A thrill ran down her spine at the thought. ‘You mean you’ll let me cook dinner first, I suppose? But I can’t actually set foot in your house until you tell me where it is.’
‘True. Pay attention.’
Avery took down lengthy instructions on how to find Jonas Mercer’s retreat, surprised to find that for her it would be little more than an hour’s drive. ‘Why did you choose a place in that part of the world?’ she asked.
‘Friends of mine live in the area. They told me about the place, I fell in love at first sight, and now it’s mine. You’ll like it.’
She probably would, too, thought Avery later, as she switched on her computer. But if she had any sense she would steer clear of Jonas Mercer and his country cottage before she fell hopelessly in love with both of them.
She shrugged irritably. She was an adult with a brain, so surely it was possible to enjoy an affair with a man, even a man like Jonas, without letting her emotions get too deeply involved. For the past three years, purely from choice, there had been no man in her life. But now Jonas Mercer had come on the scene he would leave a big hole in that nice tidy life if she kept to her rule and excluded him from it. Besides, she liked the idea of a secret lover. It was the perfect arrangement. A stolen weekend now and again was far more appealing than the hassle of living together on a daily basis.
Next morning Avery was working alone in her spare room when Frances came in to say she was wanted downstairs.
‘Who is it?’
‘Mrs Morrell,’ said Frances, rolling her eyes.
Avery scowled. ‘What on earth does she want?’
‘She wouldn’t tell me, so I put her in the drawing room to wait. It’s horribly cold in there, but I didn’t think you’d want her in your study.’
‘You thought right. Tell her I’ll be down in a minute.’ Avery went into her bedroom to find a lipstick that matched her pink sweater. She tucked a couple of stray curls into her knot of hair, shrugged into her jacket and replaced flat loafers with her tall-heeled black boots before going down to confront a woman she disliked for more reasons than Frances knew.
When Avery turned the big white porcelain knob on the drawing room door her visitor, short, dumpy and expensively dressed, eyed her apprehensively.
‘Good morning,’ said Avery, coolly polite. ‘What can I do for you, Mrs Morrell?’
‘Good morning. I know I should have rung first,’ said the woman stiffly, ‘but I thought you might refuse to see me if I did.’
‘Why should I do that?’ Avery waved a hand towards one of the brocade chairs. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
‘No, thanks. I won’t take up much of your time. I’m here about Daniel.’
‘Your son? What is Daniel to do with me, exactly?’
‘You know perfectly well,’ said Mrs Morrell with sudden passion. ‘He’s been in such a state lately I thought he was ill, but in the end he broke down and told me you saw him running away from the fire in Stow Street.’
Avery said nothing.
‘There were other boys with Daniel. It isn’t fair that he should get all the blame,’ said his mother in anguish. ‘I must know whether you intend to report him.’
‘And if I do?’
‘Tell me how much it would cost for you to change your mind.’
The words hung like icicles in the cold air of the room.
‘You actually came to bribe me?’ said Avery in disbelief.
‘If you must put it like that.’
‘What other way is there?’
Daphne Morrell opened her handbag and took out a chequebook. ‘Name your price.’
‘So you’ve come to buy me off. Does your husband know about this?’ Avery eyed her coldly. ‘Or maybe it was his idea, and he thought you might have better luck at playing on my sympathy.’
‘Certainly not! He must never know I came here.’ Painful colour rose in the other woman’s face. ‘Please, Miss Crawford, I beg you. Daniel’s a good boy. I can’t bear the thought of him in court. If you were a mother you’d understand.’
Avery’s lips tightened. She looked down at her visitor in stony silence for a moment, then turned on her heel and walked to the door. ‘Put your chequebook away, Mrs Morrell. I’m very busy, so I must ask you to leave now.’
The woman’s eyes filled with misery. ‘You’re really going to report Daniel to the police, then? Is it because I disapproved of your relationship with Paul?’
‘No.’ Avery’s eyes hardened. ‘But cast your mind back a few years to when I was Daniel’s age, Mrs Morrell. In those days you weren’t nearly so ready with your chequebook when I delivered the garments my mother had copied so expertly from Vogue, or whatever. You kept her waiting weeks for payment every time.’
The woman flinched, her face suddenly ashen. ‘So this is your revenge?’
‘Certainly not. I don’t believe in suffering the sins of the mother on the child.’
Colour rushed back into the pallid face. ‘Oh, thank God! I’m truly grateful. I can’t tell you—’
‘Not so fast, Mrs Morrell,’ said Avery crisply. ‘Before I let Daniel off I want a little chat with him. Tell him to come and see me.’
‘I fail to see why that’s necessary!’ said the other woman, bristling, then met the look in Avery’s eyes and capitulated hastily. ‘Oh, very well.’
‘Tell Daniel to come here at six this evening—on his own, please.’
Daphne Morrell paused in the hall on her way out, looking up at Avery in wonder. ‘Your mother was such a small, gentle woman. You don’t resemble her at all.’
‘I take after my father. He was in the Metropolitan Police,’ said Avery with pride. ‘My resemblance to him was an enduring comfort to my mother. Good morning, Mrs Morrell.’
Daniel Morrell was a dark, good-looking youth, so much like his brother Avery felt a pang of adverse reaction as she opened the door to him that evening.
‘Hi, I’m Dan Morrell. My mother said you wanted to see me, Miss Crawford.’ He cracked his knuckles, then flushed hectically and put his hands behind his back.
So he was nervous—excellent.
‘Good evening,’ said Avery formally. ‘Come in.’
She had intended taking the boy into the drawing room, but he looked so apprehensive she motioned him into the less daunting atmosphere of the study. ‘Sit down, please.’
Dan perched on the edge of the sofa, but Avery stood erect in front of the fireplace, taking a leaf out of Jonas’s book and using her height to intimidate.
‘Right, then,’ she said briskly. ‘Were you the one who threw the rocket in Stow Street on Bonfire Night?’
‘It was an accident, Miss Crawford. No one threw it.’ He looked up at her in appeal. ‘A crowd of us clubbed together to buy some fireworks to take to a party at my friend’s house after the display in the park, but his father wouldn’t let us fire them off in his garden and we couldn’t think of anywhere else—’
‘So you let them off behind the shops instead?’
‘We were as far away from them as possible—honestly, Miss Crawford. We couldn’t do it near any houses, or in the park, so the building plot between the pub and the shops was the only place we could think of.’ He thrust an agitated hand through his hair. ‘We took all the necessary safety precautions, I swear, but that one rocket must have been defective.’
‘So you ran away?’
He jumped to his feet, his face crimson again. ‘I’m not proud of that. But I reported the fire on my mobile while we were legging it.’
‘Something in your favour, I suppose.’ Avery looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I told your mother that I wouldn’t report you, Dan, because I don’t believe in scapegoats. If there were others involved it’s only fair they should take some of the blame.’
‘They all wanted to,’ he said urgently, ‘but I was the idiot who tripped right under a streetlight. You identified me, so it’s only right I carry the can.’
‘Highly commendable. How many of you were there?�
��
‘Three others besides me,’ he said reluctantly.
‘I see.’ Avery looked at him in silence, which had the boy fidgeting uneasily by the time she spoke. ‘Right then, D’Artagnan, you’re obviously determined to let the Three Musketeers go free, so I’ll respect that. You know your Dumas?’
‘Not the book, but I’ve seen the film,’ he said with a grin, then sobered abruptly. ‘So what happens now?’
‘Come back tomorrow at six, and I’ll let you know what I’ve decided.’
When Jonas rang later he told Avery that even if she’d released him from his promise reporting Daniel Morrell to the police would have been a bad public relations move for Mercom. ‘But you can still do it if you want to, Avery.’
‘I don’t, because he wasn’t the only one involved. In the end I told young Dan to come back again tomorrow to learn his fate.’ Avery chuckled. ‘I won’t report him, but I don’t see why he should get off scot-free. He can do some gardening for me.’
‘Good idea!’
‘What kind of punishment did you get for the girls’ dormitory crime?’
‘Brutal. I was gated for a month.’
‘How sad. Did the object of your passion wait patiently until you were free?’
‘Did she hell! The fickle jade transferred her attentions to my best friend.’
‘Oh, bad luck! Were you shattered?’
‘Heartbroken. I was really fond of Charlie.’
Avery gave a snort of laughter. ‘I walked into that one!’
They talked for a while longer, but at last Jonas told her he had a call on another line. ‘I’ve got a very dull business dinner tomorrow night, but I’ll ring you when I get home.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I do, you know. Goodnight, darling.’
‘Goodnight,’ she said huskily, and took in a deep, shaky breath as she put the phone back.
Fool! She’d been called darling countless times before in her life. But never in a voice like Jonas Mercer’s, which turned her knees and other less visible parts to jelly.
Avery was in bed the following night, trying hard to read, when Jonas finally rang.
‘Did I wake you, Avery?’
‘No. I was counting the minutes until I heard from you,’ she assured him, flippant to disguise the simple truth.
‘I wish I could believe that.’
Avery asked him about his day, but Jonas flatly refused to discuss it.
‘I see. You’re the type of man who doesn’t like a woman to worry her pretty little head about such things,’ she accused.
‘It would be a brave man who could say that to your face, Avery Crawford—’
‘I’m not pretty enough?’ she pounced.
He groaned. ‘I’m in a no-win situation here. If you must know, my day involved interminable meetings, followed by a dinner with interminable speeches. Are you satisfied?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Now, tell me about the arsonist. How did he react when you sentenced him to hard labour?’
Avery chuckled evilly as she described Daniel Morrell’s face when she’d stated that she felt compensation was necessary for the disruption her business had suffered. ‘At first he was limp with relief because I had no intention of reporting him. Then he went pea-green at the thought of asking his father to cough up financial compensation.’
Jonas laughed. ‘I wish I’d been a fly on the wall.’
‘When I said I had labour rather than money in mind, his relief was enormous. So on Sunday morning I shall have a willing, strapping lad working like a beaver in my garden.’
‘Don’t let him in the house!’
‘Why not?’
‘Teenage males are hormones on legs at that age.’
‘I’m a bit mature for young Dan’s taste, surely!’
‘The lure of the sexy older woman is irresistible,’ he assured her.
‘Speaking from experience again?’ she asked sweetly.
‘Absolutely. At one time I burned with unrequited passion for my housemaster’s wife.’
‘Before or after you were lusting for the belle of the local girls’ school?’
‘Concurrently—I had hormones to spare at that age. So scrape your hair back and leave off the lipstick and perfume.’
‘Anything else?’ she said, laughing.
‘No. I’ll ring you tomorrow. Goodnight, darling.’
Jonas rang her as regularly as the demands of his life allowed, but she never knew exactly when. Instead of waiting in for his call, one evening she had to force herself to attend one of the events that crowded the town’s winter calendar. A message on her answering machine when she came home was no substitute for actually speaking to Jonas. The sex was to blame, she told herself. After three years of abstinence it was affecting her brain.
After a lonely Saturday evening in front of a video, forewarned that there would be no phone call from Jonas, Avery got up early, ready to greet her slave labour when he arrived. To her amusement Daniel arrived early, attired in hiking gear.
‘Good morning, Miss Crawford,’ he said, smiling eagerly. ‘My mother doesn’t want my father to know I’m here, so I couldn’t bring any gardening tools.’
‘Not to worry, I’ve got all the usual things.’ Avery fetched a key and conducted him down the path to the garden shed. ‘Do you need instructions? Or do you do any gardening at home?’
‘I help my father sometimes, so I know what I’m doing,’ he said, and grinned. ‘Unless you want decking and a water feature.’
‘Nothing so fancy,’ she said, laughing. ‘The laurel hedges need trimming—but only with secateurs or clippers, please. No machinery. If you have time there’s some tidying to do in the herbaceous borders afterwards. I’ll provide coffee at ten, and you can finish in time to get home for Sunday lunch. Fair?’
‘I can work a lot later than that,’ offered Dan instantly. ‘We eat at night.’
Avery shook her head. ‘Thanks just the same, but I blow the whistle at twelve-thirty; no overtime required.’
To keep an eye on her young gardener Avery took some sewing up to her bedroom and watched from her window as Dan set to with a will in the back garden. He really did know what he was doing, she noted with approval.
Ignoring Jonas’s warning, Avery called Dan in for a break, as promised. He shed his muddy boots at the door, washed his hands at the sink, and downed several biscuits with his coffee at the kitchen table, plainly feeling much easier in her company after his labours. The moment he’d finished he thanked Avery, pulled on his boots, and went out into the garden to resume his labours.
When Avery called a final halt at the end of the morning Dan offered his services for the following Sunday.
‘I didn’t do half as much as I’d hoped today,’ he said apologetically.
‘I didn’t expect you to. You’ve done marvels and I’m grateful,’ Avery told him. ‘But no further labour required. I won’t be here next Sunday,’ she added, smiling.
Next weekend she would be with Jonas.
CHAPTER SIX
AVERY set out on the following Saturday morning in tearing spirits, feeling like a teenager with a first crush at the prospect of seeing Jonas again.
Once the fast major road was behind her the route took her along winding minor roads, with views of rolling landscape and green Herefordshire fields which gleamed in the frosty sunlight which had replaced the wind and rain of the day before. She sang along with the radio as she drove at a leisurely pace, happy to take time to look at the scenery rather than get from A to B in a hurry. She was longing to see Jonas but she had no intention of arriving at the cottage too early, just the same. She wanted him there before her, waiting impatiently, with a fire blazing in what was sure to be a big fireplace—maybe an inglenook, if the cottage was old. Jonas had said very little about it, but she pictured his retreat as old and cosy, with beams and uneven floorboards, maybe even a four-poster bed.
At the thought of bed Avery’
s excitement intensified, and she came to the final landmark on the route. The village was pure picture-postcard, with an ancient church in the background, black and white half-timbered cottages, and a couple of inviting pubs lining the main street. At any other time she would have lingered to explore, but she put on speed instead once she was out in open country again.
His house, Jonas had told her, was on private property near a lake, and a little further on she spotted the sign for Eardismont. She turned cautiously down a farm track and negotiated a couple of cattle grids en route, until a glint of water confirmed that she was on target. But as she drew nearer her eyebrows rose. The building by the lake was no half-timbered cottage. It was, or had been, a barn, and it obviously belonged to Jonas because he was waiting outside, hair blowing in the breeze and his face alight with a smile of welcome.
The moment Avery switched off the engine Jonas scooped her out of her seat, his mouth on hers before she could say a word.
‘You’re late,’ he said, raising his head a fraction.
‘I wanted you to be here first, waiting impatiently,’ she said breathlessly, and kissed him back.
‘You got your wish,’ he growled, and kissed her again. ‘Let’s get your gear in the house and have lunch.’
‘I want to explore this famous retreat of yours first!’
‘That won’t take long.’ He took her velvet windbreaker, smiling at the look on her face when she crossed the threshold. The main room, which appeared to take up most of the ground floor space, was furnished with magnificent disregard for the building’s origins. Plain natural linen hung at the tall windows and covered a pair of sofas large enough to suit someone of Jonas’s dimensions. A square of glass supported on a marble plinth stood between them, topped by a mythical winged lion.
‘Greek,’ said Jonas, following her gaze. ‘And that too,’ he added, pointing to a side table which held a bronze helmet Agamemnon might have worn.
Their Scandalous Affair Page 7