by Sara Wood
He chuckled and left her, moving about the kitchen as he gathered what ingredients he could find. As he began to prepare the food Tessa wondered idly how many women had cried, laughed, languished in his arms, Dozens, she imagined. He had a very welcoming chest.
Being tucked up against it gave her a sense of safety, she thought, slumping in the chair.
‘Let me know how much the cleaning bill comes to,’ she reminded him sleepily.
‘I think I can stand the cost a little better than you.’ He gave her an easy smile.
‘That’s not the point!’ she said firmly, coming up straight again. ‘Fair’s fair. I messed it up; I pay for it. It’s the principle of the thing. Anyway, I’d feel better about it.’
After a long and puzzled study of her stubborn face, he nodded.
‘OK. I’ll let you know the cost.’
‘Thanks,’ she said in relief, watching his deft fingers chopping onions with a chef’s expertise. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’
‘Backstreet kitchens in New Orleans.’
That was so unexpected that she let out a little giggle. ‘You?’ He nodded. ‘Me. I-’
He broke off. His mobile phone was ringing. Tessa felt disappointed, sure that he’d been about to divulge a little of his past. Though why she should be interested, she wasn’t too sure.
‘Oh, hi, sweetheart ... Yes, I’ll be about half an hour... Right. And dig out another bottle of champagne...’ His voice softened, like satin which had somehow been reduced to a pouring consistency. ‘Because, my lovely, you and I are celebrating tonight. ..’
There was a pause, while an embarrassed Tessa pretended to be invisible. She didn’t like listening in to intimate conversations and this was certainly one. A wife? she wondered. If so, he didn’t wear a ring. Current partner? Mistress? Whoever it was, she pitied her. He had something of a roaming eye and, like his father, he probably didn’t let fidelity cramp his style.
He chuckled, deep and low and very sexy. ‘Sounds great. Break out the flags and dress up in something special. I’ll be home very soon ... Yes. Bye!’
A celebration. With champagne! How the other half lived! And a quick picture of Guy with a radiant beauty, chinking their glasses together and sliding between white satin sheets, startled her with its vividness.
‘You ought to go,’ Tessa suggested politely. ‘The bubbles will go flat.’ Her eyes suggested that something else might too. He picked up her meaning and seemed to find it funny. ‘Don’t you worry about my bubbles!’ he said, laughing. ‘Or Giselle. It’ll do her good to wait.’ He dismissed the waiting bottle-opener with a wave of his hand. Tessa didn’t like his attitude and her face plainly said so, because he shot her a look and smiled. ‘Giselle has always been used to getting her own way. She’s the most demanding female in the world. I’m trying to show her that other people have needs too.’
‘Oh.’ Tessa averted her gaze, a little embarrassed by the revelation.
Giselle, she thought, mentally conjuring up a picture of a languid ballerina, all legs and pink tutu, with a classically haughty face and expressive hands. Except Guy would go for the sophisticated society type: perfect body-rearranged surgically wherever it wasn’t up to scratch-and stunningly beautiful face.
Conscious of her own plain features, she slumped down in the chair again and wondered why Guy wasn’t rushing back to gaze in awe on this beauty, and to hell with teaching Giselle a lesson!
But he seemed in no rush. For a while he hummed and stirred and chopped, and Tessa could sense his happiness. ‘It’s ages since I did this,’ he said with an enthusiastic sweep of his hand in the general direction of the neat piles of ingredients. ‘I’m rather enjoying it.’
‘Glad for you,’ she muttered, feeling low.
‘Don’t look so glum!’ he remonstrated cheerfully. ‘All your troubles will be over in the morning.’
‘I wish.’
He laughed at her doubtful expression, tipped the contents of the chopping board into a saucepan and turned the gas down to simmer. His eyes locked onto hers in a speculative way. Or... was there something more? She wasn’t sure. Her instincts seemed to be unreliable. He couldn’t be interested in her, could he?
Guy reached over and drew his fingers across her furrowed brow, laughing when she jerked back warily. ‘That’s better,’ he said approvingly. ‘You shouldn’t be scowling like that.’
‘Why not?’ she muttered.
‘Obstinate woman!’ A forefinger reached out, lifting a lock of glossy hair from her forehead. ‘Because you have beautiful skin. Don’t spoil it with frown lines.’ There was a silence while Tessa stared at him in confusion. ‘So solemn!’ he sighed teasingly. ‘I’ve a good mind to stay and cheer you up-’
‘That won’t be necessary. I can tell myself jokes,’ she said stiffly, annoyed by his mild flirting. ‘I’m grateful for what you’re doing, but when I’ve eaten I want to go to bed.’ Tessa drew in a breath, a jolt going through her body. His eyes had suddenly kindled, as if they were smouldering with a newly lit fire, and she realised what she’d said. ‘Alone,’ she added sharply, to make her position quite clear.
Not a muscle of his face moved but his eyes went cold. ‘Stir the
sauce occasionally,’ he ordered, ‘and I’ll take your panniers upstairs for you and check that there’s some linen,’ he added in a soft undertone, and strode out of the room. Tessa flushed to the roots of her hair. A put-down! Every bit as effective as one she might have made and twice as graceful. She could have kicked herself! Of course he wouldn’t be interested in her-blonde, leathers,
bike or not, available or not-if he had a bottle of champagne, Giselle and turned-down sheets waiting for him! Fool! She should never have hinted that he might be. How humiliating! It was as bad as believing David’s flattery and thinking that he’d taken her out to dinner because he’d wanted to!
Tessa groaned, remembering with pain her monumental mistake...
After working in a supermarket for some years, at the age of twenty she’d joined a team of restorers for Kernow House, working with each expert in turn, learning the rudiments of each trade before opting to, specialise in carpentry. David had been the handsome site manager. How could she have believed that he’d been attracted to her? Especially as she had been vastly overweight and prone to wearing spectacles and shapeless dresses. Yet that night eight months ago she’d blithely gone along with his solemn declaration that he’d realised he adored big women. Wine and joy had made her delirious and light-headed and she’d believed every word ... because she’d wanted to.
It hadn’t taken much persuasion on the drunken David’s part to get her up to bed. Only later had she learnt that he’d made love to her for a substantial bet.
She’d cried the whole night long. Seeing her red, puffy face the next morning, she’d felt appalled that she’d had such an inflated idea of her own attractions. She was plain and always would be.
The ‘joke’ had been all over the site the next day. Tessa’s hopeless five-year crush on David had been common knowledge. So, apparently, had the bet. Everywhere she went she had been aware of people whispering: roofers, stonemasons, carpenters, gardeners, plasterers, gilders... Brute. She’d had to leave, of course. And she had been unemployed ever since.
David’s legacy had been a slim body, an end to her obsession
with him and a determination to plough her own furrow-but with a prickly response to any men who showed an interest. It was going to take a while for her wounds to heal, she thought with a sigh.
Silence seemed to close around her. And in the kitchen she felt as though there was a void, an emptiness suddenly, as if Guy had filled the space with his vital energy and taken all life from the room now he’d gone. Tessa grimaced. He brimmed with vigour; she flopped like a wet rag!
Not surprising, she mused. Tomorrow she’d bounce back to her usual cheerful self. For now ... she was dogtired. And so she folded her arms on the table and rested her head on them. The next thing
she knew was that a hand was gently shaking her shoulder. ‘Mmm? What...?’ she muttered muzzily, lifting a face flushed from sleep.
‘Food’s ready and I’m going,’ Guy said quietly. ‘I’ve made up the bed. Will you be all right?’
Groggy from being dragged awake, she hauled herself up on her elbows. There was a plate of pasta piled high with sauce in front of her-and it smelled wonderful.
‘That looks gorgeous!’ she murmured woozily. ‘I’m starving!’ Surreptitiously she stole a glance at him, her jade eyes soft and drowsy and wary beneath her long lashes. He didn’t appear to mind that she’d virtually accused him of harbouring designs on her body, so she ventured a shy smile of gratitude. ‘And thanks for everything! I don’t know why you’ve done this. You’ve been very kind.’
‘I could hardly leave you to cope. No gentleman leaves a woman in the lurch. I’ll let myself out.’ Either Tessa’s hearing was faulty, or he sounded husky. She frowned, unable to understand why. ‘I’ll come round in the morning,’ he added.
‘No!’ she demurred. ‘I couldn’t possibly let you. You don’t need to-’
‘I do.’ To her alarm, he took her hand in both of his and stared, earnestly into her rapidly widening eyes.
All her hormones were telling her to encourage him. Luckily she found the tag-ends of her common sense and drew back, her face set in disapproval. ‘No!’ she muttered sharply, her pulses racing like wildfire from the warm intimacy of his hands. Guy gave her one of his heart-stopping smiles. ‘I must,’ he said with a helpless shrug. ‘You know you have something I want very badly. And I think you’d like to give it up.’ Did he mean what she thought? ‘I-’ She cleared her throat. So she’d been right. He was an incorrigible flirt. How depressing. What about Giselle? Were there no faithful men left in the world? she wondered sadly. ‘I have nothing that would interest you,’ she said in a funny little grating voice. ‘That’s what you think. I look forward to tomorrow,’ he drawled lazily. His hand smoothed her hair, resting for a breathless moment on the nape of her neck. ‘Au revoir, Tessa; sweet dreams,’ he whispered, his lips provocatively close to hers. And, with an assured smile, he left her to burn in the most unexpected places, her mouth as dry as a desert and her eyes wide with alarm at what he might be contemplating.
CHAPTER FIVE
TESSA calmed down after she’d demolished the plate of pasta, grudgingly acknowledging that it had tasted fantastic, given the poverty of the ingredients.
Exhausted, she stumbled up the stairs, every muscle in her body aching. Ignoring the bleakness of the shuttered bedroom, with its naked bulb overhead, she slept too deeply for dreams, sweet or otherwise.
A telephone bell woke her. Its insistence penetrated her sleep-dulled brain and eventually she hauled herself from the bed and fumbled her way across the wooden boards to the door, arriving breathless in the kitchen. Without her contact lenses everything was a blur, and she crashed into a chair before she reached the phone, mercifully directed by the shrill ringing. ‘Hello?’ she said uncertainly, rubbing her bruised thigh and then hopping on one leg as she tried to ease the pain in her stubbed toe.
‘Darling!’ came her mother’s voice, warm, laughing, husky. Tessa froze in mid-hop. ‘What kept you? Now, don’t interrupt; your father’s paying for the call-’
‘Father?’ squeaked Tessa. Was this a dream? Her aching toe proved otherwise. ‘Are you with Dad?’
‘Listen!’ her mother said, impatience edging through the low tone. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be there to meet you, but I had to leave urgently for England. Don’t tell anyone! Do you understand? Not anyone! Promise!’
‘If you say so,’ Tessa said, stifling her disappointment. She’d hoped her mother had gone somewhere near, so that they could meet. The creditors must have really scared her.
‘You don’t mind staying, do you? You were going to look after the cottages anyway,’ coaxed Estelle. ‘Now they’re yours, you’ll have more incentive. Check on the guests and solve any problems that come up. Stay put whatever you do, so I can be in touch. Don’t let me down, Tessy.’
‘No, but-’
‘You’re an angel! Oh ...and if you come across anyone called Turaine, give them a wide berth.’
‘Turaine?’ Tessa croaked. ‘Guy. He’s a swine,’ her mother said succinctly. ‘Smiles like a cherub but he’s the devil himself. He’ll want the cottages, Tess. Don’t let him have them. They’re yours. Understand? You must not sell to him.’
‘Oh, glory!’ Her mind creaked into working order. ‘Why shouldn’t I sell them to him-?’
A screech cut her off. ‘Don’t! Never, ever, ever!’
‘OK, OK!’ She was shaken by her mother’s vehemence. ‘What do you know about him?’
Her mother snorted. ‘A lot. He came to bully me. Beware of him. He’s greedy, vicious and vindictive, and he wants to hurt me. Remember, you don’t know where I am. Your father and I won’t be here anyway-we’re going away for a holiday together-so don’t bother to ring or write. I’ve no idea where we’ll be.’
‘But surely-’
‘Must go. Au revoir, darling. Hold the fort. Yes?’
‘Mother-’ There was a click. The line went dead and Tessa was left holding the receiver in stunned silence. Thoughtfully, she replaced it, feeling a mixture of anger, exasperation and relief. She’d had dozens of questions to ask her mother and hadn’t got a word in edgeways. It annoyed her that she’d been left holding the baby! It seemed she would be stuck here for a while, landed with three cottages she didn’t really want. And perhaps with creditors banging on the door. They wouldn’t be too happy when they found someone else owned the cottages. Why couldn’t her mother have warned her?
Still, her parents were together. She’d dreaded telling her father that there would be no reunion for him. He must be ecstatic. And, Tessa mused, her worries about her mother’s well-being had been groundless. That, too, was a weight off her mind.
It was Guy de Turaine who presented the problem. Two-faced and apparently ruthless! Well, she’d had an intimation of that when he’d left last night, putting Giselle to the back of his mind and quite boldly making a pass. But what had caused such hatred on her mother’s part? And Guy’s vindictiveness? He’d seemed so kind... ‘Smiles like a cherub but he’s the devil himself.’ Some indictment!
She must be on her guard. Her initial instincts had been right. He was a secretive type. Two-faced. Her eyes narrowed. Maybe he’d been nice to her because he thought she was a push-over for any good-looking man and, she thought angrily, no doubt he had reckoned on softening her up and buying the cottages at a knockdown price.
No problem. She intended to avoid him like the plague. All she had to do was to sit tight, give Guy the cold shoulder and wait for her mother to contact her again and explain what on earth was going on.
She shivered. The ‘room was chilly and she wore nothing but the oversized T-shirt she’d slept in. The light seemed bright and welcoming outside, and she suddenly had an overwhelming urge to get out of the cold and gloomy house and into the fresh air.
Carefully she groped for the door, cursing her pathetic inability to focus on anything further away than a foot or so. The moment she opened it she felt as if she’d stepped into a warm bath. Her head lifted up to the fuzzy blob of yellow sun and she closed her eyes to let the heat sink into her body. The sound of birdsong
assailed her ears and perfumes drifted tantalisingly past her nostrils.
‘Oh, bliss! Darkness into light!’ And her spirits lifted in response. She would make the best of it and enjoy the day, before considering the problems ahead of her.
On an impulse she went outside, her eyes peering myopically at the ground in case she stepped on anything sharp or foul. A narrow brick path, warm on her bare feet, led down to a patch of grass, and once there she identified-more by feel than anything else-a hammock, slung underneath a tree.
‘This is the life!’ she murmured fervently, hoicking up her long bare legs and spread-eagling her
body in the hammock in a hedonistic attitude of total supplication to the warm air.
‘You took your time.’
‘Guy!’ Tessa shrieked in surprise.
Confounded, she grabbed the sides of the hammock and found herself hanging beneath it with her face a foot from the ground, like, she imagined in horror, a demented bat. Then the canvas gradually slipped out of her grasp and she dropped flat onto her stomach. Winded, she lay there for a second or two, breathing heavily, cursing fate and men who sprang surprises on her.
‘That’s a novel trick,’ came Guy’s interested tones. ‘Want any help?’
‘No!’ She’d murder him! When she got up. If she got up. ‘How...
how-did-you-get in?’ she gasped furiously, wondering if she’d done any lasting damage to her ribs and if she dared move yet.
‘Through the side gate.’ Guy said smugly. ‘I knew you’d be tempted out into the sunshine eventually.’
She lifted her head a little and peered. ‘I can’t see a gate.’
‘In the fence at the end ...’ He chuckled as she narrowed her eyes and tried vainly to focus. ‘You can’t see the gate, can you?’ he said in amusement.
‘I can barely see the fence!’ she muttered crossly.
A hand-or so she thought-waved in front of her face and she blinked dozily. ‘Quite helpless! How appealing,’ he mused, in a beautiful, satiny drawl. ‘Conjures up all sorts of amusing possibilities.’
Tessa ground her teeth, feeling very vulnerable. ‘It’s not very amusing when you keep bumping into things,’ she said ruefully, raising herself on her elbows. ‘I get through a fair amount of plasters. I’m leaving my toes to science.’ His laugh warmed her through and through. Why did he sound so nice, she thought irritably, when her mother had pronounced him a swine? ‘I’m sure science will be thrilled. They’re very cute little toes,’ he said gravely. She moved back so that the disconcerting exhalations of his breath wouldn’t have such a devastating effect on her. ‘By the way,’ he went on, in an intimate whisper, ‘I hesitate to draw attention to the fact, but your cheeks will go pink in the sun if you don’t cover them up. Though I’m game for applying protective cream if you like.’