A Family of His Own

by Liz Fielding

  As if afraid that she would disappear, he caught her hand, held it for a moment. His fingers were long and wrapped around her own hand with ease. His hand and wrist were deeply tanned, strong, attenuated like those of a fasting saint in some medieval painting.

  He traced the scratch on the back of her hand where the bramble had caught her with his thumb.

  ‘You aren’t wearing gloves,’ he said. ‘How many times have I told you that you should wear gloves?’

  ‘No… Yes…’ She mouthed the words, but her voice, thick with the choking rush of emotional overload, didn’t make it past her throat.

  Maybe he heard her anyway, or maybe he just read her lips. Maybe he thought she was making him a promise instead of desperately searching for the words to tell him, make him see that she was someone else, because he reached out with his other hand, cupping her face in his long palm. And while she remained locked between the need to run and the certainty that she must stay and convince him of the reality of the situation, he leaned forward and kissed her.

  It had been a lifetime since she’d been kissed and never with this sweetness, this gentleness. As if she was something precious but fragile that might shatter to dust if he was careless.

  Her body, starved of tenderness, starved of the touch of a man, responded like a primrose to the sun after a long, hard winter, and, overriding her brain, she returned the kiss with every scrap of longing, all the need engendered by years of emptiness.

  The kiss deepened as his confidence grew that she would not vanish at his touch.

  Her hat fell to the grass as his fingers slid through her hair and he cradled her head as it fell back beneath the sweet invasion of his mouth.

  The stubble on his unshaven jaw rasped against her face. His hand curved about her waist, drawing her into a closer embrace, crushing her against him as if he would make them one. In the tree above them, the blackbird pinked an urgent warning. And she felt his hot tears against her cheek. Or maybe they were her own.

  The kiss had a dream-like quality, the perfection of fantasy, and it seemed that a lifetime had passed before his hold on her eased and he straightened. While her breathing returned to something approaching normality.

  An age while he looked down into her face, confronted reality, and his expression of perfect joy turned first to confusion, then to pain as he realised his mistake.

  Forever, while the light died in his eyes and they became dark, bottomless, unreadable.

  She felt an answering hollowness in her own breast. To have shared such perfect intimacy, to have been gazed at with such devotion and then to have it snatched away…

  Oh, good grief. What was she thinking?

  ‘Mr Ravenscar?’ She heard the shake in her own voice, but what did her petty feelings matter compared to what he must be going through? ‘Dominic, are you all right?’ She was too concerned about him to worry about her own feelings and it really was far too late to bother about the formalities of introduction.

  ‘Who are you?’ The urgency of her query had apparently got through to him, and when she didn’t immediately answer, ‘Who the hell are you?’ he angrily repeated, rising to his feet, stepping back and putting a yard of distance between them. It felt like a mile. A cold, unbreachable distance. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Well, what did she expect? “Thanks for the kiss, ma’am. It was a real pleasure…”

  ‘I’m Kay Lovell.’

  She forced herself to her feet, forced herself to act normally, as if nothing awkward or embarrassing had happened. The kiss had been neither. It was the aftermath that was difficult. Reality, as she’d long ago discovered, was always a lot harder to deal with than fantasy.

  She forced herself to brace her knees so that her shaking legs wouldn’t collapse beneath her. Maybe kissing was like drinking, she thought. If you didn’t do it for a while the effects were amplified…

  On the point of offering her hand, she managed to stop herself. It was a little late to be shaking hands. Instead she tried to concentrate on an explanation of what she was doing in his garden. ‘I’m just…’ No. It was no good. Any attempt to explain what she was doing, explain anything, was, for the moment, totally beyond her. And he didn’t want to know what she was doing. He just wanted to know why she wasn’t his wife. There was no explanation that would satisfy him. No answer that would help. ‘I’m just a neighbour,’ she said.

  He took another step back as if, with every moment that passed, the enormity of his mistake increased. Then he looked beyond her to the peach trees, the newly cut brambles.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Yesterday?’

  He’d been here then? He’d seen her? She saw all hope die in his eyes and knew he had. Knew what he’d thought. ‘Yes, I was here,’ she said, guilt washing over her at the damage she’d done. At the forlorn hopes she’d unwittingly raised and then dashed.

  ‘And the child? The little girl?’

  She frowned. If he’d seen Polly then surely he must have realised that she couldn’t be Sara?

  ‘Who is she?’ he persisted.

  ‘My daughter. Polly. We were picking blackberries to make pies for the harvest supper. She’s gone out with friends today. To the sea. The Hallams? I think you know them. Their youngest boy is just a few months older and they’re best…’ She stopped. She was talking far too much. ‘I’m so sorry—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he snapped, cutting off her apology.

  ‘If I’d known you were home I’d have—’

  ‘You’d have knocked and asked permission?’ he enquired, with cutting sarcasm. ‘Why did you come back? To make sure you hadn’t missed any? Or was there something else you’d taken a fancy to?’

  He glanced at the shrub, then at her, raised one brow about half a millimetre—more than enough to imply everything that he was thinking—and she felt the blood rush to her face.

  ‘No! I was just…’ She let it go. If he really thought she’d come to steal a shrub that size armed with nothing more than a pocket knife and a screwdriver, there wasn’t a thing she could say that would convince him otherwise. ‘The lock on the gate was rusted through. I came back to fit a new one. It should hold now. And I—’

  ‘Will it keep you out?’ His voice was no longer soft, but hard and cold as ice, perfectly matching the chilling lack of emotion, lack of anything, in his eyes.

  ‘It will if you bolt it behind me,’ she managed, with measured politeness, despite the fact that her heart was still pounding like a jackhammer. ‘In fact you’d be doing me a favour. I thought I’d have to bolt it from the inside and then climb over and it’s rather a long drop.’ She made a stab at a smile. He didn’t respond. Well, fine. She was in the wrong here, she reminded herself. He had every right to be angry. She gestured vaguely towards the wheelbarrow filled with the thorny trimmings that were destined for her bonfire. ‘I’d better go. I’ve done everything I came for.’

  He glanced across at her barrow as if to reassure himself that she wasn’t making off with a haul of valuable plants. Frowned when he saw the contents.

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘Fix the gate?’

  ‘Cut back the brambles. Why did you do that?’

  ‘They were growing over the peach tree. It was suffering…’ Then, because he didn’t say anything, it occurred to her that she’d never have a better chance to put her case for some work. The very worst he could do was throw her out and he was pretty much doing that anyway. ‘I’m a gardener. I was going to contact the house agents tomorrow to see if they were interested in giving me some work. To tidy up in here. Now it’s on the market.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ he said abruptly. ‘I like it just the way it is.’

  Suffocating. Like him, from the heart outwards.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ she said, bending down to pick up her hat. ‘Better let the new owners clear it out. Start again.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll employ you.’

  ‘I doubt that. I
t’ll take months to put this straight. I expect they’ll get in a contractor. Someone who can provide instant results with an earthmover. They’ll just dump all this in a skip and bring in fully grown plants like they do in those television makeover programmes.’

  If she’d hoped to drive the chill from his eyes with hot anger, wake him from the coma of grief, she realised immediately that she was reaching a long way beyond her grasp. He was far beyond such pathetic pseudo-psychological tricks.

  All she got was a blank expression.

  Of course, he’d been working abroad for a long time. He’d probably never seen one of those programmes where a garden was transformed from backyard tip to easy-care Mediterranean landscape—with water feature—in a weekend. For a man who’d been working on aid programmes, the very idea of such a frivolous waste of resources would probably be anathema.

  ‘Well, I’ll go, then. If you need anything, I live at Old Cottage,’ she said. ‘Just down the lane.’

  ‘What could I possibly need?’ Between them hung the unspoken corollary “…from you?”

  Nothing was clearly the answer. He was wrong. She could offer human contact. Be there for him, as Amy had been there when she had been lost in depths of despair, guilt. Day after day. Week after week. Gently persistent. Unwavering in the face of rejection. Refusing to be pushed away.

  ‘One day someone will need you, Kay,’ she’d said when she’d bemoaned her inability to repay such patient, unasked-for, unrewarded care. ‘Just pass on the love and don’t count the cost. That’s all any of us can do.’

  She had a sudden, terrible premonition that this was her moment. And she wasn’t ready. Hadn’t a clue what to do.

  ‘I could offer you a cup of tea,’ she prompted. Oh, good grief. How English. How predictable. ‘Breakfast?’ she persisted. ‘The eggs are organic. I keep a few hens…’

  He didn’t reply. Not by one twitch of his facial muscles did he indicate that he’d heard.

  For heaven’s sake, politeness cost nothing.

  ‘How about a towel to dry your feet?’ she tried, but a little waspishly, rapidly losing any desire to pass on anything, let alone care.

  He glanced down and frowned as if only then aware that he was wading through damp grass in his bare feet. That his trousers were soaked through to the knees. Then he turned, without a word, and walked back towards the house.

  Kay watched him walk away from her. Stiff-backed, rigid with anger and pride and misery. Probably hating himself for having mistaken another woman for his beloved Sara. Hating himself for having kissed another woman.

  Yes, well. She knew her limitations. She wasn’t wise enough, clever enough for this. Amy should be here. She’d know what to do. Exactly the right words to say.

  The one thing she wouldn’t do was walk away and leave him like this.

  But Amy wasn’t here. She was on her way to the coast with Jake and a car-load of children, so it was down to her and, while common sense suggested that it would be wiser to do as he’d asked and leave, simple humanity demanded a braver, a more compassionate response.

  ‘Oh…chickweed!’ she muttered. And followed him.

  She paused on the threshold of the drawing room. Despite the delicate floral wallpaper, the pale blue silk curtains, the atmosphere was oppressive, musty. Like the garden, it felt abandoned. Out there she itched to tear out the weeds, let in the light so the plants could grow, reach their full potential. Inside, she yearned to rush through the rooms, opening the windows to let in the sun, let in the air so that the house could take a deep breath.

  She restrained herself. She’d already done enough damage.

  There was no sign of Dominic Ravenscar other than an armchair from which the dust sheet had been pulled and left on the floor where it had fallen, suggesting that he’d slept there in front of the open French window. Hoping for another glimpse of his ‘Sara’.

  That, and wet footprints in the dust leaving a trail across the wide oak floorboards. Guilt more than any mission to do good drove her to follow them across the drawing room and into the hall to where they became dusty marks against the stair carpet.

  From the floor above came the sound of running water as he took a shower. She found she’d been holding her breath, anticipating disaster, but that at least had the ring of normality about it. She found the kitchen, washed the green plant stains from her hands under the running tap, then filled the kettle and switched it on.

  There was a small box of groceries standing on the table containing tea bags, a small loaf, from which a couple of slices had already been taken, and a carton of long-life milk. She put some bread into the toaster and then hunted through the cupboards until she found a plate and a mug.

  Everything was covered in a film of dust and, while she ran hot water into the bowl, she looked for some washing-up liquid. There was a bottle, half empty, in a cupboard beneath the draining board. The manufacturer had changed the packaging several years ago and she had the unsettling feeling that Sara Ravenscar had been the last person to touch it.

  Pushing aside the thought as ridiculously melodramatic, she swooshed some into the water and began to rinse the dishes.

  What had he done? What on earth had he been thinking? Imagining that Sara was waiting for him in the garden. Talking to her. That woman must have thought he was mad when he’d kissed her.

  Maybe he was.

  Except it was clear that she’d known who he was, had known exactly what he’d been thinking. Was that why she’d let him embrace her? Hadn’t yelled blue murder when he’d kissed her?

  Not only had she not struggled, screamed, slapped him, but she’d kissed him back, and for a moment, just a moment, he’d believed that he’d woken up from an endless nightmare. With the soft warmth of a woman’s mouth against his, hot life had raced through his veins and he’d felt like a man again.

  ‘Fool!’ He smashed his fist against the tiled wall. ‘Idiot!’ Would he never learn?

  There was no hope, only despair that he’d mistaken a stranger for the woman he’d loved. Still loved. Beyond the superficial similarity of colouring, height, they were nothing alike. He’d allowed his mind to trick him. This woman, Kay Lovell,—‘Kay Lovell’—he said the name out loud to reinforce the message—was, if anything a little taller, nowhere near as thin. Her eyes were grey rather than blue. Her hair hadn’t had the heavy swing, the bright polish…

  And she’d let him kiss her out of pity.

  He grabbed for the soap, used it to wash his hair, rid himself of the fresh-air smell of her. Brushed his teeth to rid himself of the taste of her mouth on his.

  There was no simple remedy for the pounding in his veins. The shocking response of his body to a total stranger.

  That was a betrayal he was going to have to live with.

  And he grabbed a towel, wrapped it about his waist. Then, since he’d only brought up his overnight bag, he went downstairs to fetch the rest of his luggage.

  Kay made tea in the mug, then began buttering the toast. When she looked up, Dominic Ravenscar was standing in the doorway, watching her, his expression blank, unreadable. As if he’d had years of practising keeping his thoughts, his feelings, to himself.

  He’d showered. His dark hair was damp and tousled where he hadn’t bothered to comb it—well, he hadn’t been expecting company—and he was naked but for a towel wrapped about his waist. There was little of him she couldn’t see and it was plain that this was a man who’d lost every bit of softness from his body as well as his heart.

  ‘You’re still here.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your eyesight,’ she agreed. As the words left her lips she groaned inwardly. Even twenty-twenty vision could be fooled by the heart.

  ‘Did Greg send you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Greg?’ She sucked the butter from her thumb, a distraction from the spare, sinewy shoulders, ribs that she’d be able to count with her fingers if she walked them down his chest. There was not an ounce of spare flesh on him.


  ‘Did he ask you to keep an eye on me?’

  ‘No one sent me.’

  ‘You’re just an all-round busybody and do-gooder, is that it?’

  What did she expect? Gratitude?

  Had she been grateful when Amy had found her, taken her home, found ways to get her to eat—even if it was only chocolate; ways to get Polly into her arms and her to start living again?

  No.

  She’d just wanted to be left alone. She’d just wanted to die. She thought perhaps they had more in common than he’d ever know. He just wanted her to go, forget he’d ever set eyes on her, forget that he’d kissed her. No doubt he thought that being rude was not only the quickest way to get rid of her, but the most likely way to ensure that she’d stay out of his hair.

  She’d tried that approach, too. In fact his response brought her own hateful ingratitude shamefully to mind. She’d been rude, too. Vilely rude. It hadn’t worked. Amy had seen through the anger to the pain and stuck with it.

  She dunked the tea bag, added milk to the mug and offered it to him. ‘You haven’t got any sugar, so I assume you don’t take it. You haven’t got any marmalade for the toast, either.’

  ‘I haven’t got much of anything except you,’ he said, ignoring the mug. ‘You, I have altogether too much of.’

  ‘That’s how it is with us do-gooders,’ she said, putting the tea down on the table where he could reach it. ‘I’ll bring you a pot of mine. It’s very good. It won best-in-show at the summer fête.’

  ‘Congratulations, but don’t put yourself out. I don’t like marmalade.’

  ‘Strawberry jam?’ she offered. It was as if her mouth had a mind of its own. ‘I used organic, home-grown strawberries. It won best in its class.’ She snapped her mouth shut.

  ‘What do you want?’ he persisted.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Good, because that’s what you’ve got.’ And he picked up the tea and tipped it down the sink.