by Susan Napier
He chose his next words carefully, fascinated to discover how long she could sustain the act.
‘Yes. From Sara. She saved up her pocket money for two months to buy it.’
He watched Honor drop the pen like a hot coal.
‘Oh!’ Honor felt like a worm as Adam suddenly changed his mind and took the seat his pride had rejected moments earlier. He raked a hand through his thick blond mane in an abstracted gesture of concern.
‘But then, Sara’s always been like that—very giving towards those she loves. I wish like hell that she hadn’t chosen this particular moment to rebel but I know that it must be important to her...more important than the bit of schoolwork she’ll miss. She can always make up time on her lessons but if I don’t encourage her to confide her problems to me now I might regret it later on. I also know from experience that she won’t tell me until she’s ready.
‘I can’t hurt her by brushing her aside until it’s more convenient for me. She wouldn’t understand. And if she’s here around the clock I’ll have to explain what’s going on because she’s too clever not to sense something’s wrong. Since Mary died she’s been very sensitive to any threat to us as a family. I’ll have to make it very clear that the anonymous letters are so far aimed at the company rather than me personally...’
Honor felt even lower than a worm. Of all the times to taunt a man with his helplessness this must surely be the worst! He had only been trying to protect his home and family. If only there was a way for her to make up for her thoughtless behaviour...
‘Do you know for sure that it’s a radical animal rights group?’ she asked tentatively.
‘No—that’s the problem.’ He cupped his hands behind his head and stretched wearily, arching his back in a typical gesture of masculine unselfconsciousness, the sides of his jacket sliding back, his shirt tautening over his wide chest, revealing a wedge-shaped shadow of dark hair beneath the thin white linen. Honor averted her eyes, rationalising the sudden prickle of sensual awareness that enveloped her body like a rash. She had felt intimately connected with this man for three months. It was quite natural that she should experience a physical curiosity about him. Natural and regrettably inappropriate!
‘It’s either a newly formed splinter group of fanatics or someone using the animal rights angle as a blind,’ he continued, swinging his arms back down, his gaze fortunately aimed somewhere above her flustered head. ‘The fact that they’ve mentioned money rather than demanding Blake Investments stop poultry processing supports the theory that it’s a criminal rather than political action. But it’s all so damned vague! It’s been over two weeks since the first letter came and we still haven’t received a concrete demand, just speculation about what could happen if we don’t co-operate with any demands they might make. Whoever it is seems to be more intent on prolonging the agony than taking the money and running.’
His eyes dropped suddenly to her face and he studied her concerned expression for a moment before saying with an edge of angry frustration still in his voice, ‘If this is our first interview shouldn’t you be taking notes? By all means feel free to use my pen...’
Honor flushed, caught off guard yet again. ‘Surely I’m entitled to some personal curiosity...considering the fact that I was a suspect.’
‘You still are.’ As her dark brows dragged raggedly together he added blandly, ‘We’re all suspects as far as the police are concerned. Even me.’
‘You!’ She regarded him with fresh shock, her annoyance on her own behalf forgotten.
He shrugged. ‘I might be trying to perpetrate an insurance fraud or cover up an embezzlement...’
‘No wonder the police haven’t tracked anyone down yet,’ Honor cried hotly, leaping out of the seat of power to pace impatiently around the desk. ‘They’re too busy chasing after ridiculous red herrings. Surely they can’t believe you’d be involved in such a ludicrously stupid plan!’
‘Thank you, Honor, for your trust—’
‘It’s not a matter of trust, it’s a matter of common sense,’ she cut him off flatly. ‘If you were embezzling you wouldn’t draw attention to yourself like this. You’re too clever. You’d do it in such a cunning way that nobody would ever find out, let alone suspect you.’
‘Thank you again...I think.’
His irony pierced her outraged self-absorption on his behalf. Honor stopped pacing and stared down at him. ‘Well...it’s simply ridiculous,’ she finished lamely.
‘So you said. If I ever need a character witness, remind me not to pick you. You’re likely to incriminate me with the enthusiasm of your defence.’
As if she hadn’t already caused him enough trouble today on top of all his real woes, she thought guiltily. ‘I was just thinking aloud. I wouldn’t say things like that to the police,’ she said hurriedly, her small, capable hand automatically patting the broad shoulder nearest to her reassuringly as she added darkly, ‘I know what it’s like to be an innocent under suspicion.’
‘Thank you,’ he repeated with the same thread of sardonic amusement. A warm hand wrapped around her wrist, holding her palm against the heavily shifting muscle as he tipped his head back. ‘You’re awfully gullible, aren’t you, Honor?’
‘Gullible?’
‘Susceptible to emotional pressure. Easily distracted from your purpose.’
Her generous mouth tightened, sensing something unpleasant coming. He made her sound disgustingly feeble.
‘I don’t think so,’ she denied firmly. Her captured fingers curled into the rough weave of his jacket. He was beginning to make an unwelcome habit of shackling her to his side while he took point-blank pot-shots at her character.
‘You were all set to screw me for every cent you could get until I reminded you I had a daughter,’ he pointed out, ‘then all your hostility melted like ice in the sun. How on earth does someone as tender-hearted as you stand up for herself in the real world?’
It was too late to save face but she made a valiant try to outface his callous opportunism.
‘Don’t think I still won’t,’ she said fiercely.
‘Won’t what? Screw me?’ The tiny white lines around his eyes and mouth disappeared into the smoothly tanned skin as he grinned with wicked complacency.
‘With pleasure!’ she snapped, desperately wanting to wipe the smirk off his face. Instead he shouted with laughter and she belatedly recognised the crudity of his remark and the indecency of her response. She jerked her hand out of his and backed up against the desk. Now he would think her even more idiotically naïve.
‘I look forward to the experience,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m glad you’re working with me rather than against me. In troubled times like this a man likes to know he has an utterly ruthless bitch like you on his side.’
‘I hope you don’t use language like that around your daughter,’ she said quellingly, his words a clear indication that the emotion he had been so obviously suppressing earlier had been amusement rather than anger. He hadn’t feared her any more than a lion feared a feckless fawn. He had been callously leading her on, playing heartlessly on her sympathy—and she had fallen for it—again!
‘No, ma’am,’ he affirmed gravely, his tawny eyes still dancing with insufferable mockery. She wanted to smack him. Her hands clenched on the desk-top behind her as she struggled to control the violent impulse.
Maybe it was a good thing that she had allowed herself to be manoeuvred into this ignominious situation, she thought furiously, striving to find a bright side to her gloomy situation. So it hurt to discover that he was laughing at her...good! After foolishly falling in love with an imaginary hero, a harsh dose of infuriating reality was exactly what she needed to halt the creeping rot. She would hang around just long enough for propinquity to do its dirty, disillusioning work and then she would walk out, heart-whole and pride intact—not to mention financially better off!
And, of course, while she was here she would be living in the lap of luxury. She probably wouldn’t have to lift a finger
around the house. She would also be putting Tania’s snooty nose thoroughly out of joint, sweet revenge for being treated like something the cat had dragged in. It would almost be worth the inevitable strife for that pleasure alone! Then there was the opportunity for a journalistic coup, although it was hardly a tribute to her professionalism that the prospect of a scoop came a poor second to the chance of thoroughly annoying one of the rural aristocracy.
She listened broodingly as Adam briskly outlined the terms under which she was to stay, which included her sharing the elementary safety precautions the family had adopted on police advice. Whether she was on the property or off it, she had to make sure that at least one other person in the household knew where she was at all times.
‘Since I don’t have my bicycle and my car is still being fixed I don’t see myself being able to venture very far,’ she said truculently. Everything he said sounded so reasonable that she knew there had to be a catch but, try as she might, she couldn’t find it.
‘There’s usually at least one of the farm vehicles around at any given time. If you go down to the orchard office in the paddock behind the house and ask, I’m sure someone will find the time to run you where you want to go,’ Adam said equably. ‘I’ll mention it to Dave—he’s our orchard manager. However, try and keep it down to essential trips and don’t tell all and sundry where you’re staying. It’s bad enough that Tania won’t take it seriously and keeps flitting off, but then she was ever one for burying her head in the sand to avoid facing unpleasantness.’
Honor looked at him in disbelief. That certainly hadn’t been her impression. Tania had been all for burying her in unpleasantness!
‘She doesn’t want me here,’ she said bluntly, wondering exactly what his feelings for his glamorous sister-in-law were.
‘As I pointed out to her earlier, owning this house gives me certain privileges. Tania will just have to grin and bear it,’ he replied evenly.
Honor felt a twinge of unwelcome sympathy for the woman. After all, she was probably just fighting for her own security in the only way she knew how. If her only training had been as a pampered wife and social butterfly, how else was she supposed to cope with the dramatic changes Zach’s death had brought?
‘Whoever owns it, this is still her home. She’s entitled to resent me barging in...’
‘Resent, yes, dictate, no. Don’t invest Tania with your own sentimentality. She has no emotional attachment to the land or this place. She was always trying to get Zach to move closer to town. If he had left it to her she would have sold a three-generation-old farm in a flash and bought something along Auckland’s wildly inflated golden mile. But she’s not poverty-stricken by a long chalk. She knows damned well she could buy something in the city tomorrow if it suited her. So don’t fall into the trap of feeling sorry for her. Tania can well look after herself, in spite of her indications to the contrary.’
‘So why does she stay?’ she asked challengingly.
He gave her a droll look as he rose lazily to his feet. ‘Why, Honor, like you she finds me utterly irresistible and thinks propinquity might succeed where artful dissembling failed!’
* * *
Lying awake in bed a few hours later, Honor was still trying to come up with a crushing response to his arrogant throw-away remark. She should have flung at him that they obviously had radically different theories on the effects of propinquity! Lumping her in with Tania was enough of an insult. How dared he joke about what to Honor was a thoroughly mortifying situation? What made him think he was so irresistible, anyway?
Honor shot bolt upright in the bed, her eyes wide with horror in the darkness.
Her letters!
She knew there had been something nagging at the back of her mind. She knew there had been an important issue she had meant to settle before she agreed to anything. But she had been side-tracked by his conniving.
She had forgotten to ask for her letters back. It didn’t seem fair that he was the only one to be able to redeem his embarrassment. Good God, what if he decided to read through them again? What if he re-read all that drivel she had written to the man of her dreams? As long as those words were held hostage over her head she would never have peace of mind.
Honor looked towards the firmly closed door that connected her room with his. A thin white line illuminating the bottom edge of the wood told her he was still awake.
A strange urgency took hold of her. She wasn’t going to wait until the morning to settle this. She would never get to sleep for worrying about it.
She scrambled out of bed, dislodging Monty who had been curled up on her feet, gently snoring, and headed for the beckoning slit of light, swerving off course when she caught sight of her shimmering reflection in the mirror. The pale satin sleep-shirt was buttoned to the collarbone and a perfectly respectable knee-length, but she was taking no chances. Adam wasn’t going to get an excuse to claim she was coming on to him, even as a joke.
Remembering something she had seen in the wardrobe when she had tucked away her motley collection of clothes, she opened it up and took out the old-fashioned, faded red cloth coat. Securing its voluminous folds around her with the matching tie belt, she grimaced as she checked again in the mirror. She looked as if she was wearing a carpet. Still, no one would dare to accusing her of vamping.
There was no answer to her tentative knock at his door so she knocked again a little louder.
‘Adam? Can I come in? I have to speak to you.’
She couldn’t hear a sound from the other side but somehow she was certain he was there, deliberately letting her stew.
She knocked sharply once more and called out warningly, ‘I’m coming in!’ before easing open the door, and cautiously peeping in.
The room was empty, the bedside light bouncing off the crisp white sheets that were invitingly turned down, the brass bed-rails gleaming with a polished sheen.
‘Adam?’
Honor ventured inside, checking behind the door but curbing the sudden impulse to lift the edge of the quilt and look under the bed. She put a hand across her mouth to stem a nervous giggle. It was like being a child again, bravely searching the bedroom every night for bogey-men before she took a flying leap into the safety of her bed. She had believed even then that it was better to face a fear than try to hide from it.
She looked around, noticing that the only photograph in the room was one of Sara. There seemed to be none anywhere in the house of his precious Mary—as if he couldn’t bear the reminder of what he had lost. He must have been very much in love with her. Perhaps he still was and that was why he had sought solace in letter-writing—the temptation to be unfaithful to his memories was less...
‘Sleep-walking, Honor?’
She gasped and spun around. Adam had silently entered from the hall. He wore a calf-length, black towelling robe with red piping along the lapels and edges of the belt, and was rubbing his wet hair with a bath-towel. She tried not to notice that the thicket of dark gold hair on his chair also needed drying, jewel-like sparkles of moisture sliding through the furry coils as he padded barefoot across the room.
‘I’ve decided I want to have my letters back too,’ she stated baldly, before he could jump to any arrogant conclusions about her presence in his bedroom.
He gave his head one final flurry and threw the towel across a stool, raking both hands carelessly through his damp hair as he turned to her. ‘Now?’
‘Well...yes...if they’re here—if you still have them, that is...’ She realised her floundering was providing him with ready-made excuses and quickly changed her tune. ‘Yes, now, please.’
‘Hmm...I wonder what the legal position on ownership of voluntary correspondence is? It’s probably a simple matter of possession....’
She folded her arms across the moth-eaten coat and glared at him. ‘I gave you yours when you asked.’
‘So you did.’ His lips quirked as he suddenly registered her eccentric attire but fortunately for his health he didn’t comment.
‘I’ll see if I can find them.’
‘You do that,’ said Honor sourly. His robe bore a Givenchy symbol, embroidered on the pocket. I’ll bet it was a gift, she thought, watching him open a drawer in the tall, antique bureau in the corner. A man who didn’t notice his socks were mismatched and used his fingers instead of a comb didn’t seem to be the type to bother with vanity bathroom-wear. On the other hand the robe suited him perfectly, she acknowledged ruefully, the black a perfect foil for his blond hair and tanned skin.
‘Here you are. Would you mind telling me what the urgency is?’
Honor picked up the bundle of envelopes he had tossed carelessly on to the bed. They were held together by a rubber band—scarcely romantic—but at least he’d kept them. Honor counted roughly and caught her breath when she realised what he was trying to do.
‘And the rest!’ she cried. ‘Come on, Adam, where are the last half-dozen I wrote? You know they’re the ones I’m talking about...’
He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Do you get the feeling we’ve played this scene before—with roles reversed?’
She gritted her teeth. ‘Very funny. Now you’ve had your little joke at my expense, how about handing them over?’ When he continued to regard her oddly she exploded. ‘I might have known you wouldn’t play fair!’ She thrust the letters into the coat’s sagging patch-pocket and marched across to the bureau to tug at the drawer he had delved into. It opened a tiny crack then jammed as it hit a solid, black-robed hip.
‘They’re not in there, Honor—’
‘Well, where are they, then?’ she demanded belligerently. He was giving her that blank-eyed look that she had already come to hate, the one that meant he was stalling for time while his swift intelligence plotted to outwit her.
‘Are you thinking of trying to blackmail me? Don’t you find that terribly ironic in the circumstances? Well, you can forget it. They’re really not that important.’