she was forced to leave unsaid.
She couldn’t tell Vanessa how shocked she had been by the change in her father when she had arrived home a fortnight before. Michelle had warned her that he had been ordered to lose weight by his doctors, but this had not prepared her for the stoop in his shoulders and the way his clothes seemed to hang on his tall, once-burly frame. His face too was lined and almost haggard. But it was the subtle alteration in his personality which had most disturbed her. Where he had been bluff and good-humoured, now his temper was uncertain and inclined to be querulous. Michelle handled him with kid-gloves, and Lacey, rather subdued, followed her lead.
She had had little private conversation with her stepmother since the revelations in the car on the way to Paris, but if Michelle was worried about the immediate prospects facing the family, she kept it well concealed. Occasionally her manner seemed slightly abstracted, but that was all. Again, this was something that she could not confide in Vanessa, nor her increasing feeling of uneasiness that there were still things that were being kept from her.
She sighed and put the unfinished letter back inside her writing case. It was a pretty lame effort so far, but they were giving a dinner party that evening and perhaps something would happen there that she could turn into an amusing story for Vanessa.
She was a little surprised as she went up to her room to find Mrs Osborne the housekeeper and one of the women who came in from the village to help with the cleaning engaged in turning out one of the guest bedrooms, and making up the bed. As far as she knew, tonight’s guests were all local people, and she hesitated in the doorway, watching them curiously.
‘Who’s coming to stay, Mrs Osborne?’ she asked at last.
‘Madame didn’t tell me the gentleman’s name, Miss Lacey.’
So it’s a man, Lacey thought as she went on her way. That explained it. It must be one of the bank’s directors, all of whom had been frequent guests in the past. Only the room was obviously being got ready for a single occupant—and all the directors were married men who usually brought their wives with them.
She had hoped the preparations for the dinner would have added a touch of excitement to an existence which had so far proved boring to the point of monotony. But nothing had changed. Her tentative offers of help were waved irritably away by Michelle, who seemed unusually on edge for such an experienced and accomplished hostess.
Lacey, rather huffily, decided she would take herself off to the village. At least Fran Trevor would welcome her help at the stables, she thought defiantly.
But even in this she was thwarted, for when she arrived at the stables, the place was deserted except for the girl who came in a couple of days a week to do the accounts and the bookwork, and she informed Lacey that Miss Trevor had taken out a group of people staying at the Bull who had welcomed the chance of an afternoon’s hacking round lanes and fields. So there was nothing for it but to trudge back to the house again and try to keep out of everyone’s way.
The guest bedroom looked very nice, she thought, poking her head round the door for a critical peep, but Mrs Osborne hadn’t put any flowers in there. It was too early in the year for the gardens to yield very much, but Lacey knew there were some early daffodils in a sheltered corner and she decided to pick some as a welcoming gesture of her own.
But just as she was going into the garden she was stopped by Mrs Osborne with a request to help clean some silver, and it was late in the afternoon by the time she could decently escape and find her flowers. It was pleasant in the garden. The day’s cold wind had dropped at the onset of dusk, and, wrapped warmly in an ancient duffel coat, Lacey enjoyed quite a leisurely stroll before she headed back to the house with her armful of flowers.
She collected a suitable container from the china cupboard, and went upstairs to the bathroom adjoining the guest room where she filled the vase and arranged her blooms. She had overfilled the vase a little and she picked it up with great care, holding it steadily as she opened the door that communicated with the bedroom and stepped forward.
But the room was no longer in its pristinely unoccupied state. There was an expensive leather suitcase open on the bed, clothes spilling out of it carelessly, and beside it a man was standing, stripped to the waist, as Lacey’s stunned eyes immediately registered. She started violently and some of the water in the vase splashed down her faded denim skirt and on to the bedroom carpet.
She was aware of a pair of intensely dark eyes taking her in, from the tangle of pale hair on her shoulders to her drenched skirt and flat shoes. She felt she was being assessed and dismissed, and the colour surged up into her pale skin.
When he spoke, his voice was deep with an intonation that puzzled her. It seemed to hold a faint transatlantic drawl overlaid by a trace of something more foreign, and she wrinkled her brow trying to recognise it until he repeated his remark with a kind of weary patience, that arrested her attention instantly.
‘I said, hadn’t you better get a cloth and mop up that mess?’
Lacey stared at him, dimly aware that she was most certainly not accustomed to being spoken to in that way. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him so, but he was her father’s guest and it was her duty to be courteous however lacking in that respect he himself might be.
She walked over to the chest of drawers, intending to leave her flowers before she went to look for a cloth, but he halted her in her tracks.
‘Are you proposing to put a wet vase down on polished wood? You haven’t a great deal of idea about how to look after antique furniture.’
Lacey’s blood boiled. Of course she knew better than that, but the shock of finding this—creature already installed and half naked had driven her usual common sense from her mind.
He had a shirt in his hand. Why didn’t he put it on and and cover himself up? she thought angrily, looking with dislike at his broad brown chest with the black mat of hair, but that was obviously the last thing on his mind, because just then he rolled the shirt into a ball and tossed it back into the case.
‘I’ll—I’ll just put them on the floor for a moment,’ she said hastily, averting her gaze.
‘Better still, why not take them back where they came from?’ He stood watching her, his hands on his hips. ‘I don’t need flowers in my room, or anywhere around me. I prefer to see them in their natural state.’
Lacey’s eyes held an obvious glint. She said, ‘Then I think I’ll take them to my own room. I don’t happen to share your prejudice.’
He looked at her, his piercing dark eyes narrowed, raking her from head to foot.
‘Does Lady Vernon usually allow her employees your sort of latitude?’ he drawled.
Lacey stood very still, her thoughts whirling. ‘Heavens,’ she thought, a giggle bubbling up inside her which she instantly suppressed, ‘he thinks I’m the upstairs maid or something!’
As if he had read her thoughts, his voice broke in on them with swift abruptness. ‘Just who are you?’
She shrugged, deliberately vague. ‘Oh, I help in the house.’
‘Do you?’ he said, rather grimly. ‘Well, perhaps you’ll go and—help somewhere else. I’m waiting to take a bath—unless you include washing guests’ backs among your duties.’
He began lazily to unbuckle the belt on the dark, close-fitting trousers,
