The evidence that it once had been a shop was apparent in the large window and faded sign above the door. The house looked uncared-for, and Tessa swallowed back the lump in her throat.
‘It needs a lot of work done to it,’ she said in a small voice, her heart sinking as she ran an expert eye over the building.
‘Aren’t you going to knock?’ asked Guy, when she hesitated.
‘I’m…’ Her hands fluttered in the air helplessly. She flung a panic-stricken glance up at him, confused by the turmoil of her emotions. ‘I’m nervous. It’s a long time since I’ve seen my mother,’ she confided huskily. ‘Twenty years ago. I was five.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘All I remember is a mass of blonde hair and the smell of jasmine. I—I wonder what she’ll make of me? I’ve heard so much about her.’
‘Have you?’ For several seconds he studied her face, his expression unreadable. ‘Then,’ he said eventually, ‘the sooner you get the next few minutes over with the better.’ And he reached up to rap on the door with a fist so hard that it would have summoned the dead.
Tessa swallowed to calm her nerves and hastily tidied her silky hair with her fingers. No one came. He knocked again, with the same result. Bewildered, she exchanged glances with Guy, her stomach lurching sickeningly.
‘This is the right house?’ she asked. He nodded. Pityingly. And her hands went clammy. ‘She must be in!’ she cried, her voice wavering.
‘Must she?’ He was frowning at the peeling paint on the door, his fingers lifting off one or two of the flakes. His thumb investigated the inadequate pointing of the stone faade. ‘Perhaps—as I suspected—there’s another reason she’s not answering.’
There was a sudden silence. Tessa’s eyes rounded in alarm. ‘You’re deliberately trying to frighten me!’ she accused him.
He looked as if he felt genuinely sorry for her. Caught by an urge to grab him and shake him for upsetting her, she flicked her tongue around her dry mouth and tried to stay rational. There would be an ordinary explanation. Her mother had run out of milk. Lost a cat. Run out of petrol somewhere. Everything would be fine.
‘I have a key,’ she said shakily. ‘Mother sent it in case I arrived early. We didn’t know how long it would take me to get here. Perhaps I should let myself in and wait.’
He gave a shrug. ‘Let yourself in by all means. But don’t raise your hopes.’
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded, tension holding her body rigid. ‘And who the devil are you to know so much?’
The sardonic eyes chilled her bones. ‘My name is de Turaine,’ he answered quietly. ‘And this is my village. Or, rather, most of it is mine.’
Tessa’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re the new landlord! The son of the man who didn’t care about his own village!’
‘Correct. I flew over from New Orleans two weeks ago. My father died two weeks before that,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone. And, because he showed no sign of regret or sorrow, the flustered Tessa didn’t offer her sympathies. What kind of man was he, she thought, to dismiss his father’s death so casually? ‘In case you’re wondering, the neglect here came as a total shock to me,’ he went on tightly. ‘I hadn’t been near Turaine for half my lifetime.’
While she digested that information he took the key from her trembling fingers, thrust the door open and waved her in.
Astonished, she obeyed his imperious gesture, finding herself in a chilly room which was so dark that she couldn’t see anything clearly. It smelt of damp, decaying timber and saturated stone. It was the same smell she’d encountered when working with the team of restorers on Kernow House, a run-down stately home in the Lynher Valley.
The cottage must be in as bad a state as she’d feared. It was a depressing arrival, and awful to think of her mother living in dark, dank conditions like these. A concrete monstrosity would have been better!
‘Mum?’ she called desperately. ‘Mum! Where are you?’ The house lay as silent and as cold as a grave. She found a light switch and flicked it on, only to stand stock-still in dismay. ‘This place is awful!’ she exclaimed, her horrified eyes taking in the chaos. ‘And it’s been vandalised—!’
‘No. I think not. Mon Dieu! What a mess!’ muttered Guy, dumping the bike panniers on the floor and looking around at the tumbled furniture and scattered belongings, his mouth grim with disapproval.
‘How could your father let it get into this mess?’ she raged. ‘When I think of my mother struggling to manage—’
‘Your mother’s responsible for the state of this house. She owns it,’ he broke in tightly. ‘Though I expect to regain possession of it soon—and the two cottages next door, which are also hers.’
‘I don’t believe you. No one would willingly live like this!’ cried Tessa loyally. ‘She’d slap on a coat of paint and wash the curtains—’
‘How the hell do you know?’
That made her stop in her tracks. She didn’t. ‘There’s something odd about this,’ she insisted, though less confidently. ‘No one would leave furniture overturned.’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Something awful’s happened.’
He fixed her with a piercing stare. ‘Damn right it has!’ he answered grimly. ‘Which makes me as keen as you to find her.’
‘Find her?’ Tessa looked at him blankly. ‘You think… she’s…missing?’
‘No.’ The sculpted mouth took on a contemptuous curve. ‘She’s not missing—I’d bet my life on that. I believe she’s disappeared.’
Tessa gulped. ‘Disappeared?’ she squeaked.
‘Of her own free will,’ he said tightly, and all the air rushed out of Tessa’s lungs in a soft ‘oh’. ‘When you said you’d come to meet her, I did hope that the rumours I’d heard last night were untrue. She and I have some unfinished business—the sale of her properties. But I’m afraid that her neighbours’ suspicions are correct.’ He fixed her with a knife-edge stare. ‘I believe your mother has run away.’
Tessa glared. How dared he? ‘Don’t be ridiculous! She rang me. She said she’d be here—’ Furious that Guy was ignoring her, and had wandered over to a table covered by a dirty lace cloth, she raised her voice a decibel or two. ‘Look, this is meant to be our reunion! She rang me! She wanted it! She wouldn’t run out on me!’
He gave an elegantly derisive snort. ‘She’d do anything if it suited her!’ he said cynically.
Suddenly Tessa’s face crumpled. She thought of all the years she’d longed for a mother to confide in, a mother who would have helped her to cope with the bullying and teasing, who might have loved her and prevented her from seeking love from the heartless David. Her expression became forlorn.
‘I’m her daughter!’ she cried, pushing back the treacherous thought that her mother hadn’t ever been concerned about that fact before. ‘I—I’ve come all this way—’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’
She
