LOVE IS FOR THE LUCKY

by SUSANNE McCARTHY

  ‘Doing what?’ she enquired, her smile a little too bright.

  ‘Putting yourself down.’

  ‘I like to get in first, before anyone else does it,’ she told him lightly.

  He laughed softly. ‘Perhaps I shall have to teach you to see things differently.’

  Ros felt her heart skid and begin to race out of control. But a small voice in the back of her head sharply whispered caution. In spite of his flattering words, she couldn’t shake off the suspicion that he was playing some sort of game that was beyond her comprehension. He was rich and handsome—he had everything he could possibly want. Maybe he was bored. Maybe it amused him to pick on someone who was vulnerable, and break them into little pieces. She was going to have to be very careful.

  The evening air was sharp with a frost that crisped the remaining pockets of snow. Griff opened the car door for her, and she slipped into the passenger seat, neatly avoiding brushing against him as he stood just a little too close. As he walked round to the other side

  and climbed in behind the wheel, she found that once again his nearness made her equilibrium falter.

  It was essential not to look at his face. She found herself looking instead at his hands as he manoeuvred the powerful car away from the kerb. They were beautiful hands, pianist’s hands, with long, tapering fingers, but they held a latent strength which showed as he lightly gripped and spun the wheel.

  His skin was still golden from the California sun, and Ros wondered with a frisson of anticipation what she would do if he tried to touch her, maybe brush accidentally against her thigh as he changed gear. But he didn’t, and she felt herself deflating with a con¬trary disappointment.

  ‘Do you like Mexican food?’

  ‘Mexican?’ She blinked at him in astonishment. ‘Well, I’ve never really tried it.’

  ‘Well, it’s time you did.’

  ‘Why Mexican?’ she asked, intrigued.

  ‘Because my cook’s Mexican.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, that’s logical, I suppose,’ she mused, although his answer begged a dozen more questions.

  He slanted her an amused smile, knowing that she was bursting with curiosity. ‘Tino and Juanita have come over from California, now that I’ve sold my house out there.’

  ‘Oh.’ She nodded pensively.

  A brand new set of gates had been hung across the entrance to the Priory, but Griff opened them at the touch of a button inside the car. Ros watched as they swung to behind them. ‘Flash,’ she murmured in a sardonic tone.

  ‘Convenient,’ he countered promptly.

  Her mouth twisted into a humourless smile. ‘You’re really dragging us into the white-heat of the techno¬logical revolution, aren’t you? Helicopters, recording studios, electronic gizmos to open gates!’

  He lifted an enquiring eyebrow. ‘You don’t like progress?’

  ‘Oh, is it progress?’ she retorted, an edge of sarcasm in her voice.

  He laughed with lazy mockery. ‘Oh, I must have been mistaken, then,’ he taunted. ‘Do you know, I could have sworn I saw electric lights in your cottage— must have been some new sort of candle, I guess.’

  For a moment she glared at him, but then an ir¬resistible bubble of laughter rose to her lips. ‘Oh, all right’, she conceded. ‘I’m just being a Luddite. I can’t wait to see the house—I dare say you’ve got a laser display in the hall and satellite communication with the servants’ quarters.’

  ‘Not quite,’ he promised.

  The car drew to a halt, and he came round to open her door for her. Her nervousness returned as he took her hand to help her from the low seat, and she moved away from him quickly as soon as she was on her feet, with a murmured, ‘Thank you.’

  But if he was aware of her agitation he took no notice, merely standing aside to invite her to precede him to the front door. It opened as she stepped up to ■ the porch, and she found herself being welcomed into > that mediaeval English house by an ageing Mexican bandit wearing a bright yellow track-suit and running shoes.

  Griff smiled at the bemused expression on her face. ‘This is Tino,’ he introduced her. ‘Tino, say hello to Ros.’

  The Mexican offered Ros his hand. ‘Well, hi there, Ros,’ he beamed. ‘I sure am pleased to make your aquaintance.’

  ‘H-hello,’ she stammered, slightly overwhelmed.

  ‘You want I should serve dinner right up, patronV he asked, turning to Griff.

  ‘Yes, please.’ He turned to help Ros slip off her coat, and handed it to Tino. ‘Well, this is the hall,’ he said, a lilt of teasing humour in his voice. ‘As you can see, no laser lights.’

  ‘No.’ She gazed around in appreciation. The walls were panelled to the ceiling in oak, rich with the patina of centuries. ‘Heavens, it must have cost you a fortune to have this restored—it was a real mess!’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a few dollars sloshing about,’ he re¬marked with dry humour. ‘I’m afraid some of the rooms aren’t habitable yet,’ he went on as he showed her into a room to the right of the hall. ‘This will be the dining-room eventually—it’s not too much of a trek from the kitchen—but for the time being it’s doubling up as a sitting-room as well.’

  It was a magnificent room. Wood-panelled like the hall, it was lit by half a dozen wall-sconces, and a real old-fashioned fire burned in a fireplace of baronial proportions. She slanted him a questioning glance. ‘1 thought you were having central heating put in.’

  ‘Only in some of the rooms. Apparently it would damage the panelling if I had it in here.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she sympathised, her eyes dancing. ‘How on earth will you manage?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll survive,’ he drawled, grinning. ‘Now, would you like a martini before dinner?’

  ‘In England we usually serve sherry as an aperitif,’ she advised him teasingly.

  ‘Oh, do we? Well, I can’t stand the stuff, so I’m afraid you’ll have to make do without.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll survive,’ she mimicked wickedly.

  He shot her a laughing glance. ‘That’s fortunate,’ he returned, sloshing a generous amount of gin into both glasses.

  ‘I see you mix your martinis very dry,’ she observed warily.

  He raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘I’ll put more ver¬mouth in if you want it,’ he offered with the air of one asked to commit sacrilege.

  ‘No, that’s all right, thank you,’ she conceded. ‘I don’t like it too sweet.’

  ‘Good.’ He brought the glass to her. ‘What shall we drink to?’ he asked in that husky, velvety voice that made her heart flutter alarmingly. She retreated strategically to the other side of the fireplace.

  ‘Oh… how about your new house?’ she suggested, lifting her glass. ‘Welcome to Arnby Bridge.’

  ‘Thank you.’ His smile told her that he sensed her nervousness, and was enjoying the power it gave him. He really was a most disconcerting man to be around. Those ebony eyes could laugh at one moment, and make her forget all her apprehension, but the next they would gleam sinfully, sending shivers of heat through her body.

  To her relief there was a tap on the door, and Tino appeared, wheeling a dinner-trolley. ‘Here we are,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘You like guacamole, Ros?’

  ‘1 don’t know—I’ve never tasted it,’ she admitted.

  ‘Never?’

  ‘I’m afraid the only Mexican food I’ve ever tried was chilli con carne, and that was out of a packet.’

  Griff and Tino exchanged expressions of exag¬gerated shock. ‘Juanita teach you,’ Tino promised her reassuringly. He wheeled the trolley over to a small dining-table that had been set up in the oriel window overlooking the porch, and then with a cheerful, ‘Eat well, Ros,’ he withdrew, leaving them alone.

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, bemused. As the door closed behind him, she turned to Griff with a quiz¬zical smile. ‘He’s quite an unusual butler,’ she remarked.

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid he doesn’t quite look the part, does he?’

  She gur
gled with laughter. ‘No, he doesn’t. When did they arrive?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  Ros nodded sagely. ‘I thought they couldn’t have been here long—I’d have heard all about them.’

  He smiled. ‘Ah, yes. The bush telegraph. I’m be¬ginning to learn how that works. I went down to get some stamps this afternoon. By the way, I understand you’re the best person to ask about the history of this house.’

  The connection between the two statements wasn’t lost on Ros. She might have guessed that the whole village would know that she was dining with Griff— dear Annie would never have been able to keep such a succulent morsel of gossip to herself.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked as they took their places at the table.

  ‘Everything, of course.’

  ‘That’s a tall order. It dates back to the twelfth century.’

  ‘We’ve got plenty of time,’ he pointed out with that beguiling smile.

  She took a deep breath, trying to slow the dis- ‘ turbing flutter of her heart. ‘OK. Well, the first part— the main hall—was built by the Knights Templars.’ ‘{

  ‘What, the Knights Templars?’ he queried, suitably impressed.

  ‘Of course. They were very powerful in those days— they owned huge estates all over Europe.’

  He listened to her with a flattering degree of interest as they ate. She tried the guacamole with a certain amount of trepidation, but found that it was really • quite delicious.

  ‘Like it?’

  She nodded. ‘Mmm, yes! What sort of bread is this?’

  ‘Not bread—tortillas. Here, have some soup—it’s one of Juanita’s specialities. Chicken and almonds, and other things she keeps secret.’

  She slanted him a questioning glance across the table. ‘They must think an awful lot of you, to come all this way to go on working for you,’ she com¬mented carefully.

  He shrugged. ‘Juanita’s practically a second mother to me,’ he told her in a voice that did not encourage further enquiry. But she didn’t want to drop the subject, so she tried again from another angle.

  ‘What do they think of Yorkshire?’

  He smiled drily. ‘That it’s cold,’ he supplied suc¬cinctly. ‘You were telling me about the Knights Templars. What happened to them?’

  Reluctantly she conceded defeat—it was evident that Griff was not going to allow her to pursue her en¬quiries any further. ‘The Templars were suppressed in 1312,’ she related. ‘They were completely wiped out, and their lands given to other Orders. It was the Cistercians who turned this place into a Priory. They were the ones who built the other wing—you can tell the period from the shape of the windows.’

  When they had finished their soup, Tino brought in the next course, a fluffy paella, yellow with saffron. ‘You’ll find this is a little spicier,’ Griff warned her, reaching for a bottle of wine that had been standing in an ice-bucket on the corner of the table and filling her glass. ‘You might like a drop of this to wash it down.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She took a cautious sip. It was a crisp ros4, with just enough character to complement the spicy food.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes. What is it?’

  ‘You won’t have heard of it. It’s from my own vineyard in California. We don’t make much of it, and even less gets sold—I usually end up giving most of it away.’

  She toyed with her food, burning with curiosity to know more about his life in America, and why he had left it behind. But she was afraid that he would be angry if she asked him any more questions. She re¬membered him telling her once that he liked to guard his privacy, and even in the years when he had been

  a superstar there had been very little information ■ available about his background.

  ‘Carry on,’ he prompted. ‘You’ve only got as far as Henry the Eighth.’

  She nodded. ‘Right. Well, by 1540 most of the ; monasteries had been sold off to wealthy families, and ; turned into private houses. This house was bought by the Morvilles.’

  ‘That was Earl Morville, was it?’

  ‘No—the peerage came much later, in the reign of George the Fourth. But it was the same family.’

  He encouraged her to keep talking as Tino brought j in course after course, each one spicier than the last. J She was grateful for the coolness of the wine, and didn’t notice how much she was drinking—it wasn’t until later that she realised it must have been too much. ] She only knew that she felt relaxed and comfortable, as if they were old friends who had always enjoyed this easy relationship. That warning voice inside her head seemed to have been lulled into a false sense of security.

  ‘So didn’t any of these Morvilles have the decency to stay and haunt the house?’ Griff asked, his eyes smiling.

  Ros gurgled with laughter. ‘I’m afraid not. But they were a pretty wild bunch. Most of them drank them¬selves to death, or came to some other disreputable end. You wouldn’t really want to share the house with a noisy, drunken ghost, would you?’

  ‘I guess not,’ he agreed, pretending to give the point solemn consideration. ‘What happened after them?’ J;

  ‘The estate passed to some sort of cousins. Good, j solid Victorians—you wouldn’t want to be haunted

  by them, either. Dreadfully dull.’ He nodded his head in agreement. ‘I suppose there might have been some possibility from World War One,’ she mused. ‘It was a troop hospital then. And then after the war it was turned into a lunatic asylum for a while.

  ‘I hope none of them have lingered on!’

  ‘Not that I ever heard of,’ she reassured him, her eyes dancing. ‘Anyway, it was closed in about the mid-thirties, and the house was empty for a bit, until the Second World War broke out. It was some sort of hush-hush place then. After that, the Salvation Army took it over and made it into a kid’s home—it was still used for that when I was little. We often used to come up here to play. They closed it down about twelve years ago, and it was going to be made into a hotel, but the firm went bankrupt, and the bank’s owned it ever since. They used to use it for meetings and things sometimes, but it’s mostly been empty.’

  ‘Quite a saga,’ he remarked, topping up her wine¬glass yet again. ‘I never dreamt the place had been through so many changes.’

  ‘Mmm. But it’s happy now,’ she told him, reaching out her hand to touch the cool stone of the window-sill. ‘You can feel it—it’s as if the house itself is alive.’ Suddenly she realised how stupid she sounded, and blushed vividly. ‘Oh, hark at me,’ she laughed, picking up her wineglass and draining its contents in one nervous gulp. ‘That was a lovely meal,’ she added, smiling a little too brightly. Was she talking too much? The alcohol was swirling in her veins, making her feel deliciously light-headed.

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’

  Damn the man! Why was he smiling like that? Why did he have to look at her as if he were imagining what she looked like without any clothes on? And the awful thing was, she could feel herself responding, just as if his gaze were caressing her naked body. Could he tell? Was that why his dark eyes glowed, as if there were an elusive flame deep inside them?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ros blinked, startled, as the door opened again and Tino came into the room carrying a coffee-pot. How long had she been staring at Griff like that? At least if he found her behaviour odd, he made no comment. With an effort of will, she pulled herself together.

  ‘You want coffee, Ros?’ asked Tino, as friendly as if he had known her for years.

  ‘Y-yes, please,’ she managed to reply.

  ‘Cream?’

  ‘Yes, please—but no sugar.*

  He grinned at her. ‘You ain’t on a diet, are you?’

  She burst out laughing. ‘Heavens, no! I’m far too skinny already!’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ murmured Griff, letting his gaze linger deliberately over the warm swell of her breasts, emphasised by the softly draped style of the silk blouse. She felt her cheeks tinge with pink und
er that dark-eyed survey, and he laughed softly. ‘Do you know something?’ he mused. ‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever known over the age of fifteen whom I can make blush so easily.’

  She felt herself blushing harder, and tilted up her chin, angry with him for making her feel like a silly chit of a schoolgirl. Tino poured the coffee, and then collected up the debris of the meal and left them alone again. Absently Ros picked up a teaspoon to stir her coffee, gazing out of the window.

  She could see the lights of the village twinkling further down the hill, but beyond it was pitch dark, except for the occasional twin beams of car head¬lights on the road through the dale. The moon and stars were hidden by cloud, and the wild heather-banked moor was invisible.

  ‘Have you finished stirring your coffee?’

  Once again she was startled, realising that the spoon was clinking against the side of the cup. He was smiling, knowing exactly what it was that was dis¬tracting her—he was causing it, quite deliberately. He was weaving spells in the air like a magician, binding her with invisible bonds until she would be com¬pletely in his power.

  She sipped her coffee, avoiding his eyes. It was rid¬iculous—at her age, she really ought to know how to handle a situation like this with finesse. Thea would know exactly what to do—or even Chrissie, and she was only twenty-one!

  She drew a deep breath to steady her nerves, and forced herself to speak. ‘Well, now that you’ve had a chance to see the place properly, do you think you’re going to like it here?’ she enquired, hoping her voice sounded cool and sophisticated.

  ‘I’m sure I shall.’

  He was looking straight at her, as if meaning to imply that her presence was one of the main reasons why he was going to like it. Careful, Rosalind, she warned herself, not for the first time. This seductive charm was his stockin-trade, and he seemed to be quite unscrupulous about the way he used it.

  ‘I was afraid we might not have given you a very : good first impression,’ she burbled on. ‘I mean last

  night. It was… well, I suppose small-town bitchiness is the same the world over.’