Savage Courtship

She stiffened at the dawning gleam of predatory amusement in his gaze as her slight flush made him aware of the sexual overtones of his throw-away remark.

‘Although, I’ll have to admit, there are certain situations where I love to hear nothing from a woman’s mouth but the word yes...’ he added limpidly, for the sheer pleasure of provoking her.

Her tanned cheeks acquired a deeper, carmine tint and her eyes darkened until they looked like smouldering black coals surrounded by a thick fire-screen of gold-tipped lashes. Her first instinct was to flare back at him, but she resisted fiercely.

‘I’m sure there are—’ She bit off the sentence before it reached its natural conclusion, but the contemptuous ‘sir’ hovered unspoken in the air between them and it goaded him further.

‘You’re blushing, Flynn.’

‘That’s because I’m embarrassed for you,’ she said defiantly.

‘Oh?’ He looked justifiably wary. ‘And why is that, may I ask?’

‘Because taunting an inferior who can’t fight back is beneath you,’ she said with icy disdain.

He winced, acknowledging the skilful thrust before parrying quietly, ‘I agree, except that I don’t happen to think of any of the people in my employ as inferiors. They are people who work with me as well as for me, and there’s give and take on both sides. Your job title may appear to make you subordinate to my will but I think we both know that you have a degree of autonomy here which puts you in a rather unique position of authority. I wouldn’t even be surprised if, where Whitefield is concerned, you actually consider me your inferior...’

Vanessa’s eyes flickered guiltily and his expression eased. ‘As for fighting back,’ he continued, giving her a look of wry respect, ‘I think you’ve just proved that you’re more than capable of doing that. I’m duly chastened by your polite disdain for my needling.’ He moved restlessly over to the small window which overlooked the kitchen garden and low-walled brick courtyard behind the stables. ?

?Unfortunately I can’t promise I’ll never do it again. My moods have been rather unpredictable lately. Maybe I’m going though an early mid-life crisis.’

He sounded irritated with himself and Vanessa was so amused by his unlikely depression that she dared to say, ‘I found an old walking stick in the attic last week, Mr Savage; perhaps you’d like me to fetch it for you?’

He spun around. ‘Now who’s being provoking?’ But he was smiling the small, cool smile that was his trademark. ‘I suppose you still approach each birthday with joyous anticipation. Wait until you hit thirty, then your perspective will change. I’m amazed that someone so young should have such a preoccupation with history.’

‘It’s an interest, not a preoccupation, and I’m not so many years younger than you—’

‘A decade.’ Again he exhibited his phenomenal memory for detail. ‘You should still be looking dewy-eyed to the future, not back over your shoulder at the cobwebbed past.’

‘We can learn a lot about our options for the future from the evidence of the past,’ said Vanessa piously. ‘I’m not the youngest in the historical society by a long chalk; we even have primary-school children as members.’ She paused, then was unable to resist saying tartly, ‘And I was never dewy-eyed.’

‘Yes, you were,’ he said unexpectedly, studying her wide eyes and grave mouth with its hint of repressed emotion. ‘I bet you were brimming with painful innocence until adolescence hit you with a wallop. You must have had more difficulty adjusting than most girls. I suppose you were teased about your size by girls and boys alike, and treated as more mature than you actually were by the world in general.’

Now it was his turn to be amused as she backed off, startled by the thumbnail description of her awkward puberty. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Flynn; it’s not sorcery, it’s called applied intelligence. I can make an educated guess because I was teased for exactly the opposite reason. I was a late bloomer, both physically and intellectually. I was nearly seventeen when my voice broke, a string-bean with hardly a muscle to my name at an élite boarding-school where physical evidence of masculinity was the main criterion for judging peer status. To add to my misery I had an astigmatism that means I couldn’t wear contact lenses. I passed most of my high-school years as a four-eyed wimp. On the other hand being slight did force me to learn the valuable art of talking my way out of trouble, which in the long run is a far more useful life-skill than the ability to thump the life out of someone smaller than you, don’t you think?’

As Vanessa remained silent, stunned by yet another startling new facet of her employer’s complex personality, he added coaxingly, ‘That’s your cue, Flynn, to say, Indubitably, sir, in that insufferably stuffy butler voice that you use to squash my pretensions.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Vanessa weakly, wondering why he was opening up with such devastating intimacy to her just now, when it was vitally important to her mental well-being that he remain a convenient cypher, not a living, breathing human being riddled with intriguing weaknesses.

‘Oh, well, in that case, shall we soldier on?’ He moved to the open doorway and indicated that she should precede him. ‘You can tell me more about the original inhabitants of the inn as we go. The extent of your research certainly makes them seem real. Have you ever been tempted to trace your own family tree? The lawyer said that your mother is a New Zealander...’

‘She was,’ Vanessa was forced to respond reluctantly. ‘She died a few years ago.’ Just before the storm over Egon St Clair’s death had broken over Vanessa’s unsuspecting head. It had highlighted her sense of isolation and, not wanting to worry a father already burdened with grief, she had made mistakes that had only added fuel to the ugly rumours that the St Clair family had circulated.

‘I’m sorry. Was it an accident or had she been ill?’

‘An illness, but it was very sudden.’ Uneasy with the continuing thread of intimacy in the conversation, Vanessa distanced herself with a shrug. ‘I do have a few great-aunts and uncles and some second cousins around but most of them live down in the South Island, and that’s where the family history is. My mother never really kept in touch after she married Dad and went to England.’ A fact Vanessa had been extremely glad of when she had first arrived in the country. The last thing she had wanted was to be inundated with family concern and curiosity.

They were coming to the head of the stairs and Vanessa was about to point out the handmade reproductions of the missing balusters when there was the sound of a car tooting in the front driveway.

‘Excuse me, I’ll just see who that is,’ said Vanessa, welcoming the interruption.

‘It can’t be anyone for me. No one except Dane knows I’m here...and my personal assistant in New York, but she has express orders not to give out the information.’ He kept pace with her on the stairs, reaching the front door first and opening it as if he were the butler and she a departing guest.

‘Nice vehicle,’ he commented as they stood on the stone steps and watched the driver unfold his considerable height from the front seat of a forest-green Range Rover.

‘It’s Richard.’

‘The stud?’ murmured Benedict, eyeing the brawny build and handsome features of the man striding across the gravel towards them.