Seductive Stranger

by Charlotte Lamb

  'That's up to you. Dad,' she said huskily.

  He hesitated, watching her with a frown. Was he wondering how much she knew? He hadn't breathed a word about the cause of the separation between her mother and himself; did he suppose she had not been told about him and Mrs Killane? 'Well, let's see how you feel, shall we?' he said uncertainly. 'After all, you only came out of hospital yesterday.'

  She knew that there was nothing wrong with her—the shock of the accident had worn off and her bruises were beginning to fade already.

  She didn't say as much, though. She seized on the excuse with relief.

  'An early night might be wiser,' she murmured.

  'And I just hope that my cooking won't give you indigestion!'

  Her father laughed. 'No mock modesty, Prue! Your mother was a very good cook when she chose—I'm sure she taught you to cook!'

  'She did,' Prue admitted, sobering as they turned back towards the house. She found it odd that her father mentioned her mother so often; and so unselfconsciously, almost as though she was an old friend he hadn't seen for years, but remembered fondly. Did he often think of her? Had he missed her when she went? Had he loved her, after all? Prue was curious, but knew she couldn't ask those questions.

  Her parents were a mystery to her, but no more .so than any other human being; everyone was mysterious in their own way. She gave a faint sigh—she was a mystery to herself, come to that! She still wasn't sure how she felt about anything!

  Her father looked at his watch. 'Look at the time ... I must rush. I have a lot to do this afternoon. Prue, are you sure you want to cook dinner tonight? I don't feel right about letting you, you still look peaky to me.

  I can cook the meal, love, I'm used to doing it.'

  'I'd like to!' she insisted, 'I'll take a look through the freezer and the larder, shall I, and see what I can find?'

  'Aye, lass,' James Allardyce said reluctantly. 'If you've a mind! But after that, why don't you lie down for a couple of hours? I'll be back as soon as I've finished my work, and we can cook the dinner together!'

  She smiled, nodding. 'OK, Dad. We'll do it together. It will be more fun that way.'

  He went off looking very cheerful, and she looked at the larder and worked out what to cook for dinner, then she went upstairs and lay down on her bed, intending only to rest for half an hour. Instead she fell asleep almost at once, utterly exhausted by the day out in the fresh, windy Yorkshire air.

  A sound awoke her; a click which, even half-asleep, she recognised as the click of her bedroom door. Someone had come into her room.

  Prue surfaced drowsily, but before she opened her eyes the door softly closed again. The stairs creaked arid she slowly sat up, yawning.

  'Dad?' she called. The creaking stopped; nobody answered, yet she felt someone out there, listening, breathing quietly, and her sleepiness vanished.

  'Dad, is that you?' she called again, but still there was no answer. She began to be frightened, especially when the creaking began again. It was quieter this time, though; someone was moving very carefully, trying not to mice a sound. She felt the emptiness of the house all around her, pressing down on her like a great weight. If that wasn't her father, who was it, and why didn't he answer?

  She swung her legs off the bed and stood up, the hair on the back of her neck prickling with atavistic dread.. Tiptoeing to the door, she suddenly pulled it open. The stairs were shadowy; it was late afternoon and the autumn dusk was falling fast, but she still saw the dark shape half-way down the stairs, a man whose elongated, black shadow ran up the wall until it touched the ceding like something out of a silent horror film.

  Prue froze, staring downwards, her heart beating suffocatingly fast.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THEN he turned his head to look back at her, the menace of his shadow fled, she recognised his face and the spell broke, but Prue did not merely feel a wave of relief! As her fear subsided, rage welled up inside her.

  'What the hell do you think you're doing, creeping about the house like that?' she yelled, and Josh Killane swung round and began to come back upstairs again.

  'I wasn't creeping about! I was moving quietly, that's all, trying not to wake you up!'

  'How considerate,' she muttered. 'A pity you already had, creeping into my room, isn't it? And while we're on that subject, what were you after in my bedroom?'

  'I wasn't after you, anyway, so you needn't have palpitations!' he said drily, and she got angrier, although in the beginning she had been more angry with herself—for imagining night-time terrors, conjuring them out of such small things—a creak on the stair, a shadow on a wall. She had been an idiot and she could kick herself, but she wasn't going to let Josh Killane make fun of her.

  'You really fancy yourself, don't you?'

  'Me, fancy myself?' He laughed without amusement. 'I'd say it was the other way round. This is the second time you've accused me of making a pass. Well, 1 wasn't making a pass the first time and I'm not now! You obviously think you're irresistible to the opposite sex, but I've got news for you—not to me, you're not. I can resist you without any trouble whatever.'

  Prue showed him her teeth, dying to smack his face, but deciding that she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of hitting her back—as he undoubtedly would. He was the type.

  '1 notice you still haven't told me what you were, doing in my room.'

  'I was looking-for your father, not you!'

  Prue looked coldly incredulous. 'Looking for him in my bedroom?'

  she queried with icy sweetness.

  'I called from the hall, but nobody answered, then 1 saw Meg lying on the landing outside the door,' he said with angry insistence. 'And I thought your father must be up here. I came up and looked into the room—and saw you on the bed, asleep, so I left as quietly as I could.'

  Prue looked down at the dog which was still there; no longer lying down, though. Meg was standing close to her, conscious of the tension in the air, her dark eyes intent.

  'I didn't know she was there! My father must have left her to take care of me!' She was touched by the idea; had her father come back to the house, seen that she was asleep and decided to leave her in Meg's protection?

  'She's a good guard dog,' said Josh, watching her ran a hand over the dog's black and white head. Meg looked up at her enquiringly, ears alert, as if waiting for a command.

  'Good girl,' Prue murmured, patting her, but frowned. 'Why didn't she bark when you arrived, though? Isn't that what she was supposed to do?'

  'She's known me all her life, she knows I'm always here—but if you told her to attack me, she would,' josh said with bland amusement.

  'Would she?' Prue considered the liquid eyes and adoring stance of the dog. is she trained to attack?'

  'No, but she's trained to obey, and her master left her to defend you, so if she thought you needed defence against me, she'd attack me.'

  'Don't tempt me!' sighed Prue, half smiling, and got a grimace from him.

  'I thought we'd established that that was the last thing on my mind?'

  'Well, what a relief!' Prue said, half irritated by his mocking voice,

  'Don't let me keep you! You'll find my father working—I'm not sure where. Take Meg with you, she'll find him.'

  He shook his head. 'She wouldn't come with me.'

  'Oh, she doesn't like you, either? A dog with taste, obviously!'

  He went on smiling, his white teeth showing. 'She won't leave you until your father says so. She's a one-man dog.'

  'Bitch, to be precise!'

  'Oh, let's be precise—a one-man bitch,' Josh said, looking at her with angry black eyes. 'Quite a phenomenon.'

  From the kitchen, at that moment, they heard the slam of a door, and Prue said quickly, with relief, 'My father!'

  Josh turned on his heel and vanished down the stairs, and she went back into her room and stood by the window staring out at the thickening dusk. Her reactions to Josh Killane were odd; whenever she saw him she felt angry and be
lligerent, and that wasn't how she ever was with other men—with David, for instance! She was never aggressive with David.

  Josh had a violent chemical effect on her. She couldn't deny that there was a sexual element involved; why bother to lie to herself? She didn't like the man, but she couldn't help being aware of him—on a purely physical level. It wasn't attraction, she hurriedly told herself.

  Far from it! She wasn't attracted by that overpowering masculinity; that was what made her want to slap him, yet something inside her reacted explosively to something in him, although she hadn't yet worked out what happened to make her feel this way whenever she saw him.

  She stood at the window, brooding, until she saw Josh and her father come out of the house. They stood talking on the drive, beside Josh's red car, and Prue watched them. She would have had to be blind and stupid not to see the affection between them, the casual trust and friendship. Her father liked Josh Killane, even if she didn't, but then, her father was another man, he judged Josh by very different standards.

  Josh drove away and Prue turned from the window and went into the bathroom to freshen up before going downstairs. She found her father in the kitchen; the kettle singing on the stove and cups laid out on the table. He looked round to smile at her.

  'Had a good sleep? A pity Josh woke you up.'

  it doesn't matter. I'd slept long enough.'

  Jim Allardyce poured the boiling water on to the tea in the fat-bellied, yellow earthenware pot. 'You seem to have more colour, anyway!'

  Prue's flush deepened; she was glad he had his back to her. 'Thank you for leaving Meg to guard me,' she said, sitting down at the table.

  Of course, Meg hadn't barked at Josh Killane; Meg was another of his fans!

  Her father joined her, covering the teapot with a hand-knitted tea-cosy. 'Meg's a good watchdog, inside and out.'

  He offered her a plate of small, home-made biscuits. 'Try one of these; they're very good. Betty Cain made them. She works in the house three mornings a week. You'll meet her tomorrow.'

  Prue gingerly tasted one while her father watched. 'Very good,' she said, taking another, and he grinned in satisfaction.

  The situation was so ordinary—a family taking tea in a kitchen—yet she felt like someone trying to walk on eggshells. It was important that she and her father get to know each other again, learn to like each other! But what should have been a gradual, everyday thing had become an uphill struggle. Was it too late for them to get to know one another?

  'Prue. ..' he said, in an uncertain voice, glancing at her while she poured the tea. 'About having dinner at Killane House…'

  His eyes pleaded, and Prue resented that, for her mother's sake.

  Couldn't he spend one evening away from Lucy Killane? Or was he hoping that she and Mrs Killane would become friends? Whatever the truth, one thing was blatantly obvious—her father badly wanted to have dinner at Killane House that evening.

  'Was that why Josh Killane was here?' she asked flatly. 'Did his mother send him to make sure we were coming?'

  James Allardyce looked at her, then away, a dark flush in his face.

  'No, he was here on estate business—we're wall-mending, before lambing starts, and Josh was making out the rota. We all help out on jobs like that; every year some walls get damaged by weather, both rain and snow can make a wall collapse, not to mention the sheep! It's a never- ending chore, like painting the Forth Bridge.'

  'So he didn't ask if we were going there for dinner?'

  Her father didn't look up. 'He mentioned it. I'd promised to let them know, and I'd been putting it off until you woke up.' He gave her another of those pleading looks, and Prue suppressed a sigh. How could she refuse when he looked at her like that?

  'Well, if you want to go,' she said, and her father's face brightened.

  'You'll come? I'm sure you'd enjoy it, Prue. It's a lovely house, you know—do you remember it?'

  'Oh, yes,' she said with faint irony as he got up, but he seemed deaf to her tone, and suddenly in a tearing hurry to get to the phone.

  "Lucy will be delighted,' he happily said. 'I'd better ring her now. Josh said he'd shot some partridges and Lucy will want to know how many birds she'll need to prepare.' He looked back at Prue. 'You do like

  partridge?'

  '1 can't remember ever eating them, but I like duck and quail, so I probably like partridge; one game bird is much like another, isn't it?'

  He made a laughing face. '1 wouldn't say that, but I'm sure you ate partridge as a child; there are so many game birds on the estate and I used to bring them all home. 1 don't remember you disliking any of them. Crab, now, you didn't like that.'

  'Seafood brings me out in a rash!' she said, moved that he remembered.

  He picked up the phone on the other side of the kitchen. Prue drank her tea, frowning. She still wasn't eager to facie Lucy Killane, but she had to meet her again some time—why not tonight? Every time her father mentioned the other woman her antennae quivered. Maybe her mother hadn't exaggerated or invented anything! She didn't know what was between her father and Lucy Killane—but she was sure there was something!

  She listened to her father talking. 'Lucy? Jim. We're coming! Yes.

  Josh told me; Prue likes partridge, at least, we think she does!' His voice was warm, intimate, casual—and that was the real give-away.

  He was talking to Lucy Killane the way a man talks to his wife, and again Prue thought ... if they love each other, why haven't they got married? There was no point in speculating, though, so she slipped upstairs to look through her wardrobe.

  She hadn't brought anything very chic with her—she only had one really special dress, jade green, smooth-fitting, made in silky Merino wool by one of Australia's top young designers. Deciding to wear that, she hunted out some small gold earrings and a fine gold chain which matched, a gold link bracelet watch her stepfather had given her on her twenty-first birthday. She chose black shoes and black stockings, some filmy black underwear, laid them all out on her bed, then went to have a bath. She wouldn't be nervous of facing the Killanes if she looked her best.

  Prue liked to travel light, with meant jeans and shorts and thin cotton tops, all uncreasable and easy to wash. This visit had been intended as a brief one before she and David headed for France then down through Spain to the sun again, or maybe to Italy. They hadn't made any specific plans or booked anything. David had said, 'Let's free-fall, take it as it comes!' and she had cheerfully said, 'Yes, let's!' and each of them had packed the minimum. It would have been a carefree way of travelling if Prue hadn't had her father on her mind; she wished now that she had left this trip to Yorkshire until the end of the holiday. David wouldn't be in a hospital bed and she wouldn't be in this bath, dreading the thought of the dinner party ahead of her!

  As time ticked by, she grew more and more edgy, and her father looked anxiously at her as they drove to Killane House.

  'I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself—they're very hospitable.'

  She dredged up a smile from somewhere. 'I'm fine, don't worry, Dad.'

  He tried to look hopeful, but merely looked nervous. Five minutes later, they drove up a long, tree-lined drive and pulled up outside the shabby, glorious facade of the old house; the car's headlights shone over it and Prue gave a gasp as she saw tiny, black shapes stream upwards from under the roof.

  'Dad! What on earth . . ..?'

  James Allardyce laughed. 'Pipistrelle bats—quite harmless!' he said, and just then Josh Killane materialised out of the shadows under the portico. He was in a dinner-jacket and had barely shown up against the unlit stone walls.

  'This must be Count Dracula!' Prue muttered, and her father laughed.

  'Poor Josh—you have got it in for him! But I must admit he looks the part.'

  Josh came down the steps, bent down, nodded to Prue. 'Welcome to our home,' he said formally, opening her door.

  She slid out with a shiver of reluctance and he glanced down at her. it is quite chilly tonight—c
ome in quickly, it's much warmer in the house now that we've installed central heating. It was a draughty old barn when I was a boy, but it's much more comfortable now.'

  'Funny you should compare it to a barn!' said her father. 'Prue just jumped out of her skin when she saw some bats up there.' He pointed upwards. 'Did you know there were bats under the roof, Josh?'

  'Yes, of course. They've been there for years, they don't do any harm.'

  Josh looked mockingly at Prue. 'So you were scared?'

  'Of course not,' she said in a crisp voice. 'Just startled.'

  Someone else appeared in the doorway; Prue recognised Mrs Killane at once, even though her jet hair was silvered and her slender body had become more rounded with age. Her face seemed quite unlined, her beauty as breathtaking as ever. While Prue stared, James Allardyce moved towards her, and she held out a hand.

  'Jim!'

  'You look very charming tonight, Lucy,' he murmured in a warm voice, holding her hand while he stared down at her, and Prue felt her own face harden, her mouth become a tight, cold line. They didn't talk to each other like old friends; it was far more than that. She had felt that she would know if they were lovers, and she did. Her mother hadn't been crazy or neurotic; she had been right all along.

  'Aren't you coming in?' Josh asked coldly, and she started, giving him a look from under her lashes. He was watching her with enmity; she lifted her lashes and looked back in the same hostile way.

  'I suppose so.'

  His frown darkened his face. 'What the hell is the matter with you?

  Are you going to be touchy al evening? Why did you come, if you were in one of your moods?'

  'I'm not in one of my moods!' she muttered. 'I don't know what you mean—one of my moods! What moods? You only met me the other day, what do you know about my moods? Anyway, I don't have moods. I'm a very even-tempered person, normally. If I've been touchy when you're around, it's been your fault.'