Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan’s novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan’s fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

About the Author

PENNY JORDAN is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

A Kind of Madness
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘SO YOU’RE leaving for Cheshire this evening. Exactly when do your parents sail?’ Peter asked.

They were having lunch at their usual restaurant, equidistant from Elspeth’s bank and Peter’s chambers. Both of them had agreed early on in their relationship that it made much more sense for them to fix a couple of days per week when they could lunch together, rather than committing too many of their precious busy evenings to developing their relationship.

That was one of the things that made their relationship so harmonious: they both had the same goals, the same outlook on life—the same firm and practical outlook. Not for them the heady, and so often destructive and exhausting passion of others. Which made it all the more difficult to understand why her parents, instead of approving of Peter, seemed almost to treat their relationship as a joke.

Of course, her parents and Peter were worlds apart; her parents were her parents, but one had to admit they were a trifle unorthodox in their attitude to the things that Peter considered important—one could almost say a little careless and feckless in their outlook on life, never treating it with the seriousness they should. Look at the way now that her father, having sold the farm and bought a smallholding, instead of investing the remainder of the money in some safe manner which would give them a good income, was insisting on taking her mother off to Egypt and then the Greek islands for a two-month holiday.

Really, the pair of them could be as irrational and as irresponsible as a pair of children at times. It was a good job that she was around to keep an eye on them. When her father had first sold the farm, she had heaved a small sigh of relief. She loved her parents, of course, but the farm and its demands had sometimes proved to be a small bone of contention between Peter and herself. The very first time she had introduced him to her parents, he had generously tried to point out to her father how foolish he was in trying to continue farming in the outdated traditional method her father had favoured, when he could have made the farm so much more profitable by using modern intensive methods. Peter had only been trying to help, and it had been unfortunate that her father felt so strongly about retaining the traditional methods of agriculture, and that Peter hadn’t realised that he had been treading almost on hallowed ground by arguing against them.

When her mother had first told her they were selling the farm, she had been pleased, envisaging a safe, comfortable life for them in a pleasant, easily run house in one of the very attractive local Cheshire villages, but to her shock what her parents had bought was a small and extremely run-down smallholding, which they had told her with enthusiasm and excitement they intended to use to raise organically grown vegetable crops.

Her mother, Elspeth remembered, had been bubbling over with eagerness for the project, explaining that they had already canvassed the very popular local restaurants, with which Cheshire was well supplied, to ensure that there was a ready market for their produce.

Elspeth had been dragged down to view the appalling wreck of a cottage, which looked fit only for demolition, and the flat, overgrown paddock that went with it.

She had tried to talk her parents out of such a crazy venture, her heart sinking when she’d realised they had made up their minds. The frustration of not being able to make them see that their money would give them a far better return if it was invested had sent her to live in London with a pounding headache, and the unpleasant sinking sensation that Peter would consider her to have failed in not persuading them to change their minds. Why couldn’t her parents be more like Peter’s? His father and mother had retired to a small south coast town, where they played golf and bridge. They had an immaculate detached bungalow with smooth green lawns and well-disciplined flower-beds. No pets were allowed in the Holmes household, no cats with unexpected litters of kittens, no rough stray dogs with large muddy paws and hairy coats…no parrots who called out the most appallingly rude things when one was least expecting it. She still blushed to remember how, the first time she had taken Peter home, the parrot which her mother had originally been taking care of for a friend, and which had somehow or other lingered on to become a permanent house guest, had flown on to Peter’s shoulder and bitten quite sharply at his ear before remarking in a voice which sounded uncomfortably like her mother’s, ‘Oh, dear, such a shame. Pious Peter…Pious Peter…’

‘Well, perhaps once they get back from this holiday they’ll come to see sense and sell up. I must say, Elspeth, I do find your parents rather…’ Peter frowned and studied his plate as though unable to find the words to describe his reaction to her family, while Elspeth hung her head in acknowledgement of his criticism.

It wasn’t until she had come to live in London that she had realised how eccentric and unusual her home life was. Having a father who was a farmer had caused a few amused raised eyebrows, but not too much other comment in the high-powered world of merchant banking. It was only after she’d made the mistake of taking a colleague home with her one Christmas that she’d made the humiliating discovery of how very odd and amusing her family was to others.

She had reacted instinctively on learning that Sophy, the other girl, had had nowhere to spend Christmas, inviting her to return to Cheshire with her, knowing quite well that another body would hardly be noticed in the crowd that her mother always drew around her. Having produced only one child, her mother had gone on to make up for this by maternally adopting every chance waif and stray she could, both of the human and animal varieties, and so it was that the farm had abounded with pet lambs turned aggressive and demanding sheep, goats who could never be milked, chickens too old to lay but whose necks could never be wrung, sheep-dogs who only dreamed lazily of sheep in their old age as they huddled up to the Aga, a collection of barn cats who never hunted—although thankfully in those days the parrot had not been in evidence.

Sophy had seemed to fit in so well with her family that it had come as a double shock to walk into the staff-room behind her and discover her entertaining a crowd of their fellow employees by telling them in her high-pitched Sloane Ranger voice about the chaos of the Turner household.

Elspeth had never felt so humiliated in her life. She had resolved there and then that, in the future, no one would ever be able to humiliate her or laugh at her in that kind of way again.

When her mother had asked gently why she no longer brought any friends home with her when she came back from London, she had quietly and firmly avoided a direct answer. From then on her home life and her career were two separate things.

After that she had been cautious about where and with whom she made friends. She had swapped her room at the small, crowded flat she’d shared with four other girls and had found herself a lone bedsitter.

Having more time to spend on her own had given her the opportunity to concentrate on her exams, so that when Sophy had been simpering over the engagement ring she had managed to extract from an up-and-coming bank clerk, she, Elspeth, had been quietly receiving the congratulations of her management on the excellence of her exam results.

While her colleagues had opted for the glamour and high-powered pressure of the dealing-room, she had set her sights in a different direction, cautiously looking ahead to the future, and equally cautiously deciding to leave the world of mainstream banking for the more specialised arena of merchant banking.

Here it seemed she had found her niche. She loved the meticulous, quiet, thoughtful concentration needed for such work; she liked being out of the public eye, working behind the scenes; and she was rewarded for her diligence with a good salary which had enabled her to buy her own small dockside apartment and to run a neat, economical car.

She had met Peter when he’d moved into an adjoining apartment. They had soon discovered how much they had in common. Unlike other couples, they had decided against moving into one shared apartment. After all, when they eventually decided to marry, by selling the two apartments they would have sufficient profit to enable them to buy a sensible London house which would be convenient for both their offices.

Later, when they had children, they might decide to move a little way out of London, somewhere convenient for the M4 and healthy for bringing up children. Yes, she and Peter had their lives all properly planned…Not for her the careless insouciance of her parents, who always left so much to chance.

When she had once gently chided her mother for this, the latter had replied firmly, ‘Elspeth, we like surprises, even the bad ones. I can’t understand how you can bear to have your life so carefully mapped out, every move planned. My dear, think how boring it will be…’

She had subdued the small, rebellious voice inside her which had found astoundingly that her mother had been right, reminding herself of her humiliation at the hands of the insufferable Sophy. That was never going to happen to her again—nor to her children. They would have parents whom they would know would never do anything to embarrass them. She would never forget the awful humiliation of that day…the mockery and laughter of her colleagues…the cruelty of Sophy, who had exaggerated her parents’ soft Cheshire accents just sufficiently to make them sound almost unbelievably bucolic, who had described in loving, cruel detail the plethora of cats, dogs and livestock that had run riot in and around the old farmhouse, who had mocked her mother’s somewhat casual attitude to the kind of housework that involved having a home in which nothing looked as though it was ever out of place. Even now it made her squirm to remember…

‘I’ll try to drive up to Cheshire for your second weekend there,’ she heard Peter saying, and automatically switched her thoughts from the past and back to the present.

Three weeks ago, just before her mother had telephoned and dropped her bombshell that she and Elspeth’s father had decided more or less on the spur of the moment to take a long holiday, Elspeth’s boss had sent for her, and had told her almost severely that it was time she used some of the eight weeks of leave that was due to her.

Thoroughly alarmed that he might have been suggesting a fall in the standard of her work, Elspeth had protested that she didn’t need a holiday, that she enjoyed her work so much.

‘Yes, Elspeth, I know and I do sympathise, but the board has issued instructions that, praiseworthy though they consider it that our staff are so conscientious, in this day and age with so many stress-related illnesses their staff must take their due allocation of holiday leave. Our personnel department tell me that it is over two years since you had a break of longer than three or four days.

‘The board has asked me to provide them with a list of all those members of staff who have more than one year’s allocation of leave built up.

‘The view of the board is that a healthy staff member with a well-rounded attitude to life will in the long run serve the bank better than, to use a current term, a “workaholic”.

‘I think you will agree that, in these circumstances, it might be as well if you could find a way of using up some of your built-up leave. I do sympathise, Elspeth, but the Livingstone contract is all but wound up, and unless you have something very pressing to attend to…’

Elspeth had shaken her head, her heart sinking, knowing that she had had no possible excuse for not taking her boss’s advice.

When he had added a further blow, telling her that he expected her to take at least four weeks’ leave, she had left his office feeling almost as sick with shock as she had done on that never to be forgotten occasion when she had overheard Sophy’s malicious description of her parents and home.

Had anyone told Elspeth that she was an extremely sensitive, almost over-sensitive young woman, whose emotions and self-confidence were easily bruised, she would have reacted with astonishment and dismissal. She considered herself to be one of that new breed of women who had managed to tame and control all those dangerously subversive feminine traits which had told so badly against her sex in the past.

Not for her sentimentality and the weakness of allowing her emotions to rule her head; not for her the folly of falling in love, of submitting herself to the pain of allowing another human being to become so important to her that he was the focus of her whole world. No, she preferred to put her faith, her trust in something far more dependable—like her work. Of course she wanted to marry, to have children, and in Peter she considered she had found the perfect mate: someone who felt about life exactly as she did.

They considered themselves an established couple, even though she wasn’t wearing an engagement ring, even though they were not as yet lovers. Peter was old-fashioned in such things, and she was glad of it. These days, when one heard and read of the appalling consequences of sexual freedom and promiscuity, it was reassuring to meet a man who considered his health more important than the satisfaction of physical desire. There had been one previous serious relationship in Peter’s life, a girl at university, but that was in the past. And as for her…

Elspeth moved uncomfortably in her chair. Her virginity was something she preferred not to dwell on. It had been the source of enough mirth among the other girls she had flat-shared with when the local office of her bank had first transferred her to London, and she had been too hurt and too proud to explain to the others that it was very difficult to enter into a purely physical fling with the careless abandon they seemed to favour when one lived and worked in a small country town, where everyone knew everyone else, and where at the first sign of her attempting to do any such thing the gossips would be having a field day.

And then by the time she had moved to London she had felt too shy, too self-conscious to remedy things. After Sophy—strange how she always thought of her life as before Sophy and after Sophy—she had curled up into herself, not trusting herself to form any new relationships with anyone, male or female.

But now there was Peter, and if she sometimes found his insistence that they did not sleep together, his reluctance to touch her at all except to give her the odd very chaste and brief kiss, somewhat lacking in passion, she comforted herself with the knowledge that she would have found a man who was far more openly and demandingly sexual very off-putting indeed.

No, Peter was right for her, and once they were married of course things would be different. As it was, their careers took up so much of their time that it was hardly surprising that Peter wasn’t keen to rush on their marriage. After all, as he had pointed out to her recently, the terrible events of the autumn of ‘87, when the markets had fallen so drastically and so many of their peers had lost their jobs, had had a disastrous effect on the property market, which had still not recovered, and it would be foolish for them to make marriage plans and to sell their flats until it had done so.

She had agreed wholeheartedly with him, but it had niggled her none the less the last time her mother had rung up to have had to explain that no, she and Peter had not made any wedding arrangements as yet.

It was the purpose of that phone call which was the subject of their lunchtime discussion today.

Her mother had been thrilled about the planned holiday, but she had been concerned about leaving her menagerie. ‘Fortunately, Carter has offered to take over and look after things for us…You remember Carter, don’t you, Elspeth?’

She did, but wished she did not. Carter MacDonald was her aunt’s stepson, but he had already been an adult when her aunt had married his father, and his visits to the farmhouse had consequently been very rare. What she did remember about him was that she had found him rather overpowering. Almost eight years her senior, she had first met him the summer her aunt had married his father. He had just finished university at the time and had been waiting to hear if his application to work in scientific crop research for Third World countries had been successful. Her feelings towards him had been so ambiguous that when her mother had mentioned his name alarm bells had started to ring wildly in her cautious brain, especially when she couldn’t seem to explain what Carter was doing in Cheshire when he was supposed to be working in America.

Gently she had tried to caution her mother against leaving a man who was after all almost a stranger to them in charge of the smallholding because, for all her own objections and fears, she had had to admit that her parents were making an outstanding success of their venture, with the vegetables they produced being in constant demand from prestigious local restaurants and hotels. Indeed, so successful was it becoming that they were being pressed to expand, to erect more greenhouse tunnels and to buy more land. Their accounts, when they had proudly shown them to her, had stunned her. She had had no idea it was possible to make so much money from producing organically grown food.

When she had said as much to Peter he had lectured her reprovingly, pointing out that with the move to a far more ‘green’ environment it was obvious that her parents’produce would sell well.

And now they were jeopardising the whole thing by lightheartedly taking off for two months and leaving their precious business in the hands of a man about whom they knew virtually nothing at all.

Not so, her mother had objected when she had pointed these facts out to her. In the past few months they had got to know Carter very well indeed. It was true that initially he had merely been looking them up out of good manners, having returned to England after a spell working in America. But it seemed that now for some reason he was seriously considering settling in Cheshire and that, moreover, he had plans to enter a similar line of business to her parents’, so that he had both the experience and the inclination to take over the running of the business while they were away.

Elspeth had found all this highly suspicious. Her memories of Carter were of a tall, thin male with a shock of overlong dark hair who had seemed very adult to her teenage self, someone who had made her very aware of her own immaturity. Her mother was even talking enthusiastically about him buying a small farm due to come up for sale next to their own land, so that the two ventures could be run as one, but her parents were so innocent…so naïve. They couldn’t see what Peter had been quick to point out to her—something she had not realised at first herself—that it might well be that Carter did intend to start up a business, a business which would be in direct competition to their own—and what better way to get a head start than by destroying their business while they were away and he was in charge?

Of course, she had known immediately it would be useless to point this out to her mother. For one thing, she knew that her mother would only laugh and dismiss Peter’s suspicions as unthinkable.

She had talked the whole thing over with him and he had pointed out further aspects of the situation which had not occurred to her: namely, that not only might Carter not take adequate care of her parents’ venture, but that he might actually deliberately try to undermine everything they had built up. ‘After all, if he is serious about setting up in competition to them…’ he had gone on.

Shocked, Elspeth had initially demurred, but Peter had insisted he was right. She had immediately wanted to warn her parents, but had known that they would not take her warning seriously. They seemed to have taken Carter to their hearts, almost as though he were a long-lost son, not someone who was barely related to them at all if one discounted her aunt’s marriage to his father.

A sensation which she had refused to admit as jealousy had struggled for life inside her—a sensation which she had immediately squashed. But then had come her boss’s announcement that she must take some leave, and she had immediately suggested to Peter that it might be as well for her to kill two birds with one stone by taking her leave and by spending it in Cheshire, where she could keep a firm eye on any Machiavellian attempts by Carter to undermine her parents’ business.

Peter had immediately agreed with her decision. She had rung her parents that evening, announcing that she had some leave due and that she was free to stand in for them while she was on holiday.

At first her mother had seemed surprisingly unenthusiastic, almost as though she didn’t want her at home, and her ire and suspicions had grown when she had later learned that it was Carter who had told her parents that that kind of sacrifice on her part was unnecessary, and that he was sure she would much prefer to spend her leave with Peter.

Not so, she had returned firmly. And in the end her mother had thanked her and accepted her decision, although even then she had not seemed very confident of Elspeth’s ability to take charge. Which was foolish, surely. After all, her parents had a small staff who did the day-to-day routine work. Elspeth was used to dealing with underlings, having a small department under her at the bank, and surely a well-educated, mature woman of twenty-seven would have no trouble at all in running one very small small-holding for a period of one month.

And so she had planned everything. She would drive down to Cheshire three days ahead of her parents’ departure so that she could familiarise herself with their routine, and make sure that Carter knew that any interference on his part would not be welcome.

It was a pity that he was living in the area while he looked around for a suitable property of his own, but if he turned up at her parents’ smallholding she would make it more than plain to him that, in their absence, he was not a welcome guest.

As she listened to Peter telling her about his latest case, she smothered the uncomfortable feeling that if her parents had made Carter welcome in their home as a member of the family, they would be highly embarrassed if she refused to do the same. She reflected crossly that it was high time she overcame these rebellious and unwanted weaknesses which more properly she ought to have left behind her when she’d left home.

Her parents were a warm-hearted couple, whose naïveté about the realities of life and the human race were all very well in the context of a small rural village where they had been known all their lives, but the world had changed dramatically since her parents were young, and it frightened her sometimes how little they seemed to realise that fact.

Take the time she had got off the London train in Chester, only to discover that her mother had befriended a solitary and extremely hairy young man who had got off an earlier train, and even worse that she had practically invited him home for the weekend. One only had to pick up a paper to realise the danger of befriending strangers.

Not that Carter was a stranger precisely, but his motives were very suspect, as Peter had wisely pointed out to her. In fact Peter had rather chided her because she herself had not seen that danger immediately.

Truth to tell, she had been inclined to become more indignant about the way Carter seemed to have wormed his way into her parents’ affections and become an established part of their lives—so much so that the last time she had gone home, when mercifully he had been away visiting friends for the weekend, the parrot had shrieked unrelentingly, ‘Where’s Carter? I want Carter. Now there’s a man,’ accompanying this statement with a barrage of wolf-whistles and other equally unsavoury remarks.

It was not Jasper’s fault, her mother had apologised. The parrot had had three homes before being dumped on her parents; one of these being a Manchester pub, no doubt frequented by the kind of men who thought nothing of whistling at women and making fulsome remarks about their physical endowments.

Peter had remarked on their return drive to London that he sincerely hoped the bird would have met its demise by the time their children came along. ‘It’s that kind of thing that exerts the worst possible influence on young children,’ he had informed Elspeth.

Even worse, as she cringingly remembered, had been the reaction of Peter’s mother when he had described the parrot’s excesses to her the following weekend.

Peter was scrupulous about making sure that they never visited one set of parents without visiting the other, and if sometimes she had the unnerving feeling that he was doling out these duty visits with more parsimony than real emotion, she kept these unwanted thoughts firmly subdued.

Peter’s parents were nothing like her own. Peter’s mother was a wonderful housewife. Her furniture gleamed with polish, her kitchen floor could literally be dined off, and if Elspeth sometimes noticed the stiff formality of her visits there, the immaculate tidiness of the small sitting-room with its furniture that was both uncomfortable and almost too tidily arranged, she smothered her feelings and concentrated instead on reminding herself that once they were married Peter would no doubt expect her to maintain the same high standards attained by his mother.

That would be a challenge, but Elspeth reminded herself that the modern career woman thrived on such challenges, skilfully balancing the needs of career, home and family, and in doing so winning the admiration of everyone around her.

Mrs Holmes did not really approve of wives who worked. In her day making a home had been enough to keep any woman contented, but on the other hand she agreed with Peter that the additional income Elspeth earned would contribute welcomely to the family budget. There had even been a moment when Peter’s mother had suggested that when their children came along it might not be unfeasible for her and Mr Holmes to move to London, so that she might be on hand to take charge of her grandchildren’s upbringing.

For no good reason she could understand, Elspeth had experienced a very fierce and surprising shock of dislike for that suggestion. Into her mind had come mental images of her own childhood, of the farmyard and its inhabitants, of her mother’s kitchen with its good smells and its untidy bustle, of laughter and sunshine, of love and warmth, and she had known instinctively that she would never ever allow her prospective mother-in-law to bring up her own children.

Disturbing though these thoughts were she had managed to subdue them, chiding herself for being over-sentimental, reminding herself of how ill-equipped her own childhood had left her for the hard realities of life and people. And yet…

‘Elspeth, you aren’t listening to a word I’m saying. Really, I don’t know what it is about your family, but they do seem to have the most unsettling effect on you. If it weren’t for the fact that someone ought to check up on what this man is planning, I’d have serious doubts about the wisdom of your spending so much time in Cheshire. Both apartments need decorating. You could have made a start on the painting while you were off.’

Elspeth focused on him, wondering why she didn’t feel more enthusiastic about his suggestion, why she felt an almost sneaking sense of relief that she was committed to going home.

For no reason that she could readily discern, over these last six months she had experienced more and more rebellious moments of startling clarity, during which she had had the unnerving sensation that her relationship with Peter, her life here in London, her work, her scrupulous re-tailoring of her personality, her appearance, even her thoughts, were not an escape from the old childish, trusting Elspeth and her naïve country ways, but a trap—a trap which was gradually but inexorably closing around her.

Which was totally ridiculous, and fostered, she was sure, in some odd and indefinable way by her parents. Not that they would be liable to make those oh, so casual, but nevertheless pointed remarks about Peter this time. At least, not after the first three days, and she suspected they would be far too excited about their holiday to even think of remarking on how odd it was that she should choose to marry such a man.

Elspeth had never quite dared ask what they meant. She preferred to assume that they were simply marvelling at her good fortune rather than criticising Peter.

At precisely one-thirty, Peter summoned the waiter and paid the bill. At the end of the month they would scrupulously divide up the total cost of their total outings for that month, to make sure that such costs had been shared equally between them.

And if just occasionally Elspeth wondered what it would be like if Peter suddenly lavished her with expensive flowers or bought her handmade chocolates, she told herself severely that she was not that kind of dependent, childish woman, who needed to be bought such treats by a man; that if she wanted flowers she could buy her own. But something inside her refused to be totally convinced, making her cross with herself for yearning for such outdated, meaningless gestures.

‘Time to go,’ Peter informed her, standing up.

He said exactly the same thing every time they lunched together. Previously she had always found his predictability soothing, reassuring—but for some reason today it grated on her. She wondered what it would feel like if Peter suddenly behaved like her father, and announced that he had booked them both a surprise holiday, that he was taking her away to somewhere she had always wanted to go. She told herself severely that he would never do anything so thoughtless, that he would realise that it would not be possible for her to drop everything to go to the other end of the world with him. No, if—when she and Peter took a holiday together, it would be one that was meticulously planned and organised, which was just what she would want. She could think of nothing worse than being told that she had less than three weeks in which to prepare for a two-month trip abroad.

Of course her mother thrived on such announcements, throwing herself into them with enthusiasm and as much excitement as a small child. But she was not her mother…No. She had recognised, the day when she’d stood in the doorway to the staff-room of the bank listening to Sophy, that for the rest of her life she would have to protect her parents from people like that. That she must never again subject them to the kind of cruel mimicry employed by her supposed friend.

Just before they parted outside the restaurant, acting on some impulse she couldn’t understand, she leaned towards Peter, inviting him to kiss her.

A look of shock crossed his face. He drew back from her immediately, glancing hurriedly over his shoulder as though to make sure no one had witnessed her lack of self-control. He cleared his throat, avoiding looking at her. He was embarrassed, she recognised, flushing hotly, and no wonder. What on earth had possessed her? She knew quite well that Peter hated public demonstrations of affection.

‘Er—I’m afraid I shall be late in tonight—I’m seeing a client. I’ll ring you at the weekend. When would be a good time?’

Still flushed and angry with herself, Elspeth made an automatic reply, and then, having exchanged slightly guarded smiles, they both went their separate ways.

What a stupid thing for her to have done! No wonder Peter had looked so put out. They simply weren’t the sort of couple to indulge in that sort of thing. Really, she didn’t know what had got into her…

It must be because she was feeling a little edgy about confronting Carter. She had no real fears that she would be able to handle the situation and ensure that he understood that she was well aware of what he was up to—thanks to Peter. Nevertheless—nevertheless, half of her wished rather weakly that Peter were going with her, that perhaps…Not to deal with Carter for her—no, of course not—but just to be there as a sort of back-up—or just to be there full stop, she realised suddenly and rather disconcertingly, as the traitorous thought slid into her mind that for Peter to have parted from her so unemotionally and casually did not really suggest that his feelings for her were particularly lover-like.

But how ridiculous. What did she expect? A passionate embrace in the middle of the street? Of course not. Their relationship wasn’t like that. They were far too sensible for that kind of thing. Their relationship was built of mutual aims, mutual respect, mutual goals. Rather disconcertingly as she headed back to the bank she remembered her mother once telling her nostalgically that she had fallen in love with her father the moment she’d set eyes on him; that she had known he was the one for her when he had rushed out into the road to rescue a kitten from under the hooves of the milk-man’s pony, daring both the milkman’s fury and the amusement of onlookers when he’d presented the rescued kitten to her with a courtly bow of his head and a whispered confession that he rather suspected he had split his jeans during his heroic dive to rescue the kitten, and would she please go and stand behind him so that he could get to his feet without completely losing his dignity.

To envisage Peter in such a situation was beyond the power of the most inventive type of imagination. Peter would have ignored the cat. He never liked getting involved in things which did not concern him. He would certainly never have bandied words with the milkman, and as for wearing old and worn jeans in danger of bursting their seams…A complete and utter impossibility—thank goodness. She would have been mortified in her mother’s shoes, to be aware of being the cynosure of all eyes…She shuddered and closed her eyes. She and Peter were perfect for one another—perfect. She was a very lucky woman—very lucky indeed.

So why did she feel so…so on edge?

It was Carter’s fault, of course. If he hadn’t come back into their lives, inveigling his way into her parents’ affections…She had disliked him even as a teenager, feeling intimidated by him. He had teased her, she remembered, making fun of her braced teeth and pulling at her plaits. She at fourteen had been mortified by his reaction to her, and had retaliated by whisking herself out of the room whenever he had walked into it, and refusing to address more than half a dozen words to him during his entire visit.

‘Not like your ma and pa, are you, cuckoo?’ he had tormented her, she recalled.

She had been hurt by that comment…hurt and confused, although she had not let him see it.

Well, this time it would be different. This time she was an adult with no need to feel intimidated. This time he would see how very different indeed she was from her foolish, too trusting parents.

CHAPTER TWO

NOT much further to go now. Only a handful of miles—thank goodness. There had been so many hold-ups on the motorway that the journey had taken rather longer than Elspeth had allowed for. It was still light—just, the sky overhead remarkably clear, the moon and stars just beginning to shine. Thank heaven it was June, with its long, light evenings. She hated driving in the dark, especially down the narrow, winding country lanes that surrounded her parents’ home.

As she pulled up at a set of traffic-lights, another car pulled up alongside her.

It was the sensation of someone looking at her, willing her to turn her head, that made her react instinctively, glancing sideways at the occupant of the other car—and immediately, angrily wishing she hadn’t been so foolish as its male driver grinned back at her.

Elspeth glared frigidly at him. These traffic-lights seemed to be taking forever to change, and she wasn’t used to being grinned at in that overly familiar fashion, especially not by strange men—especially not by a very large, very brown strange man wearing a short-sleeved shirt that was open almost to his waist, and a pair of disreputable shorts which revealed a pair of heavily muscled and extremely brown thighs.

At his age he ought to be beyond the stage of making unwelcome advances to unknown women, she decided bitterly, firmly refusing to give in to the temptation to cast him a second look, just to make sure he knew exactly how angry she was at his familiarity. He must have been closer to thirty-five than fifteen, but then he was obviously a particular type of the male species whom she most disliked: conceited, over-muscled—and boasting of those muscles by his state of undress—and driving one of those eye-catching, sporty little cars with its soft top down, its paintwork a bright and vibrant red. Just the sort of car that drew attention to its driver. Just the sort of car Peter would never ever consider driving—thank goodness. The lights changed and she waited hesitantly, giving him time to pull away. His type always loved to be first off the mark, and she was not anxious to draw up at the next set of lights alongside him. Thank heaven, after that she would be turning off the Chester ring road and heading for her parents’ home village.

But as she waited for the bright red car to move the traffic behind her signalled its impatience at her delay, and she realised that the red car had still not moved.

Feeling uncomfortable and unnerved, she put her own small car in gear, wincing a little as she underestimated the amount of clutch and shot forward in an ungainly and thoroughly inexperienced manner, galling in the extreme to someone who prided herself on her sensible, safe handling of her car.

As she glanced automatically into her rearview mirror, she saw to her horror that the reason the red car hadn’t moved was that its driver was now signalling to pull into her lane right behind her, and that the traffic, caught off guard by her kangaroo-like leap forward, had allowed him to do so.

Indignation rose in her throat. How dared he? Did he honestly think she was the kind of woman to be impressed by that sort of idiotic behaviour? Hadn’t he realised from the look she had given—that look of freezing disdain she had soon learned to hide her real feelings behind after that never-to-be-forgotten occasion when she had walked into the staff-room at the bank with her real emotions written all too clearly on her face? Did he actually think she would be flattered by his obvious pursuit of her?

Things like this simply did not happen in London, where the drivers were far too anxious to get to their destination to play these silly games. And she had never in her wildest imaginings believed that she would be involved in something so juvenile.

Well, he would soon get tired of showing off and pursuing her, once she had made it plain to him that she simply wasn’t interested. And once he realised she was turning off at the next set of lights he would soon return to the main stream of traffic.

By rights a man of that age ought to have far more serious matters on his mind than pursuing unknown women. If she had been of a less strong disposition, nervous and easily frightened, she could almost have been panicked into having an accident by his pursuit of her.

Men like that were a danger to the other traffic. By rights she ought to report him to the police, she told herself in annoyance as a peep in her mirror showed her that he was still behind her.

At least he had some sense, she noticed reluctantly. He was keeping a good safe distance between them, not trying to crowd up behind her.

Just as she approached them the lights turned to red, and, on an impulse she couldn’t entirely analyse, instead of indicating that she was turning right, she did nothing…Let him think she was going straight on. That way she would make sure that he didn’t pursue this stupid game any further. Although she was determined not to look in her mirror, she found that she was doing so. Simply out of habit, she assured herself. All good drivers kept an eye on the traffic behind them.

He had pulled up right behind her, and as she glanced into her mirror she saw to her fury that he was actually daring to smile at her a second time. A smug, self-assured smile, which said that he was quite sure that his insulting behaviour would be admired and welcome. She had a good mind to get out of her car and give him a piece of her mind. Arrogant, conceited creature…Couldn’t he see that she just was not the type of woman to be flattered by what he was doing? Surely her immaculate, shoulderlength, straight red hair with its sophisticated London sheen and elegance, her thoroughly city-groomed suit and blouse, her discreet make-up, which emphasised her golden eyes and which was delicately balanced on the right side of seriousness, told him that she was a career woman, and simply not interested in flirting with strange men in bright red cars.

A cold glare into her mirror should reinforce that message, if he was so bone-headed that he hadn’t already received it.

This time when the lights changed she was ready for them; deftly turning the wheel and flicking the indicator, she pulled out and away, giving the car just a little more acceleration than she would normally have used, and discovering, as she turned into the quiet B road that led eventually to the village, that rather disconcertingly she was actually holding her breath.

Odious man. His sort ought to be locked up. He probably had a wife somewhere and a family. The poor woman no doubt doted on him. She could picture her now, a pretty, sad-eyed woman, with two quiet, subdued little children, suffering already from their father’s outrageous behaviour. No doubt he never took his wife anywhere but preferred to flirt with other women, leaving his wife at home with his children…He probably kept her short of money as well, Elspeth thought with a scowl. Otherwise how on earth could he afford to run a small bright red car which had never been designed for family use? Why, it hadn’t even had a child-seat in the back. That was how little he thought of his family, that he didn’t even make any provision for their safety.

Carried away by her rising tide of anger on behalf of this fictitious wife and children, it was several minutes before she looked in her mirror again. Not because she had any doubts about doing so—of course not…It was simply that there was no reason. As her glance flicked upwards, she braked instinctively in outraged reaction at the sight of the now familiar red car on the road behind her.

He had actually dared to follow her! The nerve of the man. If the road hadn’t been so narrow, she would have stopped where she was, leaving him no opportunity but to drive past. She hoped when he got home that his supper was burned and that his wife was justifiably furious with him.

It was ten miles to the village, nearer to fourteen if one took the narrow, meandering lane that only allowed for the single width of one car and which involved a dirty and very damp fording of a local river. The last time she had gone down that lane, Peter had been furious. There had been mud all over his newly polished car and, as he had virtuously pointed out to her, if he had not had the windows closed the inside of the car would have been wet and muddy as well.

Well, if the driver of the red car insisted on continuing his futile pursuit of her, she would teach him a lesson that might make him think twice about bothering another woman the way he was doing her. She’d like to see how he explained the state of his now pristine car to his wife.

Far too angry to be afraid, as soon as the turning down the lane appeared Elspeth turned sharply into it, gasping out loud in fury as she realised that her tormentor had followed her.

Ignoring the fact that she was driving much faster than was normal for her, and praying that she did not meet anything coming in the opposite direction, she gritted her teeth, and hoped unkindly that the river was full after the recent spring rains. Her own car, a sturdy Volvo, would have no problem at all with the ford, but his…his…bright red plaything… Savagely she decided that she hoped the river was high enough to bring the thing to a complete standstill.

The mental image of him standing in the ford, having to push his car to the nearest garage, brought her a good deal of satisfaction. She only felt piously sorry for his poor wife, who would no doubt receive the brunt of his bad temper. His kind of man always reacted with bad temper when thwarted. They were so obnoxious that it never occurred to them that their advances were not welcome, that all women did not find them instantly and irreversibly attractive. Look at him now—still daring to smile at her every time she looked in the mirror, although now she noticed his smile was turning to a frown.

Did he realise what lay ahead of them? She certainly hoped so, she decided viciously. It was certainly too late for him to turn round.

She saw the familiar sign for the ford and dropped down a gear in readiness for it. As she had known it would, her sturdy car splashed through without any problems.

Safely on the other side, she watched in glee as the red car followed suit. The ford, muddy from her passage through it, came much higher up the wheels of the red car than it had done her own, and as she had hoped the muddy, gritty water soon marked the pristine scarlet of the car’s over-bright bodywork.

Serves him right, she decided grimly as she pulled away, heading for the village.

The lane ended a few miles short of the village, curving back on itself to meet the main road. As she emerged on to it, Elspeth saw the red car pull up behind her.

To her astonishment, just as she turned out on to the road the creature had the gall to flash her with his headlights. Astounded at his temerity, she missed her opportunity to pull out. She could see a heavy stream of traffic coming towards her and blocking her exit, and as she sat waiting for an opportunity to move she suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of a car door being slammed.

Looking into her mirror, she saw to her horror that the man was walking towards her. Heavens, he was huge. She had guessed he would be tall, but he was well over six feet—much taller than Peter, who was only four inches above her own five feet six. He was also broad, and the shirt he was wearing looked even more disreputable at close quarters than it had done at a distance. As he headed towards her, plainly intent on ignoring all her attempts to show him just how little his advances were welcome to her, Elspeth was so incensed that she forgot the cautious training of her adult years, forgot all the warnings constantly given by the papers and police against lone women stopping their cars and opening the doors to unknown men, forgot everything bar the anger boiling up inside her, and just as he reached her car she thrust open the door and got out, trembling with rage and indignation.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing,’ she told him, going straight into the attack. ‘But if you think for one moment that I’m flattered by your idiotic and juvenile behaviour, then you’re wrong. And if you imagine that by following me and trying to get my attention you’re going to impress me, then think again. I’ve a good mind to report you to the police, but I suppose your poor wife has enough to put up with. Your behaviour must be embarrassing in the extreme for her and for your children, but I don’t suppose you ever think of that, do you? Men like you never do. I don’t suppose you ever give a thought for anything or anyone but yourself. If you want my real opinion of you, I think you’re detestable—detestable and contemptible, and if you don’t stop following me immediately I shall report you to the police.’

Having said her piece, Elspeth suddenly discovered that she was trembling, as much with a strange sort of exhilaration as with anger.

He was standing in front of her in a most threatening manner, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t reached out and taken hold of her. She could see the way he was clenching and unclenching his hands. No doubt it had upset him to discover how little she welcomed his pursuit of her. Well, it would do him good to realise that not every woman he chose to pursue was going to fall at his feet in gratitude and admiration. Even so, justified though her anger was she had perhaps been rather foolish. They were virtually alone, and he was a very strong and now very angry man. A tiny thrill of sensation ran through her as she realised that if he did choose to take hold of her and, for instance, actually dared to kiss her, there was very little she could do to stop him. Of course, if he did she would make it immediately clear to him just what she thought of such disgraceful behaviour. She would remind him that he had a wife and family. Shocked by the direction of her own thoughts, Elspeth suddenly realised that she was standing there practically inviting him to make some sort of attack on her, and that she ought to get straight back in her car and drive off before he realised it as well.

As she did so, he took a step towards her, and said something she couldn’t quite hear as a huge lorry thundered past, but she was pleased to note that when she eventually managed to pull out into the traffic he turned in the opposite direction. No doubt he had quickly realised his mistake. Well, she was glad of it. Perhaps in future he would think twice before subjecting some poor female to his arrogant and unwanted behaviour.

She stopped in the village at the local garage, which she knew would still be open, and which thankfully still had some milk for sale.

Despite all his efforts, Peter had still not managed to persuade her to drink her coffee black, and since her mother was still valiantly attempting to convince herself that both she and her father actually preferred the milk produced by their goats, if she, Elspeth, wanted anything like a decent cup of coffee, she would have to provide her own milk.

Her stop at the garage delayed her longer than she had intended. The proprietor was a friend of her parents and wanted to chat, so that it was fifteen minutes before she could get away, by which time dusk had started to fall properly.

Never mind, she only had a very few miles to go, and there was virtually no traffic.

Secretly, if she was honest with herself, she still enjoyed coming home. There was something about Cheshire with its pretty countryside, so neat and clean, its fields speckled with black and white cows, its crops growing on land which had yielded harvests since before the Romans had landed and built Chester.

As she turned off the main road and into the narrow lane leading to her parents’home, security lights suddenly sprang into life at her approach.

Automatically slowing down, Elspeth stared at them in a mixture of surprise and approval. Ever since her parents had moved here she had been advising them to have these lights installed, reminding them severely of their potential vulnerability to thieves, but her father, while listening to her, had never seemed to take her advice to heart, and she had despaired of ever making her parents see the wisdom of her suggestion.

Now it seemed that she had been wrong. A further and equally pleasant surprise was the discovery that her mother’s goats, which normally roamed the lane and the yard, providing a hazard for the unwary, were safely penned up in the paddock.

She could hear the dogs barking as she approached the yard, and the familiar feeling of anticipation mingled with anxiety gripped her stomach.

Anticipation because, no matter how much she might dislike it, there was still a part of her that missed this country environment in which she had grown up, and which reacted to her return to it with an almost heady sense of release; and anxiety because invariably she arrived home to discover that her parents had got themselves involved in one or other of the potentially dangerous situations they seemed to be irresistibly attracted to. Like children to water, she reflected in affectionate exasperation as she turned into the yard and neatly parked her car next to the mud-spattered red car, which must be the new one her mother had told her she was buying.

The mud-spattered red car!

Elspeth froze in her seat and stared at it in a mixture of dismay and disbelief. It couldn’t be the same car—of course it couldn’t. It was just a coincidence…and besides, this one had its hood up—and besides, how on earth could he have possibly known her destination?

Shakily she opened her door, reassuring herself that it was just coincidence, but as she did so a man rounded the corner of the house; a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man who paused when he saw her and then looked at her.

It was the look that did it. She found she was literally grinding her teeth as she stood up, and she wished passionately that she was taller so that she could look directly at him instead of having to look up at him.

At close quarters the tanned face was not quite as suavely handsome as it had seemed. For a start the strong, high-bridged nose had been broken at some stage and was now slightly crooked, but in some odd way that imperfection seemed to add something elusively attractive to the man rather than detract from his appeal, lending his face a strength and character that a more perfect profile would have lacked.

As she stared at him, Elspeth even caught herself wishing almost wistfully that it weren’t quite so dark so that she could see what colour his eyes were. What did it matter what colour they were? she chastised herself furiously. What did matter was that he had no right to be here—none at all—and if he thought for one moment she was going to be flattered by his presence…

Quickly, before she could weaken completely and give in to the totally unfamiliar foolishness that seemed to have caught hold of her, she told him as much, delivering the words in the sharp, crisp tones of the modern woman she considered herself to be; a woman who knew exactly how to deal with his sort of man and who lost no time in doing so, making it abundantly clear to him exactly what she thought of his behaviour.

It was only when she stopped to draw breath that she realised indignantly that neither of her parents had appeared to rescue her from him and that, instead of looking thoroughly chastised by her justifiable denunciation, he was instead watching her with a mixture of mockery and disdain.

‘I hate to stop you in mid-flood,’ he told her while she gulped in air. ‘I applaud your performance, by the way. Your parents never said you were into amateur dramatics. A bit over the top, perhaps.’

Elspeth was still staring at him. ‘My parents?’ she demanded, confused. ‘You know them?’

‘Yes. In fact…Look, why don’t we go inside so that we can talk properly?’

Go inside? Talk properly? Elspeth looked wildly at him…Where were her parents? Why didn’t they come and rescue her from this madman?

‘Go inside…’ she stuttered, stupefied that he should actually think she was willing to go anywhere with him.

‘Mm. I’ve just about finished out here. I was going to wash down your mother’s car, but I suppose that can wait.’

Her mother’s car. She looked from him to the mud-spattered vehicle. ‘That…that belongs to my mother?’

‘Mm. She was going to buy a small hatchback, but she saw this in the showroom and fell in love with it. She said you’d be horrified and probably give her a long lecture.’

Suddenly another emotion was added to her confusion. This one was sharp and painful—desolation mingling with a sense of betrayal that her mother should discuss her with this…this stranger.

Immediately another and potentially scorchingly humiliating thought struck her, and she asked huskily, ‘When you followed—er—saw me on the road, did you know who I was?’

She was praying that he wouldn’t answer in the affirmative, and when she saw him nod his head she felt quite sick.

‘Oh, yes. I recognised you immediately. You haven’t really changed. Of course I was expecting you. Stupid of me, I suppose, but I’d expected you to recognise me too and when you didn’t…’

He rubbed his hand along his jawline, and suddenly, and far too late, she did.

‘You’re Carter!’

Impossible not to keep either the shock or the chagrin out of her voice, and she realised as he looked down at her that the smile had gone out of his eyes.

‘Yes,’ he agreed curtly, ‘and now that we’ve established that fact, perhaps we can go inside. I’ve had a long and tiring day, not made any better by a half-hysterical woman accusing me virtually of attempting to abduct her, not to mention my crimes against the wife and family I do not happen to have.’

As Elspeth stared towards the house, its silence suddenly made her suspicious. ‘Where are my parents?’ she demanded, frowning at him.

‘That’s what I wanted to tell you. They decided to leave a few days earlier and spend some time with some old friends en route for Southampton. They left this morning—said to give you their love and to tell you you aren’t to worry about a thing. I promised them I’d be on hand when you arrived to explain everything. That’s why I was hoping to stop you earlier—I was on my way to drive over to Knutsford with some provisions for a restaurant we supply there, but in the circumstances…’

Several things struck Elspeth at once. The first and most immediate was that she had made an utter and complete fool of herself and that, far from following her for the kind of nefarious and sexual purpose she had assumed, Carter was patently oblivious to her as a woman; the second was that betraying and very worrying ‘we’. Had her foolish, too trusting parents already been tricked out of what was rightfully theirs?

Wishing desperately that they had waited until she arrived, she ignored Carter, turning her back on him and heading for the kitchen door.

To discover that it was not unlocked surprised her, and, while she was still staring at it in baffled fury, Carter stepped in front of her and inserted a key into the lock, deftly turning it and opening the door for her.

‘A small precaution I’ve persuaded your parents to take. They’re far too trusting.’

‘Yes, they are, aren’t they?’ Elspeth agreed through gritted teeth. Why was it that this man was making her feel an outsider, an interloper, a stranger almost in her own home, frustrating and obstructing her at every turn she took?

Suddenly her head started to ache. She felt dirty and tired, and she longed almost ridiculously to see her mother come bustling towards her, soothing her with the promise of a cup of tea and some of her home-made bread. Silly tears of anger and weakness clouded her eyes.

Fiercely she dashed them away. Heavens, she hadn’t cried since…since that episode in the bank’s staff-room, and she certainly wasn’t going to do so now, in front of this horrible, horrible man.

Abruptly moving past him, she headed for the door and the stairs, pausing only when she had opened it to say frostily to him, ‘Well, it was thoughtful of you to be here to welcome me and tell me that my parents have left, Carter, but now if you’ll excuse me I’m tired and rather grubby. I think I’ll go straight upstairs and get ready for bed.’

Not waiting to see how he had taken her dismissal, she went upstairs. All she wanted was for him to take himself off to wherever it was he was living. Tomorrow would be soon enough to try to come to terms with the enormity of her own idiocy. All right, so she had made a mistake—a natural one surely in the circumstances. He was lucky she hadn’t reported him to the police, hounding her like that. She bit her lip, wishing she wasn’t able to imagine the scene at the police station had she done so. Carter she was sure would have relished revealing his identity, making her look a complete fool.

Of course he must have known she wouldn’t recognise him. Why, it was over ten yeras since she had last seen him. Then he had had that thick, bushy beard and that wild, unkempt hair which had made him look unapproachable and rather dangerous.

He was still dangerous, to her parents anyway—but he was soon going to discover that she was a very different proposition, that she could see exactly what he was up to. Thank goodness Peter had had the wisdom to point out to her just what his motives might be.

Mingled with her exhaustion and her anger was another emotion, a sharp, dangerous emotion that hurt and ached, an emotion that made some secret place deep inside her heart feel sore and tender, and all because she had seen the amusement in his eyes when he’d informed her just why he had been following her, and she had known how much pleasure it had given him to refute her accusations. If he had said the words out aloud he couldn’t have made it plainer just how little possibility there was of his finding her attractive or desirable.

Quite why that should hurt she had no idea—nor did she want to know.

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