to touch. How long was it since he’d touched a woman’s hair…?
He curled his fingers tight against his palms, but she was already leaning back inside the car to pick up a second bag.
‘You don’t look stupid,’ she said, turning to him as she straightened.
He wasn’t about to debate it. He’d already had all the conversation he could handle.
‘You can’t stay here.’
She smiled. ‘There! I was right. You knew the answer all along.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I know you do, and I’m sorry, truly. But the car is damaged, Maisie is tired and, as you’ve already said, you can’t manage her on your own.’
‘That’s not what I…’ He stopped, suddenly aware of a yawning chasm opening in front of him. If he declared himself more than capable of looking after one small girl—this small girl above all others—she’d walk away and leave him to do just that.
He’d come to High Tops for solitude. Peace. To seek some kind of future for himself. She had to go and take the child with her. Now.
‘Didn’t you say something about catching a plane?’ he enquired.
‘There’s always another plane.’ Then, putting out a hand as if to touch his arm, reassure him, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Talbot, we’ll keep out of your way as much as possible.’
He moved before she could make contact. ‘This is intolerable. I’ll speak to Sally, make her see reason.’
‘You’ll have to stand in line,’ she replied. ‘There’s a queue. But no one will be speaking to your cousin until tomorrow. She’s on her way to China.’
‘China?’
‘Where the silk comes from.’ They both turned to look at Maisie, who was standing in the doorway, and once she had their full attention, she gave a little shrug and said, ‘That’s what Jacqui said when she was on the phone, anyway.’
‘You were listening?’ Jacqui asked her, not angry, not accusing the child of something bad, just distractedly; Harry suspected she was trying to remember what she’d said that she wouldn’t have wanted Maisie to overhear.
‘No.’
Maisie looked up at her, a picture of innocence. Something he’d seen her do a hundred times. She’d been listening…
‘I was waiting until you’d finished, that’s all.’ With that, she turned and flounced inside. The dog followed her.
‘When is Sally due to arrive,’ he asked, reclaiming her nanny’s attention, ‘in China?’
‘I have no idea,’ she said, adding a carrier bag to her load, which she held in one hand as she shut the car door. ‘Tomorrow some time, I would imagine. She might pick up her messages earlier if she has a stopover. Of course it’ll be the middle of the night here so she’ll probably wait until the time zones connect before she calls.’
Harry doubted that the difference in time zones would stop his cousin. It would be the sure and certain knowledge that if she called home she’d be expected to do something about the mess she’d made, rather than consideration. That and the fact that the longer she delayed, the more likely it was that someone else would have sorted it out for her by the time she did call. He didn’t say that.
He said, ‘In other words I’m stuck with the pair of you for the night.’
‘Thanks for the welcome,’ she said and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. Not the kind of smile that would make a person feel warm inside, a smile acknowledging how hard this was for him. It was a smile that suggested, in the fullness of time, he’d regret being so thoroughly ill-mannered. ‘And the tea. That at least was lukewarm when I drank it. What time do you have dinner?’
‘Whenever you feel like making it, Miss Moore. Tea is about as domestic as I get.’ He didn’t bother to cross his fingers at this blatant lie. He just wanted her to go and he didn’t care what he had to do to make it happen.
She stared at him. ‘Did someone programme you?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘So am I, but we’ll let that pass. I mean did someone take you into a laboratory and fit a chip, preprogrammed with chauvinist cliche´s, into your head?’
‘Is that necessary?’ he enquired. ‘I’d always been led to believe that it was genetic.’
‘That’s just something mendacious men made up to avoid doing their share of the housework.’
‘Possibly,’ he admitted. ‘Although my personal theory is that it was made up by pathetic women to excuse their inability to control them. No matter how hard they try.’
Her eyes, he noticed with interest, had heated up to the colour of molten silver, but that was the only indication that her temper was on a short fuse.
‘I only asked what time you eat,’ she continued, with impressive outward calm, ‘so that we won’t disturb you. You are, of course, more than welcome to join us for nursery tea at five o’clock.’
‘You won’t find any fish fingers in my freezer.’
‘No? Well, I’m sure we’ll manage.’
He shrugged. ‘Maisie has a room of her own in the east tower,’ he said, resisting his natural inclination to take the bags and carry them up for her. The worse her opinion of him, the more likely she was to keep out of his way. ‘She knows where it is. You can have the room next door. Don’t get comfortable, you’re not staying a minute longer than necessary.’
‘Extraordinary! I’d have said we didn’t have a thought in common, but do you know that’s exactly what I promised Maisie?’ He must have frowned be-cause she added, by way of explanation, ‘That I’d only stay until we could find someone she liked to take care of her.’ And she smiled again, as if she knew something that he didn’t.
He ignored the smile and said, ‘I’m glad to hear it. Give me your keys and I’ll put your car in the coach house.’
‘Oh, right,’ she said, clearly caught off balance by such unexpected thoughtfulness. ‘Well, thank—’
‘Nothing that old should be left out overnight in the cold and damp. I’ll take a look at your exhaust while I’m about it. I wouldn’t want anything to delay you in the morning.’
CHAPTER FOUR
JACQUI was shaking so much from her confrontation with Harry Talbot that her legs were jelly as she climbed the stairs.
Thankfully, Maisie was skipping along happily in front of her, leading the way up a second flight of stairs to her own special bedroom and not in the slightest bit bothered, apparently, at the lack of welcome. And hopefully not fully understanding the less than edifying exchange between them.
What on earth had she been thinking?
She’d
