'If that's true, I can understand you disliking Matthew,' she admitted. 'What I can't understand, after meeting Rhoda, is why Matthew should want to look elsewhere.'
'Oh, there's no accounting for male impulses!' He said it irritably, almost as though he applied the remark to himself as well. He seemed suddenly restless. Abruptly, he got up from his lounging position and went into the kitchen, ostensibly to check the percolator.
'I'm sorry!' Briony exclaimed. 'I'd forgotten all about the coffee.' In her haste to remedy her deficiencies as a hostess, she entered the kitchen a little too precipitately, tripped on one of Promilla's hand-tufted rugs and cannoned into Teale. Only his fast reactions saved her from a nasty fall.
She was caught up in an iron-hard embrace. Her cheek had come to rest against his chest, and she could feel the warmth of life beating beneath the soft silk of his shirt. Her nostrils inhaled the clean, tantalising male scent of him, a powerful sexual stimulant. Her idiotic heart was thumping wildly. Before she could prevent it, her body softened against the hardness of his and she felt his swift indrawn breath.
'Do you usually throw yourself into men's arms like this?' The words were light, but the tone belied them. He sounded almost annoyed. As he set her on an even keel once more and released her, Briony had the painful sensation of something being torn away from her. But Teale seemed unmoved as he turned his attention to the coffee.
Her whole body was trembling with barely concealed emotion and her mouth had gone peculiarly dry. She was mortified by her own lack of control, but even more by his apparent indifference to her. Most men would have been only too ready to take advantage of the incident. Briony had no false modesty; she knew she was not unattractive. She knew, too, that she would not have objected if he'd kissed her. Teale must have sensed that. Perhaps he thought she'd deliberately engineered the situation. Sudden swift pride provided the much needed charge of adrenalin which took her back into the sitting-room and enabled her to face him with apparent poise. She was proud to note that the hand with which she accepted the cup of coffee from him was perfectly steady.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Teale seemed to have nothing more to say and Briony couldn't think of any way to break across the tension, so she was not surprised when Teale drank his coffee in several quick gulps and rose to take his leave.
'I'll let you know what happens about the paintings. And I hope everything's straight between us now?' he said as she accompanied him to the shop door, which also did duty as a front door.
'Quite straight,' she said drily. She'd discovered a few new facts tonight—among them, one particularly unpalatable discovery which had opened up a range and depth of emotion she had never imagined. Teale had clarified his relationship with Matthew. But he had also made it patently clear that he was not interested in her. She only wished she'd been able to control that involuntary reaction to him. Teale, she thought shamefully, hadn't been able to get away fast enough!
It was only after he'd been gone for some while that she realised he'd forgotten to take the paintings.
Next morning, it took a lot of courage and a lot of urging from Promilla to make Briony drive over to Teale's house with the paintings. Her first impulse had been to put the pictures back in the studio. But, Promilla reminded her, Teale was going up to London on Monday. He might not go again for some time. Briony didn't need her friend to tell her that, for Matthew's sake, she had to make the effort, whatever the cost to her own feelings.
The coastal road was familiar this time, and it was easier to find the old manor house than it had been to find Rhoda's cottage. Cravenly, Briony admitted to herself that it would have been a relief to be able to go back and truthfully tell Promilla she'd been unsuccessful. Her friend had pooh-poohed the notion that Teale was indifferent to Briony.
'If he was, it wouldn't have mattered two hoots to him when you fell into his arms. He'd have carried it off with a joke and thought no more about it. Instead, he seems to have over-reacted. If you ask me, there's something much deeper behind him rushing off like that.'
Briony couldn't imagine what.
'Can't you? Think about it? What has your reaction been towards men over the past couple of years?'
'I've steered well clear of them.'
'Exactly. And the more attractive they were, the more you've avoided them, until now. Why? I'll tell you why,' Promilla swept on without giving Briony a chance to answer. 'It's a case of "once bitten, twice shy". And it's probably the same for Teale. It can't be very reassuring for him, either, that you're a dead ringer for his wife. Perhaps he resolved to give up women the way you once decided to give up men.'
Briony found it very difficult to believe that a man would react in the same way. Her experience of men to date was that their emotions didn't run that deep.
'Teale seems to be going to a great deal of trouble to fill you in on his personal relationships,' Promilla went on. 'Have you been as frank with him as he has with you?'
'What do you mean?' Briony prevaricated.
'You know very well. Have you told him about Jean-Luc and Iseult?'
'No. Why should I? It's none of his business.'
'It could become his business if you go on seeing him. Better to be frank now than risk leaving it too late.'
Only the thatched roof of the old manor house showed from the little private road that ran through the estate and approached the rear of the building. No other houses encroached on its privacy. There were no signs of life, other than a couple of cats lounging in the warm soil of a flowerbed. With the paintings tucked under her arm, Briony made her way round to the front door. Ancient pear trees espaliered the west wall and the grounds surrounding the manor house were a mass of colourful trees and shrubs. Among others, Briony recognised escallonia, olearia and eucalyptus. Beyond the narrow front garden, the plateau on which the house stood must have been just as nature intended it. In spring, no doubt its fine turf would be bright with wild flowers. Now the delicate tracery of ferns that edged the cliff face was already assuming bronze and gold autumnal tints. She rang the doorbell and waited tensely.
The heavy, measured tread couldn't belong to Teale. Briony's pulse-rate slowed. An elderly woman opened the door and looked at her in badly concealed surprise. Briony found herself resenting her apparent resemblance to Teale's former wife.
'Is Mr Munro in?'
'Who wants to know?' It wasn't rudely said, merely with an economy of language, as if the woman were unused to conversation.
'I'm from the Blue Unicorn in Gwinvercombe. I've brought over some paintings Mr Munro wanted. Perhaps,' she said with a sudden sense of reprieve, 'you'd see he gets them.' The reprieve was short-lived.
'He doesn't encourage visitors when he's working. But happen you'll find him in the old barn.'
Somewhat apprehensively, Briony took the direction in which the elderly woman had pointed. Teale might be annoyed at her uninvited arrival.
There were three barns, in actual fact, hidden from the house by a handsome copse of pines and approached by a shingle path which crunched noisily beneath her high heels. She'd taken a notion, and she didn't pretend not to know why, to wear the most attractive of her outfits. The black skirt moulded her slim waist and hips then flared out in graceful lines to a full hemline. Tucked into the waistband, a softly frilled white blouse hinted at soft feminine curves beneath. To complete the outfit, she carried the matching jacket to the skirt, in case she felt cool later. At the moment, she felt far from cool. The warmth of anticipation flushed her small, delicate face and apprehension caused a flutter beneath the frivolous frills.
From an open door in the side of the building there emerged what seemed to the startled Briony to be a vast pack of dogs. In fact, there were only three. A massive black Alsatian and a somewhat sinister-looking Dobermann made purposefully towards her, followed by a clumsily galloping, stout Springer spaniel. Briony stopped in her tracks. She wasn't generally nervous of dogs; she liked all animals. But these three might well
consider her to be an unwelcome intruder.
'They won't hurt you! Heel, Max! Pinched Sit, Sally! Remember your condition, you old fool!' Briony saw now that the brown and white Springer spaniel was heavy with pups. Teale, framed in the barn's enormous doorway, was a casually elegant figure, though simply clad in jeans and a loose chunky sweater which accentuated his masculinity. 'I see you've brought the paintings. I'm sorry you've been put to the trouble, but I'm grateful. I didn't realise I'd left the damned things behind till I was half-way home. Can't think how I came to forget them.' Briony could. He made no attempt to take them from her and Briony regarded him a little helplessly. Where did they go from here? 'You'd better come inside,' he said, as if he'd read her thoughts. 'After dragging you out here, the least I can do is repay your hospitality.'
'Really, it isn't necessary,' she protested. 'I ought to be getting back.'
'The shop doesn't open on Sundays?'
'No, but your…the lady who opened the door said you were busy.'
'Mrs Barrett. My housekeeper. Yes, I was busy. But now the mood's broken I shan't recapture it today.' Briony wasn't sure if that was meant as a reproach or not. Teale turned on his heel and led the way inside, and perforce, she had to follow him.
Outside, the buildings appeared to be conventional barns and she was totally unprepared for the interior. The lower part housed the Rolls-Royce. But then an open-tread staircase led to an upper floor. The barns had been knocked into one enormous workspace, an office. But, despite modern accessories—the chrome shelving systems, two studded steel sofas and a tubular steel and wire glass table—the origins of the place were still much in evidence.
'I wanted the place to be strictly functional, yet to retain the natural materials,' Teale said, watching her expression as she looked about her. 'The original beams are still there. I simply plastered and painted the walls.'
'And this is where you work?'
'Most of the time. You could call this my rural headquarters. I have a place in London, too. But this is my real home. Having one's office at home has good and bad points. In theory, one should be able to come in early and stay late without wrecking one's domestic life. Only it didn't work out that way!' he concluded ironically.
Briony moved around the vast area, unaware that she still clutched the paintings to her, her passport to Teale's home environment and her shield. Some of the chrome shelves were filled with colour-coded files, and on the desk was a powerful word processor and two telephones.
'One's an outside line. The other connects with the house. Mrs Barrett rang to say you were on your way over.'
The purely functional workroom was almost bleak. There were no pictures or ornaments to distract the eye. The only feature of interest was another range of shelves which held row upon row of books. She studied them with interest. It had always been her contention that you could tell a lot about someone's character from their reading taste.
Many were reference books. Among others, there was a handsomely bound set of encyclopaedia, a fat well-used dictionary, a Roget's Thesaurus and a well-thumbed Writers' and Artists' Yearbook. Evidently he was a writer of some kind. Her gaze moved onwards over a row of books, all uniform in size. Their gaudy dustcovers seemed familiar, and without asking permission she took one down. The design on the front showed a staring, fear-distorted face.
'Day of the Goliath by David Astra,' she read aloud. She turned to look at Teale, suddenly aware of a tangible, alert silence. 'You're David Astra?' she asked doubtfully. It was only a couple of weeks since she'd read one of Astra's sophisticated horror stories. She had a taste for spine-chillers, and currently he was her favourite author.
Teale inclined his head, an odd expression on his face.
'Guilty! But don't feel you have to be polite and say you like them.'
'But I do! At least, I find them compulsive reading. They fascinate me and they frighten me at the same time.' His books exploited the full extent of human fears. Sometimes, they also included very explicit sexual scenes. Briony felt her cheeks colouring as she remembered just how graphic some of those scenes were. Yet, reading them, she had never been aware of distaste, rather of an erotic, pulsating excitement. Very similar, she realised, to the way Teale himself affected her.
Having read so many of his books, it was a strange but interesting experience to meet the author face to face, and difficult to reconcile the author's persona with that of Teale Munro. David Astra's unfailing ability to produce bestsellers had placed him among the handful of men to whom others turned time and time again for a sure-fire hit. Publishers paid him huge advances before he even knew what his next book would be about. But as far as possible he had always shunned publicity. His likeness never appeared on the jackets of his books and so far he had managed to discourage interviewers. Releases via the press media were often the product of mere speculation. He had no agent, preferring to deal directly with his publishers, and he had resisted all attempts to turn his books into film scripts.
'Now I know why you're always so busy. I suppose you're constantly working to deadlines?'
'Not only that. Once I begin a story, I work on it every day. If I don't, I risk it going stale on me and getting the dreaded writers' block. Look,' he went on, 'since I've finished work for the day, why don't we go over to the house for that coffee? I think you may find the surroundings more to your taste.'
'If you're sure…?' She wanted to stay, but wasn't sure she should.
'Let me take those from you first. They'll be quite safe from prying eyes up here.' He moved to take the pictures which she'd forgotten she still clutched and, as he did so, his hand inadvertently brushed against the soft swell of her breast and Briony knew her nipples had sprung into agonising, independent life. She swallowed and shivered, closing her eyes briefly against a sensation that was almost faintness.
'Briony? Are you all right?' His voice was harsh and at once she pulled herself together.
'Fine.' She summoned up a little laugh. 'Just a goose walking over my grave! Perhaps I've been reading too many of your horror stories,' she quipped.
'Mmmn. Maybe.' Teale sounded unconvinced and his gaze on her was still speculative.
She was careful to keep an arm's length between them as they walked side by side back to the house. On the way, she noticed several more cats curled in sleepy corners.
They entered the house by the rear door, through a vast kitchen equipped with every sparkling modernity known to man, then through a baize door into the contrasting grace and charm of a past age.
Muted corals, browns, subdued greens and rich ochres dominated the colour scheme, setting off the rich wood of antique furniture. In the sitting-room, rich red walls and golden ochre ceilings were a foil for dark oak and tapestry upholstery. One complete wall was filled with books, not Teale's work this time, but the classics and modern greats. Briony recognised several titles by P D James, another of her favourites. A white marble fireplace held a set piece of objects displayed in the Victorian fashion—a marble clock, a handsomely bound book, a candlestick and a mediaeval print. Briony exclaimed with delight over a harmonium, a typical Victorian musical instrument, set in one corner.
'I've always wanted to be able to afford one of these. But they always fetch such a high price at auctions.'
'You go to auction sales?' He rang a bell, presumably to summon the housekeeper.
'Not as often as I'd like to. Promilla and I take it in turns, when we can be spared from the shop. We're both keen on Victoriana.'
'One of my own passions.'
'You have a lovely home,' Briony said enviously. 'It really lends itself to antiques. I'm afraid our bits and pieces are sadly cramped. It's almost got to the stage where I daren't buy any more.'
'No prospects of expansion?'
'Not at present.'
A silver tea service and wafer-thin sandwiches were brought in by Mrs Barrett and placed on a long sofa table. After the housekeeper had gone, Briony asked Teale about his writing. She was
genuinely interested, but she also had to keep her mind on intellectual subjects. It would be all too easy to let herself dwell on other more disturbing topics, such as the vital way his hair sprang back from a widow's peak, and the way it curled slightly at his collar. She knew an insidious desire to plunge her hands into its dark luxuriance.
'Did you always want to be a writer?' As far back as Briony could remember, she'd always wanted to paint.
'Not in the sense that I'm a writer now.' He waved her to a seat on the sofa, then stood, one arm resting negligently on the mantelpiece. Another gesture of his long, lean hand invited Briony to pour the tea. 'I started out as a TV journalist, worked my way up and eventually graduated to my own chat show.'
'But you're not on television now.' If that had been the case, she would have recognised him. 'Milk? Sugar?' Though she was glad of something to do, Briony was afraid he might notice that her hands were slightly unsteady.
'I chucked television about eight years ago. I wanted to find out if I could write.' He grinned wryly. 'I'm still not sure I can.' And, as she made a noise of polite protest, 'Be honest. Are you ever totally satisfied with your work?' She shook her head. 'My friends and family thought I was mad, of course. Charlene, especially. I was in television when we met. She was a continuity girl. We'd only been married a year. But she liked the glamour that went with being married to a television personality.' His irregular features twisted for a moment. 'Come to think of it, that's probably why she accepted me in the first place.'
'Wasn't there as much kudos in being married to a famous writer?' Briony handed him his tea, careful as she did so that their hands should not brush.
'Ah, but I wasn't famous then. There was a lot of hard slog ahead of me. That was something else Charlene didn't understand, that a lot of people still don't understand.' As he took the tea, he moved to sit beside her on the sofa, and Briony felt the muscles of her stomach tense. 'Of necessity, writing is a very solitary occupation. You have to be selfish. You have to shut other people out of your life to a great extent.' Had he shut his wife out? Was that what Matthew had meant when he had said Teale didn't need women? 'Charlene thought this place was the back of beyond. She didn't see why I couldn't write just as well in London. That's partly why I kept the flat on, so she could get up to town now and then.'
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