don’t like macaroni cheese,’ he said eventually.
‘Whoever doesn’t like macaroni cheese?’
‘I just told you: I don’t.’
There was a long, difficult silence that he appeared entirely untroubled by. Olivia’s patience expired. What the hell was his problem? No wonder the house was going under with people like this charged with greeting outsiders.
‘I’m sorry I’ve interrupted,’ she said, prim as a debutante as she turned on her heel. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’
‘Don’t.’
Flabbergasted by his rudeness, she raged, ‘Bloody hell, you’re rude. You could’ve just—’
‘Now will do.’
He rubbed the stubble on his jaw. He was sexy, in a prehistoric sort of way. There was something very raw about him, like one of her pictures when she’d only done the most ragged outline in pencil. The top of his nose was cracked out of shape.
‘I’m looking to open the ornamentals at the end of the season,’ he said. ‘I’ve drawn up the plans, and I dare say you’ll be cheaper than a hired hand. It’ll be hard work and I won’t be paying more than I have to. Believe it or not, we’re in need of money ourselves, so that’s one thing we already have in common.’
She expected him to smile but he didn’t.
He named his price, concluding indifferently: ‘Take it or leave it.’
Olivia agreed before he could change his mind. ‘But shouldn’t I speak to Mr Lomax? I mean, I don’t know who you are, but—’
‘I am Mr Lomax.’
‘Oh.’
She looked away, embarrassed, as if he’d just taken all his clothes off in front of her. There were shades of Cato, maybe: a coarser, unpolished version. She had always envisaged the other brother as the hunchback in the attic, warty and stooped and living on a diet of pickled onions. The reality was rather different.
One thing was for sure: arrogance ran in the family.
‘Well,’ she said stiffly, ‘you could have said—’
‘Remember I didn’t ask you to be here. You asked me.’
She blinked. ‘All right.’
‘Be aware that this house owes you nothing except your pay. My brother doesn’t live here, so if that was your motivation you can leave right away.’
‘It wasn’t,’ she clarified hastily. ‘I don’t even fancy him!’
Her statement sounded impossibly stupid in the quiet that followed.
‘I’m Charlie,’ he gave her eventually. ‘Don’t bother with Mr Lomax or sir or anything like that. Just Charlie.’
‘OK. When do you want me to start?’
‘Not now, I’m expecting people.’
‘Right. So …’
‘So leave?’
Olivia bit back the smart retort he’d been begging for since she’d arrived. Did this man have absolutely no social graces? Deliberately he had put her on the back foot, watching her squirm because that was exactly the kind of enjoyment a person in his position preferred. She supposed life must become tiresome when you were king of all you surveyed, lord of a privileged, proud dominion that sprawled as far as the eye could see. Commoners like her were just a passing opportunity for entertainment. Wasn’t Mr Lomax—sorry, Charlie—meant to be an advocate for the upper classes? It went to show that all the huff and puff of an absurdly expensive education couldn’t buy manners. And anyway, Lomax or no Lomax, she wasn’t sure she could ever altogether trust someone who didn’t like pasta and cheese.
‘Monday morning,’ he directed, ‘eight o’clock. Don’t be late.’
He returned to the ladder, gazed up at the darkening sky, dusted his hands off and lifted it from the stones. Olivia watched him disappear inside the house, the dogs behind. She stood feeling like a prize lemon and hoping against hope that the gardens were miles away from Charlie Lomax … The other side of the county would be fine.
She scooped up her bike, running through all the things she wished she’d said. It was his opener that had thrown her. How could he have any idea who she was?
Puzzled by it, she pushed off through the weeping, hanging boughs. The drive was shrouded in gloom, no faint shimmer of streetlights, no passing sweep of traffic, no distant drone of life, only the far-off crash of waves as they washed over the cliffs. A pair of early evening bats swooped between trees, their leather wings fluttering.
Olivia negotiated the twisting route, and was halfway to the road and lost in thoughts of her mother’s roast pork supper with lashings of Granny Smith sauce, when, seemingly from nowhere, a monstrous car appeared around the corner. The last thing she saw was a pair of dumbstruck faces, bone-white in the burgeoning dusk, before she was thrown from her saddle and after that there was nothing.
‘DEAR GOD, WHAT in heaven’s name was that?’ There was a sickening crunch as the wheels bumped over something. Susanna’s hands flew to her face. ‘It’s a ghost! We’ve hit a ghost! Did you see her? A girl! We’ve killed her!’
‘Don’t be insane, woman.’ Cato stopped the vehicle and climbed out. ‘Put those ruddy lights on, will you?’ He’d said he didn’t need them, knowing the place so well. Perhaps it was a deer. They had deer here, didn’t they? Deer who rode bikes?
Susanna flicked on the headlamps to aid his investigation and patted her headscarf with fear. ‘Should I come?’ she called, praying they wouldn’t be confronted with a corpse. Imagine the headlines! LORD & LADY LANGUISH BEHIND BARS.
‘All right, all right, Mole,’ came the impatient response. ‘Are you with us, sweetheart? Ah, there you go. Bump on the head, that’s all. What’s your name?’
It sounded like it was in the land of the living, whatever it was. Susanna joined him on the track, the engine purring behind her. Her heels click-clacked on the stones.
‘Oh.’ She was surprised to find Cato bending rather too willingly over a girl, who was youngish, early twenties at a guess, and who was rubbing a wild nest of curls. The girl wore a flummoxed look and Cato was rubbing her shoulder.
‘Look what we’ve done, old thing,’ purred Cato. ‘Frightened the poor angel half to death! See if there’s a blanket in the boot, would you? She must keep warm.’
I’m sure she’ll manage fine with your arms clamped around her, Susanna thought uncharitably. And since when had he called her old thing?
The trunk offered up little more than a spare tyre and a leaking vat of windscreen wash. ‘No luck!’ she sang. ‘Shall we get her in the car?’
