Second-Best Husband

by Penny Jordan

  Inwardly chiding herself, she asked herself sternly if she would really have preferred it if Stuart had sat back and expected her to take over the chore of making their lunch. Why should she want to? So that she could impress him with her domestic skills? How ridiculous. How…

  ‘My cooking is pretty basic, I’m afraid,’ Stuart told her, interrupting her thought-flow.

  ‘It will just be salmon, new potatoes and green beans. Unfortunately my talents do not stretch as far as Hollandaise sauce.’

  Sara’s did. Her mother was a first-rate and very inspired cook, and she had passed on to both her daughters her pleasure in the preparation of food, even if Sara had discovered once she was living alone in London that, for her, most of the pleasure in cooking came from watching others eat what she had prepared for them.

  Ian, even if they had been close enough for her to have asked him round for dinner, preferred to eat out, somewhere expensive and fashionable where the food he was eating was generally of little importance to him.

  ‘Ready for the grand tour?’ Stuart asked her, deftly placing the salmon in the oven and closing the door.

  Nodding her head, Sara stood up.

  ‘I thought we’d start at the top and work our way down,’ Stuart suggested. ‘We’ll leave out the attics. They’re filthy, for one thing.’

  ‘How many bedrooms does the house have?’ Sara asked him, as he stood back to allow her to precede him up what were obviously the back stairs.

  ‘Twelve,’ Stuart told her, ‘but ultimately I’d like to reduce that to eight, and to use the smaller rooms as bathrooms. I’m not using it at the moment, because there was a problem with one of the windows, which over the years has led to quite considerable damp and deterioration in the plasterwork inside it, but the master bedroom has its own adjoining sitting-room, which I’d like to retain. I rather like the idea of having somewhere comfortable and private to relax in.’

  ‘You could perhaps turn it into a sitting-room-cumstudy,’ Sara suggested, as they reached the landing. ‘These days with computer terminals, and—’

  ‘A computer terminal? No, thanks,’ Stuart interrupted her firmly. ‘Computers and I do not exactly see eye to eye.’

  Sara laughed.

  ‘Perhaps you’re not using the right software. Now there are so many user-friendly—’

  ‘It might be user-friendly, but I am most definitely not computer-friendly,’ Stuart told her wryly. ‘I know that isn’t the sort of thing one ought to admit to these days, rather as in the past no male worthy of the name dared to admit that he couldn’t drive a car. The animal I have now is supposed to be virtually able to do everything bar licking the stamps to put on the envelopes, but every time I attempt to use it…’ He shrugged as he pushed open the first of the doors along the corridor.

  It was a good-sized room, with three small windows, all of them barred.

  ‘No doubt this must once have been used as a schoolroom or nursery,’ he commented, as Sara walked over to the windows.

  They overlooked the rear of the house, and beyond the wall encircling the stables and the yard she could see what must once have been the kitchen garden. This was totally enclosed by a high brick wall, with gates set into it. The area inside the wall was a tangle of weeds, nettles and overgrown briars.

  ‘That’s another of my future goals,’ Stuart told her, coming to stand beside her. ‘To restore the kitchen garden, if not to what it once was then at least to something a lot more productive than it is now. There must once have been a glasshouse along one of the walls, and espaliered fruit trees on the others.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be very labour-intensive?’ Sara asked him.

  ‘Mmm. But if I expand as I hope to do there are bound to be quiet periods when men can be spared from working with the trees, to spend some time on the rest of the grounds. If not, I’ll just have to make sure that if and when I marry my wife is a keen gardener.

  ‘Do you like gardening?’ he asked her.

  It was a natural enough question, and of course had nothing to do with his preceding comment, especially when he had already indicated to her that he was still getting over a broken love-affair, and when he knew that she also… It was stupid of her to feel so idiotically self-conscious, so vividly aware of just how much she would have enjoyed spending the lengthening spring days working within the shelter of those ancient walls, digging, planting…watching things grow…feeding and nurturing her young crops, and then, later in the year, enjoying the rewards of all her hard work as she harvested their produce.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she told him, conscious that both her body and her voice were stiff with tension as she turned away from the window and headed for the door.

  The rest of the house was very much as Stuart had described it to her. He showed her where he had made repairs to the exterior fabric of the building in order to prevent leaks and rain damage, but, as he told her, the house was going to require a good deal of work done on it before it could be described as a home.

  ‘Still, at least you know what can be done,’ Sara commented after Stuart had shown her the small panelled study, pointing out where damp had spoiled the woodwork. ‘The work you’ve done on the kitchen is marvellous.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m not quite so confident of being able to restore the original panelling and the stairs quite so effectively. I suspect it’s going to take a good deal of searching through the reclamation yards trying to find that elusive and all-important exactly right item.’

  ‘Hard work,’ Sara agreed, ‘but most definitely worthwhile. In an odd sort of way I almost envy you.’

  He gave her a wry look.

  ‘It’s such a marvellous challenge, and even when you’ve got the house as you want it it isn’t over; then you’ve got the pleasure of living here. Of knowing how much the effort you’ve put into it is making it what it is.’

  ‘Not very many women would share that view,’ Stuart told her drily, making her wonder if perhaps it could have been his decision to relocate here to the Welsh borders which had brought about the end of his love-affair.

  Perhaps his Canadian girlfriend—she could only assume that she must have been Canadian, since he had already told her he had been working there—had not cared for the idea of moving to Britain and living in such an old and ram-shackle building. Personally she could think of nothing she would enjoy more than the challenge the house represented. Even without closing her eyes she could already picture how it would one day look: rich brocades enhancing the mellow restored panelling, waxed floors, Persian rugs, sturdy pieces of oak furniture, some antique, some more modern, just as some of the rooms would be clothed in rare and valuable antiques while others would be furnished with more practical child-proof items. Off the kitchen, there would be a sunny, comfortable morning-room where children could play within earshot of their mother. Upstairs would be the master suite which Stuart had described, with its sturdy four-poster bed, its air of peace and tranquillity, its comfortable sitting-room, where husband and wife could retire to spend a few precious hours on their own: a private retreat whose existence was respected by all other members of the family, teenagers included.

  Over lunch, Stuart described his work to her in a little more detail, causing her to marvel openly at what seemed to her to be his almost magical ability to uproot and transplant fully mature trees.

  She laughed when he told her that he was just as impressed and bemused by her confidence in being able to restore order to his paperwork.

  After they had had lunch, he reluctantly ushered her into his office, warning her that if, once she had seen the chaos that awaited her, she chose to change her mind and withdraw her offer of assistance, he would not blame her.

  It was true that the office was untidy, but at least he had made some attempt to keep things in order, as he explained to her when he pointed out that the various apparently haphazard piles of paper on the desk each consisted of either incoming correspondence relating to orders, orders completed, those
awaiting delivery, plus two other stacks of incoming and outgoing invoices.

  When Sara pointed out to him that all of his problems could be reduced to much more manageable proportions if he made full use of his computer and set aside a small amount of time every day in order to keep on top of the paperwork as it arose, he asked her wryly, ‘How small is a small amount of time? At the moment, I’m working flat out, outside.’

  Sara eyed the desk thoughtfully, and pronounced, ‘Well, at the moment I’d say you’d need to spend probably two or even three full days getting all this stuff on to the computer, and then—’

  ‘Don’t go any further,’ Stuart warned her. ‘Two or three days, you say… I suspect you mean it would take you two or three days. It would take me more like two or three months.’

  Sara laughed and asked him, ‘Have you thought of employing someone on a part-time basis to cope with the paperwork for you?’

  ‘Have I? Every time I walk in here—but you try getting someone qualified to deal with it, with all the skills that that involves, to come all the way out here, for the very small salary that’s all I can afford to pay them.

  ‘Look,’ he added abruptly, ‘I can’t ask you to give up so much of your time. Not when you’ve come down here to—’

  ‘To come to terms with the fact that Ian is never going to want me,’ Sara supplied brittlely. ‘Believe me, something to keep my mind occupied is exactly what I do need.’ She broke off, wondering if she had said too much, if his comment had perhaps been a tactful way of telling her that he had changed his mind on realising how long it would take her to get things in order, and was tactfully refusing her offer of assistance as he did not want to have her spending so much time in his home.

  But to her surprise he said almost tersely, ‘Well, if that really is the case, how about working for me on a part-time basis while you’re here? I know you said you’d probably be staying for a few months. As I’ve already said, I can’t afford to pay you a great deal, certainly nothing like the amount you’re worth, but if you do genuinely want something to fill in some of your time…’

  Work for Stuart. She gnawed thoughtfully on her bottom lip and then released it with a small wince of pain, telling herself that nibbling on it every time she was anxious about something was a habit she really must break.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Stuart was apologising. ‘I really shouldn’t have suggested it. Of course you don’t—’

  ‘No. No. I do.’ Sara corrected him quickly. ‘I was just worried that you might have offered me the job because…because you…you felt sorry for me.’

  She flushed as she made the admission.

  It didn’t matter how well she got on with him, he was still a man, and as a man couldn’t be expected to understand the legacy of insecurity and doubt about her own femininity, her sexuality, her deepest emotions and feelings about being a woman. He couldn’t be expected to know how much Anna’s gibes had damaged and maimed her, had left her unable to have any faith in herself as a woman…had left her feeling that there was something lacking in her, some vital part or ingredient. It had destroyed her confidence in herself, her faith in her ability to function as a woman in the fullest sensual sense.

  ‘You think I’m offering you a job out of pity?’ Stuart shook his head and told her almost grimly, ‘Out of self-pity, maybe, but not out of pity for you. I don’t pity you. As a matter of fact, I still think you’ve had a lucky escape. The man must be a fool to let a woman like you—’

  He broke off and then continued roughly, ‘Take it from me, if you decide to work for me, you’ll be the one doing me the favour, not the other way round.’

  Caution urged her to say that she needed time to think about it, to consider, but instinct urged her to go ahead and accept his offer. A means of occupying her mind was exactly what she needed right now. If she hesitated, started allowing herself to have doubts…

  ‘I would like to work for you,’ she told him firmly before she could change her mind. ‘If you’re sure that that’s what you want.’

  ‘What I want?’ He gave her an odd, almost brooding look, before telling her incomprehensibly, ‘Well, it’s a start. If you’re ready I’ll show you round outside now. You brought your Wellingtons? I know it’s a fine day, but…’

  ‘I was brought up here, remember,’ Sara reminded him. ‘They’re still in your Land Rover.’

  ‘Right, you hang on here. I’ll go and get them for you, and then we’ll make a start.’

  He was opening the kitchen door before she could protest that she was perfectly capable of getting them for herself. As she watched him striding across the yard to the Land Rover, she asked herself if she had done the right thing in accepting his offer of a job. Still, it was too late to rescind her decision now, and besides…besides… She discovered with a mild thrill of shock that she was actually almost looking forward to working here, to the challenge.

  ‘Of what? Sorting out his paperwork?’ A small uneasy sensation stirred in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t one of those idiotic women who got themselves involved in an endlessly repetitive, destructive cycle, was she? She wasn’t going to allow herself to develop the same kind of emotional dependence on Stuart that she had developed on Ian…?

  No, of course she wasn’t. The two men were completely different; the two situations were completely different. She had been in love with Ian before she went to work with him. She wasn’t remotely in danger of falling in love with Stuart. How could she be when she still loved Ian?

  Ian. It was only when she had her Wellingtons on and was walking beside Stuart towards the Land Rover that she realised how little she had thought about Ian in the past few hours.

  A tiny shiver struck her, but she subdued it. That was good, wasn’t it? That was the whole purpose in her coming home, here to the place where Ian had never been; where there were no memories of him to torment and taunt her.

  Almost an hour later she stood silent with awe, in front of one of a dozen mature oak trees which, Stuart was just explaining to her, were due to be lifted and transplanted to an estate in the south of England which had lost many of its own mature trees in the gales which now seemed so much more common.

  ‘In some cases, if we act fast enough, it is possible to save those trees which the gale has uprooted. Adolescent trees are the most at risk; they’ve got the height without the width of a secure root-base to support them, but, being adolescent, they very often have the resilience and ability to reroot themselves once we’ve replanted them, provided we act in time.’

  The more he explained to her about his business, the more fascinating Sara found it. She had never realised it was such a complex subject, imagining that once a tree had been blown down and uprooted it had no real chance of survival.

  ‘Mind out,’ Stuart warned her, taking hold of her arm and helping her out of the way, as a miniature tractor-cumtrailer swung into view driven by a young man whom she recognised as the son of a local farmer.

  When he smiled at her, she responded, causing Stuart to comment, ‘You obviously know young Lewis Llewellyn.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sara agreed, watching as the young man swung the tractor expertly round the bend in the cart track, carefully manoeuvring the trailer with its load of young saplings.

  ‘He’s been working for me for a month or so now and he’s doing very well. There isn’t time today for me to show you the nursery where we’re growing the young saplings, but now that you’re coming to work here…’

  He turned round as he spoke, but as Sara turned to follow him she forgot about the low overhanging branch close to her, and gasped in pain and shock as she pushed against its pliancy and it sprang back, whipping across her face.

  Stuart heard her cry out and turned round, exclaiming, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Comprehension darkened his eyes as he saw the red weal marking her skin and read the message of pain given off by her body.

  ‘Hell, that’s my fault. I should have warned you. Here, let me have a look.’
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br />   Before she could stop him, he was cupping her face in his hands, turning it gently into the light, his body so close to her own that she could smell not only the fresh outdoors scent of the wind and growing things, but also the unmistakable warm male scent of his body.

  Previously if anyone had even suggested to her that she could actually find in such an intimate awareness of a man’s personal body scent something so erotic that her own flesh responded to it immediately and overwhelmingly she would have denied it vehemently, almost shocked by such a suggestion, and yet now, despite the stinging pain in her face, she discovered that she had actually taken a step towards Stuart, that she was actually eager to breathe in the intimate scent of him, that she was even wondering what it would be like to unfasten the buttons of his shirt, to slide her hands over the damp heat of his body, to rest her face against his skin, to…

  She made a small protesting sound of denial of what she was experiencing, causing Stuart to apologise and tell her, ‘I’m sorry. I know it must sting, but fortunately it doesn’t seem to have lacerated the skin. It is grazed, though, and I think we’d better get you back to the house and get some antiseptic on it. I should have warned you about that branch.’

  ‘It’s my own fault,’ Sara told him shakily. He was still standing closer to her, his hands still cupping her face. She wanted him to release her. She was all too uncomfortably conscious of her awareness of him. It made her feel guilty; she had no right to feel so intimately aware of him…no right and no reason. What was the matter with her? Had Ian’s rejection of her changed her so completely that she had gone almost overnight from being a woman with very little interest in or awareness of male sexuality to a woman who was so acutely aware of it, so embarrassingly responsive to it that instead of moving away from Stuart as she ought to be doing she was having to fight against an overwhelming urge to move closer to him?