by Rosalie Ash
A sleek black Aston Martin stood amongst the battered, mud-coated machinery and Land Rover in the rear farmyard, looking almost as incongruous as Matt Larson’s smart shoes and Savile Row suit against her father’s ancient wellingtons and torn overalls.
In polite silence, Matt held open the passenger door for her, and then, amid a scattering of clucking hens, they purred out of the yard and bumped down the long, pot-holed lane.
The unnerving silence continued for several minutes until Victoria felt desperate to break it.
“This is kind of you,” she heard herself enthusing, “Although in fact it’s no distance to the village from the farm. It’s almost as quick to walk across through the churchyard to Jessica’s. This road winds backwards and forwards so much.”
Matt nodded but didn’t reply, and a quick nervous glance at his profile showed he was looking remote, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. Probably calculating the value of her family’s private possessions, she thought resentfully. Then she realised that was unfair. Matt Larson was doing his job, doing what Andrew and her father had invited him here for. If she didn’t like it, she supposed it was because she was an incurable romantic who believed everything should stay the same as it always had. Which wasn’t possible, she knew.
She glanced at him again. It was hardly Matt Larson’s fault if her father was intent on drinking himself to death at the same time as gambling away the farm’s profits, was it? She gnawed her lip, her resentment refusing to go away, and finally was sufficiently honest with herself to admit that her resentment stemmed from being completely ignored. This man had a patronising air of detachment, maybe not deliberate, but nevertheless extremely insulting. After all, she told herself fiercely, she hardly expected every man she met to fall to his knees in blind adoration, but she did appreciate a civil interest, some acknowledgement of her existence as a fellow member of the human race. He’d had a flash of her naked breasts, for God’s sake! Sitting here beside this man was like sitting next to a robot!
“So you deal in antiques? Where do you operate from?” she said, to break the uneasy silence.
“London, New York…”
“Oh, so you ship antiques out to New York from this country?”
“We have offices in those places. We ship all over the world.”
“And you live in London?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not driving back there tonight? She gave him her friendliest smile, thinking of his mention of returning to the farm in the morning.
“No. I’m staying with Jessica and Andrew for the weekend,” he said expressionlessly. They were driving into the village now, and pulling into the sweeping drive in front of Jessica’s long stone cottage. For some reason, Victoria’s heart seemed to plummet in dismay at the prospect of having Matt Larson for a fellow weekend guest. Maybe it was because his attitude conveyed a distinct lack of enthusiasm on the same subject!
“Oh, that’s nice”, she heard herself babbling, her usually light rapid speech accentuated through slight nervousness, “You’ve probably gathered I’m staying here too.”
Matt cut the ignition and turned strange, silver-grey eyes on her, studying her confusion with a detached amusement. Although he appeared far too polite, and presumably uninterested, to allow his gaze to roam down over the silhouette of her figure beneath her T-shirt and denim shorts, his inspection still made her painfully self-conscious, body-conscious. She was aware of her lack of make-up, her hastily tied ponytail and grimy knees and hands. She felt like a grubby schoolgirl under that cool scrutiny, or worse still like a specimen on a laboratory table, being mentally dissected.
“Yes, I did gather that,” he said, with a glint of mockery in his eyes.
It took quite a lot to make Victoria annoyed, and she rarely took a dislike to people, particularly on first acquaintance. But this man’s condescending attitude was really getting under her skin.
Turning away abruptly, she scrambled out of the car as quickly as she could and walked away from him, without looking round, aware that he was following her as she went round the side of the cottage to the back garden.
She was saved from further efforts at communication by the chaos which met them as they reached the terrace.
Jessica had brought William’s high chair out into the evening sun to give him tea, and as she rose to greet them William quickly took advantage of the diversion to up-end his bowl of mashed banana over his head, chuckling with glee.
“Here, give him to me” Victoria offered, glad of something practical to do, darting with him into the kitchen to sponge the food from William’s wispy red hair while Jessica produced wine and glasses. “Come on, poppet, Auntie Victoria will take charge of you now. We’re kindred spirits, aren’t we, Wills?”
“Well, careful, he’ll only twist your nose and pull your hair,” Jessica laughed as they emerged on to the terrace again and she proceeded to pour generous splashes of Andrew’s best white Bordeaux into three glasses. “There, I’m always nervous of serving wine to you, Matt. You hardly ever drink, do you, and when you do, you only drink the best, I seem to remember! Is it a good wine, do you think?”
“I’ll give you my verdict in a minute.’
Victoria risked studying him under her thick, gold-brown lashes, wondering caustically if he ever actually smiled properly, and how nice he might look if he did. She really ought to suggest it to him. Anything which dispelled that arctic chill from his features would be an improvement, if only a slight one.
She met his eyes then, that arrogant penetrating gaze, and looked away quickly. Her breath suddenly felt constricted in her throat. Her mouth had become uncomfortably dry.
She took a gulp of wine and concentrated on William’s antics on her lap.
“Ouch, that hurts, young man,” she said, carefully disentangling his sticky fingers from her long red ponytail, “Don’t pull hair!”
“Dopple hair!” William announced proudly, and repeated it several times as he tried to grab another handful. Laughingly holding her riotous curls on top of her head, out of reach, Victoria raised an eyebrow at her elder sister.
“Did you hear that? This baby is going to be a genius.”
“Hmm. Genius or master criminal,” Jessica said, eyeing her son with wry tolerance. “Look at him, ‘Just William’ sums him up. He’s even getting freckles.”
“Where from, I wonder?” Victoria said, extending a long creamy arm, tanned a smooth pale shade of tea from her summer spent roaming Europe with a group of student friends. She compared it with Jessica’s identical skin. “We might be redheads, but we don’t have redhead skin!”
“We’ve got Mother’s skin, that’s why. There was a hint of illicit Spanish somewhere back along the Urquhart line, I believe, wasn’t there? Didn’t Great-Great-Great-Grandfather do something shocking with a Spanish senorita?”
“No idea! I’m studying history, not genealogy. I think you just made that up.”
“No, honestly, I’ve always thought that’s where you get your Gallic arm movements, it’s your Spanish ancestry coming out!”
“What absolute rubbish,” Victoria said, laughing, “And anyway, that doesn’t explain where William gets his freckles.”
“From Andrew - don’t tell me you’ve never noticed that your brother in law has freckles!” Jessica laughed teasingly, then turned to Matt with eyebrows raised, “Well? What’s the verdict on the wine? I’m sure you wouldn’t be as rude to say it’s nasty anyway. It’s one of Andy’s prize vintages.”
“Works for me,” Matt said, with a brief smile.
Victoria was fascinated to watch Jessica’s efforts to thaw their guest, and the degree of success as Matt Larson appeared to melt a fraction under the dazzling smile, the slanted brown eyes dancing in Jessica’s beautiful, high-cheek-boned face as she tossed her long, red-gold hair in the sunlight. This, Victoria realised, was a new role her sister enjoyed playing since she stopped work to have William. The decorative, gracious, perfect wife and mothe
r, cleverly hiding a sharp corporate accountant’s brain, with a membership of Mensa and her last earnings approaching the super-tax bracket.
She reflected on the family she’d been born into. There were three of them; she was the youngest, the baby of the family, then Megan the middle one, and then Jessica, the eldest at 27. Physically, she and Jessica were almost mirror-images, both taking after the Urquhart side, apart from her own red-gold hair curling in a long, unruly cloud down her back, whereas Jessica’s hung stick-straight and enviably glossy and smooth. Megan had blond hair and dark blue eyes, inherited from their father’s side. She’d suddenly become rebellious and moody in her early teens, picking fights with everyone, constantly quarrelling with Dad, driving Mum into tears of despair and she’d left home at sixteen, gone to live with Aunt Grace, Mum’s sister, in Northumberland. They’d last met, briefly, at Mum’s funeral last year. Megan kept in touch by phone, and with birthday cards and a flying visit each Christmas, but she was apparently quite happy now living and working in Alnwick, staying well out of the way of the rest of her family.
Victoria cuddled William thoughtfully, thinking about how abruptly Megan had left all those years ago. And how much she missed her. She was only half listening to the conversation between her sister and Matt Larson, until she realised that Jessica had just asked her something and was waiting patiently for an answer.
“Sorry - what did you say?”
“I said, how was Dad?”
“Oh, the same. He’s really missing Mum, I think, but he promised to eat that pie tonight.”
“I sent Matt straight over when he arrived, because having tried your mobile and getting no reply I knew you’d still be there, and really I don’t think Dad’s got a clue what there is in the house! Did you show Matt where everything was?”
Victoria looked guilty. “I must admit I’d disappeared down to my old spot in the woods, with some books” she explained awkwardly, “I ..er ..I was doing some important revision when Dad and er…Mr Larson found me!”
She blushed again but grinned involuntarily at Matt, trying to quell her earlier resentment. If he was staying here for the weekend, she could hardly maintain a sulky silence towards him all the time. Besides, sulking wasn’t in her nature.
Seeing Jessica’s raised eyebrows, Matt said, “Victoria appeared to be revising a very impressive circus act.”
Jessica laughed. “Oh, say no more. I expect she was walking on her hands, right?”
Victoria nodded, and Jessica laughed again. “You’d be surprised to learn that she’s actually a lot more grown up than she looks! More wine, Matt?”
“Not for me. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a shower.”
“Of course, how rude of me, packing you straight off to the farm the moment you arrived,’ Jessica exclaimed, leaping up and waving to him to follow her into the house. ‘Come on, I’ll show you your room and at least I can tell you you’ve got your own private bathroom! Bring your suitcase up.”
By the time her sister had returned, Victoria had put William into his playpen in the big beamed kitchen and was stacking his tea things into the dishwasher.
Jessica closed the door behind her, looking preoccupied, and when she had poured them both more wine she washed her hands, donned an enormous red apron and busied herself boning two pheasants she had cooked the night before. Victoria tackled a pile of potatoes, scrubbing them vigorously under the cold tap, and casting curious glances at her sister. She had half expected Jessica to launch into an enjoyable gossip about their weekend visitor, and when she stayed silent she suddenly wondered if she was thinking the same rather forlorn thoughts she had been thinking, about Mum’s death from cancer last year, and how awful it seemed for Dad to be planning to sell any of her precious things from Roundwell. Most of the furniture and ornaments in the house had been hers. The Urquharts were an old county family, and seemed to be an endless source of silver, antiques, pictures and porcelain, hence Dad’s brain wave of raising money for the farm now that Mum had gone.
Finding it hard to put her own thoughts into words for fear of sounding petty-minded, or worse still covetous of the treasures for herself, she decided it was safer not to talk about that with Jessica. Instead, she grinned at her sister’s greasy fingers as she struggled with the pheasants, scattering fiddly small bones over the huge scrubbed table.
“That smells wonderful!”she sighed, sniffing the tantalising aroma, “Don’t tell me its good for us as well! Or have you abandoned the health kick?’
“No, no, game is low-fat, low-calorie, very healthy indeed,” laughed her sister, good-naturedly, ”We’re getting crankier by the day, of course! Less salt, less sugar, less fat, more fibre. Home grown vegetables. The model family.”
“Very commendable. If you weren’t a dairy farmer’s daughter! In the circumstances, I don’t know how you dare,” Victoria pointed out, eyeing the tub of margarine on the table.
“When you’ve a little infant of your own to bring up, you’ll be just as fanatical as me about the right diet, so stop sneering!”
“I wasn’t! But I’ve no plans to have any little infants of my own in the foreseeable future. Do you want these courgettes scrubbing too?”
“Please, love. But not too hard, you’ll damage the skins. I only picked them today. And stick those potatoes on skewers, will you? They’ll cook quicker. I pre-cooked this casserole yesterday, so when I’ve dug out all the bones I’ve only got to heat it up again for an hour or so and, voila! Pheasant forestiere a la Mackenzie household!”
They worked in silence again, while William sat quietly for once in his playpen, absorbed in balancing a third brick on top of his tower, almost cross-eyed in the process, showing every sign of inheriting Jessica’s sharp, mathematical brain, Victoria thought fondly. The only sound apart from William’s laboured breathing was the whirring of the wall-clock above the Aga, and finally Victoria could stand the suspense no longer.
“All right. If you won’t volunteer the information, I suppose I’ll have to be nosey about Matt Larson. You might have warned me you were inviting him this weekend!”
“Ah, I wondered when you’d admit how interested you are in him,” Jessica grinned, expertly sliding the boned pheasant into its rich red wine sauce, and scraping the skin and bones into the bin. She put the casserole into the Aga and began to peel some cooking apples.
“He is rather gorgeous, isn’t he? I always think men with those sort of half-hooded eyes look as if they’re inviting you to bed with them all the time, but Matt is so..sort of deliciously detached. All steely reserve and repressed passion.”
Victoria fisted her hands on her hips and glared at her.
“For God’s sake, I thought you were supposed to be a devoted wife and mother!”
Jessica’s brown eyes were hard to read suddenly, “I am! That doesn’t stop me appreciating another man’s..positive characteristics, does it? That unusual colouring has a bit of Danish somewhere, according to Andrew but Matt is non-committal. His full name is Mathias. It means ‘gift of the Lord’ in Danish! How about that? Do you think it should translate as ‘God’s gift to women?’” Jessica gave an enjoyably exaggerated shiver.
‘Did he tell you that himself?’
Jessica laughed at Victoria’s pained expression.
‘No. I think I checked it out on-line once.’
“Well, I’d hardly describe him as gorgeous.” Victoria hunched her shoulders slightly in a casual shrug.
“Decided that while you were gazing at him longingly on the terrace, did you?”
“I was not! If I was gazing at him at all, I was thinking what a granite faced automaton he is!” she said, incensed by the injustice.
“Really? Based on half an hour’s acquaintance?”
“Well, I..er..I inadvertently flashed my boobs at him while I was walking on my hands and he didn’t even blink! I prefer human beings to robots!”
“What? You shameless exhibitionist!” Jessica burst out laughing.
> Victoria threw a lump of courgette at her in mock rage, then saw William’s interested face and clapped a hand to her mouth.
“Oops, sorry, bad example,” she said. Jessica nodded in reproval.
“It certainly is. If he throws wooden bricks at the other children at playgroup I’ll have to say his Auntie Victoria taught him all he knows!”
“Well I’m sorry, but come on Jessica. I’m just dying of curiosity. I have to admit it!”
“There’s not a lot to explain. I couldn’t tell you Matt was coming because I didn’t know for certain myself. He told Andrew he’d get down if he could. The pheasants last night were a hunch, that’s all.”
“And how long have you known him?”
“Oh, years. And also he’s an old friend of Andy’s through the antique and fine arts side of Andy’s estate agency. But it’s funny really, Matt is out of our class, these days. Financially, I mean.” Jessica stopped slicing apples, her face reflective, “Put it this way, if you think your brother-in-law does well out of his estate agency, you’ll be staggered by how well Matt’s outfit does out of the antique trade.”