So Close and No Closer

Why should it matter what she wore? She had no desire to impress the man. Women adorned their bodies in silks and satins so that they would be pleasing to the male of the species, she reminded herself grimly. She had no desire to please the eye or the sexual appetite of any man.

She reached out for a pair of clean jeans and then hesitated, her pride, that same pride that had driven her to accept his invitation in the first place, making her check and turn instead to frown over the few formal clothes she possessed. There were a couple of suits, the one she had worn this morning and a heavier, more winter-weight one, which she wore for important business meetings with her bank manager or her accountant.

There was her raincoat, a classically cut trench-coat in a waterproof stone-coloured fabric, and a heavy navy winter coat she had splurged out on and bought for herself the previous winter. There were a couple of tailored linen dresses she had bought in a second-hand clothes shop which would have been eminently suitable for city shopping on a hot day, but were hardly the right sort of things to go out for dinner in, and then there were her two evening dresses. One was full-length and formal, and she kept that for the rare winter balls she was obliged to attend; the other—she reached out towards it, and then tensed—the other had been a gift from a client for whom she had done rather a lot of work.

Hannah Ford and her husband had moved into the area less than eighteen months ago. Originally from London, Tom Ford had been forced by ill-health to take a fresh look at his life-style. He had been a successful investment manager in the high-pressure field of corporate finance, but one heart attack and a threatened bypass operation had been enough to suggest to his employers that they should give him a sideways move to a country branch of his bank. Hannah, whose career as an interior designer was just beginning to take off, had given up her own work to come with him, and the move had paid off for them in more ways than one.

Determined not to allow him to feel guilty over the fact that she had given up a very promising post, Hannah had insisted on starting up in business on her own. Even she admitted that she was astounded by her own success. In fact, she had been so successful that Tom was now thinking of giving up his bank job completely so that he could handle the financial side of her business. As if that had not been enough, within six months of moving to the Cheviots Hannah had discovered that she was pregnant.

As she’d confided to Rue, at thirty-nine the last thing she wanted was to start a family, but, once Lucy Saffron Ford had arrived, no parents could have been more doting or adoring than Hannah and Tom, and Hannah was even talking about providing Lucy with a brother or a sister. Having seen one of Rue’s beautifully arranged baskets in the home of one of her clients, Hannah had lost no time in getting in touch with Rue and asking her to design some arrangements to complement her own colourschemes.

Astounded by the very modest fee Rue had asked, ridiculously low by London standards, or so Hannah had told her, she had presented Rue at Christmas with a beautifully wrapped, large box. Inside it, beneath layer upon layer of white tissue paper, had been a dress like no other Rue had ever seen. It had been designed by a friend of hers, especially for Rue, Hannah had told her.

It was black velvet, the softest black velvet Rue had ever seen, and cut so plainly yet so cleverly that it was only when it was actually on that the skill of its designer could truly be seen. The long-sleeved bodice moulded Rue’s soft curves and tiny waist; the slightly gathered tulip-shaped skirt skimmed her knees and hinted at the fragile curve of her hips; the ruffled bustle at the back added emphasis to the skirt and a formal touch to the dress, which drew everyone’s eyes to her whenever Rue wore it. She had told Hannah initially that the dress simply wasn’t her and at any rate was far too expensive a gift, but Hannah had looked so crestfallen, so hurt, that Rue had not been able to refuse to accept it.

Hannah had had a party on New Year’s Eve and she had insisted that Rue wear the dress t

hen. Rue had done, but despite the many flattering comments she had received from Hannah’s male guests she had not really been deceived. Men flattered and paid compliments because they wanted something; their words meant nothing and were not to be taken seriously, so she had held them at bay with a cool, assessing smile and an indifference which made Hannah, who was watching her, sigh with exasperation.

She knew nothing of Rue’s past other than that she had been unhappily married and was now a widow. She knew of Rue’s connection with Parnham Court from village gossip, but she was not the kind of woman to press for confidences that were not freely given, and she respected Rue’s right to her privacy, even while she deplored her friend’s determination to live her life completely excluding any members of the male sex, apart from the faithful Horatio.

Rue lifted the dress out of the wardrobe and held it against her. With her hair scraped back in a ponytail, and her nose peeling a little from sunburn, she was hardly the type of woman most suited to wearing such a very seductively sophisticated dress. She half made to put it back in the wardrobe, and then she remembered the way Neil Saxton had looked at her the first time they met. Before she knew quite what she was doing, she was putting on fresh underwear and zipping the dress closed.

She had never worn heavy make-up, and after she had brushed her damp hair into place she applied a hint of blusher to her cheeks and eye-shadow to her lids before coating her mouth with soft pink lipstick. Once she had finished, she eyed her reflection dispassionately, seeing only the woman that Julian had told her that she was—unfeminine, sexless, inadequate—not knowing that it was his inadequacy that had led to his cruelty to her.

She was half-way downstairs when she suddenly wondered what on earth she was doing and why she had dressed up to have dinner with Neil Saxton. She turned on the stairs, swiftly starting to unzip her dress as she did so. But it was too late.

In the kitchen Horatio growled and then barked, and as she stood there, frozen with indecision, she heard the front door clang. She had a moment’s cowardly impulse to stay where she was and simply hope that he would eventually get tired of waiting and go away, but as quickly as the thought formed she realised the idiocy of it and instead turned back reluctantly and went downstairs.

The stairs were to one side of the house, narrow and deeply angled and coming down into a tiny inner hallway. From there she walked through her study and opened the door into the narrow hall. It was still light outside, although because of the cottage’s tiny windows it was necessary for her to have the lights on inside.

Perhaps that was why Neil Saxton suddenly seemed so much taller than she remembered, she thought as she opened the door to him and he stooped to walk into the tiny hallway. It was barely big enough for one person, never mind two, and Rue found her body tensing as she caught the clear, fresh scent of his skin, faintly mixed with the cologne she recognised as the one he had worn before.

Like her, he had changed, and it came as rather a shock to discover that he was wearing a formal dinner-suit. Anger followed the shock. Had he hoped to intimidate and embarrass her by dressing so formally? Unaware that her feelings showed in a brilliant flash of her eyes as she looked directly at him, she heard him catch his breath lightly and focus on her.

Immediately her anger turned to suspicion as she read what she knew could only be pseudo-admiration in his eyes.

‘I’ll just put Horatio in the kitchen,’ she told him. ‘If you’d like to wait outside for me…’

‘Why?’ he asked her blandly. ‘Surely you aren’t frightened of being alone with me?’

His mockery annoyed her, all the more so because she suspected that he did actually know how very uneasy she was in his company.

‘Hardly,’ she told him crisply. ‘It’s just that this door only locks from the inside.’

He looked at the lock on the door and she saw him frown slightly.

‘You should have a safety chain put on this,’ he told her curtly, and than added, ‘You’re very isolated here. Don’t you ever feel afraid?’

Rue’s chin tilted.

‘No,’ she told him shortly, wondering what he would say if she told him her fears were all inner ones, fear of herself, of her own inadequacies and failings, rather than of the world outside. Failings of a type that this man probably never imagined could exist.

‘Mmm…’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You surprise me, a woman living on your own. I should have thought you would be a little bit more security-conscious.’

For some reason his words made a fine tremor of apprehension clench her body, and she said huskily to him, ‘Perhaps in future I shall be.’

She opened the door and held on to it until he had stepped back outside, firmly locking it behind him and then taking Horatio into the kitchen. Having locked the door and then checked it, Rue made her way round to the front of the house.