His Convenient Mistress (5 page)

The way he said that, the casual male acceptance of possessing a woman the way he might possess a piece of furniture, should have had every liberated bone in her body rushing to form a picket line, but instead she felt a searing heat rip through her.

‘Cooking for her?' Sara asked lightly, to stop herself from analysing her reaction which didn't make sense.

‘Not necessarily,' he said with lazy amusement. ‘I might find other things to do in a kitchen that don't necessarily involve food.'

Sara's stomach curled warmly at the blatant image he had casually tossed at her. ‘Well,' she tried to gather her
scattered wits and speak in a normal voice, ‘at any rate, whatever you're cooking smells very good.'

‘And it will taste even better,' he assured her, spooning pasta onto a plate and pouring sauce over it straight from the saucepan. It was a rich sauce which he had concocted using a handful of ingredients which hadn't appeared to be dead or in the process of dying, like the three tomatoes he had uncovered next to the onions.

He placed the plate in front of her. ‘Now eat.'

‘You like giving orders, don't you?' But her mouth was watering and she dived into the food with enthusiasm, not realising how hungry she had been until she saw the bottom of the plate.

‘I prefer to see them as instructions.'

‘And do you give instructions to all the locals?' she asked, scraping some of the fabulous tomato sauce onto her spoon and relishing it.

‘To the locals? Why would I do that?'

‘Because you live here?'

‘I have a house here and my mother lives here.'

Sara looked at him over the rim of her spoon. ‘And where do you live?'

‘In London.'

‘Ah. That makes sense.'

The shutters were back up, he saw. She carefully closed her fork and spoon and took her plate to the sink, offering him the unrevealing view of her back as she washed the crockery and placed it on the draining board next to her.

‘And why does that
make sense
?'

She turned around and perched against the sink, supporting herself with her hands on either side of her, her fingers curled over the edge of the counter.

‘I thought you were a little too urbane for around here,' she said. ‘A little too sophisticated.'

‘Should I take that as a compliment?'

‘You can take it any way you want to, although it wasn't meant as one.'

‘I presume you have something against urbane, sophisticated men?' James stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Has that got anything to do with Simon's father, by any chance?'

The silence stretched tautly between them until Sara forced herself to smile with tight politeness at him. After all, he
had
cooked her a meal.

‘Thank you so much for cooking for me. It was delicious.'

‘Most sincerely spoken.' James walked slowly towards her and the closer he got, the tenser she became, until he was standing inches away from her. Then he reached out and caged her in with his hands, leaning towards her so that their faces were only inches apart. ‘But you haven't answered my question.'

‘And I don't need to!' she flared angrily. ‘My life is none of your business. I'm a very private person and I intend to stay that way.'

‘Then, lady, you came to the wrong place. Because I, for one, intend to get right down to the bottom of you.'

He stood back and walked towards the kitchen door. ‘We'll meet again.' And he meant every word of it. Without even realising it, she challenged him, and he had never been able to resist a challenge.

T
HERE
was no need to drive to the nearest sizeable town for her shopping, even though she was sorely tempted to do just that, if only so that she could savour the anonymity which she now found that she perversely craved.

Nestled cosily against the vast backdrop of mountains was the local village. Sara, with one eye on the map next to her and the other on the twisty road, rounded a bend straight into suburbia.

From his car seat in the back, Simon was peering through the window in apparent fascination at the scenery. So fascinated, in fact, that his mouth was parted to accommodate a thumb he had forgotten to suck.

And yes, she had to admit that the scenery was spectacular. From the Rectory to the small town, there were times when the winding road almost seemed to be an insolent intrusion into Mother Nature. Every so often, a sudden bend in the road would offer a tantalising glimpse of flat, glassy water in the distance. She had no idea whether this was an estuary or a loch but, whatever it was, Simon had been enthralled. She, slightly less so. The more magnificent the landscape, the more she longed for the concrete jungle in which she had spent all of her twenty-six years. Noise pollution, air pollution and having to make do with window-boxes in place of a garden had never seemed more enticing.

‘Houses!'

‘At last,' Sara muttered. They had passed a few big old houses on the journey but these were real houses with real
roads that did real things, like branch out in various directions. ‘I was beginning to think that we had been transported into the Twilight Zone.'

‘What's the Twilight Zone?'

‘Should we just drive straight through here until we get to a proper town,' Sara mused aloud, ‘or face it?'

‘I'm thirsty.'

‘Then I guess we'll face it.'

The local village turned out to be bigger than she had expected. Not quite the cluster of basic shops, leaning shoulder-to-shoulder against one another so that the owners could while away their time gossiping outside. The flat white fronts and grey stone fac
des of the houses, which sprang out from the main street, eventually gave way to small shops offering everything from fly-fishing equipment to guided tours. Further along Sara came to the central square, dominated by a statue of whose identity she had no idea, although his warrior-like bearing didn't suggest the local poet. Cars were neatly parked in slots in front of the monument and spreading around the square was a further assortment of shops, bigger and less picturesque than their counterparts further down the road.

She pulled into a parking space, manoeuvering her small black car until it was resting snugly between a four-wheel-drive on one side and weathered pick-up truck on the other.

‘Right,' she said, fetching Simon out of the car and looking around her with some interest. ‘We can get lost here.'

‘Why would we want to get lost?' he asked in a bewildered voice, and she squeezed his hand gently.

‘It's just a saying. Now, where first? Supermarket? Quaint craft shop with hand-knitted jumpers? Pharmacy to check out the medicines for you just in case you get an
other chest infection. Or maybe just an ice cream before we start doing anything at all?'

This wasn't going to be as bad as she had feared, Sara thought as they headed for the nearest tea shop. She wouldn't quite be able to lose herself here, but at least she wouldn't be singled out as the intruder who had gone to live at the Rectory. Perhaps, she told herself, she could see this as a sort of short holiday. Stay until the middle of August, perhaps, admit the mistake she had made and then head back down south with her tail between her legs. They wouldn't have to return to London. They could live somewhere just outside, somewhere as peaceful as this place without being quite as scarily remote.

She was so busy turning her thoughts over in her head that she failed to notice the significant hush that greeted her breezy entrance into the shop.

She focused and then saw what she had missed when she had first entered, with Simon jabbering away about what flavour ice cream he wanted while she frowningly chewed over thoughts of flight in her head.

All heads were turned in their direction. A table of six elderly women seemed particularly interested. Even the ruddy-cheeked, fresh-faced girl behind the counter had stopped what she had been doing to stare.

Sara ventured a weak smile, her eyes skittering away from the gang of six sitting by the window with their cups of tea and little delicate plates of scones and cream.

‘A table?' she asked in a lame voice. ‘For two?' She could hardly believe that she was the same assertive woman who had once been a powerful career woman.

‘You must be the new girl at the Rectory!' The booming voice stopped her in her tracks and forced her to look across at the six women. ‘We've all been dying to meet you! Have we not, ladies?'

‘Come, my dear, and let us have a proper look at you and your delightful little boy!'

Sara helplessly looked at the girl behind the old-fashioned wooden counter, who shot her a sympathetic smile.

‘I…I…' she stammered, making her way to the table.

‘Naturally we were curious about this relative of Freddie's. The old rogue never breathed a word about having a niece. Did he, ladies?'

‘You poor thing. Could you not get away from that big old place a little sooner? Heaven knows, you must have been up to your elbows in it! And you with a wee lad as well to look after.'

‘Would that be why we haven't spied you in town before?'

‘I…I…' Sara repeated weakly.

‘And what's
your
name, child? I bet you've come here for an ice cream. This place makes the best ice creams in Scotland!'

‘And you should know, Angela. You eat far too many of them for your own good.'

‘Now, dear, why don't you pull up a chair and we can all have a cosy little chat.'

‘I…well…' Sara licked her lips nervously, while Simon hesitantly accepted a teacake from one of the ladies and began chatting in his low, childish voice to her.

‘You might be able to help us! We're trying to sort out the summer fête at the manor. Some fresh input might be just what is needed, would you not agree, ladies? And no, Valerie, we are
not
going to be accommodating your daughter's suggestion about a disco. For a start, Maria would go mad!'

‘Well, well, well…' a familiar velvety voice drawled from behind her and Sara felt as though fingers had lightly
slithered up her spine, making her pulses race. ‘I see you've been caught by the local witches.' There was a wicked grin in his voice when he said that, and Sara didn't need to turn around to imagine the expression on his face. One of utter charm. She could see it in the way the six ladies tittered. ‘Be warned, you may not escape this place in one piece.'

‘Now, now, young man!'

‘Where's your mother, James? She said she would be here by eleven. I'm very much afraid she's missed the first pot of tea.'

‘Trouble with one of the gardeners. His daughter's been admitted into hospital, it would seem.'

‘That would be young Emma. Baby's on its way, poor thing.'

One of the gardeners?
Sara wondered whether she had heard wrong. She had gleaned that the man lived in a big house and was doubtless wealthy or else how could he have a place in London as well, but
how big was his house if he needed more than one gardener to control the lawn
?

Suddenly she didn't want to be here, didn't want to feel his breath against her averted face, because he was standing so close to her that she could. Nor did she want to find herself wondering about him. She already knew enough.

‘I… If you don't mind, I have a thousand things to do before I go home, and…and…'

‘You've frightened her,' he said on a low laugh, and Sara had the impression that in some peculiar way he was toying with her.

‘Don't be ridiculous!' she snapped, whipping around to look at him. Her blazing eyes made little impact. He continued to smile in amusement and had not even been surprised into stepping back. She felt engulfed by his physical presence and hurriedly spun back round so that she was
looking at the women, although she knew that her cheeks were burning.

‘I really don't mean to be rude, but…but Simon, my son, is just getting over a chest infection and I wanted to try and make it to the pharmacy to buy a few things for him.'

‘A chest infection? Oh, you poor wee thing.'

Looking down, Sara wryly observed how he puffed himself out in the face of all the sympathetic tittering from the old ladies.

‘Is that one of the reasons that you came up here?' one of the ladies asked. ‘They often say that clean air is good for respiratory conditions and we know you lived in London. Is that not a fact, Mary? Didn't your Eleanor have to leave London because her asthma began to get worse?'

‘Well, as a matter of fact,' Sara mumbled, keenly aware of the man standing behind her and not really sure why allowing him access to this little sliver of personal information was so off-putting, ‘it was one of the reasons.'

‘Well, of course we must let you get on. Sandra, dear! Another pot of tea. I can see Maria on her way. If she can manage to get away from that old fool Jenkins. Now, my dear, I hope we'll be seeing a lot more of you!'

‘And I'm sure,' James said, ‘that the feeling is entirely reciprocated, isn't it? Sara?' His voice was like dark chocolate curling around her name and something hot and alive deep inside her kicked, unbidden, into life. It was something she didn't want to feel and she responded accordingly by pushing it away.

‘Of course.' She managed a polite smile, eager to go now that she had established her excuse.

‘Oh, good, because there's our little summer dance at the village hall…'

‘You're more than welcome to help decorate…'

‘On Friday evening. Barbecue if the weather permits…'

‘And it will. If those weathermen are anything to go by, not that they usually are…'

‘Friday,' Sara said lamely. ‘I'd love to, but Simon—'

‘I'm sure my mother would be more than happy to babysit,' James interjected, knowing full well where her protest was leading. He hadn't planned on staying quite as long as Friday, but the minute he had removed the objection from her mouth he was filled with an inexplicable urge to prolong his sojourn.

Get to know her, he argued to himself with every semblance of rationality. How else does one win ground unless one is fully aware of the layout?

And, irritating though the admission was, he still knew practically nothing about her and he wanted to find out more. It was a first for him. Hidden depths were not something that he particularly looked for, or for that matter had ever found, in any of the women he had dated. And he liked it that way. That way there was no room for nasty surprises.

‘I couldn't possibly…' There was a hunted look in her eyes which he blithely ignored.

‘You would be doing her a great favour. She adores children and would love nothing better than to spend the evening with Simon.'

‘Well, Simon is very shy with—'

‘You could even bring him up to our house. There's a room occupied solely by the most elaborate train set a child could ever hope to find…'

‘Train set?' Simon's ears had pricked up, and with a sigh of frustrated resignation Sara conceded defeat.

‘So…' he had followed her out of the café, out into the glare of the sun ‘…you came here because of Simon…why
did you wait five years? Surely he would have been suffering from recurrent chest infections from birth?'

‘Have you nothing better to do than tag along behind me?'

‘Not at this point in time,' he informed her, proving, she thought, that he was every bit as thick-skinned as she had deduced from their first meeting.

Indeed, at this point in time, the business he had intended to do while his mother spent a pleasant couple of hours with her cronies had faded into the background. Right now, he could think of nothing better than glancing over to catch sight of that vibrant red hair that was today caught up in a tortoiseshell clip that barely contained its luxuriant waywardness, that creamy white skin, tinged pink at her discomfort at having to endure his presence.

‘You never bought your ice cream,' he pointed out suddenly. ‘I suppose our resident crew called you across before you could get to put in your order.' Everyone was curious, he reasoned, and so she would not be able to resist letting her natural curiosity have a wander, even though the determined tilt of her head told him that she would have liked nothing better.

‘Who
are
they?' Sara asked, glancing into the windows of some of the shops they were strolling past, catching the occasional look in her direction and uncertain whether this was due to her or to curiosity about why the man at her side was with her.