housekeeper, walking through from the kitchen regions, called out, ‘I thought I heard you arrive. Good trip?’
‘Great, thanks.’ Selina’s smile broadened into the breathtaking grin that, quite apart from her tall, lissomly feminine body, her striking features and untameable riot of tawny hair, had the power to stop the male of the species in their tracks. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Out. Except for Dominic and he’s shut up in the study with orders not to be disturbed.’ Meg’s bony shoulders rose in a throw-away shrug. ‘Dinner’s at eight, as usual. You haven’t forgotten it’s your uncle’s birthday?’
‘What do you think?’ Selina was used to Meg’s need to organise everyone and everything around her and, as she shrugged out of her trench coat and smoothed the lapels of the rich brown fine wool suit she was wearing, she did some organising on her own account. ‘Be a love and bring a tray of tea to my room, would you, please? I need to shower and crash out for a couple of hours if I’m to be fit company for anyone this evening. Oh—’ She paused, halfway up the wide oak staircase, her suitcase in one hand, her coat hooked over her arm. ‘If Dominic surfaces, tell him I want to talk to him, would you?’ He would be able to set her mind at rest as to the state of the business and then she could finally rid herself of the last remnants of the niggling unease which had begun to infect her three days ago. And then, her voice studiedly casual, she added, ‘Everything been all right here?’
‘I’d have told you if it hadn’t been,’ Meg answered impatiently and then, relenting because it wasn’t like Selina to attempt subterfuge, she always led straight from the shoulder, Meg replied to the underlying question more softly, ‘Your uncle’s fine. Even without you to keep a strict eye on him he hasn’t been overdoing things.’ Noting the way the faint trace of anxiety lifted from those long-lidded golden eyes, the housekeeper turned to go and make that tea, passing the information over her shoulder, ‘He’s gone with your aunt to put in an order at the garden centre—for that enclosed rose garden they’ve been talking about all winter.’
Feeling inexplicably lighter, Selina went quickly up the remaining stairs. Stupid of her to harbour neurotic anxieties. So unlike her. And she wasn’t going to pander to them a moment longer. She wouldn’t even bother to ask Dominic if everything was running smoothly as far as the business was concerned. If anything had gone badly wrong he would have contacted her. Or Vanessa would.
So she had a shower, taken quickly, Meg’s tea followed by an hour relaxing on her bed before wrapping the carved jade chess pieces she’d found in Rome, knowing as soon as she’d set eyes on them that they’d make a perfect birthday gift for Martin.
Her bedroom was peaceful, right at the back of the house, so tucked away that she might have been alone in the building. Drowsily, she registered a faint chilliness, and wondered whether to dress. Lounging around in a light silk wrap wasn’t a good idea, despite the central heating. Filigree patterns of ice were already beginning to form on the outside of the windows as the short winter day darkened to a close.
About to slide her feet to the floor, she automatically reached for the phone on her bedside table as it began to ring out, pushing her rumpled hair away from her face with the back of one hand as she said drowsily, ‘Selina Roth, can I help you?’
The tiny snatch of silence from the other end had her wrinkling her brows, becoming more alert, but her wide mouth curved softly as a deeply pitched male voice imparted, ‘May I speak to Martin King, please?’
Just a few innocuous words, but oh, what a sexy voice! Thick dark velvet laid over gravel. A voice to conjure dreams of the far-from-innocent variety! Aware of the strange frisson that feathered her spine, she took herself in hand and answered, a shade too huskily for her liking, ‘I’m afraid he’s not here at the moment; can I help you?’ A very peculiar reluctance to end the conversation, to go in search of Martin, had her adding, ‘I could take a message. Who is calling?’ Her uncle might not have returned. As far as she knew, he hadn’t, she excused her silly behaviour. Tucked away in her room, right at the far end of the wing at the rear of the house, she had no way of knowing, had she? And again the short and inexplicable silence before that devastating voice sent shivers chasing each other down her spine again.
‘Adam Tudor. Tell Martin I’ll be dropping in around nine this evening, would you? I won’t keep him long. Tell him it’s important. Got that?’
‘Yes, of course. We’ll expect you at nine.’ Heavens, what had come over her? Her own voice seemed to be vying with his in the sexiness stakes! As the line went dead she stared at the instrument in confusion before giving her head a tiny shake and replacing the receiver.
She really should have made the effort to put him off, she muttered inside her head as she pushed her feet into her slippers. Sorry, she could have said, but Martin can’t possibly see you tonight. She could have asked for his number and told him that her uncle would contact him some time. Tonight they would be holding a private, family celebration. Martin might not want a stranger muscling in, even for only a few minutes.
But he wouldn’t be a stranger to Martin, would he? Or not entirely. Adam Tudor had added no explanations as to who he was, which meant that he was known to Martin. And she hadn’t even thought of fobbing him off and, always honest with herself, she knew why. Pulling a disgusted face at her own silliness, she hurried along the quiet corridor towards the main block of the house. She had been curious, she admitted to herself. She wanted to see if the man matched his voice! And the joke would be against her when Adam Tudor turned up in the flesh and revealed himself as being short and fat and definitely ugly!
The suite of rooms her aunt and uncle occupied at the head of the main staircase was empty. Selina checked her watch. Gone five-thirty.
They must have got really involved down at the garden centre, which wasn’t entirely surprising since Vanessa had been caught up in her plans for the rose garden for months, infecting Martin with her enthusiasm.
Since her uncle had been warned to take things easily, the dressing-room off the master bedroom had been converted into a book-lined sitting-room where he could sit and relax, indulge his passion for reading, listening to taped plainsong or sharing a glass of sherry with his wife, talking over the events of the day.
Tearing a sheet of paper from the pad on the eighteenth-century rosewood desk, she wrote quickly, the words penned in her distinctive hand, ‘Adam Tudor is arriving at nine. He says it’s important he sees you’, the words standing out starkly against the white background.
She left the note where her uncle couldn’t fail to see it when he came in here to relax for a while before changing for his celebratory dinner, then made her way back to her own room.
Stifling a yawn, she slid beneath the comforting warmth of the duvet and curled herself into a ball. She wouldn’t sleep. Merely relax and recoup her energies after the last frantically busy two weeks, the flight home and the subsequent drive back here to the Sussex-Hampshire border.
Her mind drifting, she heard again that brief conversational exchange with Adam Tudor and her mouth curved in an unconscious smile. It would almost be a pity to meet the man—his physical appearance couldn’t possibly match that fantastically attractive voice! Seeing him in the flesh was bound to be a huge let-down. And, come to think of it, his name seemed strangely familiar. As if she had heard it before... Some time... Somewhere...
* * *
‘Selina. Wake up, Selina.’ Meg’s voice penetrated dimly into her consciousness and, as a gentle hand shook her shoulder, Selina opened one eye and then the other, fixing first on the housekeeper’s gaunt features and then on the bedside clock which told her it was seven already.
