by Penny Jordan
‘Now just a minute,’ he interrupted her smoothly. ‘Granted, I wanted to buy your land, and I wouldn’t be much of a negotiator if I gave up at the first hurdle, but you’re completely wrong about what happened last night. You’re using your antagonism to mask your fear,’ he told her, stunning her with his perception. ‘Is it just me who terrifies you so much, I wonder, or is it men in general?’
Rue stared at him without saying a word. She couldn’t have said a word. Her throat muscles felt as though they were completely paralysed, her legs so jelly-like with shock that she had to grab hold of the counter to support herself. He was looking right at her, and the calm steadiness of his gaze wouldn’t allow her to look away.
He was mesmerising her, Rue thought disjointedly. He was trying to weaken her, to read her mind, to overwhelm her with his maleness in the same way that Julian had once done. It seemed a lifetime before he relented and allowed her to look away, and almost miraculously, as she did so, her throat muscles relaxed and she was able to deny huskily, ‘I’m not frightened of you.’
‘No?’ He said it grimly rather than triumphantly, and then took a step towards her.
Instinctively Rue moved back until she felt the hard spikes of the worktop against her spine.
‘Lie to me if you want to, Rue,’ he told her sardonically, watching her, ‘but don’t lie to yourself.’
‘I’m not,’ Rue fibbed. ‘Oh, I know you want me to be frightened of you. You want to panic me into selling my land. I know what kind of man you are. You’re just like Julian.’
He moved so swiftly that she didn’t have time to escape, hemming her in with the bulk and heat of his body as he leaned towards her, resting his hands either side of her on the worktop, so that there was simply no way she could escape.
‘I’m getting a little tired of being told I’m like your husband. Hardly a flattering comparison, is it? Is it?’ he demanded brutally when she refused to speak. ‘Or is it just that, to you, all men are like him, Rue?’
The sudden softness in his voice had the most peculiar effect upon her. Her throat suddenly seemed painfully raw, her chest tight with what, if she hadn’t known better, she might have thought to be unshed tears. Even her eyes felt dry and gritty, and she had to resist the urge to rub them like a little girl.
‘I’m sorry about what he did to you,’ Neil continued in an even gentler voice. ‘He obviously hurt you monstrously, both physically and emotionally. I won’t deny that there are men like that, but I’m not one of them,’ he told her, his voice suddenly starting to harden, ‘and if you can’t tell that for yourself, then perhaps it’s time that someone taught you just how to recognise that difference.’
‘I don’t need teaching anything,’ Rue flared at him, frightened by the weakness she had experienced at that momentary softening of his tone, that had made her ache inside in a way that was completely unfamiliar to her. It had made her yearn to reach out to him, to soak up the warmth and strength of him. It had shown her a terrifying vulnerability in herself that she had never dreamed existed, and she fought against it like a terrified animal caught in a trap.
‘You think not?’ he said, and suddenly his voice was a sensual purr, as his glance dropped to her mouth. Appallingly, Rue felt it start to tremble. His glance seared her almost as much as the pressure of his mouth had done the previous night. She wanted to thrust him away from her and escape from his presence, but she was terrified of what might happen if she risked any physical contact between them.
‘I came here this morning to apologise for having frightened you last night,’ he told her, shocking her into immobility, ‘and to remind you that you still haven’t given me your advice about my mother’s rooms.’
Rue could hardly believe her ears. Did he really have the gall to imagine that she would fall for that stupid fiction a second time?
‘I’m afraid I’ve far too many commitments on at the moment to do anything like that,’ she told him coldly. ‘What you really need, anyway, is an interior designer. I can recommend a good local one.’
She turned her back on him and looked on the desk for the pad and pen she always kept at hand. The sensation of him standing so close behind her made tension prickle down her spine. She wrote out Hannah’s address and telephone number and turned back to him, almost thrusting it at him. He took it from her and said in an ominously calm voice, ‘You know, I wouldn’t have thought you were a coward, Rue.’
‘A coward?’ Her eyes flashed fire and resentment. ‘I’m not.’
‘Oh, yes, you are,’ he told her softly. ‘You are a coward who’s terrified of facing up to reality, to life, and that’s why you’re clinging so desperately to this cottage and this land. Without it you’d be like a tortoise without its shell.’
‘No, that’s not true!’ Rue flung at him, and Horatio, sensing her distress, started to whine.
‘You realise, don’t you, that it can be just as dangerous to isolate yourself from the rest of humanity as it can be to risk emotional pain through contact with it?’ His voice held a warning that made her tense and look at him.
He had asked her once already if she didn’t find the isolation of the cottage frightening. She had told him no, and that had been the truth, but now suddenly a quiver of apprehension shot through her.
‘I’m in no danger here,’ she told him unequivocally.
He looked at her for a long time and then replied drily, ‘If you really think that, you’re even more unworldly than I had already supposed. Be careful you don’t play Sleeping Beauty for too long, Rue,’ he warned her, as he stepped away from her and walked towards the door. ‘When you eventually want to wake up, you might find it’s too late.’
He had gone before she could make any retort. She remained where she was for another half-hour, but her concentration on her task was broken. Every few minutes her normally nimble fingers would suddenly still and she would realise with a sudden pang of fear that she was standing staring into nothing, her mind so totally preoccupied with Neil Saxton that she was hardly even aware of her surroundings.
Impatient and angry with herself, she collected Horatio and set out for the field. The hot summer sun had long since dried the early morning mist off the blooms, and her flowers were enjoying the heat of the sun with an almost sensual appreciation.
She touched the velvety petals of a midnight blue larkspur, wondering why she had never noticed before this almost wanton drinking up of the sun’s heat. Until Neil Saxton had forced his way into her life, there had been no necessity of her to have such thoughts. That knowledge made her feel uncomfortable with herself. No matter how much she might wish it, the flowers were still not ready for picking.
There was work she could have done, but for some unaccountable reason she felt too listless to do it. Later on in the afternoon, when the sun started to go, she would have the watering to do, but right now…
On a sudden impulse she headed back to the cottage, opening her fridge/freezer and collecting from it two of the fruit pies she had baked the previous week. She picked some fresh herbs from the garden and, on impulse, a pretty bunch of flowers, and then, telling Horatio that on this occasion he could not go with her, she headed for the back door, carrying a wicker basket full of the things she had collected together.
Her destination was one of the cottages in the row that lined the main street of the village. Her father had bought it for his housekeeper when she retired, and as she got into her car and drove towards the village Rue reflected guiltily that it was almost a month since she had last gone to visit Mrs Dacre. A widow with no family of her own, she had been fond of Rue, and, although she had very good neighbours either side of her in the village, Rue kept as closely in touch with her as she could.
The village was quiet, satiated with heat and sun. Too far off the beaten track to be a tourist attraction, it remained as it had been for almost a hundred years; a jumble of tiny cottages lined either side of the village street, the small front gardens a tumble of pretty flowers
. Once these houses had been the homes of the labourers who worked on the large agricultural estate. The plots to the rear of the cottages had once provided a year’s supply of vegetables for the labourers’ families. Now very few of them were used for that purpose. Most of the occupants were elderly, their families long ago grown-up.
There was very little work in the immediate area, and as Rue parked her car and got out she wondered a little sadly if, once the new motorway system had been completed, the village would simply become another dormitory suburb to the city.
She walked round the back of the row of cottages, knowing from previous experience that Mrs Dacre would be alarmed at the sound of someone knocking at her front door. She found the old lady sitting in a chair in her back garden. Well into her seventies now, she was still very independent, tutting a little when she saw the basket that Rue had brought her.
‘I’m afraid my pastry’s never going to be as good as yours,’ Rue told her with a smile, ‘but you were saying the last time I called that you could never be bothered to make a pie just for yourself, and since I was baking anyway…’
‘Yes, it’s hard to cook just for yourself, when you’ve been used to doing it for others,’ Mrs Dacre told her a little wistfully. ‘I miss cooking for your father; he always appreciated his food, Mr Livesey did.’
She saw the look on Rue’s face and said a little sharply, ‘In my day a girl was brought up to take care of her menfolk, and I don’t see anything wrong in that. Of course, I know it’s different these days.’
The way she said it, and the expression on her face, suggested that she did not altogether approve of that difference, but Rue coaxed her until the old lady’s ruffled feathers were soothed, and she bustled away into her small kitchen to make them both a cup of tea.
Rue listened with half an ear while Mrs Dacre chattered about various village events, her attention wandering a little, until the old lady said sharply, ‘So you’ve got a new neighbour, then? I heard in the post office as how someone new’s moved in to the big house. Met him yet, have you?’
‘Just briefly,’ Rue told her, knowing that the village was probably very well aware of Neil’s visit to her, in that unique and almost unfathomable way that villages had of garnering news.
‘Mmm… Not married, so I’ve heard,’ Mrs Dacre commented, looking speculatively at Rue.
‘I believe not,’ Rue said coolly, and then, seeing the look in her late father’s housekeeper’s eyes, she added firmly, ‘He came to see me to ask if I was interested in selling my land.’
‘Aye, well, he would want it, wouldn’t he,’ Mrs Dacre agreed, ‘seeing as how it was once part of the estate? Which reminds me, you’ll have heard that Bill Jennings has sold off part of his land to that builder who was pestering to buy your land from you.’
Bill Jennings owned and farmed what had once been the Court’s home farm.
‘It’s the ten-acre he’s sold, so I’ve heard,’ Mrs Dacre continued, and Rue’s frown deepened. The ten-acre was in fact several fields, the corner of one of which just touched on the boundary of her own land.
‘How will the builder get access to it?’ she questioned.
It was true that there was a dirt track to the farm, but that did not give direct access to the piece of land the builder had apparently acquired, and if he actually planned to build there he would surely need some means of access to the main road. Her frown deepened as it suddenly struck her that the easiest way for him to do this would be through Vine Cottage itself.
‘He wouldn’t be told that he’d bought himself a pig in a poke,’ Mrs Dacre continued. ‘‘That land’s no use to him as it is. He’s no way of getting to and from it, not by road leastways, and Bill’s laughing all the way to the bank. Says it’s the worst piece of land on the whole farm.’
Rue stayed with the old lady for another half-hour and then, judging that her hostess was beginning to get a little tired, she said her goodbyes and made her way back to her car.
It seemed odd that the builder should have bought that land, inaccessible as it was. He had been furious with her when she had refused to sell him her home and her field, far more furious in many ways than Neil Saxton, she recalled now with a sudden start. And yet she had not felt one tenth of the apprehension and dread she was suffering now.
No, it was not his desire to possess her home and land that intimidated her so much where Neil Saxton was concerned, it was the man himself. Pushing this disturbing thought to the back of her mind, she drove home.
Horatio gave her an ecstatic welcome, bounding at her side as she took him for his walk. When they got back to the cottage the telephone was ringing. Rue picked up the receiver a little reluctantly, only to deride herself for her foolish belief that it must be Neil telephoning her when she heard the voice of her friend Hannah.
‘Are you doing anything tonight?’ Hannah asked her.
Used to her friend’s sudden and impulsive plans, Rue said drily, ‘You are joking, aren’t you? You do know what time of year this is, I hope?’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Hannah agreed overriding her, ‘but surely you can give yourself the odd evening off? You work far too hard, Rue.’
‘Look who’s talking,’ Rue teased her.
‘No, seriously,’ Hannah intervened, ‘how long is it since you’ve actually had an evening off?’
Rue wondered what her friend would say if she told her the truth, and then wondered again, a little starkly, why it was that she was not telling her friend about Neil’s invitation to dinner, or what lay behind it.
‘Look, I only want you to come for dinner, and you won’t have to stay late. We’re doing some business entertaining and I think I’m going to need your support, not to mention the fact that there could be something in it for you.’
‘Tell me more,’ Rue began, but her friend refused, saying only,
‘I can’t right now. I’m frantically trying to get the house tidy and something organised for dinner. Just tell me that you’ll come.’
With Neil’s taunts that she was too isolated from the rest of the human race, too eager to cut herself off from all contact with it, Rue found herself agreeing that she would.
‘Eight for eight-thirty, then,’ Hannah told her, her voice rising to a scream as Rue heard a resounding crash somewhere in the distance. ‘If that’s one of my best dinner plates, I’m going to strangle the little monster,’ Hannah announced, quickly saying goodbye and replacing the receiver.
Rue was smiling as she put hers down. Despite the fact that at times she claimed she loathed her daughter, Rue knew quite well that Hannah was the most devoted mother, and the little girl was engaging. Rue felt a tiny, disarming tug somewhere in the region of her heart as she remembered how eagerly Hannah’s little girl climbed into her own lap and hugged her. There was something about holding the trusting weight of a child in one’s arms…
Thoroughly irritated by her own train of thoughts, Rue derided herself for giving in to such sentimentality. If she was going to go out to dinner, she would have to finish the work she had started this morning, which meant at least a couple of hours spent in the drying shed.
Horatio went with her. He accompanied her everywhere if she allowed him to do so, disappearing only occasionally if the lure of the rabbits that populated the Court’s parkland proved too much for him. He always returned from these abortive forays out of breath, with a guilty expression in his eyes, almost as though he felt he had to apologise for deserting her.
As the afternoon advanced, the air grew still and hot. Too hot, Rue recognised worriedly. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, but the sun had taken on a brassy hue which made her suspect that the weather forecast was likely to prove all too correct. She would probably have to spend all day tomorrow picking her flowers whether they were ready or not. Either that or risk losing them altogether if the thunderstorms came early. It was at times like this that she desperately wished she had someone with whom she could share the responsibility and worry of ma
king the right decision.
But there was no one, and as she headed for the drying shed she told herself hardily that she was better off that way.
Having eaten with Mrs Dacre, and knowing full well what an excellent hostess Hannah was, she decided against making a meal, and worked steadily from five until just gone seven, realising suddenly how little time she had in which to get ready. The expensive watering system she had had installed in the spring was now proving its true worth. It was marvellous to be able to go out and ensure, by simply turning on a tap, that her entire crop was watered. Before it had involved backbreaking hours of work, carrying buckets full of water to and from the nearest tap which had been in her walled garden.
The new system had cost a fortune, which was one of the reasons she was so desperately anxious that this season’s crop should be a good one. She had perilously little in her bank account. Since Julian’s death, money had been a constant source of worry to her, and even though now she didn’t have the enormity of Julian’s debts to concern her she still suffered from sleepless nights when she lay awake frantically doing sums in her head.
If she lost this summer crop… She wasn’t going to lose it, she told herself firmly. The storm wasn’t forecast for another two days, which gave her plenty of time to get the blooms in, even if it did mean picking them a little before she would really have wished.
While the sprinkler system was doing its work, she rushed upstairs and hurried into her bathroom. Horatio lay on the floor outside the door and whined protestingly. He knew quite well that she was getting ready to go out and, as always at such times, adopted the manner of an animal who was being ruthlessly abandoned by a heartless owner.
Rue, used to such wiles, firmly ignored them. It was really too hot to wear the black velvet dress, but she had nothing else. It slid easily on to her body, the satin lining stroking her skin, almost like a caress. The thought made her tense and glance quickly over her shoulder, almost as though she half expected Neil Saxton to suddenly materialise at her side.