by Penny Jordan
Although Silas had described it as relatively small, it was in fact a very substantial building, designed, as he had already informed her, after the school of Inigo Jones, with perfectly proportioned windows and a graciously austere exterior with shallow steps leading up to the impressive porticoed entrance.
‘I haven’t had much time to do anything about the inside yet,’ he warned her as he stopped the car on the gravel forecourt in front of the house. ‘It’s habitable rather than comfortable. On the days when I’m working from here, a Mrs Parkinson comes in from the village to give the place a clean-through and to prepare any meals that might be required.’
He released himself from his seat-belt and got out of the car with one easy, graceful movement which Hannah envied as she continued to struggle a little with hers. She had her hand on the handle of the car door when he appeared outside and opened it for her. Thoroughly flustered, she allowed him to help her from the car, cross with herself for the way she was reacting to his proximity. It wasn’t even as though she was unused to such small, good-mannered formalities, so why all the nervous reaction and desperate attempt to avoid any contact with him as he reached into the car and placed his hand under her elbow, making it easier for her to step outside?
Why? Did she really need to ask herself that question? she derided herself mentally. She already knew quite well why—why it was that when Silas touched her a rash of fiery darts tingled through her skin and her heart started beating at almost twice its normal rate. Why her stomach churned and her heart seemed to leap and turn over beneath her ribs. Why her whole body seemed to come alive and why danger signals flashed despairingly from her brain.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked her solicitously. ‘You look a little bit pale.’
‘A headache,’ Hannah fibbed, guiltily, already aware he was standing far too close to her, scrutinising her far too intently, and that if she didn’t pull away from him very soon she was all too likely to betray exactly what it was that was wrong with her. Despairingly she pulled away from him, watching a small frown crease his forehead and the coolness lighten the silver of his eyes.
He had every right to feel annoyed with her. She was behaving like an adolescent, although she suspected he was probably putting her behaviour down to some feminist impulses that would not allow her to accept even the smallest courtesy from him. He was so wrong, but she couldn’t tell him that.
‘After lunch, I’ll show you round the grounds,’ he told her curtly. ‘A little bit of fresh air should help with your headache, unless of course you’d rather go straight up to your room and lie down for half an hour.’
Hannah shook her head, appalled by his response to her deceit.
‘It’s nothing,’ she assured him, this time truthfully. ‘I’m sure it will go almost straight away.’
The front door was already opening as they approached it, a small, plump woman standing in the shadows of the hall. As Hannah stepped inside she caught her breath in pleasure, looking upwards, following the line of the gracefully curved, wrought-iron balustrade. Her heels rang noisily on the traditionally lozenge-tiled black and white floor.
The hall had at some stage been panelled, and the panels were now painted in a flat cream emulsion that did nothing for them. She must have wrinkled her nose in distaste almost without being aware of it, because suddenly at her side Silas said grimly, ‘I quite agree. Atrocious, isn’t it? One of the first things I intend to do as soon as I can get round to it is to have these panels stripped back to their natural wood finish. Good morning, Mrs Parkinson,’ he greeted the other woman, introducing Hannah to her and then suggesting to Mrs Parkinson that she took Hannah upstairs and showed her which bedroom she had been allocated.
‘It’s just a buffet lunch, Mr Jeffreys,’ Mrs Parkinson told him as she smiled at Hannah and walked towards the staircase. ‘You did say something light, because you were dining out this evening.’
‘That will be fine, Mrs Parkinson,’ Silas assured her. ‘I want to show Hannah round the grounds and the house itself later on this afternoon. While Mrs Parkinson shows you to your room, I’m going to go to check the answering machine,’ he announced to Hannah. ‘Take your time. There’s no need to rush back downstairs.’
‘It’s this way, Miss Maitland,’ Mrs Parkinson said formally to Hannah, preceding her up the stairs.
She was cheerful and friendly, and obviously thoroughly enjoyed working for Silas. It seemed she knew all about his plans for the big house, and although she was quite frank about the opposition of some of the more hardliners among the villagers it seemed to Hannah that on balance most of the locals approved of what Silas intended to do.
‘It stands to reason that the ordinary folk will be pleased,’ Mrs Parkinson announced a little breathlessly as they reached the first-floor landing and she waited for Hannah to join her. ‘Something like that means work, and that’s something we’re short of around here.’
‘I know,’ Hannah agreed. ‘My family live just over fifty miles away.’ She went on to explain just who her father was, and Mrs Parkinson said that she seemed to have heard of the vicar.
‘I’ve got a cousin who lives over that way,’ she went on to tell Hannah. ‘A regular churchgoer she is, too. It’s this room, miss.’ She stopped outside one of the doors and opened it for Hannah.
The room was enormous, all faded elegance and so evocative of a bygone age that Hannah felt that she could almost smell the dry old scent of lavender in the air. As well as the elegant French empire four-poster, the room also boasted a daybed elegantly covered in silk damask, now faded and worn in places, but still possessed of the richness that made it impossible for Hannah to resist touching it with her fingers. The bed was draped in the same fabric with a matching coverlet, both of them probably priceless.
Hannah suspected that they must be part of the original fittings of the house, and this was confirmed when Mrs Parkinson informed her that Silas had bought the house with all of its contents.
‘I’ll leave you up here to unpack,’ she told Hannah. ‘Mr Jeffreys normally likes lunch at twelve-thirty prompt.’
‘I shan’t be as long as that,’ Hannah assured her. ‘It will only take me a few minutes to unpack my bag. Where do I go when I come downstairs?’ she asked the older woman, listening carefully as Mrs Parkinson gave her rather obscure directions.
All she had brought with her was a change of underwear, her jeans and casual clothes to wear over the weekend while she was staying with her parents, and nothing that was at all suitable for wearing for going out to dinner. She frowned a little over this error on her own part, wishing that she had had the forethought to pack a simple dress in her bag.
It was too late now to worry about it. She would simply have to go out to dinner in what she was wearing. However, she reflected that to Silas her lack of attention to such a detail might hint that she was not quite as efficient as she ought to be. She was still frowning over this when she went downstairs, hesitating as she reached the bottom step, not quite sure from Mrs Parkinson’s directions exactly where she was supposed to go.
Her dilemma was solved for her when one of the doors off the hall suddenly opened and Silas came out.
‘Ah, good. I thought those were your footsteps I heard on the stairs,’ he announced, smiling at her.
Like her, he was dressed in comfortable rather than City clothes, trousers in a mixture of wool and what she suspected was very probably silk in a faintly tweedy design. It went well with the oatmeal sweater he was wearing over his sports shirt. She had noticed a leather jacket thrown casually on the back seat of the car.
‘I’m using this room as my study,’ he informed her, holding the door open and gesturing to her to go in. Obediently she did so.
The room looked out over the side of the house, with views across the parkland to the main house in the distance. In style it was very similar to his office in London, although here the fabrics were very faded and the furnishings rather more battered. The Aubusson ru
g on the floor had holes in it and threadbare patches, but none of that detracted in the slightest from the delightful warmth of the room. There was even a fire burning in the grate, and he smiled when he saw her looking at it.
‘As yet, the house doesn’t have the benefits of any form of central heating, so Mrs Parkinson knows to light fires whenever I come down. It helps to keep the house aired, apart from anything else. Oh, and before we get involved in anything else, one or two points about tonight. We’ll be dining with Lord Redvers in his own home. Although he hasn’t said, I suspect we probably won’t be the only dinner guests. I’m hoping to have the opportunity to have a few words with him in private before we leave.
‘Naturally I’ll introduce you to him as my assistant, but he’s one of the old school and you might find yourself relegated to the drawing-room and the teacups.’ He saw that she was frowning and smiled ruefully at her.
‘Do you disapprove? I’m not surprised. I suspect you think I should take issue with Lord Redvers and inform him that today’s woman quite rightfully expects due appreciation to be made of the fact that she is every bit as intelligent as her male counterpart. However, in this instance, I feel it would be unwise to antagonise him. It’s really only his support that’s swinging the county die-hards over to our point of view.’
Hannah checked him quickly. ‘It isn’t that.’
As soon as Silas had mentioned that they might not be the only people dining with Lord and Lady Redvers, her concern regarding suitable lack of clothing had increased. Normally it wouldn’t have mattered, but she was very much aware that she was a representative of the company, and that as such she ought to be dressed accordingly.
‘What is it, then?’ Silas asked her.
She gave him an apologetic look. ‘I’m sorry, but it just never occurred to me that we might be dining out formally, and I haven’t brought with me anything suitable to wear.’
‘Ah.’ For a moment she almost thought he was actually going to laugh at her, but if he was indeed amused he managed to conceal it from her.
‘Of course I’m quite happy to wear the outfit I have on now—’ she told him stiffly.
‘No, you can’t do that.’ He cut right across what she had been going to say with a decisive shake of his head. ‘Lord Redvers is a stickler for form. It’s my fault, really. I should have warned you to bring an outfit suitable for evening wear with you. In fact, I did intend to mention it to Maggie—but the problem isn’t insoluble,’ he told her firmly, after a second consideration. ‘We’re only about ten miles from Shaftesbury. You can take the car and drive over there this afternoon and buy something suitable to wear.’
Hannah looked as shocked as she felt.
‘Drive your car?’ she protested. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.’
He gave her an extremely dry look.
‘Why not? There might, after all, be occasions when you have to. If you haven’t got a credit card with you, I’ll give you a cheque.’
Quickly Hannah shook her head. ‘No. It’s all right, I’ve…’
‘The company will pay for the outfit, Hannah,’ he interrupted her firmly. ‘Let’s not waste any time arguing about this.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve got one hell of a lot to get through this afternoon. I suggest you go to Shaftesbury. I’ve got some papers here in my briefcase that I can be going through while you’re gone. I think I can spare you for about an hour, an hour and a half at the most.’
Once again Hannah discovered she was being put in a position where it was impossible to argue with him. The buffet lunch Mrs Parkinson had mentioned to them was set out in what Silas described as the original breakfast-room to the house—a pretty, pleasantly sized room overlooking the rear courtyard, and which he explained to her caught the early-morning sun.
The buffet was substantial enough to feed a workforce far in excess of theirs. Hannah picked nervously at the contents of her own plate, wondering if Silas was regretting bringing her with him. So far during the short period of her employment with him she seemed to have made her fair share of mistakes. It was impossible to read anything from his shuttered expression, but as soon as she possibly could she drank the last of her coffee and got up, saying unsteadily, ‘I’ll go to Shaftesbury now, then, shall I?’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘If you’re sure you’ve had enough to eat. I’m not a slave-driver, Hannah,’ he pointed out drily.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she assured him truthfully. ‘I never eat a large meal during the day.’
He reached into his trouser pocket to remove his car keys, the movement drawing the pocket tautly against the muscles of his thighs. As she followed the small movement, Hannah felt her face start to burn with conscious awareness of both him and her reaction to him.
She looked away hurriedly, furious with herself for her idiotic and unprofessional behaviour.
‘I’ll be back just as soon as I can,’ she assured him, taking the keys from him. They were still warm from their intimate contact with his body, and as she closed her hand around them she felt her palm start to sweat slightly in nervous awareness.
Luckily she already knew the way to Shaftesbury, and the Daimler, once she had got used to its small idiosyncrasies, proved a joy to drive. She parked in a large car park just outside the main shopping centre, checking carefully to make sure the car was securely locked before hurrying towards the shops.
It would be just her luck to find that none of the shops had anything remotely suitable, she reflected crossly as she glanced in the window of the first one she came to, and dismissed the outfits she saw there. A quarter of an hour later she had almost reached the point of total despair. So far every shop she had seen had been totally unable to provide her with what she needed, and then, just as she was about to give up, she rounded a corner into a narrow alleyway and discovered tucked away there a small shopfront that boasted one simple outfit, a plain black dress with a tulip-shaped skirt, long sleeves and a slightly scooped neckline.
She knew the moment she saw it that it would be absolutely ideal, and she found as she walked into the shop that she was holding her breath, hardly daring to hope that they might have it in her size.
The girl inside the shop listened sympathetically as she explained her plight. The dress was part of their new autumn stock, she told Hannah, and she would have to check on the size. After she had done so, she gave Hannah a warm smile.
‘You’re in luck,’ she told her. ‘We’ve only got two of this particular style. One of them I happen to know is a fourteen. This one is the ten.’
Hannah let out her breath in a shaky sigh of relief, waiting while the girl deftly removed the dress from the model. She tried it on quickly in the privacy of one of the two cubicles, relieved to discover that it fitted her perfectly.
When she came out to study her reflection in the long mirror, the salesgirl’s eyes opened wide in admiration.
‘It looks stunning,’ she assured Hannah truthfully.
It was expensive enough to make Hannah grimace a little as she paid for it. Despite what Silas had said, she had no intention of allowing the company to reimburse her for the cost. A brief sortie back in the main shopping area provided her with a pair of high-heeled black suede court shoes and some sheer black tights.
‘Manage to get anything?’ Silas asked her as she hurried breathlessly from the car into his study. The desk was littered with papers, and it occurred to Hannah that he looked almost tired, something she had never noticed before. He always seemed to exude energy, and she had somehow or other come to believe that he was almost superhuman in his physical and mental resources.
Now as she looked at him she could see the frown lines of concentration on his forehead, and the weariness lying in shadows in the depths of his eyes.
‘Well, you’ve certainly made good time,’ he told her, standing up, stretching, lively as a panther, his muscles cracking as he lifted his arms above his head. ‘If you’re ready, I’ll take you over to the main house and show you aroun
d.’
He tapped a cylindrical roll of papers on his desk. ‘These are the plans. We’ll take them with us so that you can see what we’re planning to do.’
He stepped back to allow her to precede him through the door, but Hannah hesitated, accidentally bumping into him. She froze instinctively as her body came into contact with his, every muscle tense against the all too familiar sensation the contact brought. She saw him frown as she stepped back from him, muttering an apology, and was conscious that she had displeased him with her clumsiness.
‘Perhaps I’d better lead the way,’ he said tersely, stepping past her into the hall.
Numbly Hannah followed him, miserably aware of his almost instant recoil from contact with her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AS SHE followed him down the gravel drive, Hannah was glad she had changed her high heels for more comfortable flat shoes. Close to, she could see the dilapidation that time had wrought on the soft brick façade of the house. Darker patches of colour on the walls showed where ivy had once grown. The soft sandstone mullions were worn away in places, and Silas explained to her that these were going to be repaired.
Part of the trustees’ work would be to get as many suppliers as possible to supply them free of charge.
As they walked into the house, a thin beam of sunlight which had pierced the grey clouds and highlighted the rich colour of the brickwork disappeared. Already the first of the season’s leaves were beginning to drift down on to the driveway.
Inside, the hall was dark and gloomy, small Tudor windows allowing in only a small amount of daylight. Panelling similar to that at the Dower House clothed the walls of the large rectangular room. It had an ornately plastered ceiling and an enormous fireplace in roughly hewn stone, with a date and the arms of whoever had commissioned it carved into it. The few pieces of heavy, dusty furniture scattered round the room looked forlorn.