gave a frown; he didn't think he was going to be here long enough for anyone to ‘get used’ to him.
Which was a pity …
Even Rhea-Jane, who, as sisters went, was one of the best, couldn't help but be surprised at the unexpected feelings of homecoming he felt in this house, wouldn't understand his feelings at all. He wasn't altogether sure he did!
He straightened his shoulders beneath the navy blue overcoat that was accepted wear among his contemporaries in town, but which, he realised, looked far too formal here. ‘If we could get down to business—–'
‘Oh, you don't want to talk to me about that,’ the tiny birdlike woman told him teasingly.
Jordan's frown deepened. No one had told him that Grace Brown had a business adviser. According to the last report he had, she had flatly refused to consider any offer for her home; in fact she hadn't even wanted to hear about it.
It seemed that someone had been a little remiss all round concerning Miss Grace Brown and Charlton House!
She picked up some letters from one of the coffee-tables. ‘You'll need to talk to Grace about that,’ she smiled. ‘I have to take down the post that arrived today, so if she's in the kitchen I'll tell her you're here.'
Only one thing in that twittering speech really mattered to Jordan. ‘You aren't Grace Brown?’ He hadn't spent the last ten minutes talking to a complete stranger, had he—a stranger, moreover, who was ‘strange', in the nicest possible way, of course, but definitely a little odd, if harmless enough?
‘Goodness, no!’ She laughingly dismissed the very thought of that. ‘Although it's nice of you to think so, Mr Gregory.'
Mr Gregory? Who the hell was—–?
‘I'm Jessica Amery.’ She held out one tiny hand to be shaken. ‘But everyone calls me Jessie.'
The other permanent boarder here, Jordan realised frustratedly, deliberately keeping the grip light, afraid he might crush her fragile bones in his much stronger hand. He shook his head. ‘I think there must be—–'
‘You know,’ she gave him a rather piercing look from beneath silvery brows, releasing her hand slowly, ‘I always tend to judge a man by his handshake.'
Oh, dear, and his rather limp grasp hadn't found favour, he was sure.
But once again she had interrupted him when he had been about to correct her mistake concerning his own identity; he didn't know who this Mr Gregory was, but he certainly wasn't him. Although the mistake in identity at least explained a lot of her earlier remarks; they hadn't been meant for him at all, but for the absent Mr Gregory. The other man would probably find himself being addressed as Mr Somerville-Smythe when he did at last arrive, just to add to the confusion!
And no one deserved to be saddled with that name unless they had to be, Jordan thought with bitterness.
‘Everyone calls me Jordan,’ he invited dully, wondering how long before, or indeed if, he was going to be reconciled to the past.
‘Jordan,’ Jessie repeated brightly. ‘We all wondered what the “J” stood for,’ she nodded.
Whether from approval, he wasn't sure. But the mix-up in names seemed to be getting a little out of hand. ‘I—–'
‘Ah, I think that must be Grace now.’ Jessie tilted her head to one side as she listened to the slamming of the front door. ‘I thought she was in the kitchen preparing dinner. That means the meal is going to be late.’ She frowned. ‘Unless we're having salad. But we wouldn't be having salad on a day like this. I wonder—–'
‘Jessie. Miss Amery,’ Jordan cut in a little impatiently. Really, Jessie was charming, in small doses, and he was sure the subject of what she was being served for dinner was of interest to her; she didn't give the impression that her life was a hot-bed of new and wild experiences. But this habit she had of wandering from the point could be more than a little irritating, especially when because of it he had spent the last ten minutes believing he was talking to someone else entirely! ‘I think perhaps I ought to meet Miss Brown,’ he suggested pointedly.
‘Grace?’ Jessie blinked a little dazedly. ‘Is she here?'
‘She just came in—remember?’ Jordan prompted as muffled voices could be heard in the hallway, making a move towards the door.
‘So she did,’ the elderly lady recalled happily. ‘She will be so pleased you've arrived at last.'
And he would be glad when he could talk to someone who would understand the mistake there had been about his identity!
‘Grace? Grace!’ Jessie reached the door ahead of him, quick on her feet in spite of her years, stepping lightly out into the hallway. ‘He's here! And we were all wrong—his name is Jordan,’ she announced excitedly.
Quite what Grace Brown's initial reaction to this was Jordan had no idea, the other woman still being out in the hallway. He could only hope Miss Grace Brown wasn't as scatty as the irrepressible Jessie, or he was going to be explaining himself forever!
His eyes widened incredulously as it wasn't an elderly lady who entered the room but a young boy of about seven with a blaze of bright red hair, his gaze distinctly critical as he looked up at Jordan.
‘Jordan!’ he finally said disgustedly. ‘I said you were a Jeremy. Jessie said it had to be John—–'
‘Because it's one of my favourite names,’ the elderly lady explained dreamily.
‘Nick chose James,’ the young boy continued as if he hadn't been interrupted at all, probably used to the elderly lady's habit of deviating from the real point of the conversation, Jordan decided.
Jordan had no idea who this young boy was, but he had an appealingly impish face beneath that startling red hair, his eyes more grey than blue. ‘And what did Grace—Miss Brown—think?’ he prompted drily, prepared, for the moment, to humour the little boy. His friends in London would be astounded at his forbearance, he realised, but his time since he had arrived here had already been one of the strangest he had ever spent; why should it stop now?
‘I refused to play guessing games with something as important as a person's name,’ remarked a husky voice from the doorway.
Miss Grace Brown at last!
No, not Grace Brown but the elder brother of the two Jordan had been watching less than an hour ago …
The wellington boots had gone now, showing the denims tucked into thick black woollen socks. But the duffel coat was the same, and so was the red bobble-hat, the elfin features that so matched the younger boy's in the room the same, too, Jordan now realised.
A glance at the little boy revealed the red woollen hat stuffed into one of the pockets of his duffel coat, the dark mittens into the other.
Then where was Grace Brown? he wondered frustratedly. Even as he tried to look past the elder brother out into the hallway behind him, the boy lifted a hand and removed the red woollen hat. Jordan couldn't hold back his gasp as a riot of deep red curls fell down about the slender shoulders to surround the tiny features covered with that smattering of freckles.
