A Masterful Man

Lindsay Armstrong

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

DAVINA HASTINGS breathed a sigh of relief and unclenched her hands. She didn’t feel at home in small planes and the one she was in that had just landed was very small indeed. An eight-seater, it had seemed extraordinarily fragile to her to be flying across three hundred miles of the South Pacific from the Australian mainland to the island of Lord Howe. Fragile and cramped, so that she’d had to battle with claustrophobia as well as her other fears. Then, to compound matters, they’d had to descend through a storm to the airstrip—that was when she’d closed her eyes.

But, as the little plane zipped towards the terminal, she looked eagerly out of her window to gain some impression of Lord Howe, reputedly a gem of an island and a photographer’s paradise, only to see a mist-wreathed mountainside and driving rain.

‘Sorry about this, folks,’ the pilot said cheerfully. ‘The weather, I mean, but I can tell you this is an isolated front on its way to New Zealand and it should be fine as soon as it passes through, and it should do that quite quickly. Thank you for flying with our airline and I hope you all have wonderful holidays!’

Davina grimaced. From their conversation it had been apparent she was the only passenger not coming to this paradise on holiday, and for a moment she ardently wished that were not so. But a job was a job, and she squared her shoulders and took herself in hand as she prepared to disembark.

* * *

The terminal was tiny, she saw, as she ran through the rain. Then she was through the glass doors, brushing raindrops from her hair and shaking them from her jacket and blouse and she looked up, straight into the eyes of a tall man lounging beside the counter. And it was not hard to read, as their gazes caught and clashed, that he was looking her over in the way men did when they were mentally undressing a woman, and, although in a curiously sardonic way, giving her the benefit of his unasked for approval.

Davina looked away from those rather hard grey eyes expressionlessly yet she found she was inwardly fuming and wondered why—it was not as if it had never happened to her before. In fact, it sometimes gave her cause for amusement, the fact that she had the kind of figure that attracted a lot of attention, darkish fair hair, darker eyebrows, and violet eyes set in a classically oval face. Amused her because her pin-up exterior didn’t quite match her prosaic, practical, down-to-earth inner self and because if, as many men contrived to make her aware, she was the kind of girl they dreamt about, none of them had yet set her dreams alight.

But this is a bit different, she thought. For some reason or other, this man contrived to say that she might be good to bed but that would be the sum total of it—how dared he? Or did she imagine it?

She pondered for a moment longer, still determinedly looking the other way, then shrugged and decided she ought to make herself known to whoever had come to pick her up. But the little terminal was bustling and crowded now as resort employees gathered their guests and their luggage, the only staff member the airport boasted, apparently, was on the phone and no one appeared to be looking for a Davina Hastings, engaged as the temporary housekeeper for a Mr S. Warwick and his family.

So she collected her luggage and looked around again. The crowd was starting to thin and the tall man who had been leaning against the counter now had his back to her and his hands shoved irritably in his pockets as he scanned the retreating stream.

Then the pilot came in from the tarmac and, with a look of delighted recognition, came straight over to her. ‘Hi!’ he said. ‘Thought I might have missed you. Where are you staying? I wondered if we could have dinner together, I’m staying overnight.’

Davina groaned inwardly as she thought, Another one! But this one, in his smart navy uniform, at least looked engagingly friendly as he held out his hand—he also looked to be about her own age, which was twenty-five, and he went on ingeniously, as they shook hands, ‘It’s D. Hastings, isn’t it? I checked the passenger list and there was only one Hastings and you appeared to be the only one on your own, you’re also not wearing a wedding-ring so I thought, in those circumstances, you might not mind my asking!’

Davina glanced involuntarily at her left hand and opened her mouth, but before she could speak a deep growling voice said, ‘Hastings?’ And added with considerable biting annoyance, ‘Oh, for crying out loud—don’t tell me you’re Mrs Hastings!’

Davina turned slowly, but she knew who it was. And as their gazes locked for a second time, she realised his eyes weren’t entirely grey but had yellow flecks in them and that this man, whom she had a horrible feeling was Mr S. Warwick, was broad-shouldered as well as tall, was probably in his middle thirties and carried an aura of dynamism and, at this moment, angry power that struck out like a rapier. So that, despite wearing faded corduroy trousers and a bulky, nondescript sweater, despite having irregular features and windswept tawny hair and a tendency to freckles, you couldn’t fail to be aware that he was very much a man of the world and very used to getting his way...

Davina blinked once, as she thought, so what? She said coolly, ‘I am Mrs Hastings, yes. Who are you?’

He didn’t answer immediately but he subjected her to a scathing reappraisal then said bitterly, ‘I don’t believe it! I told them I wanted a competent yet middle-aged, motherly sort of person, and what do they send me? Some aspiring film starlet who’s probably just waiting for the right B-grade movie so she can take her clothes off!’ he marvelled.

Two things happened simultaneously. Davina took a step forward with every intention of hitting him, and the pilot, who’d been looking almost comically confused, said hastily, ‘I say, Mr Warwick, sir—’

‘Get lost, Pete,’ S. Warwick said briefly. And, to Davina’s amazement, with a sheepish look, that was just what the pilot did.

‘I don’t believe this,’ she said through her teeth. ‘Who the hell are you? Anyone would think you own the island and have set yourself up as some kind of self-styled pasha able to make free with your insults and order people around as if they were dogs!’

S. Warwick raised an eyebrow. ‘I do own a fair slice of the airline, so you’ll have to forgive Pete for deserting you in your hour of need,’ he drawled and added, ‘Why aren’t you wearing a wedding-ring, Mrs Hastings? Or did the agency mislead me about that as well?’

‘They did not,’ Davina replied cuttingly. ‘I am a Mrs and whether I choose to wear a wedding-ring or not has nothing to do with you! I am also extremely competent at housekeeping and if someone needs mothering, I’m quite prepared to mother them—’ She stopped abruptly and her eyes narrowed. ‘But why mothering? Don’t tell me you’re divorced or you’re a single parent?’

‘I am neither, but then again I never told anyone that I was—could we be at cross purposes here?’

Davina frowned. ‘Does that mean to say,’ she said slowly, ‘that you have no living wife, or no wife living with you?’

He regarded her with enough scorn to wither most people but Davina didn’t even flinch as he said, ‘Let me try to set this straight in your mind, Mrs Hastings. I am not married and therefore, as night follows day, I don’t have a wife—do you think you’re able to understand it now?’

‘No mistress, de facto or whatever you like to call it?’ Davina merely enquired, refusing to be deterred.

‘No mistress, no live-in lover...no, none of those things. Why,’ he said in a voice loaded with mockery, ‘is it disturbing you to this extent, Mrs Hastings? Please, do explain.’

Davina set her teeth and said impatiently, ‘Because if someone needs mothering it’s got to be a motherless child...’ She stopped and glared at him. ‘Then I have to tell you I never work for single men, Mr Warwick,’ she said. ‘And I’ll even tell you why! Single men, be they widowers or whatever, for reasons best known to themselves, tend to regard housekeepers as fair game—which you yourself proved as soon as you laid eyes on me. So what we have here now is not that the agency misrepresented me to you, but you to me.’ She smiled, but not with her eyes; in fact they were as cold as ice. ‘They actually told me you had a wife and daughter. I wonder why they would have done that, Mr Warwick, since you’ve made it so obvious it’s not so?’

He was silent for a moment then a faint smile twisted his lips and he said smoothly, ‘It had to be a misunderstanding, I’m afraid. What I have is a stepmother and a half-sister all bearing the name of Warwick. So that anyone checking the names in the household would have come across a Mr Warwick, a Mrs Warwick—there’ll be two of those in fact, and a Miss Warwick aged eight. I would imagine that’s how things got garbled, Mrs Hastings, wouldn’t you agree? Moreover, the other Mrs Warwick is my grandmother—I wonder if you feel that array of woman-power on the scene is enough to keep you safe from the ravages of single men, Mrs Hastings? I’d be really interested to know.’

Davina stared at him and could have killed whoever it was at the agency who had ‘garbled’ things. Then she retorted, ‘And I’d be really interested to know how you would hope to get away with presenting a housekeeper who resembles a B-grade film starlet to your stepmother, your half-sister and your grandmother!’

‘Oh,’ he grinned, ‘they usually accept whatever I tell them to.’

Davina compressed her lips, and said with suppressed violence, ‘Do you really believe I could work for you now? No, Mr Warwick, you may be able to walk all over your female relatives but it would be a grave mistake to think I was in that category. I’ll go straight back.’ And she turned away, as much because she was actually trembling with rage as with disgust.

‘You can’t,’ S. Warwick said after a moment’s thought.

‘Can’t what?’ Davina queried, still turned away from him.

‘Go straight back,’ he said mildly.

That caused her to turn to him and say coldly, ‘Of course I can go back—what do you mean?’

He observed her taut stance and the fact that the rain had caused her abundant hair to start to curl, then his gaze once more wandered over her figure, taking in things like the straight-cut beige linen jacket she wore over a now damp white silk blouse and slim white linen trousers, her beautiful narrow hands and the only ring she wore, a small gold signet on her little finger, her elegant flat beige leather shoes and her matching soft leather travelling shoulder-bag. Then his eyes rested briefly on her camera case before coming back to examine the smooth, faintly tanned skin exposed by the V of her blouse...

Which was when Davina said furiously, ‘Now look here, Mr Warwick—’

‘Of course you can go back,’ he murmured then, looking amused. ‘You just can’t go straight back.’

‘I...’ Davina narrowed her eyes then glanced outside at the airfield. ‘Are you telling me there are no more flights today?’

‘Precisely,’ he agreed.

Davina swore beneath her breath. ‘Well, I presume there’s somewhere I can put up for the night.’

‘There is—’

‘Other than with you,’ she said pointedly.

He withdrew one powerful hand from his pocket and gestured amiably. ‘There are actually four hundred beds on the island; I’m sure we could find you one. Or, it crossed my mind that you might be interested in...dispelling my first impressions of you, Mrs Hastings.’

‘Dis... If you mean what I think you mean by that—’ her eyes flashed ‘—I—’

‘Proving to me that you’re not a rather gorgeous, exotic creature who is totally unsuited to housekeeping is what I meant,’ he said gravely. ‘In other words, commencing your employment with me.’

‘I thought I told you that was out of the question—’

‘You did. But as I’m having second thoughts, why don’t you?’ And he looked at her with total, bland innocence.

Davina opened and shut her mouth several times before she was able to articulate her thoughts, a process S. Warwick watched with very polite attention. Finally, she said, ‘Are you inviting me to believe that it would be possible for you to prove to me that you’re not one of the most arrogant, unpleasant, insulting men I have ever met? A thorough bastard,’ she said gently, ‘to put it even more simply?’

He laughed and said one single word. ‘Yes.’

‘No—’

‘Oh, come now, Mrs Hastings,’ he said with a sudden rather weary and irritable lift of his shoulders. ‘We got off on the wrong foot, can’t we just leave it at that? Do you expect an apology—is that it? If so, I apologise—’

‘Don’t bother—’

But he overrode her in suddenly even, clipped tones. ‘Look, if you must know, there would be few men immune from the sight of you running towards them in an open jacket and a white silk blouse that was getting wet.’ A wicked little glint lit his eyes as Davina glanced down hastily and dragged her jacket closed. Then he continued drily, ‘It’s a fact of life I suspect, but I do apologise for my—momentary lapse in good manners or whatever the hell you like to call it. The other thing is, while I may have been a bit unfair in my remarks about B-grade movies, you just don’t look like a housekeeper and I would take issue with anyone who tried to tell me otherwise!’ He continued, with a returning flash of irritation, ‘So. Yes, I admit I let myself vent my annoyance rather brutally on what I perceived as a muck-up which is the last thing I can afford at present. You are not, however,’ he said precisely, ‘in any danger of being regarded as fair game in my household, I give you my word.’

‘And why should I believe a thing you say?’ Davina countered, but was struck by the odd little thought that she did... Why? she wondered. Because so ungracious an explanation and apology had absolutely nothing else going for it but the ring of truth? Perhaps...

And then, to make matters worse, S. Warwick said nothing more, nothing about there being any number of people who could testify to his word being his bond, just nothing. He simply stood there regarding her indifferently, but with that latent impatience and irritability not far away.

Davina tightened her mouth in exasperation and swung round with a toss of her head, only to stop still, arrested, as she stared through the glass doors that led to the car park on the other side of the terminal from the airfield. The rain had stopped and the sky partially cleared and her eyes widened and her lips parted as she looked her fill, then she turned back to the tall man and said huskily, ‘Those mountains—what are they?’

‘Mount Lidgbird and Mount Gower,’ he said without a glance or a thought. ‘Why?’

She swallowed. ‘Would you mind if I photographed them? With that rainbow across them? Would there be a better vantage point?’

He frowned. ‘Of course, but—’

‘I don’t think I’ve seen anything as spectacular and when I’m not moonlighting as a housekeeper I’m a passionate amateur photographer, you see. Mr Warwick,’ she said with sudden decision, ‘to be honest I doubt very much that you and I could work together in any sort of harmony, but I’m afraid I can’t leave Lord Howe as soon as I’d planned—I need to photograph those mountains. So if we could postpone this discussion for a little while and if you could just direct me to a suitable spot before that rainbow fades, I’d be very grateful.’

* * *

Mount Gower and Mount Lidgbird, forming the southern end of Lord Howe Island, were not that high as mountains go, but what they lacked in height they made up for in many ways, Davina discovered, as she stood without her shoes on a wet grassy point opposite them. Dark, sheer and austere and rising straight out of the sea, with a threatening sky behind them and a rainbow shimmering across them, they quite took her breath away. White water boiled around their bases and all sorts of sea birds wheeled and called in a late afternoon frenzy about their craggy faces. And all this in the middle of this vast ocean, she thought, hundreds of miles from anywhere—I feel like Captain Cook! That’s the only thing lacking: a tall ship threading its way through the reef...

And so absorbed was she, as she set up her tripod and started photographing, that it wasn’t until with a sigh she took her last shot that she realised S. Warwick was standing a few paces away watching her thoughtfully.

‘Oh. Thank you—the light’s fading now so I won’t take any more. I do appreciate your driving me here; you probably think I’m quite mad!’ She telescoped her tripod and started to pack her camera away. ‘Uh...’ She looked around a bit blankly.

‘You were going to say—what now?’ he suggested with a trace of irony.

‘Well.’ She grimaced. ‘Yes...’

‘How about a drink?’

‘Oh, I—’

‘Don’t argue, Mrs Hastings,’ he returned. ‘Just do as you’re told. We still have a discussion to conclude—I think it’s the least you owe me.’

Davina hesitated, but there was little she could do; there was no one about, no buildings that she could see, nothing but wild and wonderful Lord Howe and the South Pacific. So she climbed back into S. Warwick’s unusually well-sprung Land Rover.

* * *

They didn’t drive far, towards the base of Mount Lidgbird in fact and they did pass one guest-house before he turned off the narrow road on to a side track and they came to a small compound of houses in a valley.

‘Is this it?’ she enquired.

‘This is it.’

‘It’s very—lonely,’ she commented.

‘It would take you about twenty minutes by bike to ride to the community hall, the so-called centre of the island,’ he commented.

Davina said no more as she alighted and followed him through a stand of tall Norfolk pines towards the main house. And she had to admit that it was a lovely house built entirely of timber with two stories and a steeply pitched roof. She also noted that the front door was unlocked as she followed him through and she gasped with pleasure because, even in the fading daylight, she was presented with another marvellous view through wide glass windows of Mounts Lidgbird and Gower.

‘Which is entirely why,’ S. Warwick said, ‘I chose this lonely spot.’ And he waited a few moments before switching on some lights, thereby negating the view.

‘I see,’ Davina said a little lamely as she looked around and couldn’t fail to be further impressed. From where they were standing, two steps led down to a large living-area and the wall of windows with their marvellous view, and it was all panelled in a deep, rich wood with shining wooden floors. Grouped at one end were three long, plump sofas around a large glass and forged-iron table. The sofas were covered in a shadowy chintz print in colours of pink and green and the forged iron was tinted an old, soft green that matched. In the other direction was a dining setting, again a glass and forged-iron table surrounded by eight chairs. There were a few occasional tables with lamps, and chairs scattered around, a beautiful Chinese carpet between the two settings and the whole impression was one of space, elegance and comfort.

She looked up and saw a soaring ceiling with a gallery running round it and guessed the bedrooms, or some of them, led off it, and she was just looking around for a staircase when he said, ‘Sit down, Mrs Hastings. What would you like to drink?’

Davina hesitated again, which he took note of and said witheringly, ‘I don’t plan to make you drunk for the purposes of seduction in this lonely spot, believe me.’

She bit her lip and shrugged. ‘All right. I’ll have a brandy and soda, thank you. But—’

‘But you don’t entirely trust me yet,’ he filled in for her with a certain malicious humour.

Davina cast him a speaking look and walked calmly down the two steps towards the sofas. But she did say over her shoulder, ‘No, I don’t. As to whether I could ever like you, I have the gravest possible doubts about that, too, Mr Warwick.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it,’ he replied as he opened a tall, beautiful antique oak cabinet and pulled forward two glasses. ‘You wouldn’t be alone and we need see very little of each other.’

Davina tossed her head and sat down facing the view and presently he handed her a glass and sat down opposite her.

‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘Would you care to tell me what you meant about being a photographer when you weren’t moonlighting as a housekeeper?’

Davina sipped her drink then said wryly, ‘An unfortunate choice of words. What I meant was that photography is...what I would like to be my chosen career, but it’s not a career I make much money from, yet, so from time to time I do the other thing I’m good at which is temporary housekeeping. It’s an ideal combination, actually, and—’ she paused and looked levelly at him ‘—should you still be worried about that term moonlighting, I’ve been thoroughly vetted by the agency—they have very high standards and they’ve checked me out from top to bottom, so you can rest assured I won’t be pinching the silver or anything like that. I also have a degree from a technical college in catering—does that help you, Mr Warwick?’

He lay back and looked at her meditatively. ‘So, you’ve decided to do the job,’ he said idly, at last.

Davina shot him a cold little look. ‘No, I haven’t, not yet. I was merely trying to make the point that I’m trustworthy and respectable.’

‘It still seems to be an odd combination,’ he mused, unperturbed. ‘It also—’ he looked down at his glass and frowned ‘—indicates a preference for a gypsy sort of lifestyle—how come?’

‘Just the way I am, I guess,’ she said blandly.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘And then there’s the jump from catering college to photography.’

She said nothing but sipped her drink again.

‘And how come,’ he pursued, ‘if you’re so determinedly a “Mrs” you don’t wear a wedding-ring?’

‘I thought I told you, that’s my business—’

‘Well, not really.’ S. Warwick sat forward. ‘I mean, were you—moonlighting as a married woman, for example, for reasons best known to yourself,’ he said with soft satire and smiled a sort of tigerish little smile, ‘it could be my business too.’

‘I fail to see why.’

‘I’ll tell you—because if you were misrepresenting yourself in one thing, you could do so in others, despite being vetted from top to bottom.’

Davina grimaced. ‘I still fail to see in what way it could affect this job. As a matter of fact, were I moonlighting in this respect, it would probably be to protect myself from—’

‘All those ubiquitous single men that abound in the land? Ah! Is that the case, then?’

Davina stared at him with her nostrils flared. ‘Unfortunately, no,’ she said tautly and reached for her bag, then her purse from which she pulled a small gold object and slid it on to her left hand. ‘There,’ she said. ‘My legitimate wedding-ring, and if you’re right about one thing, Mr Warwick, the only misrepresentation involved is that I’m no longer married. But I believe I’m perfectly entitled to claim to be a Mrs, despite that small fact, and if you must know,’ she went on in a goaded sort of voice, ‘I do use the ring and the title when I’m on these kinds of jobs just in case I need the protection of them.’

‘But you don’t normally wear the ring.’

‘How do you know?’

He shrugged. ‘I noticed that the tan on that hand was unbroken. Did you forget to put it on?’

‘Yes. Will you please drop the subject!’

‘Why?’ he said lazily. ‘Surely you can tell me if he’s dead or alive or has merely divorced you?’

‘All right, we’re divorced.’

‘Why?’

Davina stared down at her wedding-ring, her expression frozen then she raised her remarkable violet eyes and was not to know how bitter and sombre they were as she said, ‘If you really want to know, he thought I was a frigid bitch—among other things.’ She sat forward and put her unfinished drink on the table. ‘I’ll go now. I would hate to impose on you any further, so if you could call me a taxi, I’d be grateful.’

S. Warwick considered her for a moment before he said, ‘Unfortunately, Mrs Hastings, I am unable to do that.’

‘Why not? Look here.’ Davina’s voice rose a little shakily. ‘I—’

‘Only because there are no taxis on the island,’ he said.

CHAPTER TWO

‘OH FOR heaven’s sake!’

Davina rose and stared at him with acute frustration.

He shrugged and looked amused. ‘It’s a very small island, Mrs Hastings. Barely seven miles long and two miles wide and most of it is uninhabited. The permanent population is roughly three hundred souls and there are six hundred bicycles—the much preferred form of transport for the, as I mentioned before, four hundred tourists the place can handle. I myself have four bicycles—’

‘Well if you’re about to lend me a bicycle I must decline,’ Davina said tartly. ‘You—’

‘You’ve never ridden a bike?’

‘Of course I have! I simply do not propose to do so now, in the dark, with my luggage.’

‘That wasn’t what I had in mind.’

She stared at him, breathing noticeably. ‘Then why did you bring it up?’

He grimaced. ‘I thought it might add some charm to the place. You obviously don’t know a lot about Lord Howe, Mrs Hastings.’

‘I don’t,’ she conceded ungraciously. ‘I was, in fact, a last-minute replacement for the competent, motherly person they’d found for you—she broke her ankle. So I didn’t have a lot of time to add to my rather vague knowledge of Lord Howe, but they did assure me it was extremely beautiful and a—’ she hesitated ‘—photographer’s paradise,’ she finished on a suddenly weary downbeat.

S. Warwick smiled faintly but said nothing.

Davina looked around, clenched her teeth then sat down again. ‘All right! Tell me more about the job—not that I’ve decided to do it,’ she warned, ‘but...’ She gestured and shook her head exasperatedly.

He sat forward again. ‘My...female relatives are due to descend on me shortly. They generally spend a holiday on the island at least twice a year. They also generally avoid each other like the plague but are coming together this time, I believe, in a bid to put family relationships on a better footing. If you had any idea what a horrifying prospect that is, Mrs Hastings, I’m sure you would take pity on me.’

Davina blinked. ‘I don’t understand—and I thought—forgive me,’ she said ironically, ‘but I got the distinct impression that one word from you and they behaved like perfect lambs.’

‘That’s not quite true, although they certainly do what I tell them to do—eventually. However, there’s one area where even I have trouble controlling them and that is who has sovereignty over the ordering of the household.’

Davina, despite herself, found herself smiling a wry little smile. ‘I see.’ But she added, less amusedly, ‘So, you’re proposing to throw me into this lionesses’ den of dispute?’

‘Exactly,’ he said without a shadow of remorse, then shrugged. ‘Well, what I propose is to make it plain beyond any doubt that you’re running the house.’

Davina thought for a moment. ‘Why do they dislike each other?’

‘Ah.’ He drank some brandy. ‘That’s quite a long story,’ he said drily, and looked at her as if he was in two minds.

Davina raised an eyebrow. ‘It would be better if I knew—were I to take the job, Mr Warwick, and may I remind you that you showed no spirit of polite reticence at all concerning me, so I don’t see why I should be at all polite to you.’

He chewed his lip then laughed softly. ‘OK. After my mother died, my father remarried a woman young enough to be his daughter who bore him a daughter posthumously, thereby providing me with a half-sister young enough to be—my daughter. All of which induced a spirit, talking of those things, of fierce resentment and dislike in my grandmother—my father was her only child. She perceived that Loretta, my stepmother, married my father for his money, then spent a considerable amount of it, turned his life upside down and wore him into an early grave. Added to this, my grandmother is an indomitable, energetic and fiercely opinionated lady, anyway... Well, need I say any more?’

‘No,’ Davina mused, and frowned. ‘Why does the child need mothering?’

‘Because her mother is not much of a mother,’ S. Warwick said, and there was something in his voice that was as cold as naked steel.

Davina narrowed her eyes but said only, ‘A month...is not a long time for anyone else to do much mothering.’

‘What I had more in mind was someone who is good with kids, someone who wouldn’t mind babysitting without making the kid feel she’s being—palmed off.’

‘Well, that is being pretty frank, Mr Warwick,’ Davina murmured.

‘You asked for it, Mrs Hastings,’ he replied.

‘So I did.’ Davina stood up again and looked around consideringly.

‘If you’re wondering how you would cope with this house and a child, I have a cleaning lady, a local, who comes several times a week—she’s due tomorrow—and does the laundry as well,’ S. Warwick said. ‘To be honest she’s a bit rough and ready and she’s dynamite when it comes to breaking crystal and china, so while you can leave all the heavy jobs to her you will still need to—well, supervise, anyway. But all meals, as well as the entertaining we will undoubtedly be doing, would be up to you. What kind of things do you like photographing—only scenery?’

Davina turned slowly to look at him. ‘No. Flowers, birds—’

‘Ah.’ He stared at her with the utmost gravity, something she was later to come to mistrust devoutly. ‘Are you aware then, Mrs Hastings, that one third of the plants on Lord Howe are unique? That hundreds of thousands of sea birds nest here each year, and that one of the world’s rarest land birds lives here? I won’t bore you with all the species but the island is a haven for terns of all descriptions from Sooties to Noddies; red-tailed Tropicbirds nest here as well as masked boobies and Providence petrel, fleshfooted shearwaters, otherwise known as Mutton Birds, which nest in burrows in the ground... As for the plants, flowers and trees, there’s pandanus, banyan, island cedar, island apple, juniper, sallywood, kentia—of course kentia palms—’

‘As a blackmailer, Mr Warwick,’ Davina broke in tightly, ‘you’re incredibly obvious.’

He said nothing for a moment then he murmured, ‘You see me quite dashed, Mrs Hastings—by the way, did I mention that Lord Howe has the southernmost coral reef in the world?’

They eyed each other until he added, ‘Besides which, we have Ball’s Pyramid only a dozen or so miles south of the island—now that is certainly worth photographing.’

‘What on earth...?’ Davina bit her lip.

‘Is Ball’s Pyramid? A sheer, pointed, eroded stack of rock that is the world’s tallest monolith and it floats out of the ocean like a castle in a fairy-tale.’

‘Does one have to be a fairy to get to it?’

He grinned. ‘Not at all; one takes a boat or you can fly over it. I happen to have a couple of boats,’ he added modestly.

‘Boats, bikes, airlines,’ Davina muttered and sat down suddenly. ‘I gather your troublesome female relatives have not yet arrived?’

‘No. You have three days of—relative peace.’

‘Why did you get me here so early?’ she queried.

‘Well now, seeing as I was expecting a competent motherly middle-aged type, you can’t really accuse me of any nefarious intentions, can you, Mrs Hastings?’ His eyes mocked her.

‘Then why?’ Davina said angrily.

‘Simply so you would have a chance to acclimatise before you were expected to deal with them.’

She picked up her drink and sipped it distractedly.

‘You have your own quarters, incidentally,’ he said after a time. ‘Would you like me to show you them before you make your final decision?’

* * *

One of the buildings behind the house was a chalet-type edifice which turned out to be a small but luxurious self-contained unit. There was a bedroom with a double bed, furnished in toning shades of smoky blue, a matching blue bathroom and a combined kitchenette and living-area with cane furniture, terracotta tiles on the floor, ivory blinds and soft sage-green walls. Everything, from the Sheridan bed-linen to the bathroom fittings, the quality of paint, enamel and tiling work, the co-ordination of colours was of an exceptionally high quality and standard. There was even a wall-phone.

Davina looked around with raised eyebrows.

‘You’re impressed, Mrs Hastings?’ S. Warwick remarked.

‘Very nice,’ she contrived to say equitably. ‘Very House & Garden, in fact.’

‘Is that a compliment or the opposite?’ he enquired.

Davina shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘Just a bit of a surprise, perhaps. It looks more like a guest-house than staff quarters.’

‘It doubles as either.’

‘Well...’ She didn’t go on.

‘I await your decision with bated breath, Mrs Hastings,’ he said with irony after several moments.

They faced each other across the living-area and Davina discovered two things. That she would like nothing more than to tell him to go to hell, but that she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

‘Tell me something,’ she said a little huskily as this dawned on her. ‘What happens if I do turn out to be—exotic but quite useless?’

He smiled, just a bare twisting of his lips, his eyes remained a cool, watchful, curiously mocking hazel, and he said, ‘I would pack you back to the mainland very swiftly, Mrs Hastings—but you aren’t, are you?’

Davina licked her lips because she sensed an odd sort of tension between them that she couldn’t quite define. ‘How can you know, though?’

‘I’ll just have to rely on my intuition. In fact,’ he said drily, ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you were extremely competent—’

‘That’s a change of heart!’ She flashed him a cutting little look.

‘And intelligent,’ he went on, unperturbed, ‘and that is quite a waste, doing what you’re doing with your life. I’d also be very surprised if you were a—frigid bitch, Mrs Hastings, but if you care to continue to masquerade as one, so long as it gets my job done, you’re welcome to it.’

Davina gasped then paled slightly as she suddenly realised that this powerful, worldly man who could switch from insulting her with lazy mockery to malice aforethought incensed her, yet his attitude puzzled her... Why? she wondered numbly. I would have hated him if he’d made the traditional pass; I have to hate him as it is for...everything else; why should it be at all important to prove to him that I’m...anything?

‘Mrs Hastings?’ S. Warwick said, and added with sudden impatience, ‘Look, if you really don’t want the job, I’ll send you back first thing tomorrow morning and they’ll just have to find a replacement. It’s up to you,’ he added curtly. ‘We’ve been—’ he glanced at his watch ‘—fencing with each other for over an hour now and I’m getting tired of it. Yes or no?’

The effect of this was to wipe away all other thoughts from Davina’s mind other than that he was the most arrogant bastard... ‘Yes,’ she said crisply. ‘I’ll stay.’ And might just as well have said, So do your damnedest...

He raised his eyes ceilingwards. ‘I might have known!’

‘And what might you have known, Mr Warwick?’ she asked through her teeth.

‘That all the foregoing was entirely unnecessary. Women,’ he said scathingly, ‘have to be the most entirely unstraightforward creatures—God alone knows why!’

Davina held on to her temper by the narrowest margin. ‘Oh, I suspect,’ she said sweetly, although her eyes were an icy violet, ‘that it’s what we have to put up with from men that does it. I mean to say, in the space of a couple of hours I’ve gone from being suspected of wanting to take my clothes off at the first opportunity to—’

He laughed. All of a sudden he relaxed, the tension went out of his broad shoulders and the furious impatience drained from his expression. ‘I excelled myself there, I’m afraid,’ he said wryly.

She could have hit him; she was visited by the most intense anger she’d ever experienced and to make matters worse that keen hazel gaze missed none of it—and Davina passed suddenly from rage to fear. I must be mad, she thought. This man...is dangerous. He incites altogether too much emotion in me even if it is rage and hatred. I should have said no...

‘You still can, Mrs Hastings,’ he murmured, and her eyes widened.

‘D-do what?’ she asked unsteadily, hoping and praying that he hadn’t read her mind.

‘Tell me to go to hell,’ he said softly. ‘In fact, I’m wondering why you didn’t. Care to enlighten me?’

‘Yes.’ She attempted to pull herself together. ‘I think I was hoping to prove something to you—’

‘Well, that’s fine with me,’ he broke in, ‘so long as it isn’t...anything to do with the taking off of your clothes.’

‘Do you know,’ she managed to say almost thoughtfully, she wasn’t sure how, ‘your preoccupation with that subject leads me to wonder about you, but you will really just have to accept my guarantee on the subject; I can say no more.’ And she kept her gaze supremely steady as it rested on him.

‘OK.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess if I expect you to take me on trust, I shouldn’t mind doing the same.’ He smiled suddenly and it was quite a devastating smile, full of life and wry humour, and with a further shaft of fear Davina realised that S. Warwick could be a devastatingly attractive man when he chose. ‘Unfortunately,’ he added, ‘I have to go out, I have a meeting, but that might give you the opportunity to potter around by yourself and get to know the place—you have carte blanche and there’s plenty of food in the kitchen to make yourself a meal. By the way, don’t feel nervous; there’s no crime on the island.’

‘I notice you don’t even lock your front door,’ Davina said involuntarily.

‘No. You can lock yourself in here, though, if you’re so minded.’

Davina said nothing, although she still returned his gaze steadily.

‘Well,’ he murmured after a moment, ‘goodnight, Mrs Hastings.’

‘Goodnight, Mr Warwick.’

He turned to go but turned back. ‘What does the D stand for?’

‘Davina,’ she said coolly.

‘May I call you that?’

‘You can call me what you like.’

‘I see,’ he said softly. ‘I gather it would be no good offering to return the compliment?’ He raised a lazy eyebrow at her.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean I’m quite sure were I to ask you to call me Steve, that you would persist in addressing me as “Mr Warwick” with all the hauteur you’re capable of.’

‘You would be quite right, Mr Warwick.’

‘I thought so. Goodnight, Davina. Sleep well.’ And this time he left, closing the door gently behind him.

Davina took a deep breath then picked up a small cushion from the chair beside her and hurled it quite uselessly at the door.

* * *

Half an hour later she’d unpacked and was inspecting the main house. There were four bedrooms upstairs, all unusual, interestingly shaped rooms with steep ceilings and window-seats but three of them lacked any linen on the beds or in the en suite bathrooms. Steve Warwick’s, which she looked into briefly, was done out in masculine fittings and the colour scheme was cream and green.

Downstairs she discovered that the gleaming kitchen was a cook’s dream, with every kind of appliance one could wish for, all looking unused. There was also a breakfast-room-cum-sitting-room, a study that was entirely businesslike and contained a VHF radio, and a den with a television set. The laundry, which held a huge freezer, a shower cubicle and a linen store, was in an annexe—together with the four bicycles. She surveyed them for a long moment, then went back to the kitchen where she made herself a simple meal of scrambled eggs on toast.

Not long afterwards she took herself to bed and, despite the eerie quality of an almost silent night with just one strange bird calling mournfully, fell asleep quickly.

* * *

‘Ah, Davina, you’re up bright and early.’

Davina looked up from the breakfast she was making to see her employer lounging in the kitchen doorway. He had on khaki shorts, a white T-shirt, his hair was damp and tousled and his feet bare. She also wore a pair of long khaki shorts, a neat pink blouse tucked into them with a narrow leather belt around her trim waist and polished leather moccasins. She’d tucked her hair behind her ears and had only put moisturiser on her face and a touch of soft coral lipstick. The effect, nevertheless, because her thick hair shone and was well-cut, her skin smooth and fresh, her nails perfectly manicured, was one of good grooming and an air of purpose.

Steve Warwick took this all in as she merely nodded at him and told him that she’d taken the liberty of making him bacon and eggs this first morning.

He glanced at the pan she was tending. ‘Bacon and eggs suit me fine.’ He strolled into the kitchen and pulled a chair out from the table which was laid for one and had a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice on it. ‘It seems to me that you’ve settled in rather well,’ he remarked.

‘Well, there are one or two things we’ll have to discuss,’ she murmured, and put a plate in front of him containing not only bacon and eggs but fried tomato and banana. ‘Uh—do you like coffee or tea for breakfast?’

‘Coffee, thank you,’ he replied politely.

Davina set the percolator on the stove and put fresh toast in a rack on the table. ‘What about you?’ he added.

‘I’ve had breakfast, thank you.’

A gleam of amusement lit his eyes. ‘Won’t you at least join me for a cup of coffee? We could discuss whatever it is we need to discuss at the same time.’

‘All right.’ But she waited until he’d finished and cleared his plate away as the coffee bubbled gently and filled the kitchen with its delicious aroma. She poured two cups and sat down opposite him, hesitated, then decided to plunge right in. ‘I’ve found that it’s usually helpful to everyone to have a timetable for meals and, if there need to be any variations, if you’d let me know the evening before, I can make the necessary adjustments. I don’t—’ she paused and smiled faintly ‘—mean that to sound as if I’m some sort of martinet who’ll be making everyone’s life a misery if they’re two minutes late for dinner.’

Steve Warwick wiped his long fingers on a gingham napkin. ‘Not at all,’ he drawled. ‘I think it’s an admirable suggestion. Go on.’

Davina warned herself against being entirely fooled by this compliance. ‘But breakfast is a bit different when you’re on holiday,’ she continued, ‘so—’

‘Loretta and my grandmother only eat fruit and toast for breakfast. They can help themselves to that whenever they like. Candice and I usually eat breakfast together at around about this time. Otherwise make it twelve-thirty for lunch and seven for dinner.’

‘Good,’ Davina murmured after a moment. ‘I see the bedrooms aren’t made up—will Candice and her mother share or—’

‘No.’

‘OK. I’ll fix them up the day before they arrive. What about food in general—any preferences? And would you like three-course dinners, for example, hot lunches? Does Candice join you for dinner?’

He shrugged. ‘Yes, she does unless it’s a dinner party and on those occasions three courses would be in order. Lunch you can make quite simple, cold meat and salad, that kind of thing—I leave it up to you.’

‘So only two courses when you aren’t entertaining?’

‘Uh huh. We also catch and eat a lot of fish—are you good at cooking fish, Davina?’ He raised an eyebrow at her.

‘How nice for you—extremely good,’ she said mildly. ‘I noticed a barbecue outside—would it be in order to light it on the odd fine night? I’m even good at barbecuing fish.’

‘Perfectly in order—is that the lot?’ he said gravely, and Davina took a breath and set her teeth because it was back again. As he himself had put it, they were—albeit with the utmost politeness—fencing with each other once more.

And for the life of her she couldn’t help herself as she said innocently, ‘I think so. Are you about to rush off somewhere? Please don’t let me detain you if so.’

‘I’m about to take you on a tour of the island,’ he replied equally as innocently.

She stood up, ‘There’s really no need for that, Mr Warwick. I found the bicycles so I can take myself, besides which, I ought to get to know your cleaning lady—’

‘You can do that later, Davina. It so happens that this is the only free time I have at the moment.’

‘But—’

‘And I am quite determined to show you round the island, to introduce you to the local shopkeepers where you may shop for food or whatever you need on my account—there’s also another Land Rover in the garage you can use—and to indicate to you the places you could visit with Candice so that you wouldn’t be stumbling around in the dark, so to speak.’

Davina bit her lip as their gazes held and she perceived the bright irony in his. She sighed inwardly and reflected that the resolution she’d made on waking this morning, to do with somehow terminating all such exchanges between them, had failed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m ready whenever you are.’

He narrowed his hazel eyes but, and she couldn’t believe it was to allow her to save face, said no more than, ‘Give me ten minutes.’

* * *

Mounts Lidgbird and Gower presented quite a different image as they drove off. The sun sparkled on them, a few white clouds floated around their peaks, and Davina caught her breath.

Steve Warwick glanced at her with a lifted eyebrow.

‘They just—get to me,’ she said. ‘Can you climb them?’

‘Gower yes, but with a guide. Lidgbird is virtually inaccessible beyond the Goat House which is a bit over halfway up and so-called because it’s a cave where the few wild goats left on the island shelter.’

‘Are they indigenous?’

‘No. They were put on the island to provide meat for any callers. Because of the damage they caused to the local flora they were then marked down for eradication.’ He changed gear and turned on to the road over a cattle-grid.

‘It’s an incredibly beautiful island,’ Davina said as they turned away from the mountains and she could see the lagoon with its turquoise water that hugged the western side of Lord Howe. ‘Has your family always lived here? I’m afraid I don’t know any of the history of the place.’

‘Ah.’ He grinned. ‘Well, very briefly, it was discovered in 1788 by Lieutenant Lidgbird Ball when he sailed past on his way from Sydney Cove to Norfolk Island which became a penal colony. But until 1834 no one lived here although there were frequent visits from whaling ships and ships en route to Norfolk. The first settlers existed by trading provisions with passing ships and then in the late 1800s the Kentia palm, which is indigenous here, came wildly into vogue in European drawing-rooms and a flourishing trade in the sale of seeds became the island’s main income—it still is today, together with tourism.’

Davina sighed and smiled. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it? I mean these islands of the South Pacific, Norfolk and Pitcairn, Norfolk with its awful history as a penal colony and both of them with their descendants of Fletcher Christian—and Lord Howe. It’s a romantic part of the world.’

He grimaced. ‘Are you a romantic, Davina?’

‘In that respect, I guess I am,’ she replied after a moment.

‘Well, this is the airport, as you no doubt remember, and across the road here, up that incline and down the other side is Blinky Beach. If you’re a good surfer it’s great, but there are more protected beaches for kids.’

* * *

An hour later Davina had seen all there was to see by road of the island and had indeed been charmed. She loved the fact that there were no high-rise buildings, very few shops, an almost total lack of commercialisation and that most of the guest-houses and private dwellings were screened from sight behind luxurious, tangled foliage and the beautiful, tall, sometimes unbelievably tall, Norfolk pines. She loved the lush paddocks studded with yellow daisies and white clover and the lovely, secluded little beaches. She was introduced to the Kentia palm and saw her first white tern as they drove down Lagoon Road between towering walls of trees, and was amazed to be told that they laid their eggs on a bare branch, no nest, no nothing.

She was beguiled by the tiny community hall and the radio station alongside the only jetty the island boasted and she itched to don a back-pack loaded with her camera and explore the walking trails to places with bewitching names such as the Clear Place, Malabar, Mount Eliza. And everywhere on Lord Howe, she discovered, there were birds, from the island’s distinctive landbirds like the plump, busy as a housewife emerald ground-dove, the Golden Whistler and the pied currawong to all the migratory species Steve Warwick had told her about—birds that performed unbelievable feats, to her mind, such as returning each year to the Arctic Circle or the North Pacific.

Another thing he’d been right about was the bicycles, and not only that, but the bicycle racks that were placed at every entrance and at the start of all the mountain trails and walks.

‘It’s amazing,’ she said with a laugh as they inched past yet another group of cyclists all wearing crash helmets—the speed limit she’d noticed was twenty-five kilometres. ‘And everyone wears a helmet!’

‘Oh, our local policeman is very strict about that!’

‘How is the island governed?’ she asked curiously.

‘Well, it’s part of New South Wales but we have a local island board and an administrator who lives here. Since the island was inscribed on the World Heritage List, everyone’s main aim has been to keep it as undisturbed as possible so that everything unique about it can flourish. That’s why the tourist ceiling is set at four hundred, why there are no giant complexes and casinos et cetera. There are also no freehold titles on the island.’

Davina looked surprised.

‘A rather sore point with some,’ he said wryly.

‘So you don’t own your land?’

‘Not freehold, no. We have a system of perpetual and special leases for islanders only, which is designed to protect the island as well as the locals. For example, if you wish to sell your lease it has to be valued and offered to island residents first, at that valuation. Only if it’s not purchased by a resident may it then be offered for sale on the open market.’

‘I suppose, then,’ she said slowly, ‘a lot of it is passed down from generation to generation.’

‘You suppose right.’

‘So—I asked you this before but we got sidetracked—’

‘Yes, my grandfather was descended from one of the early families to settle on the island.’

Davina was silent for a time. It was obvious that Steve Warwick was a very well-respected resident of Lord Howe Island—everyone they’d spoken to had made that quite clear—and that he had a finger in a lot of pies. He’d shown her his two tourist boats that made sightseeing trips round the island, and fishing trips to Ball’s Pyramid. He also owned a shop, a restaurant and a guest-house. She glanced sideways at him involuntarily and found herself wondering why he’d never married. Because, if you were anyone else but her, you would have to admit he had an awful lot going for him. There was so much inherent ease and lightly held authority in his dealings with all the people they’d met, you could be forgiven for imagining him being—well, anything, she mused. There had been, only yesterday, evidence of how dangerous it was to cross him. There was the cultured way he spoke and his lovely house. And there was that unmistakable assurance of a man who was exciting to women...

‘You were thinking, Mrs Hastings?’

Davina twitched her gaze away and felt her nerves prickle once more. You couldn’t call the confines of the Land Rover cramped but it was impossible not to be aware of things like his hands on the wheel, the width of his shoulders, the length and strength of his legs, not to mention a rather powerful intelligence from which it was a little difficult to hide... She decided not even to try. ‘I was wondering why you’d never married, Mr Warwick,’ she murmured.

He lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘What brought that on?’

Davina waved a hand. ‘You seem to have a small empire here; you seem,’ she paused, then went on deliberately, ‘to have a lot of things going for you.’

‘Are you saying that from the conviction that I should at least share it with a woman?’

‘No. I don’t hold those kind of convictions,’ she replied calmly. ‘But it is the accepted convention, if you like, for very normal reasons, and more so here than otherwise, I would imagine—keep the island in the family kind of thing.’

He grimaced, but said, ‘Well, the answer is quite simple. I’ve never met a woman I—couldn’t live without.’

‘Dear me.’ Davina had to smile. ‘Are your standards impossibly high?’

He shot her a narrow, glinting little look. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Or are there times when you’re just so—abrasive that no woman has been able to put up with you?’

‘That could be true, too,’ he agreed blandly.

‘Well, you have got a problem, Mr Warwick.’

‘Davina,’ he said gently, ‘don’t concern yourself with it. I realise most women’s minds tend to run along that track, they simply can’t help themselves it seems, but the more obvious they are, the less—interested I tend to get.’

Davina kept a hold on her temper and replied smoothly. ‘I do apologise—I was talking generally but you obviously mistook it for a personal interest in the matter. Perhaps I didn’t make myself very clear.’

‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Her temper eluded her. ‘Do you seriously imagine I’m now making plans to—somehow inveigle a wedding-ring out of you?’

‘You did bring the subject up,’ he pointed out. ‘And your generalities did have a personal touch, despite your denial. You mentioned my abrasiveness and impossibly high standards—’

‘And I should never have opened my mouth,’ she said bitterly. ‘There are some men who just can’t help taking anything one says in a personal context. You’re obviously a prime example.’

‘And you, Mrs Hastings,’ he said softly, ‘are obviously somewhat intrigued.’

‘Oh, no, I’m not,’ she countered. ‘The very last thing I intend to do with my life, Mr Warwick, is to allow some man to have any say in it—so put that in your pipe and smoke it,’ she added, and leant against the door frame with a hand to her brow and a weary look of defiance in her eyes.

Steve Warwick drove in silence for about five minutes. Then he said, ‘So, he was a right bastard?’

Davina looked out of her window.

‘How did he get you in in the first place?’

‘How do they all—?’ She stopped and clenched her teeth. ‘Please, don’t say any more.’

‘OK.’ He shrugged good-humouredly. ‘There’s one thing we haven’t discussed—your time off.’

‘I don’t need any set time off.’

‘What about your photography?’

‘What I usually do on these jobs is just take the time when it comes, if it comes.’

‘I see.’

‘You don’t approve?’

‘I’d be a fool not to approve,’ he replied drily, and turned the Land Rover off the road and across the cattle-grid.

‘Thank you very much for the tour,’ Davina said stiffly. ‘Would you care to let me know your plans for the rest of the day? Will you be home for lunch et cetera, in other words?’

Steve Warwick pulled the Land Rover up beside the house and turned to her with all the wicked mockery he was capable of glinting in his hazel eyes. ‘Do you know how that sounded?’ he queried. ‘Like a much-maligned wife conducting a domestic dispute with her errant husband—we’ll have to watch ourselves, Mrs Hastings. Uh—I’ll be home for dinner, so you can have the rest of the day to yourself. Well, you and Maeve, my cleaning lady, that is. Good luck with her.’ He leant over to open her door and added, ‘Off you go, Davina. I know you’d love to hit me, but if I know Maeve she’ll be spying on us from somewhere.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I ALWAYS say to people that Mr Warwick is a lovely, lovely man. I know! I know he can be a bit hard to handle sometimes, but he’s really dependable.’

Davina drew a deep breath and stared a little helplessly at Steve Warwick’s cleaning lady, who resembled nothing so much as a talking, walking beach ball, from her round red face to her round, brightly clad figure. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know yet,’ she murmured.

‘Take it from me, luv,’ Maeve confided. She had not, in fact, stopped talking since they’d met an hour ago. ‘Now, is there any china you’d like me to get out and dust off? Mrs Warwick—that’s his grandmother—she’s got an eye like an eagle. She could see a speck of dust on them rafters.’ Maeve looked upwards and pointed. ‘So—’

‘No, no thank you,’ Davina said hastily and looked around a little wildly. ‘Uh—oh, yes, I’d like their bathrooms to be polished up if you wouldn’t mind, Maeve. Then perhaps you could start the ironing. I’ve aired some sheets for them on the line, I’d like them to go through the Elna Press.’

‘Certainly!’ Maeve said with a wide smile. ‘I love that machine. Takes an awful lot of the slog out of ironing. See what I mean about him, Davina? Mr Warwick? It’d be a lucky wife who got him; there’s not a thing to make housekeeping easier he hasn’t thought of!’ And with this further paean of praise she rolled upstairs with bucket and mop and an assortment of cleaning agents.

Davina breathed a sigh of relief and made herself a cup of coffee. She also darted a barbed thought at Maeve’s Mr Warwick who could have warned her beyond simply wishing her good luck, she felt—added to all the other things she felt about him. But, as the day wore on, she got more used to Maeve’s ways and found that as long as she wasn’t given anything too delicate to do, she was a tower of strength. She even cleaned and shone the barbecue which had been neglected since its last use with vigour and much good will.

All the same, when she left at three o’clock, the peace and silence was like a blessing. Davina walked around the house and decided it was nearly perfect and also decided that she was hot, it was a beautiful day, and she’d like nothing more than a swim. So she put her togs on beneath short white shorts and a shirt, stowed a beach towel in the carrier of the bike she chose, donned a helmet and set off towards Blinky Beach.

It was sheer magic pedalling through the golden afternoon with green, green grassy fields leading down towards the lagoon on one side and wooded hills rising on the other. She passed a dell of agapanthas and had to stop and simply gaze at their blue and white heads tossing gently in the breeze. She also couldn’t help but feel glad that Steve Warwick had chosen the almost deserted southern end of the island for his house because the feeling of space and aloneness didn’t disturb her at all now.

Past the airport she discovered a swamp full of birdlife alongside a paddock of contented cows and she made two resolutions: never to leave home without her camera again, and to buy a book so that she’d be able to identify all the birds.

There was the inevitable bike rack at the bottom of the steps that led over the grassy slope to Blinkys, with several bikes in it and she added hers to it with a slight smile. The beach, she discovered, was perfect. A long crescent of fine sand beneath the almost limitless blue sky, bordered at each end by rocky outcrops and with a decent surf rolling in. The few people on it looked tiny and insignificant and she wasted no time.

The water was delicious, cold and bracing at first but, once you were in, marvellously refreshing. She was a good swimmer and enjoyed surfing and she must have spent half an hour playing in and under the waves before she caught a roller back to the beach, and stood up with water cascading off her and wiping it out of her eyes to come face to face with Steve Warwick.

‘Why, Davina.’ His hazel eyes laughed at her. ‘I thought it might be you!’

She took in, in one swift look, his bare chest, his black board-shorts, the freckles on his arms and legs, his lean, hard physique, and said the first thing that came to mind, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘The same as you, my lovely mermaid, the same as you,’ he drawled, but there was nothing swift in the way his gaze lingered on her figure beneath her pink swimsuit and he smiled as his eyes met hers again. ‘I’ve come to cool off in other words. I often do on the way home in the afternoon. Although, you’re looking at me as if there should be a law against it,’ he mused.

‘There should be a law against the way you’re looking at me,’ she retorted fiercely.

‘Sorry,’ he murmured, but his eyes laughed at her again. ‘I think we’ve been through this before, I’m talking about the—er—men will be men syndrome. Is that a good way of putting it?’

Davina opened her mouth but decided to storm off instead, something she was unsuccessful in simply because he put out a hand, took one of hers in it so that she couldn’t free herself, and said in a different voice entirely, ‘No, let’s not ruin a beautiful afternoon like this, Davina. Come in and have another swim. I need a break and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did too.’

She tightened her mouth but out of the corner of her eye noticed that a couple strolling along the beach had stopped and were watching them interestedly. ‘Damn,’ she muttered, and then, ‘All right, but you don’t have to hang on to me as if I was a prisoner.’

So she had another swim and was perversely pleased that she was able to go out as far he did and do everything he did but of course, pride often comes before a fall she was to remember later. Her downfall came in the form of a dumper which caught them both by surprise but he reacted faster and, with all the strength he was capable of, grabbed her just as she was about to cartwheel into the sand and held her safe in his arms as the wave surged beneath them. He then coasted gently into the shore, still holding her. They lay together in the shallows as she spluttered a bit and took some deep breaths to restore air to her lungs.

‘Davina?’ he said after a few moments.

‘Mmm...?’

‘OK?’

‘Yes,’ she panted. ‘Thanks—I haven’t been dumped for years.’

‘That’s why Blinkys can be a bit tricky sometimes.’

‘I believe you.’ She stopped abruptly, and her eyes widened as she realised she was lying cradled against Steve Warwick with gentle wavelets washing up to their waists, and realised that her body fitted against his as if it had been made for it, that their legs had somehow got entwined and that she felt wet and silky where their skin touched, protected and safe in the circle of his arms yet with every inch of her body aware of his and stirred by that awareness. And, finally, aware that she was not alone in this reaction...

They parted by mutual consent, and wordlessly, a bare few moments later. But, while Steve Warwick released her and helped her up and did so expressionlessly, she felt a torrent of colour rushing up beneath her skin and her movements were a bit uncoordinated. She also turned abruptly to walk back up the beach but he said quietly, ‘No. At least rinse the sand off you. I’m in need of another swim.’

He swam for at least ten minutes although she just dipped herself and walked back to her towel. But as she dried the moisture from her body and her hair, she couldn’t help wondering how she was ever going to face him again. How, for that matter, he would be when he came out... She pulled her shirt and shorts on with unsteady hands.

He was perfectly normal. He made no mention of the fact that it had taken ten minutes of vigorous exercise in cold water to get himself in control—in fact all he said was, ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘R-roast beef. Oh! I’d better get going—’

‘Relax. It’s over an hour to dinner-time. Isn’t that plenty of time to roast a piece of beef?’

‘Yes, but I’ve still got to get there and there’s one hill between here and your house that needs to be walked up,’ she retorted with more spirit.

He dried himself briefly and dragged on a T-shirt. ‘Then I am the answer to all your problems, Mrs Hastings,’ he said with humour as his head emerged.

Davina tensed and he narrowed his eyes slightly as he stuck his arms through the sleeves. ‘I’ve got a bike rack on the back of the Land Rover, that’s all.’

She bit her lip.

* * *

Davina went straight into the kitchen when they got to the house to put the meat on and while she was at it, got the vegetables ready and made her other preparations.

Steve came into the kitchen as she was rinsing her hands. He’d showered and changed into long twill trousers and a blue open-necked shirt. ‘All in hand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why don’t you have a shower while I make us a drink?’

Davina faced him with uncertainty and wariness clouding her violet eyes. ‘I think I’d rather—’

‘Davina, I’m thirty-five,’ he interrupted pleasantly. ‘Which means to say I’ve had plenty of experience at practising self-control—if that’s what you’re worried about now.’

She blushed. For the life of her she couldn’t help it and at the same time felt a streak of anger because she’d been so hoping he would continue to act as if what had happened on the beach hadn’t happened at all. To make matters worse, she could think of nothing to say.

‘Go on,’ he said mildly, after a moment. ‘Unless you’re proposing that we avoid each other entirely for a month?’

She went with a toss of her head that brought a faint smile to his lips.

* * *

It took her twenty minutes to shower, wash her hair and blow dry it and get dressed into a loose, sleeveless, chalky blue cotton dress that floated around her as she walked. And, all the while, she sought rather desperately for some composure, but it was hard to beat the hollow feeling she had that she couldn’t blame her employer for the events on the beach because it was one of those things that had happened quite spontaneously—and mutually.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.