She stroked the blunt head, asking, ‘What’s your dog’s name? The one you were carrying on your horse?’
‘Rusty.’
Minerva’s brows shot up. ‘That’s funny. I’d have bet money on him being black and white, without a speck of brown.’
‘And you’d have won. I didn’t name him,’ he said, that half-smile softening his features.
‘Who did?’
‘The man who bred him. I’ve always assumed he was colourblind.’
‘Does he come inside?’ she asked. ‘Rusty, I mean.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘No, he’s a farm dog.’
So farm dogs were not pets. You learn something new every day, she told herself.
‘I used to have a Labrador who did come inside,’ he said, ‘but Stella didn’t like dogs, so when he died I didn’t get another.’
There was a chilling lack of emotion in his tone, in his face, when he said his dead wife’s name. It was as though she meant nothing to him. Or perhaps, Minerva thought slowly, as though he still couldn’t bear to think of it, as though the only way he could cope was to tamp the emotions down.
‘And what is the horse’s name?’ she asked quickly.
His brows lifted but he said readily enough, ‘Silver Demon.’
Something in her expression must have given her away, because an answering amusement glimmered in his eyes. ‘I didn’t name him, either. Pretentious, isn’t it?’
‘It suits him,’ she said solemnly, smoothing the soft fur behind Penelope’s ears to hide the flutter that smile set up somewhere in the region of her heart.
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t. Although he’s a stallion he’s as placid as a gelding, which is why he’s here. We don’t breed horses at Spanish Castle, so there’s no place for a temperamental stallion, or mare, for that matter; this is a working station.’ He paused, then added without expression, ‘He doesn’t come inside, either.’
When Minerva laughed he watched her with an arrested expression, almost as though a laughing woman was a novelty. The amusement died in her throat. Abruptly, Nick turned towards the door. Answering the unspoken summons, she left Penelope in charge and followed him from the kitchen.
‘I’ll take you round the ground floor first,’ he said, ‘so you know your way about, then I’ll show you your room.’
The homestead was magnificent, furniture and fabric and the house itself combining to make a harmonious whole. The last room they went into was a splendid dining-room where an eighteenth-century mahogany table was set off perfectly by buttercup-coloured walls and a huge painting that should have been incongruous, a modern South American acrylic of the jungle. Yet the lush, almost naïve picture set off the big room and its elegant, traditional furniture with style and wit.
Gazing around, Minerva asked, ‘Who decorated the house? It’s brilliant.’
‘My mother.’
Was his mother still alive? Yes, Stella had written of a tall, charming woman who had married again. ‘She has great talent.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Although most of the furniture was in the house, she re-organised the place to within an inch of its life as well as choosing the colours and the materials. In her day it wasn’t done for a young woman to have a career, but she’d have been a success as a decorator. She lives in Singapore now with her second husband, and is having the time of her life redoing his house and garden.’
The stairs led to a passage lit by an arched window above the staircase and a large double-hung window at the other end of the house. More pictures were displayed along the walls, some by artists Minerva thought she recognised, some unknown, but all chosen with discernment and the passion of the true connoisseur.
‘Did your mother collect the pictures?’ she asked, looking at one particularly impressive oil of a woman on the beach.
‘Some. My grandparents and great-grandparents bought some, and I’ve added to them.’
‘They have...’ Struggling for a way to express her feelings, she could only say lamely, ‘They seem to go to together, to make up a whole.’
‘Perhaps because we’ve only ever bought what we really like,’ he said.
Her room, just around the corner from the stairs, was surprisingly large, with a four-poster bed against one wall and a small door opposite. Going over to the bed, Nick turned down the spread.
‘It’s not made up,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you do it now.’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said swiftly. It was ridiculous, but she didn’t want him making the bed with her. ‘Where’s the linen cupboard?’
He nodded towards a massive French armoire on one wall. ‘In there. Are you sure? I do know how to make a bed.’
Minerva’s smile was hurried. ‘I’m sure you can, but honestly, it’s no trouble.’
‘All right. The bathroom is through the door beside it,’ he said. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else you want.’
Minerva looked away. The ripple of taut muscle as he swung her pack on to a chair set uneasy excitement singing through her. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘What time do you have dinner?’
‘Seven-thirty. I think Helen has left a sort of menu.’
‘Yes.’
He said without emotion, ‘Thank you for stepping into the breach. Helen was frantic to get to her daughter, but she wouldn’t have left me in the lurch.’
‘That’s loyalty,’ Minerva said slowly. Was the housekeeper devoted enough to answer a lawyer who asked questions about the relationship between husband and wife with, if not lies, at least a bending of the truth that favoured her employer?
After all, it would be pragmatic of her to be generous in her interpretation of the situation, even a little biased. Not only did Nick own Spanish Castle, he had interests in other businesses, mostly concerned with the agricultural and pastoral sector, including one extremely successful one he’d set up himself. Irritated by the lack of decent software for agricultural use, he had designed his own, marketed it, and now headed a firm which was expanding its exports by a quantum leap each year.
So he was clever, a creative thinker and an astute businessman as well as part of New Zealand’s landed gentry. The Peveril name was one to reckon with in the north. Nick was a local grandee, a power in the country. And he was kind; his concern for Mrs Borrows hadn’t been assumed.
Perhaps no one was all that interested in why his wife had died, especially as he hadn’t been there when Stella swallowed her deadly mixture of pills.
Nick’s broad shoulders moved a fraction. ‘She adored my mother,’ he said calmly, as though this explained everything. ‘Now, about payment. Family or not,’ his voice turned sardonic, ‘I certainly don’t expect you to give up your holiday
