‘I could tell him today about your little omission,’ Hazel flared, stung into anger by the other woman’s complacency.
Celia walked casually over to the door. ‘Too late, Hazel. I would only have to say that you’re lying to protect yourself, to ingratiate yourself back into Rafe’s good books, and he would have to believe me. You should have told him when you arrived, not waited until the next day. No, Hazel, I’m afraid it would be your word against mine, and at this stage I’m the one most likely to be believed.’ After a triumphant smile in Hazel’s direction she closed the door quietly behind her as she left.
Hazel slammed her way into her adjoining bathroom, resting her hot forehead on the cold mirror tiles. She felt shivery and hot at the same time, nauseous and yet strangely empty. Celia had always affected her the same way, and once again she had let her get under her skin. Oh, why did she let her get away with it? Why didn’t she stand up to her, show some of the self-confidence she had gained in America?
She turned around with a sigh, resting back against the wall. She let Celia get away with it because she was a coward, because she didn’t want to leave Savage House so soon after returning here, and more than that, she didn’t want to leave Rafe.
She put that thought firmly to the back of her mind and moved with determined concentration to collect her clothing for the day. The shower soothed and woke her up and she felt refreshed by the time she entered the kitchen for the longed-for coffee Celia had seen fit to deny her.
Sara looked up with a smile. ‘Coffee?’ she guessed. ‘And toast?’
Hazel grinned. ‘Yes, please.’ She made herself comfortable on the stool in front of the breakfast bar, as she had often done as a child. Sara had always been much more than the housekeeper to Hazel, treating her like the daughter she had never had. Consequently Hazel had eaten most of her meals in the kitchen, when Rafe had allowed it of course, and during the summer months he had found it very hard to keep track of her whereabouts.
The coffee was just as good as she had been imagining it would be for the last half hour. She wasn’t really hungry, but as there were still two hours to wait until lunch time she thought it better to eat something.
‘Where’s Rafe today?’ she asked casually.
‘Out on the estate, and has been for the last four hours.’
As it was eleven-thirty now that meant Rafe had left at seven-thirty, and he had worked late into the evening too. It had been after twelve when she heard him come up to bed, and he had been in his study all that time, presumably working. ‘He works too hard, Sara.’
The housekeeper clucked disapprovingly. ‘Many’s the time I’ve told him that this past six months. He’s been working like a demon ever since he came out of hospital. And after being told by the doctors that he should take things easy …’ She shook her head. ‘But he won’t listen to anyone, insists on doing the work of three men.’
‘But someone should stop him,’ Hazel said, aghast ‘He’ll kill himself!’
Sara poured her some more coffee. ‘I keep telling him that, but he just brushes my words aside. I was hoping that now you’re home you could try to persuade him to take things a bit easier.’
Hazel looked doubtful. ‘Now when could I ever persuade Rafe to do anything?’
‘Quite a lot of the time, if you went about it the right way. I don’t mean for you to come right out and ask him to slow down—no, that would only make him all the more determined to do the opposite. But you could try to take him out of himself a bit, help him enjoy life a little more.’
Hazel stood up, shaking her head regretfully. ‘I don’t think Rafe would let me do that. But I have accepted his offer to help him with the paperwork. That should relieve a little of the burden.’
Sara smiled. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased! He’s up till all hours doing that work, but with you to help him he should be able to relax a bit more. Of course, Miss Celia could have helped out there, but then that’s none of my business. She always would rather be out with her friends than bothering with any work there was to be done. A wild crowd they are too, always up to some new mischief or other. Not that that’s any of my business either, but you can’t help wondering what they’re going to do next. Nude bathing it was a couple of weeks ago.’
Hazel laughed at her shock. Nude bathing had often gone on during her stay in the States, in the more secluded coves, of course. Not that Hazel had ever been tempted to brave the stares of the other bathers, although it had seemed appealing during some of the more humid summer months. But she could well understand how such behaviour would shock Sara and the other locals.
She picked up her empty cup and plate and took them over to the worktop. ‘I think I’ll just take a look in the study now and see if there’s anything I can do.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ agreed Sara. ‘That way you’ll be able to make a start on it and surprise Mr Rafe. Leave those,’ she ordered as Hazel began to wash up her dirty crockery. ‘I’ll see to them in a minute. You go ahead and start the work.’
Hazel did as she said, knowing from past experience that it didn’t pay to argue with Sara. The housekeeper would always have her own way. She walked to the door. ‘Will Rafe be back for lunch?’
‘I have no idea. Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn’t.’
‘It must make it difficult for you, never knowing whether you have to prepare him a meal or not.’
‘I manage.’
Hazel grinned. ‘I’m sure you do. Well, I’ll be in the study if you need me.’
‘I take it you’ll be here for lunch?’
‘Oh yes.’ They laughed together, both knowing how Hazel loved her food.
The study was in absolute chaos, letters scattered all over the desk, opened and unopened alike, the mail obviously not having been attended to for days. Poor Rafe, he must have been overworked to have allowed his correspondence to have got in this state. She could only imagine it had been hidden away in one of the drawers when she had been in here yesterday.
She sat down at the desk, noting with some surprise the photograph of herself that stood on the polished mahogany surface. Of course there was one of Celia too, but nevertheless she was still surprised to see her own picture there. The photograph had been taken at her eighteenth birthday party, an occasion she had tried to forget. She had thought Rafe would feel the same way about it, but he obviously didn’t.
She turned away with determination, deliberately ignoring the photograph and the memories it evoked. She sorted through the letters, placing all the advertisements and circulars in a separate pile before reading through the important mail. It didn’t take her long to sort out the urgent ones, the ones she would have to get Rafe to deal with this evening so that she might type the replies tomorrow.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Hazel looked up with a start. She had been so engrossed in her work that she hadn’t heard Rafe come in. She gave him an uncertain look. ‘I was—well, I was just dealing with the mail.’
He came further into the room, closing the door behind him. ‘Did it not occur to you that I might not want you poking about in my affairs?’
‘But you—you asked me to help you with this sort of thing.’ She watched him apprehensively, aware of him as she was never aware of any other man, not even Josh. Even while suavely sophisticated as he had been last night Rafe still had an earthy attraction. But dressed in tight-fitting denims and an almost completely unbuttoned shirt he had a sensuality that would set any woman’s pulse racing. The scars had now become a part of his attraction, a part that she couldn’t separate from the old Rafe. Scarred or not, Rafe was Rafe, and he meant too much in her life for comfort.
He stood in front of the desk she still sat at, a cheroot dangling between the fingers of his right hand. ‘I may have asked you to help me, but I didn’t expect you to come prying in here in my absence.’ He looked at her coldly.
She stood up jerkily. ‘That’s the second time you’ve implied that I’ve de
liberately sneaked in here to secretly read your mail! I’m not that interested in it, I just thought as I had nothing else to do I could make a start on it.’
Rafe picked up a couple of the letters and idly perused them. ‘And didn’t it occur to you that some of this mail could be personal?’
‘Of course it occurred to me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not that inexperienced.’ She thrust a bundle of letters at him that had remained unopened. ‘I put these to one side before I even began. They may not all be personal, but anything that looked suspect I put in that pile.’
He looked unperturbed. ‘Thanks.’
‘Thanks!’ she echoed, moving angrily away from him. ‘You come in here throwing out accusations as if I’m some sort of idiot, treating me like a fool just because you’re too damned obstinate to have asked anyone for help before now. Don’t start on me just because you’ve allowed things to get on top of you!’
Rafe swung her round, his eyes a very deep blue. ‘Things haven’t got on top of me!’ he denied harshly. ‘Do you know how many days’ mail there is there? Do you?’
Hazel shrugged. ‘A couple of weeks, maybe more.’ His hand was burning her through the thin material of her shirt, but she couldn’t shake off his grasp.
He gave that lopsided smile of his. ‘There’s three days there, Hazel. Just three days.’
She looked at the clutter on his desk with horror. ‘Three days! But it’s a full-time job if that’s the case.’
‘Exactly,’ he said dryly. ‘Now you realise how badly I need a secretary.’
She looked up at him appealingly, nervous of his closeness. ‘But that’s what I was doing when you came in.’
He thrust her roughly away from him. ‘I don’t want you in here alone.’
Her brown eyes darkened with pain. ‘You don’t trust me, is that it?’
‘Not at all,’ he replied calmly. ‘I simply think it would be more sensible for us to go through the mail together in the evenings and then you can type any replies the next day. And perhaps take telephone messages pertaining to the estate.’
Only one part of that conversation seemed important. ‘You want us to work in the evenings?’ She couldn’t hide her dismay; she didn’t want to spend hours closeted alone in here with him in the evenings.
He gave her a contemptuous look, watching her through narrowed blue eyes. ‘Only for an hour or so before dinner, nothing that will interfere too much with any social engagements you may have. I just don’t have the time to spare in the day.’
Hazel decided that perhaps now was the time to try out Sara’s advice and get him to slow down a little. ‘Oh, and I was hoping you would come down to the club with me sometimes and perhaps take me to a few of our old haunts.’
His face was a shuttered mask. ‘As far as I am aware we don’t have any old haunts. And I’m not a taxi service. If you want to go anywhere ask James, he’s the chauffeur around here.’
‘But I wanted you to take me,’ she persisted. ‘I haven’t seen you in such a long time, Rafe,’ she added softly. ‘We have such a lot to talk—’
‘We have nothing to talk about, Hazel,’ he cut in ruthlessly. ‘We didn’t three years ago and we have even less now. You’re a big girl now, I think you should find people of your own age to entertain you.’
‘But I—’
‘No, Hazel,’ he said firmly.
‘You don’t have the time for me, is that it?’ she demanded in a choked voice.
‘Something like that,’ he nodded.
‘Something like that!’ she scoffed. ‘Why don’t you just come right out and say it and get it over with. Oh, I wish to heaven I’d never come back here! I wish I’d stayed in America. I had a life there, I had friends. And I had Josh.’
‘Josh Richardson?’ Rafe asked sharply.
Her head flicked back defiantly and she gave a triumphant smile. ‘That’s right.’
‘So you did meet him,’ he said softly.
‘Oh yes, we met.’ She deliberately implied more than had actually been between them. Compared to Rafe, Josh meant nothing to her.
‘I see. So you lied when you said no one was upset by your return here.’
Hazel glared at him with dislike, angry with him for picking her up on her taunt. ‘I didn’t lie at all. Oh, stop it, Rafe, stop trying to pick an argument with me!’
‘I’m not arguing with you, Hazel. And if you want to leave, then leave. I was surprised you came back here at all. There was no letter to say why you were coming home, just that telegram informing us of your arrival time. It came as something of a surprise. I expected you to be pregnant at least, the haste with which you arrived.’ His eyes flickered scathingly over her slender body. ‘But I can see it isn’t that.’
Damn Celia and her deviousness in getting her to come here seemingly uninvited! But that didn’t give Rafe the right to be so insulting. ‘How do you know that? It doesn’t usually show until well into the third or fourth month.’
‘Well, are you?’
She faced him haughtily. ‘I could be,’ she lied. Permissiveness had never been a part of her life, although most men seemed to expect a physical relationship nowadays.
‘And would it be Josh’s baby?’
‘It could be.’
‘But you couldn’t be, sure. Would he marry you if you were?’
He was actually taking her seriously! Just what sort of girl did he think she had become in the last three years? ‘Going on past record I would say no.’
‘He does this sort of thing often, then?’ he asked sneeringly.
Hazel frowned. ‘What sort of thing?’
‘Gets girls pregnant and then refuses to take responsibility for it.’
She was sickened by this conversation, sickened and disheartened too. If Rafe could talk so disinterestedly about her being made pregnant by another man he couldn’t give a damn about her himself. ‘I’m not pregnant, Rafe,’ she said with a sigh. How could she be when no man had ever attracted her enough for her to give herself to him freely? Except one man, a man who was cold and indifferent to her!
His look was scathing. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I damn—’
Sara put her head around the door. ‘Lunch is ready when you are.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ Hazel choked, brushing past the housekeeper as she ran out of the room. ‘I’m sorry, Sara. Excuse me.’
Her bedroom door was thrust open angrily just as she had closed it. She stared at Rafe with apprehensive eyes. He must have followed her immediately she left the room and she could only imagine Sara’s surprise at their behaviour.
‘What did you do that for?’ he demanded arrogantly.
‘You know why,’ she replied moodily.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Because you accused me—you accused me of being—permissive.’
‘I did no such thing. I just asked your reason for coming back here—a question you haven’t answered, incidentally. You were the one who persisted in the pregnancy idea,’ he reminded her infuriatingly.
Out of a childish desire to see if such a thing would anger or annoy him. But it hadn’t done either of those things, if anything she was the one to feel those emotions. ‘Well, let’s just forget it, it isn’t even a possibility. As for my coming back, you told me I only had three years and then you wanted me home.’
‘You still had three months left to go,’ he said shortly.
‘I’m so sorry I came back three months early!’ she snapped. ‘I’ll leave again if that’s what you want.’
Rafe slowly looked her up and down, making her fidget uncomfortably under the intensity of that look. ‘There’s no point to that now. And I think I’ve more than proved that I need a secretary.’
‘Is that all I am to you, a secretary?’
He raised dark eyebrows at her unmistakable aggression. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think I could leave here right now and you wouldn’t give a damn.’
His face was bleak,
his half-closed lids shielding the expression in his eyes. ‘You can have no conception of how I feel.’
Hazel’s eyes darkened at the loneliness expressed in those few words. ‘Then tell me, Rafe. Talk to me,’ she pleaded.
‘We said all we had to say three years ago. Your lunch is waiting for you.’ He opened the door. ‘Don’t keep Sara waiting.’
She turned away. ‘I said I’m not hungry.’
‘Then go without. You’re only punishing yourself by sulking up here in your room. I couldn’t give a damn if you eat or not.’
She walked out on to the balcony, not bothering to witness his exit. She had to get away from here for a few hours, away from Rafe. The obvious choice was the cabin, her own private sanctuary. Yes, that was what she would do.
A new excitement entered her as she quietly left the house, a feeling of being able to do something without fear of being reprimanded. The cabin was hers, no one could dispute that, and she could do what she wanted in there.
Although in good condition the cabin could still do with a spring-clean and the mattress brought outside in the sunshine to air. The whole place needed fresh air, and opening all the windows and throwing open the door Hazel began to sweep the whole place out. The work was soothing to her nerves, just the kind of therapy she needed after the last couple of days. Life had never been easy at Savage House, but it could never be called dull either, she had to admit that. But she didn’t need this living on a knife’s edge any more. She had stood it for eight years and didn’t have to put up with it any longer.
But she didn’t want to leave; it had been a wrench the last time and she didn’t think she could do it again. She shook her head. She wouldn’t even think about leaving, not until Rafe ordered her to go.
Within a couple of hours the cabin was clean and liveable in. Hazel was also starving hungry, the grumblings of her stomach told her so. So much for her obstinacy earlier on! She sneaked back to the kitchen at the house, smiling beguilingly at Sara.
‘So you’ve calmed down now, have you?’ Sara sniffed disapprovingly. ‘Running out of the study like that! You put Mr Rafe in a rare old temper.’
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