Return of the Forbidden Tycoon

From the doorway she could see the bed with its immaculate duvet and pillows.

After Ricky’s death on an impulsive whim she had thrown out all the bedding from this room and replaced it. Her mouth twisted with wry self-mockery as she wondered what had made her replace the previous gold and brown colour scheme with a completely fresh one in pale lemons, greys and white. Her glance lingered on the traditional mahogany bed with its head and footboards. There was no doubt that the crisply laundered white cotton and linen duvet and pillows set off the room’s delicate colour scheme, but had there been some deeper mental reason for her choosing white, the colour of purity, for the bedding in this particular room?

All at once her pleasantly relaxed mood was gone, the tension she had experienced earlier returning with full force. She wasn’t going to think about Dominic, she told herself sternly as she closed the door and made her way to her own room. She had tortured herself enough over the past as it was; made herself pay a penance in lost self-respect that still left scars, but it was over now.

The house had five bedrooms, and the one that she now used had once been the nursery. She had moved into it immediately after Ricky’s death, unable to bear the thought of going back to the room where he had taught her how undesirable he had found her as a woman. Had there again been some subtle motive in her picking this room out of them all? she wondered cynically as she started to undress. Had she chosen it knowing that as long as she owned the house, there would never be any need for nurseries?

* * *

As she turned into the drive leading to The Grange, Kate expelled a faint sigh of relief. Her little car had been more than usually reluctant to start this morning and in fact, on more than one occasion on the way here, the engine note had wavered ominously as though about to cut out. She would have to call at the garage on the way back, she decided, admitting to herself that it was high time she changed her car. Perhaps once she had sold the house there might be enough money to spare for her to do that. Certainly she needed a reliable vehicle now that she was working.

Signs of the Bensons’ occupation were already present in the gardens where Kate could see a local contract gardening firm at work on the overgrown lawns and flower beds.

The Grange was one of the darkly pebble-dashed ugly square houses of which the Victorians had seemed inordinately fond, as though their sheer size and bulk was impressive enough without any considerations needing to be made to artistic design. Kate had been inside on a couple of occasions before many years ago when her father had been alive, but the musty, dusty smell of disuse which she associated with the house was no longer in evidence when Vera opened the front door to her knock.

Instead she could smell new paint, her eyes widening admiringly over what she remembered as a darkly gloomy hall, which Vera had transformed completely.

‘Vera, this is lovely!’ Kate exclaimed enthusiastically, formality forgotten as she went closer to examine the newly rag-rolled walls. Two shades of the same colours had been used; a soft bluey green, ragged with pale gold; the lighter colours used above the dado rail and the darker below. She looked upwards and saw that the ceiling had been flat-painted in the darker bluey green, the cornice picked out in white.

‘I’m glad you like it.’ Vera’s face lit up and she grinned conspiratorially at Kate. ‘Ian thought it might be a bit over the top.’ She gestured towards the staircase and added wryly, ‘This monstrosity was put in just after the First World War, and I’ve decided to have it marbled, along with the dado rail—what do you think?’

‘I think it will look stunning,’ Kate told her honestly. ‘And after all, ragging and marbling, and in fact all these finishes they’re using nowadays, are very traditional arts, so it won’t be at all out of keeping.’

‘Mmm, that’s what I thought. Come on into the drawing-room. We haven’t touched it yet, but it’s the only place where there’s any furniture.’

Kate hadn’t been in the drawing-room on her previous visits and she discovered that it was a well proportioned room with two of the deep bay windows the Victorians were so fond of, both overlooking the rear gardens, while two smaller windows on the fireplace wall overlooked the wide lawns.

The room looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years. The walls were a filthy grey-cream, the carpet threadbare.

‘The estate agent explained to us that the Colonel lived here on his own for over twenty years before he died,’ Vera commented to Kate. ‘And then the house was empty for three years.’

‘Mmm…his nephew was asking an exorbitant price for it. The rumour was locally that the Colonel had stipulated that the property was not to be sold for development, but that his nephew was holding out for a high price, hoping in the end that it would remain empty for so long that it would have to be sold for the land. The gardens are quite extensive, aren’t they?’

‘Almost four acres, and with the number of people now ready to commute this far to London, any houses built on it could have commanded a very good price. It’s going to take years to get it the way we want it, but it will be worthwhile

in the end. The children will love it.’

Vera saw Kate’s surprise and smiled again. ‘They’re both at boarding school, I’m afraid. One of the reasons we’ve moved out here is that it will be much easier for them to go to day school.’ She mentioned the name of a very famous school, and added, ‘They take pupils as non-boarders. Ian and I were both boarders, and we both hated it.’ Vera paused and added diffidently, ‘As a matter of fact, Ian and Dominic were at school together, which must have meant that Ian knew your husband, although of course Ian is four years older than Dominic, and your husband, I believe, was younger?’

‘Yes.’

Kate could feel the tension creeping through her body. She didn’t want to talk about the past, about anything to do with Dominic Harland, but Vera seemed to be oblivious to her reluctance to pursue the subject, for she continued slowly, ‘Poor Dominic, he had a most tragic childhood. His mother left his father for another man. Dominic was only two at the time, and after that he only saw his mother on a handful of occasions.

‘His father was very bitter, he never let Dominic forget what his mother had done. In fact he brought him up to think of all women as treacherous and devious, and sending him to an all-boys school didn’t help.’

Stonily Kate refused to comment or sympathise. If she had heard the story about anyone other than Dominic she knew she would have felt an instant empathy towards them, a sense of fellow feeling, but she would not allow herself to feel like that towards Dominic.

‘I’m sorry you and Dominic seemed to get off on the wrong foot the other night,’ Vera continued quietly. ‘I’ve honestly never seen him behave quite like that before. Oh, he’s always been very cool and wary if a woman comes on to him strongly, but…’

‘Please could we change the subject?’ Kate offered her hostess a wry smile to palliate the curt effect of her request. ‘What happened in the past is past as far as I’m concerned,’ she added, striving for a more relaxed note. ‘Ricky’s been dead for almost six years, and whatever our differences were, they’re now over and done with. I can’t criticise a man who’s no longer alive to defend himself. All I will say is that I never encouraged or incited Ricky to gamble.’

Vera looked quite horrified, reaching over to cover one of Kate’s hands with her own.

‘Oh, my dear, no… I never thought for a moment that you had,’ she exclaimed in a shocked voice. ‘As I said, my husband doesn’t remember Rick from school, but he is aware of who he was and how he lived…’ She frowned slightly and added, ‘As far as Dominic is concerned…’

Kate had heard enough. Already her stomach was knotted with pain and anxiety. ‘Please,’ she begged, ‘may we just drop the whole subject? I…’ To her consternation tears blurred her eyes. She blinked quickly, but not before her hostess had seen them. As she lowered her head defensively, Kate was dimly conscious of her hostess looking over her shoulder, but the reason for the arrested expression on Vera’s face was lost on her until she heard her exclaiming, faintly apprehensively, ‘Oh, Dominic, there you are! I thought you’d gone out…’

As she grappled with the implications of Vera’s greeting, Kate was just glad that she had her back to the door. She would have hated him to see her like this, weak and tearful…vulnerable…