There was a faint padding behind her and Orlando leapt up and landed softly on the windowsill. She stroked his velvet head and murmured absently the rhyme that she and Jan used to intone to him:
‘Oh, lovely pussy, oh, pussy my love,
What a beautiful pussy you are, you are.
What a beautiful pussy you are.’
A deep voice from behind her said, ‘Still feeling nostalgic?’
She spun round and saw the amusement in the dark eyes, and suddenly this man wasn’t a stranger any longer. He was more like an enemy.
‘I’m not yearning for the past, if that’s what you mean,’ she said crisply. ‘I was very happy here, but it’s over now and there’s not very much to remind me, not even the wallpaper.’ She shrugged and made for the staircase. ‘I shall just have to remember it sometimes as it was.’
He followed her down. ‘Tell me how it was.’
‘You mean—describe it?’ She eyed him suspiciously, wondering if he were mocking her. Surely there was no way that a man like this would be interested in the lovable assortment of collected items of no particular period that had composed the Colonel’s furnishings.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I mean describe it. I’d like to know how it was.’
‘Well…’ Chloe walked slowly across the tiled hall to the drawing room. ‘I suppose I can try, if you really want to know,’ she said not very graciously.
The drawing room was long and rather narrow. There was Jacobean panelling on the walls and a rococo wooden fireplace, decorated with carved garlands and trellises and flowers, and a little cherub on each side. Tall windows led out to the verandah with its wrought-iron arcading and leaded glass roof.
Chloe walked across to the window and stood looking out at the rain sweeping along the verandah. Here and there some of the floorboards had rotted and left splintered gaps. There were piles of dead leaves in the corners and everywhere the paint was peeling. Suddenly she felt angry. ‘It’s a shame, the way the place has been allowed to run down,’, she exclaimed hotly. ‘The last people must have been an insensitive lot. It’s just as well they went back to Hong Kong or Singapore or wherever, or there wouldn’t have been any house left!’
The man had strolled down the room and was examining the fireplace. Now he turned with a faint smile. ‘I shall do my best to restore it to its former glory,’ he said drily, and Chloe felt herself flushing. She really was being rather emotive about an old house that never had been hers and never would be.
‘You asked me what it used to look like in here,’ she said hastily. ‘It wasn’t at all spectacular, not a show place.’ She glanced round at the Jacobean panelling and the intricate plasterwork of the cornice. ‘You might expect a room like this to be stiff with antiques, but it wasn’t. There were comfortable chintzy chairs and sofas, an upright piano that was never played. There was a Victorian sideboard with a mirror behind and a lot of little shelves with ivory boxes and little brass bells and other things the Colonel had brought back from abroad. There were five ebony elephants—a big one down to a tiny one.’ She smiled. ‘I remember the elephants because sometimes I helped my mother with the dusting—that was on the days when the girl from the village didn’t turn up—and I was fascinated by them. I used to arrange them in a procession—in line ahead, the Colonel used to call it.’
‘You got on with the Colonel, then?’
‘Oh yes, he was a sweetie. He liked me to come down and sit with him sometimes, when I’d finished my homework. His wife was dead and his daughters were all married and I expect he was lonely. He told me that his daughters wanted him to move into a flat, but he couldn’t bear the idea of leaving his home. I’m glad he couldn’t because it meant that my mother came here as housekeeper. My father was in the R.A.F. in the war and he stayed on after the war was over and he was killed in an accident. I don’t remember him at all.’
‘So you grew up here?’
She nodded. ‘I must have been about two when we first came and my sister was three years older. It’s a lovely house for children to grow up in,’ she added. ‘My sister had her wedding reception here. The Colonel insisted on it and I think he enjoyed all the fuss.’ She smiled to herself, not seeing the bare dusty room any longer; remembering it as it had been that June day, with all the flowers, and the chintz covers on the big chairs newly laundered, and the long windows open to the garden, and the tall white wedding cake on the table, and all the pretty dresses and the laughter and the glasses clinking.
She had almost forgotten the man standing beside the fireplace, but now she looked up and saw him watching her, a small smile hovering round his mouth. ‘I’m afraid that’s about all I can remember,’ she finished off rather woodenly. ‘I expect you’ll be wanting to get away now that you’ve seen all the house?’ Certainly she wanted to get away. She was very sorry now that she had come back at all; it had been a dreadful mistake, letting herself get all steamed up about the house, and presenting herself in a stupidly sentimental light to this man, who was evidently amusing himself at her performance.
He glanced at his watch. ‘It seems a pity, I should have liked to hear more about the house, but I suppose I ought to be making a move. I have an appointment in Birmingham later this afternoon.’
Chloe stalked before him into the hall, the back of her tweed jacket as stiff as a poker. The sooner this disastrous little episode was over the better, and never again would she venture near the old house.
But at the front door she stopped, hand clapped to her cheek. ‘Orlando! We left him upstairs. He’ll sleep there for hours, it was one of his favourite places. I’ll run up and get him.’
‘And there’s the window-catch in the pantry to secure,’ said the man. ‘You go and rescue the puss and I’ll deal with the carpentry.’
They met again in the hall a few minutes later, Chloe with a sleepy Orlando cradled in her arms. ‘Did you fix it?’ she enquired.
‘For the moment. All I could do was give it a hefty bump to wedge it. It should deter any other hopeful burglars with compassionate intentions.’ The little devils were dancing in his eyes again as he ran out and opened the car door for her. ‘Hop in quickly or you’ll get soaked. Where do we deposit Orlando?’
‘Drop him off at the cottage, I should think. He’ll soon scuttle in out of the rain.’
Chloe ducked into the car, carrying Orlando—who by now was squirming his disgust at this unceremonious treatment—under one arm. The car was rakishly low and the bobble on her white cap encountered the black hood in the process. The cap was wrenched off and she made a grab for it, leaning sideways at the same moment that the man slid in behind the wheel. For a moment she was almost in his arms before she straightened herself with a little gasp.
‘You all right?’ One strong hand steadied her.
‘Yes, thank you.’ She was breathing rather quickly, as if she had touched a live electric wire as she pulled the cap down over her head, pushing back the tendrils of light brown hair with fingers that shook. She felt terrible. Nice girls didn’t react this way to a perfect stranger. Or did they? She didn’t know, she only knew that it had never happened to her before.
She could only hope that he hadn’t noticed her confusion, but he probably had. A man as fabulous-looking as he was no doubt was quite accustomed to girls swooning at his approach. She clutched the outraged Orlando and sat stiffly in her seat as the car snorted down the drive.
They stopped momentarily to deposit Orlando outside the Crokers’ cottage and Chloe watched him dart for shelter out of the rain with never a backward glance. The driver watched too, one arm leaning across the wheel. ‘Do you suppose,’ he said, ‘that Orlando will return to his old grazing-ground when we move in? You needn’t worry,’ he added with a grin, ‘I’ll be kind to him if he does. He’s a handsome and attractive beast.’
So—he was kind to animals, was he? The man was too good to be true. Disparagingly, she told herself that he was probably even at this moment planning how he could turn Woodc
otes into a trendy weekend ‘cottage’. He would put a beastly great cocktail bar at one end of the drawing room and turn the rose garden into a swimming pool and his guests would be bored and world-weary and drape themselves all over the place in madly exotic garments and stay in bed until midday. And his wife— she tried to picture his wife and failed, probably because the whole picture was rapidly becoming more and more unattractive.
In Kenilworth Chloe directed him to the garage. He drove into the forecourt and she got out. ‘Thank you very much for the lift,’ she said politely, ‘and I hope you enjoy living at Woodcotes. Goodbye.’
He had switched off the engine. ‘I need petrol,’ he said. ‘I’ll be filling up while you go inside and make sure your car’s ready for you.’
The service manager was apologetic. Something to do with the distributor, he explained to Chloe, going into details of the vital innards of the car, which left her no wiser than at the beginning. Not once in years, he explained, were they out of stock of this particular part.
He had sent an order through specially to Birmingham and he was sorry, but the car wouldn’t be ready for her until after lunch tomorrow.
She accepted the inevitable. Outside again, annoyed but resigned, she met the new owner of Woodcotes emerging from the pay desk, stuffing notes away in his wallet.
‘No?’ he enquired cheerfully, and she shook her head. ‘Not until tomorrow. The distributor or something.’ He nodded sympathetically, but he was smiling, which annoyed her even more. ‘In that case I’ll drop you off at home.’
She glanced at the rain, streaming down from the edge of the canopy that covered the petrol pumps. ‘If you’re going to Birmingham it will be out of your way,’ she protested, a little half-heartedly, for she didn’t relish the idea of a ten-minute walk in this sort of downpour.
‘It can’t be far out of my way; Kenilworth’s only pint-sized. Come on.’ He opened the car door and held it for her to get in.
Apart from saying, ‘No, thank you, I find you too disturbing at close quarters,’ there was nothing she could do but accept. It would only be for a few more minutes; Kenilworth was a small town, as he had observed.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and got into the car again, this time being careful to keep her head lowered. ‘It isn’t very far. If you go straight along towards the Clock and then turn right when I tell you I’ll guide you from there.’
The olive-green car nosed its way smoothly through the traffic on the congested main road, gathered speed along the side roads, and within five minutes was turning into the quiet cul-de-sac where Jan’s little house was situated.
‘It’s the last but one house on the right,’ Chloe said. ‘You can turn there and—’ she broke off. Then, ‘Emma!’ she gasped. ‘Heavens, she’s on the high wire!’ The driver’s head turned towards her. ‘My small niece,’ she threw at him in quick explanation. ‘She was watching a circus act yesterday.’
At the far end of the road on the opposite side, and advancing towards them, was Emma, in scarlet pixie suit and wellingtons. She was balancing on the extreme edge of the kerb, quite oblivious of the puddles in the road. Arms stretched stiffly out in imitation of a high-wire artiste, she teetered forward, swaying precariously first to one side then to the other.
The man stopped the car and switched off the engine. ‘Don’t distract her attention or she’ll be over into the road,’ he said very quietly, and Chloe held her breath while the red pixie suit advanced towards them, step by unsteady step. A couple of yards more and the kerb sloped off into the driveway opening to the next-door garage. When Emma reached that point she would be safe.
Then, round the corner, splashing and skeetering along the wet pavement, came a small boy on a bicycle. As he passed her Emma looked round, overbalanced on the edge of the high kerb, floundered for a moment and went down like a felled tree in the flooded road.
The man was the first to reach her, with Chloe close behind. Oblivious of his elegant light trousers, he went down on his knees in the mud and bent over the small scarlet bundle, murmuring reassurance, testing the child’s arms and legs very gently.
‘I don’t think there’s any damage,’ he said over his shoulder to Chloe, and at that moment Emma’s eyes flew open and her mouth rounded itself ready to howl.
Chloe breathed a sigh of relief. If Emma could howl she must be more surprised than hurt. But the howl didn’t happen. As the man tucked one hand under her small bottom and lifted her into his arms Emma caught him round the neck in a wild clutch, shrieking, ‘Daddy! Daddy!’
He raised dark eyebrows towards Chloe. First Orlando, now this, he seemed to be saying.
By this time Jan had come running out of the house and all was confusion as she tried, without success, to take Emma from the man’s arms. Emma clung on and refused to be prised away. Her head was burrowed into the collar of the leather coat and she was half sobbing now, with shock and excitement. ‘Daddy’s come home,’ she insisted over and over again.
The man gave Jan his charming smile. ‘A slight misunderstanding, it seems, perhaps if we went inside?’
Jan, looking harassed, pulled her cardigan closer round her against the driving rain. ‘Yes, of course.’ She glanced at the man and then at Chloe and led the way into the house.
They all piled into the small sitting room. ‘Won’t you sit down?’ murmured Jan, and tried again to take her daughter. ‘Come along, darling, come to Mummy.’
‘No,’ declared Emma in a muffled voice as she burrowed deeper into the leather collar. ‘I want Daddy!’
‘But, sweetheart, he isn’t Daddy,’ her mother told her helplessly.
It took a few moments for the truth to sink in, but presently Emma lifted her head far enough to stare into the dark face close to her own. Her lower lip thrust forward. ‘You’re not my daddy,’ she accused.
He shook his head and smiled his dark-eyed smile. ‘No, isn’t it a pity?’
Emma studied his face, taking her time about it, while Chloe watched the performance with a touch of cynicism. Finally the lower lip was drawn in, dimples appeared in Emma’s plump cheeks and suddenly she was all woman. ‘Not my daddy,’ she admitted, ‘but I like you.’ And she planted a kiss on the lean cheek.
There was a loud banging from somewhere above their heads. ‘James!’ cried Jan. ‘I must go. Come along, Emma love, let’s get those wet clothes off and we’ll make you all dry and tidy and then you can have your tea.’
‘Muffins?’ enquired Emma hopefully.
‘Perhaps,’ her mother promised, and was at last allowed to lift her daughter off the dark man’s knee.
At this stage Chloe felt that perhaps some sort of explanation was required of her. ‘Jan, this is the new owner of Woodcotes,’ she said without looking at him. ‘I went out there and got caught in the rain and he kindly gave me a lift.’ That abbreviated account of the afternoon’s happenings would have to do for the present. ‘My sister, Ms Arlett,’ she introduced. ‘Mr—I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’ She had to look at him then.
‘Dane. Benedict Dane.’ The little devils were dancing in his eyes again as he added, ‘Not Orlando.’
Jan frowned puzzledly. ‘Orlando? Have you seen Orlando, then, Chloe?’
It was too stupid to be sharing a private joke with a complete stranger. ‘It’s a long story, Jan,’ Chloe said shortly, and Jan took the hint. She shifted Emma into her other arm as the banging from above began again. ‘Well, thank you for your help, Mr Dane. You’ll stay and have a cup of tea with us?’
He was on his feet. ‘I’d love to, but I’m afraid I must be on my way.’
Chloe went to the door with him. He had behaved beautifully, as she might have expected, but he was no doubt itching to get away.
‘Thank you again,’ she said. ‘Sorry about all the domestic hoo-ha.’
He grinned at her. ‘I thrive on it.’
Yes—well—she would have expected him to be a family man, buying a house like Woodcotes. A top executive, she gues
sed, who parked his wife and children in an expensive country house while he jetted around the world.
‘Goodbye again, then.’ She held out her hand, feeling that it was the least she could do. It was held for a moment firmly, in a warm, hard grip. ‘Goodbye— Chloe.’ He smiled at her. ‘Forgive the familiarity, but we never got around to being introduced, did we?’ Before she could think of a reply he lifted a hand in salute and strode quickly away down the path and along the road to where he had left his car.
She didn’t wait to see him drive away. She went inside and shut the door and leaned against it, feeling rather as if a tidal wave had washed over her. It was a good thing that one didn’t encounter a man like that every day, any more than one encountered a tidal wave. Either was likely to sweep you off your feet if you didn’t watch out.
She would be watching out much more carefully in future, she resolved, as she went out into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
CHAPTER THREE
When the children were at last safely in bed and the two girls were doing the washing-up, the questions exploded.
Jan, her hands deep in hot suds, said eagerly, ‘He really was quite fabulous, Chloe. Where did you meet him? Did you go out to Woodcotes, or what? And has he really bought the house? It seems funny for a man like that to buy a house like Woodcotes—it’s such a “family” kind of house, isn’t it, and somehow he didn’t look married, even though he was so sweet with Emma.’
Chloe laughed in an offhand way and clattered the knives one by one into their box as she dried them. ‘Oh, he’s married all right.’
‘How do you know? Did you ask him?’
‘Heavens, Jan, what do you take me for? You don’t ask a man if he’s married, just like that. Why, I don’t know the first thing about him. I didn’t even know his name was Dane until I tried to introduce him to you.’
A Very Special Man Page 4
