Fairwinds

by Rebecca Stratton

  He seemed so much more enthusiastic than he had in town, and she wondered if his old home had fired him with fresh enthusiasm, or if he was merely bent on proving to his brother that he could apply himself to his art completely.

  She would not have let Philip know for the world, but she was not at all looking forward to living as frugally as he warned they would have to if Clifford persisted in his plans. Starving in a garret was not such a joke when there was a likelihood of it becoming truth.

  She had been brought up in a home that was comfortable, if not luxurious, and the idea of being married to an artist had at first appealed to her as a

  novelty, but it was now getting too close to reality to be comfortable. If what Philip said was true, there would be little or no money from Hautain and Sons, and she was not sure just how much Clifford had of his own.

  She could, of course, go back to earning her own living and probably his too, until he became established, but he had been most insistent that she give up her job so that she could come dowTi to Wales with him, assuring her that there was nothing to worry about. What his exact plans were, she realized, was something that would have to be gone into much more carefully, now that she knew what the circumstances were.

  She shrugged off the problems of money and Clifford, determinedly, following the path over the field and starting to climb, the ground changing as she left the pasture and gained higher ground. It was stony and the soles of her shoes were thin, but she could put up with a bit of discomfort if the view from the top of the hill was as good as it promised to be.

  The path she took wound round the side of the hill and every step revealed a new vista, each one well worth the effort of getting up there. There was a light blue sky, fluffed over vdth small clouds that seemed quite still, for there was no wind to speak of.

  It was breathtaking, being up so high, and in such a void of silence. There were soft, indistinguishable sounds, in the distance, but nothing identifiable, and she felt as if she was on top of the world when she stepped around the last bend and looked down at the

  valley below her, and across at the next towering hill.

  In the sunshine it made a soft and pretty scene, but she could imagine it bleak and inhospitable in the dead of winter, with the winds blowing in from the east arid sweeping heavy rain clouds across the valley. It could never be a dull outlook, but it would sometimes be frightening.

  She spent some time there, almost forgetting the time until she happened to glance at her watch and saw that it was time she started back. The sun was a little less clear, and there seemed to be a faint hint of chill in the air, but she gave it no thought until she started to wind her way down the path and met with the first trailing skeins of a thin, swirling mist that was slowly climbing its way round the hill.

  She stared at it unbelievingly for a few seconds, then felt a sudden flick of fear when she saw nothing but grey dampness on all sides, rising inexorably, and the path she had to follow vanished after a few feet. It seemed like an eternity that she stood there, frightened, and wondering what to do for the best, with the mist clinging in drops to her hair and eyelashes.

  'Idiot!' She pulled herself up sharply when she felt the first prick of panic, and shook her head determinedly. There was absolutely no reason why she could not walk down the path again, if she was very careful how she went, and there was every chance that it would be clear lower down. That was what Clifford had told her - that the mist quite often only clung to the higher reaches of the hills.

  Slowly and cautiously she groped her way down, never daring to take a hasty step in case she misjudged it and went rolling down that rocky incline to the field below, or the valley, whichever side she happened to be. At the moment she had no idea, for there was nothing but mist to be seen anywhere.

  She had no time to wonder what Clifford would think of her for being such a fool, although she could not have known that it would change so rapidly. Philip, no doubt, would think it no more than he expected of her, especially after she had been warned.

  If the thin summer dress had been warm enough in the warmth of the sun, it was pitifully inadequate in this chill, clinging mist and she shivered. Her feet, in their thin shoes, felt wet and uncomfortable too and the stones on the path made an even sharper impression on the soles of her feet, also the path itself seemed never-ending as she wound her way slowly downwards.

  She paused once for breath and to try and get some sort of bearing on where she was, but she could see and hear nothing, only feel the cold swirling mist enfolding her even closer when she stood still, so that she shivered more than ever.

  It was no use wondering what it was like down there on the low ground, for she had to get down there first, and only she could do it. There was unlikely to be anyone else about or she would have seen them.

  It was a moment or two before she realized she could at last see rather more than a couple of feet in front of her, and she half closed her eyes in rehef. It was an impulsive action and a careless one, for even that small

  distraction was enough to make her miss her footing, and she fell against the rough rock face, crying out when it scraped sharply against her cheek.

  For a moment or two she stood still, recovering her breath, encouraged by the thinning mist and tempted to hurry, which would have been inadvisable. A Ught wind cooled her scratched cheek after a few more feet, and she could now see far enough to know that she was almost two-thirds of the way down.

  After that it was comparatively easy going and she was amazed to find how quickly she came out of the mist and into the sun again, although it was much less warm and seen only dimly so far through the mist above her. The path was easy to follow from here on and she hurried as fast as she could, shivering in the cold dampness of her dress.

  Her hair clung close to her head and stuck in wet strands to her neck and face, her shoes scuffed and worn on the stony path. She felt untidy, dirty and rather sorry for herself as she crossed the rest of the path across the field below, hoping Clifford would be as sympathetic as she expected.

  Hearing a car coming along behind her as she walked along the road, she was very tempted to try and hitch a lift, but resisted the impulse firmly. It was unlikely that anyone would stop for such a dirty and disreputable object limping along the highway, and she would not altogether blame them.

  The car did stop, however, and as she turned and looked at the driver she met the dark, amused gaze of Philip Hautain. It would have to be Philip, of course,

  she thought ruefully, and stood there in the road saying nothing while he looked at her.

  'Get in,' he said then, and leaned across to open the door for her.'

  She did as he said, and slid on to the wide, comfortable seat gratefully, shivering with the chill that was still in her bones. He reached across her and closed the door again and she murmured a brief thank you, closing her eyes momentarily when the warmth of his body brought a glow to her chilled flesh.

  He did not immediately drive off, as she expected him to, but turned in his seat and studied her for a second or two with an expression she could not quite interpret. Then he put out a hand to cup her chin and turned her to face him, his strong fingers gently insistent when she tried to resist.

  The warmth of his touch seemed to tingle through her whole body and she felt herself trembling as he took a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and leaned towards her, gently touching her grazed cheek with the cool linen.

  'What happened?' he asked quietly, and Tara felt suddenly tearful, for no good reason that she could think of, unless it was with relief.

  T - I got caught in a mist,' she told him, and he glanced over at the hills with the grey ribbon of the mist still swirling round them like a cloudy veil.

  'You went walking in the hills?'

  'Only to the one nearest us. Just across the field there.'

  'And you didn't know about these summer mists?'

  His voice was quiet and gentle but his questions were rapidly t
urning into an interrogation, she thought, and wondered if she ought to do something about it. 'Clifford told me about them,' she admitted in as steady a voice as she could muster for her chatering teeth.

  'But you thought you knew better?'

  She shivered again and tried to shake her head. He still had a hand under her chin, and even that light contact with him was enough to disturb her emotions and make her unsure whether it was the chill of the mist or the nearness of Philip that made her shiver.

  'I didn't think I knew better,' she said huskily. 'It - it was just that I didn't expect it to come on so suddenly, but I didn't come to any harm.'

  'You're damned lucky you didn't!' He sounded so unsympathetic that Tara looked at him reproachfully.

  'Please don't yell at me, Philip,' she begged. 'I'm cold and wet and my feet hurt from the stony path. I - I don't feel like being interrogated.'

  He looked down at her flimsy shoes and shook his head, then started easing himself out of his jacket. 'If you've been hill walking in those shoes,' he told her, 'you deserve to have your feet cut to pieces! Here, put this round you!'

  'No, I-'

  'Don't argue, Tara!' His jacket was put round her shoulders and she was suddenly enveloped in his warmth as he leaned across her to pull it right round, fastening the top button to keep it in place. Then he put his right hand on the far side of her, against the

  back of the seat, his face only inches from hers and smiling that slow, enigmatic smile that disturbed her so. 'You look a real little ragamuffin,' he said softly. 'But a very pretty one!'

  Tara's heart was skipping wildly, panic-stricken at being so helplessly enfolded in his jacket that she could not move. His breath was warm on her lips when he spoke and she wished she could control the turbulence of her emotions as she kept her eyes carefully downcast. She had half expected it, but even so the brief, hard pressure of his mouth on hers startled her. 'What you need is a hot bath and brandy,' he decreed.

  'I'm - I'm all right,' Tara insisted, controlling her unsteady voice with difficulty.

  'You're shivering and wet through,' Philip argued, and moved back to his own side to restart the engine. 'And you've probably cut your feet. I hope Clifford gives you at least a telling off!'

  'I don't think he will,' Tara said. 'I'm hoping he'll be sympathetic'

  Philip laughed softly, taking the big car swiftly along the narrow road back to Fairwinds. 'What you deserve isn't sympathy, my girl,' he told her. 'And if you belonged to me I'd give you hell for being such a little idiot.'

  'Well, I'm glad I don't belong to you!' Tara declared firmly, and he laughed again, turning his head to look at her with glowing dark eyes that sent another shiver along her spine.

  'You might fare better if you did,' he told her softly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tara was a little surprised by Clifford's casual reaction to her mishap. Not that she wanted him to make any undue fuss about what might have happened, but she expected some show of concern. Instead he took it all very casually, much more so than Philip.

  It was Philip who gave her brandy and made her drink it, then ordered her upstairs for a hot bath. It was he too, who asked Mrs. Evans, the housekeeper, to put something on her grazed face, and these acts of concern were viewed by Madame Hautain with shrewd black eyes, and a smile that Tara found oddly discomfiting.

  The scratches on her face were visible for several days afterwards, and she was rather conscious of the marks while they lasted. She hoped that Clifford might have realized at last that she wanted to do something more constructive than simply sit and watch him while he painted, but he seemed not to have got the message, even now, and that was what decided her to speak up for herself one lunch time.

  'I wondered If you'd like to take me into Glandewin this afternoon,' she said to him, and he looked across at her in some surprise, a reaction that she found irritating in the circumstances.

  'This afternoon?' he echoed, plainly unen-thusiastic.

  'I have some shopping I'd like to do,' Tara explained. 'And I've seen nothing of the countryside at all since I came - except for that one walk on my own.'

  'No, no. I suppose you haven't.' He frowned for a moment. 'But must it be this afternoon, darling?'

  Tara knew that Philip was watching her, that black-eyed scrutiny was disturbing even when she carefully avoided looking at him. 'I suppose it doesn't have to be this afternoon,' she conceded, but looked plainly disappointed.

  Before Clifford could reply, Philip's quiet, beautiful voice spoke up, having the inevitable effect on Tara. 'If you're too busy painting, Clifford,' he told his brother, 'I can take Tara in with me when I go to the office.'

  'The office?' Clifford echoed. 'It's Saturday!'

  'I know it's Saturday,' Philip agreed calmly, 'but I have things to do. I'm doing rather more than my share at the moment, you know.'

  The implication was plain and Clifford resented it. 'Then you'd better get another man in,' he told him shortly.

  'I hope to!' Phihp caught Tara's eye before she had a chance to look away again. 'May I take you with me, Tara?' he asked softly, and she hastily stifled her first instinct to refuse out of hand.

  'I - I don't know.' She looked at Clifford, but he was either oblivious of her plea or unheeding. 'Cliff, are you going to take me or not?'

  'Yes, of course, darling, if you want me to.' He said it with such a lack of enthusiasm that Tara frowned,

  curling her fingers tightly round the handle of her cup. She knew Madame Hautain was watching her with a gleam of interest in her shrewd black eyes, and she resented Clifford making her plead with him to take her out.

  'Oh, please don't put yourself out for me!' she retorted, stung to rashness by his off-hand manner and those dark, watching eyes. 'I can quite easily go with Philip!' She looked across at Philip and smiled, looking at him through the shadow of her long lashes, a provocative lift to her chin. 'If you'll still take me, Philip, I'd like to drive in with you, please!'

  'Darling!'

  The protest from Clifford was quite mild, but she was tempted for a moment to change her mind, only she could not very well discard Philip now that she had asked him to take her. 'I don't want to disturb your working schedule,' she told Clifford. 'You get on with your painting.'

  'Now you're being sarcastic,' he accused, and three pairs of eyes turned to Madame Hautain when she chuckled gleefully at the exchange.

  'You are really very foolish, Clifford,' she told him in her clear sharp voice. 'You hand your chances to Philippe!'

  Clifford said nothing, but Tara felt suddenly sorry she had been the means of arousing his grandmother's scorn. If Philip had given her the opportunity to change her mind she would have taken it, but of course Philip wouldn't.'

  'I won't be gone very long,' she ventured, smUing

  across at Clifford consolingly, and he laughed shortly.

  'I wouldn't bank on that !' he retorted.

  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was warmer than it had been so far that summer, so that Tara enjoyed her ride into Glandewin with Philip, even though she felt a bit guilty about leaving Clifford. It was his own fault that he was on his own, but she hated to see him defeated. It was the first time she had even come close to quarrelling with him and it made her more sorry than she cared to admit.

  Glandewin was bigger than she had expected, but it was not an attractive town. Grey and gloomy, even in the summer sun, it was dominated by the vast complex of Hautain and Sons and for the first time Tara realized that their family business probably provided most of the employment in the area.

  Having completed her shopping she called at the main gate of the factory, as Philip had told her to, and asked for him. She was not at all happy about the look in the gateman's eyes as he showed her the way through the silent yards and workshops to the main office block, but she realized uneasily that it was probably not the first time he had shown female callers the way to Philip Hautain's office.

  Her guide had o
bviously rung through to say she was on her way, for Philip met her part way along an echoing corridor between closed glass doors and silent offices. He took her into quite the most luxurious office she had ever seen, for during her working life she had never

  been admitted quite so high up the hierarcnai ladder as this and she felt rather nervous.

  The reaction was probably as much due to being alone in the silent building with Philip as from any over-awareness of her surroundings. Although he was working, as it was Saturday he was less formally dressed than he would normally have been in these surroundings, and slim-fitting grey trousers and a blue shirt gave him a casual air that was more disturbing than formality would have been.

  The day was warm and the office much too hot as such places usually were, despite open windows, and he had the blue shirt open almost to the waist so that she could not help but notice that the golden brown of his skin went at least as far as the dark hair that covered his broad chest. She sought hard to still the strange and disquieting sensations that his golden tanned body evoked, but her heart was hammering at her ribs uncontrollably.

  He saw her seated in the visitor's chair, then took his place behind the desk, looking at her steadily for a moment with those black, unfathomable eyes before he gave a light shrug and murmured an excuse about finishing some letters. Finished at last, he tidied away the papers he had been working on, then leaned back in the big leather chair, his fingers steepled, looking at her again with the same steady and disturbing gaze.

  'Does it bring back memories?' he asked quietly, and Tara nodded.

  'Not that I was ever in surroundings like these!'

  He flicked one dark brow in surprise. 'Weren't you a

  secretary? I understood from Clifford that you were.'

  'So I was,' Tara admitted. 'But only to one of the lesser lights in the firm, never anyone as grand as the big man himself.'

  He smiled slowly and his gaze travelled over her with expressive appreciation, coming to rest on her mouth, his own slightly pursed. 'Then he must have been a bit of a fool,' he stated in his beautifully soft voice.