It was freezing cold at Hetty's, and she kept her coat on while she searched around for the central-heating switch. It was nowhere to be found and, after pressing various switches in an airing cupboard, she finally gave up; gingerly removing her coat and boots, she went upstairs and tucked herself into bed. The sheets were desperately cold and she shivered for an hour or two, trying out all the remedies from thinking warm to breathing into her socks to improve matters. Nothing worked. Soon her teeth began to chatter and she decided to go downstairs in a minute and make a cup of tea.
She must have dozed off then, for when she woke up it was twilight and the rain seemed to have stopped at last. Her limbs felt stiff from lying with her knees bunched up in an effort to hug some warmth back into herself. But it wasn't that that had aroused her. Turning her head slightly, she gave a little gasp.
'Oh, it's you!' she exclaimed ungraciously, sitting up at once. 'How did you get in?'
'I have a spare key.'
'One of the rights of the lord of the manor?' she jibed, determined to start off by showing her resistance straight away.
'Hardly.' He smiled. 'When they're away I look after their dogs and generally keep an eye on things.'
'That's why the dogs didn't bark when you were prowling round here the other night,' she observed.
'Dogs like me, anyway. Apart from the one I've just shot. They know I won't stand for any nonsense,' he told her.
She shivered. 'You're barbaric.'
'Someone's got to protect the sheep.'
She turned her head. 'I'm sorry for what happened over at the millhouse. It must have given you the wrong impression. I can't imagine what came over me. I don't usually lose control like that.'
'No?' Plainly he didn't believe her.
'No!' she retorted, dragging the duvet right round her. 'After what you'd said, it was the last thing I expected. You took me completely by surprise.'
'If only I had.'
'What?' she asked puzzled.
He leaned forward and said huskily, 'Taken you. Any way. Every way. It's what we both wanted.'
She blushed violently, moving away and coming up abruptly against the wall on the other side of the single bed. She drew her knees up as some sort of protection. He observed the movement with a detached smile. 'Don't worry, Goldie. The heat of the moment has passed. Neither of us wants to lose control like that again.'
'If you're going to suggest another pact like the one where you promised to bore me to death --' She stopped, unsure how to go on.
'I think the time for games is over, don't you?' he cut in. His voice had a hollow sound, and in the half-dark his eyes were only two black pits, their expression indecipherable.
Goldie's teeth were chattering again and she couldn't think of any reply. She watched as he got up from the side of the bed and went to sit at a safe distance on the window-sill. 'Why did you come back here?' he asked. 'It's much warmer over at the millhouse.'
'I thought it would be safer here,' she muttered. 'I didn't realise you had a key.'
'Well, you're safe anywhere with me. Just don't come down half-naked flashing your lovely limbs at me and expecting me to behave like a stone, that's all.'
What now? thought Goldie, tracing the pattern on the duvet. She started to sneeze.
'Come on. Get up.' He came back towards the bed, then stopped. 'Have you got anything on under there?'
She nodded, whereupon he pulled back the duvet, revealing that she was still fully clothed. He put out a hand and she flinched back, but instead he merely fingered the edge of her blouse. 'It's still damp, you idiot. Come on. Let's get you into something dry.'
Annoyed by what seemed his genuine concern, she said waspishly, 'I suppose you'd hate to feel you had my flu on your conscience?'
He nodded grimly. 'If that's how you want to see it, yes. Now come along.'
Secretly relieved to find herself back in the warmth again, she snuggled down inside the rug beside the Aga with a mug of hot cocoa cupped in her hands. He had given her a flannelette shirt of his own, and one of his big baggy sweaters to wear over it, and when she stood up it came down to her knees. But it was warm, and she began to feel a little drowsy, vaguely aware that there might have been rum in the cocoa.
He was sitting at the table now, with a newspaper spread over it and various bits and pieces of oiled rag scattered around, cleaning his gun with an intent look on his face and no obvious inclination to engage her in conversation. A clock ticked on the pine dresser and at six o'clock he switched on a radio and listened to the news. It was very peaceful. An oasis of tranquillity, she thought with a wry, inward smile. A pleasant break from the hectic life of a film star. She sighed. Other people's lives always seemed so attractive. It was a case of the grass being greener, she supposed. Many people would give their eye-teeth to have her job.
* * *
She must have slept there in the chair, for it was nearly ten o'clock when a hand on her shoulder shook her awake. Her nose felt stuffy and her eyes were sore, and when she tried to speak her voice came out in a throaty whisper that should have been seductive, but on Lucas it seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
'You'd better sleep in the spare room,' he told her briskly, clattering around once he saw she was awake. He gave her a sardonic glance. 'Don't worry,' he said before she could reply, 'I know how your mind works by now. There's a key on the inside—and I don't have a duplicate.'
He went out and she could only glower silently after him.
On reflection, she supposed it made sense to stay. At least it was warm, and she was painfully conscious of her bunged-up nose, presaging a cold. When he came back in to tell her the bed was ready he gave her a penetrating stare. 'Are you all right? You look flushed.'
'I'm fine,' she lied, not wanting to be made to feel any more grateful than she was supposed to.
'Early start tomorrow,' he said. 'Have you forgotten you're leaving?' He said it with a certain satisfaction, she thought miserably. But she gave a gasp. 'I had forgotten, sort of.' Then she followed it up with a groan. 'Oh, no! I totally forgot—I had to ring the airport today to see if I could get a flight.'
He surprised her then by saying, 'You can hardly leave without saying goodbye to Hetty and Sam.'
'Can't I?' Her eyes widened. She hadn't looked at it like that.
She stretched luxuriously in the comfortable bed and slowly opened her eyes. The rum must have worked like magic, for she felt gloriously rested and it was the best night's sleep she could remember. Birds were chirruping outside the window, and sunlight was already streaming in between the curtains. She lay there for a few moments, revelling in sheer comfort until she heard something like a vacuum cleaner on the stairs. Puzzled, she sat up. Surely Lucas wasn't up and about doing housework before driving all the way to London, was he?
She reached for her watch, then peered at it in astonishment. It said half-past eleven. She shook it and held it to her ear. But it still said the same time. Without thinking, she dashed out of bed and went to the door, flinging it open and calling, 'Lucas! Lucas! It's half-past eleven. I thought we were --' Then she froze.
Half-way up the stairs on her hands and knees was a woman in a green overall wielding the nozzle of a cleaner. She looked up as Goldie appeared, and her reddening face took in the slim form of the nearly naked girl standing in the bedroom door. Goldie tried to pull Lucas's old shirt together at the front, but the damage had been done. To make matters worse, Lucas himself chose that moment to come bounding up the stairs two at a time. He froze to a halt half-way up, his reaction being much like that of his char.
Goldie wasn't quite sure what all the fuss was about. But she knew she had managed to create some kind of an incident.
'This is Miss Eastwood, Mrs Turner. She wasn't feeling too well last night --' Lucas put out a hand as if making a formal introduction, but Mrs Turner rose heavily to her feet.
'Really, Mr de Maine!' She looked once in Goldie's general direction, then turned, switching off
the vacuum cleaner as she did so. 'I'll finish up here tomorrow, when it's more convenient,' she said in a decisive voice. Without another word she swept downstairs, and Goldie could hear the crackle of her overall, the sounds of departure concluded by the abrupt slamming of the front door.
'What the blazes do you think you're doing, wandering around stark naked, offending all and sundry?' Lucas demanded, following her as she retreated into the bedroom and slamming the door behind them both with a menacing thud. Anger was blazing from his eyes as he towered over her.
'My naked body has never offended anyone before!' she spat. 'What's with all this prudery? Haven't they seen flesh round here before?' She threw back her head in a derisive laugh.
'I'm not offended, far from it,' he cut in swiftly. 'But Mrs Turner was. She's an old-fashioned country woman. You can't expect her to ignore it when you suddenly appear looking like—like some Page Three . . .' His lips tightened. 'She can't be expected to understand.'
'Then you should employ somebody who does understand!' she snarled.
'I don't have any choice in the matter,' he came back. 'She's been with the family for years.'
'It seems to me you don't have any choice in one single thing!' she mocked.
He looked as if she had hit him. There was an unexpected silence, and she wondered what he was going to say next. He surprised her by curving his lips in a full smile, looking so suddenly, devilishly, heart-wrenchingly handsome that just seeing him made her stomach lurch with desire. She pivoted away with a toss of her head.
'You're probably right,' he told her, a new note in his voice. 'So what about helping me change things and really giving everybody something to talk about?' He came up behind her. 'Do you think you could live with it?'
'I'm not going to have to.' She moved away, pretending to rummage around for some clean clothes to put on.
'I wouldn't be too sure about that.'
She ignored the cryptic undertone, more worried by the note of desire that had come into his voice, knowing it spelled danger, and said briskly, 'It's quite ridiculous—all this fuss. Heavens, it's nothing. People walk around practically naked even in the streets on the coast.' Then she had a sudden thought. It stunned her for a moment, and, lifting her head, she asked slowly, 'Lucas, were you hoping to keep our relationship a complete secret?'
She paused, searching his face for a clue. 'You were, weren't you? You're ashamed of being seen with me!'
Suddenly it all began to make sense—the way he hadn't invited her to dinner with him two nights in succession, the way he had avoided taking her near the stables when she'd given him a perfect opening, and, of course, yesterday . . . 'You're ashamed to be seen to have anything to do with me,' she stated in a flat voice. 'That's why you were so offhand in the hotel. You're just an old-fashioned snob.
You couldn't bear to let your friends know we were—well,' she hesitated, searching for the right word, 'we were involved with each other.'
She tossed back her head and gave a scornful laugh, feeling that her heart would break. 'Well, I guess I've really put the cat among the pigeons—Ravella Eastwood's starlet daughter appearing naked in front of the char!'
'You take after your mother, Goldie. I shouldn't have expected anything less.' He spoke without expression. 'It's a quaint joke to you, but they'll talk about this for years. Building it into something it's not.' He shrugged, his expression grim and somehow forbidding, and she remembered the way he'd looked with the gun crooked determinedly over one arm as he had gone out to shoot the wild dog yesterday. Despite his comparative youth, he was not a man to be trifled with. She held her breath.
He went to the door and stopped when he reached it, one hand on the catch. 'May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, don't you think?'
She looked puzzled, letting her breath out slowly, wondering just what sort of retribution—for his whole manner spelled revenge—was in his mind.
'Come on. Get dressed. We'll go and have lunch in the village pub, and you can be as outrageous as you like. I'll show you whether I'm a snob or not.'
'But I thought we were supposed to be going to London—I thought you had to be at a sale?'
'I couldn't wake you at six o'clock, you were sleeping like a baby,' he told her. 'And there's no way I can get down there now. It doesn't matter,' he went on, 'I'll simply ring in my bids.' He glanced at his watch. 'The Coach and Horses will be open by the time you're ready. We'll lunch there. If it's cats among pigeons you want, that's where you'll find the pigeons.'
Mystified, Goldie watched him go out. Despite the urbane manner he had adopted, she felt his new attitude boded no good for herself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lucas slid Goldie's coat off her shoulders, lingering, she thought, rather too long, as if unveiling a particularly costly monument. She turned round to glare at him, but he was already acknowledging one or two greetings from some of the other diners. The Coach and Horses possessed a small and, as she now saw, exclusive restaurant overlooking the river, and the clientele were quite different from the jolly crowd of the previous Saturday night. Mainly elderly, and extremely well-dressed in a cool county sort of way, the rise and fall of their conversation could only be described as discreet.
A waiter in a white jacket and bow-tie appeared beside Goldie, dealing with her coat and pulling out her chair for her with a little flourish. He greeted Lucas by name, and the way he spoke told her as clearly as if it had been printed above their heads that Lucas de Maine was somebody special.
Goldie slipped into a chair and hid her knees under the table-cloth. Already covert glances had been cast their way. Lucas noticed, too, for he was smiling in a kind of grim, basilisk sort of way that made Goldie shiver. She felt like a lamb to the slaughter. But what could happen, anyway? They didn't still burn witches at the stake, did they? In the heavy, genteel ambience, she was beginning to feel as if she were guilty of gross indecency. And all for being young and wearing a silk mini-dress! She scowled across at Lucas.
'I hope you're getting the reaction you wanted?'
'You certainly are—getting a reaction,' he murmured, flicking open the menu.
She let him order, not caring what she ate, knowing it would probably be excellent whatever it was. He ordered wine, and when it came she knew that was the best, too.
'I shouldn't grumble about being lunched like this,' she began when the waiter had left them, 'but I can't see what's so dreadful about being seen with me. Anyone would think I had two heads.'
'So far,' he told her, 'I've protected you, but as you insist otherwise, you may as well take your chance like anybody else.'
She hadn't thought of his reluctance to be seen with her as protecting her. It gave her something to-think about.
The meal was beginning to pass smoothly and pleasantly. Goldie was just settling back, beginning to enjoy herself, when a couple at the table on the other side of the room got up to leave. They came over to Lucas.
'Darling, it's not often you're seen in here at lunchtime,' gushed a tall woman in an impeccably tailored suit.
'Things a bit slack just now?' her companion greeted Lucas with an affable smile.
'I'm supposed to be at Sotheby's, but I missed the off,' replied Lucas charmingly, rising to his feet and kissing the man's wife, or what Goldie assumed was his wife, on the cheek, and shaking the man by the hand at the same time. He resumed his place and said to the woman, 'Meet Goldie Eastwood, Rosie. Goldie, this is Rosemary Lancaster,' and when Goldie proffered a hand and the woman pretended she hadn't seen it he added, 'and her better half, Wilf Lancaster of Willow Place.'
This time she didn't offer her hand, but Wilf reached for it, anyway, pumping it up and down for so long that she wondered if he was ever going to let go.
'All set for the weekend?' asked Lucas pleasantly as the two lingered a moment.
'I've got an excellent firm of caterers over from Leeds, Lucas,' Rosemary told him. 'It's all safely in their hands.'
'I was going to rin
g you to ask if you minded if I brought Goldie along, as she's in the district for a few days.'
He was obviously asking for form's sake, but Rosemary Lancaster adopted an exaggerated look of regret. 'My dear, I'm most terribly sorry.' She scarcely looked at Goldie. 'I'm afraid all the numbers are fixed now. I would if I could, but it's going to be impossible to squeeze in another one. Next time, perhaps?' Now she did look at Goldie, her smile not quite reaching her cold blue eyes. 'You'll be Ravella's daughter. I'd heard you were in the district. But I didn't realise you knew Lucas.' She took her husband by the arm. 'See you at sevenish, Lucas, darling.' And then she swept out.
'You knew she'd be here, and you knew what would happen, didn't you?' Goldie accused when they were alone again. 'But you don't have to apologise,' she added sweetly. 'I wouldn't want to go anywhere where she was the hostess.'
'It's a drinks do before the Hunt Ball on Friday,' he told her. 'I'm on the hunt committee, so I can get you in there without any problem. I'm really sorry about Rosemary, but, yes, I knew what to expect. She's so predictable.'
'And I'm to expect more of the same if I'm seen with you, I suppose?'
'If you put yourself in their way, yes, you can expect a reaction. But, please, feel free to do any damned thing you want,' he said, ironically misquoting her.
'What do you want?' she asked, her mind going still.
'I'd like you beside me. From start to finish. And don't bother about Rosemary's do, I'm giving it a miss.'
'I guess I'll risk it, then,' she told him seriously. 'So long as you want me there.'
It was a small cloud over what had turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant meal. Goldie tried not to let it bother her as they made their way back to the millhouse.
'I'm going to be on the phone for most of the afternoon,' he told her. 'You can stick around and keep me supplied with hot black coffee, if you like. Or,' he shrugged and gave a smile, 'if you've anything else you'd rather do ... go ahead.' He hesitated. 'You do know you can stay here until Hetty and Sam come back, don't you? No strings.'
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