by Anne Mather
‘You do realise it’s after six, don’t you, Mr Oliver?’ Thomas’s anxious tone interrupted him. ‘I’m sure it’s not wise to drive down to Wales tonight. There’s reduced visibility on the M4 and the motoring organisations are warning people only to travel if it’s absolutely necessary. Don’t you think your mother would understand if you—?’
‘Forget it.’ Oliver pushed away from the table. ‘As far as Ma’s concerned, this is an emergency. Besides, there’s always the chance that the weather could worsen. I don’t want to find I can’t get there tomorrow because they’re snowed in.’
Thomas shrugged. ‘Well, if you’re determined...’
‘I am.’ Oliver was adamant. ‘But don’t worry, old man. I won’t do anything rash. If I find I’m getting into difficulties, I’ll find a motel.’
‘You hope.’
Thomas wasn’t convinced, and Oliver grimaced at the negative vibes he was giving off. ‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got enough to contend with without you jumping all over me as well?’
Thomas sniffed. ‘I’m only thinking of your welfare, Mr Oliver.’
‘I know.’ Oliver paused to give the old man a rueful look.
‘But I must say, this is the first time I’ve seen you so determined to obey your mother,’ he added peevishly, and Oliver’s lean face creased into a mocking grin.
‘That won’t work either,’ he said, looping the strap of his rucksack over his shoulder. ‘Now, I’ll phone you tomorrow, wherever I am, and I’ll give Stella your condolences, shall I? I’m sure you don’t want her to think you don’t care.’
‘I’ve already offered Mrs Williams my condolences,’ retorted Thomas indignantly. ‘Although I have to say she didn’t seem to want any sympathy from me.’ And then, because the affection he had for his employer was genuine, he said, ‘Do take care, won’t you?’
‘I will.’
Oliver patted the old man’s shoulder in passing, and then, after a regretful thought about the photographs he’d planned to process tomorrow, he picked up his keys and started for the door.
CHAPTER TWO
Laura shivered.
Despite the heat that was still emanating from the old Aga in the corner, the kitchen at Penmadoc was decidedly chilly tonight. The cold struck up through the soles of her mules and she wondered why Stella hadn’t had the stone floor removed and modern tiles installed in their stead. She could guess why, of course. The kitchen was still Aunt Nell’s domain and even Stella baulked at locking horns with her. Besides, she doubted if Stella ever entered the kitchen except to issue orders. Domestic duties and cooking had never appealed to her stepmother.
But it was a relief to find that some things at Penmadoc hadn’t changed when so much else had. Her father was dead. Impossible to believe, but it was true. Stella was the mistress of the house now. Laura was only here on sufferance.
Was it really only six months since she’d seen her father in London? He’d seemed as hale and hearty as ever, if a little more boisterous than usual. She’d put that down to his usual high spirits at seeing her again, but she wondered now if it had been a screen for something else. Stella had said that she’d known nothing about him having any heart trouble, but he could have been hiding it from her, as well.
Her stomach quivered. If only she’d known. If only she’d had some premonition that all was not as it should be. But although her grandmother had been a little fey, as they said around here, and had occasionally been able to see into the future, Laura never had. Whatever powers she’d possessed had not been passed on to her granddaughter.
According to her stepmother’s version of events, her father’s attack had been totally unexpected. He’d apparently been out riding earlier in the day. Although he hadn’t been a member of the local hunt, he’d always enjoyed following the hounds and, despite the fact that snow had been forecast, he’d ridden out that morning as usual.
Then, also according to Stella, he’d arrived home at three o’clock, or thereabouts, and gone straight to his study. She’d found him there a couple of hours later, she said, slumped across his desk, the glass of whisky he’d been imbibing still clutched in his hand.
Laura expelled a trembling breath. She hoped he hadn’t suffered. When she’d spoken to her boss at the publishing house where she worked in New York, he’d said that it was the best way to go. For her father, perhaps, she thought now, but not for the people he’d left behind. Aunt Nell had been devastated. Like Laura herself, she could see the writing on the wall.
She shivered again as tears pricked behind her eyelids, and, dragging the folds of her ratty chenille dressing gown closer about her, she moved nearer to the hearth. Thank heavens they still used an open fire in winter, she thought, hunching her shoulders. There were still a few embers giving out a tenuous warmth.
She sighed and glanced about her. She’d come downstairs to get herself a glass of hot milk because she couldn’t get to sleep. She was still on eastern standard time and, although it was after midnight here, it was still early evening in New York. She’d decided a warm drink might help, but the milk was taking so long to boil. Perhaps she should have looked for a hot-water bottle and filled that. At this rate, she’d be frozen before she got back to bed.
She started suddenly as an ember shifted in the hearth. At least, she thought it was an ember. There had definitely been a sound like something falling either in here or outside. She was feeling particularly edgy this evening and she was very aware of being alone downstairs. With the snow falling heavily outside, Penmadoc had an air of expectancy that was hard to ignore.
The milk came to the boil at the exact moment that someone tried the outer door. The sound was unmistakable, the latch rattling as it had always done when the bolt was still in place. Laura’s breath caught in her throat and she was hardly aware that the pan was boiling over until the hob started sizzling and the acrid smell of burnt milk filled the room.
‘Oh, God,’ she groaned, dragging the pan off the heat. But she was more concerned about who might be trying to get into the house at this time of night. As she listened, she was almost sure a masculine shoulder was applied to the doorframe, and while she stood there, frozen into immobility, an audible curse accompanied another assault on the latch.
Breathing shallowly, Laura left the smoking pan on the Aga and edged towards the long narrow lobby that opened off the kitchen. There was no door between the kitchen and the passage where boots and coats and other outdoor gear occupied a row of pegs. Stella called it the mudroom, but that was just an affectation. It was a lobby, plain and simple, that protected the kitchen from the immediate chill when you opened the outer door.
Breathing shallowly, Laura sneaked a look into the passage. There was definitely someone outside: a man, judging by the muffled oaths she could hear even through the door. But human, she assured herself, despising her timidity. Pushing away from the archway into the kitchen, she stepped nervously into the passage.
‘Who’s there?’ she called sharply, consoling herself with the thought that the door was apparently impregnable.
‘Who the hell do you think it is?’ the man snapped. ‘Didn’t you hear the Jeep?’
‘The Jeep?’ Laura frowned. She hadn’t known anyone was expected tonight. ‘Do you mind telling me who you are?’
‘What?’ His incredulity was audible. ‘Open the door, Ma, and stop f—mucking about.’
Ma!
Laura’s stomach clenched. Oh, no, it couldn’t be. Not tonight, not when she was wearing this old dressing gown that she’d found at the back of the closet upstairs. She’d put it on for comfort, because her father had bought it when she was a teenager. But it wasn’t particularly clean or flattering, and it clashed wildly with her hair.
‘O—Oliver?’ she ventured weakly, realising that she’d have to admit him, and he seemed to become aware that she wasn’t his mother, after all.
‘Laura?’ he exclaimed. Then, evidently reorganising his reac
tion, he said, ‘For God’s sake, is that you, Laura?’ She heard him blow out a breath. ‘What are you doing? Waiting up for me?’
Laura fumbled with the bolts at the top and bottom of the door and then, turning the heavy key, she pulled it open. ‘Hardly,’ she said, keeping her eyes averted as she stepped back to let him in. ‘Don’t you have a key?’
‘Don’t tell anyone, but they’ve yet to invent a key that can open a bolt,’ he retorted, and she guessed his sarcasm was an attempt to hide his own surprise at seeing her. He shook himself, dislodging snow from the shoulders of his leather jacket on to the floor of the passage. Then, sniffing expressively, he asked, ‘What’s that awful smell?’
‘I burnt some milk,’ said Laura defensively, closing and locking the door again before brushing past him into the kitchen. She knew she must look a sight with her hair mussed and her eyes still puffy from weeping. Not the image she’d wanted to present to the stepbrother who hadn’t seen her since she married Conor. ‘Did your mother know you were coming tonight?’
‘I thought so.’ Oliver followed her into the kitchen. Then he gestured towards the Aga. ‘Oughtn’t you to do something about that before anyone starts to think you’re trying to burn the old place down?’
‘Your mother, you mean?’ she asked tersely, plunging the saucepan into cold water before snatching up a dishcloth to mop the stove. Anything to avoid looking at him, she thought, though she was perfectly aware of how attractive he was.
‘Possibly,’ he said now, and she wished she hadn’t jumped so childishly to her own defence. She had told herself that if—when—she saw Oliver again she would behave as if the past was another country. She had no wish to go there; no wish to resurrect his memories of the naive teenager she’d been. He set down his canvas rucksack and draped a garment bag over the back of the old rocking chair that stood on the hearth. ‘Anyway, I was sorry to hear about your father. It must have been a terrible shock.’
‘Yes. Yes, it was.’
Laura didn’t look at him. She merely lifted her shoulders before continuing to scrub the burnt-in stains off the hob.
‘It was a shock for me, too,’ he added softly. ‘Your father and I might not have always seen eye to eye about things, but in recent years I like to think we grew to respect each other’s views.’
Laura stiffened her spine and forced herself to glance in his direction. ‘In recent years?’ she echoed, as her eyes took in the fact that he was broader. But it only served to give his lean frame an added maturity without adding any fat to his long bones. ‘I didn’t know you spent so much time at Penmadoc.’
‘I don’t.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘But you were in the States whereas I was available. He used to come up to London occasionally and, less frequently, I’d come down here.’
Laura tried not to feel any resentment. After all, it wasn’t as if her father hadn’t wanted her to come home. But, after her marriage to Conor broke up, it had seemed to her that she was a failure. At that, as in everything else, she mused bitterly. And Stella would never have let her forget it.
‘He didn’t tell me,’ she muttered now, turning back to her cleaning, but she was aware of Oliver crossing the room to open the fridge door.
‘Why would he?’ Oliver asked, peering inside. ‘I doubt if he thought you’d be interested.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Is there anything to eat around here?’
Laura permitted herself to view his broad shoulders. ‘Didn’t you have any dinner?’ she asked, and he swung the fridge door shut again with an impatient snort.
‘Dinner?’ His amusement was bitter. ‘What dinner?’ He gave a grunt ‘I just got back from Singapore late this afternoon. Ma had apparently been ringing for hours, trying to get in touch with me. I only stopped long enough to take a shower before driving down.’
‘Singapore?’ Laura’s curiosity was showing and she quickly changed what she had been about to say. ‘Haven’t you had anything to eat at all?’
‘Soup. And a sandwich.’ Oliver glanced into the fridge again. ‘Don’t people eat any meat these days?’
Laura hesitated. Then she said, ‘I expect Aunt Nell has the freezer stocked. She always used to do a weekly shop at the supermarket in Rhosmawr.’
‘So she did.’ Oliver gave her a sideways glance. ‘I guess I’ll have to make do with another sandwich.’ His mouth took on a humorous twist as he looked at what she was wearing. ‘That new?’
Laura held up her head. ‘Don’t you recognise it?’ she asked coldly, and had the dubious satisfaction of seeing a trace of colour enter his lean cheeks. The fact that her own face was red, too, offered little compensation, however. Once again, she’d betrayed what she was thinking and laid herself open to his contempt.
But instead of making some sarcastic comment Oliver merely closed the fridge again and leaned back against it, arms folded across his chest. ‘Okay,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s start again, shall we?’ His green eyes were narrowed and glinting with suppressed emotion. ‘I don’t want to argue with you, Laura. I know this can’t be easy for you—’
‘You flatter yourself!’
‘I mean losing your father,’ he interjected harshly. ‘For God’s sake, can’t you think of anyone but yourself? I know you don’t like me, Laura, but this is one occasion when I’d have thought you’d have put other people’s feelings before your own.’
Laura trembled. ‘It’s late—’
‘Yes, it is. But not too late, I hope!’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘Look, like I said, let’s try and come to some kind of compromise, shall we? For—well, for your aunt Nell’s sake, if no one else?’
Laura dropped the dishcloth into the sink and tightened the belt of her robe. ‘Very well,’ she said, and heard his resigned intake of breath.
‘Very well?’ he mimicked drily. He cast his eyes towards the beamed ceiling. ‘Oh, Laura, don’t make it easy for me, will you?’
‘I said—’
‘I know what you said.’ He straightened away from the door. ‘Okay.’ He held out his hand towards her. ‘Friends?’ Laura moistened her dry lips. She didn’t want to touch him. Dear God, she’d have done just about anything rather than put her hand into his. But that was stupid! Stupid! Did she want him to think she was afraid of him, that she hadn’t got over that childish infatuation that had almost ruined her life?
‘Friends,’ she got out, almost gagging on the nausea that had risen into the back of her throat, and his strong brown fingers closed about her hand.
His fingers were cold but the impact Laura had was one of heat, a fiery heat that spread up her arm and into her breasts, making them tingle with an unwelcome awareness. The warmth of his breath invaded the neckline of her robe and she felt as if she was enveloped by his scent and his masculinity. An image of how he’d looked, lying naked and unashamed on his bed, flashed briefly before her eyes, and she suppressed a groan. But it was all she could do to prevent herself from jerking her hand out of his firm grasp.
‘Hey, you’re shivering,’ he said, and Laura had to bite her lip to silence the instinctive denial. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, you know.’
‘You didn’t.’
But her voice was high and strained and he seemed to sense it. With an odd expression playing about his mouth, he lifted his hand and stroked the backs of his fingers down her hot check, and this time she couldn’t prevent her automatic response. With a strangled sound, she jerked back from him, bruising her hip against the corner of the scrubbed pine table that occupied the centre of the floor.
‘Laura!’
His irritation was evident, but she suspected neither of them was prepared for his reaction. Instead of letting her go, he went after her, his hand closing on the nape of her neck now, his thumb forcing her face up to his.
‘Is this what an unhappy marriage has done to you?’ he demanded, and she realised incredulously that he thought she was reacting to some lingering torment from her relationship with Conor. That the panic she was barely controlli
ng was something to do with her ex-husband.
As if!
‘I—’ She didn’t know what to say. Her head was swimming with the emotions his hard fingers were arousing inside her, and blaming Conor for feelings he had never been able to inspire seemed a cruel deceit. But... ‘Just let me go, Oliver,’ she said weakly. ‘I—I’m tired.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ His thumb was caressing her ear now and she thought how incredible it was that he thought he could give her any comfort. ‘Poor Laura. Do you have any idea how young you look in that robe?’
Laura felt faint. ‘Please,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Please, Oliver...’
‘It’s okay. I know.’ But just when she thought he was about to release her he changed his mind and, instead of moving aside, he pulled her into his arms. ‘You can rely on me, baby,’ he said huskily, pressing her face into his throat so that Laura could scarcely breathe. ‘I’m here for you. I just want you to know that.’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ For a moment, Laura wondered if it was she who’d spoken. It was what she should have said, she knew that, but although the hand that had been stroking her shoulder slid away she sensed Oliver was reacting to a stronger will than hers.
A suspicion that was reinforced when Stella Williams’ shrill voice continued, ‘For God’s sake, Oliver, have you taken leave of your senses? She’s not back in this house for five minutes before she’s trying to cause trouble between us.’ Laura’s jaw dropped. ‘I hope you don’t think that I—that I—was encouraging him—’
‘So what are you doing down here at this time of night?’ demanded her stepmother scornfully. She sniffed. ‘And what’s that awful smell?’ Then, turning to her son without waiting for an answer, she said, ‘I suppose you got her to let you in. Why didn’t you come to the front door? I told you I’d wait up.’
‘I did come to the front door,’ retorted Oliver shortly, giving Laura a studied look in passing. ‘I thought no one was up. There were no lights that I could see.’