a mock-belligerent pose.
She smiled gratefully. Each one of them had helped her enormously in the early days, when the workings of a narrow boat were a mystery to her. All The Boys were poor, but they had good hearts and would do anything for her.
Dwarfed by Steve, she rested her small hand on the thin sleeve of his hole-ridden jumper and made a mental note to knit him another before winter came. If she was still there…
‘I’ll let you know,’ she replied. ‘First I’ll appeal to her better nature. But keep the knuckle-dusters handy in case she hasn’t got one,’ she joked feebly.
‘Get into her good books. Find her some wheat grass,’ suggested Tom drily.
She gave a shaky little laugh. ‘Fat chance!’
‘And if she says your clients can’t use the bridge, or tells you to go?’ Steve asked.
She sucked in a wobbly breath. They all knew that moorings were like rocking horse droppings. Nonexistent.
The thought hit her like a punch in the stomach. It would be the end of her idyllic life. Hello grotty flat in some crime-ridden ghetto. And she felt panic setting in because it would take years to build up her client-base again.
‘I’d have no choice but to leave,’ she answered.
‘Good luck,’ the men chorused with sympathy as she clambered back on board and cast off.
‘Thanks,’ she managed to choke out.
Remarkably, she focused her mind on the tricky task of doing the watery equivalent of a three-point-turn where the river widened. With her stomach apparently full of jitterbugging butterflies competing for the World Title, she straightened the boat up and headed for home on the far side of the island.
Luck? She let out a low groan. Judging from the information about the new owner she’d need something nearer to a miracle.
CHAPTER TWO
ZACHARIAH TALENT didn’t notice the sheet of bluebells which were generously trying to obliterate the woodland floor. In fact, he didn’t even register the existence of the wood itself.
Similarly, hedgerows passed by in a blur of white May blossom, while the verges quite fruitlessly boasted stately pink foxgloves, rising like rockets above the masses of buttery primulas.
City man from the top of his expensively cut dark hair to his polished black shoes, Zach remained oblivious to any of these rural delights.
‘Pretty countryside. Shame about the yokels. They’re dire, I can tell you. Look at that idiot,’ his PA remarked sarcastically, swerving to avoid a lone walker.
‘Uh,’ Zach grunted.
Without looking up from the laptop computer balanced on his knees, he continued to read off a succession of figures into his mobile phone, his trade-mark frown drawing his hard dark brows together.
‘Nearly there, Zach,’ the soignée Jane cooed breathily. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’
Sharply he put Hong Kong on hold and glanced at his PA. She flashed him a smile that seemed worryingly warm. Never one to mix business with pleasure, he met it with his habitual, emotionless stare, his grey eyes cold and forbidding.
Was it happening again? he thought bleakly. And, if so, why did the women he worked with always imagine themselves in love with him? It wasn’t as if he gave them any encouragement. Far from it. He couldn’t be more distant if he tried.
‘It’s just a house. Bricks and mortar. An investment,’ he said curtly.
‘Oh, it’s more than that!’ she declared, alarming him even further with the mingled look of rapture and slyness on her face. ‘It has real character. A home for a family.’ There was a significant pause during which his irritation level increased several notches and then, in the absence of any comment from him, Jane hurried on. ‘It needs modernising, of course. Better facilities all round. But the potential’s there. Huge, airy rooms to set off your elegant antiques and furnishings—and its grounds run down to the River Saxe—’
‘So you said,’ he interrupted, cutting off her estate agent eulogy in mid-flow.
Mentally noting that he might soon have to advertise for a new PA, Zach dealt with his ringing phone, bought a tranche of well-priced bonds on the Hong Kong market and closed a profitable deal on some utilities shares.
‘Have you any idea why Mrs Tresanton left you the house in her will?’ Jane ventured curiously when he’d wrapped the call.
‘No relatives. No one close,’ he replied in his usual curt manner.
But it had been a surprise and he still had no idea why Edith had favoured him. He wasn’t exactly the country type.
To avoid Jane’s unsettling dreamy expression, he looked out of the window and scowled because his headache was getting worse.
The scenery seemed to leap at him, demanding his attention. He had an impression of an explosion of greenery that was almost unnerving.
They were driving along a pot-holed lane beside the river which looked utterly still and so smooth that it could have been enamelled the same blue as the sky. Saxe blue perhaps, he thought idly. He remembered that Edith had often talked of its beauty and had nagged him to call. There’d never been the time, of course.
She had been a good client of his. Almost a mother to him. His mouth tightened in an effort to control the bitter memory of his own mother’s death seventeen years ago, a few months after his father had suffered a fatal stroke.
Odd, how overpowering his grief had been. He’d been eighteen then, but had barely known his parents. They’d both worked so hard for his betterment that he’d been a latch-key kid from the age of five and used to looking after himself. But when they’d died he’d suddenly become truly alone in the world.
Perhaps that was why he had become fond of Edith. Normally he didn’t get close to his clients, preferring to devote himself to managing their financial affairs as creatively and as securely as possible.
But Edith had been different. Although she’d mothered him with constant reprimands about his hectic work schedules, she’d also made him laugh with her odd, eccentric ways during their monthly meetings in London. And laughter was in short supply in his busy life.
‘I hope you like the house,’ Jane said a little nervously, parking her banana yellow Aston Martin on a small tarmac area beside the river. And more petulantly, ‘I just wish you’d checked it over first, before asking me to arrange for all your stuff to be moved in.’
‘No time free. Not with those back-to-back meetings in the States. I’m sure you’ve settled me in very well,’ he retorted crisply, leaping out and looking around for Tresanton Manor.
To his surprise, there was nothing to be seen but the placid river, some black duck things with white blobs on their foreheads, clumps of trees and bushes on a nearby island and stretches of unkempt fields. Apart from the rather piercing trill of birdsong the place seemed eerily quiet. The lack of traffic bothered him. It had implications.
‘So
