The Beautiful Widow

So he had noticed, Toni thought sourly. How kind.

‘And you’ll provide a different viewpoint as well as a creative slant. It’ll need plenty doing to it if I buy it.’

She nodded again. ‘I see.’ She thought of his apartment—ultra-modern and gadget-mad with enough stainless steel and neutrality to satisfy any self-respecting bachelor—and knew she wasn’t going to like this house. She didn’t fool herself that when he spoke of ‘escaping’ it would be by himself, and everything in her baulked at the idea of contributing to a love nest for Steel and his entourage of women. Stifling her emotion, she said quietly, ‘Have you seen the property before?’

‘Had a look at it a few days back.’

Had he been alone then or with someone? Just because the gossip mongers hadn’t got hold of his latest partner it didn’t mean he was currently single. Why would he be?

Once they had left the city behind the road snaked past barren white fields, the grizzled countryside they were beginning to travel past stark and bare but holding a desolate beauty nonetheless. Toni relaxed a little. She loved the country. Both her mother’s and father’s parents had lived deep in Hertfordshire, which was where her parents had grown up and met, and she could recall wonderful summer holidays at their respective homes when she’d been as free as a bird to run wild from morning till night. Real log fires; cottage gardens ablaze with all the old-fashioned flowers like hollyhocks and lupins and sweet peas and a beautifully tended vegetable patch; warm, fresh brown eggs for breakfast from her grandparents’ much-loved and cosseted hens, and listening to the owl hooting outside the house when she was snug in bed—it had been a magical time. She had been truly happy then, before the world and its ways had thrust her into a harsher awareness of life.

They passed a couple of towns and villages and had been travelling for quite a while before Steel murmured, ‘Not much further now. The house is set by itself just outside a village, but a large market town is only ten miles away so it’s not too remote a location.’

Toni nodded but didn’t comment. The journey had been conducted in almost total silence and, for some reason she couldn’t explain, she was feeling nervous. It wasn’t only that she was alone with Steel, although that always caused an agitated trembling deep inside, but he seemed different this morning somehow. Over the last months, working so closely together on his pet projects, she’d thought she had seen all his moods, but this was a new one. The man had more guises than a chameleon.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked suddenly, pulling off the main road and into a long country lane guarded by sentinel-like trees either side of the high hedgerow.

‘The matter?’ She glanced quickly at him but he was concentrating on a bend in the lane and the hard profile gave nothing away. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You were frowning.’ He smiled. ‘Quite distinctly.’

‘Was I?’ she asked in genuine surprise.

‘What were you thinking?’ he asked softly.

She knew him well enough by now to know he would persist until he got an answer, and he always seemed to be able to detect a lie. Keeping her voice steady, she said, ‘I was just thinking you don’t seem yourself this morning, that’s all.’

He shot her a look of sardonic amusement. ‘Is that so?’ he drawled lazily. ‘And what, exactly, is myself?’

‘I’m sorry?’ She wished she hadn’t spoken now.

‘How would you sum me up, Toni?’

This conversation wasn’t going at all as she wanted. There had been one or two other occasions lately when he’d displayed a somewhat mordant slant, but they’d been short-lived and gone in minutes. Impossible man.

‘Ah, I see you consider that too personal a question. Am I right? All the little shutters have gone up with a vengeance.’

She’d often got the feeling he was laughing at her and this was one of those times. Annoyance brought an edge to her voice as she said, ‘You might consider my reply too personal if I answered truthfully.’ And put that in your pipe and smoke it.

‘Touché.’ He grinned that sexy, charming grin of his and her heart began an undignified gallop. ‘So do I take it I haven’t managed to redeem myself over the last six months?’

Was he flirting with her? He couldn’t be. Not Steel. Toni found she wanted to put a hand to her chest to still her hammering heart but didn’t dare to. Instead she forced herself to speak calmly and steadily: ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Do you know you always say that when you’re prevaricating?’ His tone wasn’t critical, more casually amused with a warm edge to it. ‘And you rub your nose when you’re enthusiastic about something and hold onto your bottom lip with your teeth when you’re listening intently.’

She stared at him, unable to say a word or spring back with one of the witty responses she was sure his girlfriends would use. He’d been observing her while she’d been observing him?

‘And there’s a note in your voice when you talk about your children that’s never there at any other time.’ He drew the car to a stop and cut the engine. ‘Here we are,’ he continued, as offhandedly as though they’d just been discussing the weather. ‘I’ll just open the gates. They’re supposed to be automatic but they don’t work; one of many things which will need attending to if I take the house.’

He slid out of the Aston Martin and opened the massive wrought-iron gates set in a high red-brick wall. Toni watched him, her head whirling.

Once he’d climbed back in the car he dro

ve on to a long winding drive bordered on each side by lawns, shrubs and trees. The house was a hundred yards or so in front of them, a mellow old building with honey-coloured stone and a thatched roof. It was as different from what she’d expected as could possibly be.

Her face must have expressed her thoughts because beside her Steel murmured, ‘Surprised? What did you have me down for? No, let me guess. A new build perhaps. Or maybe a barn conversion. Something with a modern feel anyway and perhaps a little soulless. Am I right?’

He was absolutely spot on. ‘Not at all,’ she said tightly, glaring at him. ‘I had no thoughts about what to expect one way or the other.’