‘Well, how was I to know?’ she protested weakly as she slid into the luxurious interior that smelt of leather and subtly expensive aftershave. ‘I thought after this morning—’ She stopped abruptly and turned to meet his eyes that had turned stony.
‘You thought after this morning I would press my supposed advantage?’ he finished tightly. ‘Charming, really charming, Amy. What I ever did to deserve you I’ll never know.’
They were home in three minutes, and as Blade drew up outside Mrs Cox’s cottage he was out of the car before she had even loosened her seatbelt. ‘Go in and check everything’s all right. I’ll wait here,’ he said with bitter cool contempt. ‘I’ll be round as normal in the morning, so if you want to do the princess-in-an-ivory-tower act you’d better get your breakfast early. Mrs Cox gave me a key, incidentally, so there’s no need to leave doors open.’
‘Right.’ She opened her mouth to say more and then shut it as the full force of his glittering gaze swept over her face. Now was not the time to apologise. That much she could see.
She could feel his eyes burning into her back as she walked to the front door, and after switching on the lights and making sure everything was as it should be she raised her hand once to him as he sat glowering in the car, whereupon he screeched off immediately in a cloud of dust and burning tyres.
‘Oh, damn …’ She sat down weakly on the hall chair as her legs began to tremble with a mixture of exhaustion and reaction. ‘Damn, damn, damn …’
The next morning she packed herself a picnic brunch and left the house very early, her eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep. She had to be at the restaurant at just after one as usual but the walk she had planned should bring her within yards of the doorstep, and she needed to get away into the swelling countryside beyond the village where the air was heavy with the sweetness of fresh green grass and heather in full bloom.
She ate her meal in the shade of an enormous oak tree surrounded by the smell of thyme and wild garlic, leaning back against the huge old trunk as she watched the silvery flowing river in front of her cascading over great rocky shelves and massive slabs of stone.
She ached for Blade, longed for him, with a fierce primitive desire that had no reason or logic in its fire. She wanted to live with him, share those odd private moments with him, have his babies … The thought brought her bolt upright from the dreamy trance she had slipped into as she watched the flowing water in its timeless motion.
Have his babies? For a second she actually put her hand to her heart at the intense physical pain that had shot through her. Children? She stood up quickly, brushing the last of the crumbs from her skirt with a shaking hand.
She would never feel new life growing and moving inside her, know the joy of seeing a tiny little screwed-up face bellowing for milk and then settling with rapt enjoyment at her breast as a hungry little mouth sucked its fill, never know—
‘Stop it!’ The sound of her voice echoed out over the water like a lost soul.
‘There’ll be no morning sickness, no stretch marks, no waddling.’ She gazed up into the green branches overhead, the leaves a thick blanket that filtered the sunlight with complete effectiveness. ‘And no growing old, no arthritis, no grey hair.’
What was she doing? She gazed round her suddenly. Talking to herself as though she were crazy! This solitude wasn’t such a good idea after all. It gave her too much time to think.
Work provided its normal therapy but she found herself peering out of the door as eleven came and went, half hoping and half fearing to see Blade’s car in the street outside. But it was empty.
When she left, fifteen minutes later, she didn’t notice a tall dark figure detach itself from the shadows and silently follow her at a discreet distance, remaining carefully in the background until she had reached the safety of the cottage and the lights were burning to announce it was occupied. Blade stood outside for some time in the velvet darkness, his face unreadable and his hands thrust deep into his jeans pockets before turning in one savage movement and striding back the way he had come.
And within a few minutes the lights in the cottage went out.
Although Amy had been conscious of Blade about the place—the continuing improvement to the garden, a stock of his favourite beer in Mrs Cox’s small fridge—she hadn’t actually met him face to face since the evening Mrs Cox had left. He had resumed the routine of working in the large back garden until she left at lunchtime and she had been equally careful to stay out of his way, so when she awoke on the following Sunday morning to the delicious smell of roast beef permeating the small cottage she assumed Mrs Cox had returned during the night and hurried downstairs without even bothering to pull a robe over her thin silk nightie.