offered Kate his hand through the window. ‘Hello, Kate,’ he said warmly, his eyes riveted on her face.
She took the proffered hand and found it held firmly. ‘Hello, Mike,’ she said and swallowed a smile as a warning shadow crossed Jay Warwick’s face.
‘Miss Thornley is organising the catering at the house,’ he said coolly. ‘We’re opening in a couple of weeks.’
‘You’ve decided to go ahead, then?’ Admiration lit the other man’s eyes as he regarded Kate. ‘Quite an undertaking. When’s the big day? I shall certainly make an effort to be there.’ He had addressed himself to Kate, but it was Jay who answered.
‘It will be advertised.’ He made an impatient move and Mike Howard reluctantly surrendered Kate’s hand.
‘I’d better let you get on, then. I’m sure you’ve a lot to do. I’ll see you again soon, Kate.’
She smiled rather more warmly than she might normally have done as he waved and walked away across the square.
‘He’s the estate agent for the National Trust in this area,’ Jay told her, as he climbed into the driving seat. ‘In case you wanted to make a note.’ There was something about the way he said it that made her look up.
‘I might,’ she said.
IT was a breathless, angry drive back to the hall and it seemed only minutes before he slid to a halt alongside her van, still parked where she had left it when she arrived the evening before.
Kate moved to open the car door but Jay’s hand detained her. For a moment she stared at his long fingers gripping her wrist with quite unnecessary force, then, suddenly furious with him, she flung up her arm, jerking free of his hold, and looked up. About to make a cutting remark, she was stopped in her tracks by the intensity of eyes gleaming with the hardness of agate.
‘Behave yourself, Miss Thornley,’ he advised her, in deadly earnest. ‘This is a small community and I won’t have Tisha embarrassed.’
‘With you as a relation I should think that must be her permanent state of mind. Or are you so insensitive you don’t even realise your public remarks about women might be considered offensive?’ she came back at him, but if she thought he would be in the least disconcerted he immediately disillusioned her.
‘The truth is often difficult to take,’ he replied, and she was the one momentarily shaken by the utter conviction with which he spoke.
Whatever malicious quirk of fate had managed to twist her life in twelve short hours from one of comparative contentment to one of total disarray she had no way of knowing. But she was stuck with it. And so was Jay Warwick, and he needn’t think she was going to lie down and let him walk all over her just because he had leapt to the wrong conclusion about her morals. It had been very easy to manage without the dubious comfort of a man in her life since breaking her engagement to David, but Jay Warwick had no right to dictate what she did with her private life. ‘What I do when I’m not working is none of your business, Mr Warwick,’ she told him. ‘Just leave me to get on with what I’m paid for.’
‘So long as that’s all you get paid for,’ he said harshly.
‘How dare you?’ Kate felt the colour flooding upwards from her neck. ‘You are quite the most insufferable man it has ever been my misfortune to meet!’
His eyes sparked with gold lights. ‘Is that so?’ He leaned towards her. ‘Well, you’re going to have to learn to suffer, Miss Kate Thornley,’ he said, slowly and carefully. ‘I advised you to leave this morning. Perhaps you should have taken my advice while it was still possible. It’s too late now.’
‘Is it? Because you have to keep your aunt sweet in case she doesn’t leave you all this?’
‘Leave me…?’ His laugh was short and unpleasant. ‘Dream on, sweetheart. I choose to keep Tisha sweet, as you so charmingly put it, because she gave up her own home to look after me when my mother jettisoned her responsibilities. Fullerton Hall, Kate, belongs to me.’
Kate felt the colour drain from her face as she absorbed the implication of his words. Trying desperately to keep her poise, she said, ‘Then…I work for you?’
His tiger’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction at the effect of this revelation. ‘You work for me,’ he confirmed. ‘And I’ll make it my business to remind you of that fact if you step out of line.’
‘It would make life a whole lot easier if you would just stop…’ Kate faltered.
‘Stop what?’
Tearing her up with his eyes. Making her aware of her body as no one had for years. The air between them seemed to vibrate with sexual tension. With a jolt, Kate quite suddenly knew exactly why Jason Warwick was so angry with her. She turned and fumbled desperately with the unfamiliar door-catch, urgently needing to get away from him. He was around the car in a moment to open the door for her, but he barred her escape, staring at her with a fierceness that chilled her.
‘Please. Let me go.’ His eyes narrowed at the sudden pleading in her voice. But he immediately stood back, releasing her, and she was out of the car before he could change his mind. But he hadn’t quite finished with her.
‘Since you are staying, Kate, perhaps you would be kind enough to put that heap—’ and he indicated her van ‘—somewhere out of sight. There’s plenty of room in the coach-house.’
Her hands shook as she searched for the keys in her bag. Eventually she found them and after considerable coaxing under his impassive gaze, the van finally relented and burst into noisy life. Her foot unsteady on the clutch, she hiccuped the vehicle rather jumpily into the shelter of the coach-house. She sat for a while within the safety of its hard-used frame, wishing it were possible just to drive away as far and as fast as she could and never look back. But she had committed herself.
And she had to be practical. She always had to be practical. She had nowhere to run to. She climbed from the van, eschewing the false security it seemed to offer. She had supplies to order, staff to find, far too much to do to worry about Jay Warwick. Yet as she worked in the little office in what had once been a butler’s pantry, she was edgily aware of his presence in the house, jumpily certain that he would appear at her shoulder at any moment. It might almost have been a relief if he had, she decided in the end.
Nancy had laid three places in the small dining-room close to the kitchen that was used for all but the grandest occasions. Kate had queried it with the girl.
‘It’s Lady Maynard’s orders, Miss Kate,’ Nancy replied, and Kate had had to be content with that. But as the girl settled the tureen of soup on the table she couldn’t help thinking that eating with her young trainee at the kitchen table would be altogether preferable. Any pleasure in Fullerton Hall seemed to have evaporated in the heat of Jay Warwick’s presence. She looked up as the door opened and the man in question entered the room.
Lady Maynard settled herself at the table and shook out her napkin, asking how she had spent her day, while Jay opened a bottle of wine.
‘Kate? Can I tempt you?’
‘Thank you,
