designed in a country style—varnished wood cupboards and a white sink, no stainless steel visible anywhere. Edgar showed her the pantry cupboard, saying, ‘My wife, Elaine, has stocked it with the usual staples, but if there’s something else you’d particularly like, just press the kitchen button on the telephone and ask her for it.’
He also opened the refrigerator, which was similarly stocked with staples plus a chicken casserole ready to slide into the oven for her dinner tonight. ‘Please thank Elaine for me,’ Chloe said gratefully. ‘This is so good of her.’
Another small benevolent smile. ‘Let me show you the rest of the house.’
There were two bedrooms and a bathroom in between. The old bath, Edgar told her, had been replaced by a shower stall to leave room enough for the addition of the washing machine and clothes dryer. What had once been designated the boys’ room held two single beds. The girls’ room held one—queen-size. All of them had beautiful patchwork quilts. Both rooms had wall-length storage cupboards, plenty of room to hold all her personal things, although Chloe didn’t intend to unpack everything, just enough for her immediate needs.
Edgar checked his watch. ‘It’s just on a quarter past three o’clock now. The removalist company gave their estimated arrival time here at four-thirty. Eric, Mr Hart’s gardener and handyman, will conduct the transport of boxes to you, Miss Rollins, help you open them and remove those you wish to unpack after they’ve been emptied. Others can remain stored in the boys’ room. In the meantime, if there’s anything else …?’
‘No, thank you, Edgar. I’ll enjoy myself exploring everything I have here.’
‘You’re very welcome, Miss Rollins,’ he said and bowed himself out of the house.
Chloe made herself a cup of coffee, sipping it as she checked out the contents of the bookshelves. There was a stack of CDs providing a range of classical and popular music, several shelves of modern books—most she recognised as bestsellers in both fiction and non-fiction. However, her interest was mainly drawn by the old books; Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, the whole series of Anne of Green Gables and Pollyanna, an ancient set of Encyclopedia Britannica, a book containing drawings of birds—not photographs—a history of ships, a guide for all sorts of fancy needlework.
Her imagination conjured up the nanny teaching the girls how to sew, the boys identifying birds from the book, scenes of a happy childhood she had never known but which leapt vividly into her mind. She felt a strong wave of empathy with Miss Elizabeth, sitting in this room, opening these books to leaf through them again, reliving her memories.
The cupboards held more old treasures; a slightly tattered but still intact game of Monopoly, boards for snakes and ladders with coloured discs and dice for playing and Chinese checkers with sets of pegs, a chess set made of marble, packs of cards, boxes of jigsaws from very simple to very challenging. Chloe decided to start one of them tonight. It would be much more fun than watching television.
She finished her coffee and moved on to the most entrancing piece from the past—the doll house. It was made of wood and was double-storeyed. Its roof was hinged so it could be lifted up to rearrange the rooms on the second floor—the bedrooms amazingly well-furnished, cupboards, chairs, dressing-tables with mirrors, even little patchwork quilts on the beds. The bathroom had a miniature china tub with iron claw feet, a washstand, a tiny china toilet.
All the windows and doors could be opened and shut. The ground floor was just as amazing. A central hallway held a staircase to the upper floor. A fully fitted-out dining room and kitchen were situated on one side of it, on the other an exquisitely furnished sitting room and behind it a utility room with laundry tubs.
Chloe was sitting on the floor, one finger stroking the silk brocade on a miniature sofa, when a loud tapping startled her out of her enthralment with the little masterpiece. Her head jerked around. Her heart kicked as her gaze met the dark brilliant eyes of Maximilian Hart looking straight at her through the multi-paned glass door. A hot flush zoomed into her cheeks as she scrambled to her feet, feeling hopelessly disarmed at being caught out doing something so childish.
She worked hard at regathering her composure as she crossed the living room and managed a rueful little smile when she opened the door. ‘I didn’t have a doll’s house when I was a little girl,’ she said, shrugging away her absorption in it.
‘Were you ever allowed to be a little girl, Chloe?’ he asked with a flash of sympathy.
She grimaced. ‘It wasn’t an ordinary life. My mother …’ Her voice trailed off, her mind instinctively shutting out thoughts of her mother.
‘Mine wasn’t ordinary, either,’ he said with a touch of black irony, then with a quizzical look, asked, ‘Do you have the sense of something very different in this children’s house?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she answered eagerly. ‘I love the feel of it, Max.’
He nodded, and there was something in his eyes—a recognition of all she had missed out on, perhaps an echo of his own lost boyhood. It tugged at her heart, making it flip into a faster beat. Then it was gone, replaced by an intensity of purpose, which left her floundering in an emotional morass.
‘May I come in?’
Embarrassment increased the floundering. She’d left him standing on the doorstep instead of inviting him in. ‘Of course. Please …’ She quickly stepped back, giving him plenty of room to enter, every nerve in her body quivering from the magnetic force field he brought with him.
‘Leave the door open,’ he instructed. ‘I just wanted a private word with you before introducing the bodyguard who’s waiting outside.’
‘Bodyguard!’ Shock galvanised her attention.
‘I’ve employed him to drive you to and fro from the set at Fox Studios, or anywhere else you wish to go. He’ll stay close to you while ever you’re away from this property, ensure you’re not harassed by anyone. It’s simply a safeguard, Chloe, nothing for you to worry about. You can dispense with his services later on, but I think to begin with, you’ll feel more secure having him around.’ He made an apologetic grimace. ‘Unfortunately, I have other calls on my time and can’t always be on hand to protect you.’
‘No. I wouldn’t expect it of you,’ she swiftly assured him, acutely conscious of the time he’d already spent on her.
‘I’d like you to accept the bodyguard, if only to make me feel I’ve covered every contingency for avoiding problems you might be faced with. I do hate failure,’ he said in a self-mocking tone.
Considering all he had done for her, Chloe felt it was impossible not to oblige him on this point, though she thought a bodyguard was excessive. ‘All right. If you really think it’s necessary,’ she said uncertainly.
‘I do.’
No uncertainty in his mind. He immediately walked back outside and beckoned to someone who must have been waiting at the foot of the stone steps. Chloe imagined some big, burly hunk of a man, like a bouncer at a nightclub. It was a relief to see almost a fatherly figure, conservatively dressed in a grey suit, his salt-and-pepper hair and the lines of experience on his face suggesting he was in his fifties. He was as tall as Max, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and Chloe had no doubt he had a strong enough physique to impose his will on others, but he didn’t look like a bully-boy, more a mature man who wore a confident air of authority and the muscle to impose it if needed.
Max
