,’ she heard herself say stiffly, and in her voice she could hear the unsteady promise of tears, which she bit back.
‘Perhaps David would be more attracted to you if you unbent a little.’
‘Don’t give me advice on my private life.’
The abundance of dark hair falling around her was embarrassing. Why on earth had she never had it cut? It was as if that gay, light-hearted creature who had fallen head over heels in love with Dominic Duvall all those years ago had been locked away in a room. All that was left of her was this hair, spilling down like silk. To have had it chopped off would have been like locking the door of the room. Had she subconsciously veered away from doing that?
The question ran through her head, puzzling her, frightening her, because, when she had thought that everything was sorted out, that she was in control of her life, they made her think that perhaps she wasn’t after all.
‘Perhaps he wouldn’t be so eager to pursue my sister,’ Dominic said smoothly.
‘He isn’t. He took your sister out once because he was forced into it, but that was all.’ She spoke quickly, spontaneously defending Jack, remembering what the girl had said about her brother’s over-protectiveness.
As soon as she had spoken, though, she wondered why on earth she had bothered. She didn’t want to involve herself in this family. Let them get on with their own internal problems. The best thing she could do would be to steer clear of them.
Dominic looked at her through narrowed, speculative eyes.
‘He didn’t strike me as a man under pressure.’
‘He’s too polite to kick up a fuss over something like that,’ she muttered under her breath.
‘Is that what you tell yourself? And what will you tell yourself the next time temptation gets in his way? That he’s just too polite to refuse?’
Katherine swung round and began walking away.
‘I’m not finished with you,’ he said from behind her, and she hesitated just a fraction too long. Instead of running swiftly down the stairs, she paused, with her back to him.
‘You force your way into this house on some strange mission to defend yourself, but it’s quite pointless. You’re no more interested in me than I am in you, and I’m fully aware of that. I have no idea what my sister said to you, but I don’t see the necessity of warning you off me. Why should I? I made a mistake with you once and I’m not a man to make the same mistake a second time.’
‘Good.’ She turned to face him.
She had swept her hair over one shoulder and she twirled the bottom of the mane in her fingers.
‘But if you’re so concerned about your precious pride, then why don’t you look at your behaviour with this man of yours? Four years of chasing, and for what? You tell me that your life is perfect, but I look at you and I can only think that desperation is driving you on to accept a man like that, who clearly doesn’t want any more from you than the occasional meal out and a friendly ear.’
He had taken a few steps towards her and she stared at him angrily, her heart thudding.
‘Oh, you know all this after a five-minute meeting, do you? How clever! But you’re hardly in a fit position to lecture about relationships, are you? Jack told me about…’ Here her voice fizzled out. She saw a flash of fury cross his face.
‘Told you about…what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Told you about my wife, I take it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Katherine mumbled. ‘I had no right to mention your wife.’
‘No.’ Dominic’s voice was cold. ‘You hadn’t. But now that you have, you might just as well hear it from my mouth. My marriage to Franise was a mistake. In fact, the only good thing to emerge from it was Claire. Franise was demanding, avaricious, vain.’
‘Why did you marry her in the first place?’
‘Because,’ he said grimly, ‘she was exciting.’ His lips twisted into a sneer. ‘And excitement is an addictive drug, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it is rarely enough to take two people through a marriage.’
‘Does excitement mean that much to you?’ she asked faintly.
‘What are the alternatives? Tedium? Monotony? The relentless treadmill of boredom?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Of course not,’ he drawled in a vaguely sneering voice. ‘And you would know, would you? You tell me that I’m unfit to lecture about relationships, but I hardly see how you’re in a position to lecture about the nuts and bolts of marriage.’
‘I wasn’t lecturing,’ Katherine protested heatedly. She had dropped her hands to her sides and her fists were clenched.
‘Have you had any excitement in your life since London?’ he asked softly, and now he was standing so close to her that she could feel his restless energy radiating out from him in waves. It was an unsettling feeling. She felt like someone standing on a mountain, where the air was thin and breathing was difficult.
‘Excitement isn’t only about clubs and expensive dinners out and foreign tr
avel,’ she muttered defensively.
‘So tell me what it is about. I’m dying to hear.’
‘No, you’re not,’ she said, taking a deep breath and staring him straight in the eyes. ‘You’re dying to make fun of me, of what I do now. I know that I’m not the same person you met in London six years ago, Dominic Duvall. I know that my life probably seems utterly dull to someone like you but, believe it or not, it’s the life I love.’
‘How did you get involved in teaching?’ he asked curiously, and his eyes were sharp and searching. ‘Did David persuade you into it?’
‘No one could persuade me into a career I didn’t want. You must think that I have no mind of my own.’
‘Women can be very gullible when they’re in love.’
She didn’t know how this conversation had arrived where it had, but alarm was slowly replacing tension. All these questions, softly spoken but insistent nevertheless, were targeted, she suspected, at discovering why, precisely why, she had walked out on him.
The past was never over. It allowed itself to be shut away for the sake of convenience, but circumstance could easily pull it out once again.
Was this what had happened? Had he forgotten all about her, only to find that, now their paths had crossed, he needed to make sense of what must have been nonsensical at the time?
He wasn’t interested in her. He himself admitted it. He was a man who enjoyed excitement. He needed it. In his professional life as well as his personal life. He had married his wife because she gave him that thrill of excitement, and even though that had failed he would always be drawn to the same sort of woman. He had only ever gone out with her because, at that time in her own life, when she was living on a razor’s edge and fuelled with the kind of raw energy which she would never again want to recapture, she had appealed to him.
‘Gullible women,’ she said calmly, ‘are gullible all the time, whether they’re in love or not. I am not a gullible woman.’
‘You make that sound like a virtue,’ he said with mild contempt, ‘but there’s no virtue to living life on one level all the time. Does David turn you on?’ He asked the question as naturally as though he was asking the time of day.
‘You must be joking if you think that I’m going to answer that.’
Her eyes were wide and startled. She backed a little and came up against the banister.
‘Why shouldn’t you? The only reason you wouldn’t would be if you were scared to, and the only reason you’d be scared to would be if the answer was no.’
He laughed under his breath, as though he found the situation amusing, and then reached out his arms and propped them on either side of her.
‘Of course, I know the answer to the question already,’ he told her lazily. ‘He doesn’t turn you on in the slightest. It’s very easy to pick up signals from other people’s body language. They often give themselves away without having to speak at all. Poor David. He might appeal to you as a possible marriage partner, in the absence of anyone else, but sexually he doesn’t appeal at all, does he?’
‘Why ask me? You already know all the answers, or so you claim.’
‘Has there been anyone in your life in the past six years, Katherine? You had your fling with me and then ran back to the man you wanted. But that didn’t work out. Did you make the decision then to bury yourself in your job and make believe that you were happy?’
He was still bitter. Under all that cool self-control, under all that cynical amusement, he was still bitter. It made no difference that he no longer wanted her and certainly felt nothing for her, the bitterness was still there, running through him like a black thread.
She saw that in a blinding flash of comprehension.
‘Stop trying to pigeon-hole me,’ she said angrily. ‘You’d like nothing better, I know, than for me to break down and confess that my life was one long tale of misery and woe, but I’m not about to do that! You have no idea what fulfilment I get from teaching children, from watching them grow, from sowing seeds of curiosity in their minds. You may well amuse yourself by thinking that it’s all second-best, but you’d be wrong.’
‘But there’s more to life than sowing seeds in children’s minds, isn’t there? When night falls and there are no children around, how do you console yourself?’
‘I might ask you the same question. When you walk out of your office and take off your cloak of all-powerful tycoon, how do you console yourself?’
She was amazed that she could argue back at him so coherently. It was as if words and emotions were working together, gathering momentum, making her say things that she would otherwise have kept to herself if she had thought about it. She was so used to keeping things to herself, but something about this man made her want to open herself up and fling the contents of her mind at him.
Mulishness, anger, stubborn pride, she supposed. All those negative things which had not been a part of her life for a very long time.
‘I’ve had women,’ he shrugged, and didn’t take his eyes off her face. She felt like a specimen under observation.
‘How rewarding for you,’ she said, her voice laced with sarcasm, and she was gratified to see his mouth tighten at her tone.
‘Isn’t it? More rewarding than feeling as though commitment is necessary, regardless of to whom that commitment is given, I would say.’
He was referring to David again, and she looked at him icily, until he began to laugh, standing back and folding his arms across his chest.
‘What a look!’ he said. ‘Have I offended you?’
Her back was beginning to ache from the pressure of pushing herself as far back against the banister as she could, and she shifted slightly.
‘Of course not.’ She flung him a stiff look which made him laugh a little harder. ‘I’m just so glad that I could be of some amusement to the lord of the manor.’
At which she began walking down the stairs, aware that he was behind her, still laughing under his breath.
They reached the kitchen door just as Jack was pulling up in her Jeep, screeching to a halt and releasing her five-year-old passenger.
‘You forgot something,’ he said, bending down to whisper into her ear, and she turned to him sharply.
‘What?’
‘Your precious little elastic band for your hair.’ He held it up between two fingers, and she gave him a look that would have wilted a flower in full bloom, but which only made his lips begin to twitch again.
‘Thank you.’ Her voice was cold. He might find it highly humorous to laugh at her, but she wasn’t about to share in his amusement. She whipped her hair back into a makeshift ponytail, and when she turned round Claire was standing in front of her, delighted at the unexpected presence of her schoolteacher.
Had she come to see her? she asked joyfully. Jack was approaching them more slowly, her eyes flitting from her brother to Katherine.
‘Please come in,’ Claire pleaded, ‘for a glass of orange squash.’
‘Miss Lewis probably doesn’t care for orange squash, Claire,’ her father said.
‘Ribena, then?’
‘Perhaps another day,’ Katherine said gently, smiling at Jack, who was trying to ask questions with her eyes and failing. She walked out into the sunshine towards her car, holding Claire’s hand and listening to the childish chatter, while Dominic went ahead to open her door for her with a theatrically mocking flourish. That delighted Claire, but only annoyed Katherine still further.
‘I’m sure Miss Lewis will come back another day,’ he said soothingly to his daughter, picking her up, and Katherine could tell from the way he did that that it was not an everyday occurrence. The child looked simultaneously flattered and bemused.
‘Of course I will,’ she agreed, while the expression on her face told Dominic in no uncertain terms that the possibility of that was as remote as the possibility of her taking a trip to the moon for her next holiday.
‘Of course you will,’ he said with a hint of mockery. ‘After all, you enjoyed your litt
le visit here today so much, didn’t you?’ He raised his eyebrows and, after a brief wave to Claire, Katherine started up the car and swung it out of the long drive. She didn’t look back.
CHAPTER FIVE
BY THE time half-term drew round, the days were getting shorter and there was that feel in the air of cold times ahead.
Katherine loved autumn and winter. She loved the changing colours of the leaves from green to yellow to deep red, and she loved the dramatic, stark landscape of winter. She loved the early evenings, when it was acceptable to get back to her little house and spend all evening with the curtains drawn, listening to the wind and reading a good book.
There was an open fire in the lounge, and despite advice from her friends that it would be far simpler to replace it with a gas one, she resolutely refused. She enjoyed the glow of the flames; she enjoyed the energy expended in stacking it with logs.
As October drew to an end, with no more school for a week while the children enjoyed their half-term, she drove back to her house and tried very hard to recapture that contentment she had always felt at the thought of simply lazing around in a warm house, knowing that outside was cold and dark.
She would start her new book; she would make herself a wonderful pasta meal; she would brew some real coffee afterwards and not the usual instant stuff.
She let herself into the house and said aloud, into the emptiness, that this week off was going to be bliss.
Wasn’t this just the thing she had always longed for? she thought to herself. How she had hated the long winter months when she had been younger. Being cooped up in the house, timidly trying to tiptoe round her demanding mother, trying to fade into the background, on the off-chance that her presence might go unnoticed. For years now she had been able to do anything she pleased, and for years she had relished the luxury of her privacy, but for some reason things seemed different now.
She was conscious of a silly feeling of discontent, of suddenly wanting more than just peace and solitude for her week’s break.
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