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Instead of turning left, Adam moved her to the right, through a heavy door, and into a small bar at the rear of the inn with a fireplace big enough to roast an ox. Looking round her with interest, she briefly examined the oak beams, crossed swords, and some rather nice carvings, but what seemed bizarre were the rather modern lamps set in the fireplace.
‘What will you have? More orange juice?’ he asked with a rather wicked glint in his eye.
‘Seeing as I’m driving,’ she agreed drily, ‘yes.’
‘Find yourself somewhere to sit.’
Easier said than done; the place was obviously very popular. The door to the garden stood open, and she headed in that direction. A small table became vacant just as she reached it and she hastily sat, her back to the inn wall. Putting her bag and wrap on the other chair, to keep it free, she stared at the other couples who had also chosen the fresh air.
Her mind on the young couple they had just left, she only gradually became aware of the hissed conversation going on between two young women who were sitting somewhere behind her.
‘That’s Adam Turmaine.’
‘Who?’
‘Adam Turmaine! My mother knows his aunt’s cleaner. He’s living with that redhead that just went outside. Unmarried mother with some sort of hold over him. Apparently,’ the first woman whispered, ‘she won’t let anyone see him. Mrs Staple Smythe…’
‘Who?’
‘Oh, you won’t know her,’ she said dismissively. ‘She’s a friend of his aunt, but she was apparently absolutely furious at not getting in to see him. Said the redhead blocked all attempts. Didn’t even tell him she was there!’
‘Perhaps she’s a control freak!’
Control freak? Astonished, Claris leaned even further back, in order to hear better.
‘I wouldn’t mind controlling him,’ the woman’s friend giggled. ‘He is gorgeous!’
‘Perhaps he likes domineering women.’
‘Bondage!’
Claris bit her lip.
‘You never can tell with people,’ one of the girls said sagely. ‘I mean, she wasn’t even pretty.’
‘Well, you know what they say. You don’t look at the—’
‘Linda!’ her friend exclaimed, sounding scandalised, and they both dissolved into muffled laughter.
‘Mum said Bernice…’
‘Who?’
‘Mrs Turmaine’s niece,’ she explained impatiently. ‘Mum said she’d marked him out for herself.’ There was more giggling, and then, ‘Perhaps she’ll try to get rid of her.’
‘How?’
‘God knows. Perhaps she’ll get her aunt to get Mrs Staple Smythe to hire a hit man. She apparently does everything Harriet Turmaine tells her.’
Interesting, Claris thought.
‘Why would she get Mrs Staple Smythe to do it?’
‘Because old SS apparently knows everything about everybody. And if anyone was likely to know of a hit man, she would. Shh, he’s coming.’
Claris imagined them both smiling at him. She doubted Adam would even notice. Whatever else he was, he certainly wasn’t conceited. She doubted he ever considered the fact that women found him attractive. Certainly he never seemed to have considered that his assistant might find him so.
Quickly moving her things, so that he could sit down, she suddenly saw a couple move from another table and hastily got to her feet in order to grab it before someone else could. She didn’t want Adam overhearing any interesting conversations.
Her employer didn’t even look surprised at her sudden move, merely followed her and sat down.
‘Good boy,’ she praised.
He slanted her a look of pure mockery.
‘Tell me,’ she urged almost conspiratorially, ‘have you ever considered bondage?’
CHAPTER TWO
‘FREQUENTLY. Keep a close eye on them, will you?’
‘Mark and Sara? Yes, of course. I shall be a veritable aunty,’ she promised him.
‘He doesn’t know how clever he is.’
‘Of course he doesn’t. He thinks anyone with computer literacy could do what he does. I thought I might make a tape.’
‘Tape?’
‘Keep up, Adam,’ she reproved lightly, ‘I’ve changed the subject. I thought I might make a tape of Nathan’s chatter for Paul and Jenny.’ With a little smile, she added, ‘Doesn’t stop, does he? Talking away to himself. Could almost be a foreign language. I thought it might help. No one really knows how much unconscious people can hear or understand.’
‘No. You’re in a very frivolous mood.’
‘Must be the orange juice. Is he a fighter?’
‘Paul? Yes, I would say so.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘Tell you what? That he’s a fitness fanatic? Much good it did him.’
‘It will help,’ she said gently.
‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I find it very hard. I talk to him, tell him about the baby, about how Jenny’s parents are doing. Hospitals are such—depressing places.’ Sipping his drink, he continued almost absently, ‘We’ve been friends since university. Best man at his wedding. Nathan’s godfather. I don’t think I can bear the thought that he might never know what Paul was like. Is like,’ he corrected hastily, as though even to think the worst might be prophetic.
‘Then it will be up to you to tell him, won’t it?’ she asked gently. ‘It’s only been just over a week, Adam. A week isn’t long for someone to be in a coma.’
‘No.’
With nothing further to say on the subject, because there was nothing they could say, and her frivolity quite gone, they both watched a young couple walk out into the garden and take the table Claris had so recently vacated. The husband—boyfriend, lover, whatever—courteously seated his lady, and Claris gave a wry smile. Catching Adam’s rather sardonic eye, her smile widened. She knew exactly what he was thinking: that she was thinking he should have done the same. ‘No,’ she denied softly. ‘You don’t seat furniture.’
‘And is that how you think of yourself? As part of the furniture?’
‘It’s how I think you think of me,’ she corrected.
‘And couldn’t care less?’
‘And couldn’t care less,’ she agreed, although she wasn’t quite sure if that was true. She didn’t expect anything of him, and so wasn’t disappointed when she didn’t get it. It wasn’t his fault she found him attractive.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
Forcing herself to sound amused, she said, ‘I’ve had several.’
‘That isn’t what I asked.’
Giving in, she shook her head. ‘Not at the moment.’
‘Don’t you want to marry? Have children?’
‘Maybe. One day.’ At the back of her mind she supposed there had always been the vague idea that one day she would marry, have little ones, but until she had begun looking after Nathan that was all it had been—vague. Nathan had rather changed that, reminded her that her biological clock was ticking.
‘You can invite anyone to the house. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Thank you,’ she said drily.
He gave a small smile. ‘I don’t know very much about your personal life, do I?’
‘No. Why should you want to? Feeling guilty about burying me in the country?’ And then she realised something she should have realised earlier. ‘That was why you agreed to go to Mrs Staple Smythe’s awful party, wasn’t it? So that I could meet the locals. Make friends.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes,’ she said positively. ‘It was a nice thought.’
‘I don’t have nice thoughts,’ he denied mildly.
‘Yes, you do. What a pity it turned out to be so disastrous.’
‘Mmm,’ he agreed wryly.
A faint smile in her eyes, she reassured him, ‘I’m a big girl, Adam; you don’t need to—consider me.’
‘Be pretty damned selfish not to.’
‘You are pretty damned selfish,’ she retorted, laughing. ‘But thank you for the thought. If I want to go out, I’ll ask.’ Changing the subject again, prompted by the overheard conversation, she said, ‘I didn’t notice any fluttery behaviour from your aunt. Quite the opposite, in fact. You said your memory of her was of a woman who couldn’t string two sentences together.’
‘Must have been someone else,’ he answered, his eyes lighting with amusement.
She wondered if she ought to tell him that Harriet apparently controlled Mrs Staple Smythe, and then decided not to. He had enough on his mind with Paul and Jenny. ‘Heard anything from Bernice?’ she asked naughtily.
He stared at her for a moment whilst he obviously searched his memory, and then a look of enlightenment dawned. Spurious, she knew. Adam’s memory was phenomenal, despite his pretence to the contrary. Details that other people often dismissed as irrelevant he stored in his very fertile mind. It was what made him so dangerous, and so attractive. ‘The young woman at the party? No,’ he denied. ‘Should I have done?’
‘Not necessarily.’ Although if her unknown informants were to be believed he would soon be doing so. Searching his bland face, she teased softly, ‘Don’t want to know why I asked?’
‘I’m sure you’ll tell me if you think it important.’
‘Mmm,’ she agreed amiably. ‘What was your uncle like?’
He pulled a face. ‘I don’t honestly know. He and my father didn’t get on. Rather a self-important man, I think. Judgemental. Why?’
‘Just curious,’ she said mildly. ‘What time is Arabella coming tomorrow?’
‘Don’t know. Want another drink?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Then let’s make a move.’
Which meant she had probably begun to bore him. Finishing her drink, she stared round her whilst he finished his. They were mostly young couples in the garden, some with their arms round each other, and just for a moment she felt envy. For once the summer air was warm, and as darkness fell it brought an intimacy that felt—sad. Fool, she scolded herself. She had never been a romantic, which was no doubt why she found her unwanted feelings for Adam so hard to put into perspective. Remembering the conversation she had overheard earlier, she began to smile. Control freak. Perhaps she was.
‘Why the smile?’
‘I was wondering if I was a control freak.’
He looked at her, gave a disbelieving shake of his head at her odd behaviour, and got to his feet.
Collecting her things, she joined him. With no need to go back through the inn, they walked out through the garden. ‘Do you remember the first time we met?’ she asked him as they negotiated the uneven cobbles.
‘Vaguely.’
‘You asked if I cried easily.’
‘Did I? How extraordinary.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ she denied. ‘You made them all cry. The Sallys and the Janes…’
‘But not you.’
‘No, not me. I appear to be shout-proof.’
‘I don’t shout.’
No, he just made people feel stupid.
‘Neither do I suffer fools. And some of them were very foolish indeed.’
Yes, so she’d heard. Falling in love with him, trying to attract him, crying when he reproved them over some mistake. He’d had a lot of assistants over the years, both male and female, and none of them had lasted very long. She’d worked for him for six months. Sometimes it felt like for ever, as though she had always known him, known what he was like—and she suddenly had a mental image of herself still working for him when she was an old, old lady. Unmarried, efficient, his right hand. Spinster. Unfulfilled.
‘Keys?’
With a little blink, she hastily fumbled for her car keys. She hadn’t even noticed that they’d reached the car. ‘Sorry—wool-gathering.’
They drove home in silence. Silence inside the car, silence out. Theirs seemed to be the only car on the road. The warm breeze through the open windows was somehow soothing.
Parking by the stable block, she lingered a moment to stare up at the sky. The stars were brighter here, more important, and she stretched her arms up, savoured for a moment the utter tranquillity. A fox barked nearby and she shivered.
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