didn’t know what to make of that. “I understood Englishmen were gentlemen,” she said with sudden dismay. “You must be a rare species.”
He shook his head, loosening the satiny black wave that had stuck to his forehead. “Our womenfolk are much sweeter and more persuasive than you.” He sounded deeply grateful for the fact.
“You must know only quiet, controllable creatures. Does this mean you’re going to leave me stranded on a lonely country road?”
He considered a while, looking this way and that. “An apology might be in order,” he suggested.
“We take it in turns, do we?” she asked. Goodness, he could only be a handful of years older than she, maybe twenty-three or four, but with an imperiousness well beyond his years.
“Okay then. I’m off.” From nonchalance he was energised, turning purposefully towards his parked four-wheel drive.
“So much for being a gentleman, then,” she called after him severely. “Go on. Drive away.” He looked very much as if he was going to. “All right, sorry.” She only said it because that was what he wanted.
Immediately he swung back, beckoning her towards his vehicle, a dusty banged-up Range Rover. “Come along,” he called briskly as though it were possible he’d change his mind. “I’ll run you up to the hall, then send someone back with a can of petrol to pick up your old bomb. The only thing that surprises me is you didn’t finish up in a ditch.”
Cate swallowed a put-down. No need to antagonise him further. Maybe his turning up was an omen?
Good or bad she couldn’t yet tell.
Courteously he held the door for her. His fingers brushed against hers, setting off such an explosion of sparks it almost had her crying, “Ouch!”
Inside the battered Range Rover, the sparks continued to jump the distance between them. It radiated a heat through her body, to her arm, her breasts, her stomach, working its way lower. Every last nerve ending seemed to be on fire. What she had to do was separate her body from her mind. Difficult. She was experiencing the sort of dizziness one had when in the company of someone overwhelmingly attractive. He was definitely not gay. She had gay mates. Love was love wherever cupid’s arrow fell was her reasoning. This guy was powerfully heterosexual. Married? She found herself hoping he wasn’t. He was too young for a start.
* * *
He stopped the Range Rover at a certain point. She could see why. It offered a sublime view of Radclyffe Hall. It sat high on a hill overlooking the beautiful countryside and the rolling hills.
It was an extraordinary moment for Cate. She felt a disconcerting prick of tears, blinking them back before he saw them. Whatever she had been expecting, the postmistress’s “great white elephant of a house” in an advanced state of decay, it surely wasn’t this. She couldn’t remain in the vehicle. She threw open the door and jumped out onto the lush green verge, holding a hand to her sunstruck eyes.
He joined her, staring down at her as though faintly perplexed. “Not what you expected?”
Her tone was soft, almost reverent. “Wow, oh, wow! To be honest I’m a bit in shock.”
“Why exactly?” He sounded as though he really wanted to know.
She almost told him why. It was on the tip of her tongue. The moment when she would confide her adoptive mother was Stella Radclyffe that was. Only caution, grounded in childhood, took over. She didn’t know it then but her secret history was in the making.
“Well, it’s some house, so grand. Georgian, I think. The symmetry, the balance, the adherence to classical rules. Chimneys rising to either side of the gabled roof.” One-storey wings had been built to the left and right of the imposing central building most probably at a much later date.
“Correct,” he said briefly, his eyes glittering. “The hall was built in the late fifteen hundreds by Thomas Willoughby-Radclyffe of Cotswold stone. It’s stood for over four hundred years but for a long time now it’s been in great need of repair. The house and the estate—it’s been reduced to around three hundred acres with tenant cottages—belong to Lord Wyndham. He hasn’t enjoyed good health for some time now. In fact he’s quite frail.”
Four hundred years?
Shock wasn’t too strong a word. Why had it been so important to Stella to cover up her past? “Do you know Lord Wyndham?” she turned to ask, her eyes on his profile. Oddly enough she was getting used to that aquiline beak.
“I’m working on a large project there at the moment,” he said by way of a response. An evasion if ever there was one. “The restoration of the hall’s once famous gardens, particularly the rose gardens. It had become something of a wilderness, quite a challenge, but Lord Wyndham hired a world-famous landscape designer, David Courtland.”
She was fortunate she had grown up with a passionate gardening team, Stella and Arnold, who had passed on their passion to her. “I’ve heard of him.” She nodded. “I’m assuming you’re the gardener?”
“You could say that.”
“A pretty posh one, if you don’t mind my saying so.” Her amazing lime-green eyes flashed mockery.
“Don’t mind in the least. If you’re very good between here and the hall I’ll let you see over the garden. It has a number of ‘rooms’ but Dave has begun a new project. He’s in London for a couple of days.”
“Leaving you in charge? Call him Dave, do you?” she asked provocatively.
“The first strike against you,” he clipped off.
“Ah, come on.”
“Get back in the car.”
“Certainly, m’lord.”
And so it began. The great star-crossed love affair of her life.
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