‘Don’t!’ She jerked her head away sharply.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, startled by the venom in her tone.
‘Nothing, just… I don’t like people touching me,’ she snapped in agitation.
At once he sat back in his seat. ‘Hey, lady, cool down,’ he drawled, a cutting edge of sarcasm in his voice. ‘I only touched your hair. I didn’t try to rape you.’
Her hands were gripping the wheel so tightly, it was making them ache. She knew she had over-reacted, and now she felt foolish. A long and embarrassing silence stretched between them,” as she searched for something to say, regretting the loss of the friendly conversation that had sprung up between them.
‘Well, we’re there,’ she managed at last. ‘Look, you can see the lights over there ahead of us. The Priory’s up on the hill—to the left, just beyond the village.’
‘You live around here yourself?’ he asked.
‘Just this side of the river.’
‘It’s very kind of you to go out of your way,’ he said, and this time there was no trace of mockery in his voice.
She smiled. ‘Not at all. It only takes a minute in the car.’
It had stopped snowing, and the moon had found a tear in the clouds. Its silver light bathed the whole valley. On each side of the road the wild fells lay be¬neath a thick white blanket, cut into rough squares
by the black lines of the dry-stone walls that ran for miles across the moors.
They passed her small cottage, standing all alone behind its long front garden. A few hundred yards further on there was a hump-backed bridge across a fast-flowing river, and then the main street of the village, sloping steeply up to the square-towered church.
The dark grit-stone houses lay well back from the road behind grassy banks now obliterated by snow. Warm lights glowed in most of the windows—Ros could have told Griff the names of every occupant, the names of their children and their aunts and uncles, and probably what their opinions would be on most important topics.
She slanted another swift glance towards him. What would he make of this close-knit community—and what would they make of him? They did not easily accept strangers—had he taken that into account when he had chosen to come and live in this remote place? It was rather an odd thing to do, to leave his home and come half-way round the world to a tiny village that he had never even seen. What had driven him to it?
Where the road forked in front of the church, there were the three shops she had told him about, and the pub. The fork to the right led to a couple of farms, while to the left lay the road that climbed towards the heights of Buckden Pike. A mile or so along that road was the Priory.
Once it had had massive iron gates, but they had been taken away during the war to be melted down for tanks. It was a beautiful old house. Built of the
same hard grey stone as the houses in the village, it was a jumble of mediaeval architecture dating from the twelfth century, much of it now covered with ivy. The narrow lancet windows were heavily leaded, and the massive oak door was set in an imposing vaulted stone porch. One wing was still caged in scaffolding, but above the porch a welcoming light showed in the quatrefoil window.
The drive lay under a virgin blanket of snow, six inches deep. The tyres crunched over it as she drew the car to a halt. ‘Well, this is it,’ she remarked brightly. ‘What do you think of it?’
He studied the building in thoughtful silence for a few moments. ‘It sure looks old,’ he mused.
‘It is—up to eight hundred years old, parts of it.’
‘That’s old!’ He slanted her one of those danger¬ously attractive smiles. ‘Can I offer you a coffee?’
She hesitated, not sure what she was supposed to read into that invitation. ‘No, I… Thank you, but I’ve had a long drive from London,’ she managed to say, hoping her voice didn’t betray her sudden agi¬tation. ‘I’d better be getting home.’
‘OK.’ He didn’t seem at all offended by her refusal. ‘Well, maybe we can take a rain-check on that?’
‘Yes, of course.’
He climbed out of the car, picking up his bag from the back seat, and then turned and offered her his hand. Automatically she placed hers in it. But he didn’t shake it, as she had expected. Instead he raised it to his lips, woolly glove and all, in a gesture of mocking gallantry. And now she could see his eyes for the first time, lit by the courtesy-light in the car. They were very dark eyes, dark as sin, strangely mes¬merising. She felt her heartbeat accelerate alarmingly as she gazed into their fathomless depths.
‘Adieu, fair Rosalind,’ he murmured softly.
The spell was broken as he pushed the car door shut and the courtesy-light switched itself off. Ros blinked in the darkness, almost gasping for breath. Quickly she snatched at first gear, and the tyres slithered in the snow as she spun the steering-wheel a little too sharply.
Her own cottage was dark and very cold. As soon as she pushed open the front door, a sinuous furry body came and wrapped itself around her ankles. She stooped and picked up the cat, and cuddled her in her arms. ‘Hello, Cinders,’ she murmured. ‘You poor thing—it’s freezing in here. But I’m not going to bother lighting the fire now—let’s just have a cup of tea and go straight to bed, eh?’
The cat purred her agreement, stretching her claws and yawning delicately as Ros carried her through to the kitchen. She kept her coat on while she put the kettle on. Central heating… Maybe now that she was starting to make quite a bit of money from her books, she could afford to think about a few modern conveniences herself.
She had lived in Heather Cottage all her life. Some people might have thought it a lonely existence, but she preferred it this way. Her childhood had been very happy, even after her mother had died. She had loved nothing better than to go for long, rambling walks over the moors with her father, or to sit in front of the fire on long winter evenings while he spun her tales of history—stories of the bold seafaring adven¬
turers who had sailed the Spanish Main, fascinating intrigues of the plots behind the Jacobite Rebellion.
But her father had been quite old, and he had suf¬fered a series of strokes—the first not long after those fateful events that had led to her leaving school. She had nursed him for seven years, as he had become increasingly frail, content to live almost like a hermit, her companions those exciting characters of the six¬teenth and seventeenth centuries that he had so vividly brought to life for her.
When he had died, three years ago, some of her friends had tried to persuade her to sell the cottage, maybe move to York, or even London. But she hadn’t wanted to go. By then she had written her first book, and it had been accepted by a publisher.
She liked being on her own, doing what she wanted when she wanted. If she was absorbed in her writing, sometimes she would sit over her word-processor all night and then not get out of bed until the afternoon; another day she would be up at six and go for a long walk over the moors. Most of the villagers thought her slightly cranky, but she didn’t mind that. She could imagine herself living there in fifty years’ time, an eccentric old spinster with her black witch’s cat.
‘I expect you’d like a drop of milk, wouldn’t you. Cinders?’ she suggested as she poured her tea. Once again the cat made her agreement plain. ‘You know, you ought to bring me luck,’ she mused as she watched her lapping her milk. ‘Oh, I know my books are doing well—I’m not complaining. But just now and then, I wish I could be a pretty numbskull instead. Do you think I might have a fairy godmother somewhere, who could turn me into a beautiful princess?’
The cat regarded her in mild astonishment, and she laughed wryly at herself. ‘Oh, what am I talking about? I’m going soft in the head. Come on, let’s go to bed.’
CHAPTER TWO
Ros opened her eyes as the cold morning sunlight fil¬tered through the curtains. Shadows of her dreams had chased her into the waking world, but with a de¬termined effort she put all thoughts of the new owner of the Priory out of her mind. Shi
vering in the frosty air, she darted into the bathroom for a quick wash, and then, pulling on some warm clothes, hurried downstairs to light a fire in the big stone fireplace in the sitting-room.
She made herself some breakfast, and then went to have a look outside. It had snowed quite heavily during the night, and the wind had drifted the snow up against the front door, so that as she opened it she was faced with a three-foot-high wall of snow. She was going to have to dig herself out. With a sigh, she went to search in the glory-hole cupboard under the stairs for a shovel.
It took about half an hour to clear a path to the gate. By the time she had finished she was hot and flushed. She was leaning on her shovel, panting for breath, when suddenly a sardonic voice behind her made her spin round. ‘Good morning. You look as if you’ve been working hard.’
‘Oh!’ Damn, why did he have to come along now, when her face was like a beetroot and her hair all over the place? He was getting out of a sleek silver-grey XJS—slight damage to the front bumper suggested it 22
was the car he had run off the road last night. ‘You… you managed to get it dug out, then?’ she remarked, her voice sounding oddly strained to her own ears.
‘Yes, thanks. I was lucky—one of the local farmers came along with his tractor, and helped me haul it out. Once I’ve got the bumper straightened out, it’ll be none the worse for wear.’
‘Good.’
He surveyed the cottage with interest. ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ he remarked, smiling that much-too- attractive smile. Ros felt her heart-rate climb. ‘Is it as old as the Priory?’
‘Oh, nowhere near—it’s only about two or three hundred years old. I’m afraid it’s not in a very good state of repair, either,’ she added, suddenly embar¬rassed by the loose slates and peeling window-frames.
‘I can see that.’
‘It isn’t easy to get workmen to come out here,’ she explained defensively. ‘Anyway, when the summer comes I’ll probably give it a lick of paint myself. I meant to do it last summer, but I was very busy, and I forgot.’
‘Couldn’t you get one of the men from the village to come up and give you a hand?’ he suggested.
‘Oh, they probably would, if I asked them,’ she confessed. ‘But I don’t like to—I don’t want to be beholden to anyone.’ She chose not to add that she didn’t want to add fuel to their conviction that a woman couldn’t manage alone. She might have guessed that Griff would take a similar line.
‘Do you live here all on your own?’ he enquired.
‘Of course,’ she responded, tilting her chin at a proud angle.
He lifted one enquiring eyebrow. ‘Why “of course”?’
‘Well, who did you think I lived with?’ she coun¬tered defensively.
‘A husband would have been the obvious assumption.’
She felt herself blushing. ‘I’m not married,’ she answered with a certain amount of constraint. Now he was going to think that she was a frustrated spinster who was going to fall in love with the first passable man who was kind to her. Suddenly all she wanted to do was escape. ‘Well, thank you for dropping by,’ she managed to say. ‘I’m glad your car’s not badly damaged. I’ll see you around.’ She smiled with a con¬fidence she didn’t feel, and turned back towards the front door.
‘Hey, Ros—hold it’ he called after her. She kept walking, pretending she hadn’t heard, but he wasn’t fooled. ‘Suit yourself,’ he drawled, a mocking edge of sarcasm in his voice. ‘I was just going to point out that there’s a whole lot of snow that looks about ready to slide down on to that lean-to there.’ He shrugged his wide shoulders, and turned back to his car. ‘Now, if it can take the weight, that’s fine,’ he added, his tone implying that it was a matter of profound in¬difference to him. ‘But I’d have thought it would be a good idea to knock it down on to the path.’
‘Oh!’ She hurried back out to look. ‘Oh, my goodness—yes, you’re right—and my car’s in there. I’d better climb up.’
‘Here, I’ll do it for you,’ he offered, relenting and holding his hand out for the shovel.
‘No, it’s OK, I can manage,’ she assured him quickly. ‘Besides, it wouldn’t take your weight.’
‘Be careful, then. Where’s your ladder?’
‘I haven’t got one. It’s easy enough to get up—see, if I put my foot on this window-sill, and go up the drain-pipe…’ She matched the action to the words, scrambling up nimbly and placing her feet carefully so that the strong joists beneath the flimsy bitumen roof-covering would hold her weight. ‘Pass me the shovel.’
He handed it up to her with a grin. ‘Well, you managed that OK,’ he commented.
‘Of course. Get out of the way now, or you’ll get a snow-shower.’ He stood back, and she began to swing at the snow on the roof with the shovel, knocking it safely down on to the path below. It was only when she had finished that she realised that it wasn’t going to be as easy to get down as it had been to get up. She peered gingerly over the edge, her first foot-hold tantalisingly out of reach.
He stood with folded arms, watching her with amusement. ‘I thought you could manage,’ he taunted.
‘Oh, don’t be horrid,’ she wailed in distress. ‘Come and help me.’
He strolled over and stood beneath her. ‘Jump,’ he invited, holding out his arms.
Ros felt a wave of heat course through her body. She hesitated, staring down at the ground. The roof of the lean-to wasn’t very high, but from up on top
of it, it looked a very long way down. She really didn’t have any choice but to let him catch her.
‘Come on,’ he prompted, a provocative gleam in his dark eyes. ‘You’ll be quite safe.’
She jumped.
He caught her in his strong arms, barely moving as her weight fell against him. He set her on her feet, but he didn’t immediately let her go. ‘There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he taunted gently.
She stared up at him, hoping he would think her breathlessness was entirely due to her exertions. ‘Th… thank you,’ she stammered unsteadily.
‘My pleasure,’ he drawled, turning on that devas¬tating smile. ‘So—now we’re quits. You rescued me from spending all night at the side of the road, and I rescued you from spending all day on the garage roof.’
‘Yes.’ She wasn’t sure what to do, afraid of making a fool of herself by misinterpreting what might be no more than a friendly hug, but aware that if he held her much longer she was going to make a fool of herself anyway. ‘Well, I… if you’ll excuse me…’ she mumbled, trying to ease herself out of his arms.
He laughed—a low, husky laugh that made her shiver with heat. ‘What’s wrong?’ he taunted. ‘Anyone would think you had some reason to be afraid of me. You’re shaking like a leaf.’
‘I… I told you, I don’t like being touched.’
A flicker of annoyance crossed his face, and the smile went from his eyes, leaving them hard and cold. ‘Pardon me, lady,’ he drawled mockingly, letting her go abruptly. ‘I’ll see you around.’
‘Yes. Of… of course. Thank you for your help.’ She could feel herself starting to blush, and turned away quickly, running into the house and slamming the door behind her. She leaned against it, closing her eyes. Dammit, why had she behaved in that stupid fashion? He must be thinking she was the village idiot!
It didn’t snow any more for the next couple of days, but it stayed very cold. Ros found that the new book wasn’t going very well. For some reason, my Noble Lord Essex, cynical and scheming hero of the Elizabethan age, had started to speak with an American accent. She was having no trouble visual¬ising him—tall, dark and extremely attractive, with a hint of that suave confidence of maturity… perhaps his hair should be starting to recede just a little over his temples?
‘Damn!’ She glared at the screen of the word-processor, cross with herself for letting her mind wander. Impatiently she erased the last couple of paragraphs she had written, and then sat staring blankly at the little green cursor as it flas
hed in irri¬tating expectation, taunting her to think of the next word.
‘Oh, damn you!’ she shouted at it, switching off the power and consigning three hours’ work to ob¬livion. If only it were possible to erase her own memory so easily, at the flick of a switch. She pulled the dust-cover over the monitor, and strolled over to the window.
The sun was shining, sparkling on the snow. Above the village, a dozen children were playing with make¬shift toboggans on the slope. Beyond, she could just
see the long roof of the Priory, with its crenellated parapet and twisted sugar-cane chimneys. She stood for a long time, just gazing at it, her mind drifting aimlessly.
The buzz of the telephone startled her out of her reverie. She hesitated, staring at it blankly. Surely it couldn’t be… She snatched up the receiver with a breathless ‘Hello?’
4Ros? Hi, it’s me. How was London? Did you have a good time?’
She let go her breath in a sigh of relief. She should have guessed it would be Annie—who else would be ringing her on a Friday afternoon? ‘Yes, thanks, it wasn’t bad. How’s the baby?’
‘Beginning to kick,’ Annie announced com-placently. ‘Paul says it’s much too soon, but he’s never been pregnant. Lucy asked me this morning if I could take him out of my tummy so she could see him, and then put him back!’
Ros laughed. Annie had been her best friend ever since they were at school. She was happily married now to Paul Osbourae, the local doctor, and the proud mother of two children, with a third on the way.
‘Anyway,’ Annie went on, ‘I’m ringing up to tell you that you’re coming to dinner tomorrow night.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes. Eight o’clock. And get out your glad rags, it’s going to be posh.’
‘I haven’t got anything posh,’ Ros protested, with little hope of escaping the invitation.
‘Yes, you have. What about that nice greeny-blue thing you wore to Thea’s party?’
‘Annie, that’s the only posh frock I’ve got—and I’ve worn it to every party since the Christmas before last.’
LOVE IS FOR THE LUCKY Page 2