The Sister Secret

by Jessica Steele

  She loved him; it was weakening her. ‘I’m not to begin my skivvying straight away, then?’ she queried tartly.

  ‘You’re priceless,’ he answered good-humouredly, and Belvia just did not know what to make of him. An hour earlier he’d been tough, unyielding, giving her little choice but to agree with what he wanted. Yet now, for all there had been sparse conversation between them, he was behaving most amiably and, as he came round and opened her door for her, being well-mannered to boot.

  Lunch went better than she had expected, given the circumstances. It had crossed her mind that, with the two of them being scratchy with each other, she would not be able to eat a thing. But, as before, she found his manners were immaculate in company and, as she was being treated with every courtesy, it somehow rubbed off on to her, so that her own innate good manners soon surfaced. So much so that they were at the pudding stage before she realised it, the whole of the lunchtime going splendidly.

  He had even made her laugh over some small incident to do with his work, but as she looked across the table at him she immediately sobered. She loved him—was that why she felt so relaxed, so utterly at one with him?

  ‘Something wrong?’ he enquired, and seemed so much at one with her too, so much in tune—instantly aware of her smallest change of mood—that her heart jerked.

  She shook her head, fully aware that only a short while ago she would have replied with some tart answer. Aware too that, because of the love she had for him, she was imagining a ‘togetherness’ that just was not there. But even so, she loved him so much that she suddenly did not want to be the instigator of hostility. What she wanted, for just a few hours, if the gods were kind, was a pleasant time to remember. She had no idea how the rest of the weekend might go—indeed, she was doing her darnedest not to think about it but to enjoy only the present. The weekend would be over soon enough and, with Latham’s word given that he would not pursue Josy, Belvia realised she would never see him after that.

  She smiled at him over her coffee-cup, saw his glance at her still, and quickly veiled her eyes, lest he see anything in them of how she truly felt about him.

  They were both in quiet mood, it seemed, when they went out to his car. They were later driving through a small town when, out of the blue, Latham remarked, ‘Talking of supermarkets...’ and, as amusement pulled the corners of her lovely mouth upwards, he glanced her way, before turning his attention to a supermarket car-park.

  ‘This is one way to spend a Friday afternoon,’ she remarked drily as, trolley in grip, they entered the mêlée.

  ‘Is it always like this?’

  ‘I expect so.’ She laughed, loved him, and had never found supermarket-shopping so exciting. ‘What do you want?’

  His eyes strayed to her mouth, then slowly, as if having to drag his gaze away, up to her eyes. ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘Me?’ she queried. ‘It’s your shopping-trolley!’

  ‘You’re the cook,’ he reminded her—but so charmingly she didn’t have a chance to get uptight about her enforced role.

  ‘I expect you’ve got a fridge?’

  ‘Must have.’

  She wanted to laugh again, so turned away and headed for the fresh vegetables section.

  They reached Rose Cottage around five o’clock. ‘This is a cottage?’ she asked as she stood on the drive and studied the detached building, in its own grounds with not a sign of another property thereabouts.

  ‘Like it?’

  She did, given that she was starting to feel a shade nervous. She knew that in other circumstances she could be totally relaxed and happy here. ‘It’s lovely! How did you find it?’

  ‘Through a friend of a friend.’

  Jealousy bit, and she did not like it. Was the friend a lady-friend? She did not want to know. She turned her back on the virile look of him. ‘We’d better get the shopping in.’

  The inside of the cottage was everything a weekend retreat should be, she felt. A cosy, carpeted sitting-room housed a couple of padded chairs, a three-seater settee and a small table. The dining-room was much smaller, with room only for a table and four chairs, and with the kitchen leading off, of about equal size.

  She helped Latham put away the food they had purchased, but was far more interested in doing a reconnoitre of the bedrooms. She had her chance when Latham decided to go outside.

  Her weekend case was at the bottom of the stairs, she noted as she left the kitchen. She picked it up and, case in hand, she went up the stairs. As he had said, there were two bedrooms, separated by en suite bathrooms. In one of the bedrooms there were twin beds, and in the other only one—a double. Next Belvia checked the airing-cupboard. Good, there was plenty of bedlinen.

  She gathered up an armful of it and set to work. First she made up the double bed. It was where she would sleep tonight. She would change the sheets for his guests in the morning. Then she went into the other bedroom. Before she started work in there, however, she took a glance out of the bedroom window, from which she could see fields and hedgerows and, just below, the side of the cottage where Latham had parked his car.

  She was just about to come away from the window when a movement from within the car caught her attention. She stayed where she was, and a moment later realised that Latham was inside his car using his car phone. Only then did she realise that she had not seen a telephone inside the cottage—perfect for a weekend away from it all. Though it rather spoilt the whole idea if one then brought a phone with one, she thought. And, while hating it like blazes if Latham was on the phone to some female of his acquaintance, making social arrangements for the week to come, she pondered on whether she should telephone her sister to check that all was well.

  On the basis that to do so might cause her to have to tell yet more lies, Belvia decided against it, and came away from the window to busy herself making up the two beds. Besides, as she had told Latham, Josy quite liked her own company sometimes.

  Belvia was just smoothing the fresh duvet-cover on the second of the twin beds when she heard Latham enter the cottage. The following sound she heard was his footsteps as he came up the stairs—and she froze.

  She straightened when, hold-all in hand, he came directly to the room she was in. Oh, thank heaven! This room must be his; she was not going to have to share the room with the double bed with him.

  ‘I th-thought this would be your room,’ she commented quickly, only her initial stammer giving away her nervousness—perhaps he had not noticed it. ‘I’ve made up these beds and the one in the other room. I thought that—’

  ‘Slow down,’ he suggested with a calm smile.

  She supposed she had rather been gabbling on like some express train in her attempt to get it all said. She smiled—had to. She still loved him. ‘I thought I’d sleep in the double bed tonight—by myself,’ she added quickly, in case he thought differently. ‘I can change the bedding in the morning.’

  Latham, his eyes holding hers, dropped his hold-all down by his feet and came over to her; wonderfully, magically, his arms came out to her, and gently, tenderly, he gathered her to him. And for a while, held gently against him, she felt at peace. Oddly, she had the most uncanny feeling, when he seemed in no hurry to let her go, that he felt some sort of comfort to have her in his arms.

  But then, to show just how crazy being in love with him had made her, Latham pushed her gently away from his entirely undemanding embrace and, to send her heart soaring, dropped a breeze of a kiss on the side of her face and demanded lightly, ‘What are you going to cook me for my supper, woman?’

  She took a step back from him, and a side-step in the direction of the door. ‘You’ve only just had your lunch!’ she laughed.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ he wanted to know—and she got out of there quickly. She felt in danger of throwing herself back into his arms.

  Dinner was an uncomplicated affair of tinned soup, salmon pasta and salad, with an option of chocolate gâteau or cheese and biscuits. They both e
lected to have cheese.

  ‘I’ll make the coffee,’ Latham volunteered.

  ‘Why not?’ Belvia replied cheerfully, and cleared some of the meal-time debris away while he attended to the coffee.

  They returned to the dining-room to take their coffee, and Belvia gave herself the sternest lecture on keeping a check on her cheerfulness, her smiles, if he were not to discern that, for her, the sun rose and set with him.

  ‘Have you had this cottage long?’ she enquired, and could have groaned aloud—he’d think she was a property freak or something. Hadn’t she asked him one time how long he had lived in his London flat?

  ‘Not so long,’ he replied amiably, but before she could draw another breath he was preferring to go off on a tack of his own. ‘You accused me today of having missed something—what else have I missed about you, I wonder?’

  Belvia looked at him and felt quite weak inside about him. Which of course called for the sternest measures. ‘I shall lie if I have to,’ she told him, knowing from experience that he would not leave it there.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ he grinned. And, as if recalling that morning in her home when, after he had read her note to her sister, she had said, ‘Don’t tell me you missed something,’ he went on to refer to her note again by asking, ‘Do I gather from your note, from your phone call to Tracey at the stables, that you’ve only been riding your sister’s horse because she feels unable to do so herself—and not, as you allowed me to believe, from selfish motives only?’

  ‘Hey, steady there, Mr Tavenner—go on like that and you’ll be finding out I’m not so very terrible after all,’ she warned, her insides playing havoc with her at the warm look that came to his eyes. It was time, she felt, to talk of something else. ‘Do you ride?’ she asked. ‘But of course you do.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You wanted Josy’s opinion about a horse you were thinking of buying one time,’ she reminded him, certain now, as she had been then, that he’d had no such intention.

  ‘So I did,’ he replied, but the devilish look in his eyes told its own story.

  ‘And you’ve no doubt that I’m a liar?’

  He gazed at her steadily for some moments before going back to the subject that had been under discussion. ‘So, the moment you heard your sister’s calamitous news, you took over the exercising of her horse and—’ He broke off, and then, not a glimmer of a smile about him, ‘When did you give up your job?’ he asked suddenly, sharply.

  ‘Three or four months ago,’ she replied honestly, her thoughts too startled at this change of tack for her to think of disguising that fact, or even to wonder why she should.

  ‘Three or four months ago!’ he repeated. ‘That was when your sister’s husband was killed. That was the time when your sister needed you.’ Belvia tried to think up a trite answer, but there wasn’t one. ‘For your sister, you gave up all hope of the career that you so dearly wanted,’ he stated softly, ‘and it wasn’t from boredom with the work—as your father said.’

  Oh, grief, Belvia panicked. She so wanted Latham’s good opinion of her—yet if he thought for a single moment that her father had lied to him then, dealing in a world where a man’s word was everything, she knew her father would not stand a chance of obtaining the huge finance he was after.

  ‘I—er—thought it best to tell him I was bored with the job—otherwise he might have tried to persuade me to change my mind,’ she invented, and, suddenly discovering that she was finding it harder and harder to lie to Latham, she sought desperately to think of something with which to change the subject. She found it in a question that had been in and out of her head several times that day. ‘Oh, by the way, I never thought to ask—’ she made her voice casual ‘—but who are your guests tomorrow?’

  At once any sign of a warm light in his eyes vanished, and she almost wished she had kept her question to herself. Latham plainly did not care for her asking about his guests—and that annoyed her. For heaven’s sake, she would know who they were tomorrow—she was going to have to cook for them, and play hostess!

  She got to her feet and went to the kitchen, carrying her used coffee-cup and saucer with her, and consequently had her back to Latham when he followed her. She ignored him, and could see no earthly reason why she should speak to him.

  Then she found, when he moved and took the cup and saucer out of her hand and placed them on the draining-board, that he had moved to face her. And, what was more, he was making her look at him when, in curt and clipped tones, he informed her, ‘My guests tomorrow will be my sister Caroline, and her husband, Graeme Astill.’

  Graeme Astill! That name rang a clear and very unpleasant bell with her. ‘Oh—I know him!’ she exclaimed jerkily, before she could stop herself—remembering Graeme Astill for the womaniser he was. She had been at a party, not a year ago, and he had been there—his wife not with him—acting in a very unmarried manner. She was faintly staggered to hear Latham say he was married to his sister.

  ‘You have a problem with that?’ Latham demanded grimly, the jerkiness of her exclamation not lost on him.

  The fact that tomorrow she would share a bedroom with Latham, and could not see his brother-in-law keeping quiet about it at the next party he went to, made her feel uncomfortable. Some of her friends could quite easily be there too! ‘And if I do?’ she challenged sharply.

  He looked at her grimly, a murderous light in his eyes. ‘Tough,’ he rapped, and, making her absolutely furious, ‘You’re far too free with your favours!’ he added.

  How she stopped herself from hitting him Belvia never knew. But, too furious to pause and analyse that remark, she somehow managed to hang on to a thread of dignity, though feeling that if she stayed near him another minute she would end up assaulting him. ‘Thanks!’ she snapped, and, as a red mist of rage came before her eyes, ‘You’re so good at making coffee—you can try your hand at washing-up!’ she spat—and escaped quickly up to bed before that last thread of self-control split asunder.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BELVIA had thought she would not sleep a wink that night, but proof that she had slept was there in the fact that, having taken an age to drop off, she overslept, and was awakened by a voice in the region of the bedroom door asking sardonically, ‘Do you intend to get up today?’

  He sounded no more pleasant this morning than he had when, without a word of goodnight, she had left him with the washing-up. She eyed him acrimoniously—even as her heart accelerated its beat just to see him she determined that she did not like him very much that morning. ‘Thanks for the tea!’ she snapped sarcastically, and hated him when he favoured her with a disagreeable look and went out.

  Swine, she dubbed him afresh, sat up in bed—and suddenly loved him with her whole heart. Because there reposing on the bedside table was a cup and saucer which hadn’t been there when she had lain down last night. He had brought her a cup of tea.

  What was more, when bathed and dressed she went down to the kitchen, she discovered that he had also tried his hand at washing-up because there was not a used utensil or piece of unwashed china to be seen.

  At that moment the back door opened and Latham came in. ‘Thanks for the tea,’ she said a shade more civilly. He did not answer but, on thinking about it, there was not a lot he could say in reply. ‘Have you had breakfast?’ she enquired, hating herself for wanting to be pleasant to him but seeming unable to be any other way. After tomorrow she would never see him again.

  ‘About an hour ago,’ he replied and, sensing censure, Belvia gave up all half-formed thoughts of parting friends. To the devil with it, she thought crossly, and made breakfast for one.

  After toast and coffee she went upstairs and stripped the bed she had used and remade it with fresh bedlinen, tidied and dusted and set about removing all traces of her own occupation from the bedroom and bathroom. Having placed all her belongings on the landing outside, all she had to do was take her weekend case and impedimenta to the other bedroom and bathroom.

 
She opened the door of the bedroom which Latham had used last night, though as she stood and stared in there was no sign that he had been there at all. Both beds were made, so he must have made his.

  Belvia went into the room, and pulling back the duvet of the nearest bed, she saw that it had not been slept in. Fine. She slipped her nightdress beneath the pillow, took her toilet-bag into the bathroom and went to put the rest of her belongings away. In all it took her about ten minutes. But at the end of those ten minutes the fact that she would be sleeping that night in this room, she in one bed, Latham in the other, started to get to her.

  In something of a hurry she left the room and went downstairs, her feelings towards her host none too sweet. He was in the kitchen having a cup of coffee, she observed, and she was then a mixture of regret that she had not offered him one when she had made her own, and of why the dickens should she? She had not asked to be brought away from the safety of her own home. Let him make his own coffee—he was big enough!

  She went over to the sink just as he stood up. ‘We’ll go for a walk,’ he announced, sounding for all the world as if he felt caged in.

  What a pity! she thought scratchily, and found the sweetest pleasure in replying, ‘You go for a walk! I’m cleaning vegetables.’

  He gave her a long-suffering look—though what he thought he had to be long-suffering about she did not know—and, having apparently changed his mind about going for a walk, went and found himself something to do outside.

  Good, she fumed, and missed him, and wanted him back, and wanted to go for a walk with him—but peeled potatoes and parsnips and attended to beans and broccoli, and mixed the batter for a Yorkshire pudding.

  Because she had to know, and because it was just too ridiculous not to ask, she went outside to find him once the chores she had set herself were completed. Though she did not have to look very far and he, if anything, more or less found her. Because if he had been listening for the sound of her leaving the house—and possibly decamping—he could not have appeared more quickly.