had no intention of taking any notice of her desperate plea. As for the ‘poor man’—he merely turned his dark head to give her a cool, sardonic smile before accompanying the older woman into the sitting room.
Left standing alone in the hall, Amber could feel her initial shock and dismay rapidly giving way to long-suppressed feelings of rage and anger. How dare Max swan back into her life, completely out of the blue like this? Not only intimating that she’d married poor Clive for his money, but with absolutely no appearance of regret—let alone an abject apology for the way he’d treated her in the past.
However, just as she was telling herself fiercely that she’d never sell the Hall to Max—not even if he offered her a million pounds—Amber caught sight of herself in a large mirror hanging on the wall.
Nearly fainting with shock and dismay, it was all she could do not to shriek out loud in horror! The woman gazing back at her looked as though she’d been drawn through a knot-hole backwards, her face hot and flushed from the heat of the stove, and her apron covered with smears of flour and mincemeat. No wonder Max had been looking at her with such a caustic, scathing expression on his handsome face!
Realising that it was far too late to worry about his initial impression, Amber flew back along the corridor into the kitchen. Slinging the kettle on the hot plate of the ancient Aga, and practically throwing a tea tray of cups and saucers together, she ran back to the hall and up the wide curving staircase, taking the steps two at a time as she raced towards her bedroom.
Now, when it was almost too late, the shock waves of Max’s unexpected arrival were gradually clearing from her mind. And it was the sharp, sudden awareness of the fresh danger she was facing that lent wings to her feet as she hastily stripped off the grubby, sticky apron and ran into the adjoining bathroom to wash her hands and face. Dragging a brush through her tangled hair, she could feel her heart pounding like a sledgehammer, just as if she’d been doing an exhausting aerobics workout. And it looked as if she was going to need all the agility of just such an exercise, she told herself breathlessly as she desperately tried to pull herself together.
Unless she could put a gag on her mother’s garrulous tongue, there was a strong possibility that she was going to find herself in the middle of an utterly disastrous situation. The only chink of blue in an otherwise dark, ominous cloud was that she could hear the faint sounds of footsteps and movement overhead—evidence that Lucy and Emily were still playing happily together up in the attic.
Fervently praying that the little girls would stay safely out of sight, Amber quickly checked her appearance in a large, full-length mirror. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about her old navy sweater and jeans. Mostly because she couldn’t spare the time, but also because she was determined not to let Max think that his sudden, startling manifestation on her doorstep mattered a jot to her one way or another.
Who are you trying to fool? she asked herself with disgust, realising that there was little she could do to disguise the hectic flush on her pale cheeks, or the hunted, wary look in her nervous green eyes. There was nothing for it, but to face the music. Let’s hope they’re playing my tune, she thought hysterically, her stomach churning with nerves as she quickly left the room.
‘Max and I have just been reminiscing about old times,’ her mother trilled happily as Amber entered the sitting room carrying the tea tray. ‘We really do miss his dear father, don’t we?’
‘Er...yes, we do,’ Amber muttered, trying to stop her hands from shaking as she poured the tea. Carefully avoiding Max’s eyes, she chose a seat on the other side of the room, as far away from him as possible.
She’d been very fond of the Reverend Warner, a rather austere and scholarly widower, who’d been the vicar of Elmbridge during the years when she had been growing up. However, it had been obvious that neither he nor the rapid succession of housekeepers at the vicarage had the first notion of how to cope with his motherless son, Max—who’d gained a considerable local reputation as a wild tearaway.
‘You’ll hardly recognise the town nowadays,’ Violet informed him. ‘The old Victorian theatre has been turned into a multiple cinema, and there’s a hideous new supermarket next to the railway station,’ she added, oblivious of her daughter’s tense figure as she turned to ask, ‘What do they call it, dear?’
‘Pick ‘n’ Pay,’ Amber muttered, staring fixedly down at the cup in her trembling hands.
This is absolutely ridiculous! What am I doing, making polite conversation as if I’ve never met this man before...? she asked herself with mounting hysteria, convinced that she’d somehow strayed into a completely mad, unreal world. And why was Max here? Surely he couldn’t be seriously interested in buying the Hall—not when Sally had said he was based in London?
For the first time since she’d clapped eyes on him, Amber realised that she knew nothing about Max—or what had happened to him during the past eight years. But obviously, such an attractive man was bound to be married by now, she told herself grimly.
‘...isn’t that right, dear?’
‘What?’ Jerked out of her depressing thoughts, Amber gazed at her mother in confusion.
‘I was just talking about some of your old friends who are still living in the town,’ the older woman murmured, frowning in puzzlement at her daughter, who for some reason was looking strangely pale and nervous, before turning back to their visitor. ‘There’s Rose Thomas, of course. As it happens, Rose’s daughter, Emily, is playing here with Lucy this afternoon, and...’
‘I’m sure Max would like another cup of tea,’ Amber said quickly.
‘No, I’m fine, thank you,’ he drawled, lifting the cup to his lips.
Luckily, it seemed as though her swift, hasty interruption had succeeded in turning her mother’s thoughts in a new direction as she asked, ‘Are you now thinking of coming back to live here in Elmbridge?’
‘Well...’ he murmured, pausing for a moment as he turned his dark head to gaze at her daughter’s suddenly stiff, rigid figure. ‘John Fraser and I are still trying to sort out the affairs of my grandmother, who died over a year ago. Unfortunately, following the fire, there’s no longer a large house on the estate. So, I’m not entirely sure about my future plans.’
Violet Grant looked at him blankly for a moment before exclaiming, ‘Goodness me! I’d quite forgotten that old Lady Parker was your grandmother. She must have been well over ninety.’
‘Ninety-two, I believe,’ he agreed with a dry smile.
‘I hadn’t seen anything of her for the past ten years. But it was a shock to hear that she’d died in that terrible fire,’ she told him sorrowfully. ‘Such a lovely house—what a shame that it’s now nothing but a burnt-out ruin. Is it really true that Lady Parker cut your mother off without a penny?’ Violet added, unable to resist a juicy piece of gossip. ‘That she refused to either see or speak to her daughter after she ran away to marry your father?’
Max shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Who knows? I certainly never met my grandmother,’ he said briefly, before changing the subject and encouraging the older woman to relate all the changes that had taken place in the town over the past few years.
Once her mother was launched upon the safe, harmless topic of the recent development of Elmbridge, Amber could feel some of her nervous tension draining away. And it gave her a chance to covertly study the man she hadn’t seen for such a long time.
Although
