by Penny Jordan
To Georgia’s relief Ben immediately got up and trotted over to Piers’s side.
Perhaps she was worrying too much, she tried to comfort herself five minutes later as Piers and Ben left the house, Ben walking perfectly to heel on his lead. Perhaps Ben might, with some canine perception, sense that he was being judged, and why, and might behave as she had been training him to do. Crossing her fingers, Georgia prayed inwardly that he would.
Thank goodness she had been sensible enough to realise in time just what a fatal mistake it would be for her to allow herself to fall in love with Piers. Just imagine the heartache she would have to suffer if she did so. It was obvious what a low opinion he had of her, even if physically he had...
But no, she wasn’t going to allow herself to think about that, she told herself firmly. No, not for one minute...one second... Just because when Piers had touched her, when he’d kissed her, she had felt...wanted...had dreamed...
* * *
Two miles down the river footpath Piers had to concede that Ben was behaving with perfect canine manners, not pulling on his lead, walking quietly to heel, sitting on command and even sharing a disapproving look with Piers when another less well behaved canine chased after a passing cat.
‘Very clever,’ Piers told the dog dryly, ‘but that doesn’t alter the fact that you dug up the colonel’s prize plants or the fact that you chewed my shoe.’
Happily Ben wagged his tail.
Nor did it alter the fact that, so far as Georgia was concerned, there was no contest about who came first in her affections, and it certainly wasn’t him, Piers acknowledged grimly. It had hurt him to be accused of hating Ben so unjustly; he didn’t hate the dog at all; he simply felt that he wasn’t a suitable pet for his godmother.
‘You’re a man’s dog,’ he told Ben severely. ‘You need to know who’s boss.’ He would be a wonderful family pet, though, Piers acknowledged as Ben paused to let a woman walking in the opposite direction with two young children admire and stroke him.
As Piers put Ben through his paces he was forced to concede that Georgia was doing an excellent job. Ben behaved perfectly, responding immediately to every command but, at the same time, exhibiting a kind of dignity that made it plain that his obedience came on his own terms and because it was what he wanted to do. As he praised him for his good behaviour and Ben wagged his tail, enjoying the fuss being made of him, Piers acknowledged that, under different circumstances, he could have become very fond of the dog.
‘Come on, boy,’ he instructed. ‘Time to go home.’
Home! Ben’s ears pricked up. Home meant food and Georgia.
They were almost back when Piers suddenly remembered that he needed to get in touch with the estate agent. It would be as easy to get in his car and drive into town and see the man as telephone him, he decided, and that way he could tell him that he had changed his mind about both properties and intended to look for something smaller.
He had his car keys with him, but he also had Ben. Frowning a little, he looked from the dog to the car and then, shrugging his shoulders, unlocked the car door and opened the rear door for the dog.
Immediately Ben hopped in and settled himself on the rear seat happily—Piers already knew that he was quite comfortable about travelling in the car. Closing the door, he got into the driver’s seat and then activated the electric windows to make sure that the dog had enough fresh air. It was a warm day, not too hot for a human being, but Ben was a dog with a thick coat and Piers was mindful of the fact that he needed a cooler environment.
The car park opposite the town square on to which the estate agent’s office fronted had a couple of empty parking spaces, but neither of them offered the kind of shade he felt that Ben needed so, instead, he turned down a small side street, parking his car on the shady side of the road and leaving the rear windows and the sun roof open enough to allow Ben plenty of fresh air.
He wouldn’t be gone long.
‘Good boy,’ he told Ben as he walked away. Ben thumped his tail and settled happily on the seat. He liked travelling in cars, and it was very pleasant lying here in the shade where he could watch the world go by.
There were several cars parked on the narrow side street, but only one of them interested the two youths who slid deftly in and out of the shadows, trying every car door they passed, more out of habit than any real interest as they headed for Piers’s car. They had been watching as Piers parked the large, gleaming Jaguar, their boredom momentarily lifting as they studied the car’s sleek lines.
‘No good for ram-raiding,’ one of them said to the other, shaking his head.
‘Nah,’ the other agreed. ‘Cool for speed, though. We could really give the cops a run for their money in that.’
Now, whilst one of them watched the street, the other quickly forced the lock on the driver’s door. He knew exactly how to do so, and how to deactivate the car’s alarm system and start the engine. After all, he had had plenty of practice, most of it whilst he was still under the legal age to drive.
As the two youths slid into the car, Ben gave a low growl, but as they turned up the sound of the radio and searched for a preferred station neither of them heard it.
On the pedestrian crossing a young mother with a small child and an elderly man both shot indignant, frightened looks after the departing speeding car, making its two occupants laugh, but to their disappointment, as they raced past the town’s police station, there was no one there to witness their provocative behaviour, no striped police car to pursue them and give chase, adding to the excitement and exhilaration of their afternoon.
They knew the town and its environs even better than any cop could possibly do, they were fond of boasting, and they had safe places where they could hide out, garages they could drive into whilst the police searched for them.
This car, like all the others they had stolen, would end up either wrecked or broken up for ‘spares’.
As they shot across a roundabout, causing other drivers to brake and swerve, they both laughed, whilst in the back Ben growled.
* * *
Piers was longer in the estate agent’s than he had expected, his original decision to tell the agent that he had decided against both the properties he had viewed oddly overturned by the sight of a photograph in the window of the farmhouse. Looking at it, Piers had undergone an unfamiliar wavering and a totally unexpected and unwanted change of heart.
‘The farmhouse?’ the agent queried, frowning. ‘But I thought...’
‘I’m prepared to offer them the full asking price,’ Piers heard himself telling the agent, ‘on the condition that they move out almost immediately.’
The agent’s frown deepened.
‘But I thought you said that you wanted...’ His voice tailed off as he saw the look in Piers’s eyes. ‘I’ll telephone the vendors now and put your offer to them,’ he offered instead.
Ten minutes later, as he walked out of the estate agent’s office, Piers had committed himself to buying the farmhouse. Was he totally and completely mad?
He started to walk a little faster, unwilling to pursue his own thoughts, and then came to an abrupt halt as he turned into the street where he had left his car and saw someone else had parked where he had expected to find his Jaguar—and Ben! A quick check of the street confirmed that there were no signs anywhere warning against parking and threatening clamping and removal of vehicles should anyone do so, convincing Piers that his car had not been removed by some righteous corporation official.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a police patrol car turning into the street and immediately he hailed the driver, quickly explaining to him that his car appeared to have gone missing.
‘And the registration number of the vehicle, sir?’ the police officer asked him politely.
Tersely Piers gave it to him.
‘There was a dog in the car,’ Piers told the officer, ‘and to be honest I’m more concerned about him than I am about the vehicle.’
As he s
poke Piers realised, a little to his own astonishment, that it was the truth. His first thought when he had realised that his car had gone had been for Ben.
‘A dog, you say?’ The policeman frowned.
Ten minutes later Piers was at the police station reporting the theft of his car—and Ben—in more detail.
‘Look,’ he told the police officer taking his statement. ‘If it will help I’m fully prepared to offer a financial reward...’
The police officer pursed his lips.
‘I doubt it will do any good, sir,’ he told Piers politely. ‘It’s more than likely that the car—’
‘It’s not the return of the car that concerns me,’ Piers interrupted him. ‘The reward would be for the safe return of Ben, the dog...’
‘We’ll do our best, sir,’ was the police officer’s courteous response as Piers signed his statement and got up to leave.
* * *
Georgia looked anxiously at the kitchen clock. She had been expecting Piers back with Ben ages ago. Where was he? Where were they? Had Ben misbehaved, perhaps even run off, refusing to come back? She closed her eyes. She could just imagine how Piers would react to that. ‘Oh, Ben,’ she pleaded under her breath, ‘please, please be good.’ In championing the dog she knew that she had destroyed whatever slim chance there might have been of Piers changing his opinion about her, and...
And what? Falling in love with her, feeling something much, much more than mere unemotional sexual desire for her? How could she have deserted Ben, though? How could she possibly have wanted a love that came with that kind of price tag? And besides, she didn’t want Piers’s love, did she?
She started up as she heard the front door being opened. The front door. A small feather of alarm curled through her stomach. Piers would never bring Ben in through the front door after a long walk, risking the dog’s muddy paws on his godmother’s elegant carpets.
When Piers opened the kitchen door Georgia was standing with her back to the kitchen table, the same table on which he had threatened so sensuously, so temptingly, to make love to her. Her body tensed.
‘Where’s Ben?’ she demanded as soon as Piers walked in.
As he heard the accusatory note in her voice and saw the look in her eyes, Piers felt his heart sink.
It was going to be so hard to tell her what had happened... The fear he could see in her eyes only mirrored his own feelings of concern for the dog. He was a man who was used to being in control of things, and to have to acknowledge not just to himself but to Georgia as well that he had no control over what was happening, no way of guaranteeing Ben’s safety, of promising her that all would be well, was dealing a very hard blow to his in-built male sense of self. And because of that he responded in a way which he later was forced to admit was a world away from the gentle care with which he had been planning to break the news to her all the way back to the house.
‘Is that all you can think about?’ he demanded shortly instead. ‘The dog? Well...’
As she heard the anger in his voice and her senses picked up the guilt that underlined it Georgia immediately accused him, ‘Something’s happened to him, hasn’t it? You’ve done something to him. If he’s been hurt... If you’ve hurt him...’
If he’d hurt him? Piers opened his mouth to defend himself and then closed it again. What, after all, could he say? He was responsible for Ben being put in a position where he could be hurt, even if he had done so by accident rather than by design.
Too anxious about Ben’s absence to interpret correctly the look in Piers’s eyes, Georgia only knew that his silence totally condemned him.
‘Where is he? What have you done with him?’ she demanded, her voice breaking on a small sob of anguished despair as she mentally visualised poor Ben locked up in a cage, waiting to be found a new owner, not understanding what had happened to him.
There was no way she was going to allow Ben to be hurt like that. If she spoke to her parents, explained the situation, she knew full well that they would generously help her to fund the purchase of her own small property, somewhere where she could have a dog. Yes, if necessary she would give Ben a home herself rather than...
‘Where is he?’ she repeated fiercely. ‘Where?’
‘I don’t know,’ Piers told her gruffly. The sight of the tears she was trying valiantly to hide had brought a lump of emotion to his own throat.
‘You’re lying,’ Georgia accused him wildly. ‘You’ve taken him somewhere—a kennels or somewhere—and you’ve left him there...just because he’s...he’s a bit...independent and—Have you any idea what it does to an animal to be abandoned like that?’ she asked him in a choked voice. ‘Have you any idea of how your godmother will feel? Have you given any thought to the feelings of—? But you don’t care, do you? You don’t care about anyone else’s feelings. All you care about is your precious shoes,’ she denounced him scathingly.
‘For heaven’s sake, will you just listen?’ Piers said sharply. ‘I have not taken Ben to a kennels. Nor have I abandoned him. I...’
‘Then where is he?’ Georgia demanded, her face flushing with emotion and her eyes brilliant with a mixture of tears and passion as she deliberately held his gaze, daring him to lie to her.
‘I...I wish to God I knew,’ Piers groaned, with such feeling that Georgia shivered, a cold finger of dread icing down her spine.
‘What...what happened?’ she asked him shakily. ‘If he slipped his lead and ran off, refusing to come back, it’s just a game he likes to play. If you’d waited... Tell me where it happened; I’ll go out and look for him...’
‘No, it...isn’t as simple as that,’ Piers told her, catching hold of her arm as she made to hurry past him to the back door, her mind already mentally visualising the familiar river walk she took Ben on every day and the potential spots where he liked to break free of her to investigate rabbit scents.
‘Ben was in my car,’ Piers told her heavily, ‘and the car has been stolen.’
‘What?’ Georgia stared at him. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she told him furiously, her face burning with a mixture of anger and scorn. Did he really think she was so stupid as to fall for something like that?
‘You were taking Ben for a walk. You never said anything about driving him anywhere in your car,’ she added suspiciously. ‘You...’
‘I decided to call round and see the estate agent,’ Piers told her wearily.
‘No! I don’t believe you,’ Georgia repeated stubbornly. ‘You’re lying.’
Her heart, she had discovered, was beginning to beat frighteningly fast as she tried to grapple with the implications of what Piers was telling her. It wasn’t true, of course; he was simply lying to her to cover himself for what he had really done. After all, he had threatened often enough to have Ben re-homed, but now that he had taken active steps to do so he was refusing to admit it, covering his cruel behaviour with a cowardly lie.
Her face burning with anger and indignation, she told him fiercely, shakily, ‘I think you’ve now insulted me in just about every way there is. Professionally and...and sexually...and now mentally by...by making up a story that no one could possibly believe. You’ve been determined to get rid of Ben right from the start. I realise now that it wouldn’t have made any difference how obedient I’d taught him to be, would it?’ she said, biting down hard on her bottom lip to control the tears threatening to fill her eyes.
She continued painfully, ‘You wanted me to fail. You wanted Ben to fail so that you could have an excuse for getting rid of him. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me now to discover that you deliberately encouraged him to chew your shoes—your handmade leather shoes,’ she emphasised angrily. ‘But you’re simply not man enough to tell your godmother outright that you intended to get rid of her dog, are you? So you had to do it in an underhanded way, using poor Ben’s naughtiness...blaming him...blaming me...’
Georgia could feel her mouth trembling wildly as her emotions threatened to betray her completely. It wasn’t just Ben she wa
s defending...fighting for...it was herself too. Her own integrity, her own emotions...her own love... Love!
Shock stabbed through her, stopping her breath, her face going white with the pain of it as right at the heart of her anger she discovered the reason why Piers’s duplicity and cowardliness hurt so much.
She couldn’t love him. It just wasn’t possible. She hated him, despised him. She...
Now she was crying—dry, desperate tears that shook her body and tore at Piers’s heart.
Despite everything she had said, all the accusations she had thrown at him, all the passionate loyalty she had shown to Ben—or perhaps because of it—he couldn’t sustain the righteous anger he knew he should feel. All he wanted to do, all he ached to do, was to take her in his arms and comfort her, to reassure her that he would search the length and breadth of the country—of the world if need be—to find Ben and prove to her just how wrong she was.
Impulsively Piers took a step towards her, stopping dead, a muscle twitching in his jaw, as he saw the way Georgia was looking at him, her expression, her whole body tight and frozen with rejection.
Georgia shivered. Just for a moment she had thought that Piers was going to reach out and touch her... comfort her... That just showed the state she was in—the vulnerability of her emotions. But what was even worse was that for a small space of time she had actually felt impelled to go towards him, to betray by her body language just how much she longed for and needed the comfort of his arms around her, the reassurance of his voice telling her that everything was going to be all right, that Ben was safe, that she had misunderstood.
Both of them tensed as they heard someone ringing the front doorbell.
Predictably, or so it seemed to Georgia, Piers got to the front door before she did, opening it and then demanding quickly as he gestured to the police officer standing outside to come in, ‘Have you found him? Is he...?’
The officer, briefed by his colleagues, had heard how the owner of the expensive car which had been stolen from the town was far more concerned about the fate of the dog which had been in the car than the vehicle itself. He sympathised. He had a dog himself, and two children who would be distraught if anything similar should happen to it.