by Penny Jordan
‘Kate…’
The anxiety in her mother’s voice as she called to her took her hurrying to the top of the stairs.
‘Annabel’s gone,’ her mother told her worriedly. ‘Could you go and look for her? I’m right in the middle of baking.’
Annabel was the latest in a long line of nanny-goats her mother insisted on keeping, despite their destructive tendencies, for she claimed that their milk was far healthier than that from cows. As Kate went downstairs in response to her mother’s summons, she learned that Annabel had chewed through her tether and wandered off.
‘If she gets into the government place, there’ll be such trouble,’ her mother worried. ‘There was such a to-do the other week. Some group or other broke in…They’re very security conscious.’
‘I’ll go and look for her. She can’t have gone far,’ Kate reassured her, knowing the breed’s penchant for stopping to eat whatever took its fancy.
She suspected she would find the animal less than a few yards down the lane, but she discovered that she was wrong, and she had walked as far as the boundary of her father’s land with that now owned by the experimental station before she realised she was wrong.
Surely Annabel couldn’t have strayed in there? she reflected, gazing at the high, heavy fencing that reared unattractively above the mellow stone walls that bounded the estate.
Worn stone steps set into the wall showed where there had once been access over it, and Kate climbed up them so that she could look into the enclosed grounds.
To her horror, she saw that the goat had indeed strayed inside the perimeter. She looked up when Kate called her name, but refused to move, simply shaking her silky white head and continuing her meal.
How on earth had she got in? Kate wondered wryly. Agile as the creature was, she couldn’t have climbed over the wall and the perpendicular fence.
She scrambled back down the wal, jumping the last couple of feet, and acknowledging as her muscles protested that she was slightly out of condition. Time was when she would have done that without having to soothe scraped palms of too-tender, ‘citified’ skin.
Realising that she would have to find out where the goat had got in and get her out again, she looked to her left and right, wondering which direction to take first. Then she spotted some of the goat’s droppings, and with a faint sigh of relief turned to the right.
A narrow, unkempt lane ran alongside the boundary wall, leading to a farm which had been empty for almost two years following the death of its owner, an incomer into the area who had tried and failed to raise prize cattle on the exposed fellsides. The farm had recently been sold, according to her father, but no one knew to whom. Her father had been slightly disgruntled by the sale, since he had wanted to purchase the land himself. Although not suitable for cattle, it could be used for sheep.
Kate had come out in thin-soled shoes, and the sharp stones in the unmade-up road struck painfully through them. Cursing under her breath, Kate bent to rub her foot, and then straightened up, her pain forgotten as her attention was caught by bright scraps of metal among the tufts of grass. As she walked over to examine them more closely, she realised that someone had cut through the boundary fence, and recently, too, and that it was here, where there was no protective wall to support it, that the goat had broken through. Sure enough, there were tufts of her white hair clinging to the wire.
Gingerly Kate pushed her own way through, wincing as the sharp barbs caught at her clothes, carefully pushing them to one side so that they didn’t catch on her skin.
Even so, she couldn’t avoid one barb escaping her hold and leaving a long and very painful scratch down her arm. Blood welled freely from it and she cursed her own carelessness. Her skin stung, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her primary concern now was to retrieve her mother’s goat.
She had purposefully brought with her a pocket full of the pig nuts that the animal apparently adored, and as she walked carefully down towards it she fished in her pocket and removed some of them, hoping that once Annabel caught the scent of them she would follow her docilely back on to their own land.
Annabel caught the scent of them, and dutifully came trotting up to her, but Kate had forgotten the breed’s wiliness, and wasn’t prepared for the goat butting her. She lost her balance and fell over, the nuts scattering.
By the time she had regained her balance, Annabel had eaten the lot and was standing skittishly several yards away from her.
Unwisely, Kate lost her patience and gave chase.
Ten minutes later, hot and out of breath, she acknowledged defeat. She was going to have to go home and get one of her father’s men to help her.
Her body ached where she had fallen, and her arm stung, dried blood clinging to her skin. She had a blister on one heel, and all in all she felt extremely irritated and uncomfortable. Limping painfully, she headed back to the gap in the fence.
The sound of something crashing heavily through the undergrowth behind her suddenly made her check. She looked round, saw nothing, and then her eyes widened as she focused disbelievingly on the body of the huge Alsatian launching itself at her.
Brought up on a farm she reacted instinctively, standing her ground and calling out sharply to the animal, ‘Down!’
She saw it focus on her, mid-leap, its intelligent eyes registering its surprise at the command, but she had reacted too late to stop its weight landing on her and sending her sprawling to the ground beneath it.
Kate closed her eyes as she fell, the breath knocked from her lungs as she hit the hard earth, the undergrowth hardly cushioning the impact.
The dog landed squarely on top of her and pinned her there, and she opened her eyes to look at it.
It gave a tiny whine and she felt its feathery tail brush against her jean-covered legs.
Heartened by this sign of friendliness, Kate raised her arms to push it off, but instantly it growled, eyes rolling, lips pulling back to reveal strong, sharp teeth.
There were sounds of something else moving through the trees, although she wasn’t sure what until she heard a man’s voice saying curtly, ‘Good dog, Max. Leave.’
As the dog moved off her, the man grabbed hold of her wrist and yanked her ungently to her feet.
‘All right. Let’s find out what’s going on here…’
‘Nothing’s going on,’ Kate told him shakily, noting the uniform he was wearing and the clipped military haircut. He was in his late fifties, she judged, but extremely fit; the kind of man one would prefer to have with one rather than against.
‘I came in to fetch my mother’s goat. There was a break in the fence.’
‘Come on, you can do better than that. We know all about that break. Your lot made it the other night, and we’ve been waiting to see what you were going to do next. This way.’
Before Kate could protest he was practically frogmarching her away from the wall, and deeper into the grounds.
‘What’s going on? Where are you taking me?’ Kate demanded angrily.
‘To see the station head. We’ve had enough of you lot causing trouble. You’ve been warned, and you wouldn’t listen, so this time we’re taking tougher action.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Kate protested. ‘I’m Kate Seton…My father farms next door. I’m not part of any group of saboteurs, no matter what you might think.’ She felt his hesitation, and pressed, ‘Look, all you’ve got to do is ring the farm and speak to my mother. She’ll confirm what I’m saying. I came here looking for Annabel.’
‘Annabel?’ her captor demanded suspiciously.
‘The goat,’ Kate sighed.
At her side, the Alsatian whined, and without thinking she reached down to stroke him.
‘Don’t,’ the man commanded, his ire giving way to astonishment as he saw the way the animal responded to her.
Although Kate had a healthy respect for them, she had no fear of dogs, and she had recognised instantly in the Alsatian a highly intelligent and well-trained beast whose
instinct was not to harm.
‘Damn thing,’ she heard the man curse. ‘I knew he was too soft for this business.’
‘So why use him?’ Kate asked, amused.
‘Not my decision. The head of the station rescued him as a pup. He’s his dog.’ He saw the look in Kate’s eyes and said defensively, ‘We’re getting proper guard-dogs in, but these things take time. Extra expenditure has to be sanctioned, and we didn’t expect this kind of trouble up here. God, you’d think people would be grateful for what we’re doing.’
‘Maybe they would be, if they knew what it was,’ Kate told him pointedly.
She was beginning to recover her self-confidence now. It was true that she had been caught in an embarrassing situation, and no doubt her father wouldn’t be too pleased with her, but she had no doubts at all that once the station head had spoken to her mother, she would be released with a handsome apology.
After all, he was hardly likely to want to stir up local resentment by practically forcibly kidnapping the daughter of a respected local landowner.
The main building came in sight.
It hadn’t changed much as far as Kate could see, although the overgrown gravel drive she remembered as a child had been weeded and cleaned.
As they walked in through the main entrance she marvelled at the faint, but unmistakable antiseptic scent that hung on the air. It even smelled like a government building, she acknowledged, and fell to wondering how much of the stuff they must buy and from where; her reverie abruptly halted as she was escorted into a room filled with the clutter of filing cabinets and other office paraphernalia.
A young man was frowning over a VDU screen. He looked up in some surprise when he saw Kate, and began uncertainly, ‘I’m sorry, but…’
‘I caught her trespassing,’ her captor interrupted him. ‘She claims she was looking for her mother’s goat. I thought the boss ought to see her. Especially in view of you know what…’
Despite the fierce mien of her captor, Kate couldn’t help being amused by the meaningful look he gave the young man, and her sense of humour, so often her downfall in the past, led her into trouble now, as she teased, tongue-in-cheek, not thinking of the potential consequences.
‘There’s no need to be so secretive. I know all about the rabies research.’
‘Oh, do you now?’
‘The curt male voice behind her made her freeze. Not because of the shock of realising that someone else had entered the room, but because of its distant familiarity.
Time was distilled so that she was conscious of every fragment of it; every nuance of what hearing that voice meant; every carefully placed piece fate had set in the jigsaw puzzle of her life.
She couldn’t for the life of her turn round. She felt him move, and felt the frisson of sensation shock through her as he did, and she felt the breath of his words against the nape of her neck as she ducked her head to avoid recognition.
‘Who exactly is this, Tom?’
‘I found her trespassing right by the cut in the fence. She claimed she was looking for her mother’s goat. She says she’s John Seton’s daughter.’
‘Does she now? Well, let’s have a look and see, shall we?’
The silky menace in his voice warned her of what to expect. Kate lifted her head proudly and turned to look at him.
Recognition, powerful and painful, arched between them. She saw his jaw tauten briefly, and it was left to her to say quietly, ‘Hello, Silas.’
She felt the shock of her words reverberate around the room.
‘Kate…’ He acknowledged her tersely with a brief inclination of his head. ‘I heard you were back.’
And had he heard about Cherry as well? Very probably. Her mouth thinned and, seeing it, he felt an intense weariness settle on him.
Once, this woman had meant so much to him. So very much, but she had walked out on him virtually without a word, and since coming to the Dales he had learned that she was living with her daughter in London.
He wondered about the man who shared her life…who had given her her child, and was disturbed to discover that the old pain was far more than a mere echo. To cover his feelings he said grimly, ‘What the devil were you playing at? You must know that this estate is private land.’
‘I’ve told you. I was looking for my mother’s goat. She’d escaped, and I found that she’d strayed in. All I was trying to do was to get her back.’
Suddenly she felt both tired and tearful. Her body ached from its impact with the ground. The scratch on her arm stung, and as she raised it instinctively trying to ease the pain, she saw Silas frown.
‘When did you do that?’ he demanded sharply.
‘I caught it on the wire,’ she responded absently. A smear of soil clung to it and, seeing it, Silas exclaimed sharply to his assistant, ‘Go and get some sterile dressings, will you please, Sam? Tom, have you checked to find this damn goat? We can’t have it roaming about…’
‘If it exists,’ her captor said sarcastically.
‘She does exist,’ Kate retorted, stung by his disbelief. ‘Her name’s Annabel. Look, all you have to do to confirm everything I’ve said is to ring my mother. As a matter of fact, I’d like to speak to her anyway. She’ll be getting concerned.’
‘You can speak to her later, when I’ve made one or two things clear to you.’
Silas turned his back on her and stared out of the window. There was an odd atmosphere in the room, and when he turned back he addressed not Kate herself but her guard.
‘Sam, am I right in thinking we’ve no spare rooms at the moment?’
‘Yes, we’re on full strength. You said yourself we’d need to run all the tests…’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Look, I want to leave,’ Kate interrupted them angrily.
‘I’m afraid you can’t.’
Can’t? She stared at Silas, not believing what she was hearing. It was a joke…a sick, cruel joke. It had to be.
He saw her face and said quietly, ‘We’re in the middle of experiments here that necessitate all of us remaining in quarantine for at least another week.’
‘No! No, that’s not true. I saw you myself…driving through the village this morning.’
‘I’d gone to pick up some supplies that had been left for us at a pre-arranged spot. I didn’t come into contact with anyone, and even that was a risk. I’m afraid there’s no alternative. Until after the quarantine period ends, you’ll have to stay here. And so will Annabel,’ he said with a brief smile, adding frowningly, ‘if we can find her, which I hope to God we can. We don’t want her getting back out of the estate, Tom. You’d better get the men and go and gather…’
‘Wait!’ Kate protested as her captor turned to leave, her inbred instincts making her overcome her shock and fear to reach into her pocket and remove the remaining pig nuts.
‘Take these. She loves them, apparently.’
And then Tom was gone and they were alone, apart from the Alsatian, Max, who was lying heavily on her feet. Guarding her—hardly—she reflected wryly as she looked down at the dog and he responded with a heavy beat of his tail.
‘I’ll deal with that cut and then I’ll take you to your room. I’m sorry about this, but it’s necessary.’
He had regained control of himself now and was trying to treat her as he would have treated any strange woman in the same situation.
‘I think I can deal with a simple graze myself,’ she told him, frightened by what she had heard, despite her determination not to show it.
‘Very probably so,’ Silas said quietly. ‘But it may not be just a simple graze, and so I’d prefer to attend to it myself.’
His words reverberated through her head, and she stared at him in shock.
‘You’re not trying to say that I could have rabies, are you?’ she whispered, uttering the fear that crawled along her spine and left a vile taste in her mouth.
‘Rabies?’ He frowned. ‘No, not that…But we are conducting other experiments here
on animal diseases, and we can’t take the risk that something you might have touched could be contaminated and that you could have carried that contamination into an open wound by touching it.’
He picked up the telephone on his desk and pushed the instrument towards her.
‘You’ll want to speak to your mother. I should warn her that you’ll be here for at least a week.’
‘A week?’ Her lips trembled. ‘But I can’t. Cherry…’
Cherry would be perfectly safe with her grandparents, she told herself stoutly, and the last thing she must do was to break down in front of this cold-eyed man who had once been her lover, who was the father of her child.
What mischievous and devious twist of fate had brought them together again like this? And how clever and all-knowing her subconscious must be to have recognised him so easily. And her body to have reacted to that recognition? She shivered tensely, not wanting to remember that frisson of acute loss that had rushed over her when she had seen him at the wheel of the Range Rover. He would never be hers and he never had been. He was married to another woman, had children with her, had deliberately kept her in ignorance of those commitments. He was a man to be despised, not desired.
‘You’ll want to speak to your husband as well, of course.’
Kate stared at him, and then, with her head held high, said proudly, ‘I have no husband.’
CHAPTER FOUR
NO HUSBAND. The words bounced against Silas’s skull as he listened to her speaking to her mother, explaining with commendable calm what had happened. She had always been strong, even though she herself probably didn’t realise it. Strong and yet so very, very female, and he had loved her to the point of distraction.
But to her he had simply been a diversion. He shouldn’t blame her too much. She had been so young, and he surely old enough to realise that and not to have tried to tie her down.
Had he not pressed her into that commitment, not insisted on that engagement, would she perhaps have stayed?
Kate replaced the receiver. Any moment now she would turn and look at him. He composed his features into a hard mask. She had changed so little; she was, if anything, even more beautiful as a woman than she had been as a teenager.