Why should it? she asked herself hardily. Vera would judge her on her ideas and abilities, surely not on her supposed morals or lack of them. Even so it was unpleasant and disconcerting to think that Dominic might have discussed her with them in a derogatory fashion. Her mouth hardened slightly. She was not going to be pushed into a position where she had to defend herself against some supposed crime. If pressed by either Dominic himself or anyone else, she would simply… What? Tell the truth and shame the devil? The aptness of the old saying made her mouth twist in wry self-mockery. What she had done was not really so very dreadful—logic told her that, but logic could not wipe away the agony of Dominic’s harsh condemnation and rejection, and it was that that had left scars that hurt and tormented her even now.
More to keep her mind occupied than anything else, she drove into the small local market town, intent on visiting the library and getting out whatever books she could on Victorian architecture. The conservatory had come to full power during Victorian times and by studying the period in more depth she might come up with some ideas that could be incorporated into a design for Vera’s conservatory.
While she was in town she paid a visit to the office of an estate agent, mindful of the fact that it was time she got the house on the market for sale.
The partner she spoke to was somewhere in his early thirties, his manner pleasant, with what she suspected was supposed to be a flattering edge of flirtatiousness. This she ignored, her smile frostily cool, as she refused to respond. No doubt he used the same manner on all his female clients, and it was rather an insult to her intelligence that he should suppose she could believe that he might be genuine. After all, she knew exactly how little appeal she had for the male sex, didn’t she?
‘I’ll come out and look at the house later in the week, if I may?’ he suggested, when he had finished taking down the details. ‘When would suit you?’
It was left that Kate would ring him later in the week when she knew what her movements would be. In many ways she should not be entirely sorry to sell up and move. The house had far too many unhappy memories for her. Perhaps once she was installed in the cottage… But there could be no going back, she reminded herself as she stepped out into the sunshine. She could not be again the girl she had been at seventeen.
On impulse on the way back home she made a detour so that she could stop at the cottage. It had a deserted, faintly forlorn air, the garden untidily overgrown. Since she had not brought the keys she could not go inside, but she was pleased to see that the sturdily built stone cottage had all its roof slates in place and that the gutters and drainpipes were all in good condition.
She had been happy here in this snug, protective house, and she would be happy here again, she told herself stoutly, blinking away the lump of emotion rising in her throat. Her marriage to Ricky had come so quickly after her father’s death that she had never felt she had truly been given time to mourn her parent. In fact now, as an adult, she could see that she had gone into her marriage in a compl
ete state of shock, but she was not going to start blaming others for what had happened in the past; she had believed herself in love with Ricky. She and her mother had never been close, and she suspected that even if the latter had offered her a home in America with her, she would not have been happy there.
The clouds which had merely been a faint shadow on the horizon when she set out suddenly obliterated the sun. Shivering in the thinness of her T-shirt and skirt, Kate looked up at them and saw that they held the threat of rain. It was time she was going anyway.
She reached home just as the first large raindrops hit her windscreen, and climbed out of the car, making a quick dash for the door, her library books clutched under her arm.
Now that she had made the decision to put the house on the market she looked at it with new eyes. The hall was large and welcoming, the galleried landing drawing the eye. It was the sort of house that would appeal most to people like the Bensons; newcomers to the area with enough money to buy and maintain such an expensive property.
Up until quite recently, Kate had done all the housework herself, and she still did the majority of it, although now she employed someone to come out from the village twice a week, to help out.
She made herself a cup of coffee and took it into the library with her. Here was where she worked. She found the comfortable, masculine ambience of the book-filled room relaxing. She kept her portfolio of designs in a drawer of the large partner’s desk set across one corner of the room, and as she reached for it, she switched on the desk lamp.
The rain clouds covered the sky now, and the small lead-paned windows let in precious little light at the best of times.
As she sat down and started to look through her portfolio a mental image of Dominic’s face intruded between her concentration and the delicate drawings on the white sheets. It irritated her that he should have this power to come between her and her work. She should have been feeling elated and excited at the prospect of a new commission, but all she could feel was an overwrought tension that made her too jumpy and nervous to concentrate on anything.
She reached for the telephone and dialled Harry’s number. Liz answered the phone, her cheerful, warm tones helping to banish the tense mood which had enveloped her. They chatted for several minutes while Liz sent someone to fetch her husband from his workshop.
‘I’m really glad that you’re going to go into partnership with Harry, love,’ Liz told her. ‘It’s given him a new lease on life… He’s as excited about it as a little boy.’ She gave a rich chuckle and added. ‘He can’t stop talking about it for two minutes together! Oh, here he is now,’ she told Kate, relinquishing the receiver to her husband.
Briefly Kate told Harry about her meeting with Vera, and the other’s interest in her work, adding that she had an appointment to see Vera the next day.
Harry was as enthusiastic as she had known he would be, banishing her self-doubts with his praise of her work and ideas, restoring some of the self-confidence in herself which seeing Dominic had destroyed.
‘Don’t make the mistake of going for something too heavy and stylised,’ Harry warned her. ‘It’s surprising how well the modern free-form designs go with these traditional conservatories. Remember that one I showed you with the climbing roses?’
‘Yes, I do. I must admit I was thinking of something along those lines, but quite what, I’m not sure yet.’
‘Mmm…or there’s always the alternative of a picture window. I saw a fantastic one the other day, where was it now…?’
As always when she was listening to Harry, Kate found her tense muscles relaxing as she allowed herself to be drawn into the magic of their shared interest. By the time she replaced the receiver her mind was seething with ideas.
Reaching for a piece of paper, she began to sketch quickly, and then more slowly as she became absorbed in what she was doing.
The dam of creativity that seeing Dominic had sealed in her mind, once broken, seemed to unleash a positive torrent of inspiration, and it was gone nine o’clock when she finally lifted her head, flexing tired fingers as she put down her pencil.
The late afternoon and evening had gone without her even being aware of it, and now she felt both tired and slightly hungry, but it was a good tiredness; not the exhaustion of misery and hopelessness that she knew so well from the past.
Tidying up her papers and putting them in a folder, she went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee and a light chicken salad supper which she took back to the library with her, this time curling up into the deep leather chair beside the fire with one of the books she had got from the library on her knee.
It was gone eleven when she finally went upstairs, her mind relaxed, warmed by the knowledge that the work she had done this evening was good.
Perhaps it was because she was feeling so relaxed and off her guard that she allowed herself to give in to the malign impulse that took her not to her own bedroom door, but to the door of the guest suite, which she pushed open.