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‘Aren’t you going to knock?’ asked Guy, when she hesitated.
‘I’m…’ Her hands fluttered in the air helplessly. She flung a panic-stricken glance up at him, confused by the turmoil of her emotions. ‘I’m nervous. It’s a long time since I’ve seen my mother,’ she confided huskily. ‘Twenty years ago. I was five.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘All I remember is a mass of blonde hair and the smell of jasmine. I—I wonder what she’ll make of me? I’ve heard so much about her.’
‘Have you?’ For several seconds he studied her face, his expression unreadable. ‘Then,’ he said eventually, ‘the sooner you get the next few minutes over with the better.’ And he reached up to rap on the door with a fist so hard that it would have summoned the dead.
Tessa swallowed to calm her nerves and hastily tidied her silky hair with her fingers. No one came. He knocked again, with the same result. Bewildered, she exchanged glances with Guy, her stomach lurching sickeningly.
‘This is the right house?’ she asked. He nodded. Pityingly. And her hands went clammy. ‘She must be in!’ she cried, her voice wavering.
‘Must she?’ He was frowning at the peeling paint on the door, his fingers lifting off one or two of the flakes. His thumb investigated the inadequate pointing of the stone faade. ‘Perhaps—as I suspected—there’s another reason she’s not answering.’
There was a sudden silence. Tessa’s eyes rounded in alarm. ‘You’re deliberately trying to frighten me!’ she accused him.
He looked as if he felt genuinely sorry for her. Caught by an urge to grab him and shake him for upsetting her, she flicked her tongue around her dry mouth and tried to stay rational. There would be an ordinary explanation. Her mother had run out of milk. Lost a cat. Run out of petrol somewhere. Everything would be fine.
‘I have a key,’ she said shakily. ‘Mother sent it in case I arrived early. We didn’t know how long it would take me to get here. Perhaps I should let myself in and wait.’
He gave a shrug. ‘Let yourself in by all means. But don’t raise your hopes.’
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded, tension holding her body rigid. ‘And who the devil are you to know so much?’
The sardonic eyes chilled her bones. ‘My name is de Turaine,’ he answered quietly. ‘And this is my village. Or, rather, most of it is mine.’
Tessa’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re the new landlord! The son of the man who didn’t care about his own village!’
‘Correct. I flew over from New Orleans two weeks ago. My father died two weeks before that,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone. And, because he showed no sign of regret or sorrow, the flustered Tessa didn’t offer her sympathies. What kind of man was he, she thought, to dismiss his father’s death so casually? ‘In case you’re wondering, the neglect here came as a total shock to me,’ he went on tightly. ‘I hadn’t been near Turaine for half my lifetime.’
While she digested that information he took the key from her trembling fingers, thrust the door open and waved her in.
Astonished, she obeyed his imperious gesture, finding herself in a chilly room which was so dark that she couldn’t see anything clearly. It smelt of damp, decaying timber and saturated stone. It was the same smell she’d encountered when working with the team of restorers on Kernow House, a run-down stately home in the Lynher Valley.
The cottage must be in as bad a state as she’d feared. It was a depressing arrival, and awful to think of her mother living in dark, dank conditions like these. A concrete monstrosity would have been better!
‘Mum?’ she called desperately. ‘Mum! Where are you?’ The house lay as silent and as cold as a grave. She found a light switch and flicked it on, only to stand stock-still in dismay. ‘This place is awful!’ she exclaimed, her horrified eyes taking in the chaos. ‘And it’s been vandalised—!’
‘No. I think not. Mon Dieu! What a mess!’ muttered Guy, dumping the bike panniers on the floor and looking around at the tumbled furniture and scattered belongings, his mouth grim with disapproval.
‘How could your father let it get into this mess?’ she raged. ‘When I think of my mother struggling to manage—’
‘Your mother’s responsible for the state of this house. She owns it,’ he broke in tightly. ‘Though I expect to regain possession of it soon—and the two cottages next door, which are also hers.’
‘I don’t believe you. No one would willingly live like this!’ cried Tessa loyally. ‘She’d slap on a coat of paint and wash the curtains—’
‘How the hell do you know?’
That made her stop in her tracks. She didn’t. ‘There’s something odd about this,’ she insisted, though less confidently. ‘No one would leave furniture overturned.’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Something awful’s happened.’
He fixed her with a piercing stare. ‘Damn right it has!’ he answered grimly. ‘Which makes me as keen as you to find her.’
‘Find her?’ Tessa looked at him blankly. ‘You think… she’s…missing?’
‘No.’ The sculpted mouth took on a contemptuous curve. ‘She’s not missing—I’d bet my life on that. I believe she’s disappeared.’
Tessa gulped. ‘Disappeared?’ she squeaked.
‘Of her own free will,’ he said tightly, and all the air rushed out of Tessa’s lungs in a soft ‘oh’. ‘When you said you’d come to meet her, I did hope that the rumours I’d heard last night were untrue. She and I have some unfinished business—the sale of her properties. But I’m afraid that her neighbours’ suspicions are correct.’ He fixed her with a knife-edge stare. ‘I believe your mother has run away.’
Tessa glared. How dared he? ‘Don’t be ridiculous! She rang me. She said she’d be here—’ Furious that Guy was ignoring her, and had wandered over to a table covered by a dirty lace cloth, she raised her voice a decibel or two. ‘Look, this is meant to be our reunion! She rang me! She wanted it! She wouldn’t run out on me!’
He gave an elegantly derisive snort. ‘She’d do anything if it suited her!’ he said cynically.
Suddenly Tessa’s face crumpled. She thought of all the years she’d longed for a mother to confide in, a mother who would have helped her to cope with the bullying and teasing, who might have loved her and prevented her from seeking love from the heartless David. Her expression became forlorn.
‘I’m her daughter!’ she cried, pushing back the treacherous thought that her mother hadn’t ever been concerned about that fact before. ‘I—I’ve come all this way—’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’
She hoped so. Tessa scowled at his back, torn between screeching hysterically and bawling her eyes out. He seemed more interested in the things on the table than the fact that she’d been abandoned.
‘What is it?’ she asked irritably.
He was smiling with satisfaction when he turned around, and clutched a piece of paper. But when his gaze fell on Tessa’s quivering lower lip the smile faded and an almost gentle light touched his eyes. She watched him with wary suspicion. Why had he suddenly become all sweetness and light? she wondered apprehensively.
‘I found this propped up against that pile of books,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t deserve to be hurt.’
Her hand flew to her throat as she looked at the piece of paper. ‘Hurt? Why…why should I be hurt?’ She thought of several reasons why people left notes. And she licked her lips, backing away from the offered paper. ‘I—I don’t want to read it!’ she husked.
‘Relax. Your mother’s safe,’ he soothed. ‘But she has gone. This explains why.’
She tried to concentrate, finding it hard to take in what the words said.
Sorry, darling. Creditors pressing. I’ve given you the houses. They’re a bit of a millstone around my neck! My present to you—the documents are around somewhere…
‘The houses?’ she cried in astonishment. ‘She’s given me the houses? Why? I don’t believe it—’
‘I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you,’ Guy said sardonically. ‘They’re more of a liability than an asset.’
‘But…I don’t understand! She can’t mean it. What will I do with them? And where will she live?’
‘Anywhere but here, I imagine,’ he replied drily.
She’d run away because of creditors. Tessa felt the familiar hollow sensation in her stomach. Her own experience of debt had been hideous. It had been a nightmare catching up with the back payments on the furniture her father had bought on hire purchase just before he’d lost his last job.
Only too well she remembered the burly men who’d accompanied the debt collector, the menacing way they’d looked at her and inflated their chests under their beerstained vests to the size of barn doors. Once, when she hadn’t been able to pay, they’d walked in and taken her portable radio and told her she’d save more money if she ate less.
Feeling the nausea crawl up to her throat, she closed her eyes tightly. This wasn’t happening. She’d wake up and it would all be a dream.
A hand touched her shoulder, making her jump. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No! I’m not!’ she snapped, her eyes opening and flicking green fire at him. ‘I come here, find my mother’s gone, that some hulking great brutes have frightened her away…’
She bit her lip. Shaking off the supposedly soothing hand, she bent her head and read the rest of the note. ‘Had to go. Didn’t fancy being beaten up! Love, Estelle.’ Almost as an afterthought, she’d crossed out ‘Estelle’ and substituted ‘Mother’.
Guy had been right. She’d done a runner. Tessa felt herself trembling. No mother to greet her. No heart-to-hearts, no hugs or happy reconciliations…
Miserably she looked up, her dark lashes blinking furiously as she struggled to hold back the hot tears. ‘She knew I was coming…’ Her voice turned into a husky croak. ‘And—and what it meant to me and Dad…’
Suddenly weak, she stumbled to an armchair. It collapsed under her slight weight and she was left trapped in the midst of the wreckage, howling with surprise and disappointment. Guy came over to extricate her but her arms windmilled in a gesture of furious and stubborn rejection. He shrugged and left the room. And she felt very alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
HOW could her mother do this to her? Tessa thought, despairing. And then she groaned guiltily for being so selfish. Clearly her mother had been given no choice. She knuckled her eyes quickly, till she could see better.
Over and above the disruption in the room, it was clear that very little had been originally spent on the cottage or its furnishings. The carpet was threadbare and stained, with ill-fitting edges, and dust filled the rucks. Two of the cheap lamps in the chainstore chandelier dangled drunkenly, hanging only by the electric wiring. The furniture looked either second-hand or as if it had belonged to some longdead occupier. Doors were missing from cupboards and the glass in the china cabinet had been badly cracked.
And her beautiful, vivacious mother had lived here.
‘Oh, Mum!’ she mumbled, racked with compassion and despair.
‘I’ve made some tea.’
Her head jerked around. Guy looked sympathetic, and for a moment her mouth wobbled in a yearning for comfort. ‘She was forced to run!’ she complained miserably. ‘And— and I imagine the creditors caused all this mess, flinging things around, shouting at her…’ She swallowed, picturing the scene only too clearly. ‘They scared her! If I ever find out who did this,’ she added fiercely, ‘I’ll sue them for the damage; I swear I will!’
‘Come into the kitchen,’ he murmured in a coaxing tone. ‘It’s not so depressing in there.’
‘I can’t get up!’ she wailed. ‘I’m stuck!’
Solemn-faced, but obviously trying hard not to smile at her predicament, he came to offer his hand. There was a dreadful tearing sound and she let go hastily, sinking back with a thud. In horror, Tessa explored the long gash which a rogue nail had made in her leathers at the top of her thigh.
‘That’s it! That’s it!’ she cried angrily. ‘Everything’s gone horribly wrong! I’m exhausted, starving, upset and worried—and now, look, I’ve torn my one and only pair of leathers!’
‘I’m sure they can be—’
‘Don’t you mollify me with talk of bike repair kits! I don’t want to look patched up!’ she said crossly, not wanting to be pacified either. ‘And I can’t afford another pair.’
‘Can’t you?’ He looked surprised. ‘That’s an expensive bike you’re riding—’
‘Don’t let appearances fool you,’ she said in a small, jerky voice. ‘I splashed out with my savings and upgraded my moped so I could come here.’
‘A little reckless?’ he suggested coolly.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! I’d been saving for years because I didn’t spend my money on much.’ She gave a wry smile. Other than on concealing dresses to wear, books for her solitary evenings and boxes of chocolates ditto! ‘This was a chance in a lifetime for me to be with my mother,’ she explained. ‘I’d have done anything to get here. I thought it was well worth the expense.’
‘And the classy haircut?’
She touched the beautifully silken strands and sighed. ‘Sheer necessity. I looked a total mess. I wanted Mum to like what she saw so I had a make-over,’ she explained wearily.
‘A…make-over!’ His eyebrows rose in astonishment. ‘What on earth for?’
‘If you’d seen the “before” picture, you wouldn’t ask,’ she answered with a sigh. ‘Mum looked so beautiful in the photos we have. I knew I’d disappoint her—’
‘If she was any kind of a mother at all, she’d love you no matter how you looked,’ Guy declared.
‘I know that. I’m sure she would. But I wanted her to be really proud of me.’
She didn’t voice her fear of rejection, the thought that her mother would have been appalled to discover that her daughter was a myopic and ugly woman with thick spectacles and straggly hair.
Tessa sighed. ‘Now I’ll have to go about looking tatty… And these trousers were going to last me for years!’
‘Here.’
A large handkerchief muffled her wet face and was passed efficiently over it. Too miserable to protest, she closed her eyes and let him dab at them, dutifully lifting her chin up so that he could do it properly. Gently his fingers spanned the curve of her jaw while he took infinite care in wiping the corners of her pouting mouth.
Which tingled. Her wet-lashed eyes snapped wide open and looked directly into his in surprise. For a moment she held her breath, mesmerised by the depth of compassion in their liquid darkness. Then he frowned and briskly attended to drying her cheeks, before stuffing his handkerchief firmly in his breast pocket. She came back to earth.
‘I must look pretty stupid.’ And she waved a deprecating hand at the broken wood imprisoning her.
There was a very long pause. ‘No. You don’t.’ Avoiding her eyes, he began carefully to clear away the debris. His strong hands snapped off the piece of wood containing the offending nail and he threw it into the huge stone hearth. ‘Time for tea,’ he said neutrally.
Before she knew it, he had put his hands under her armpits and lifted her bodily from the wreckage, setting her gently on her feet in front of him. He held her arms in support and she welcomed that.
Her huge, swimming eyes met his. ‘Sorry to howl. It’s the disappointment. I’ve been building this up in my mind, worrying, feeling excited and apprehensive at the same time…It’s such a let-down to come all this way and find she’s not here after all. Dad was so thrilled she’d contacted us.’
‘You were five when she left,’ he recalled gently, somehow knowing she wanted to talk about it.
‘I remember it as if it were yesterday. I’d never seen my father crying before,’ she said, Guy’s strong hands making her feel secure. ‘I shan’t ever forget it.’ She looked up at him helplessly. ‘He cried for days. Can you imagine what that was like?’
‘I think I can,’ he said softly.
‘It seemed like for ever to me. The neighbours fed me. I think I might have gone hungry otherwise.’
And she’d barely stopped eating from that moment on. Anxious to placate her, the neighbours had pushed sweets and food at her while her father had cried and poured bottles of whisky into himself. Scared of this odd behaviour, his strange sour smell, she’d curled up in a corner, wideeyed, and silently demolished bag after bag of sweets.
She licked her dry lips and cleared the lump in her throat The memories still sent a dagger through her heart. Her father had looked small and hurt, like a child. And she, a child herself, had run to comfort him and been pushed away. Pain lashed her heart.
‘It must have been tough for you,’ he said, his rich voice warm with sincerity.
‘Worse for Dad. Mum meant everything to him. She was his world, the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him,’ she said sadly. ‘Poor Dad. He was a different man after she left.’
Guy’s eyes flashed with recognition. ‘There are women who have the ability to make a very strong impact on men.’
‘Like your father’s mistress,’ she said sympathetically.
‘Yes.’ And then he said, ‘Some women love to wield power. They fill a man’s heart and mind and take a hold on him, smothering him as ivy twines around a tree. And in the end they kill him, one way or another. I pity your father,’ he added in a low voice. ‘I imagine he found it hard without his wife.’
‘It’s no secret. He hit the bottle a bit,’ she confessed, ‘and I’m afraid he couldn’t keep a job after Mum left. You can’t turn up on a building site all hung-over and morose—people won’t stand for it. He built crooked walls,’ she explained. And found her emotions getting the better of her again. So she repeated what her father had told her at the time. ‘One or two of the walls fell over once too often and so did he.’ But the forced humour hadn’t helped and she still felt miserable.
‘But it wasn’t a joke, was it?’ Guy said quietly, his whole demeanour encouraging her to unburden herself.
She was amazed that he should be interested. But in this cold, unwelcoming house she felt a warm swell of sympathy emanating from Guy which was very comforting, and it eased the sense of loneliness a little.
‘We muddled through. Friends helped to start with, but Dad was a bit difficult,’ she said, glossing over the Technicolor rows. ‘I suppose we must have lived in chaos for a while, till I was old enough to get things more organised. Shopping and cooking were easy.’ She managed a smile, recalling her careful budgeting. ‘I didn’t need the greatest brain on earth, thank goodness.’
Guy frowned. ‘His responsibility was to you. A father should never put his own needs before his child’s—’
She stopped him in mid-flow by jerking up her head angrily. ‘It wasn’t his fault!’ she declared hotly. ‘He was clinically depressed! He had a lot of bad luck. When I was fourteen, he had an accident on a building site. He’s in a wheelchair now. Paralysed. He hasn’t worked since. It’s made him understandably bitter about life.’
‘I’m not surprised. I apologise.’
Mollified, she nodded. ‘He adored my mother. Worshipped her. It was our one point of contact, all he ever wanted to talk about,’ she reminisced. ‘We’d sit together in the evenings and he’d tell me about the parties they’d had, how she was a magnet to people—witty, captivating, breathtakingly beautiful.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Why am I telling you this? You’ve met her. You know what she’s like.’
He looked at her helplessly, as if he wanted to tell her something. But it seemed he thought better of it, because he merely nodded. ‘I know,’ he said at last. ‘But it was your mother who broke your father’s will and catapulted him into his depression.’
‘No! No!’ She shook her head so vigorously that her hair flew everywhere. Impatiently pushing it back from her impassioned face, and trying not to acknowledge that what he’d said was partly true, she said, ‘He told me it was love that destroyed him. But it’s given him wonderful memories—memories he feeds on now he’s paralysed. Personally, I think that a man who can love that deeply is to be admired.’
‘I think your loyalty is to be admired. Or perhaps I deplore your blindness. I’m not sure,’ he said quietly. ‘But if love destroys people then it’s the wrong kind. Love should nourish, empower, allow couples to grow and reach out to others.’ In a gesture which she interpreted as compassion, his hand briefly touched her hot cheek, which was still a little sticky with tears. ‘Your mother swallowed your father whole—and he allowed that to happen. It’s clear that you think you should do your best to love your parents unreservedly, but you really should try to see them for what they are—’
‘This is none of your business!’ Angry with him for resurrecting some of the feelings and thoughts she’d suppressed in herself, Tessa marched into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of tea. There was no milk so she put in a hefty dose of sugar to take the bitterness away. When he appeared in the doorway, she flung him a resentful look. ‘You’re not to criticise my parents again!’ she declared heatedly.
He strolled into the room, pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘I won’t make promises I can’t keep.’
Annoyed, she slid into a chair opposite and stiffly poured him some tea. After a moment, she saw that he was watching the way her fingers twisted and fidgeted together where they lay on the food-stained oilcloth. Quickly she put her hands on her lap, where they couldn’t be seen.
Deprived of any diverting activity, she found her gaze roaming the kitchen, noting the dirt and disarray, the old-fashioned stone sink, the unwashed dishes with congealing food and the evidence of her mother’s last meal strewn over the table in front of them.
‘She certainly left in a hurry,’ Guy observed, a curl of distaste to his mouth.
‘Poor Mum. It must have been horrid.’
Tessa felt a huge lump swelling up in her throat and couldn’t speak any more. Her shoulders slumped with weariness. She ached with hurt—for her mother, for herself and for her father. Oh, dear God, how was she ever going to tell him that there would be no reunion? Tears trickled down her face again and she angrily swept them away. Stupid reaction. First things first. Food, before she fainted dead away.
‘I don’t suppose there’s anything to eat, is there?’ she asked hopefully.
Guy abandoned his thoughtful study of her expressive face, rose and searched the cupboards. ‘Not a lot here… Unless you fancy cereal with tinned tomatoes. Or I could do pasta with anchovy sauce,’ he offered casually.
He could do it? He looked too masculine to know one end of a saucepan from the other! But Tessa felt too tired to argue. ‘OK by me. The pasta, I mean. Thanks. I couldn’t lift a finger, let alone an anchovy.’
Two dark eyes twinkled at her in amusement. ‘Where are you going to sleep tonight?’
Listlessly she watched him lighting the gas beneath a saucepan of water. ‘Here. Where else?’
‘In that case, I’ll see what it’s like upstairs when I’ve done the sauce. You’re exhausted, aren’t you?’ he said softly, suddenly crouching down beside her chair.
Tessa found herself inches away from his compelling face. Overwhelmed by the urge to hurl herself in his arms and seek solace, she merely nodded and said, ‘Whacked. I could sleep for a whole week. It’s the longest journey I’ve ever made. In more ways than one.’
Her limpid green eyes met his. She wondered if she was swaying. It felt like it. Her mouth opened to ask him something but she forgot what it was because his eyes kindled with a gentle warmth which she found irresistible. And which set her off again. ‘Oh, Guy!’ she cried tremulously.
‘It’s OK,’ he said into her hair.
Tessa’s dazed mind tried to work out how she’d landed up in his comforting arms and if it was all right that his mouth seemed to be warming her scalp. I’m in the arms of a stranger, she thought in surprise. A stranger who hates my mother!
Yet she didn’t care. The way he stroked her was so soothing. Someone was offering her sympathy, and boy, did she need it at that moment!