Shadow of Desire
Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

ENDPAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

GINNY CLAYTON packed the last carton of groceries carefully into the back of the elderly estate car and slammed the rear door shut, with a smiling word of thanks for Mr Murgatroyd who had helped her carry the boxes out of the shop. The sometimes reluctant engine started at the second attempt and the car moved away slowly, bumping over the cobbles before easing on to the road and disappearing out of the market square.

Mr Murgatroyd, dourly returning Ginny’s exuberant farewell wave, heaved a sigh before returning to the shop. His wife, busily pricing a new consignment of tinned fruit, looked up, and encountering his brooding look gave a sympathetic nod.

‘It just doesn’t seem right—a young lass like that, with all that responsibility.’ Mr Murgatroyd poked a cereal packet back into line on a shelf with quite unnecessary vigour.

‘There’s not many her age would take it on,’ Mrs Murgatroyd observed temperately. ‘The old aunt would have been put in a home, and foster-parents found for that young limb of a brother. She could have had a life of her own then.’

‘Instead of dogsbodying for that Mrs Lanyon,’ Mr Murgatroyd said fiercely. ‘That’s all she’ll be, Ida. A dogsbody.’ He seemed to relish the word in a gloomy way.

The Murgatroyds were both silent for a few moments, considering Ginny’s employer, Vivien Lanyon, the widow of the last of a long line of a once wealthy and powerful local family. The Lanyons had lost their power and most of their wealth long before Geoffrey Lanyon had been killed skiing in the Swiss Alps, and although no one in the locality was able to say precisely why such a deterioration in the family fortunes had come about, nevertheless everyone agreed that it was not because the Lanyons had ever been guilty of overpaying their staff, or treating their tenants too generously.

They were not nor ever had been a popular family, and although the local people admired the way Vivien Lanyon was hanging on at the Manor, and even making a go of her riding stables, they still agreed that she was a real chip off the old block and no mistake, more like a Lanyon born than a stranger who happened to have married into the family—and no one was under any illusion that this was intended as a compliment to the lady.

‘And that sister,’ Mr Murgatroyd continued. ‘What’s she doing about it all, I’d like to know?’

‘She’s an actress,’ Mrs Murgatroyd said, as if that explained everything. ‘I saw her on an advert on the telly last night. For hair spray.’ She affixed the last price label with an air of relief. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘it’s none of our business, when all’s said and done, and there’s a load of soft drinks want bringing in.’

Mr Murgatroyd nodded, and set off for the rear of the shop in search of the soft drinks, but his mind even then was still not completely on his mission. He sighed again. ‘It just doesn’t seem right,’ he muttered.

Ginny, driving home along quiet lanes, would have been surprised to learn that she was the object of anyone’s sympathy. For the past few months she had been unable to believe her own good fortune.

Yet ‘dogsbody’ would have had a familiar ring. It was the very word that their family solicitor Mr Robson had used when he had told her about the job at Monk’s Dower.

‘You’ll be little more than a glorified caretaker, Ginny,’ he’d said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know whether I’m doing the right thing in telling you about the position—only it does include accommodation, and I know this has been proving a problem for you.’

That, Ginny thought, was putting it mildly. The worry of trying to find a home for herself, plus an elderly lady, a small boy and a disreputable dog, had been keeping her awake at night, and deepening the shadows under her large hazel eyes.

It was incredible and frightening how life could change almost in the twinkling of an eye, so that the security she had always taken for granted was revealed as the fragile and tenuous thing it had always been in reality.

Security had been life in the tall Victorian house in the quiet country town where she had been born, with her parents and younger brother Tim, and with Aunt Mary, who had occupied the top floor of the house ever since her retirement from a career in teaching at a girls’ boarding school in the south-west of England.

It had been a quiet comfortable existence, and Ginny had found her progression from school to a secretarial course a peaceful one. She had never shared her older sister Barbara’s hankering for the bright lights, but then, as she would have been the first to admit, neither did she share Barbara’s dazzling good looks.

No one had really been surprised when Barbara opted for drama school in London, nor that when her course was finished she had stepped straight into a small part in a long-running hit in the West End.

Mr and Mrs Clayton had been delighted for her, and if they were disappointed that their glamorous eldest child so rarely found the time to come home to see them, they never admitted it. They seemed prepared to accept that Barbara now inhabited a different world, and took pleasure in her success, and the paragraphs that she now merited in the local paper.

But there had never been any question of Ginny following in her sister’s footsteps. Not that she had ever had ambitions in that direction, but if she had then a glance in her mirror would have quickly established a more realistic point of view. Her brown hair hung straight and as shining as rainwater to her shoulders, and though her eyes were large and heavily fringed with dark lashes, they were not otherwise remarkable, and nor were her other features. But, as she had often cheerfully remarked, one raving beauty in the family was quite enough, and she accepted without rancour the nickname ‘Mouse’ which her relatives bestowed on her.

She enjoyed her secretarial course. She was enjoying, with reservations, her first job in an accountant’s office. Even within the limitations of her environment, her life seemed to stretch away in front of her, full of possibilities as yet unexplored.

And then, one night of black ice, everything changed for ever. A coachload of football supporters veered across a dual carriageway and crashed into the Mini bringing Mr and Mrs Clayton home from the house of some friends. Mrs Clayton was killed instantly, but Ginny’s father lingered for a few days in intensive care.

Ginny coped because she had to, undergoing the ordeals of funerals and inquests. But there was a greater ordeal to come, one that no one had suspected. Mr Clayton’s small business had been heavily in debt, and he had borrowed from finance companies, not always wisely, using insurances and even his home as security. To her horror, Ginny learned that when all the creditors were paid, there would be hardly anything left in the way of money, and that they would no longer have a home.

In a way she was glad that her mother would never know just how flimsy the outward fabric of her life had been. Her father had never brought his business worries home with him, and for Mrs Clayton life had always been comfortable, with no shortage of little treats and luxuries.

But there was no escaping the fact that she, Ginny, was now responsible for finding accommodation for them all, and for earning sufficient money to pay the rent and support them.

Nor could she avoid the unpleasant truth that Barbara was not prepared to help in any way.

Her sister had made that more than clear during the brief time she had spent at home to attend the funeral.

‘I think you’re completely mad,’ Barbara had declared, stubbing out her cigarette in the saucer of her coffee cup. The sisters were in the kitchen having a bedtime drink the night before Barbara was due to return to London. ‘No one expects you to take on the responsibility for them all—a girl of eighteen. It’s ridiculous!’

‘But if I don’t, who will?’ Ginny asked mildly enough. Her head ached miserably and she felt drained of emotion. The last thing she wanted was an argument.

‘Well, I won’t for one,’ Barbara said bluntly. ‘There’s no room at the flat and I have my own life to lead—my career to think of, thank you very much. And so should you.’

‘I haven’t really got a career, just a job that I don’t much care about.’ Ginny carried the coffee cups over to the sink and began to rinse them under the tap. She looked round at the neat, bright kitchen with its tiles and new kitchen units which Mrs Clayton had been so proud of, and a sharp little pain twisted inside her like the turn of a knife. ‘But it’s been experience, and I can look for something that pays rather better now.’

Barbara’s lips twisted. ‘You’ll need something that pays like a bomb for what you have in mind. For heaven’s sake, Ginny, see sense. You’re biting off altogether more than you can chew. No secretary’s salary in this neck of the woods is going to pay the rent for the size of place you’d need—always supposing you found somewhere, and that won’t be easy. Where landlords are concerned, children and dogs are an anathema, take my word for it.’

Ginny turned off the hot tap with intense concentration. ‘Which do you suggest that I have put down—Tim or Muffin?’ she enquired.

‘Oh, don’t be a fool,’ Barbara snapped. ‘But you’ve got to be realistic. Just because Dad fancied himself as an amateur philanthropist, it doesn’t mean that you have to follow in his footsteps.’

‘You mean Aunt Mary.’ Ginny reached for the tea towel. ‘Doesn’t it matter to you that she’s losing her home as well?’

Barbara shrugged. ‘Of course,’ she said without any conviction. ‘But she can’t rely on you to provide her with another one. She must see that. After all, she has her pension, and there are plenty of places catering for elderly women in her position.’

‘Nursing homes, I suppose, and seedy private hotels.’ Ginny dried a cup and hung it from the appropriate hook. ‘Would you really condemn her to that, Barbie? She was Dad’s favourite aunt.’

‘But not mine,’ Barbara said coolly. ‘I don’t know how Mother put up with her all these years.’

There was a difficult silence, then Barbara picked up the thread again.

‘And as for Tim—well, has it occurred to you that the Social Services might take a hand?’

‘Yes, it has,’ Ginny said coldly. ‘It’s also occurred to Tim, and he’s worried sick about it. Some of the children at school have been telling him that he’ll be taken into care—you know what insensitive little beasts they can be.’

Barbara reached for another cigarette. ‘Would it be such an unthinkable thing?’

‘Barbie!’ Ginny was aghast. ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘I’m trying to be realistic,’ Barbara said sourly. ‘Face facts, Ginny. How can someone of your age be mother and father to an eleven-year-old boy? It’s just not on.’

‘It has to be,’ Ginny said. ‘I’ve given Tim my word that we won’t be split up.’

‘If you don’t find another job and somewhere to live, the choice may not be yours,’ Barbara had pointed out coolly and unanswerably.

It was a fact that was haunting Ginny now that the first shock and grief of losing her parents was beginning to wear off. In a way, she was glad that the harsh practicalities of life were beginning to assume such importance, and make such demands on her time and energy, because they stopped her indulging in bouts of useless emotionalism and self-pity. The very fact that Tim and Aunt Mary depended on her so heavily had lent her a strength and purpose she had never been aware of, but it had not blinded her to the realities of the situation.

She had wondered at first whether Barbara would be able to help financially, if in no other way, but she had soon been disabused of that notion. Her sister was about to go into rehearsal in yet another light comedy which would be taken out on tour before its West End opening, and no one could prophesy what its fate would be in the uncertain world of show business. It might provide Barbara with a steady income for many months to come, or, as she pointed out with unshakeable logic, it might fold almost at once, leaving her to join the dole queue. Whatever happened, she was in no position to commit any of her income.

Ginny was not altogether surprised. She had always been aware that there was a single-minded, almost ruthless streak in Barbara which set her apart from the rest of the family. Certainly their father had never possessed it, Ginny thought with a sigh, otherwise his affairs might not have been in the bleak state they were at the time of the accident.

At the same time, she knew that Barbara’s view of her situation was a realistic one, and this was brought home to her in the weeks which followed. There were other jobs, but none that paid the sort of salary on which she could support a ready-made family, and finding another home was quite a different matter.

None of the flats and small houses she saw were large enough to accommodate them all, and those that were she could not afford. And, as Barbara had prophesied, few prospective landlords were prepared to consider a tenant with a child in tow anyway, and after the first few rebuffs, Ginny did not even dare mention the existence of Muffin, the mongrel dog, past puppyhood it was true, but certainly not past such anti-social habits as burying bones under sofa cushions and scratching paint off doors to facilitate his exits and entrances.

She had been very near to despair and worn out with the effort of concealing it from Tim and Aunt Mary when Mr Robson had phoned to ask her to call and see him at his office. Ginny had supposed it was to do with some detail about the sale of the house, which was proceeding with almost frightening speed.

When he had mentioned the job at Monk’s Dower, she had hardly been able to believe her ears, even though he had warned her candidly that it would be no sinecure.

Vivien Lanyon, it transpired, was the client of a friend of his in the neighbouring market town. Monk’s Dower had been in the Lanyon family almost as long as they had occupied the Manor House. Local history said that the name recalled the bitter period following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when the Lanyon of his day had allowed some monks expelled from a nearby abbey to build themselves a shelter on a corner of his land. Here, it was said, they had settled, cultivating their plot of ground, and looking after the sick of the nearby parishes as they had always done. Eventually they died, one by one, and the house they had built reverted to the Lanyons who had used it as a dower house ever since.

‘I gather Mrs Lanyon plans to let the house on a long lease.’ Mr Robson stared down at the gold fountain pen he was holding. ‘It’s a large, rambling place—it’s been added to in all kinds of ways over the years, and her plan is to let it with—er—resident domestic help included, as it were. The servants’ quarters have been converted, I understand, into quite a pleasant self-contained flat, but the wages she is offering are far from generous. So far she has experienced considerable difficulty in finding anyone suitable to take on the job because of the poor money. The attraction as far as you are concerned, Ginevra, would be the accommodation. I am not personally acquainted with Mrs Lanyon, but I cannot say whether I could recommend her as an employer from what I have heard.’ He paused.

‘What exactly would I have to do?’ asked Ginny.

‘Make sure the house is kept clean and aired, and ready for occupation as and when the tenant required. But I would guess that covers a multitude of other sins as well.’ Mr Robson gave her a kindly but rather rueful smile. ‘Mrs Lanyon has the reputation, frankly, of demanding her pound of flesh and more. You might well find that you were little better than a dogsbody for her.’

‘Does she object to dogs?’ Ginny asked swiftly, not really taking in the implication of his words, because her heart was beating with sudden excitement. Compared with her present problems, coping with a difficult and perhaps demanding employer seemed a much easier option.

‘I hardly think so. She keeps a number of them herself, I believe, and shows them too. You could represent your dog in the capacity of a guard dog, perhaps. I understand her tenant is likely to be away a good deal.’

Ginny had a mental image of Muffin—he of the flopping ears and eagerly proffered paw.

‘I’m sure he’d make a very good guard dog,’ she said mendaciously. ‘Mr Robson, I could kiss you!’

He sighed. ‘Don’t be too grateful, my dear, until you find out more about it, but if you’re interested, I can arrange an interview.’

It only took half an hour in Vivien Lanyon’s formidable presence to warn Ginny that all Mr Robson’s forebodings were probably quite justified. She was tall, blonde and attractive in a hard way, and she made it clear at the outset that Ginny was far from being what she had in mind as a caretaker.

‘You’re far too young,’ had been her first, incredulous reaction and Ginny had had to bring all her persuasive powers to bear to ensure herself a fair hearing.

‘I wanted a couple really.’ Mrs Lanyon had flung herself down pettishly on one of the silk-covered sofas in her drawing room. ‘The man to do the outside work and look after the garden, of course, but people don’t want to work these days, it seems, and quite frankly I’m getting desperate, so I suppose I could give you a trial.’ She looked Ginny up and down and sighed. ‘The hours will be long, I give you fair warning, and rather uncertain, but the reduced rent you’d be paying reflects this, I think. The house itself has been taken for a preliminary year by a Mr Hendrick, and you’d be answerable to him rather than me. He’s abroad a good deal, and you’d have to see to it that the house was always ready for him at all times—fuel stocks replenished, staple foods and milk ordered—that sort of thing. I’d expect you to keep the house clean and tidy too, but the heavy work is being done by Mrs Petty from the village. As for the garden’—she hesitated, tapping a varnished nail against her teeth—‘I suppose I’ll have to let you have Simmons one day a week.’

‘Perhaps Mr Hendrick will take an interest in the garden,’ Ginny ventured.

Mrs Lanyon gave a short laugh. ‘I hardly think so. He isn’t the type to bother about such mundane affairs, but he likes the house and that’s all that matters.’ She gave Ginny a long, hard look. ‘It’s very quiet out here. The village is very small, and it’s a long way to the nearest town. What will you do with yourself—a girl of your age?’

Ginny was tempted to reply that she felt her time would be fully occupied with the programme Mrs Lanyon had outlined, but she curbed her tongue.

‘I have my family to look after,’ she returned with a dignity which sat oddly on her youthful shoulders. ‘I shan’t be bored.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that.’ Vivien Lanyon took a cigarette from the box on the table in front of her and lit it. ‘You realise you’ll be sharing a house with a single man. I wouldn’t want you to get—ideas.’ Face and voice were equally unsmiling as she said it, and Ginny felt a swift surge of temper rising within her which again she had to control. Instinct told her that Vivien Lanyon would not countenance an employee who answered back, and she needed this job and what it promised.

‘I can safely say that my only idea is to do the job well and provide a home from my brother and my aunt,’ she said quietly.

Vivien Lanyon shrugged slightly. ‘I’m pleased to hear it. At least with your responsibilities, you should be dependable. You won’t be likely to flit away as soon as the novelty wears off. Very well then, Miss Clayton—Ginevra.’ She glanced down at the letter of introduction which Ginny had brought. ‘What an extraordinary name!’

‘I believe it’s a form of Guinevere,’ Ginny said rather bleakly. ‘My mother used to love all the Arthurian legends.’

‘Really?’ Mrs Lanyon looked and sounded blank. ‘How fascinating. Now, when do you think you could start? Mr Hendrick’s tenancy begins next week, although he won’t be taking up occupation immediately.’

‘I’m working out my notice now,’ Ginny told her. ‘I could start on Monday, using the weekend to move in—if that was all right?’

‘Quite satisfactory.’ Now that everything was settled, Vivien Lanyon’s voice was almost indifferent. ‘Call in at the office as you go out and Kathy my head girl will show you round the house. You have transport, I presume?’

‘Yes.’ Ginny thanked heaven inwardly for the driving lessons which had been her father’s seventeenth birthday present to her. She had passed the test at her first attempt and had been used to driving both the Mini, which had been A write-off after the accident, and the rather battered estate car which her father had used for work, and which she was determined to hang on to at all costs.

The term ‘girl’ was something of a misnomer when applied to Kathy, Ginny discovered, when she was confronted by a large middle-aged woman who regarded her with something akin to pity on her weatherbeaten face.

‘How do you do.’ She extended a hand which could have encompassed both Ginny’s slender ones. ‘My word, she saw you coming and no mistake! How’s a slip of a girl like you going to see to a great barn of a place like that?’

Ginny bit her lip. ‘I’m not afraid of hard work.’

‘You don’t need to be, working for her.’ Kathy got up from the desk where she was working with account books and ledgers. ‘I suppose you want to see round the place—see the worst, eh?’ She took a bunch of keys from a board by the door. ‘Mind you,’ she went on, leading the way through the stable yard round to the front of the house where Ginny had left the car, ‘it’s a wonder to me that her ladyship has taken you on at all—but I suppose she can’t afford to be choosy at the money she’s offering.’

‘Thank you.’ Ginny did not know whether to be amused or insulted at the older woman’s forthright remarks. ‘I assure you that I’m perfectly capable.’

Kathy shrugged. ‘Makes no matter to me, dearie, whether you are or not. As for her, you could be Mrs Beeton the second, and she still wouldn’t take you on. She likes her female staff to be battered old warhorses like me, not clear-skinned young girls—especially when there’s a man around.’

Ginny was startled. ‘You mean Mr Hendrick?’

Kathy gave an exaggerated sigh as she settled herself into the passenger seat. ‘None other. He’s all man, believe me. Madam there couldn’t wait for him to sign the lease.’

‘I see,’ Ginny said slowly, as she started the engine.

‘Well, I hope you do, ducky. No use in looking for trouble, is there? And she marked him down as hers the moment she laid eyes on him.’

Kathy might be appallingly indiscreet, but she seemed friendly enough, and Ginny laughed.

‘I’m not setting up in competition against her, believe me.’

‘You couldn’t, dearie.’ Kathy’s tone was dry. ‘You’d be left at the start. If she’d have thought there was the slightest danger you’d be looking for another job.’

As they drove down the narrow lane leading to Monk’s Dower, it occurred to Ginny that this was the first time her brown mouse looks had ever actually stood her in good stead, but this was not a particular comfort to her. A small flicker of rebellion stirred inside her at being so easily dismissed, but she stilled it. Her attractions, or lack of them, were the last thing that should be on her mind at this point in time.

Monk’s Dower was large and rambling, built on three sides of a courtyard in a variety of styles reflecting the periods when additions had been made. Her heart sank a little as she followed Kathy from room to room, because it was neither labour-saving nor convenient. There were open fires in the principal rooms, and wide expanses of ancient polished floorboards. Most of the furniture seemed old-fashioned without being antique, but there was a mellow air about the place which not even the slightly dank smell of disuse could dispel.

The kitchen was slightly more hopeful. It had been modernised and furnished with attractive pine units, and there was a modern wood-burning kitchen range as a centrepiece. The roomy walk-in pantry contained a large deep-freeze, Ginny noticed, and she supposed she would be expected to supply this with the kind of food a bachelor would need—whatever that was. Convenience food, she surmised vaguely, and chops and steaks.

‘The place smells damp.’ Kathy sniffed the air. ‘It wants living in—fires fighting. I told you it was a barn, didn’t I?’

‘Yes,’ Ginny acknowledged. ‘But it has character—and it could be lovely, if someone cared about it.’

Kathy’s lips twisted derisively. ‘The someone being you, I take it? Well, let me give you some good advice, ducky. Don’t knock yourself out—and don’t break your heart either. I’ve worked for her ladyship for years, but I’ve seen others come and go. Just do what you’re asked and take your money, but don’t make any special effort, because you won’t be thanked for it.’

Ginny tried to smile in reply, but Kathy’s cynicism disturbed her. She wondered how many years she had worked for Mrs Lanyon. Certainly she seemed to know her employer only too well.

She drove home feeling rather depressed when she should have been on top of the world, but when she arrived back at the house she was thankful that she had taken the job, because a social worker was waiting for her, being entertained rather stiffly by Aunt Mary who had been brought up to believe that Heaven helped those who helped themselves, and who disapproved of the Welfare State on principle.

The interview which followed was a rigorous one, because the children’s officer clearly did not believe that Ginny was old enough or responsible enough to be head of any sort of family. She listened with frank scepticism as Ginny outlined her plans and gave details of the new job.

‘You surely don’t expect to maintain yourself and a growing boy on a wage like that!’ was her immediate reaction.

‘Certainly not,’ said Ginny, who hadn’t even got around to considering the nuts and bolts of the situation. She cast round wildly in her mind for inspiration. ‘I—I’m going to be left with a lot of time on my hands, so I thought I’d—start a typing agency,’ she finished on a sudden gulp of relief, which she hoped had not been noticed by her inquisitor.

‘I see.’ The social worker looked frankly nonplussed, and after a few more rather desultory questions, took her leave, announcing brightly that she would ‘be in touch.’

‘I hope,’ Aunt Mary said reprovingly once they were alone, ‘that you haven’t deceived that unfortunate woman, Ginevra. Have you actually made enquiries into the need for such an agency?’

‘Well—no,’ Ginny said rather guiltily. ‘But I’m sure there are lots of people around who haven’t enough work for a full-time secretary. I shall advertise.’

‘Hm.’ Aunt Mary pursed her lips. ‘I hope your advertising is successful, my dear child. Our visitor’s remarks had a certain justice, you know. Tim is growing fast, and approaching the most expensive period in his life. It seems to me this post you’ve obtained is going to entail a great deal of work for very little return. Are you sure you’ve made the right decision?’

‘Part of the return is a roof over our heads,’ Ginny said gently. ‘That’s the most important thing.’

‘A roof, nevertheless, that’s dependent on the whim of others.’ Aunt Mary shook her head. ‘Not a comfortable situation, but we’ll have to hope for the best.’ She hesitated for a moment, then reached down for the capacious black leather handbag which accompanied her everywhere. ‘I’ve taken the precaution of writing away to a few places. You’re a good child, Ginevra, but I wouldn’t wish to inflict a greater burden on you than you’re able to bear.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ginny glanced at the sheaf of papers her great-aunt was extending to her. ‘The Sunny-view Home for the Aged,’ she read aloud in tones of disgust. ‘Oh, Aunt Mary, how could you! Your home is with us—you know it is.’

‘My home was with your dear parents,’ Aunt Mary corrected her, her back a little straighter than usual. ‘You’re very young, Ginevra, and you have every right to a life of your own.’ She paused. ‘I’m not by nature an eavesdropper, but I happened to come downstairs one night while your sister was here. I couldn’t avoid overhearing what she was saying, she produces her voice extraordinarily well—part of her stage training, I suppose.’

‘Aunt Mary!’ Ginny was aghast. ‘You—you really mustn’t take any notice of Barbara. We see things from completely different angles and …’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Aunt Mary said rather acidly. ‘If you shared her viewpoint, this conversation would probably not be taking place. But she was not entirely in the wrong, although I found her mode of expression rather hurtful. Are you quite sure that Tim is not more than sufficient responsibility for you?’

‘Quite sure.’ Ginny’s voice was firm. ‘Aunt Mary, you can’t let me down. I—I need you. No matter what I told that woman, I’m going to have my work cut out looking after that house. If you could help with the cooking and—just be there when Tim gets in from school,’ she ended on a note of appeal.

‘I shall be pleased to do whatever I can.’ Aunt Mary allowed her firm lips to relax into a smile. ‘And I’m not entirely decrepit, Ginevra. I daresay I could make beds and help with the dusting, as well.’

Impulsively Ginny put her arms round her great-aunt and hugged her. Aunt Mary did not, as a rule, welcome random demonstrations of affection, but this time when Ginny released her, she looked pink and pleased, even though she said robustly, ‘Go along with you, child.’

In the intervening two months, Ginny thought, things had worked out better than she had ever dared hope. The move to Monk’s Dower had gone quite smoothly, and Tim was now settled at his new school, with only the occasional nightmare reminding him of the tragic disruption his young life had suffered.

The job itself was proving rather easier than she had expected. Mrs Petty who came in from the village on an ancient bicycle twice a week turned out to be slipshod but willing, but fortunately, Ginny thought with satisfaction, her new employer was not the type of man to go peering in corners after a few stray cobwebs.

The colour deepened in her face as she thought about Toby Hendrick. He was altogether different from what she had expected. For one thing, he was much younger, and far better looking, with fair hair and smiling blue eyes.

He had arrived at Monk’s Dower without giving her any preliminary notice, and the first inkling she had had that the main part of the house was occupied was the gleaming monster of a car parked in the courtyard. She had gone across immediately, her heart sinking. This was her first test as a housekeeper and she’d failed it pretty comprehensively, she thought savagely as she let herself in. His bed wasn’t made up, for one thing, and there was no bread or milk in his part of the house, although they had plenty and could share with him.

She was quaking when she arrived in the kitchen and found him on his knees, trying, with a lot of muffled cursing, to get the range going. Ginny had taken over from him, stammering her apologies, but he’d waved them laughingly aside.

‘I didn’t know I was coming down myself until a few hours ago, I’m a creature of impulse, I’m afraid, Miss—–?’

‘Clayton,’ she supplied. ‘Ginny Clayton.’

‘Toby Hendrick.’ He shook hands solemnly with her. ‘As we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, shall we cut the formality? I’d much rather call you Ginny.’

She said, ‘That’s fine with me,’ letting a curtain of hair fall forward across her face to mask her embarrassment.

No, Toby had certainly not been what she expected. Kathy’s descriptive phrase ‘all man’ had prepared her for someone rather different, although she was at a loss to know what. She was glad that the shadowy and rather formidable figure she had built up in her mind was only a figment of her imagination. He certainly wouldn’t have been as easy to work for as Toby, she thought, smiling to herself.

And Kathy had been wrong about Vivien Lanyon’s interest in him too. She had rung up a couple of times while Ginny was working in the house to make sure that everything was all right, but the exchanges between Toby and herself had been brief and formal in the extreme. Nor had she been over to Monk’s Dower, and Ginny told herself that if Mrs Lanyon had been really interested in Toby, she would never have been away from the door. Perhaps she had decided it was rather degrading to chase a young man who was patently her junior, Ginny thought.

After his first visit, which had lasted only two days, Toby had vanished for three weeks. Then one evening he had telephoned to warn that he would be coming for the weekend, and this time Ginny was fully prepared.

His room was ready, with fresh towels laid out in the adjoining bathroom, and a bowl of early daffodils set on the dressing table. The drawing room fire was lit, and the kitchen range was glowing, while the appetising aroma from a beef stew cooking in its oven crept through the house.

Cooking for Toby did not come within Ginny’s official list of duties, but she told herself rather defensively that as she was preparing the stew anyway, it took little effort to put some of the ingredients into a separate casserole. Aunt Mary had raised a caustic eyebrow as she had haltingly tried to explain this, but made no comment.

And Toby’s subsequent appreciative remarks had made the extra effort more than worthwhile, she decided smugly before she fell asleep that night. And perhaps it wasn’t altogether imagination that the warm gleam in his eyes when he looked at her hadn’t simply been prompted by gratitude for the food, delectable though it had been.

Since then he had been down to Monk’s Dower every weekend, and Ginny found she was looking forward to each visit with a strange intensity. She knew what was happening to her, of course. She had been vaguely attracted to men before, but it had never meant anything and such relationships as she had enjoyed had been casual in the extreme. But the feeling growing inside her was new to her, and she didn’t want to fight it, although common sense told her that she should. After all, she had not the slightest reason to think that Toby felt the same. He looked at her as if the sight of her pleased him, but reason told her that he might well look at any passably attractive girl that way. And he was practically a stranger to her. He worked in London, that much she knew, but she had no idea what he did for a living. She assumed his frequent absences were caused by his trips abroad, but he never mentioned them or any aspect of his life away from Monk’s Dower at all.

She sometimes wondered if he had a girl-friend. It was hardly possible that anyone as attractive and charming could still be unattached. She visualised the bleak prospect of his wanting to bring girl-friends down to Monk’s Dower with him, as he was perfectly entitled to do, she told herself. How would she feel about that?

There were all kinds of unanswered questions about Toby, she decided. One of the downstairs rooms had been fitted up as a study with a workmanlike desk and a large electric typewriter, but he made no attempt to use it, as far as she knew. Perhaps he went in there and worked during the night—but at what? she wondered.

Surely there was some easy way to find out, without sounding as if she was trying to pry, or get too close. Perhaps this very weekend—if he came down, because the expected message hadn’t arrived yet—she would get the opportunity to find out a little more about him, Ginny thought. Maybe he had telephoned while she was out shopping, and was on his way at that moment.

The weekends had begun to assume a kind of pattern. Toby would arrive some time during Friday evening and eat the food that she had left in the oven for him. Then he would come over to their part of the house and join them in their sitting room. Sometimes they would watch television, but at others they would play Scrabble, and Toby had taught Tim how to play gin rummy. He teased Aunt Mary outrageously, and scratched Muffin’s stomach with his foot, and behaved pretty much, Ginny thought, as if they were his family, and he had come home.

He was clearly a very social person, and enjoyed the company of others, and Ginny found it strange that he should choose to rent a house in a quiet remote corner like Monk’s Dower. She could only surmise that perhaps it presented the greatest possible contrast to his workday life.

On Saturdays he usually got up late and cooked himself an enormous breakfast combined with lunch. Then he went out during the afternoon. Once or twice he had taken Muffin with him for a walk. On another occasion, he had driven Tim into Market Harford and taken him to the cinema.

On the previous weekend, he had taken Ginny herself out for a drive. She’d enjoyed sitting beside him in the big, powerful car. He drove well, she thought judiciously, trying to be objective, but took too many unnecessary risks, relying on his extra speed to get him out of trouble. He hadn’t spoken much, and Ginny didn’t attempt to break the silence, quite satisfied that he had chosen her company. She hoped secretly that when the afternoon ended he would say, ‘Don’t let’s go home yet. I know a place where we can have dinner and dance afterwards.’

But he didn’t, of course. He just drove her home in the ordinary way. It was dusk as he turned the car through the gates into the courtyard, and the lights were on welcomingly in Ginny’s part of the house. She said, trying to sound casual, ‘Would you like to come in and have some supper with us?’

He turned and looked at her in the gathering darkness, and for a moment she had the oddest feeling that he hadn’t been with her at all. Then he smiled and said easily, ‘Not tonight, Ginny love. I have to get back to town. But I’ll be down again soon, so hold my invitation over, will you?’

He helped her out of the car, and she was absurdly conscious of his hand under her arm. She stood very still. Their bodies were almost touching, and if she lifted her face and he lowered his head, their mouths would touch, and she wanted it to happen more than she had ever wanted anything in the world. Something inside her was crying, ‘Toby, kiss me,’ so wildly that she was momentarily afraid she might have spoken aloud.

Then the door opened and the light streamed into the courtyard, and the magic moment had gone, and Aunt Mary was calling, ‘Ginevra, are you there, child?’

She thought she heard Toby mutter something under his breath and hoped very much that it might be a curse of frustration.

He said lightly, ‘In with you, love. I’ll see you.’

During the past week, she’d lived on that—the unspoken promise behind, ‘I’ll see you.’ And the fact that he had called her ‘love’ twice. Surely that must mean something, she thought.

All week she’d hoped that Toby might phone her—not just to say that he was coming for the weekend, and would she have the house ready—but simply to speak to her privately, even if it was just to ask how she was. But the phone had remained inimically silent.

Ginny pressed down on the accelerator, anxious to get home in case there was a message now. As she turned into the lane which led to Monk’s Dower, and then on to the Manor, she saw Vivien Lanyon coming towards her on the back of a tall mare. Ginny slowed at once, and pulled in well to her own side of the road. To her surprise, Mrs Lanyon reined in her horse and dismounted, looping the reins over her arm. Ginny felt a quick flutter of alarm. Over the past weeks she had seen very little of her employer, and she had been quite content for it to be so. She leaned over to the passenger side and wound down her window with some reluctance. Perhaps Vivien Lanyon had decided that Toby was to be her exclusive property after all, and had heard about last weekend’s outing. But her employer’s expression, though cool, was not particularly unfriendly.

She said, ‘So there you are. I’ve been trying to ring you at the house.’

‘I’ve been shopping for the weekend’s food in Market Harford,’ Ginny felt obliged to explain. ‘Tim’s at school and Aunt Mary usually has a rest in the afternoons. She doesn’t hear the phone from her room when the door’s shut.’

Vivien Lanyon’s brows rose. She said languidly, ‘Spare me the domestic details. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve heard from Mr Hendrick, and he’ll be down this weekend. Make sure everything is ready, will you.’

She gave Ginny a slight nod, then moved away from the car before re-mounting.

Ginny sat and watched her departure in the rearview mirror. She felt as if she had been abruptly showered with very cold water. So Toby was in contact with Vivien Lanyon after all. Perhaps he liked sophisticated older women. Whatever his tastes, she thought, re-starting the engine with a hand that shook slightly, country mice would come a very poor second each time.

On the other hand, she reasoned as she drove, perhaps he too had been telephoning Monk’s Dower and been unable to make Aunt Mary hear, and had phoned Mrs Lanyon as a last resort. Her spirits rose perceptibly at the thought. And all that really mattered anyway was that he was coming down for the weekend and perhaps this time they would really be alone and no one would interrupt or switch on a light or call out, and he would really kiss her.

Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright as she hurriedly unloaded her groceries. The kitchen was full of a savoury smell. Aunt Mary had been busy making one of her special chicken casseroles. Ginny decided that she would wait until Toby arrived and take his helping across to him in a covered dish. Then the choice was his. He could either dine in solitary splendour, or come across to their side of the house and join them for the meal.

She would be very lighthearted and casual about it, she told herself. She would say laughingly, ‘I’ve brought your supper, but that invitation still stands,’ and see how he reacted.

There was a mirror beside the kitchen dresser and she caught a sudden glimpse of herself, and paused, dissatisfied. Why did she have to look so—so damned ordinary? she asked herself despairingly.

Basically, she could change very little in the time available, but she could at least have a bath and wash her hair. She had some special cologne she had been saving. She would use that too.

‘He won’t know what’s hit him,’ she told the mirrored reflection defiantly.

Her plans were delayed by the discovery that Muffin had been sick in the sitting room. She had just finished with the cloth and disinfectant when Tim arrived in from school, complaining of imminent starvation, and she sat him down at the kitchen table with a thick crust cut from the end of a new loaf indecently loaded with butter, and a glass of milk.

Then Aunt Mary appeared, complaining that she had lost her reading glasses, and insisting that everyone stop what they were doing immediately and help her search. The glasses, safe in their case, eventually came to light down the side of Aunt Mary’s favourite chair in the sitting room, where she swore she had looked already, and Ginny gave an unobtrusive look at her watch and smothered a faint groan. Toby could be arriving at any moment. Her bath would have to be the quickest dip on record if she was to complete her chores before his arrival.

Not that it really mattered, she reassured herself as she ran the water into the bath and tossed in a handful of the bath salts Tim had given her for Christmas. He would be sharing their supper, so it wouldn’t matter if the range wasn’t lit. And she would have plenty of time to make up his bed while he was playing cards with Tim.

She towelled her hair briskly, then stroked it dry, using a brush and a hand-dryer. It was still slightly damp as she stood looking through her meagre wardrobe for something to wear. Not a dress, she decided with regret. That would be too obvious altogether, but her best jeans and the white ribbed sweater which made the most of her slender curves. She shook her head and watched her hair swing silkily around her face and was satisfied.

All the time she had been listening for the sound of the engine of his car, but not closely enough, it seemed, for when she went downstairs into the kitchen she saw the car drawn up outside the main door.

She bit her lip vexedly, snatching a handful of cutlery from the drawer and strewing table mats on to the kitchen table at random. She fetched a dish and spooned a helping of the chicken, vegetables and gravy into it, adding potatoes from the pan on top of the stove. It smelled wonderful.

‘Almost as good as I do,’ Ginny said half-aloud, and laughed. She took a last look at herself in the mirror—eyes wide and bright with expectancy, the lines of her mouth softened and vulnerable. She looked more like the child she had been than the woman she wanted to become, but there was nothing she could do about that, and she let herself out of the kitchen door and walked across the courtyard carrying her casserole dish.

It was a cool evening for spring, and the breeze made her shiver a little—or was that only excitement?

She didn’t call out as she usually did when she entered the hall at Monk’s Dower, but stood listening for a moment. From the kitchen she could hear an exasperated rattling sound, and guessed he was trying to light the range. It was quite simple really—a question of knack, but Toby hadn’t mastered it. And he’d be wondering why there was no supper either.

She walked quickly and quietly to the kitchen door, and flung it open, She said gaily, ‘Surprise—did you …’ and stopped, her jaw dropping with shock and fright.

Because the man kneeling in front of the range—the man rising to face her—wasn’t Toby at all. He was taller and very dark—dark as a gipsy with a thin arrogant face. He needed a shave and a haircut, and he was wearing faded denims and a dark roll-collared sweater which had seen better days, and she registered all these things as if she was seeing them in slow motion, and it was vital that she master every detail.

Ginny was shaking suddenly. The car was here. Toby should be here. Then who was this disreputable-looking stranger?

She said on a high breathless note, ‘Who are you? And what have you done with Toby?’

She saw him react to that, dark brows drawing together above the thin high-bridged nose, then he moved towards her—one step, that was all—and she was terrified, seeing Toby lying somewhere covered in blood while this man robbed the house.

She heard herself scream something, then she threw the casserole dish straight at his head across the kitchen.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE missed him completely, of course. The casserole whizzed harmlessly past him and shattered on the wall behind him, dropping a nauseous trail of meat and vegetables down the painted plaster. It had been a wasted gesture because it left her without a weapon, and he was still advancing on her. Ginny could almost feel the blaze of anger coming from him, and she looked round instinctively, her eyes falling on the rack of kitchen knives near the sink, every bright blade honed to razor sharpness.

He must have guessed what she was thinking because he said, ‘Oh, no, you don’t, you violent, destructive little bitch!’ Before she could move to defend herself, he had vaulted lightly across the pine kitchen table and seized her by the shoulders in a grip which hurt.

‘Now then,’ he said grimly, ‘who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?’

Dazedly it occurred to her that he didn’t sound like a criminal bent on housebreaking—always supposing she had the slightest idea what such a person would sound like. His voice was educated, low and resonant, and if there was menace in it, it was probably sparked off by the fact that he was good and mad.

She said on a sob, ‘What have you done with Toby?’

‘Toby?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘I’ve done nothing with him, you madwoman. He’s in London as far as I know.’

‘But he was coming down here—I had a message.’

He shook his head decisively. ‘Oh, no, he wasn’t. I’d made it quite clear I’d be using the house myself this weekend. He knows better than to intrude.’

‘You’re the intruder,’ she gasped. She was shaking now from reaction so violently that if it hadn’t been for that bruising grip on her shoulders, she thought she might well have collapsed to the floor at his feet. ‘You’re in his house—you’ve got his car. Why?’

He swore under his breath. ‘So that’s it.’ There was a long silence, then he said, ‘Did Toby tell you this was his house? Answer me, damn you, or I’ll break your neck before I break his!’

There was something in his voice, rather than the threatening words themselves, which caught her attention and held it riveted. Panic was filling her up, and a curious sense of unreality. She looked up into his face, absorbing other details—the firm hard lines of his mouth, and his eyes, as cold and grey as a winter sea, and as perilous, she thought wildly.

She marshalled every vestige of self-control of which she was capable in order to say, ‘Will you let go of me, please. I think there’s been a mistake.’

‘I’m damned sure there has. I still want some answers to my question. Has my feckless cousin been passing off my property as his?’

Ginny said numbly, ‘Your property?’

He nodded. ‘Mine. The car certainly—as for the house, I signed the lease and I pay the rent.’ He looked round the kitchen and his mouth curled derisively. ‘I also pay a generous service charge. There’s supposed to be a housekeeper–caretaker woman living on the premises to keep the place in a permanent state of readiness. If this is a fair sample of the “service” then I’m wasting my money. There aren’t even sheets on my bed.’

She said on a whisper, ‘I’m sorry.’ Her stomach was churning wildly, and she was afraid she was going to be sick. ‘Do—do you mind telling me your name?’

‘It’s Hendrick—Max Hendrick.’ He gave her an impatient glance. ‘Now do you mind telling me how you come to have the run of the place? Or need I ask? No matter how remote the spot, Toby can always be relied on to organise himself a village maiden.’ He cast a wry glance at the fragments of broken china, and the remnants of chicken casserole still adhering glutinously to the wall. ‘And this one can even cook, it seems.’

Ginny felt slow hot colour stealing under her skin as she absorbed the implication in his words.

‘It isn’t what you think.’

‘No?’ He pulled a kitchen chair forward with his foot and motioned her towards it. ‘So tell me about it.’

She moistened her lips frantically. ‘Toby never actually said he owned the house. I’m afraid I assumed …’

‘Altogether too damned much,’ he cut in abruptly. ‘Including that you have the right to come and go as you please. Well, you don’t, my child. I’ve rented this place for peace and privacy, and I have no wish for transient female companionship—or at least’—the flick of his eyes over her body was like the lash of a whip—‘not the nubile but immature brand you represent. Now if you’d care to clear up the mess you’ve made, you can go.’

She said, ‘But you must let me explain.’

‘I don’t think any further explanations are necessary,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if you’re disappointed about Toby. He should have told you that the house and the car were merely temporary loans while I was abroad.’

‘It isn’t that …’ she tried again, but he held up a peremptory hand.

‘I’d like to cancel any further discussion,’ he said coolly. ‘I’ve been halfway round the world in the past few days, and I’ve just driven down from London this afternoon, expecting a few home comforts which haven’t been provided. I’ve even had to switch on the immersion heater in the bathroom to obtain enough hot water for a bath. Whatever my so-called caretaker is taking care of, it certainly isn’t my interests.’

Ginny heard him out, feeling sick. The most galling part of it was that the time she had wasted bathing and prettying herself for Toby had been the time she should have been over in the main part of the house, lighting the kitchen stove, seeing that the water was hot, and making up the bed. Those were the duties she was being paid for, and which she’d failed to carry out, and there was little doubt in her mind that one of the first actions of this angry stranger was going to be to complain to Vivien Lanyon.

Nor had his temper been improved by having a casserole thrown at his head, she thought dejectedly, or by being accused of being an intruder in his own home. There seemed no end to the list of her misdeeds which he could present to Mrs Lanyon.

She got up from the chair, her mind working madly. There was plenty of chicken left—she could easily fetch another helping. And she could fight the range, and make up his bed while he was having his bath. If she did these few basic chores for him, perhaps his temper would cool and he would think twice about complaining about her, she told herself without much conviction.

She said quietly, ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a—poor welcome, Mr Hendrick. I’ll clear up in here before I go.’

He nodded curtly, and after giving her one last measuring look he turned and went out of the room.

Hastily Ginny cleaned the mess from the wall and floor, and collected the pieces of broken pottery in a newspaper before depositing them in the kitchen bin. Then she tackled the range, using firelighters and sticks with prodigal recklessness in order to get it going fast. When the fire was burning up well, she rinsed her hands at the sink and started for the door. At the foot of the stairs she paused to remove her shoes, then went upstairs quiet as a cat in her stockinged feet.

The linen cupboard on the landing was well stocked with sheets and pillowcases, and she chose a set at random before tiptoeing across to the door of the master bedroom and listening.

It was quiet, but from the bathroom beyond came the sound of running water. Ginny breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped quietly into the room. The last thing she wanted was another confrontation with the forbidding Mr Hendrick—not at least until she’d had a chance to put things right. She stripped the covers from the bed and began to make it up, stretching the bottom sheet to an immaculate smoothness with an unsteady hand.

She had behaved like an idiot, she thought miserably. In hindsight, everything pointed to the fact that Toby was not the real tenant, but she had chosen to assume otherwise, and no one had bothered to correct her mistaken impression. After all, her job was to have the house ready for occupation at all times, not to question the identity of the occupier, and Max Hendrick was entitled to lend his house and his car to whomsoever he pleased.

She snatched up a pillow and rammed it into its waiting case with real vindictiveness. It was his own fault if the house wasn’t ready for him, she told herself hotly and without pausing to examine her own logic, expecting her to spring into action like a programmed robot through some vague message from a third party. He was cold and arrogant, and she hated him, though she wasn’t entirely sure why—unless it was because he couldn’t have presented a greater contrast to Toby.

Her newly washed hair flopped across her face as she bent over the bed, tucking in the top sheet, and she pushed it back angrily. She was both disappointed and disillusioned, but the disappointment was paramount. She had built so much on Toby coming down this weekend that this new development was shattering.

But why hadn’t Toby told her—warned her? she asked herself almost despairingly. Presumably because he would assume she already knew of his cousin’s existence—because unlike Max Hendrick and Vivien Lanyon, he did not regard her simply as a mindless automaton whose sole function was the unquestioning carrying out of orders.

She drew the blankets over the bed, straightening them with small angry jerks, and as she did so became suddenly and paralysingly aware that she was no longer alone.

She straightened slowly and turned apprehensively to look towards the bathroom. Max Hendrick was standing in its doorway, his hands on his hips. He was smiling a little, but his smile was not pleasant, and as his cold grey eyes went over her Ginny wished suddenly that her jeans did not fit quite so closely to her rounded hips, or her sweater cling quite so revealingly.

He’d shaved, she noticed inconsequentially, so he looked fractionally less like a vagabond, but it was a very small fraction. He still looked dark and dangerous, and the opposite of a conventional tenant for a quiet country house. She remembered Kathy’s phrase that he was ‘all man’ and felt at last that she understood what Kathy had meant—although the older woman had presumably never encountered him as Ginny was seeing him now—black hair falling damply across his forehead, and his only covering a towelling bathrobe, opening in a deep vee over the mat of dark hair on his chest, and reaching only to mid-thigh length.

She swallowed nervously, and saw him note her reaction and his amusement deepen.

‘What’s this?’ he asked coolly. ‘A broad hint that you’re not Toby’s exclusive property? Do you come with the house, as it were?’

‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose I do.’ Ginny struggled for composure. ‘But not in the way you obviously think,’ she added in haste as she saw his brows lift mockingly.

‘I’d have said you were the one who was being obvious,’ he remarked. ‘I asked you to clear up the mess in the kitchen and leave—yet here you are in my bedroom. And you were clearly all lit up for a weekend of love when you barged in just now,’ he added, his mouth twisting cynically. ‘If I’ve deprived you of your lover’s company this weekend, the least I can do is offer you a replacement. I’m sure you’d find me a more than adequate substitute.’

He took a step towards her and Ginny recoiled instinctively. The edge of the bed caught her across the back of the legs as she moved, and she collapsed on to it.

‘Very flattering,’ he drawled. ‘Must it be at once, or can you restrain your feminine ardour until I’ve eaten?’

‘You insulting swine!’ Uncaring now of the need to placate him, Ginny levered herself off the bed and faced him, her eyes bright with angry tears. ‘You have the most monstrous ego of anyone I’ve ever met in my life! For your information, Toby is not my lover, but even if he were, what makes you think you could ever take his place? As a matter of fact, Mr Hendrick, I find you not only abominably conceited, but totally resistible as well.’ She paused for breath. He had halted, and was staring at her, his dark brows dancing together in an ominous frown. ‘As for being in your bedroom, believe me, it’s duty that brings me here, not desire. I’m your housekeeper.’

‘Oh no, you’re not,’ he said flatly.

‘I can assure you I am. If you contact Mrs Lanyon, she’ll confirm it for you.’

‘I shall be contacting Mrs Lanyon right enough,’ he said grimly, ‘but not to confirm anything.’

‘What do you mean?’ Dismay clutched at her.

‘Do I have to spell it out?’ he asked rather wearily.

‘You mean—you don’t want me as your housekeeper?’

‘I don’t want you in any capacity.’ His eyes were like ice. ‘As I mentioned, I’ve come here for peace and quiet in order to get on with some work. My idea of a housekeeper is someone capable and unobtrusive. You fail on both counts. I can’t imagine what possessed Mrs Lanyon to engage you in the first place.’

There was a long silence, then Ginny said with some difficulty, ‘Mr Hendrick, I know I’ve given you a rather poor first impression of my abilities, but …’

‘There are no buts,’ he cut across her incisively. ‘Even if you carried out your instructions to the letter, I still wouldn’t have been prepared to keep you on.’

‘But that’s very unfair,’ she protested.

‘It’s an unfair world. Didn’t you know?’ he returned shortly. ‘You’re young, inexperienced and volatile—and that’s a mixture I need like a hole in the head. But don’t worry, I’ll simply tell Mrs Lanyon I’ve been forced to make other arrangements. I won’t tell her about the shambles here tonight. You’ll get your reference.’

She stood staring at him, all the colour drained from her face. Only an hour before, life had been happy and settled. She’d been on top of the world, but now after a few careless words from this man, she was facing disaster again. And if it was only herself, she thought numbly. How was she going to tell Tim and Aunt Mary of this sudden reversal in their fortunes?

Max Hendrick said abruptly, ‘There’s no need to look as if you’ve seen a ghost. You’ll get another job easily enough.’

‘It isn’t the job,’ she said mechanically. ‘It’s the flat—my family. I don’t know what we’re going to do.’

‘You have a family?’

‘My great-aunt and my young brother. My parents were killed in a road accident three months ago.’

He said incredulously, ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re the breadwinner?’

She said defiantly, her mouth trembling a little, ‘They’re my family. They’re all I’ve got. I—I had to keep us together. That’s why a residential job seemed ideal, although the money was poor, but I was going to do some part-time typing to earn extra cash.’

Max Hendrick said slowly and very wearily, ‘Oh, my God!’ There was a silence, then he sighed, pushing his hair back from his forehead with an impatient hand. ‘I’m going to put some clothes on. Go downstairs and wait for me. Make a pot of coffee—strong coffee. You know how to do that?’

She flushed. ‘Of course, but …’

‘As I said before, no “buts”,’ he told her drily. ‘Can’t you even carry out a simple instruction without an argument?’

‘Yes,’ she said, hating him.

‘Then prove it.’ He took her by the shoulders and turned her towards the door.

Her mind was in ferment as she made the coffee. It seemed by his sudden change of attitude that she might be given another chance. But did she really want one? she asked herself. Was the fragile security they now enjoyed at Monk’s Dower really worth the cost of having to work for such an arrogant brute? She sighed, watching the coffee filter through into the jug beneath. Only time would tell—and did she really have a choice, anyway? Could she justify making Tim and Aunt Mary homeless again merely because of a clash of personalities?

She was standing by the window staring into the darkness when he came in. He looked at the jug of black coffee on the table with its attendant cream jug and sugar basin, and the single pottery mug, and his brows rose.

‘Won’t you join me?’

She shook her head. ‘Coffee in the evening keeps me awake.’

As if she was likely to sleep anyway, she thought bitterly.

He gave a slight shrug, then poured himself some coffee, tasted it and gave a slight nod. ‘Well, your coffee’s drinkable, so that’s one point in your favour at least.’

‘I’m sure all the minuses cancel it out,’ Ginny said quietly. ‘I’m sorry the house wasn’t ready for your arrival. It—it won’t happen again.’

‘I know it won’t,’ he said in a dry tone. ‘Because I intend to be here for quite some time. The question is—will you?’

‘That’s up to you.’ She would not meet his gaze, but stared down at the quarry-tiled kitchen floor.

‘And that’s tie devil of it,’ he said, half to himself. He was silent for a moment, then said abruptly, ‘Tell me about yourself.’

Taken aback, she said, ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Anything you care to tell me.’ He refilled his coffee mug. ‘I’d like to know primarily why you find yourself in this situation. It isn’t every day one comes across someone of your age looking after an old house in a backwater.’

‘I like housework,’ she protested. ‘And I don’t have the heavy cleaning to do. Mrs Petty does that.’

‘That’s hardly the point. You hardly fit the conventional image of a housekeeper.’ He gave the wall where the casserole had landed a long look. ‘An Olympic discus thrower, maybe.’

‘Haven’t you heard about the high level of unemployment?’ she tried to speak lightly. ‘You take what you can get and are thankful these days.’

‘And this was the best you could get?’ His glance was quizzical.

‘We needed somewhere to live,’ she said simply. ‘My father was heavily in debt when he died. Everything had to go, including our home. It isn’t easy finding a place when there’s a child involved.’

‘The young brother. How old is he?’

‘Eleven. And my great-aunt’s in her seventies. She would have—she offered to go into a home, but she’d have hated it. And they wanted to put Tim in care.’ She felt herself begin to shake at the old remembered nightmare. ‘I had to find an answer, and this seemed to be it.’

‘And have you no other family—no one who would have helped?’

‘I have an older sister,’ she admitted, realising with a shock that she had not given Barbie a thought until that moment. ‘She’s an actress. She’s appearing in a new play in the West End.’

‘Oh? Which one?’

Ginny wrinkled her nose in an effort to remember. ‘I think it’s called A Bird in the Hand.’

‘Oh, that one.’ His tone was neutral; Ginny couldn’t figure whether he spoke in praise or blame. ‘What’s your sister’s name? What’s yours, come to that? I don’t think Mrs Lanyon mentioned it.’

‘I don’t suppose she did,’ Ginny said wearily. ‘I’m Ginevra Clayton. My sister’s stage name is Barbie Nicholas—it was our mother’s maiden name,’ she added.

‘Yours would make a good stage name too.’

‘If I had any ambitions in that direction—and the talent to go with it, which I haven’t.’

‘No? Then in which direction do your ambitions lie, Miss Ginevra Clayton? I assume you don’t mean to spend your days as a junior Mrs Danvers. Marriage, I suppose, when the right man comes along.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said, also trying for a neutral tone, but she failed because involuntarily an image of Toby filled her mind, and the colour flared in her cheeks.

There was a pause, then he said very drily, ‘The more I hear, the more convinced I am that I should send you packing. Couldn’t this sister of yours put you up until you find somewhere?’

‘No.’ Her eyes sought his in dismay, but there was nothing for her comfort in his dark face. There was a remoteness about him, and even a suppressed anger suddenly.

She said in a subdued tone, ‘I’d better be going. Aunt Mary will be wondering where I am. Shall—shall I finish making your bed before I go?’

‘I think I can manage to add tie quilt unaided,’ he said flatly.

‘Very well.’ Ginny lifted her chin. ‘I’ll be over in the morning to see to the fires. Whatever you ultimately decide about me I—I shall continue to carry out the duties I’m being paid for until I leave.’

‘Bravo,’ he approved sardonically. ‘I doubt if even the actress sister could have delivered that little speech without a rehearsal. Perhaps you should reconsider where your talents lie, Ginevra.’

It was a shock to hear her name on his lips. Under the circumstances it seemed an unbearable intimacy, and she stiffened. She had never felt so torn. Half of her mind wanted to hang on grimly to what security she had, no matter what the cost. The other half longed to damn him to hell and vanish into the night, never to return. But it was hateful to know that her immediate future depended on his whim.

She forced her lips to move in the semblance of a smile.

‘Goodnight, Mr Hendrick.’

‘Goodnight,’ he returned almost absently.

Aunt Mary was waiting in the kitchen, her thin face anxious when Ginny returned.

‘My dear child, wherever have you been? Your supper will be ruined. Timothy and I finished long ago.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ginny assured her almost mechanically. ‘I—I’ve been meeting my employer—the new tenant.’

Aunt Mary frowned a little. ‘What are you talking about, my dear? Toby is the tenant.’

‘Apparently not,’ Ginny said ruefully. ‘He’s just a cousin who’s been allowed to use the place while Mr Hendrick has been abroad.’

‘I see. How strange that Toby didn’t see fit to acquaint you of the fact.’

‘I expect he thought it wasn’t important.’ Ginny began on her supper reluctantly. Her appetite seemed to have completely deserted her.

Aunt Mary said, ‘Hmm,’ rather sceptically, and busied herself making a fresh pot of tea which she carried over to the table.

‘And what’s the new tenant like?’ she asked, pouring the tea.

‘He’s an arrogant, unpleasant, unfeeling swine!’

‘Ginevra!’ her aunt gasped.

‘I’m sorry, Aunt Mary.’ Ginny sounded totally unrepentant. ‘But you did ask me.’

‘I gather the gentleman has been unfortunate to arouse your displeasure, and rather early in the acquaintance.’

‘Whatever he is, he’s no gentleman.’ Ginny’s eyes smouldered as she remembered the embarrassment of their encounter in the bedroom. ‘He didn’t believe I was the housekeeper, and when I did convince him, he was damned rude about it.’ She gave a long, shaky sigh. ‘Oh, Aunt Mary, I’m afraid I’ve made such a mess of it all. I—I’m afraid we may have to leave here.’ And quite suddenly and unexpectedly she laid down her fork and burst into tears.

It was rather like finding that you had slipped back into childhood again. Before many minutes had passed she found rather dazedly that she was upstairs in her room, being put to bed by Aunt Mary. She was tucked in so tightly she could hardly move, a hot water bottle was placed at her feet and a handkerchief smelling of eau de cologne was put gently into her hand. Later, a glass of hot milk appeared which she drank obediently, then, worn out with worry and crying, she fell asleep.

She awoke the following morning later than usual, and exclaimed with horror. She had given her word that she would carry out her duties over at the house, and she was going to be late. She flung on the first clothes which came to hand and raced downstairs. If she followed her usual route across the courtyard, he would see her coming, she thought, but there was another way into the main part of the house. She guessed that once the traditional green baize door had divided the servants’ wing from the family rooms, but now the door was a much more solid oaken affair, with a key and bolts on her side only. If she went that way, she might just be able to make Max Hendrick dunk that she had arrived for work at the correct time.

She felt like a criminal as she unbolted the door and turned the key silently in the lock. Her soft-soled shoes made no noise as she crept along the passage and into the kitchen. Her heart sank a little as she looked round. The room was empty, but the range had been stoked, and there were signs that breakfast had been prepared and cleared away. She had been hoping that Max Hendrick might also have overslept. So where was he now? she wondered. Sitting in that chilly study behind the electric typewriter, wondering why his fire wasn’t lit?

She marched along to the study and opened the door after a perfunctory knock. She had a reluctant apology already trembling on her lips, but it was not needed. That room was empty too. She went quietly upstairs and listened, but there wasn’t a sound, and when she went over to the landing window and looked out, she realised that the car was gone. He’d got up, had breakfast and gone out. But where? Feeling sick, Ginny thought she could probably guess. He’d gone over to Lanyon Manor to complain about his housekeeper and insist on her replacement. She turned dejectedly away and went downstairs again.

Moving like an automaton, she tidied the kitchen and put his washed dishes away. Then she lit the fire in the study and ran a duster and a carpet sweeper round the room. As she worked, her mind buzzed like a bee trapped behind glass, and with the same desperation.

So it all had to begin again—the weary search for a roof over their heads, for a job with enough money to keep them all. And this time she had no idea even where to start. She supposed dully she would receive a certain amount of notice, or perhaps even money in lieu of notice, if Max Hendrick was really keen to be rid of her as soon as possible. She wondered what kind of reference she would receive, if any. She could not claim to have made a conspicuous success in the job, after all.

She gathered her cleaning materials together and went across the passage into the drawing room. The pale spring sunlight was flooding in through the tall windows, making pools of brightness on the polished floor and the faded Persian carpet. Ginny put the carpet sweeper down and looked around her. She had always liked this room with its spaciousness barely diminished by the big old-fashioned furniture. She walked rather listlessly over to the window to adjust the long brocade curtains, once a rich gold, she thought, but now a uniform beige, and saw that the car had returned.

She thought, ‘But I didn’t hear him come in. How odd,’ and realised almost at once that it was not odd at all. That she had not heard him because he had not returned to his own part of the house.

She thought furiously, ‘If he upsets Aunt Mary or Tim …’ then threw down her duster and ran out into the hall, and down the passage to the oak door. She could hear the murmur of voices from the kitchen, Tim’s voice high with excitement, and Max Hendrick’s deeper tones mingling with Aunt Mary’s.

Anger rose in her like a hot tide. She flung open the kitchen door and marched in. The room was warm and full of the aroma of freshly ground coffee. Max Hendrick was sitting at the big table in the centre of the room, very much at his ease, Ginny noticed furiously. Perhaps he felt he had the run of the house, including their part of it, she thought. Well, he would soon find out he was mistaken. She might only have a short time left to live there, but at least she would insist on some privacy for the duration.

‘Oh, there you are, dear,’ Aunt Mary said placidly. ‘Mr Hendrick was just asking where you’d got to.’

‘Really?’ Ginny made no effort to conceal the hostility in her voice, and saw Max Hendrick’s mouth twist slightly as he studied her. ‘I was just beginning to wonder the same thing about Mr Hendrick. You do realise, do you, that our part of the house is supposed to be self-contained? It isn’t an extension of your accommodation.’

‘Ginevra!’ Aunt Mary gasped, spilling some of the freshly brewed coffee on to the scrubbed surface of the table in her agitation.

Max Hendrick said coolly ‘I apologise for my intrusion on your private domain, Miss Clayton, but I wanted to talk to you fairly urgently. And as we’re going to share the house, I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce myself to the rest of your family.’

Ginny felt embarrassed blood pouring into her cheeks as he added drily, ‘Your great-aunt was kind enough to offer me some coffee. I didn’t demand it, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

Ginny subsided abruptly into a chair on the opposite side of the table, fully aware that Tim, who should have been doing his homework, was absorbing the little drama open-mouthed.

She said, more sharply than she intended, ‘You can’t possibly concentrate on your maths if we’re going to talk, Tim. Take your books up to your room, please.’

When the door had closed behind Tim’s lagging figure, Max Hendrick said pleasantly, ‘Are you always so dismissive with him? He’ll be growing up soon, you know.’

‘Yes, I do know, thank you,’ she said stonily. ‘Actually he’s still quite a little boy in many ways. He had a lot of bad dreams after—after the accident, but they seem to have subsided since we came here. I—I don’t want him to hear anything which might upset him, and start the nightmares off again.’

Max Hendrick said bitingly, ‘I’m not an ogre, and I don’t make a habit of going round deliberately upsetting children—even those of your age.’ He stood up, swallowing down the coffee that remained in his cup. ‘I came here this morning because I had a proposition to put to you. I’ve outlined it to your aunt, so she can give you the details. I’d like an answer as soon as possible, please.’ He gave her a curt nod and turned away towards the door with Aunt Mary, clearly distressed, in attendance.

Ginny sipped her coffee, but it tasted oddly bitter and she pushed the cup away with a slight grimace as Aunt Mary came back.

‘My dear child, whatever possessed you to be so abominably rude?’

Ginny sighed. ‘I suppose I was rude, but I couldn’t help it. I just don’t like him. He’s so cold and hard and arrogant. In fact, I can hardly believe that he’s Toby’s cousin. There’s not even a family resemblance.’

‘Ah, yes, Toby,’ Aunt Mary said vaguely. ‘So surprising that he never mentioned … but there. I’m sorry you dislike Mr Hendrick so much, Ginevra. I found him quite charming.’

Ginny forced a smile. ‘He doesn’t bother to waste his charm on me, Aunt Mary. Our aversion is quite mutual, I promise you. What is this proposition he has for me? A housekeeping job in the Shetland Islands?’

‘On the contrary.’ Aunt Mary sat down at the table and poured herself some more coffee. ‘Apparently you mentioned last night that you propose to supplement your income with some part-time typing.’

‘Did I?’ Ginny racked her brain to remember. Other things returned with appalling clarity, but not that particular incident.

‘Apparently, yes.’ Her aunt’s tone was dry. ‘It seems Mr Hendrick needs the services of a secretary himself, and he came here this morning to offer you the job.’

Ginny sat very still, as if she had been frozen. Then she shook her head very slowly. ‘It can’t be true,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t want me to work for him. He said so last night. I was sure he’d gone to the Manor this morning to tell Mrs Lanyon that he was giving me notice.’

‘He went to the Manor to hire a horse so that he can ride each morning while he’s here,’ Aunt Mary said briskly. ‘And he clearly has no intention of giving you notice.’

‘No,’ Ginny said numbly. She still found it difficult to credit what she had been told. She had been sure—so sure that Max Hendrick didn’t want her working for him in any capacity. And now he was offering her the chance to become his secretary. She thought of the modern efficiency of the big typewriter which sat like an alien in the panelled study. She thought of having to share that room with Max Hendrick, of transcribing the notes and letters he dictated to her under his watchful gaze. She gave a slight shiver.

‘His offer is a real blessing,’ Aunt Mary said happily. ‘It couldn’t have come at a better time either. The first quarter’s bills will soon be arriving, and there’s Tim’s trip to consider.’

‘Trip?’ Ginny queried, trying to make herself think coherently.

‘Yes, dear. A school visit to France at the beginning of the summer holidays. He deliberately didn’t mention it to you because he knew how little money there was even for essentials, but nearly all his classmates will be going, and I thought that if I contributed towards the cost as well, perhaps we would be able to send him.’

‘But I don’t want to work for Max Hendrick,’ Ginny burst out, dismayed. ‘I told you, Aunt Mary, I don’t like the man. If I take this job I’ll have to see him every day. I’ll have no choice—unless he uses a dictaphone, and I haven’t seen one around.’ She broke off despairingly, seeing Aunt Mary’s lips tighten in incomprehension and disapproval. ‘You think I’m being ridiculous—hysterical.’

‘I can’t understand you, Ginevra. You need work—exactly the sort of work that Mr Hendrick has offered you. Can you be sure that any other potential employer would be any more to your taste?’

‘No,’ Ginny admitted. ‘But at least I’ll be sure that they won’t be offering me work out of some misplaced sense of charity.’ She was angry now, both with herself for having told Max Hendrick so much about their personal circumstances and with him for having regarded her unthinking outburst as a cry for help. She said, ‘Max Hendrick and I are better apart, believe me.’

‘After your behaviour this morning, he may well share your sentiments,’ said Aunt Mary, her back very straight. ‘It was kind of him not to withdraw the offer.’

Kind, thought Ginny. Is that how it seems to her? But he’s not a kind man. She remembered how his hands had hurt her, the coldness of his eyes and mouth, his insulting assumptions about her motives for being in his bedroom, and her relationship with Toby. There’d been no kindness about him then. Nor was there now, she thought. This offer had been made with a kind of exasperated pity, dredged out of him because she’d been fool enough to inflict her problems upon him. He’d made it, no doubt, out of a sense of unwilling obligation, but honour was satisfied now, and her refusal could only be a relief to them both.

She rose determinedly. ‘I’ll go and see him now,’ she said.

She was disgusted to find that she was trembling a little as she knocked at the study door, and the note of impatience in his voice as he told her to enter did nothing to restore her composure.

The study wasn’t nearly as tidy as she had left it. The desk top was Uttered with papers and documents and Max Hendrick was studying a thick file which was open in front of him. The typewriter, she noticed, had been moved to a side table under the window. So she would have been expected to work in the same room. The knowledge hardened her resolve.

‘Well, go on, Ginevra.’ He tossed the file down on the desk and leaned back in his chair. ‘Turn me down.’

She was nonplussed for a moment. ‘How did you know?’

‘It didn’t need clairvoyant powers,’ he said coolly. ‘Apart from the look of apprehension as you came in, you’re very predictable. But I did think that expediency might triumph over your natural desire to tell me to go to hell and take my job with me.’

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