elegantly against the side of his Land Rover, and her heart gave a little leap of unpleasant recognition. It was difficult to define any sort of expression on his face, but he appeared to have changed very little. Some weight had settled around his middle, but it did very little to detract from the overall impression of good looks. Was he married now? Victor had said nothing to intimate that he was. No Mrs Claydon had been mentioned. On that thought, she snapped shut the folder and returned it to the back seat.
‘Well? What are your thoughts?’
‘It’s a large place. What does the owner expect to do if it’s opened to the public?’
‘Restrict his living quarters to one section of the house. Shouldn’t be too difficult in a house of that size.’
‘I can see why he might need the money,’ Alice said, injecting as much disinterested speculation into her voice as she could. ‘Must cost an arm and a leg running a place that big. The grounds themselves look like a headache. Heaven only knows how many gardeners he would need to employ.’
‘Not as many as in the past. I gather, from the covering letter that was sent, that quite a bit of the land has already been sold off. Still, there are still two formal gardens, including a rose garden, a miniature maze and a small forested area.’
Alice remembered the forested area well. She used to enjoy walking through it in the early evening, after they had stopped working. In spring it was quite beautiful, with the trees coming into bloom, and in autumn the leaves lay like a rich russet carpet on the ground. The three years she had spent there seemed as elusive as a dream, yet as clear as if she had been there yesterday.
She worriedly bit her lip and hoped that James would not overreact when he saw her. If she played her cards right, she might even manoeuvre to confront him on her own, when Victor was safely tucked away somewhere. That way, she could tell him to keep quiet about their relationship, that she had moved on from the past and she did not need reminding of it. He had always, she thought reluctantly, been a very decent sort of person. Things had ended on a sour note but in retrospect that had been mainly her fault. Reading too much into a situation. Not understanding that wealth preferred to stick to its own.
She felt faint with humiliation, even now, as she remembered the surprise and dismay on his face when she had mentioned marriage, commitment, a long-term solution, the apology in his voice as he’d stammered through his explanation. That he wasn’t ready to settle down. Oh, he liked her well enough, and he was basically too decent to say outright what had been written all over his face: that as a long-term proposition she simply was not suitable.
Alice rested her head back against the seat and could feel her heart hammering madly in her chest. She hadn’t thought of that traumatic conversation in years. At first, she had been able to think of nothing else. Every word had burnt itself into her brain until she had thought that she was going mad, but gradually, over time, she had made herself think of other things whenever the temptation to dwell on it had risen inside her.
She had learnt to reduce the entire episode to a philosophical debate. It was the only way that she could put it behind her. It had altered her whole approach to the opposite sex, she had sealed off her emotions behind locked doors, and that was how it would have stayed if fate had not intervened. If Victor Temple had been more sympathetic. She heard him dimly saying something to her and she murmured something in response.
‘What the hell does that mean?’ he asked harshly, breaking into her reverie, and she pulled herself up with a start.
‘For God’s sake, Alice! What turn-off are we supposed to take? That map’s in front of you for a reason!’
‘Sorry.’ She studied the map, not having a clue where they were, and eventually, when she asked him, he pointed out their location with an ultra-polite precision that only thinly veiled his irritation with her.
She was never like this at work. Usually, he had only to ask something once and she caught on, competently carrying out his instructions. But then, her head had never felt as woolly as it did now.
‘Look,’ he said, after she had stumbled out their route, frowning hard in concentration because her brain just didn’t seem to want to co-operate. ‘I don’t know what the hell happened up here, but it was years ago. Haven’t you managed to put it behind you by now?’
‘Of course I have,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m just a little rattled at coming back here after all this time.’
‘Must have been quite a miserable business if it’s managed to keep you away from your home for so long.’
Alice could feel her defences going into place. She had been a private person for such a long time that the ability to confide was alien to her. And anyway, Victor Temple, she thought, was the last person on earth she would wish to confide in.
She glanced across at him and wondered whether she would have been susceptible to that animal charm of his which other women appeared to find so irresistible, if experience hadn’t taught her a valuable lesson.
Hard on the heels of that came another, disturbing image. The image of him in bed, making love to her. She looked away hurriedly. Thank heavens she was immune to his charm, she thought. If James had been a catastrophic mistake, then the likes of Victor Temple would have been ten times worse. He was just in a different league, the sort of man destined to be a danger as far as women were concerned.
She licked her lips and put such silly conjecture to the back of her mind.
‘He probably doesn’t even live in the area any longer,’ she heard him say.
‘Who?’
‘The man you had your affair with. The one you were working for.’
She knew that he was taking a shot in the dark, and she opened her mouth to contradict him, then closed it. Let him go right ahead and think that. It suited her.
‘I can’t imagine you having a wild, passionate fling,’ he said with slow, amused speculation. He looked across at her and their eyes met for a brief moment, before he turned away with a little smile on his lips.
‘What sort of time scale do we have for this project?’
‘Not a very adroit change of subject, Alice.’
She could discern the laughter in his voice and was unreasonably nettled by it. Just as she had been earlier on. He had categorised her, stuck her on a dusty shelf somewhere. Another spinster-to-be, past her sell-by date. Age had nothing to do with it but, reading between the lines, she was, to him, so unappealing sexually that she disqualified herself from the marriage stakes.
‘I don’t have to explain my private life to you.’
‘Do you to anyone? Is there another man in your life now?’
‘No, and I’m quite happy with the situation, as it happens.’
‘Really?’ He was enjoying this conversation. She could hear it in his voice. ‘I thought all women wanted to get married, settle down, have children. Keep the home fires burning, as they say.’
Alice winced inwardly at that.
‘Not all, no. This is the twentieth century, in case you hadn’t noticed. There are lots of women around who prefer to cultivate their working lives.’ She had never spoken to him like this before, but then their
