She had never seen him without them before and she was amazed at the difference it made to his appearance. Like his laughter, his unprotected eyes made his face look immediately softer, less austere. Younger, too, and curiously unguarded, his pupils expanding hugely to draw more light into his myopic gaze, leaving only a thin outer rim of clear blue iris, of such intensity of colour that it was almost luminous. It was also mildly hypnotic and Vanessa leaned forward in fascination.
‘Unless, of course, you changed your mind and moved aside,’ he murmured softly, and suddenly his hands clamped mercilessly around her waist and he spun gracefully around with her as if she weighed no more than a feather, setting her back down on the freshly polished pantry floorboards. While she was still wondering exactly what had happened, he coolly replaced his glasses and he strolled unimpeded into her room.
‘My God, I can see you wouldn’t be able to do much entertaining in here,’ he said abruptly, openly appalled at the sight of the single box-bed, dressing-table piled with books and the huge, tasteless Victorian free-standing wardrobe that took up most of the floor space in the cramped room. The single small window looked straight out on to the garden wall. ‘Two people in here would be a crowd!’
Vanessa was still trying to get control of her breathing. He hadn’t even broken a sweat picking her up!
‘It’s adequate for my needs,’ she said unevenly, hovering back at the door.
‘Adequate!’ he exploded, turning to look at her to see if she was being sarcastic. She wasn’t, which seemed to annoy him further. ‘What are you, a masochist? Don’t tell me it was the judge’s idea for you to live in this...monk’s cell. By all accounts he allowed you as much licence as you cared to take—as do I for that matter. You know damned well you could have set yourself up in practically any room in the house!’
She shrugged. ‘It’s convenient, and since I don’t spend much time in there anyway—’
‘Oh, I see. So now I should feel guilty because you work such long hours that you don’t have any time left over to spend in your own quarters—’
She was impatient now. ‘That’s not what I meant. I have plenty of spare time, I just don’t choose to spend it shut up in my bedroom. You said you didn’t want the house closed up like a tomb when you weren’t here, that the most efficient way to air a room was to make use of it, so that’s what I do. When I read or sew or knit I try to use a different room each time—’ She broke off as she realised she was stepping on very thin ice. Any moment she was going to tell him about her methods of similarly airing the beds in sixteen bedrooms, including his...
‘What very domesticated hobbies you have, Flynn,’ he drawled and she frowned, wondering whether he was insulting her or merely making an innocent comment. There was a small gleam in his eye that made her wish he hadn’t put his glasses back on. They were too effective a screen for his emotions.
‘Given your insistence of job equality between the sexes I would have thought your interests would have a more feminist bias. At least now I know why I almost spiked myself on a knitting-needle on the drawing-room sofa the morning after I arrived. And I ran across several copies of Vogue and Metro tucked among the Architectural Digests in the library.’
‘I was only obeying your instructions about the house,’ she said stiffly. ‘I always tidy my things away before you come—’
‘And thereby leaving the rooms looking as sterile and unlived-in as a Digest photographic layout,’ he murmured.
‘I thought that was what you wanted, Mr Savage—’
‘You mean you assumed it was.’
‘You never bothered to correct my assumptions,’ Vanessa pointed out coldly.
‘Probably because I didn’t realise myself how wrong they were,’ he said, half under his breath. Before she could think how to respond to that cryptic remark he had turned back to view the room critically. ‘We definitely have to do something about this room.’
‘I told you, it’s perfectly adequate—’ Vanessa began, thinking that he was introducing radical changes in her life at an ever-increasing rate. Why couldn’t he let her get used to one change before initiating the next? Or let her have it all at once, so that at least it would be over and done with.
‘Adequate in Victorian times perhaps, but hardly these days. Not everyone has your evident taste for spartanism, Flynn. Don’t you find it claustrophobic trying to sleep in here?’
It was unfortunate that at that very moment Kate Riley had come into the pantry to collect a casserole dish and she paused behind Vanessa just long enough to chuckle, and say, ‘I tell her that myself, Mr Savage, her being such a big girl and all, but Van says she’s a very compact sleeper. Mind you, she doesn’t sleep in her own bed too often these days—if she had to cram herself into that little bed every single night of the year I’m sure it’d be a different story!’
She bustled away, still chuckling, and for the second time in a few days Vanessa was privileged to see her employer shocked speechless.
For a moment she thought the jig was up and she flushed miserably as his eyes swept incredulously over her from the tip of her practical shoes to the paranoically tamed hair on the top of her head, no doubt mentally stripping and vainly trying to superimpose her over the explicit image inside his head. Then she was the one speechless as he said icily, ‘And I thought you lived a cloistered, unexciting life here, far from the madding crowd. Another example of the dangers of assumption. That prim-and-proper air of yours is obviously misleading. You must have quite a reputation if even Mrs Riley accepts your sexual antics—or should I say athletics?—as merely routine.’ His expression was very much the ascetic as he continued harshly, ‘However, I’m not inclined to be so generous. When I said you were welcome to have friends come here I wasn’t issuing you a licence for promiscuity—’
‘I am not promiscuous—’ began Vanessa, with tight-lipped precision. There was something richly ironic in being thought promiscuous because of her fervent attempts not to appear promiscuous. And she was innocent on both counts!
‘Good. So it’s only Wells’ bed that you forsake your own for, is it?’ he interrupted, adding dangerously, ‘At least, I hope you go to his place for your little romps, because, when you’re here under my roof, as far as I’m concerned you’re on duty and I’m not paying my caretaker to have sex—’
‘Richard and I do not “have sex,”’ she hissed furiously, side-tracked by the outrageous crudity of his insult.
‘Sorry, make love,’ he corrected himself sarcastically.
‘How dare you—?’
‘Prim and proper won’t wash any more, Flynn. I dare because I pay the bills here and therefore I get to set the rules of conduct. While you live under my roof I’m responsible for your health and well-being, and I’ve always taken my responsibilities seriously.’ He gave her another narrow-eyed look.
‘No wonder you’re so tense and jittery lately. My being here is obviously hampering your freedom—you’re not getting your usual quota of...lovemaking.’ He stressed the words with mocking deliberation. ‘Well, just be patient. I’m off up to Auckland at the end of this week, to an Institute of Architects awards presentation. I’ll stay in the apartment overnight so you’ll be able to entertain your lover at leisure. Just remember the rules. I don’t care what you do under his roof, but under mine you’re as celibate as a nun!’
Vanessa had longed to throw his hypocrisy in his face but the impulse died as swiftly as it was born. Why give him even more powerful ammunition for his pot-shots? Trust him to confuse friendship and genuine human warmth with crude physical desire, she simmered as she watched him leave, wishing she had the courage to heave the canteen of cutlery at the back of his supercilious head. It would give new meaning to the term knifed in the back. She would enjoy seeing him forked and spooned as well!