‘Oh, it’s not that,’ she assured him. ‘But actually I had intended to work over Christmas. The Trust want to get the house finished as quickly as possible because they want to open it to the public next summer. These houses are so expensive to run that every penny of revenue is needed.’
‘Umm. But Slade Ashford’s been pretty generous in that respect, from what I hear. Of course he’s virtually a millionaire, so I daresay he won’t miss it. He inherited several engineering firms from his father, and has since added to them, and then old man Percy wasn’t exactly short of money, although you’d never have known it. “Close”, we call it up here.’
Chelsea wasn’t surprised to learn the extent of Slade’s wealth. It showed in the panache with which he reacted to life; the cool arrogance overlaid with a superficial charm which did little to conceal the sheer grit of the personality beneath. Experience told her that no man was as financially successful as that without the qualities of strength and determination—and the ability to be ruthless when necessary. The knowledge did little to lessen her conviction that she had made for herself a dangerous adversary, but she comforted herself with the thought that there was little he could accomplish in the short time before now and Christmas, and by the time he returned she hoped her task would be complete. Like Darren, she suspected, he was planning a careful campaign, designed to bring her voluntarily into his arms, but what he didn’t know was that her reaction to him that night was never likely to be repeated and that there was no force on earth that would bring her willingly into such close physical proximity to him again.
‘Here we are.’ Tom parked the car deftly in front of the small Victorian house several miles out of the village. It belonged to the local doctor and his wife, who were apparently close friends of his. ‘Val and I were at school together,’ he explained as he helped Chelsea out of the Range Rover. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when she married Guy. He’d been in private practice in London,’ he told Chelsea. ‘His first wife was killed in a car accident and he moved up here with Sandy—that’s his daughter. She’s training to be a doctor herself now, but she’s at home at the moment.’
As Chelsea had expected from Tom’s brief comments, Valerie Charnley was some fifteen years younger than her husband, a tall fair-haired man with shrewd eyes and a wry smile. Valerie in direct contrast was small and dark with a bubbling personality and a friendliness that put Chelsea at her ease immediately.
‘No wonder Tom’s been keeping you under wraps,’ she grinned as she took Chelsea’s coat. ‘He’s a canny lad, is our Tom—Guy, be a darling and pour them a glass of sherry, while I go and check on the kitchen, will you?’ she appealed to her husband. ‘You’d never believe that I once coped quite efficiently running my own business, ‘would you?’ she grimaced to Chelsea, ‘but somehow since the arrival of my twin terrors six months ago I seem to be losing my grip.’
‘Take no notice of her,’ a new voice chimed in. ‘She’s always running herself down. And before you ask, my bellicose young half-brothers are both fast asleep.’
‘Thanks, Sandy, you’re an angel!’
There couldn’t have been more than half a dozen years’ difference in the ages of the two women, but Chelsea sensed that Valerie and Sandy had an excellent relationship, which seemed all the more surprising when one reflected that Sandy must have been a teenager when Valerie married her father.
Her own offer of help in the kitchen was firmly refused, and while Tom and their host talked about the probability of snow before Christmas Chelsea explained to Sandy what she was doing at Darkwater House.
‘I love the Borders,’ the younger girl told her. ‘Which is quite strange really, when you think that until we moved up here I’d never been north of Watford. My mother adored London.’ Her eyes rested momentarily on her father. ‘And moving up here was certainly the best thing for my father. It’s marvellous to see him with Valerie and the twins. I’m hoping to go into practice with him when I qualify. Is it serious between you and Tom?’
The abrupt change of front surprised Chelsea.
‘We barely know one another,’ she told her. ‘I’ve only known him a few weeks.’
‘Sometimes it only takes minutes to feel you’ve known someone all you life.’
The door bell rang, and Sandy excused herself to answer it. Chelsea heard the door open and then sounds of laughter in the hall.
A frisson of awareness ran over her, her heart dropping as the door opened and Sandy returned, accompanied by Slade Ashford.
Valerie emerged from the kitchen, flushed and smiling with pleasure as she accepted his kiss.
‘Slade! Mm, you smell lovely, you gorgeous creature. What a pity I’m an old married lady.’
Everyone apart from Chelsea laughed. She went through the motions, but she felt as though her cheekbones were set in cement. Watching Valerie in Slade’s arms she had experienced an acute sense of… of what, she asked herself, trying to analyse the feeling that had overwhelmed her, suddenly glad of Tom’s comforting arm along her shoulders, and the protective bulk of his body next to her.
She wasn’t surprised to witness Slade conducting a light teasing flirtation with Sandy across the dinner table, but what did surprise her was Guy’s tolerant acceptance of it. Sandy was only a couple of years older than Kirsty, and although she was obviously more worldly-wise Chelsea suspected that at heart she was as inexperienced as her niece. Once or twice she thought she saw Tom frowning, and found it odd that he should be concerned for Sandy when their host obviously wasn’t.
As for Sandy herself, there could be no mistaking the flush on the younger girl’s face, or the light in her eyes as she responded to Slade’s comments.
Chelsea was dismayed to see how her hand trembled as she reached for her wine glass, and quickly withdrew it. What on earth was the matter with her? It was no affair of hers if Slade flirted with Sandy. A taste for young inexperienced girls was obviously something else he shared with Darren, she thought distastefully. What was it about innocence that made men like him want to destroy it? An insatiable ego that led them to use all the formidable weaponry at their command; all the charm and sensual expertise gained, although their silly innocent victims never realised it, in the seduction of their predecessors; in the pursuit and eventual destruction of their prey. With consummate skill they stalked and controlled the hunt until their quarry, blinded by adoration and ‘love’, offered themselves as willing victims on the altar of a warped male ego.
Watching Sandy was like seeing herself as s
he had been with Darren. An almost physical sickness rose up inside her and she could barely touch her food.
They had just finished their sweet when the telephone rang. Guy excused himself to answer it, and came back, smiling slightly. ‘Not for me this time,’ he told Tom, ‘although the crisis is familiar. One of your cows has gone into premature labour. They’ve rung for the vet, but your mother thought you’d want to know.’
‘Yes. I’m afraid we’ll have to leave,’ Tom told Chelsea. ‘Bluebell’s had problems before and I ought to be there…’
‘There’s no problem, Tom,’ Slade told him easily, standing up, ‘Chelsea can come back with me. It will save you time.’
Indecision was written plainly on Tom’s face. Chelsea sensed his anxiety to get home and silently cursed the fates which had decreed that Bluebell should start to calve on this of all evenings.
‘Yes, you must go, Tom,’ she agreed quietly, not looking at Slade.
‘I’ll give you a ring in the morning. Sorry about this, everyone,’ he apologised, kissing Valerie’s cheek and rumpling Sandy’s straw-blonde hair as he walked past. ‘Pity you’re training to be a doctor and not a vet,’ he teased. ‘Tonight you could have got some practical experience.’
‘Huh,’ Sandy retorted, ‘as though you’d let a mere woman near one of your precious cows—I know you, Tom Little!’
A little to Chelsea’s surprise it was Sandy and not Valerie who accompanied Tom to the door, and when she returned the young girl looked at her so searchingly that Chelsea wondered if she suspected her of trying to flirt with Slade in her absence—it was that sort of look, and she longed to reassure her that she had no interest whatsoever in him.
It was just after eleven when they eventually left. The wind had dropped but it was bitterly cold, and Chelsea shivered in her thick coat as she waited for Slade to start the Ferrari’s engine.
The Ferrari gave a much smoother ride than Tom’s Range Rover, until they came to the rutted lane leading to the Dower House. A sudden pothole in the road threw Chelsea against the broad dark-clothed shoulder next to her as the sudden jolt caught her unawares. Slade’s right hand left the wheel to steady her, his fingers biting into her flesh.