Joanna stared down at the offside wheel of her Mini, her heart sinking. ‘Of all times to get a flat tyre!’ she muttered to herself, as she went to find the jack.
The rain was sweeping in sheets across the Northwaite valley below, and the hills were dankly shrouded in low cloud and mist.
By the time she’d fetched the jack, and squatted uncomfortably in the road beside the car, the rain had plastered her tawny blonde hair to her skull, and droplets of water were running down her forehead into her eyes, so that she had to pause every few seconds and brush them away.
She’d never had to change a tyre before, and she realised, to her shame, that she only had the haziest idea of how to go about it. Watching other people was not the same as personal experience, she decided wretchedly, as the jack stubbornly refused to co-operate with her efforts to fix it in place.
Send me someone to help this time, she bargained silently with her guardian angel, and I promise I’ll sign on for a course in car maintenance this winter.
The thought had barely formed in her mind when the sleek grey Jaguar materialised silently out of the mist and slid to a halt behind her. She looked round eagerly, planning some self-deprecating, humorous remark about her predicament. Then the relieved smile died on her lips as she realised her rescuer’s identity.
‘Having trouble?’ Cal Blackstone asked pleasantly, as he emerged from the driver’s seat, shrugging on a waterproof jacket.
‘I can manage, thanks,’ Joanna said shortly. It occurred to her that her guardian angel must have a totally misplaced sense of humour.
‘Then this must be a new method of wheel-changing of your own devising,’ he said urbanely, folding his arms across his chest, and draping his tall, lean, elegant length against his own vehicle. ‘How fascinating! I hope you’ll allow me to watch.’
Apart from striking him down with a convenient boulder, or even the recalcitrant jack, Joanna could see no method of preventing him. Seething, she gritted her teeth and soldiered on. It was raining harder than ever now, and the damp was beginning to penetrate right through her layers of clothing to her skin, making her feel clammy and uncomfortable.
‘You don’t seem to be getting on very fast,’ the hated voice commented at last.
‘I don’t like having an audience.’
‘I can believe you don’t like having me as an audience.’ She wasn’t looking at him, but there was something in his voice that told her he was grinning. ‘Come on, Miss Chalfont, why don’t you swallow your damned pride and say, “Help me”?’
‘I didn’t ask you to stop.’
‘You wouldn’t ask me to throw you a rope if you were drowning. As you probably will if this rain keeps up—that, or die of pneumonia.’ He walked to her side, put his hand under her elbow and yanked her to her feet, without ceremony.
‘Leave me alone!’ She wrenched herself free of his grasp.
‘Willingly—once this wheel of yours is changed.’ He was fitting the jack into place with a deft competence that made her want to kill him and dance on his grave. ‘Go and sit in my car, and dry yourself off a little,’ he directed over his shoulder. ‘If you look in the sports bag on the back seat, you’ll find a towel.’
Instinct prompted her to reply haughtily that she preferred to remain where she was, but common sense intervened, reminding her that in this weather she would simply be cutting off her nose to spite her face, and that she was only laying herself open to further jibes.
The interior of the Jaguar smelt deliciously of leather upholstery mixed with a faint tang of some expensively masculine cologne.
Joanna sniffed delicately, grimacing a little as she extracted the towel from the bag, which was lying next to his squash racket on the rear seat. The towel, and the rest of the gear in the bag, was unused, so he must be on his way to the country club, but if so what was he doing on the high road, when there were other, more direct routes?
In spite of the towel’s pristine condition, it was still his property, and she was deeply reluctant to use so personal an item. The idea of having to be beholden to him in any way affronted and revolted her. But she couldn’t escape the fact that water was dripping dismally from her hair on to her face, and, after a brief internal tussle, she unfolded the towel and began to blot away the worst of the moisture.
With any luck, he would be the one to catch pneumonia, she thought, glaring through the windscreen at him as he worked. And, as if aware of her scrutiny, Cal Blackstone looked round from his task, and waved.
With a snort of temper Joanna tossed the towel back into the bag and leaned back, savouring the undeniable comfort of her seat. Her father had driven a Jaguar when she was a small child, she remembered, and she’d always loved riding in it. She began to examine the dashboard and internal fittings, trying to remember what they’d been like in her father’s day.
She’d been sitting with her father in the back of the Jaguar the first time she’d seen Cal Blackstone, she remembered with a shiver of pure distaste.
With regrettable promptitude, he appeared at the side of the car. ‘Your wheel is duly changed, madam. Don’t forget to have your damaged tyre mended.’
‘I’m quite capable of working that out for myself,’ she snapped.
‘Of course.’ He got into the driver’s seat, and gave her a long look. His eyes were grey, she found herself noticing for the first time. Grey eyes, hard as steel, and cold as the skies above them. ‘Please don’t overwhelm me with gratitude.’
Joanna flushed at the sarcasm in his tone. ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘It was—fortunate that you were passing.’
‘I often use this road,’ he returned. ‘I like the view of the Northwaite valley from up here.’
‘If you can see it today, you must have X-ray vision.’
‘I don’t need to see it,’ he said softly. ‘I know what’s there by heart. I’ve always known.’ He pointed out into the mist and cloud. ‘Away to your right is the country club. As you come down the valley, there are the chimneys of the Blackstone engineering works. They’re generally what people notice first, just as my grandfather intended when he built the place. Then there’s the Mill, relegated to second place these days, I’m afraid.’ He paused for a moment as if expecting some response, some denial, and when there was none he continued, ‘And finally, down to the left, well away from the pollution of the workers’ houses in Northwaite, tucked away as if it’s trying to hide, is Chalfont House.’
When he smiled, his teeth were very white. A predator’s smile, Joanna thought, and her heart began to thump suddenly, harshly. ‘Everything I own,’ he said. ‘And everything I intend to own before I’ve finished. Including you, Joanna Chalfont, you beautiful, hostile little bitch.’
For a moment she sat gaping at him, hardly able to credit what she’d just heard. Then,
‘How dare you?’ She could barely squeeze the words out of the frightening, painful tightness in her throat.
Cal Blackstone threw back his head and laughed. ‘Said to the manner born,’ he mocked. ‘The well-born young lady rebuking the upstart pleb. It’s wonderful
