She was still shaking inside, and her mouth felt soft and tremulous. She tried to explain away her acute vulnerability by telling herself she was ashamed because Blair had so easily guessed her total lack of any kind of experience, but she knew it wasn’t as simple as that. She had a confused feeling that nothing might ever be simple again.
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and when she saw him move, take a step towards her, she panicked, backing away straight into a rose bush. The thorns caught her in an instant, fastening themselves into the thin cotton blouse and the brief denim skirt.
She said, ‘Oh, hell!’ in a low, furious voice, and twisted trying to free herself.
‘Keep still,’ Blair directed. ‘You’ll tear your clothes, if not your skin, if you struggle like that.’
His hands were sure and expert as they released her, but she was in an agony of tension, and not because she was afraid of being scratched by the murderous thorns.
When he had finished, she said, ‘Thank you,’ staring down at the neatly raked gravel at her feet.
He said mockingly, ‘That really caused you some grief, didn’t it, Courtney?’ He sighed with a trace of impatience. ‘But you don’t have to worry. You’re not going to be rushed into anything you’re not ready for—I promise you that.’
Her heart began to thud slowly and uncomfortably, as she tried to make sense of what he’d just said. Why did he talk about promises, and about not rushing her? He couldn’t pretend that one sunlit kiss had made any real difference to a man of his age and experience, no matter what effect it might have had on her. A totally calculated effect, as she now realised.
She said hurriedly, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. And you’ll have to excuse me now, please. I have things to do.’
‘Flowers to arrange, for one thing,’ he said, sounding amused. He reached to one of the bushes beside him, the lean strong fingers moving among the stems. He said, ‘Keep this one for yourself.’
It was the most perfect bloom, just beginning to open from its bud, creamy white with a hint of pink in the furled centre. Courtney stared down at it as if she was transfixed.
He went on, ‘You don’t have to invent chores and run away, Courtney. I’m going now. But I’ll be back.’
And that was a promise too, she thought, as she stood in the sunlight, and held the rose he had given her.
Even though three years had passed, Courtney could still remember the welter of emotion which had assailed her. What a child she had been! How accurately Blair Devereux had assessed her.
She had kept the rose in a crystal vase on her dressing table. It had been the last thing she had seen as she closed her eyes at night, and the first thing she had looked for too. Probably Blair had known that too. That would have been his intention. A constant reminder to keep her on her toes, and make her count the passing of the summer days.
But before the rose had begun to fade, that magic golden time was over for ever. The realisation that something was terribly wrong had dawned on her slowly. She had seen her father looking pale and ill, and questioned him, but he had dismissed her queries lightly, blaming overwork and the heat. Each evening he shut himself into the study, eating his dinner from a tray, and spending most of his time on the telephone. She tried to discuss her worries with Rob, but he didn’t seem interested.
The news of Geoffrey Devereux’s arrest at Heathrow had been like a bombshell. Overnight, she saw her father dwindle into an elderly man, and became aware that tension hung over their lives like a clenched fist.
She couldn’t believe what had happened. She kept repeating to herself, ‘It isn’t true. It can’t be true,’ like some mourning litany. It was impossible that the warm, kindly man who had been so safe and secure a part of her life for so long could be a betrayer, a criminal. If it was true, then any disaster seemed possible.
And disaster had come, each one falling like a hammerblow. She had tried hard to close her mind to that time, to look forward, only forward to a future which had to be better, but now she couldn’t stop the memories crowding thick and fast.
Blair had been one of them. She had never wanted to think about him again, but Robin’s casual comment had opened the floodgates.
He’d said he would be back, and he came, but not as she could ever have imagined. When he came, he was full of a dark and savage anger, which she supposed was natural because Geoffrey Devereux was his uncle, and was in prison on remand. It was a shattering shock for anyone, and they were terribly upset too, but that had not seemed to occur to him. And the first she had known of his presence in the house was when she had come downstairs that evening and heard the raised angry voices coming from the study …
Rob said curiously, ‘What’s the matter? You look like a ghost?’
She felt like a ghost, Courtney thought hysterically. There were ghosts everywhere, rising out of the past to torment her just when she thought they had been laid to rest for ever.
He said, ‘You’re not still brooding about Monty, are you? For heaven’s sake, Courtney …’
‘About him,’ she said tightly. ‘Among other things.’ The cottage suddenly seemed as small as he’d claimed, the walls closing in on her, even though she wasn’t normally claustrophobic. She swallowed. ‘I—I’m going out for a while. I think I’ll drive over to Hunters Court.’
‘What on earth for?’
She shrugged. ‘To see it one last time—before it comes under the hammer in more ways than one,’ she added ironically.
Rob flushed. ‘It won’t be as bad as you think.’
She lifted her hands, then let them fall helplessly at her side. It would be every bit as bad. She’d seen glossy brochures about some of Monty Pallister’s past projects—executive housing that seemed to have been specifically designed with midgets in mind, highly glazed office blocks, and gaudy shopping precincts in concrete in what Courtney suspected had once been pleasant high streets. Everything he touched, he spoiled, she thought, and Hunters Court would be no exception, and there had been a time when Rob would have seen this too. Now, he seemed to be deliberately blinding himself to the realities. She had always known how bitterly he had resented the disgrace that their association with Geoffrey Devereux had brought on them. To Rob, Monty Pallister was a way back to the good times.
But he’s wrong, she thought. Monty Pallister is a user. He doesn’t allow himself to be used. Rob could be heading for trouble if he thought otherwise. Then she checked herself. What use was there in worrying? He was set on this path, and nothing she had been able to say had deterred him one jot.
She started the Mini and drove with extra care out of the cramped yard, because she was on edge and that was when accidents happened.
As she drove through the lanes, she began to make herself relax. It was a pretty drive, especially today with a pale February sun straggling over the bare trees, and lifting a faint mist from the wet fields. The last week had been cold and raining, and it would have been appropriate to her mood if today had been the same. She didn’t want the promise of the sun. She felt as bleak as if spring would never come.
She thought perhaps she would leave. Good secretaries were always in demand, and there was nothing to keep her in the area. She would go somewhere else, and make
