So Close and No Closer

Instantly the masculine hand that had been fondling the dog’s soft head was removed, a frown drawing the dark eyebrows sharply together. He had thick, dark hair, well-groomed, and so clean that the sunlight bounced light back off it.

As he moved towards her, the air in the room seemed to stir lazily, warmed by the sun, and Rue just caught a hint of some tangy and very male cologne that made her think of the coolness of lavender mixed with the sharpness of her favourite herbs.

‘There’s no need to get worked up,’ the cool, masculine voice told her almost mockingly. ‘I came here to make you a genuine offer for your property, not steal it from you.’

He said it cynically, anger just beginning to darken his eyes as though he found the thought of her defensiveness both unnecessary and ridiculous.

His cool words penetrated Rue’s anger. She focused on him and the blood came rushing into her face as she realised what a fool she was making of herself. But, as she looked at him and read the mockery in his eyes, her common sense was defeated by her anger. Gripping hold of Horatio’s collar, she told him fiercely, ‘I’ll never sell this house… never! Now, please leave.’

She didn’t accompany him to the front door, but stayed where she was until after she had seen him walk down the front path and out of the gate into the village street where his car was parked. An expensive, gleaming Daimler saloon with new number-plates on it, she recognised absently as he drove away.

Only when she was sure he had gone did she move, almost stumbling into the hallway and, once there, locking the heavy front door with both its old-fashioned key and the bolts she had had put on when she’d moved in. It was disconcerting to discover that she was actually shaking.

The telephone rang, and she took a deep breath that hurt her chest as she went to answer it.

It was Jane Roselle, apologising and asking if it would be all right if she collected the flowers she had ordered in the morning.

Assuring her that it would, Rue walked back, not into the sitting-room, but into the room on the left of the narrow hallway—the original rectangular cottage kitchen, which now served as her study-cum-sitting-room and which was comfortably furnished with two large old-fashioned armchairs, one either side of the fireplace, and the big, old desk which had once belonged to her grandfather and which really was out of place in the humble cottage sitting-room, but which she had not been able to bring herself to part with. What had once been the outbuildings to the original cottage had now been converted into a pretty kitchen-dining-room. Upstairs the cottage had three good-sized bedrooms and a pretty bathroom. She felt comfortable here…far more comfortable than she had ever felt at…

She dismissed the thought, shivering a little as she went into the kitchen and started to make some fresh coffee. How long would it be before Neil Saxton discovered that…? Her hand shook and cold water splashed down on to it as the jug jolted.

She had heard that Parnham Court had changed hands. The last people to own it had rarely used it; there had been talk locally of them converting it into a country hotel, but that had evidently come to nothing and now it had been sold again.

An unlucky house, so some of the locals believed. The story went that the house had

originally been built on the site of an abbey, and that stone from the abbey had been used in the construction of the original Tudor house, now concealed somewhere behind the impressive Georgian additions made in the eighteenth century. It was said that the man who had originally built Parnham Court had also been responsible for the destruction of the abbey, and that, because of that, he and the house itself had been cursed. Rue shivered again, and at her feet Horatio whined. He followed her everywhere and even slept on the end of her bed if she let him, although he had a comfortable bed of his own on the floor just outside her bedroom door. His presence made her feel comfortable and safe. It protected her from her own aloneness, and from the memories that haunted her during her sleepless nights.

Neil Saxton had gone away, but how long would it be before he came back? Even without his saying so to her in as many words, she would have known he was not the kind of man to give up on something he wanted. And he wanted her home and her land.

She knew why, of course. Once, this cottage and its land had been part of the Parnham estate, and then it had been left to its then incumbent, the head gardener, for the duration of his lifetime, after which its ownership would return to the estate.

Parnham Court was two miles or so outside the small village of Parnham Magna. The drive to the house was long and straight, bordered on one side by an impressive row of lime trees; but on the other side, spoiling the symmetry of the driveway, was her land…her field, the border of which went right up to the edge of Parnham Court’s drive.

Her hawthorn hedge now grew where the lime trees must have once been, and her cottage disrupted the long, elegant line of the high brick wall which surrounded Parnham Court. Oh, yes, she knew quite well why Neil Saxton wanted her home. He wanted it so that he could destroy it.

He wasn’t the first person to approach her with a view to buying her home. Only last summer there had been a builder, a tough, self-made man from a nearby city who had driven through the village and seen at once the possibilities of her home and its land with its valuable main-road frontage, in a small, rural area that would be so conveniently close to the city once the new motorway system was completed.

He had been very angry when Rue had turned his offer down.

It was a pity it was Saturday, otherwise she could have got in touch with her solicitor and asked him to write to Neil Saxton, making it plain that she had no intention of selling. If she hadn’t been so busy she would have done so before now. But it had been a good summer for her. Her field was now crammed full of the flowers she grew to pick and dry. Only this spring she had planted up the last quarter of it, paying half a dozen teenagers from the village to help her with the work. Upstairs in the loft above the stable, she had rack upon rack of those spring and early summer flowers which had already been harvested.

She had never envisaged herself as a business-woman, but that was what she had become, albeit in a small way. Her talent for drying and arranging flowers had been something she had done merely for her own pleasure, until a friend had asked her if she would supply her with some of her arrangements, and her skill had spread by word of mouth until another friend had suggested she turn her talent into a full-time business.

It had helped having the new country hotel and club open less than ten miles away. The two young chefs who ran it had come to the house to buy dried flower arrangements for the hotel and, seeing the walled herb garden to the rear of the property, had begged her to sell them some fresh herbs. That side of her business too had escalated, and she now supplied not just them but several other local restaurants as well.

All in all, she had carved out a very pleasant life for herself, even if her friends did bemoan the fact that there was no man in it.

They all knew about the past, of course; it was impossible to keep a secret in such a small village, even if she wanted to, and they all respected her refusal to talk about what had happened. She suspected that the more romantically inclined of them thought her reticence was due to grief.

Grief… If only they knew.

* * *

RUE HAD TO MAKE THE MOST of the long summer evenings, and it was gone ten o’clock before she tiredly acknowledged that she had had enough.

Calling Horatio, she set out in the direction of her field, opening the door in the wall that led to it.

Horatio knew better than to do anything other than stick to the narrow paths between the flowers. When his mistress paused to examine some blooms more closely or to test the richness of their scent, he too waited, knowing that, once her inspection was done, he would be allowed to run free along the footpath that ran behind her field and back to the village.