But the night Tip's yapping woke her she sat up feeling very insecure. She looked out of the window and there was light streaming over from one of the garages, so this was no burglar. It was Coll come home.
They had expected him back tonight, but he had rung earlier in the day to say that he might not make it until tomorrow. They had waited, the three of them, with a meal ready, and then eaten most of the meal,
then Simon and Thea had left, and Dora had hung around until past midnight.
She should have gone home, even when she thought it was certain Coll wouldn't be back. But she had thought the house was going to be empty again, and she had come upstairs to bed, intending to be up early in the morning.
She got dressed as though the house was on fire, flinging on a quick covering. She didn't want him tracking the sound of Tip's yaps to her bedroom door.
The lights were on downstairs now, and at the top of the stairs she called 'Hello!' then realised that if this was a breakin she had done just about the silliest thing possible. But thieves wouldn't go around switching on the lights. Would they?
'Hello,' Coll came into the hall, and Tip trotted down to welcome him, followed, slower and with less enthusiasm, by Dora. 'What are you doing here?' he asked her.
'Guarding the property.'
'My property?' He was going to laugh at that, and she explained,
'Simon and Thea have been unloading some quite valuable stuff here since you went away. If anyone had swiped that would you have paid up?'
He grinned. 'And you've been guarding it? Who else is here?'
'Nobody.'
'No, staff?'
She was at the bottom of the stairs now. 'Not living in,' she said.
'So you're living in?'
'Not now you're back. Shall I get you something to eat?'
`Thank you.' He followed her into the kitchen, where she made tea and brought out some cold meat and pickles, and told him about the staff situation and what Simon had bought on his behalf.
Coll listened, nodding assent as though it was all satisfactory. He didn't look tired, the handsome hawkish face was smooth as ever, but he probably was, and if it had been anyone else Dora would have poured out his tea and urged him to eat up and get to bed.
He poured his own tea, and said, 'You're not joining me, of course?'
She didn't want to stay here tonight a minute longer than she must. She said, 'No, thanks, I'll be getting along home.'
'Leaving me to deal with the thieves?'
'You'll be all right,' she said. 'You—' Afterwards she couldn't remember what she would have said then. It wouldn't have been provocative, because she certainly wasn't looking for a showdown at this time of night. But she forgot for ever what she had been going to say when he asked, in the tone of casual conversation,
'Talking of thieves, did you ever find those pearls of yours?'
She was stung to fury. She said hotly, 'You know I didn't. You took them.'
'No,' he said.
Of course he was denying it. Of course he would, especially now he was Sullivan Properties. He wouldn't want it known he had been a thief. She could never prove it after all these years, but she couldn't endure him taunting her, jeering about it. Any time he brought up the subject she'd tell him again that she knew him for what he was.
'You're lying,' she said.
'I rarely lie,' he drawled. 'I rarely find the need.'
He got up suddenly, pulled out a chair from the table, gripped her arms and sat her down as unceremoniously as though she was a large rag doll.
'Have some supper, Dora-Lily,' he said. 'And we'll finish that conversation we started ten years ago over breakfast.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
DORA'S breath seemed shaken out of her. She could only sit there gasping, shaking her head when he asked, `Do you want a cup of tea?'
He sat down, facing her across the table, no tension in his loose limbs. 'I don't really care whether you believe this or not,' he said, 'but I never saw your bloody pearls after you walked out of the room that night.'
He would deny it, of course he would, but he sounded so convincing. He was looking straight at her, and she felt a blush starting in her cheeks as though she was the guilty one.
'I came here that day to see you both,' he went on quietly. 'I was starting to get my life together and I thought you might like to know.'
His hands were clasped, the fingers locked. He sat easily with an athlete's grace, but Dora couldn't take her eyes off his hands on the table. They were so tight clenched that she felt he was clenching them to keep them off her. That in spite of the quiet voice he wanted to hit out.
She couldn't speak, she couldn't move. She sat still, listening to him. 'It made no difference to you that I wasn't a tinker any longer. When you mislaid your pearls you couldn't wait to accuse me. You must have run every inch of the way. You'd got as much colour in your face as you've got now.'
Her blush deepened. She could feel it creeping to her hairline and she managed to gasp huskily, 'Why didn't you deny it?'
'Why should I?' he shot back at her. 'You had no proof, just your nasty suspicious little mind. I didn't care who searched or questioned me. You were the one who would have looked the fool.'
She had realised that, but why hadn't he said something to stop her carrying on? He gave a sudden harsh laugh. 'You badly wanted to call the police, didn't you? If you could have seen me led handcuffed away it would have been worth losing your pearls. You were a vindictive little devil.'
Dora remembered her anger that morning, the sick futility of it all. Her mother's pearls and Coll laughing. It had all been so horrible that she had never told anyone else what had happened.
No one else had noticed that she didn't have her pearls. Her father had other things on his mind for his few remaining months of life, and she had let Simon believe she had accepted the explanation that she had lost them herself. She said dully, 'I never found them.'
Coll shrugged. 'You were going to a party, weren't you?'
went riding instead. On my own.'
She hadn't even bothered to saddle the horse. She had ridden bareback in her party dress, galloping off like a gipsy. Perhaps she should have been the tinker's
child, not Coll. If she had worn the pearls, and they had slipped off, they could have fallen into the rough grasses of the heath and stayed hidden for ever. Or have been picked up any time in the last ten years.
For the first time she was really wondering, 'Did I wear them?'
'I don't know.' Her uncertainty was ten years too late, but he remembered, 'You were trying to fasten them.'
'Yes.' She had stood in front of a mirror, fumbling with the catch. 'It was faulty,' she said, 'the fastener.'
She had been so prejudiced against Coll, and yet she had never known him take anything that didn't belong to him. So why had she gone running to accuse him?
It must have been because she wanted to believe the worst about him. She had wanted to see him humiliated. Like he said, she would have clapped him into handcuffs if she had had the power. She must have hated him.
He remembered that morning and her asking if his father was in jail. He must hate her, and she said unsteadily, 'I was so sure.'
'You always were,' he drawled.
It was her father who should have been in jail, not his. Her childhood had been protected, but when she was sixteen and Coil was twenty her days of security were numbered. She said, 'I shouldn't have been. I really had nothing.'
An apology would be meaningless in the present circumstances, all the same she said, 'I wish you'd said this then.'
'What difference would it have made then?' he asked. 'You'd better get to bed. I'll be off at eight in the morning and I'd like some breakfast before I go.'
'Of course.' She was tired, her sleep had been disturbed and she was drained emotionally as well as physically. 'I'll go home,' she said.
'Oh, go to bed.' Coll sounded weary for the first time. 'Double-bar your door if you
think you're that irresistible after one hell of a day.'
She didn't. She didn't want to walk down the drive to the lodge either. She said, 'All right. Goodnight.'
She undressed again and got into bed again, and lay wondering why she was suddenly convinced that she had been mistaken all these years. There was no doubt in her mind now that she had worn her pearls and lost them, and little doubt that Coll Sullivan was going to make her pay for the way she had treated him.
She must be up at seven to see about breakfast, and if she was going to wake she must get to sleep. She had slept easier in the big old house when she had been alone, the thought of him so near disturbed her, and when she did fall asleep she dreamt that dream again, where she walked in the darkness, on silent bare feet, opening door after door ...
At half past seven she wondered whether she should be waking him up. She knew the room he used. It had clothes in the wardrobe and drawers, aftershave in the adjoining bathroom.
She took up a cup of tea and tapped on the door, and he opened it. He was dressed, except for tie and jacket, his hair slightly ruffled. 'Thanks,' he said, taking the cup of tea. 'How are you going to provide this every morning at this hour unless you're living in?'
'I'm going to walk the two minutes from my house,' she said.
'Are you scared to sleep in my house?'
'Why should I worry? What could you do to me?'
She managed to sound scoffing, and he grinned.
'A number of things.' His eyes travelled up and down her, lingering on lips and breasts like a touch, and Dora had a wild surmise that he was about to draw her through the open door into the room where he had passed the night, to the bed from which he had just risen.
She didn't stop to consider how he could carry her unwillingly to bed when he was holding a full cup of tea. She set off down the corridor, asking as she went, 'What do you want for breakfast? The cooked menu? Bacon? Eggs?' and stopped at a prudent distance for his reply.
'Coffee and toast.'
'You could have got that for yourself.'
'I don't like eating breakfast alone.'
`You could always get Tommy in.'
`No, thanks.'
She went on her way smiling, in spite of everything, and when Coll came into the kitchen five minutes later she was sitting at the table. 'You look good in the mornings,' he observed.
Dora poured two coffees, 'But not so bright at night?'
'From what I've seen of you, not bad at all.'
'Splendid,' she said, and handed him his coffee, 'because what you've seen of me is all you're going to see.
He grinned and she grinned back. It was when the laughing stopped that the hurting might start, and this was a man with the power to harm.
She produced the toast and said, 'This isn't much for starters, especially if you're expecting another hellish day.'
'What?' He looked up from buttering, and she reminded him,
'You said yesterday had been a hell of a day.'
'Did I?' He seemed to have forgotten. 'A long one. But I'll have you to come back to tonight.'
was here last night.' She sat down again, sipping her coffee.
'But it had been a long day, so it was a short night,' he said, and she pulled a face.
'I can see you don't have many breakfasts alone, with such a practised line in patter! '
'You've cooked many breakfasts, have you?' he enquired, and when she looked blank, 'for the three you nearly married.'
'Actually,' she drawled, 'they used to cook breakfast for me.' Coll laughed,
can believe that,' although he shouldn't have done, none of them had ever stayed for breakfast. 'Can you cook?' he asked.
'I'm a smashing cook.' This wasn't an ideal kitchen for a private house, it had been designed for a guesthouse, but she had done enough practising in the past fortnight to work out the most economic way of using the equipment. 'What time do you want dinner?'
'About eight o'clock.'
'Anything in particular?'
'Surprise me,' he invited.
'Just you?'
'And you.'
Dora looked as though she was thinking about that, and she was but she wasn't going to be allowed much say in the matter. 'Is it part of the job?' she enquired.
'Yes. Ask Simon and Thea to come for a meal at the weekend. Tonight there'll be just the two of us.'
'Will there?' she said coolly. 'I hope I'm going to be allowed some social life while I work for you.'
'I'll keep you amused.' He went on with his breakfast and she said,
'I'm sure you will. But not by imagining you've got droit de seigneur.'
He chuckled. 'I thought that was reserved for virgins.'
`That,' she said flippantly, 'was what they told the seigneur. It was the only choice the girl had. She could keep her mouth shut and let the lord of the manor think he was first.'
'You prefer to choose your own lovers?' He looked up with a gleam of dark eyes and she said emphatically.
'I most certainly do ! '
'But this time you're being hunted,' and the gleam was wholly predatory, 'so where will you run?'
'I don't run,' she said briskly. 'I fight.'
'This is going to be worth the money.' He was laughing and she said,
'How kind of you to say so.'
He got up. 'Right, I'm off.' He reached for her hand and kissed her palm swiftly. 'I'll see you this evening.'
'Probably.' Dora didn't move. She stayed there, sipping her coffee, listening to a door close and the car drive away. When there was no sound at all but the ticking of the kitchen clock the kiss was still tingling to her fingertips.
She went upstairs and made the bed in the room she had been using. She wouldn't be sleeping in here again unless she was absolutely sure that Coll would not be returning. There wasn't much that belonged to her, only her nightdress, a dressing gown, and the toilet articles she stuffed into a small overnight case.
She would take that home when she went shopping.
Then she went to his room. The heavy old doors had brass knobs and creaked slightly when the knob was turned and the door was pushed; and Dora hesitated, peering in, as though Coll might not have left in that car after all.
The room had been neat and unused for the past fortnight, but now it seemed warm, alive, with a robe thrown over a chair, and the sheets thrown back from the bed.
She hung up the robe and made the bed. There didn't seem to be any pyjamas about. She smoothed the pillow with a light lingering touch, and then the coverlet, almost as though someone lay beneath it. A man with long limbs and hard muscles.
Physically, of course, he was attractive. In every other way he was impossible, and he had a rock bottom opinion of her. A vindictive little devil who had grown into a woman who hadn't changed much. That was what he had said, 'You haven't changed much either.'
But if things had been different, and she had been looking for a lover, she might have looked twice at him. Maybe, even, more than twice.
She went quickly out of the room, and found plenty to occupy herself downstairs until Tommy arrived, and then Mrs Heaton the daily. As Dora left the air was humming with the noise of Mrs Heaton's vacuum cleaner, and Tommy was whistling shrilly while he cleaned out the stables. It all sounded busy and cheerful.
So did Thea when Dora collected her to go shopping for provisions in town. Simon and Thea were both blooming these days. Dora had always thought they both looked fine before Coll came, but she could see
now how some of the strain had slipped away. They looked as though they had just returned from a good holiday.
Simon was left minding the shop, Kiki was secured in the back seat of the Mini with Tip on the floor, and Thea took the passenger seat by Dora.
'Coll turned up last night,' said Dora, as they drove away. 'Very late, but we had a talk. You remember me telling you about my mother's pearls?'
'I'm not likely to have forgotten that, am I?' said Thea.
Dora said
quietly, think now that I did go out
wearing them. I think they slipped off.'
'What changed your mind?' Thea was looking very hard at her.
'Coll did. Last night. When it happened I accused him of taking them and he laughed and said—prove it. But last night he said that he didn't take them, and I think I believe him.'
Thea sank back in her seat, giving a soft happy little laugh. 'Well, that's all right, then. I'm so glad you've cleared that up, because that was really all you'd got against him, wasn't it?'
No, it wasn't. He had always disrupted everything. Dora had always been a little scared of what he might do. But the pearls had been the bitterest part. It was the thought of that last morning that festered and, once she admitted to herself that she had misjudged him there, she had to change some of her opinions.
But he didn't. Nothing had changed for him and nothing would amuse him more than to strip her of her pride. So she must be very careful not to give him the chance.
To begin with she would be so efficient that he'd
have no grounds for complaint about her work. She shopped, thriftily but with imaginative flair, so that she could provide delicious meals, and coming up to eight o'clock that night she had dinner waiting.
Tommy and Mrs Heaton had gone and Dora had prepared spiced lamb chops with some attractively assorted vegetables, then changed into a bright pink cotton dress which was pretty and cool after the hot kitchen work.
She heard the car arrive and went to the back door, then turned and hurried into the drawing room and picked up a newspaper. She was on duty, but she didn't want to give the impression she had been hovering behind the door, ready to open it obsequiously when the master arrived.
Tip yapped, of course, and Coll called from the hall, `Dora-Lily!'
'I'm here.' As he came through the door she put aside her newspaper and said, 'The meal's ready, everything's in hand—and please will you stop calling me Dora-Lily?'
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