by Liz Fielding
She slipped the card into her pocket and hurried on to the landing, but when she peeked into the child’s room he had simply rolled over and was still fast asleep. But it was a warning that she didn’t have time to waste on speculation.
There was a flight of stairs leading to the next floor and she took it, expecting to find a similar layout to the first floor. But the stairs ended in a small landing, with further progress blocked by a heavy door. She seized the handle and pushed. Nothing happened, and she didn’t need much convincing that throwing herself at it would damage her far more than the door.
On a hunch, she stretched on her toes and felt along the small ledge above the frame. Nothing. Disappointed, she gave the door a sharp kick to relieve her feelings. She glanced at her watch. Tom wouldn’t sleep for much longer, and the knowledge that Chay might return at any moment lent further urgency to her search.
The study was the most likely hiding place for her camera bag and she could always throw her clothes in the back of the car. If she could find the keys.
Impatiently she tugged at the desk drawer, expecting it, too, to be locked. It slid smoothly open to reveal a stack of lined writing-blocks close-covered with a bold masculine script. A tiny flicker of excitement raised her pulse-rate and just a few lines confirmed her suspicion that she had stumbled across the first Chay Buchanan novel for six years. Was this his big secret? For a moment her fingers hovered over the smooth paper… Then she snatched her hand back and closed the drawer quickly. No time for that.
The long centre drawer contained nothing more exciting than pens and pencils and other small writing accessories.
The last drawer contained notepaper and envelopes. On an impulse she wrote a brief note to the neighbour who looked after her flat while she was away, warning her that it might be for a few more days. She would ask Chay to post it for her. He could only say no. On reflection, he would almost certainly say no. But maybe she would get the chance to post it herself. She returned to the centre drawer, pulling it wider in her search for stamps. No stamps, but something else. A key. To the upstairs room? Her fingers began to close on it, then she saw something else.
A small photograph in a frame. It was a girl. A girl whose eyes glowed with happiness. She was dark and beautiful. In the corner she had written, ‘Forever, Maria’. Sophie had thought that Tom looked like his father. But he had his mother’s beautiful dark eyes.
The click of the door-latch was like a bullet, shattering her reverie. With a guilty start she hurriedly pushed the photograph back where she had found it and closed the drawer, leaping to her feet, her heart hammering, an excuse forming on her lips. But when she turned round it was not the accusing eyes of Chay Buchanan that confronted her.
‘Well, sweetheart, this is cosy.’ And Nigel Phillips sauntered into the study.
‘Nigel? Where on earth have you sprung from?’ Confusion, relief, made her shrill.
‘That’s not a very warm welcome for a friend who’s come all the way from London to look you up,’ he said.
Sophie knew she should be glad to see him. He represented an immediate source of rescue. But she was far more concerned with Chay’s reaction should he return and find them together in his study. ‘H-how did you get in?’
‘The front door wasn’t locked,’ he said, moving over to the desk and eyeing the computer. ‘Country folk are so trusting.’
He reached for the switch and she grabbed his hand. ‘Don’t touch!’ His pale blue eyes regarded her strangely. ‘He’ll know if you turn it on,’ she said. ‘The timer…’
‘And he’ll know you’ve been snooping.’ He grinned. ‘What a bright girl you are, Sophie. We’ll make a good team. What have you found out so far?’
She jerked her hand back, sickened at the implication. ‘You must go…he’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Don’t panic. I’ve no intention of interrupting your little idyll, my sweet. It’s just that when you didn’t turn up with your photographs, I thought you might be planning to renege on our little deal.’
‘No—’
‘You weren’t at your flat,’ he continued, turning his attention to the drawers, ‘and when I phoned your hotel they told me you’d booked out two days ago. So I thought I’d better find out what was happening.’
‘I’ll tell you what’s happening,’ she said. ‘He caught me taking photographs with a long lens and he’s keeping me here… He won’t let me go, Nigel.’
‘Really? I can’t see any chains,’ Nigel replied, with a knowing little smile. ‘But then, men like him don’t need them.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded, but a searing blush betrayed her.
‘Come on, sweetheart, there’s no need to be bashful. I’m really pleased with you.’ He lightly flicked her cheek. ‘Really pleased. I didn’t think you had it in you.’
She stepped back sharply, hating him to touch her. ‘What…? What do you mean?’
He grinned. ‘You’ll be able to give me a whole lot more than a photograph now, won’t you?’
‘I…I don’t understand.’ But there could be no mistaking his meaning, and he drove the message home without mercy.
‘If you want to find your sister,’ he said, with a leer that turned her blood cold.
‘For pity’s sake, Nigel…’
‘I’ll give you a few days.’
‘But…You expect me to stay here?’
‘You’ll stay,’ he said confidently. ‘Not for me. For Jennie.’ He stroked his hand down her cheek in a gesture that made her skin crawl, and she jerked away. ‘Relax, sweetheart. Anyone would think…’ He shrugged. ‘There’s no need to feel guilty about enjoying yourself. It’s for your sister, right? I’ll park up the road after dark…when? Sunday? Will that give you enough time? I’ll flash my headlights at about ten o’clock. Just make sure you have all the juicy details. There’ll be a nice little bonus in it for you.’
‘I don’t want a bonus. Or your filthy money.’
‘That’s up to you.’ He shrugged. ‘But your sister might be glad of it. The last time I saw her—’ He shook his head. ‘Some of those bed and breakfast places…’
Pain stabbed at her. She had been kidding herself for long enough. ‘All right! I get the picture.’ All pretence of a ‘little favour’ was at an end. This was blackmail. His hand reached for the drawer with the photograph. Sophie swallowed. How far back had she pushed it? ‘You’d better go before Chay gets back,’ she said urgently, but Nigel had already straightened and was staring at the doorway. Sophie’s head swam as the blood drained from her face, and she held her breath, waiting for the explosion.
‘Hello, there. What’s your name?’
‘I’m Tom.’ As she heard the childish voice she almost sobbed with relief. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Nigel. I’m a friend of Sophie’s.’
‘Nigel’s just leaving, Tom. Why don’t you go and get into your swimming costume?’ Tom needed no second bidding, and, giving Nigel a little smile, he disappeared.
‘Who’s the kid?’
‘The housekeeper’s boy.’ He stared at her, taking in the bright colour that stained the pallor of her cheeks. She had always been incapable of telling a lie. ‘She’s away for a couple of days.’ She walked quickly to the front door. ‘You’d better go, Nigel,’ she said.
‘What’s the hurry? I’d like a look around while you’re on your own.’ He moved towards the living-room door.
‘I’m expecting Chay back any minute.’ He hesitated, suspicious of her anxiety to be rid of him. ‘He’s late already,’ she said, straightening, her voice a little firmer. ‘Unless, of course, you would like to stay and meet him?’ she invited. ‘I have a feeling he would enjoy the opportunity of a word with you.’
‘I take your point.’
She was shaking when she closed the door, locking it after him and leaning weakly back against it. She hadn’t realised until this morning just how truly despicable the man was. He knew where her sister was, bu
t his price for the information had been a photograph of Chay Buchanan in his hideaway. In her desperation it had seemed small enough. But it wasn’t small, she discovered. She felt as if she had been touched by something very nasty, and she shuddered.
‘I’m ready now, Sophie.’ Tom’s voice seemed to come from miles away. ‘Sophie?’ He tugged at her hand.
She glanced towards the study, the key, the possibility of freedom. It would have to wait.
A few minutes later, Sophie stood on the edge of the pool. She had no illusions about the water. It was too early in the year for it to be warm. But she welcomed that. It would be cold and clean and would wash away the touch of Nigel Phillips. Tom dived in without hesitation. She would have liked to follow his example, but her shoulder was in no condition for such a jolt and she lowered herself in, catching her breath as the water reached her stomach.
It was not water to hang around in, and she began to swim up and down the pool at a brisk pace. She was beginning to flag when a splash startled her. She had been so determined to keep a close watch on Tom that she had not seen Chay until his head surfaced beside her.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ he asked, with the kind of smile that suggested he knew exactly what she was suffering and was enjoying every moment of it.
‘It’s very…bracing.’
He laughed, disconcertingly, displaying a set of even white teeth. ‘You should try it in winter.’
‘No, thanks. In fact, since you’re here now, I think I’ll get out before I succumb to hypothermia.’
‘Nonsense. It’s not cold.’ A pair of strong hands caught her around the waist and pulled her down. She came up, spluttering and gasping for air.
‘You—’ She didn’t get a chance to call him the name that sprang to her lips because he ducked her again. The second time she erupted, gasping, from the water, she didn’t bother with insults. She needed all her breath for retaliation.
The immediacy of her response, the shock of her hands crashing into his shoulders as she launched herself at him, took Chay by surprise. But he recovered instantly, and as he was knocked backwards by her furious onslaught his arms snaked around her waist, and he pulled her down with him, twisting over in the water so that he was above her and in control. And he was right. As his legs tangled against hers, and his arm pinioned her against his broad chest and hard flat stomach, she was no longer cold.
As he surfaced with her he grinned broadly. ‘Better?’ he asked.
Immeasurably better. Stupidly, dangerously better. Her hands were clinging to his shoulders, his skin was smooth beneath her fingers and the water pinned her against him. How much better could it get?
At that moment Tom leapt on them and Chay released her, turning with a roar to dunk the boy, chasing him up the pool in mock rage. Then they both turned on Sophie. With a little scream she struck out for the side of the pool. Chay’s hand caught her ankle just as she reached the safety of the edge of the pool and he hauled her back. She twisted in the water, determined to fend him off, but he caught her round the waist, holding her up, so that despite her furious kicks she was quite helpless. For a moment something sparked in the depths of his eyes as they roved her body, and she caught her breath. But when he tightened his grasp around her waist it was simply to lift her up and sit her on the side of the pool.
‘You are free to go, ma’am,’ he said, with measured irony, and then quite deliberately removed his hands. ‘For now.’ It was oddly disturbing. As if he had been reinforcing his ability to hold her for as long as he wished.
Sophie scrambled to her feet and stepped back out of his reach. Turning away to pick up a towel that she had dropped on a nearby rock, she began drying her hair with furious concentration. But she could not resist Tom’s yells of delight as his father threw him up in the air, Chay’s shouts of feigned rage as the boy’s splashes found their mark.
She sank on to the rock, watching the two of them. The graceful little minnow swimming beside the shark. Tom a small promise of the man beside him. Chay, his body rippling with contained power, holding back as he swam alongside his son. Sophie scarcely realised that she was smiling. Then Chay rolled on to his back, and as their eyes met he smiled too. The smile of one adult to another in their conspiracy to amuse a child.
She immediately became absorbed in the meticulous drying of the ends of her hair, and when she looked again he had turned away to scoop up Tom and dump him on the side of the pool before hauling himself out.
She wrapped Tom in a towel and began to rub him dry. ‘I’ll see to Tom,’ Chay said, taking over from her. She almost jumped as his shoulder brushed her arm, feeling suddenly very naked as his eyes flickered over her modest fuchsia one-piece bathing suit. He glanced up. ‘You’d better go and make some tea,’ he said, dismissing her. ‘Plenty of milk for Tom.’
Her eyes snapped. ‘Is that what Theresa would do?’
‘She wouldn’t have to be told.’
She opened her mouth, firmly resolved to tell him to go and make his own tea. But confronted with his broad tanned body, clad only in a scrap of black material that accentuated rather than concealed his blatant masculinity, and the spread of dark hair that curled across his chest, down his flat belly to his loins, she simply swallowed. ‘Right,’ she said, backing away, then she turned and fled.
Her hand shook as she filled the kettle. “This is ridiculous,’ she said out loud to herself. ‘Get a grip of yourself, girl. He’s just a man.’ An arrogant bully of a man, who had made his feelings on the subject of Miss Sophie Nash very clear. And, while the kettle was boiling, Miss Sophie Nash would be well advised to go and cover herself up. She had made the hallway when the front doorbell rang.
Sophie physically jumped. Had Nigel changed his mind? Come back for her? The peremptory ring was repeated rather more vigorously, and she moved quickly to open it before Chay heard and came to investigate.
It was difficult to say who was more startled–the elegant woman on the doorstep, who looked as if she had stepped out of the pages of a glossy magazine, possibly in her late thirties, although it would take a practised eye to tell for certain, dressed by Jean Muir in a pastel suit that was neither blue nor grey but the most sophisticated merging of the two, and with sleek dark hair fresh from the stylist, or Sophie, in her damply clinging swimsuit and with salt-stiffened hair drying out into what her mother unkindly described as something resembling tow.
The other woman regained her voice first. ‘Poppy Curzon,’ she said coolly. ‘Please tell Chay that I’m here.’ And she stepped over the threshold without invitation.
Sophie stiffened at the woman’s tone. She had spoken to her as if she was a servant. And if she was going to be treated like one, she was quite capable of acting the part. ‘Is he expecting you, Miss Curzon?’ she asked, in her best starched imitation of a maid.
But the question was academic. She brushed past Sophie, her face wreathed in smiles, her arms extended theatrically. ‘Chay, darling.’
‘Chay, darling’ had taken the trouble to pull on a polo shirt and a pair of shorts over his swimsuit and suddenly Sophie felt very underdressed.
‘Poppy.’ Chay took the newcomer in his arms and kissed her warmly on the cheek. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? I would have come to the airport.’
‘Join the twentieth century and install a telephone and I will, darling.’
‘Not a hope,’ he laughed, obviously delighted to see the woman. ‘Come on through to the garden. We’re just having tea. Bring an extra cup, Sophie.’
At this reference to Sophie, Poppy turned, and gave her the kind of speculative glance that despite its fleeting nature would have earned a man a slap. ‘Have you finally replaced Theresa with a younger model, darling?’ she asked, with a small suggestive laugh. ‘I do hope she can cook as well.’
For a moment Sophie’s grey eyes flashed thunder and lightning, but Chay intervened before she could say anything outrageous.
‘Poppy, meet Miss Sophie Nash,’ he said,
introducing her with grave formality. ‘She’s Tom’s nanny.’ His look was a sharp warning.
‘Isn’t he a little old for a nanny?’
‘It’s a temporary arrangement.’
Sophie drew in a sharp breath at this brazen lie.
But this time Poppy forestalled the threatened explosion. ‘Very temporary, I should imagine, by the look of those goose-pimples. If she doesn’t get dressed soon she’s going to catch her death of cold.’
‘Darling, if you wanted a nanny you should have let me know. I would have found someone for you. Someone properly trained.’
Sophie arrived just in time to hear Poppy’s remark, to witness the long white fingers with immaculately polished nails curved possessively around Chay’s arm. She placed the tray of tea very carefully on the garden table, catching sight of her own battered nails and hands and wincing at the comparison.
‘She is trained, Poppy,’ Chay said evenly, insolent eyes meeting Sophie’s without the slightest shame. She had taken a quick shower and dressed, but with her hair still damp she was conscious of looking rather less like an old English nanny in the Norland tradition than an old English sheepdog. No competition for the well-groomed elegance of Poppy Curzon.
Poppy evidently agreed. Having turned a searching eye upon her, she finally asked, ‘In what?’
‘I promise you,’ Chay said, with a very thin smile, ‘she’s utterly dedicated to her job. You’ve only brought two cups, Sophie. Go and fetch another.’
‘I have to organise Tom’s tea,’ she said quickly. She had no wish to be a part of his cosy tête-à-tête with Poppy Curzon. And it was more than plain from the fixed smile on the other woman’s face that she harboured no lingering desire for Sophie’s company either.
But Chay had other ideas. ‘Tom’s gone down to the stables with Twany,’ he said. ‘He won’t be back for at least an hour and, as you can see, Poppy can’t wait to grill you on your qualifications.’