Bittersweet Deception

by Liz Fielding

  Kate had not needed to look at the menu, using it only as a shield to recover her composure. ‘A scone, please with fresh cream and raspberry jam.’

  ‘Is that all?

  ‘For the purposes of market research, Mr Warwick, it will do well enough.’ The waitress brought their tea. ‘I’ll pour, shall I? I don’t imagine you’ve had much experience with all those willing ladies eager to pander to your every whim.’

  He bared his teeth at her as she poured two cups of tea. The waitress returned with their scones and Kate considered the offering.

  Jay took the cup she handed to him and raised an enquiring brow as she broke the scone open, sniffed it, then pushed the plate away. ‘Well?’ he asked, slightly startled by this performance.

  ‘This is a mass-produced scone. It could be purchased in a packet in any supermarket and will last for days.’

  ‘Isn’t that good?’

  Kate propped her elbows on the table and leaned her face on her hands. ‘That is a matter of opinion, Mr Warwick. But it isn’t what Tisha has in mind, and if this is the kind of stuff you’re prepared to offer your customers you certainly don’t need me.’

  Jay Warwick regarded her over the edge of his teacup. ‘I thought we’d already established that.’

  Kate stiffened. ‘You don’t give up, do you?’ she said, furious with herself for being lulled into a false sense of security. If she was the one to crack, his aunt could hardly blame him.

  He produced a note and, dropping it on the table, rose to his feet. ‘How long do you think you will be able to stand it?’

  ‘As long as you can dish it out,’ she retorted.

  His smile was grudging. ‘Have you seen enough? Or should we check up on the Copper Kettle?’

  ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Mr Warwick. At Fullerton Hall, as I’m sure you already know since you seem to be quite bright, you’ll have a captive audience. And this place, at least, offers no incentive to escape.’

  ‘That was nearly another compliment,’ he said, a little brusquely, opening the car door for her. ‘Aren’t you afraid it will go to my head?’

  Kate glanced up at him as she tucked her seatbelt into place. ‘I’m sure an ego as large as yours can handle it.’

  His eyes darkened and she saw with a sudden shock that she had made him angry. ‘Damn you,’ he said, and shut the door with rather more force than was necessary and turned away.

  ‘Jay!’

  He narrowed his eyes against the slanting sun and cursed softly under his breath. ‘Hello, Mike.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were home.’ A man, a little above average in height and with soft brown hair, hurried across the square towards them. He glanced in the car at Kate and then, pointedly, at Jay.

  Jay performed perfunctory introductions. ‘Kate Thornley, Mike Howard.’

  Mike offered Kate his hand through the window. ‘Hello, Kate,’ he said warmly, his eyes riveted on her face.

  She took the proffered hand and found it held firmly. ‘Hello, Mike,’ she said and swallowed a smile as a warning shadow crossed Jay Warwick’s face.

  ‘Miss Thornley is organising the catering at the house,’ he said coolly. ‘We’re opening in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘You’ve decided to go ahead, then?’ Admiration lit the other man’s eyes as he regarded Kate. ‘Quite an undertaking. When’s the big day? I shall certainly make an effort to be there.’ He had addressed himself to Kate, but it was Jay who answered.

  ‘It will be advertised.’ He made an impatient move and Mike Howard reluctantly surrendered Kate’s hand.

  ‘I’d better let you get on, then. I’m sure you’ve a lot to do. I’ll see you again soon, Kate.’

  She smiled rather more warmly than she might normally have done as he waved and walked away across the square.

  ‘He’s the estate agent for the National Trust in this area,’ Jay told her, as he climbed into the driving seat. ‘In case you wanted to make a note.’ There was something about the way he said it that made her look up.

  ‘I might,’ she said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT was a breathless, angry drive back to the hall and it seemed only minutes before he slid to a halt alongside her van, still parked where she had left it when she arrived the evening before.

  Kate moved to open the car door but Jay’s hand detained her. For a moment she stared at his long fingers gripping her wrist with quite unnecessary force, then, suddenly furious with him, she flung up her arm, jerking free of his hold, and looked up. About to make a cutting remark, she was stopped in her tracks by the intensity of eyes gleaming with the hardness of agate.

  ‘Behave yourself, Miss Thornley,’ he advised her, in deadly earnest. ‘This is a small community and I won’t have Tisha embarrassed.’

  ‘With you as a relation I should think that must be her permanent state of mind. Or are you so insensitive you don’t even realise your public remarks about women might be considered offensive?’ she came back at him, but if she thought he would be in the least disconcerted he immediately disillusioned her.

  ‘The truth is often difficult to take,’ he replied, and she was the one momentarily shaken by the utter conviction with which he spoke.

  Whatever malicious quirk of fate had managed to twist her life in twelve short hours from one of comparative contentment to one of total disarray she had no way of knowing. But she was stuck with it. And so was Jay Warwick, and he needn’t think she was going to lie down and let him walk all over her just because he had leapt to the wrong conclusion about her morals. It had been very easy to manage without the dubious comfort of a man in her life since breaking her engagement to David, but Jay Warwick had no right to dictate what she did with her private life. ‘What I do when I’m not working is none of your business, Mr Warwick,’ she told him. ‘Just leave me to get on with what I’m paid for.’

  ‘So long as that’s all you get paid for,’ he said harshly.

  ‘How dare you?’ Kate felt the colour flooding upwards from her neck. ‘You are quite the most insufferable man it has ever been my misfortune to meet!’

  His eyes sparked with gold lights. ‘Is that so?’ He leaned towards her. ‘Well, you’re going to have to learn to suffer, Miss Kate Thornley,’ he said, slowly and carefully. ‘I advised you to leave this morning. Perhaps you should have taken my advice while it was still possible. It’s too late now.’

  ‘Is it? Because you have to keep your aunt sweet in case she doesn’t leave you all this?’

  ‘Leave me…?’ His laugh was short and unpleasant. ‘Dream on, sweetheart. I choose to keep Tisha sweet, as you so charmingly put it, because she gave up her own home to look after me when my mother jettisoned her responsibilities. Fullerton Hall, Kate, belongs to me.’

  Kate felt the colour drain from her face as she absorbed the implication of his words. Trying desperately to keep her poise, she said, ‘Then…I work for you?’

  His tiger’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction at the effect of this revelation. ‘You work for me,’ he confirmed. ‘And I’ll make it my business to remind you of that fact if you step out of line.’

  ‘It would make life a whole lot easier if you would just stop…’ Kate faltered.

  ‘Stop what?’

  Tearing her up with his eyes. Making her aware of her body as no one had for years. The air between them seemed to vibrate with sexual tension. With a jolt, Kate quite suddenly knew exactly why Jason Warwick was so angry with her. She turned and fumbled desperately with the unfamiliar door-catch, urgently needing to get away from him. He was around the car in a moment to open the door for her, but he barred her escape, staring at her with a fierceness that chilled her.

  ‘Please. Let me go.’ His eyes narrowed at the sudden pleading in her voice. But he immediately stood back, releasing her, and she was out of the car before he could change his mind. But he hadn’t quite finished with her.

  ‘Since you are staying, Kate, perhaps you would be kind enough to put t
hat heap—’ and he indicated her van ‘—somewhere out of sight. There’s plenty of room in the coach-house.’

  Her hands shook as she searched for the keys in her bag. Eventually she found them and after considerable coaxing under his impassive gaze, the van finally relented and burst into noisy life. Her foot unsteady on the clutch, she hiccuped the vehicle rather jumpily into the shelter of the coach-house. She sat for a while within the safety of its hard-used frame, wishing it were possible just to drive away as far and as fast as she could and never look back. But she had committed herself.

  And she had to be practical. She always had to be practical. She had nowhere to run to. She climbed from the van, eschewing the false security it seemed to offer. She had supplies to order, staff to find, far too much to do to worry about Jay Warwick. Yet as she worked in the little office in what had once been a butler’s pantry, she was edgily aware of his presence in the house, jumpily certain that he would appear at her shoulder at any moment. It might almost have been a relief if he had, she decided in the end.

  Nancy had laid three places in the small dining-room close to the kitchen that was used for all but the grandest occasions. Kate had queried it with the girl.

  ‘It’s Lady Maynard’s orders, Miss Kate,’ Nancy replied, and Kate had had to be content with that. But as the girl settled the tureen of soup on the table she couldn’t help thinking that eating with her young trainee at the kitchen table would be altogether preferable. Any pleasure in Fullerton Hall seemed to have evaporated in the heat of Jay Warwick’s presence. She looked up as the door opened and the man in question entered the room.

  Lady Maynard settled herself at the table and shook out her napkin, asking how she had spent her day, while Jay opened a bottle of wine.

  ‘Kate? Can I tempt you?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Warwick,’ she said, and he filled her glass.

  ‘No need for such formality, Kate,’ Tisha Maynard, protested. ‘Tell her to call you Jay, darling. Everyone else does.’

  He regarded her steadily as she ladled out hot soup. ‘Kate can call me by whatever name she chooses.’ A glint in his eyes suggested that he didn’t believe her choice was likely to be anything as complimentary as his given name.

  Kate ladled piping hot soup into his dish, fervently wishing it were his lap. ‘Jay will be just fine,’ she said, congratulating herself on her restraint.

  Lady Maynard kept the conversation going, eager to hear how things were going, and Kate launched into an outline of the ideas that had already formed in her mind. Other than the occasional response to his aunt’s eager prompting, he added little to the discussion, but she was conscious of him listening, watching her, every moment.

  Afterwards she declined an invitation to join Tisha in the drawing-room for coffee, retiring instead to her office to continue the detailed planning, now that the broad strokes were in place. She was reading through a series of lists, double checking, when she suddenly became conscious of being watched. She looked up to find Jay standing in the doorway and regarding her with something approaching amusement.

  ‘Do you normally become so engrossed in what you’re doing?’ he asked.

  She flushed, only too aware of her habit of muttering out loud when she was planning anything. ‘How long have you been standing there?’ she demanded.

  ‘Quite long enough.’ His unexpected laughter was disconcerting. It made him seem too human. ‘I was rather hoping you would be making some coffee.’

  Kate glanced at her watch, a very large one with cartoon characters on the face, bought for her birthday by Sam. ‘It’s rather late for coffee.’

  He followed her glance and for a moment his eyes rested upon the watch and his eyebrows rose slightly. ‘I would have thought that was for me to say.’

  She shrugged. If he couldn’t sleep, that was his problem. ‘Can I make something for Tisha?’

  ‘She has already gone to bed.’

  ‘Oh.’ She suddenly felt very alone with Jay Warwick in Fullerton Hall. Alone in the small circle of light thrown over her desk by the lamp that left the rest of the room in darkness, and it was a relief to have something positive to do, an excuse to escape such close confinement with him. She stood up and waited for him to move so that she could pass without touching him. For a moment he remained where he was, challenging her almost to risk bodily contact. Then, when she didn’t move, he stepped back, an ironical smile twisting his lips. She found a mug and spooned in instant coffee, quickly wiping up a few grains that had unaccountably missed their target.

  He took the mug she offered, but instead of disappearing as she had hoped, he followed her back to the office and lodged himself on the table and picked up the list she had been working on. ‘Will we really need all this?’

  Happy to keep his mind on business, she nodded. ‘And more. Do you have an account with a food wholesaler?’

  He raised a dark brow. ‘We don’t normally eat in this quantity. No doubt one can be arranged.’

  ‘The sooner the better. They’ll want to check your credit rating.’

  ‘Will they? I think you’ll find my name will be sufficient to guarantee my credit. I’ll sort it out tomorrow.’ Jay’s leg swung nonchalantly. ‘Will that be soon enough?’

  ‘If that’s the earliest you can manage, it will have to be,’ she replied coolly.

  He raised an unsettling smile. ‘I’m going to take Tisha’s idiotic dog for a walk before I go to bed. I don’t suppose you’d care to join me?’

  For the walk or in bed? She coloured as the thought jumped unbidden into her mind. ‘No,’ she said. Then, aware that she had been abrupt, she added a reluctant, ‘Thank you.’

  He bowed slightly. ‘I’ll say goodnight, then, Kate.’

  ‘Goodnight, Jay.’ And she made sure she was upstairs in her own room with the door shut long before he returned.

  She opened her diary and noted with a slight shock that copy was due for her cookery column in the Evening Mail. The days were flying by at a ridiculous speed.

  When she had told the woman’s page editor that she would be in the country for a few months, she had suggested that Kate take the opportunity to try something rather different from her usual straightforward dinner party recipes. Easy enough to agree to write a country diary on the spur of the moment, she thought, pulling her portable typewriter out of the cupboard where she had stowed it, looking around for somewhere to work.

  She cleared a space on her dressing-table, rolled in a clean sheet of paper and stared at it blankly. Nothing had happened. She corrected that thought. Nothing had happened that she could possibly write about.

  Tentatively she began to type. She began with her first impressions of the house in the hope that something might spark an idea. She heard Daisy’s paws scuffling up the oak staircase that led from the hall, followed by the crisp step of Jay Warwick. She sensed rather than heard him pause outside her door and she stopped typing, uneasily wondering if she had remembered to lock it. The footsteps continued and she stared at what she had written in despair. Hopeless. She tore the sheet out of the machine and crumpled it up. She decided to write to Sam instead.

  Half a page into her letter the idea hit her. She abandoned Sam’s letter to finish another time and began to write. ‘Dear cousin Kate,’ she wrote. ‘I am writing to tell you about a new position I have taken in the country with a gentleman by the name of—’ she paused and searched her brain for a suitable pseudonym ‘—Mr Jack Wessex. He has a house in London as well, so you may have met him since he appears to be quite fond of cooks. At least he was most friendly to me when he came into the kitchen…’

  * * *

  A good night’s sleep put everything into perspective. Writing her ‘Letter from a Country Kitchen’ had proved a safety valve. Poking a little fun, however anonymously, at Jay Warwick had released the tension, allowing her to see the ridiculous side of the situation. The fact that he would never know hardly mattered, and doubtless he would be returning to London within a d
ay or two. Now she was eager to meet the challenge that Tisha Maynard had given her.

  And she seemed to be proved right, since his mind seemed firmly set on business when he emerged from his study shortly before ten. ‘Kate, I’ve organised a wholesaler for you. If you’re ready I’ll take you there now.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ she said. He glanced at her and she realised that she had sounded less than grateful. ‘I can’t believe it’s quite your cup of tea.’

  ‘Your belief is well-founded. But you don’t know where it is and I have to go into Norwich anyway.’

  ‘In that case I’ll follow you in the van.’ He didn’t argue and she fetched her bag and crossed to the coach-house. There was an empty space where she had parked it. Nonplussed, she looked about her. It couldn’t have been stolen. Who on earth would take it when there were four other vehicles, all gleaming expensive motors, parked alongside? Then she knew and angrily turned to confront the undoubted author of its disappearance.

  He was framed for a moment in the doorway, his hands jammed tightly in his pockets as he regarded her confusion. He had referred to himself as skinny, but he was far from that, Kate thought. A pair of faded jeans clung to strong well muscled legs and stretched tightly across his hips, and his wide, square shoulders blocked out more than his fair share of the sun. He held himself with the ease and assurance of someone comfortable with his own body and he moved towards her now with a careless grace that made her want to scream.

  ‘Where is it?’ She felt that her restraint deserved a medal.

  ‘I had the garage tow it away. It is clearly in need of a serious service.’

  ‘Possibly,’ she acceded. ‘And when I can afford it, it will have one.’

  ‘While you work for me you’re my responsibility, Kate, and I insist that any vehicle you use on my business is totally roadworthy. Is it properly insured for business use?’