by Penny Jordan
As she sank slowly into sleep, picture-book images retained from her childhood mingled with her dreams. A Tudor cottage in the depths of the country. What could be more in keeping with the secret adolescent dreams she had once woven for herself? Dreams that had been upstaged by Rick’s emergence into her life, but which were now resurfacing, offering her comfort and something to cling to.
But what about their neighbour-to-be? The local would-be ‘squire’ whom the old lady had specifically refused to allow to buy her home and land?
Every paradise had to have its serpent, Sara reminded herself drowsily, mentally picturing a heavy, brash male with a ruddy complexion and a manner very like Wayne Houseley’s. Did he bully his wife the way Wayne Houseley had bullied his? Probably, she thought bitterly. Men of that stamp liked bullying women.
Before Sara finally let sleep claim her, she summoned up Rick’s beloved image, a ritual she had performed every night since he had been killed. As always, she felt the enormity of what she had lost consume her, her dry eyes burning more painfully than if she had shed tears.
If only she and Rick had been given more time…if only she had his child to comfort her as Sam had Carly. If only… The saddest words in any language, surely?
CHAPTER TWO
‘WOW! It’s terrific, isn’t it, Aunt Sara? Just like that jigsaw Gran sent me for Christmas?’ Carly demanded enthusiastically as Sara emerged from the driver’s seat of the car to stand alongside her. The rutted track which had led from the main road to the front of the house had jolted Sara’s small car roughly from side to side, and she grimaced slightly, wondering how long her ancient Mini’s suspension would last if it was constantly exposed to the rigours of the cart track. Little wonder that Sam had not seen fit to mention it during his eulogy on the delights of their new home!
Carly was quite right, though: the white plaster-work and black beams of the cottage, and the lavish display of cottage garden flowers in the beds bordering the road, made an ideal picture-postcard scene. A narrow brick path led towards the open front door, the bright May sunshine bouncing off the diamond-paned windows.
Sam had travelled down to their new home the previous day with Phil, leaving Sara and Carly behind to finish cleaning up the house and to check that the furniture removers did their job properly.
The furniture van had not yet arrived, and Sara suspected that its driver would be none too pleased with their cart track of a road. Still, she certainly could not carp at the setting: lush fields, broken up by green clumps of woodland spread all around out on three sides of the cottage. On the fourth was what Sara guessed must be the paddock, complete with the donkey, which had just caught Carly’s eye. On the far side of the paddock was a high brick wall, presumably the boundary of their land and the beginning of that belonging to their one neighbour.
Sara had driven through the village before turning off for the cottage. It was only a mile or so away, but it seemed a pity that the nearest neighbour had to be such an unpleasant sort of person. Mentally shrugging the thought aside, she pushed open the small gate and ushered Carly up the brick path ahead of her.
Sam was waiting to welcome them inside, and he was actually standing free of his wheelchair, Sara noticed with delight, and beaming at both of them as he stood back to let them get past him and into the small square hall.
The soft cream walls and exposed beams made Sara cry out with pleasure. The stone floor underfoot was worn and polished by time. As yet the hall was unfurnished, but in her mind’s eye Sara saw the floor covered by the Persian rug Holly had bought the first Christmas she and Sam were married.
A narrow staircase twisted upwards, light pouring into the hall from a casement window with a seat just big enough for Carly to perch on.
‘Come into the sitting-room. Luckily everything’s been finished on schedule. Phil told me the builders were working late every night last week to get it all done. I must say they’ve done a superb job. Just wait until you see the kitchen—complete with Aga, I might add.’
When consulted about what she would like in the kitchen, Sara had opted for the traditional fuel-burning cooker, knowing that it could be relied upon to provide both heat and somewhere to cook food should there ever be any problems with their electricity supply. The cottage was too remote to have been supplied with gas, and despite Sam’s claim that he could get the generator working, Sara felt that she would prefer not to have to depend on it. Dorset was notorious for its heavy snow-falls, and the last thing she wanted was to be snowed up in a remote cottage without any form of warmth or means to cook by.
‘When the builders started work, they discovered this fireplace,’ said Sam. ‘It was bricked up and hidden behind some plasterboard.’
He stood to one side so that Sara could admire the large traditional fireplace that had been uncovered. As with the hall, the walls in this room had been painted a soft cream, the starkness offset by the dark beams.
The sitting-room was suprisingly large, with windows at either end. The rear windows overlooked the gardens, and Sara wandered over to look out, catching her breath in a gasp of pleasure as she did so.
Beyond the overgrown brick-paved patio area stretched an emerald-green lawn bordered by a wilderness of traditional cottage garden plants. A lattice trellis, broken in places and smothered in roses and clematis, separated the lawn from what Sam told her was the vegetable garden and a small orchard.
‘You can explore it all later,’ he told her firmly, grinning at her. ‘Come and have a look at the rest of the house.’
Thanks to Phil’s careful planning, the downstairs of the house had been extended to incorporate what had once been a motley collection of outbuildings. These now comprised a comfortable sitting-room-cum-study for Sam, a good-sized bedroom, and his own specially organised bathroom.
The extension ran at right angles to the main building, and opening the French windows of his sitting-room, Sam told her that he wanted to extend the paved area of the garden so that he would have somewhere to sit and work during the summer months.
In addition to the sitting-room, the main part of the house also had a very small study, a dining-room and a well-proportioned kitchen. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms had obviously been decorated with Carly in mind, but the two others had plain cream walls—so that she could choose her own décor, Sam told her when she rejoined him downstairs.
‘It’s perfect, Sam,’ she told him, laughing when he teased,
‘In spite of the cart-track outside? Apparently the guy who owns the property next door wanted to have it made up properly, but Miss Betts wouldn’t agree. She liked her privacy and maintained that the state of the lane prevented her from getting unwanted visitors. Jonas Chesney, who owns and runs the nursery, wanted the road made up because his buyers find it difficult to use—especially in winter. It runs right into the back of his property.’
‘And considering himself the local squire, he wouldn’t want the hoi polloi turning up at his front door, of course,’ put in Sara nastily.
Sam raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘I don’t think it’s a matter of that. It seems that the greenhouses and his office are close to what used to be the stable block, and that’s where this lane leads to. The house itself and the main gardens are open to the public certain days of the week. I haven’t seen it myself, but apparently it’s a lovely place—beautifully maintained, which can’t be cheap. Derek Middleton, Miss Betts’s solicitor, had nothing but praise for the man. I get the impression that he thought Miss Betts had behaved very unreasonably towards him. It seems that at one time the family owned all the land around here, but Jonas Chesney’s uncle had to sell off most of it to meet death duties. Middleton told me that Jonas has done wonders with the place. It seems he gave up a very promising career abroad to come home when his uncle died, and he’s made a real success of this nursery business. He wanted the land to extend into, it seems.’
‘Mmm… I don’t suppose he’s going to be over
joyed about getting us for neighbours,’ said Sara aggressively. ‘I expect he’d hoped to get the place at a knock-down price when Miss Betts died. No doubt it came as quite a shock to him to discover the contents of her will.’
‘What’s got into you?’ Sam looked distinctly puzzled. ‘Anyone would think you’d actually met the man and taken a violent dislike to him.’
‘I know his type,’ Sara said shortly.
Sam frowned, his mouth relaxing a little as he said softly, ‘Sara, I know what you’re thinking, but from what I’ve heard, he isn’t the same type as Wayne Houseley at all. Far from it. A less scrupulous man could easily have found some way round Miss Betts’s will, you know, and this morning when I arrived I found he’d sent over a basket of eggs and some milk and bread. I think you’re making an unnecessary ogre out of the man. Don’t forget he’s going to be our closest neighbour,’ he added warningly, his voice lightening as he commented, ‘and one whose help we’ll probably be very grateful for if that jungle out there is as bad as it looks! I found a goldfish pond on the far side of the lawn. We’ll have to get something to cover it—a net or something. I don’t want to run the risk of Carly falling in. Speaking of my daughter, where is she?’ he asked.
‘Talking to the donkey,’ Sara told him. She glanced round and asked, ‘Where are the cats and the dog?’
‘Being looked after by our neighbour, apparently. He offered to take charge of them after Miss Betts’s funeral. Mmm… that sounds like the furniture van. I’ll leave you to deal with them. By the way, I’ve invited Phil to join us for dinner tonight, if that’s okay with you?
Sara nodded her head briefly. Whatever her private doubts might be about the wisdom of their move, she could already see an improvement in Sam. He spoke and moved with a much greater sense of purpose—a resurgence of the old Sam she had missed so much during the last eighteen months. It had been frightening at times to realise how much both he and Carly depended on her, and yet she had needed their dependence simply to give her a reason to go on living.
Rick’s death had devastated her. Always a fairly quiet girl, she had become totally withdrawn, unable to cope with the cruelty of the loss. Rick had been outward-going and extrovert, and she had loved him to the extent that he had filled her whole world, leaving little room for anyone else. Even now there were times when she could scarcely comprehend that all that vitality had been wiped out. She dreamed some nights that he had come back to her, that she only had to reach out to touch him. Waking up after those dreams was agony.
There had been several occasions recently when Sam had told her that she ought to go out more, to rebuild her life. To find another man, he meant, but Sara did not want another man. She was content with her life as it was. She had Sam and Carly to love and to love her in return, and that was all she wanted from life. She didn’t want to love again, if the truth were known. She didn’t want the pain of loving someone only to risk losing them. No…she was perfectly happy as she was.
She’d already met Phil on several occasions. He was pleasant enough and she quite liked him, but if Sam had any matchmaking in mind…
The sound of the removal van stopping outside galvanised her into action. She hurried to the front door, glad of an excuse to dismiss thoughts that she thought of as too introspective. She didn’t like delving deep into her emotions any more. It was too painful. There had been so much pain in her life that now she had almost no tolerance of it at all. It was as though she was so emotionally scarred that she couldn’t bear anything touching the wounded area.
As she instructed the removal men she glanced across towards the paddock, checking on Carly. It was an automatic reaction these days, a reassurance to herself that the little girl was safe. How she had hated it when Carly first started school, but she had taught herself to let go, not to pass on to her niece her own fears. Carly enjoyed school, and Sam had already spoken to the headmistress of the small village school she would be attending from the end of the summer holidays. In view of her age it had been decided that there was no point in her starting at her new school until then, when she would do so with children of her own age, since the country school did not start its pupils at four as had the London one she had previously attended.
She had the whole summer in which to enjoy the company of her brother and her niece, to put down roots and let them flourish in the rich country earth. As she glanced at Carly, her attention was caught by the brick boundary wall, the sight of it reminding her of their neighbour.
Sam didn’t want her to be antagonistic towards him, she knew that, but even without knowing the man she didn’t like him. Illogical, she knew, but it was there.
* * *
‘Just one more story,’ begged Carly, snuggling further down into her small bed.
Where on earth did children get their energy from? Sara wondered fatalistically as she complied with her small niece’s request. There was Carly, all bright and bouncy, while she could barely keep her eyes open.
The removal men were long gone; the furniture all in place. Sam was in his study with Phil discussing his plans for the future. Both men had insisted on helping her with the washing up after dinner, and although she had found Phil pleasant enough she had been glad to excuse herself on the pretext of needing to put Carly to bed.
Now all she wanted to do was to go to bed herself. It had been a long day and she was tired out. The cottage was much larger than Sam’s London house, and soon she would have to get down to buying furniture and carpets.
She had been so busy that she hadn’t even had time to explore the garden, a treat she had been promising herself all day. Sara had a thing about gardens. She had always loved them, and as a child had longed for one of her own, but her parents had never lived anywhere long enough for her to watch the seeds she had sown grow.
The garden was to be her province; Sam had promised her that. In her mind’s eye she could already see a productive kitchen garden, and kitchen shelves filled with bottled fruits and jams. Rick had teased her about her dream of becoming a busy country wife; his future lay in the city, and Sara had willingly abandoned her own girlhood dreams to share it with him. But the garden surrounding the cottage was something that would give her life a new purpose, something of her own that she could cherish and nurture. She wanted that—needed it, she acknowledged, as she gently pulled the covers up round her sleeping niece.
In her own room she stood for a long time looking out into the dark silence. No cars…no traffic sounds…nothing. It was bliss. Tomorrow she would get up early and explore the garden. Suddenly she felt almost childishly excited, full of anticipation she had not felt in a long, long time.
* * *
A flash of orange beneath the green of the lily pad caught her eye and Sara bent to look a little closer, childishly delighted to see the fish. It was only half past six, and she had been awake since five.
Unable to deny herself the treat of exploring the garden any longer, she had sneaked downstairs in her cotton nightdress and bare feet, forgetting that the lawn would be damp with dew.
The sky was a bowl of pale blue edged with lemon where the sun was starting to climb; the garden was so still and peaceful.
The fish rose to the surface, searching for food, its round eyes observing her with calm indifference. Sam was right about one thing: they would need to cover the pool with something to make it safe for Carly.
She had resented Sam’s decision to uproot them, but now that she had seen the house and the garden, she knew that nothing could drag her away from it. Smiling wryly at herself, she stood up and moved backwards, the breath leaving her lungs as she cannoned into something solid and warm.
‘Careful!’
Calloused brown fingers circled her wrist, the shock of the unfamiliar male voice behind her sending ripples of sensation quivering down her spine. She wrenched her wrist free and swung round, anger sparkling in her eyes.
He was standing so close to her that she had to tilt her head quite a long way to l
ook up into his face.
And what a face! she acknowledged on another wave of shock. Lean and tanned, and so totally masculine that she could feel the tendrils of antipathy curling through her stomach. Whoever he was, she didn’t like this man; he was far too male and sure of himself. Beneath the lazy mockery, the grey eyes were regarding her in a way that made her skin prickle. He was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman he finds sexually desirable. She was shocked by the discovery. It affronted her that he should dare to look at her like that. Her throat felt tight with anger. Didn’t he know that he had no right to look at her that way? She belonged to Rick—Rick, who was dead, and who could never again look at a woman with desire in his eyes.
A searing, penetrating pain engulfed her, making her stumble back from the concern she saw unexpectedly darkening his eyes. His hand came out and she dashed it away, trembling with fury and dislike.
‘What is it?’
His voice was low and urgent, his fingers curling imprisoningly round her wrist as she tried to jerk away.
Tension seized her as she suddenly realised her vulnerability. Her cotton nightdress did nothing to conceal her body from him; she had forgotten how inappropriately dressed she was. Hot colour seared her pale skin as she looked up into his face, demanding to be set free, and saw the way he was studying her body. No one, not even Rick, had ever looked at her with such open sexuality. She could almost smell the maleness of him, she recognised on a wave of revulsion.