bathroom door was open a crack.
‘Mr de Gautier?’
‘It’s Max if you have clothes,’a voice growled. ‘If not go away.’
‘I sort of have clothes.’
‘What do you mean sort of?’
‘They might be a bit small.’
A hand came out, attached to a brawny arm. It looked a work hand, she thought, distracted. These weren’t the soft, smooth fingers of a man unused to manual work. She thought back to the deft way Max had caught and loaded the wood. Royalty? Surely not. She’d seen bricklayers catch and stack like that, with maximum efficiency.
Who was he? What was he?
She stared for a moment too long and his fingers beckoned imperatively. She gasped, put the clothes in his hand and the fingers retreated.
There was a moment’s silence. Then…
‘These aren’t just too small,’ he growled. ‘These are ridiculous.’
‘It’s all I have. That’s why I brought the blanket.’
‘The waterproofs?’
‘Belonged to Donald. Donald’s dead. We gave the rest of his stuff to charity.’
‘I need charity now.’
‘We have a tumble-dryer,’ she told him. ‘Thanks to you. If you hand out your clothes I’ll put them in.’
‘And I’ll sit in here until they dry?’
‘If you’re worried about your dignity.’ He definitely couldn’t be royalty, she thought, suppressing a smile. The idea was preposterous.
‘You have the fire going?’
‘It’s already putting out heat. And the fish and chips have just arrived.’ She gave a sigh of pure heaven. ‘There’s two pieces of whiting each, and more chips than we can possibly eat. Would you like me to bring you some?’
‘It’s cold in here.’
‘Then you have my gym pant bottoms and a blanket. Come on out.’
‘Avert your eyes.’
‘Shall I tell Claire and Sophie and Marc to avert their eyes as well?’
There was a moment’s baffled silence. Then: ‘Never mind.’ There was a moment’s pause while he obviously tugged on her gym pants and then the door opened.
Whoa.
Well-brought-up young ladies didn’t stare, but there were moments in a woman’s life when it was far too hard to be well brought up. Pippa not only stared—she gaped.
He looked like a body builder, she thought. He was tanned and muscled and rippling in all the right places. He was wearing her pants and they were as stretched on him as they were loose on her. Which was pretty much stretched. His chest was bare.
He should look ridiculous.
He looked stunning.
‘You can’t be a prince,’ she said before she could stop herself and the corners of his mouth turned down in an expression of distaste.
‘I’m not.’ The rebuttal was hard and sharp and it left no room for argument.
‘What are you, then?’
He didn’t reply. He was carrying his bundle of wet clothes in one hand and the blanket in the other. He was meant to put the blanket round his shoulders, she thought. He wasn’t supposed to be bare from the waist up.
He was bare from the waist up and it left her discomforted.
She was so discomforted she could scarcely breathe.
‘What do you mean, what am I?’ he demanded at last. ‘You mean like in, “Are you an encyclopaedia salesman?”?’
‘You’re not an encyclopaedia salesman.’
‘I’m a builder.’
‘A builder.’ The thought took her aback. ‘How can you be a builder?’
He sighed. ‘The same way you get to be an encyclopaedia salesman, I imagine. You find someone who’s a builder and you say, “Please, sir, can you teach me what you know about building?”’
‘That’s what you did.’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you build?’
‘Buildings. Did you say the fish and chips have arrived?’
‘They’re in the kitchen,’ she said with another long look at his bare chest.
‘Will you stop it?’
‘Stop what?’
‘Staring at my chest. Men aren’t supposed to look at women’s chests. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t look at mine.’
‘It’s a very nice chest.’
Whoops.
She’d been out of circulation for too long, she thought in the ensuing silence. Maybe complimenting a man on his chest wasn’t something nicely brought-up women did. He was staring at her as if he’d never experienced such a thing. ‘Sorry,’ she managed at last. ‘Don’t look at me like I’m a porriwiggle. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘It was a very nice compliment,’ he said cautiously. ‘What’s a porriwiggle?’
‘A tadpole and it’s not a compliment.’ She hesitated and then thought maybe it was. But it was also the truth. ‘Anyway, it’s not what I should be saying. I should be saying thank you for the food.’
‘Why are you destitute?’ He smiled. ‘Tadpoles don’t have money?’
She tugged the door open to the rest of the house, trying frantically to pull herself back into line. ‘We’re not destitute,’ she managed. ‘Just momentarily tight, and if we don’t hurry there’ll be no chips left.’
‘I can always buy more.’
‘Then you’ll get wet all over again. That’s the very last garment in this house that you might just possibly almost fit into, so let’s stop playing in the rain and go eat.’
He sat by the fire in Pippa’s gym pants, eating fish and chips, drinking hot chocolate, staying silent while the life of the farm went on around him.
It was almost as if Pippa didn’t know where to start with the questions, he thought, and that was okay as
