kitchen door.
She noticed at once as she snicked on the light that someone had been there. She didn’t mind. Johnny had a key. He was a kind soul, and while she and their parents had been dealing with packing that which the new owners of the hotel were not taking over he had volunteered to come and empty her grandfather’s wardrobes and drawers.
Switching lights on and off as she went, Varnie left the kitchen, having noted that while Johnny had not got around to putting away the cup and saucer he must have used when he’d made himself some black coffee, he had rinsed them and left them drying on the draining board. She went up the stairs and to the room she always used when she visited. It was a pretty room, with a lovely view, and though not as large as the master bedroom it was a room she preferred.
Seated on the side of the bed, she eased off her shoes and reflected on one of the worst days of her life. But, bed calling, she got up, glad she had left the bed made up from her last visit. But when she went to unlock her suitcase she suddenly felt too weary to remember in which of the many compartments of her flight bag she had put the key.
‘Oh, hang it,’ she mumbled, and stripped off. Deciding for once not to obey the habit of a lifetime and shower before bed, she climbed into bed—and went out like the proverbial light.
As weary as she had been, however, she was awake at her usual time of six o’clock. She lay there in the pitch darkness and was briefly surprised that after all that had happened yesterday she had slept at all.
Then all at once several things struck her that she had been too weary when she had arrived to pay any heed to. The house was warm! Johnny again. The house was built of stone, almost two feet thick in places, which made it lovely during a heatwave, but bitterly cold in winter. Johnny must have put the central heating on when he’d arrived and forgotten to turn if off again when he left. Thank you, Johnny.
She clicked on the bedside lamp, smiling fondly as she thought of him. She hoped he had a fantastic holiday in Australia. His friends Danny and Diana Haywood would make him more than welcome, she knew that.
But, in the meantime, she would not have to make do with the low-powered hit and miss, not to say downright temperamental shower in her adjoining bathroom. She could use the brilliant and powerful one in the bathroom adjoining the master bedroom.
Varnie toyed with the notion of shaking some clothes out from her suitcase first, but all at once to take the shower she had missed last night seemed to be something of a priority.
Modesty was simply not required, and, stark naked, she left her room and padded along the landing to grab a large towel from the big airing cupboard as she went. She had the house all to herself after all. Not a soul there to see her.
With a towel over one arm, she trundled along to the master bedroom and opened the door. Her mind more on crossing the room to the door of the bathroom than anything, Varnie flicked on the light switch and was halfway across the room when all of a sudden it was borne startlingly in on her that she was very far from alone!
She wasn’t even looking at the bed when her peripheral vision detected the movement of bedcovers! She stared, stunned, at the bed. But before her brain could leap into action, electric light flooding the room had alerted the other occupant to another presence, and a body began to emerge!
‘What the…?’ His sleep disturbed by the sudden glare of light, the man was not thrilled and was already sitting up. And, by the look of his naked chest and hip as the bedcovers started to go back, he was as stark naked as she!
‘H…? Wh…? Oh!’ she gasped, frozen to the spot, her brain totally seized up as she stared, her sea-green eyes saucer-wide, at the dark-haired man about to leave the bed.
Her shaken rigid expression, her scarlet face, must have got through to the man. However, she was sure it was not to spare her blushes that he halted briefly and remarked, a shade toughly, she felt, ‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,’ adding, much in the same tone, ‘Want to shake hands?’
And, not a bit abashed by his own nakedness, he looked about to get out of bed—though not before he took a slow inventory of her—assets. His eyes—grey, she noticed, quite ridiculously, she afterwards felt—travelled meticulously from the top of her tousled long blonde hair, down over her face and, resting perhaps a fraction longer than necessary over her pink-tipped breasts, down over her belly and slender hips, past her beautifully shaped long, long legs.
But by the time he reached her toes Varnie was released from the shock that had kept her frozen still and was suddenly galvanised into action. Without a word or another glance at him, as one of his legs came from beneath the covers and it seemed he was going to stand up and shake hands anyway, Varnie got out of there. Had she had space, time, and had her head not been alive with horror she would have attempted to cover her fleeing naked buttocks with the towel, but she was much more concerned with doing a quick disappearing act.
She reached her room and slammed the door hard shut, to find she was breathing hard and shaking from head to foot. Johnny! Johnny Metcalfe, her brother—stepbrother, if you must. She’d stepbrother him! If he wasn’t in Australia, if she could get her hands on her, she’d kill him.
How could he? And it had to be him! He had invited a perfect stranger to sleep overnight at what was now, she started to accept, her place.
Johnny knew who he was, of course. The man was no stranger to him. And not totally a stranger to her either, not since she had seen that picture of him in the paper yesterday. There was absolutely no need for the man to introduce himself. She already knew who he was.
But what in blazes was Leon Beaumont doing here? And, more worrying than that, he—the first man ever to do so—had just seen her completely stark naked—stitchless. Oh, heavens above, how on earth was she ever to face him again?
CHAPTER TWO
HASTILY, flicking nervous glances to her slammed shut bedroom door from time to time, just in case Leon Beaumont should take it into his head to follow her, Varnie wrapped the large towel around her shape and searched her flight bag for the key to her case. With fumbling, agitated fingers she unlocked her case and extracted underwear, trousers and a shirt.
She heard plumbing noises and hated Leon Beaumont that he, when she was too panic-stricken to think of taking a shower in case he walked in, as nice as you please, was showering, quite unconcerned.
Varnie broke another unwritten rule. She rinsed her face and then dressed without first showering. After running a comb through her hair she left her room, went down the stairs and went into the kitchen—to wait.
He was in no particular hurry, it seemed, and still hadn’t appeared five minutes later. But, while still not looking forward to seeing him again—she went red just thinking of how she had stood, positively starkers, in front of him—she was beginning to feel much calmer than she had.
The longer he kept her waiting, though, and she was starting to think that perhaps there was no need for her to face the embarrassment of seeing him again. Johnny would have told him that his sister owned the house and…Or would he? There was no knowing with Johnny. At times that clever brother of hers could be totally feather-brained. It could be, she realised, that Leon Beaumont had not the smallest clue who she was. So why didn’t she just open that door, take a fast walk to her car, and get out of there? She could be back home in Gloucestershire by…
Hang on a minute, this was her house! Not his! And anyway, she wasn’t ready to go home yet. Soon
