towards Ellen. ‘What do you think—would it attract you? Wood-built lodges open to the fresh air and meals cooked on open fires in the evenings?’ He found himself unexpectedly wanting to draw her into the conversation, to hear her views. They would be different from her hothouse stepsister’s, he was sure.
‘Sounds like glamping,’ she blurted in her abrupt manner.
Max’s eyebrows drew together. ‘Glamping?’ he echoed, mystified.
‘Glamorous camping. I believe that’s the contraction it’s for,’ she elucidated shortly. ‘Upmarket camping for people who like the idea of going back to nature but not the primitive reality of it.’
Max gave a wry smile. ‘Hmm...that might be a good description for my resort,’ he acknowledged.
A tinkling laugh came from Chloe. ‘I’d say “glamorous camping” is a contradiction in terms! It would be luxury for Ellen, though—she runs camps for London kids. A million miles from upmarket. Totally basic.’
She gave a dramatic shudder, and Max heard the note of dismissal in her voice.
‘Adventure breaks,’ Ellen said shortly. ‘The children enjoy it. They think it’s exciting. Some of them have never been into the countryside.’
‘Ellen’s “good works”!’ Pauline said lightly. ‘I’m sure it’s very uplifting.’
‘And muddy!’ trilled Chloe with a little laugh, and sought to catch Max’s eye to get his agreement.
But Max’s attention was on Ellen. It was unexpected to hear that she ran such breaks for deprived inner-city children, given her own privileged background. He realised that he was paying her more attention.
‘Do you hold them here?’ he asked interestedly.
If so, it was something he might keep on with—adding it to the extensive list of charitable enterprises that were his personal payback for the good fortune that had enabled him to attain the wealth he had.
‘They’re held at my school, nearby. We set up camp on the playing fields,’ came the answer. ‘That way the children can use the sports pavilion, including the showers, and have use of the swimming pool as well. So they get the fun of camping, plus the run of the facilities of a private school.’
As she spoke for the first time Max saw something light up in Ellen Mountford’s eyes, changing her expression. Instead of the stony, closed look that alternated only with the tomato-red flaring of her cheeks when he paid her attention there was actually some animation, some enthusiasm. It made a significant difference to her features, he realised with surprise. They seemed lighter, somehow, less heavy, and not even those wretched spectacles could hide that.
Then, as if aware of his regard, he saw her face close down again and she grabbed at her wine glass, that telltale colour washing up into her face, destroying the transformation he’d started to glimpse. For some reason it annoyed him. He opened his mouth to make a reply, to ask another question, see whether he could get back that momentary animation, draw her out again. But his hostess was speaking now, and he had to turn his attention to her.
‘After lunch,’ said Pauline Mountford, ‘I’m sure you would like to see the gardens here. It’s a little early in the season as yet, but in a week or two the rhododendrons along the drive will start their annual show,’ she told him smilingly. ‘They are a blaze of colour!’
‘Rhododendrons...’ Max mused, more for something to say than anything else. ‘Rose tree—that’s the literal translation from the Greek.’
‘How fascinating!’ said Chloe. ‘Do they come from Greece, then?’
‘No. They come from the Himalayas.’ Her stepsister’s contradiction was immediate. ‘The Victorians introduced them to England. Unfortunately they’ve taken over in some places, where they are invasive pests. ‘
Max saw her eyes flicker to Pauline and her daughter, her expression back to stony again.
Chloe, though, continued as if her stepsister had not spoken. ‘And then a little later on in early summer we have the azaleas—they are absolutely gorgeous when they are fully out in May. Masses and masses of them! Mummy had the most beautiful walk created, that winds right through their midst—’
There was an abrupt clatter of silverware from her stepsister.
‘No, she did not. The azalea walk has been there far longer. It was my mother who created it!’
The glare from behind Ellen Mountford’s spectacle lenses was like a dagger, skewering the hapless Chloe as Max turned his head abruptly at the brusque interjection. Then his hostess’s stepdaughter scraped back her chair and got to her feet.
‘If you’ve all finished—?’ she said, and started to grab at the plates and pile them on the tray on the sideboard. She marched out with them.
As she disappeared Pauline Mountford gave a resigned sigh. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘I do apologise for that.’ She glanced at her daughter, who promptly took up the cue.
‘Ellen can be so very...sensitive,’ she murmured sadly. ‘I should have known better.’ She gave a little sigh of regret.
‘We do our best,’ her mother confirmed with another sad sigh. ‘But, well...’ She trailed off and gave a little shake of her head.
It was tricky, Max allowed, for his hostess and her daughter to have to smooth over the prickly behaviour of their step-relation, in which he was not interested, so he moved the conversation back to the topic he was interested in, asking how far Haughton was from the sea.
Chloe Mountford was just telling him that it would make an ideal base for Cowes Week, if sailing was an interest of his, when her stepsister made another entrance, bearing another tray weighed down with a large apple pie, a jug of custard and a bowl of cream, which she set down on the table heavily. She did not resume her place.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she announced shortly. ‘Coffee will be in the drawing room.’
Then she was gone, disappearing back through the service door.
* * *
‘So, Mr Vasilikos, what do you make of Haughton?’
Pauline Mountford’s enquiry was perfectly phrased, and accompanied by a charming smile. She was sitting in a graceful pose on the sofa in the drawing room, where they had repaired for the coffee that Ellen Mountford had so tersely informed them would be awaiting them.
Max had been the only one to partake of the apple pie—no surprise—but he was glad he had. It had been delicious—sweet pastry made with a very light touch indeed, and juicy apples spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. Whoever had made it could certainly cook.
Had the graceless Ellen made it? If so, then whatever her lack of beauty she could certainly boast of one key asset to draw a man to her side. His thoughts ran on. But perhaps being a good cook was not to her personal advantage—not if she overindulged in her own creations.
He gave a little shake of his head. There he was, thinking about that woman again. Why? She was nothing to him, and would remain so. He relaxed back a fraction in his seat. His hostess was clearly fishing for whether he
