by Penny Jordan
He had been very angry when Rue had turned his offer down.
It was a pity it was Saturday, otherwise she could have got in touch with her solicitor and asked him to write to Neil Saxton, making it plain that she had no intention of selling. If she hadn’t been so busy she would have done so before now. But it had been a good summer for her. Her field was now crammed full of the flowers she grew to pick and dry. Only this spring she had planted up the last quarter of it, paying half a dozen teenagers from the village to help her with the work. Upstairs in the loft above the stable, she had rack upon rack of those spring and early summer flowers which had already been harvested.
She had never envisaged herself as a business-woman, but that was what she had become, albeit in a small way. Her talent for drying and arranging flowers had been something she had done merely for her own pleasure, until a friend had asked her if she would supply her with some of her arrangements, and her skill had spread by word of mouth until another friend had suggested she turn her talent into a full-time business.
It had helped having the new country hotel and club open less than ten miles away. The two young chefs who ran it had come to the house to buy dried flower arrangements for the hotel and, seeing the walled herb garden to the rear of the property, had begged her to sell them some fresh herbs. That side of her business too had escalated, and she now supplied not just them but several other local restaurants as well.
All in all, she had carved out a very pleasant life for herself, even if her friends did bemoan the fact that there was no man in it.
They all knew about the past, of course; it was impossible to keep a secret in such a small village, even if she wanted to, and they all respected her refusal to talk about what had happened. She suspected that the more romantically inclined of them thought her reticence was due to grief.
Grief… If only they knew.
* * *
RUE HAD TO MAKE THE MOST of the long summer evenings, and it was gone ten o’clock before she tiredly acknowledged that she had had enough.
Calling Horatio, she set out in the direction of her field, opening the door in the wall that led to it.
Horatio knew better than to do anything other than stick to the narrow paths between the flowers. When his mistress paused to examine some blooms more closely or to test the richness of their scent, he too waited, knowing that, once her inspection was done, he would be allowed to run free along the footpath that ran behind her field and back to the village.
This was one of her favourite parts of the day, Rue acknowledged, savouring the colour of the tall spikes of delphiniums glowing richly against the evening sky.
Her other favourite time of day was early in the morning, just after dawn, when the dew was still on the grass and she felt as though she had the whole world to herself. She liked it that way: clean… new…uninhabited by anyone bar herself and Horatio.
As she finished her inspection and climbed the stile that led to the footpath, she saw in the distance the outline of Parnham Court. Lights shone at the windows; evidence, if she needed it, that the new owner was in occupation.
What was he doing? Reading in the quiet solitude of the panelled library…eating in the awesomely elegant crimson dining-room, or perhaps relaxing in the comfort of the south drawing-room?
Her own curiosity made her feel uneasy. She had never speculated about the inhabitants of Parnham Court before…perhaps because they had not come knocking on her door, spoiling her peace, making demands on her which she could not and would not meet.
Healthily tired, she made her way back to her cottage. Horatio, used to his mistress’s evening routine, padded into the kitchen, waiting for her to make the hot milky drink she always took to bed with her.
CHAPTER TWO
AT TEN past nine on Monday morning Rue had just returned from checking her field—something she did meticulously twice a day during the height of the summer and early in the autumn, those all-important times of the year for her when even a couple of days’ neglect could mean the difference between picking her flowers at their very best or finding she had left things too late and the petals were already beginning to shed—when the telephone rang. She picked up the receiver in one hand while she poured herself a cup of coffee with the other.
The unexpected sound of her solicitor’s voice, faintly hesitant and apologetic, surprised her.
‘I wonder if you could come in and see me,’ he asked her. ‘There are one or two things I need to talk over with you.’
Instantly suspicious, Rue told him, ‘If it’s about Neil Saxton’s offer to buy the cottage and my land, then I might as well tell you that I’m not interested.’
‘It isn’t something we can discuss over the telephone,’ her solicitor told her and, sensing his determination and knowing how much he had her interests at heart, Rue gave in and agreed reluctantly that she would drive in to the local market town and see him. He suggested taking her out for lunch, but Rue turned his invitation down, explaining to him that she was far too busy to be able to spare him more than half an hour of her time. She didn’t add that she wouldn’t have been able to spare him as much as that if she hadn’t needed to go into her local market town to stock up on supplies. The village, lovely though it was, only had one very small general store, and Rue normally made the trip once a month to the local market town to stock up on groceries.
At eleven o’clock she bundled Horatio into the ancient estate car she had bought three years ago when her business had first started to grow. The car was old but reliable, its roomy rear-section ideal for carrying her stock.
It took her just over half an hour to drive into town. She parked her car in the pretty market square, empty on a Monday of the bustle of traffic which filled it to capacity on Wednesdays and Saturdays—market days.
Her solicitor’s office was up a rickety flight of stairs in a tiny Elizabethan building, part of what had once originally been the old Shambles. Now the whole street was a conservation area, the shop beneath the offices a prestigious book store.
It was still possible, from the attic room at the top of the house, to reach out from the window and shake hands with somebody doing the same thing in the house on the opposite side of the street, but it wasn’t the building’s history which was on Rue’s mind as she rapped on the outer door of her solicitor’s office and walked into the small reception area.
David Winten had originally been her father’s solicitor, and the two men would have been about the same age if her father had been alive. As always when she was invited into the tiny, cramped office, Rue was reminded unbearably of her father. He had married fairly late in life, and she had been born eighteen months after her parents married.
Tragically, her mother had died within hours of her own birth, and because of that, she and her father had shared a closeness which even now, six years after his death, she still missed.
‘Rue.’ Her solicitor’s face creased in a delighted smile as he swept some papers off the chair and dusted it down apologetically before offering it to her. ‘My dear, how lovely it is to see you.’
Rue hid a tiny smile as she accepted the chair. How on earth he managed to make a living out of his practice she had no idea. Every surface in the small room was piled high with pink-tied bundles of legal papers, files gaped open in half-open drawers, and a tortoiseshell cat drowsed in the sun coming through the small window.
‘Neil Saxton came here to see me first thing this morning,’ he told her rather breathlessly as Rue sat down. ‘In fact, he was here waiting for me at half-past eight when I arrived.’
Immediately he mentioned Neil Saxton’s name, Rue’s face hardened. ‘It’s no good,’ she told him firmly. ‘Nothing you can say to me will make me change my mind. I’m not going to sell Vine Cottage or the land.’
‘My dear child, think,’ her solicitor pleaded with her. ‘I assure you he’s prepared to be very generous—very generous indeed. With that money…’
‘I have more than enoug
h money for my needs,’ Rue cut in ruthlessly. ‘I own the cottage and the land and its freehold. I have no debts.’
‘And no assets, either,’ her solicitor pointed out firmly, surprising her a little. ‘Rue, think: at the moment your business is doing very well, but you have precious little behind you. A bad season, any other kind of accident…’
‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ Rue interrupted him. ‘But it isn’t going to happen.’
‘My dear, I can understand your attachment to the cottage and to the village, but surely there must be other properties.’
‘I’m sure there are,’ Rue agreed obediently, ‘but I suggest you try telling that to Neil Saxton, and not to me.’
‘But you must realise why he wants your property.’
‘Of course,’ Rue agreed.
‘It was, after all, originally part of the estate,’ her solicitor pointed out. ‘He has told me that he is concerned that, if for any reason anything were to happen to you, the land could be sold away completely, and that is the reason he is prepared to make such a very generous offer.’
Rue’s eyebrows climbed a little as she listened to this rather hesitant statement, hardly surprising, she reflected inwardly, in view of her comparative youth.
‘You may reassure Mr Saxton that I have no intentions of selling the land either to him or to anyone else,’ she said firmly, standing up. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re only thinking of my future and my security, but Vine Cottage is my future and my security. I refused to sell it to that builder last year and now I’m refusing to sell it to Neil Saxton. I’m sorry if he finds that knowledge unpalatable, but he’ll just have to accept it.’
She saw that her solicitor was looking very unhappy, and hesitated, frowning a little.
‘He’s a very determined man,’ her solicitor offered nervously. ‘He asked me a lot of questions about you…about the land…’
Rue’s frown deepened. ‘What did you tell him?’ she questioned sharply.
Her solicitor looked even more unhappy, and a tiny sigh of irritation escaped Rue’s soft mouth. She should have known that a man like her solicitor would be no match for the Neil Saxtons of this world. By now, no doubt, he knew the whole sordid story of her past and the folly she had committed. She shrugged inwardly. What did it matter? He would think her a fool, of course, but what did his opinion matter to her?
‘Well, if he gets in touch with you again, please tell him that there is absolutely no question of any selling the land either to him or to anyone else,’ Rue said firmly.
‘I don’t think he’s going to give up easily,’ her solicitor told her warningly, ‘not a man like that, who’s built up a multi-million international company almost out of nothing.’
Rue hesitated, her interest caught in spite of herself. ‘What exactly does he do?’ she questioned her solicitor thoughtfully.
‘His company deals in computer software of a highly specialised sort.’ Her solicitor made a vague movement with his hands. ‘I believe it’s very high-powered, and that he himself has made a personal fortune from his own innovative ideas.’
‘A self-made millionaire,’ Rue mocked a little bitterly, ‘and now that he’s made it he’s decided to buy himself a part of England’s heritage in the shape of Parnham Court.’
As though he knew the pain that underlay her cynical words, her solicitor looked sympathetically at her.
‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ he said softly. ‘I know how it must hurt you.’
Rue brushed aside his words impatiently.
‘No, no, it doesn’t at all,’ she told him fiercely. ‘I’m not so much of a dog in the manger.’
Her solicitor looked at her and waited, and Rue knew he was waiting for her to explain her antipathy towards Neil Saxton. Unfortunately, it was something she just couldn’t do. She couldn’t analyse even to herself the true reasons underlying her instinctive dislike of the man. One thing she did know, though, was that, no matter what her financial circumstances might be, she would never sell Vine Cottage or its land to him.
And yet, when she stepped outside into the shadowed coolness of the narrowed street, it wasn’t with a feeling of confident assertiveness because she had made it plain to her solicitor that she had no wish to enter any kind of negotiation for the sale of her property, but rather with a feeling of deep and unwanted unease. The kind of unease that prickled under her skin and made her muscles tense, almost as though she half expected Neil Saxton to appear out of nowhere and demand that she sell her land to him.
Horatio was waiting patiently in the car for her when she got back with her shopping. She stowed it away economically and then got into the driver’s seat. She had wasted far too much time over Neil Saxton already, she told herself grimly as she drove towards home.
Once there, she removed her shopping from the car and packed it away, and then went upstairs to change into her working uniform of cotton T-shirt and jeans. The neat skirt and top she had donned for her visit to her solicitor were clothes that belonged more properly to the period before her father’s death. She rarely wore such formal things these days, and indeed, had only put them on in the first place because she knew that her solicitor, old-fashioned perhaps about such things, would not have felt comfortable at the sight of one of his female clients clad in a pair of disreputable old jeans and a shabby T-shirt. Nevertheless, these were the clothes she now felt most at home in, she told herself, pulling the T-shirt on over her head and disturbing the smooth sleekness of her blonde hair as she did so.
She just had time to snatch a quick salad lunch before going outside into the field with her secateurs and her trug, ready to start harvesting those flowers that were at their peak. It was hard, backbreaking work, especially with the heat of the sun beating down on the back of her neck and her upper arms.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, as she straightened up tiredly, she acknowledged that she ought to have worn a hat. Her head was already beginning to ache, the pain pounding in her temples as she raised a grubby hand to massage the too-tight skin. Horatio had long ago deserted her to go and lie down in the shelter of the hedge. She thought longingly of her cool kitchen and the lemonade in the fridge there.
She was just on the point of giving in and going back to the house to get some when an all too familiar male voice hailed her. Furiously she watched as Neil Saxton climbed over the stile that separated his land from hers and came towards her, carefully weaving his way among the tall spires of her flowers.
Unlike her, he looked immaculate and cool. He was wearing a pair of white cotton trousers and a thin white cotton shirt open at the throat. His skin, like hers, was tanned, but his tan was much darker, richer. As he came towards her she felt a tiny pulse of fear beat frantically deep inside her body, and she had a compulsive urge to throw down her trug and take to her heels.
Telling herself that she was being idiotic, she remained where she was, unaware of how revealing the tight, defensive look on her face was to the man approaching her. He had learned a good deal from her solicitor this morning, and as he drew level with her Rue saw that knowledge in his eyes.
Mentally cursing her solicitor for his naïveté, she said coldly, ‘If you’ve come to try to persuade me to sell my land, you’re wasting my time.’
Instead of responding to her challenge, he turned away from her and gestured over to where the neat beds of herbs nestled in the shelter of her walled garden.
‘Who buys those from you?’ he asked her thoughtfully.
Surprised into giving him a response, Rue told him, ‘Restaurants, sometimes gardeners wanting plants of their own, health food shops, and even people wanting to buy them for medicinal purposes.’
‘You’re joking.’ His amused cynicism irritated her.
‘No, I’m not joking at all,’ she told him sharply. ‘After all, herbal medicine existed long before our so-called modern drugs.’
‘Well, yes, but they were hardly as powerful.’
His self-assurance annoyed he
r, and she had a sudden longing to destroy it.
‘Some of them are,’ she argued firmly. ‘Take ergot, for instance…’
‘Ergot… What’s that?’ She had his attention now, he was looking at her in a direct, uncompromising way that she knew that she ought to find intimidating, but which instead for some odd reason she found challenging.
‘Ergot is the fungus on the rye,’ she told him knowledgeably. ‘It used to be used, among other things, for aborting unwanted foetuses. Unfortunately, its side-effects can be devastating. Used unwisely, it can give rise to a whole range of things from gangrene to madness.’ She saw the look on his face and laughed harshly. ‘It’s still used today as a base for migraine drugs. Doctors prefer only to prescribe it for men,’ she added drily.
‘You obviously know a lot about it.’
Without thinking, she shrugged and said, ‘It was my father’s hobby. I grew up with it, so to speak.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed grandly. ‘I think I can see why a man who’s fortune was founded on modern drugs could be interested in herbal medicine.’
Instantly Rue tensed. He had ticked her—and she had let him, fool that she was, carried away by her enthusiasm for one of her favourite subjects—into betraying herself and giving him exactly the kind of lever he wanted to pry into her most private affairs. He wouldn’t hesitate to use it, she could see that in his eyes as he looked at her.
‘Your solicitor was telling me this morning about your father,’ he added, still watching her. ‘What happened?’ he demanded abruptly when she refused to either look away or make any comment.
The abruptness of his question caught her off guard. ‘To what?’ she asked him uncertainly, not sure of the meaning behind his question.
‘To the fortune your father left you?’ he answered harshly. ‘He died six years ago, apparently a millionaire, and yet you, his only child, are now living here in this cottage, instead of Parnham Court which he left to you, and apparently earning your own living—a rather curious state of affairs, I’m sure you’ll agree.’