Phantom Lover

Next morning, passing through the hall on her way to an early breakfast, alive with feverish anticipation of the promised new day, Honor stopped to answer the front door.

Outside stood a major new delivery of worry and complication, parcelled up in the most exquisite wrapping.

‘Surprise!’ her sister carolled, dropping her hat-box and spreading her arms in a parody of the welcome that wasn’t forthcoming.

‘Honor, you naughty thing, you didn’t tell me you’d been temporarily elevated to the landed gentry. I had to find out all on my own. Aren’t you going to invite me in to meet your generous penfriend?’

CHAPTER NINE

IF HONOR’S arrival had caused surprise, Helen’s created a sensation.

Tania, who might have been expected to feel pique at the eclipse of her own beauty by a more celestial body, instead was positively gushing, showing no sign of the hostility that she directed at Honor.

And Joy, typically, was delighted. Of course Honor’s sister was welcome and of course the unusualness of the hour didn’t matter—country people were always up early; in fact, wasn’t it silly for Helen to go back to Kowhai Hill when her sister was staying right here? Why didn’t Helen stay, too?

Honor watched as Helen accepted prettily.

‘How convenient that you just happened to bring your luggage along with you,’ she murmured ironically.

There was no point in trying to whisk Helen quietly away now. The damage had been done the moment Adam stepped out of the dining-room to see what was causing the commotion in the hall. He had looked stunned, then an expression of unholy delight had crossed his face and he had almost tripped over himself in his rush to draw her inside.

Helen gave her one of her famous cool looks. ‘I’m a seasoned traveller, darling, I’m always prepared for contingencies. I didn’t know what your plans were and I’d rather be at a civilised hotel than that spooky little house in the middle of nowhere if I’m going to be alone.’

Even Sara seemed to have abandoned her usual insouciance, regarding Helen with an awed fascination that was uncomfortably like her father’s. Maybe she was thinking that Helen would be better competition for Tania after all, thought Honor ruefully.

Ten minutes after she had arrived Helen was sitting at the head of the family breakfast-table, drinking black coffee and daintily eating fingers of dry toast, regaling the household with the amusing story of how she had tracked Honor down. After letting herself in at Kowhai Hill with the key from under the flower-pot the previous day she had waited all night for Honor to turn up.

‘I was beginning to think that my sensible, level-headed sister had finally decided to kick over the traces when who should turn up on my doorstep this morning but the local constable! Some old duck had reported seeing activity in the house when everyone knew that Honor was away.

‘I think the poor policeman nearly had a heart attack when I answered the door.’ Helen sent a coyly smouldering look towards the man of the house, as if inviting him to imagine the next bit himself. ‘I’d been in the shower, you see, and I was only wearing a wrap...’

Adam smiled and responded obligingly.

‘I’ll bet he did,’ he murmured, his warm brown eyes appreciating the view of a filmy white blouse that was almost, but not quite, transparent under her linen jacket.

Helen laughed huskily, pleased. ‘When he finally calmed down, the dear man offered to bring me over in his patrol car. Wasn’t that sweet of him?’

‘You could have telephoned first,’ suggested Honor drily, knowing full well that it was blatant curiosity, not concern, that had brought her sister rushing over to visit.

Helen was too busy smiling back at Adam, her almond eyes veiled with the look of seductive mystery that had graced a thousand billboards, to worry about the possible inconsistencies in her story.

‘Then it wouldn’t have been a surprise. Anyway, on the way over, Mr Plod told me all about that awful man demanding money with menaces and how Honor wrote it up for the newspapers.’

Helen managed to drag her attention off Adam long enough to give her sister some praise.

‘How terribly clever of you, sweetie, to turn what must’ve been a ghastly experience for everyone into such an advantage.’

Honor smiled weakly. The compliment was not only dubious, it was also thoroughly undeserved. She could hardly admit that she had been drifting about in such a haze that she had forgotten all about her supposedly ruthless ambition until Adam had jogged her memory later on the day that he told her about the arrest by telling her he had arranged for Detective Inspector Marshall to grant her a joint interview with himself that very evening. Honor had tried to pretend airily that he had merely pre-empted her own imminent actions but she had the feeling that Adam had known damned well that it had all been bluff.

The rest of the Press had had to wait until the next afternoon, when the disturbed man had appeared briefly in court to be remanded in custody for a psychiatric report, before they got their first official police statement, and by that time Honor was ringing papers up and down the country offering to fax them her backgrounder. It had been snapped up and syndication overseas had nicely plumped her bank balance, to the extent that she had rung the garage and told the long-suffering mechanic that she could now afford to have her VW back. It was sitting in the drive right now, beside Adam’s Mercedes.

‘So...you stayed with Honor a fortnight ago, didn’t you?’ Adam was saying innocently. ‘She didn’t tell me you were expected back again so soon...’

Honor felt her neck prickle at the subtly accusing undertone in his remark but her sister quickly let her off the hook.

‘That’s because I wasn’t. It was impulse, really, because we were shooting up at the Barrier Reef when this cyclone started looming up on the weather map so we picked up the pace and finished the assignment three days early. I thought, Why not pop in on my way back to New York?

‘I’m afraid I had to rush away last time, you see, just when Honor was getting all hyped up about that silly St Valentine’s thing, and I must admit I felt a teeny bit guilty about not having been more sympathetic and helpful...’