‘it would do him much good tonight because it’s not there.’
He straightened, dusted his hands and eyed the eleven other pots grouped around her front door ominously then somewhat bemusedly. ‘What is this? They’re all herbs if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Yes. I like to use them in cooking.’
He turned his attention back to her. ‘That’s fine, but it’s insanity to hide your door key like that. So where should I look next? The basil, I recognize that one and the mint of course, also the parsley—’
‘I do make a random choice every day,’ she broke in nervously, ‘and I only do it in the first place because I have a horrible habit of losing keys. Hang on!’ She banged her forehead with the heel of her hand. ‘I’ve been away, haven’t I? So it must be in my bag. Let’s see.’
She started to rummage through her bag, then clicked her tongue exasperatedly and upended the tote onto the bench seat.
‘How many times a day do you have to do this?’ he enquired.
‘Not that often,’ she told him. ‘What’s more, it’s all your fault. Ah! Here it is.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘My fault? I don’t see—’
So she interrupted him to tell him how her day had panned out thanks to his urgent need of a Mandarin speaker.
‘Is it any wonder I’m not quite as organized as I should be?’ she finished severely, only to realize he was shaking with silent laughter.
‘It’s not funny,’ she said as he opened the door for her.
‘It is funny,’ he disagreed. ‘Where’s the light?’
‘Just round the corner but you don’t need to—’
‘I have no intention of coming in, Alex,’ he said somewhat dryly, ‘just in case your Mother Superior is issuing all kinds of red alerts or clear-and-present-danger signals from up above—I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly as her expression changed. ‘Strike that. All right—’ he looked down at her ‘—I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. Thank you for putting up with—all the difficulties of the day.’
But for a moment, before he left, his eyes roamed over her in a rather narrowed, probing way that puzzled her.
Then, with a light, quick flick of his fingers on her cheek, he was gone.
She was not to know that as he drove off Max Goodwin was surprised to find himself thinking that, were he free, he would enjoy taking his new interpreter out for a meal. He had a favourite little seafood restaurant that something told him she would enjoy; it was unpretentious but comfortable and the food was the work of a chef who really understood his sauces and combined them with whatever was the fresh catch of the day.
Come to think of it—he steered the Bentley round a roundabout—he hadn’t taken a female companion there for ages, although it had not been so much the lack of females to escort around. No, there had been a plethora of upmarket social events on his calendar, and several perfectly groomed, expensively dressed, perfumed women on his arm, one at a time naturally, to share them with him, but looking back had it all seemed curiously—empty?
Which raised the question—was the way that Alexandra Hill seemed to be beckoning him an indication he was tired of the high life or perhaps specifically ‘glamorous, sophisticated women of the world’—to quote Miss Hill herself.
He frowned suddenly because that, of course, led him straight back to the thorny question of one particular sophisticated, glamorous woman of the world…
But although Alex was not privy to Max Goodwin’s rather surprising train of thought, she was still puzzled as she closed her front door on the wet night.
What had she sensed in the moment when he’d studied her so carefully? Some sort of a frisson between them?
She touched her cheek with her fingertips where he had touched it, and found herself breathing deeply as she recalled the tall, exciting essence of her new employer; the deep blue of his eyes, how they crinkled when he laughed, his broad shoulders, his hands…
She stared into space, then shook her head as she warned herself not to get fanciful.
She’d redecorated the house herself gradually, using white for the walls to show off the interesting artefacts and pictures gathered from all over the world in her earlier life.
There was a lovely kelim rug hanging on one wall of the lounge and she’d made the covers of her scatter cushions for her ruby settee from songket, hand-woven Malay fabric threaded with silver and gold, that she’d bought in a market in Kuantan.
It had been a wonderful life, her earlier life. Not only had her father achieved consul status in the diplomatic service, but she’d grown up sharing both her parents’ interest in scholarly pursuits. She’d also inherited their talent for languages.
Then it had all come crashing down.
Her parents had been killed in a train crash a long way from home. She probably would have been on the train herself if it hadn’t been decided she should complete her last couple of years of schooling in Australia. It had been a life-saving decision, although it had been hard to handle at the time; it had also been a wise one. She’d made some long-term friends close to home who had been denied to her in her globe-trotting childhood.
So she hadn’t been entirely alone and, of course, there’d been her father’s cousin, the Mother Superior of her convent.
But as the only child of only-child parents, whose own parents had all passed away, it had been a crushing blow. And although out of the tragedy a habit of fortitude and independence had grown, she still, in her innermost moments, suffered from it. She told herself it was foolish to fear getting too close to anyone in case they too were wrenched from her, but that cold little fear persisted.
And she knew it was why she was fancy-free at twenty-one, and wondered if she’d always be the same.
But she had been fortunate to inherit that fairly substantial nest egg and to be able to put herself through university and, later, acquire her house and finally put her convent days behind her. Not that she’d found them a trial.
When she’d finished school and gone straight on to university, she’d been taken on as a lay member of the staff and in return had helped out with the younger boarders. She was handy with kids, especially tearful, a-long-way-from-home ones, probably because she’d been through a lot of school changes and scene changes herself.
And it had been quite a change, moving into her flat after convent life even as a lay member of the community where one could never be lonely or idle. But after the first sense of disorientation, she’d grown to value her very own space and the things she could do with it.
She was also fortunate to have a congenial neighbour. Patti Smith was an energetic widow in her late fifties and she was fun to be with. They looked after each other’s gardens, mail and so on when either of them were away. Patti, a former nurse, was now retired.
Alex put her keys down on the dining-room table, her bags on the settee and moved around, switching on a couple of lamps.
In the warm soft light
