So Close and No Closer

She gave a faint start as she realised that Neil was waiting for her on the front path. She had expected him to go straight to his car, and it was very unnerving to walk down the path knowing that he was there, two paces behind her. For some reason she could not fathom, his presence made her feel uneasy and threatened in a way that had nothing to do with the residual dislike of his sex which had been Julian’s bequest to her.

She had to wait while he unlocked his car door and, to her surprise, once he had freed the central locking system, he came round to the passenger door and opened it for her, not mockingly or teasingly, but so simply and automatically that she realised that it was an action he would perform for any member of her sex, no matter what her age or appearance.

As she gave him a stiff, ‘Thank you,’ his eyebrows quirked and as he looked down at her he said,

‘Ah, I see I have offended you, although why good manners should ever be offensive I’m afraid I’m at a loss to understand.’

Rue wanted to make some clever comment about his treatment of her as though she were incapable of opening the car door for herself being both demeaning and derogatory, but somehow or other the words simply would not form. In the past she had taken it as her due that men should open doors for her and generally protect and pamper her, but that had been before she realised what lay behind such paternalistic patronage.

And yet her body trembled slightly as she recognised her own weakness and was forced to admit that there was something very pleasant about being treated as though her comfort was of importance. Remember he wants your land, she warned herself, as she slammed the door closed and Neil came round to slide into the driver’s seat next to her.

That was what all this was about, no matter how much he might try to pretend otherwise: he aimed to flatter and coax her into a state of vulnerability by trying to conceal his real motives. A man of his means could obtain as many dried flower arrangements as he wished from anywhere without having to go to the necessity of entertaining a woman whose company and person could only bore him. No, the reason he had invited her to dinner was nothing to do with his desire to have her advice about suitable floral arrangements for his mother’s visit; he just wanted to soften her up so that he could get her to part with her land.

She tugged impatiently on the seat-belt and then frowned down at it as it refused to move. Next to her Neil pulled firmly on his and was just about to push the catch into the socket when he realised what had happened. He let his go and reached across her. As his head and torso filled the small space between her and the windscreen, Rue automatically tensed, fear making her blood run cold through her veins, her breath locked in her throat as she fought down the panic rising swiftly inside her.

‘It’s quite easy,’ Neil was saying calmly, ‘you just hold it like this and pull gently.’

Rue sat rigidly in her seat, arching her spine back against it, her stomach quivering with anxiety as Neil pulled the seat-belt across it and secured it to her side. He was so close to her that she could see the tiny lines fanning out from his eyes and the hard, masculine texture of his skin. She could see also the dark line of his sha

ven beard along his jaw and over his upper lip.

‘What’s wrong?’

The quiet question startled her. She had been lost in the bewildering discovery that, close to, the apparent hardness of his face was softened by the fullness of his bottom lip.

‘I…nothing,’ she floundered, desperately conscious of how odd her behaviour must appear.

‘There. I think you’ll find that’s secure now,’ he told her, tugging gently on the seat-belt and then straightening up to fasten his own. As he did so, he asked her quietly, ‘Am I so very like him?’

She had been fiddling with the clasp of her handbag, but now it fell nervously from her fingers and she stared at him, unable to control or conceal her reaction.

‘I…what do you mean?’ she asked him.

The smile he gave her made her shiver.

‘Come on, Rue. I wasn’t born yesterday,’ he told her grittily. ‘Ever since we’ve met you’ve been treating me as you might a rabid dog. Since as far as I know I haven’t done anything to merit such treatment, the only other explanation that comes to mind is that I must remind you of someone who does.’

‘Julian…Julian was fair,’ she told him, huskily and truthfully, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him frown as though her words were not the ones he had wanted to hear. But then, what man ever liked having his judgement questioned? He was wrong if he thought that he in any way resembled her late husband.

Julian had not been overly tall; about five foot ten. He had been fair-haired and blue-eyed. There had been something almost film-star-like in his boyish looks, whereas Neil had far too hard-boned and masculine a countenance to ever be called good-looking. But yet there was a resemblance, a connection. Not in the way that Neil looked, but in the reaction his presence caused her; in the very definite frisson of sensation that touched her nerve endings whenever he came too close to her.

It was the same frisson she had experienced in those early heady days when she was first falling in love with Julian. She shuddered, inwardly terrified by what she was admitting. It had been desire for Julian that had caused that sensation, but it was fear and dislike of Neil that was bringing it back. It had to be. It was impossible for her to desire any man, but most especially this one, who had made it plain he would go to any lengths in order to obtain her land. Though she could understand why.

As long as somebody else owned it, he would be vulnerable to the possibility that they might sell it to a speculator, much like the builder who had approached her. Someone who would use her few acres to build an estate of houses which would encroach almost half-way down the drive which led to Parnham Court, which would ruin the outlook from those magnificent second-floor windows, which would destroy the house’s exclusivity, and bring down its commercial value considerably. Oh, yes, she could understand why he wanted her land, but she still wasn’t going to sell it to him; to him or to anyone else. It meant far too much to her.

She had been a fool to accept this invitation, to lay herself open to the tactics he would obviously try to use against her. Once he knew she was vulnerable to him… She shut off the thoughts, relieved to discover the car had come to a halt, and that they were parked outside the main entrance to the house.

As he had done before, Neil came round to open her car door for her, but this time she was ready for him and wrenched the handle open before he could touch it, almost stumbling in her haste to get out of the car. The look he gave her made her face burn, but she told herself stubbornly that she had every right to protect herself from him, that he was only trying to charm and deceive her.

He escorted her into the house which had once been so familiar to her. Inside, the large hallway very little had changed. She had been lucky enough to find a buyer who had wanted to purchase most of the furnishings in addition to the building and land itself, and as she walked into the hall she recognised that some of them at least were still here.

The graceful staircase curled upwards to the second and third storeys in a delicate spiral. Three flights above them the painted dome of the ceiling with its allegorical Biblical fresco was still as awesomely eye-catching as it had always been. The large oval hallway, with its black and white lozenge-tiled floor, felt chilly after the warmth of the car. Four pairs of huge mahogany doors led off it, and between them, on either side of the wall, matching gilt rococo mirrors and tables. A huge crystal chandelier illuminated this hallway, and Neil reached out and switched it on, brilliant prisms of light glittering sharply, so much so that it almost hurt Rue’s eyes.

‘This way,’ Neil told her, touching her shoulder and making her jump as he indicated the first pair of double doors.

Rue hesitated a little, since she knew that they led not into the dining-room but into the library, and from there into the small private sitting-room which she and her father had almost always used. Off the sitting-room was the conservatory, and she discovered, as Neil led her into it, that it was here that they were going to eat.

‘The dining-room, beautiful though it is, is hardly conducive to a small, intimate dinner,’ he told her, correctly interpreting her surprise.