Seductive Stranger

by Charlotte Lamb

  'Oh, don't be so maddening!' Prue felt like hitting him again; except that from now on she meant to keep her distance at all times. She was never going to give Josh Killane another chance to lay a finger on her!

  'If you want me to do you a favour, you'll have to promise to do one for me,' he said, smiling, and she eyed him suspiciously.

  'What?'

  'I want your promise that you'll come and see my mother, and make friends with her.'

  Prue was faced with a dilemma. The last thing she wanted was to get to know his mother any better! But she had hated the way his sister had looked—that incredulous, shocked face! It had made Prue feel about two inches high. Josh had to talk to Lynsey, explain ...

  'You will make Lynsey see that she mistook what was going on?

  You'll tell her that we were quarrelling, not . . . not . . .'

  'Making love?' he softly suggested; she looked at him with intense dislike.

  'Yes. Tell her that it wasn't what. . . what it might . . . have looked like,' she muttered uncomfortably.

  'I'll do my best,' he said, his smile sardonic. 'I'll lie to my sister if you'll be nice to my mother? Do we have a deal?'

  'You won't have to lie to Lynsey!' Prue burst out,, resentfully, it's the truth—we were fighting . . not...'

  'Not?' he silkily asked.

  'Not making love!' she reluctantly got out. 'Tell her we were fighting.'

  He narrowed his eyes at her, a mocking light in them. 'I love the way you fight!'

  Prue ground her teeth, but resisted the instinct to retaliate. He watched her and waited, then laughed.

  'So we have a deal?' he insisted, forcing her to say it.

  'All right,' she muttered.

  Her capitulation was not enough, it seemed. 'When will you visit my mother?' he demanded, and she turned on him, blazing with resentment, her hands screwed into fists at her sides.

  'I don't know—some time tomorrow, OK?'

  'Come for tea.'

  'Oh, all right! Now, will you just go away and leave me in peace?'

  'You have a hair-trigger temper, don't you?' he commented, as if curious about her, and her green eyes leapt with rage.

  'That's right, and you're pushing it to the limit, Mr Killane! Get out, will you?'

  He wandered to the back door. 'You know, you could learn a lot from my mother.'

  She laughed scornfully. 'I doubt it.'

  'She has good manners and a kind heart,' Josh said quietly; and then he was gone, leaving her flushed and oddly hurt. He had implied that she had neither good manners nor a kind heart, and his dark eyes had made her flinch.

  Prue went back to her cooking, arranging scrubbed potatoes on a baking rack to pop them into the oven. Her father liked baked potatoes; they would be the perfect accompaniment to the lamb stew's richness.

  How dared Josh talk to her like that? He barely knew her; it was unfair to make wounding personal remarks which were quite unanswerable. You couldn't yell back that you did have good manners, so there! Or insist that you had a kind heart, damn him, whatever he might think!

  She finished her preparations for the evening meal, then went up to wash and change into something pretty before her father got home.

  He liked her to make an effort for him—she enjoyed seeing the way his face lit up when he came into the house to find her waiting for him, music playing on the stereo, flowers in vases, the smell of good food in the air.

  It was a very long time since James Allardyce had had anything approaching a home life, and he was enjoying his daughter's company.

  Prue was enjoying being with him, too. At first, while-he was out, she had found little to do, because Betty Cain kept everything in the house scrupulously clean and, Prue soon realised, would resent any attempt she made to help. Perhaps she was afraid of losing her job? It wouldn't be surprising. There wasn't much work to be found around here.

  Not that she was unfriendly, but one of her favourite phrases was 'I keep myself to myself!' Betty Cain was no gossip and never had time, so she said, to talk to Prue.

  It wouldn't be difficult for a stranger to guess that a man had been living here alone. The rooms were spotless and tidy, and her father had taken the trouble to add a few touches to welcome her home—vases of autumn flowers, a few pictures, large and cheerful fires. She had thought, at first, that it was wonderful to find the house just as she remembered it, but now that she had had time to look, more closely she saw the shabbiness, the faded materials of curtains and upholstery, the worn carpets and rugs. She felt the chill on the air in the upper storey, the unlived-in feel of most rooms, the sadness of a house which was often empty, and she became increasingly determined to turn this shell of a house into a real home while she was here.

  Her father came in late, glowing from his battle with the moorland wind, apologising. 'I'm sorry, love, we tramped further than we'd intended, and we stopped off at Charlie Ruddock's place for a chat and a drink.'

  'Just one?' she asked tartly, and he looked sheepish.

  'Well, we might have had a couple, but no more than that, Prue! When we saw how late it had got, Charlie drove us home. I hope the dinner's not charred to cinders!'

  'Nearly,' she said, pretending to be annoyed, then smiled, relenting.

  'But never mind. Go and wash and get out of your muddy things.'

  He was in thick woollen socks, having left his boots in the little porch at the side of the house where he kept them. He grinned at her, and padded off upstairs, while Prue began to serve up the evening meal.

  The scent of lamb and herbs filled the kitchen and when Jim Allardyce returned he sniffed appreciatively. 'Eh, that smells great, lass! Looks marvellous, too! Baked potatoes! I'm very partial to a good baked potato.' He sat down and gazed over the table at all the food. 'What's that in the jug, then?'

  'Sour cream with chives, Dad. For the baked potatoes.'

  'Oh, aye? Chives from our own herb patch? Parsley, too! Your mother laid out the herb garden, you know, years ago, when we were first wed! She pestered me for months till I set aside some ground, then she sowed packets of seeds—I'd no idea what she had in there until it started coming up. All sorts, she'd bought, and a fair lot of it came up; beginner's luck, 1 told her. First bit of gardening she'd ever done, and she had no interest in any more. I've kept it going since she left, though 1 didn't use the herbs much, I'm afraid. I'm happy enough with a salad or a chop with a few vegetables, I don't often bother, with any refinements. I'm not fussy about my food.'

  'Well, I hope you'll like this!' Prue took the lid off the heavy earthenware casserole dish which she had placed in the centre of the table, and began to dish up the lamb stew. 'Josh Killane was here,' she said, placing her father's plate in front of him.

  'Was he looking for me? Did you tell him where I was?'

  'Yes. He was in a hurry, he had his sister with him.' Prue served herself lamb, took a baked potato and a little sour cream. 'He asked me to visit his home again tomorrow,' she said casually, not looking up.

  Her father's voice had a husky note. 'And shall you?'

  'Yes, I'm asked for tea—will you come?'

  James Allardyce hesitated, then shook his head. 'No, you go by yourself this time, lass.'

  Prue wished he had agreed to come, but perhaps it would be easier for both her and Lucy Killane if her father was not present, so she said nothing, and her father took his first mouthful of the stew and closed his eyes, savouring the flavour. Prue watched, amused. He took some more and ate, then smiled at her.

  'Where did you learn to cook like that?'

  'I've been living alone in a flat in Sydney for ages. I had to learn how to cook, or starve, and, since I was the one who had to eat whatever I made, I learnt how to cook well while 1 was about it.'

  'Same with me,' James Allardyce said. 'But I'm not as ambitious as you are, a chop or a steak will do for me. And I eat out from time to time, of course.'

  Did he eat out with Lucy Killane? she wondered. Did he often
visit her home? And if he did, how come Josh Killane pretended to be so unaware of any intimate relationship between her father and his mother?

  Prue didn't believe that anyone could be blind to the way they looked at each other. Josh Killane was a liar—but why did he lie? She did not understand his motive, but perhaps he was hoping that if he pretended not to know how they felt about each other he might stop them marrying?

  She visited David in the morning and found him sitting up in a chair beside the bed, reading a murder story with a violent cover; a blonde in a bath with a knife in her chest.

  'Great plot, this!' said David, after she had kissed him and sat down, it's the best of those you brought me.'

  She looked at the cover again, 'I didn't buy that one!'

  David looked at the author's name. 'Oh, no,' he said. 'I borrowed it from someone.' He pushed the book under his pillow and leaned back, yawning a little. 'Talk to me; I'm bored. How's life on the farm?

  Anything exciting happen in the haystacks lately?'

  'Idiot,' she said, laughing, but thought that he looked very flushed—was his temperature still high?

  She told him she had rung his parents, and they had been very cheerful. They had sent all sorts of loving messages, and David listened to them, smiling.

  And you didn't tell them about my lung?'

  She shook her head. 'How is it now?'

  Doing fine. I think the surgeon's got a swelled head over the way I'm healing. I told him it was my tough Australian skin that was responsible, but he seems to think it's all his doing.'

  'Poor man, I'm sorry for him, having to put up with you teasing him like that,' said Prue, but David's high spirits were a good omen. He was definitely well on the way to recovery, in spite of that flush, or were his bright eyes and frenetic chatter more a symptom of fever than of good health?

  She didn't tell David she was going to tea with the Killanes. It slipped her mind until after she left the ward, but she was relieved that she hadn't mentioned it because David might ask about Josh Killane and she didn't know what to say about the man. Her feelings were becoming quite explosive and it would startle David if she betrayed that.

  It startled her at times. She was disturbed by the way she kept thinking about Josh, even though she hated him—hated everything about him, from his wild good looks and that rakishly insolent air to his feudal attitudes towards everyone who came within his orbit.

  Mind you, his whole family seemed to have the same attitudes. They really thought they were a breed set apart, those Killanes. Centuries of arrogant possession had made them like that, and it infuriated Prue—especially the way' Josh rode over the land in the valley with an air of being master of all he surveyed.

  Look at the way he took domineering decisions on everything—from who should mend one of the local drystone walls to whether she should have tea with his mother!

  Josh assumed too much—and that included something which seemed to come close to being droit de seigneur! He made love to her with disturbing assurance, and Prue despised herself for letting it happen.

  She must make sure that Josh never got another chance to do that to her!

  She had asked her father a few casual questions about Josh's private life without getting any clear answers, and she dared not seem too inquisitive in case her curiosity was misunderstood, but she couldn't help wondering if Josh made passes at every woman he met!

  How on earth could she ask her father that, though? She certainly couldn't ask Josh. She would just have to pick up any clues she could, and again she regretted the fact that Betty Cain was so reluctant to talk. If Betty had been the chatty type, Prue might have picked up all the local gossip. The Killanes were the most important family for miles; most local people were probably fascinated by them and their affairs, especially their love-affairs.

  It was bad luck that the woman who worked for her father should be so taciturn. Only that morning, she had said to her father, 'Betty doesn't say much, does she?' and James Allardyce had laughed, shaking his head.

  'Why do you think I have her here? She doesn't spread scandal about my affairs, and one look at her and nobody thinks there's anything immoral going on betwixt me and her.'

  She chuckled at that idea. 'No, 1 don't suppose they do.'

  Her father took her to lunch near the hospital, in a pretty little restaurant with red and white checked curtains and tablecloths. The food was home-cooked and excellent; Prue had soup followed by a vegetable casserole topped with grated cheese, her father had the roast of the day, beef, with Yorkshire pudding. He had a plum pie dessert, too, but Prue skipped that and just had coffee.

  Her father had nodded to several other customers who kept staring across the little restaurant at their table.

  'They're wondering where I picked up the pretty girl half my age!'

  James Allardyce said complacently, winking at her.

  They probably knew she was his daughter, thought Prue. She was beginning to know these people! Gossip moved at the speed of light.

  A secret whispered at one end of the valley at breakfast had reached the other end by lunch time; no doubt wildly distorted!

  Did they all know, or at least guess, about her father and Lucy Killane? And if not, how on earth had the two of them kept their affair a secret for so many years? Or was it simply that everyone took their relationship for granted after so long? Had time made it respectable?

  Her father dropped her off half a mile from the Killane house. He had wanted to drive her all the way there, but Prue was early and preferred to walk the rest of the way, to arrive exactly on time.

  'Sky looks nasty,' her father said, glancing upwards at the mass of cloud moving their way.

  'It won't rain before I get there!' Prue said firmly, and he shrugged.

  'Maybe,' he conceded. 'Give us a ring and I'll come and fetch you after tea.' He re-started his engine, then looked at her a little pleadingly.

  'Enjoy yourself,' he said, but what he really meant was . . . be nice to Lucy Killane!

  She smiled without promising and he drove on. Prue was in no hurry to cover the half a mile of meandering lane. She walked slowly, admiring the sculpted contour of the green and brown hills which made up the skyscape; the line of them rather like the outline of a woman lying down, the proud peak of a breast here, then the deep hollow of the waist in a green valley, rising softly to the smoothly undulating hip, and all of them cut clear and sharp against the sky which was gathering clouds; grey, misty, thickening with rain.

  Closer at hand the countryside was starker: the rough pasture veined with grey drystone walls, sheep ambling in them, very few trees and most of them bare black skeletons rattling in the rising wind. Thorn trees bent in agonised attitudes from a lifetime of the prevailing wind; all one way, their long fingers scratching the sky. The colours here were all quiet, muted, with the faded harmony of the furniture in her father's house.

  She stopped to watch a ewe scrambling up the wall, only to tumble back again. They were always escaping on to the road, she knew from her father. Stupid creatures, sheep,' he said, every time he got a call that some of his sheep were straying, or had had some sort of accident. 'I don't know why I don't just give up on them and breed budgerigars!'

  Prue didn't look at her watch until she was within sight of the Killane house, and then she was surprised to see how long it had taken her to walk the half-mile from where her father had dropped her. She was going to be late! She quickened her steps just as a car came shooting down the drive, heading her way. Recognising it, Prue felt a jab of pure nerves. She had hoped Josh would be out, but this was his car.

  He pulled up with a squeal of brakes and leaned over to open the passenger door. 'Get in!'

  Prue resented the brusque tone. 'I can walk, there's no need to stop for me. You're obviously in a hurry to get somewhere.'

  'I was in a hurry to find you!' he snapped. 'As you hadn't arrived, I rang your home and your father told me he had dropped you at the crossroads and you
should have got to our house by now. Where the hell have you been?'

  'I was enjoying the view!'

  'And in no hurry to arrive!' he accused.

  'I just didn't notice the time!'

  'Is this the way you keep your promises? To the letter, but not abiding by the spirit?'

  She bridled. 'What about you? Have you kept your promise? Have you talked to your sister?'

  'Yes,' he said, tight-lipped.

  Prue frowned at his glowering expression. 'Did you convince her?'

  He gestured impatiently. 'Look, get in, will you? My engine is idling away here, wasting fuel. We can talk as we drive.'

  She reluctantly climbed into the car; and Josh at once reversed and drove back to the house at around sixty miles an hour.

  'Lynsey was in a very difficult mood when I talked to her,' he said, staring straight ahead.

  'Well, that seems to be her usual mood, so I'm not surprised,' Prue said, grimacing. 'But did she seem to believe you?'

  'Frankly, no,' Josh said tersely.

  'What did you say to her? Did you tell her…'

  'I told her what you wanted me to tell her—a lot of lies!' said Josh.

  'Oh, well, if you weren't even trying to sound convincing—' Prue scornfully said.

  Josh slammed on his brakes and Prue nearly went through the windscreen. When she had got her breath back and stopped shaking, she flung round to glare hatred at him. 'You maniac! You scared the living daylights out of me. Isn't one car crash enough for you?'

  He showed her his teeth in a wolfish snarl. 'Now, look, I kept my side of the deal—I talked to my sister, I said all the things you asked me to say. Can I help it if she wouldn't buy it?'

  Prue was sure it was somehow his fault; if only she could prove it!

  'What did she actually say to you, though?'

  'Not much.'

  Prue didn't like something in his dark eyes; an irony, a hidden amusement.

  'She must have said something!' she insisted and Josh considered her, his head to one side and his mouth twisting.

  'She laughed.'

  Prue's green eyes opened wide. 'Laughed?' she whispered.

  He nodded, in my face!'

  It was bad news. Prue didn't like it. If Lynsey had laughed in his face, it meant that she hadn't believed a word he said.