by Lynne Graham
‘The kettle’s boiling.’
He was so cool now. What had happened in that bed might almost have existed only in her imagination. ‘I don’t think I can stay after—’
He expelled a long, laconic sigh. ‘After what? I didn’t know you were there. I turned over and found a female body and reacted on instinct…’
Chrissy was mortified. ‘That’s s-so disgusting.’
Blaze raised a winged brow. ‘You talk like a teenage virgin, but you didn’t find Rosie under any gooseberry bush—’
‘I don’t w-want to talk about it!’ In her distress, her back was rigidly presented to him.
‘You must concede that I have some grounds for curiosity. Did you love Rosie’s father?’
She spun round. ‘No!’ she rebutted with sharp distaste and then abruptly she remembered that she was talking for her mother, not herself. Reddening, she muttered, ‘I thought I did but, when it came down to it, it was j-just an infatuation.’
‘Are you in touch with him…?’ Unusually he hesitated. ‘I mean, do you visit him?’
‘No.’
‘Are you waiting for him?’
Feeling foolish, she shook her head, refusing to look at him.
‘That would appear to bring us back to what happened between us—’
‘Leave it alone!’ she broke in fiercely.
‘Why should I?’ Blaze traded. ‘Another few minutes and I’d have had you—’
Chrissy shuddered. ‘No!’
With veiled eyes, he surveyed her appearance in the sloppy sweater that did little to conceal the slender length of her perfect legs. Tousled dark hair with brighter streaks the shade of autumn leaves cascaded round her triangular face, highlighting luminous green eyes and a wide, generous mouth. ‘You’re incredibly sexy,’ he breathed in a different tone of voice altogether, an almost predatory purr deepening his vowel sounds.
It was like being touched. With difficulty, she dredged her stunned scrutiny from him and doggedly asked, ‘D-do you take milk and sugar?’
There was a pin-dropping silence. She pretended not to notice it. He hadn’t meant what he had said; of course he hadn’t. It was just that certain dangerous boundaries had been breached between them. It was just that it was second nature to him to lapse into that incredibly physical intensity with a woman. Or maybe, having sunk low enough to touch her, even half asleep, he felt he had to justify that intimacy by exaggerating her attractions. Whatever, if she ignored it, it would go away, and sooner or later she would stop squirming with embarrassment.
‘Blaze…’ she had to prompt shakily
‘One sugar, no milk.’
The raw tension visible in her slim shoulders eased. She set a cup and saucer down about a foot from him.
‘I only bite after midnight on request,’ he said softly. ‘Join me.’
It wasn’t an invitation, it was a command. She tensed and it really sunk in then that she was utterly dependent on his goodwill. In a series of stiff movements, she made herself a coffee and sat down awkwardly at the table with him.
‘You don’t like me. Relax,’ he urged as her head jerked up in dismay. ‘It really doesn’t bother me.’
Involuntarily she meshed with those astonishingly blue eyes.
‘It does have a certain novelty value,’ he pointed out smoothly.
‘Good,’ she managed, and hurriedly smothered a yawn.
An odd slanting smile curved his expressive mouth. ‘Start worrying if the novelty value starts to pall,’ he advised.
It was three in the morning. Word games were beyond her. She propped her chin on her hand. ‘Where do I sleep?’
‘Go back upstairs. I’ll stay down here for a while.’
At the door she hesitated. ‘A while?’
He groaned impatiently. ‘Look, I refuse to knock Hamish and Floss up in the middle of the night. That’s a big bed up there. I shall lie down fully clothed on my half—’
‘You can’t!’ Chrissy was livid at the very idea.
‘I’m damned if I’m sleeping on the floor. Don’t be such a prude, Chrissy. You won’t know I’m there.’
Her lips tautly compressed, she stared back at his shuttered features. And then she sighed, all out of fight. It was a very big bed. He was clothed. She was practically asleep standing up. Furthermore, she’d be up long before he was in the morning…
The loud slam of a door woke her up the next day. As she sat up, shaking her heavy head to clear it, the bedroom door swung wide. It hadn’t been properly closed. A girl clad in dirty jodhpurs and riding boots hurried across the room and lifted an executive case off the top of the chest of drawers. She didn’t see Chrissy until she turned back towards the door. It would have been hard to estimate which of them was the most embarrassed.
‘Sorry, I…I mean, I didn’t know there was anyone…’ The girl stared at the heap of discarded male clothing on the floor, averted her attention from it and Chrissy both, and added, ‘The guv’nor told me to fetch this.’
‘Fine…OK,’ Chrissy muttered awkwardly as the brunette backed speedily out again.
Casting an aghast glance at the imprint of another head on the pillow beside hers, Chrissy cursed herself for not making use of her alarm clock the night before. She didn’t need to wonder what that girl had thought. It had been written on her face. Looking at her watch, she registered that it was after nine. Blaze would naturally have assumed that she was already up.
Springing out of bed, Chrissy tore off her nightshirt and dressed at speed in black leggings and a black sweater. ‘Time to get up, Rosie!’ she gasped.
She had assumed that her sister was still sleeping, but the chaise-longue was empty. It was one shock too many. Screaming, ‘Rosie!’ like a maniac, Chrissy’s first stop was the huge hole at the far end of the landing. She tore about, throwing doors wide in search, before finally flying breathless into the empty kitchen. And then she saw them in the busy yard through the window. Blaze was holding Rosie’s hand while he stood talking to Hamish.
‘I’ll take her now.’ Her cheeks burning, Chrissy advanced on the two men.
‘Good morning, Miss Hamilton,’ Hamish said woodenly.
Across the yard, the brunette and another stable girl had their heads close together, two pairs of eyes watching Chrissy’s every step. The knowledge of what was probably being said doubled her embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry I s-slept in,’ she said.
‘I owed you a lie-in and it was only half-five. Floss gave us breakfast,’ Blaze drawled as she lifted her sister.
‘Did you dress her?’ she asked as Hamish walked away.
‘You must be joking. I grabbed a few likely-looking items and Floss came to the rescue. She loves kids; never had any of her own.’ Blaze followed her back into the house. ‘She offered to hang on to her while you do the shopping.’
‘That’s very kind of her but—’
‘She reminded me that there was no car seat in the Land Rover—’
‘But it’s only two miles to the vill—’
‘No.’ The negative cut her off midflow. ‘You don’t take risks like that if you want to work for me. Is that clear?’
Chrissy bridled. Her protest had been powered by her reluctance to take any further advantage of this Floss, who was presumably Hamish’s wife. This was her first day in the job and already she had fallen down on it. She should have been up early, seeing to Rosie and figuring out how to supply breakfast. ‘Yes.’
‘The garage at the crossroads has a car shop. They might have a car seat. If they don’t, you’ll have to go into Reading.’ He withdrew his wallet and settled a handful of notes on the table.
Her teeth clenched. ‘I’m going to owe you a month’s wages by the time you pay me!’
‘You’re no use to me if you’re not mobile.’ He tossed her a set of car keys. ‘And you can’t go around penniless for the next month. You can pay me back in instalments once you get on your feet again.’
Studying the floor, she forced out one word. ‘Thanks.’
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‘When you get back, find out where my furniture is. The number’s underlined on the pad.’
It killed him to be thanked. As she tidied herself upstairs, Chrissy realised just how much she was in his debt. He was giving her a chance when most people wouldn’t have bothered. He was making it possible for them to survive. Why? She couldn’t help questioning his motives. He was nobody’s idea of the good Samaritan. Did he feel sorry for them? Or did employing a Hamilton in a menial position amuse him? When her father found out, he would go mad.
‘Anybody home?’
A plump woman with greying blonde hair stood in the hall. ‘I’m Floss, Hamish’s wife. I didn’t half give him stick for not at least bringing you in for a cup of tea last night.’
And that was Floss, as warm and friendly as her husband had been cold. Within minutes, she was helping to bundle Rosie into her jacket as with Chrissy’s agreement she planned to take her back to the greater comfort of the lodge.
‘I feel terrible, landing you like this,’ Chrissy confided.
‘Don’t be daft,’ Floss said quietly. ‘You concentrate on getting this place organised. Blaze…well, he’s a good boss but he does expect results.’
Chrissy tautened, appreciating that she was being warned. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t offer you the job,’ she remarked.
‘He did but I wasn’t having it.’ Floss laughed. ‘The hours he keeps, you’ll be working all hours when he’s here. Something part-time, though, I wouldn’t have minded that,’ she admitted. ‘But not full-time.’
A brand-new Land Rover Discovery was parked in front of the Hall. It wasn’t the vehicle Hamish had brought them here in the night before.
‘Is this what I’m to use?’ Chrissy breathed in dismay.
‘Can’t you manage it?’ Floss looked anxious.
Ridding herself of the image of the small elderly runabout she had expected to drive, Chrissy climbed into the Land Rover. ‘I’ll get the hang of it,’ she said with determination.
It was a beautiful car, larger and more powerful than anything she had ever driven before, and halfway to the garage she began to enjoy herself. The joy of renewed mobility was seductive. But the cost of the one car seat on offer in the shop brought her down to earth again with a bump. She would have expected a gilded throne for that amount. A week’s wages, she thought, and she had so many other things to buy.
The village of Sotton was generally unchanged. The local pub had been tarted up and renamed, and the once tiny supermarket had moved site into larger premises. It was a relief to see no familiar faces inside it. She loaded a trolley with practically everything that took her eye, whizzed through the checkout, and was piling the last bag into the car when disaster struck.
‘Chrissy…?’ a female voice said faintly, incredulously.
She spun round, her hand on the tail-gate. Her sister, Elaine, was gaping at her from the lowered window of a white Porsche. Even as she spoke, she was climbing out. ‘I can’t believe it’s you!’ she exclaimed. ‘What the heck are you doing up here?’
‘The shopping.’ Chrissy slammed down the tail-gate. ‘How are you? Is Steve with you?’ Bending, she peered into the Porsche in search of her brother-in-law.
Elaine made a little moue of distaste. ‘No, of course he’s not. The shopping?’ she repeated irritably. ‘For whom are you shopping?’
‘I’ve got a job as a housekeeper locally.’ Chrissy decided to give her the bad news all at once.
‘Good God.’ Elaine’s perfect face was a mask of horrified disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious. Please tell me you’re not serious,’ she begged.
Chrissy was pale. ‘Look, I’ve got to get back. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t drop this on Dad unless you have to…’
‘Oh, I’ll leave that to you entirely,’ Elaine said with ripe sarcasm. ‘I was able to tell him that Belle was dead without a moment’s hesitation, but this…this is like a dirty joke without the punchline! Are you out of your mind? Taking a job as a housekeeper?’
‘Actually I’m more of a cook than a housekeeper.’ Chrissy’s stomach was heaving at Elaine’s caustic, unfeeling reference to their mother’s death. She could as easily have been talking about a cousin three times removed whom she had never met.
‘Park over at the pub. I’ll buy you a drink,’ Elaine instructed, tight-mouthed.
‘I don’t have the time—’
‘Make the time. If you don’t, I’ll go straight back home and tell Dad,’ she threatened, her five-foot-ten-inch model-slim figure taking on a positively aggressive stance.
The threat worked. Chrissy knew that sooner or later her father would find out where she was, but she was keen to put off the evil hour as long as possible. Very probably, Jim Hamilton would come roaring over to the Hall to make a big scene and, when that did happen, she wanted to be a lot more secure in her employment than she currently felt.
She watched Elaine up at the bar, flicking her silver-blonde hair back over her designer-clad shoulders, confidently aware that the few male eyes in the place were firmly pinned to her. She looked terrific, but then she always had. Like Rory, she had inherited their mother’s looks. Some perverse trick of fate had endowed Chrissy with her grandmother’s colouring and five-foot-two-inch stature. Nobody seeing them together, she conceded, would ever take them for sisters.
It was a reaction she had often endured, from childhood right up until she left home: the surprise as she was unfavourably compared to her older sister. Even her mother had not been untouched by that disappointment. ‘It’s such a pity you don’t take after Elaine and me,’ she had once sighed.
Chrissy had been an accident, not a planned pregnancy. Elaine was ten years her senior, Rory twelve, and the age-gap had meant that she’d been a solitary child, most often made to feel a nuisance by her older siblings. She had taken to comfort eating around puberty and the surplus flesh had slowly piled on, ironically making her feel more secure. It was almost as though she had wanted to make herself as unattractive as possible, but in her teens, when her classmates were finding boyfriends, it had begun to hurt. She had started and stopped crash diets with monotonous regularity. It had taken Blaze to make her go green at the sight of chocolate.
Waiting for Elaine one day, he had strolled into the kitchen and found Chrissy tucking into a chocolate torte. ‘You should put that down the waste disposal and padlock the fridge,’ he had drawled, lounging up against the table, impossibly handsome, impossibly lean, as he’d surveyed her with almost morbid fascination. ‘Or are you trying to eat yourself to death?’
‘She’s as fat as a pig, but Granny was as well.’ Elaine had laughed from the doorway. ‘I just cringe at the thought of looking like Chrissy.’
‘Eating won’t bring your mother back,’ Blaze had murmured flatly, too perceptive for his own good even then.
Elaine slid on to the velour seat beside Chrissy, shooting her back to the present. ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ she demanded. ‘Belle made us enough of a laughing-stock.’
‘I needed work and this was the only work I was offered.’ Chrissy lifted the uniced Coke which was all her sister had felt disposed to treat her to. ‘Is Steve down with you?’
‘I’ve left him… Oh, he doesn’t know it yet.’ Elaine met her shocked gaze with faint amusement and tilted her chin. ‘When the time’s right, I’ll tell him.’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘Don’t be. I’m not. I let him think I was just coming down on an extended visit to Dad, but I have no plans to return to Edinburgh. Sooner or later, Steve will work it out for himself,’ she said carelessly.
Chrissy had liked her brother-in-law. Three years ago, he had seemed to be a kind, thoughtful man, wholly suited to his career as a family GP and absolutely besotted with Elaine even when she was in her most difficult moods. ‘What went wrong?’ she pressed with genuine concern.
Elaine shifted a shoulder. ‘Nothing really. Money was a problem, but until recently Dad always helped out…’<
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‘And now he’s stopped?’
‘Well, he’s been unbelievably stingy, although that has nothing to do with why I left Steve,’ Elaine asserted. ‘No, I made that choice the instant I heard that Blaze was moving back—’
‘B-Blaze?’ Chrissy echoed in stunned surprise, unprepared for his entry into the proceedings.
With a brilliant smile, Elaine leant back in her seat, pleased to have drawn such a strong reaction. ‘I intend to get him back—’
‘What?’ Chrissy broke in again, her incredulity unfeigned.
‘Don’t think I can’t do it. I just messed up the last time. I was too impatient. This time I’ll be a lot more careful, believe me,’ she swore.
Chrissy took a deep breath. ‘Elaine, it’s over four years since you went out with him, and even then it didn’t last long—’
‘You don’t know what split us up. I want him back. I was crazy to marry Steve on the rebound. Blaze would soon have forgotten that business with the old man,’ Elaine contended sharply, defensively. ‘It wasn’t our fault and it wasn’t even as if Blaze was particularly fond of the old—’
Frowning, Chrissy interrupted, ‘What old man?’
Elaine tensed, her eyes narrowing. ‘How did we get on to this subject? It’s nothing to do with you.’
‘I would like to know what you’re talking about.’
‘Ancient history that’s none of your business.’ Hurriedly finishing her drink, Elaine stood up. ‘You still haven’t told me who you’re working for.’
‘Nobody you know.’ And she didn’t know Blaze, never had known Blaze, Chrissy found herself thinking with surprising ferocity. Elaine talked now as though that brief fling with him had been the love-affair of the century. Nobody but Elaine had thought that. And of course their father. Elaine was his favourite and he had been ambitious for her. It had never occurred to him that Elaine might ultimately meet with rejection. When Blaze had dropped her sister, Jim Hamilton had been shattered. He had taken it as a personal slight, a humiliating put-down.
‘So he doesn’t think you’re good enough for him, does he?’ Chrissy had heard him rage. ‘If I ever get the chance, I’ll show him, I’ll bloody show him what a Hamilton’s made of!’