By Jane Jackson
Published by Robert Hale Ltd, 2011
Excerpt
Leaving The Standard, Charles nodded politely to people he passed, feeling their eyes on his back. Curiosity and suspicion were inevitable. He had to accept that. He didn’t have to like it.
Fifteen minutes later he reached Pednbrose, walked round the front of the ruin and saw the wooden door propped open. He paused beneath the stone arch, surveying vegetable beds choked with crops left to rot and re-grow amid encroaching weeds. Clumps of yellow buttercups and patches of small white daisies had colonised the paths. Thistledown and dandelion seeds drifted on the warm air. But beneath the neglect was a large, protected, well-planned garden.
Then he saw her. She was on the far side, her back to him as she picked fruit. He felt a tightening in his gut. Had he learned nothing? This was different. She was different. He watched as she raised one of the bright yellow quinces to her nose and inhaled its scent. Dropping it in the basket she lifted her face to the sun.
At any moment she might turn and catch him watching. He cleared his throat to announce his presence. “Good afternoon, Miss Trevanion.”
She whirled round. “Mr Polgray!”
He shouldn’t have come. He needed her help. Deliberately deaf to the conflict raging inside him, he started forward.
Her warm smile had the impact of a blow. “I didn’t – ”
“Think I’d come?”
Shock and chagrin eclipsed her smile and, blushing, she looked away. He wished he hadn’t said it, hadn’t embarrassed her. Since leaving her after their ride from Trescowe he had been arguing with himself. Making use of her position and contacts in the village was justifiable as a sound business move. Wanting to spend time in her company, and thinking up ways he might achieve this, was not only inexcusable it was dangerous, and precisely the reason he should have sent his apologies. He knew that. Yet nothing would have kept him away. He had looked forward to it all morning, knew himself to be all kinds of fool, and felt ridiculously nervous.
She lifted one shoulder, still not meeting his gaze. “No, what I intended to say – ”
“Before I so rudely interrupted.”
“Was that I didn’t hear you arrive.”
He gave her credit for a quick recovery, but knew he had guessed correctly.
“Though had something prevented you from coming,” she said carefully. “I would not have been too surprised. From the little you told me I can see yours is a very demanding life.”
She had no idea. “So is yours,” he replied. “Yet you came.”
“That’s different. I had an additional reason.” She held up the basket. “Of course, in law the fruit belongs to you.”
“True,” he agreed. He knew what she was doing. She had inadvertently revealed too much. Wanting her slip forgotten she was deflecting him with a challenge. His uncertainty dissolved. At this moment there was nowhere he would rather be, and no one he would rather be with. As for the rest – To hell with it. “But if I give you retrospective permission, no crime has been committed. However – ”
“Let me guess. Your generosity has a price?”
He felt a dart of admiration. “Mr Casvellan was right.”
“He usually is. But about what in particular?”
“That you have a shrewder grasp of finance than many men of his acquaintance.”
Though she blushed, she held his gaze. “He flatters me.”
Charles shook his head. “Unlikely. He struck me as a man of clear vision and forthright speech. But while I have no reason to doubt his opinion of you, I’m sure that as a woman of business you will understand I require proof?”
“Naturally.”
Seeing her soft lips compress to hold back a smile, Charles kept his expression solemn. But inside him pleasure leapt, bright and hot as a flame. She understood.