His Convenient Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  She only turned away from the window when the car was entering its final swing towards her circular courtyard. Then she breathed a little sigh of resignation, glanced briefly in the direction of the snug with an expression of longing and reluctantly opened the kitchen door.

  She looked a mess. She knew that. In London, now a lifetime away, she had always been impeccably groomed. Had had to be, to compete in the heavily male-dominated world she had inhabited. Her long red hair had always been tamed away from her face, securely pinned up, her make-up had been the armour of the top businesswoman, as had her assortment of sober-coloured, extremely expensive designer suits. Snappy, fashionable, but not ostentatious. In the City, success was always subtly dressed.

  Here, though, in the space of only a few days, her grooming had slowly but surely unravelled. No make-up for starters and certainly nothing approaching work clothes. Just jeans and T-shirts and flat loafers.

  It was what she was wearing now. Faded jeans, snug-fitting dark green T-shirt that almost but not quite matched the colour of her eyes, and her brown loafers.

  She stood by the kitchen door, squinting into the sun, barely able to make out the driver of the car.

  Her hair was plaited back, one thick braid that fell almost to her waist, from which escaped the usual rebellious tendrils. An inelegant hairstyle but practical for the thousand and one jobs she had to do around the house.

  Her visitor was a man. Sara shaded her eyes, waiting and watching as the man killed his engine, pushed open the door and emerged from his car in one easy movement.

  He was tall. Very tall and dark. Her green eyes took him in with a quick stirring of surprise. He didn’t look Scottish. His skin was olive and his hair was dark and thick, curling into the nape of his neck. Nothing about him looked local. From his physical appearance to the angular lines of his face that spoke of power, self-assurance and worldly-wise experience.

  He looked like a city-dweller, she thought with a rush of disdain. The usual high-powered type she had spent years dealing with. A mover and a shaker who did deals and transformed the whole process of money-making into a number-one priority. She had spent many a long business lunch with types like this one, men in love with themselves and casually indifferent to anything that stood in the way of them getting what they wanted. In fact, she had made the irreparable mistake of actually doing more than just business with one of these types and look where that had got her.

  It was only after an inordinately long time that she realised that the man was watching her watching him, his expression cool, calculating and utterly unruffled by her curiosity. Irritating, considering that he was on her property.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked, not moving, her hands still shading her face from the glare of the sun. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Now, that’s a big question,’ the man drawled, slamming his car door and walking lazily towards her.

  He was at least six feet three, Sara realised a little nervously. He towered over her in a way few men did. She was five-ten in bare feet and quite used to looking down on a great number of the men she had come into contact with over the years. There was also something a little scary about him. Was it the way he moved? Or his eyes? Deep blue, she could see now that he was closer, and strangely contained.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ Sara demanded quickly, realising for the first time just how isolated this damned Rectory was.

  Jumpy, James thought now that he had got over his astonishment at seeing the net-twitching spinster in the flesh. She was nothing like what he had expected. What the hell was a woman like this one doing out here? The mild curiosity he had experienced during the drive to the Rectory had crystallised into something pleasurably invigorating.

  Jumpy and defensive. Why? Shouldn’t she be flinging out the welcome mat and hustling to make tea for the friendly local visitor who had come to make her feel right at home and show her how warm her neighbours could be?

  ‘So you’re the new girl in town,’ James drawled when he was finally standing in front of her. ‘You picked the best month to move up here, I must say. June is usually kind. Lots of sun and blue skies.’

  His blue eyes never left her face. Sara could feel his inspection and it was an uninvited intrusion into her space.

  ‘You haven’t told me your name,’ she said flatly, edging slightly so that she was positioned in front of the kitchen door, making it quite clear that there was no automatic invitation to step inside.

  ‘Nor have you told me yours. And I’m James Dalgleish.’ He extended his hand and Sara found hers enclosed in long, strong fingers.

  ‘Sara King.’ She pulled her hand politely free and resisted the urge to massage it.

  ‘Freddie’s…niece perhaps?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Funny, he never mentioned having any relatives,’ James said thoughtfully, ‘and I certainly don’t recall any coming to visit.’ He gave her a smile that didn’t quite conceal the lazy challenge that seemed implicit in his comment.

  Sara flushed and remained silently uncooperative. Did he, she wondered, think that she was some kind of opportunist? Would that be the general reaction of everyone in the town who had probably been discussing her furiously while she had holed herself up in her house and spent her time trying to work out why on earth she had come to this far-flung place?

  ‘Mum!’

  Her head whipped around at Simon’s shout.

  ‘My son,’ she said, by way of explanation.

  ‘You’re married?’

  ‘No.’ She heard the scramble of footsteps heading towards the kitchen and gave a little sigh of irritation at her visitor, who continued to stand with implacable resolve by the door. ‘Look, I’m rather busy at the moment.’

  ‘I’m sure you are. Moving house is always a headache.’ James watched as she raised one slender hand and pushed some flyaway red hair away from her face. ‘You need to sit and relax. I’ll make you a cup of coffee.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Mum, I’m thirsty. Can you come and see my garage?’

  ‘This is Simon,’ Sara introduced reluctantly as her five-year-old son appeared next to her and proceeded to stare unblinkingly at their visitor. ‘Simon, how many times have I told you that you should wear your slippers around the house?’ By way of reply, he popped his thumb into his mouth and continued to inspect James curiously. ‘Being barefoot is so much easier, isn’t it?’ James said, stooping down until he was on the same level as the boy.

  What was the story here? he wondered. Having planned to call on this woman so that he could find out how serious she was about living in the Rectory and how much he would be prepared to give her to buy her out, had even planned on suggesting other parts of the town where she could live if she wanted, he now found himself holding back on stating the reason for his visit in preference to discovering more about the red-haired woman and her child.

  ‘Um,’ Simon agreed, still sucking on his thumb.

  ‘So you’ve built a garage? Anything I would want to send my own cars to?’

  ‘Do you have children, Mr Dalgleish?’

  James glanced up at her. ‘Child-free.’

  Now, I wonder why I’m not surprised at that, Sara thought. Lord, but how long would it take for her to get over the bitterness that still burned the back of her throat at the thought of Simon’s father?

  ‘How about that cup of coffee?’ He stood up with a questioning look and Sara felt a little shiver race along her spine. It was almost as though he could read her mind and was calmly determined to stay his ground in the face of her reluctance. And she had to stop being reluctant. She knew that. She would have to go into the town sooner rather than later, if only to buy provisions for herself and Simon, and she would have to meet her new neighbours. Hiding was not an option.

  ‘Come in.’ She smiled another tightly polite smile while he headed through the door with the familiarity of someone who knew the place.

  As he would, she thought. In a place o
f this size, everyone would know everyone else. From the looks of him, he was probably the local professional. A banker or a lawyer of some sort who fancied himself a cut above the rest.

  She poured juice for Simon, who hovered by the table and ignored his slippers, which were by the chair. His baggy, long shorts made his thin legs seem even thinner and she reminded herself that he was the reason she had moved up here.

  ‘Now, shall I come and put on a video for you, Simes? Your favourite cartoon, perhaps?’

  ‘Can you play with me?’ he asked hopefully, and she shook her head with a grin.

  ‘Nice try. I’m just going to have a quick cup of coffee with Mr Dalgleish and then maybe we can go out and do some gardening. I’ll let you use the watering can.’

  ‘The big one?’

  ‘If you can handle it.’

  ‘I have some soil.’ Simon turned gravely to James. ‘For planting vegetables.’

  ‘Really?’ He didn’t know much about children but this boy was so serious and so thin. He looked as though one wisp of a Scottish breeze would blow him off his feet, never mind the harshness of winter. ‘Any in particular?’

  ‘Beans.’

  ‘Would those be baked beans?’ James grinned and for the first time Simon smiled, a wide smile that brought a light to his face.

  ‘With sausages and chips,’ he said, giggling.

  Sara felt something uncomfortable tug inside her and she frowned at James. ‘Come on, Simes. Let’s go and see what video we can put on for you.’ She held out her hand and curled her fingers around her son’s little ones.

  When she returned to the kitchen it was to find that coffee had been made and was waiting for her. James was sitting at the kitchen table, his body turned away from her as he looked out of the French doors, which were sprawled open on to the front garden that rolled down towards the lane at the bottom and open countryside beyond that.

  It was funny, but the house had felt so damned hollow since she had moved in. Now his presence filled it, making her edgy and defensive and for the first time turning her thoughts away from herself and the enormity of the mistake she had made.

  ‘There was no need for you to make the coffee.’ Sara stepped through into the kitchen and he turned slowly in his chair until he was looking directly at her. Those eyes, she thought, a little confused. Midnight-blue and thickly fringed with black eyelashes. Seriously disconcerting eyes.

  ‘No problem. It won’t be the first time I’ve made coffee in this kitchen.’

  ‘You knew my uncle.’ She willed herself to get her legs together and moved towards the opposite end of the kitchen table, pouring herself some coffee from the percolator en route, and sat down, cradling the mug between both hands.

  ‘Everyone knew Freddie.’ He gave her a long, measured look. Feeling out the land, he thought. How long had it been since he had last done that with a woman? Or anyone, for that matter? ‘He was something of a local character. As you might know…or do you?’ He raised his cup to his lips, sipped some of the coffee and regarded her over the rim of the cup.

  ‘Is that why you came here, Mr Dalgleish? To try and pry into my life and find out what I’m doing here?’

  ‘The name is James. And of course that’s why I came here.’ That, amongst other things, though those can wait for the moment, James thought. ‘So…what are you doing here?’

  Blunt to the point of rude, Sara thought, but rude to the point of getting whatever answers he wanted, because he put her in a position from which to evade his questions would have seemed like unnecessary shiftiness. And if she was to make a go of things here, unlikely though that seemed at this moment in time, then she would probably be meeting him again. To kick off by creating a bad atmosphere was not going to help either her or Simon.

  Still, something about the man addled her and made her want to skulk away behind her defences to a position of safety.

  ‘I…’ She raised her green eyes to look steadily at him. ‘Well, I inherited this house. If you must know, I never knew Uncle Fred. He and my father had a bit of a falling-out years ago, before I was born, and they never really patched things up. Anyway, moving up here…well, I thought that it…that it would be a good idea,’ she finished lamely.

  ‘A good idea?’

  Sara felt her hackles rise. His tone did a good job of implying that any such good idea could loosely be translated as stupidity.

  ‘And where have you come from?’ James asked without giving her time to expand. ‘South somewhere?’

  ‘Everywhere is south of here,’ Sara informed him coldly.

  ‘Touché. I was actually referring to London.’

  ‘I was living in London, yes.’

  ‘With a child?’

  ‘People do.’

  More puzzling by the minute, James thought, sipping some of the coffee, which had gone lukewarm. He allowed himself to savour the thought of unravelling Sara King, finding the chink that would give him the leverage he wanted that would enable him to persuade her to sell the Rectory to him. He would be fair, more than fair, he decided, but he would get what he wanted in the end. And, looking at her now with her red hair, that pale, flawless skin, those translucent green eyes that were doing their best to be guarded but could not help simmering with fire, he had a sudden, disconcerting feeling that he was going to enjoy his dealings with her.

  Physically, she was far removed from the type of women he tended to be attracted to. She was too tall, too slender, too pale. But there was still something about her that carried the unexpected. Perhaps the hint of a sharp brain that did not conform to what was expected of it.

  ‘Are you finished with your coffee?’ Sara asked, rising to her feet, one hand already outstretched to take his cup. ‘I hate to rush you away, but I really have a million things to do and Simon will start acting up in a minute if I don’t go through.’

  ‘Have you been to the town yet?’ Of course she hadn’t. She had managed to keep herself to herself. ‘Met any of the locals?’

  Sara was grateful to be able to look away from those penetrating eyes as she moved towards the kitchen sink with both their cups in her hands. ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘Then I insist you come to a luncheon party my mother is having on Sunday.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘You might as well satisfy their curiosity,’ he commented drily, ‘or they will simply start fabricating half-truths about you. Why did you choose to live here if you are afraid of facing the people you will find yourself living amongst?’

  ‘I’m not afraid of any such thing!’

  ‘Twelve precisely. You can’t miss the house. It’s the one next to yours. First left.’ He stood up and Sara followed him with her eyes as he walked towards the kitchen door, giving her a brief salute before disappearing outside towards his car.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘SO WHAT’S she like?’

  ‘Red hair. Green eyes. Tall. Has a child, a boy.’

  ‘No, James, I meant what is she like? You know. Chatty, sociable, boring, what?’

  Good question, James thought. He looked down at Lucy Campbell and then absentmindedly out towards the direction of the Rectory. She hadn’t shown up. It was now four in the afternoon, lunch had been served, a splendid buffet of cold meats and salads, which had been eaten on the sprawling back patio with its rich scent of flowers. Croquet had been played amateurishly by a handful of the guests. There had been some talk of lawn tennis, but this had fizzled out to nothing because most of the guests had had too much of the very fine white wine to drink and were disinclined to put themselves through the effort of running around trying to hit a tennis ball over a net.

  ‘James?’

  He focused on the woman in front of him. By any standards, she was a pretty girl. Petite, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, impeccably haute-coutured and with the regulation cut-glass voice. Unfortunately, she irritated the hell out of him, and she was irritating him now, gazing up at him with the expectant expression of someone looking forward to a bit
of juicy gossip.

  ‘She seems pleasant enough,’ he expanded with a shrug. He sipped some of his wine and found his gaze straying again in the direction of the Rectory.

  ‘Pleasant?’

  ‘No obvious psychological problems that I could spot,’ he said edgily. Just damned hostile, he thought to himself. Was that a reaction to him in particular, he wondered, or men in general? He had found himself thinking about her more than he had anticipated and the fact that he was thinking about her now annoyed him.

  ‘Very droll, James.’ Lucy smiled a coquettish little smile, a smile she had perfected over the years and one that usually had men melting. It didn’t appear to be working now. ‘That’s one of the things I absolutely adore about you.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You were telling me all about your fascinating new neighbour.’ She held on to the smile but with difficulty. ‘So she’s tall, has red hair and seems pleasant. Is that all? What about this son of hers? What do you think they’re doing here? Really? Would you like to know what we think?’

  James didn’t have to ask her who the we were. He knew well enough. Her little clique of privileged friends, four of whom had trooped along with their parents to the luncheon.

  ‘You can tell me if you feel inclined,’ he said discouragingly.

  ‘Well, we all think that she’s a bit of a nobody who’s suddenly found herself the owner of a pretty nice house, you must admit, and has decided to land herself up here on the off-chance of meeting some dashing man to pick up the bill for her and her child.’ Lucy drained her glass of wine. Her eyes were sparkling, over-bright. She had had, James thought with distaste, too much to drink.

  ‘Really.’

  ‘So you’d better watch out.’ The blue eyes hardened even though the pink, half-opened mouth continued to smile invitingly. ‘She’ll be after you before you know it.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so,’ James drawled, but he had a sudden vision of her stripping off to reveal a slender, pale body. He imagined her high, pert breasts and that long hair hanging around her in a tousled mane. He shoved one hand in his trouser pocket and took another mouthful of wine. His last girlfriend had been small, voluptuous and dark-haired. A sexy little thing with a penchant for expensive presents and designer outfits. Very rewarding for a while until her conversation, or lack of it, had begun to make itself felt over and above her physical assets.