The chat-show host smiled slyly at his guest. ‘Come on now, Jay,’ he urged with his deceptively mild Irish lilt. ‘Own up. You don’t really expect to find a woman these days who’s prepared to conform to your oft-vaunted ideals?’
The camera closed in on him. How it loved the moulded bones of his face, she thought, as he raked long fingers through that unruly lock of hair. He regarded his inquisitor intently.
‘I have never made a secret,’ he said, with perfect seriousness, ‘of my belief that women have two functions in life. One is in the kitchen. The other in bed.’ The camera switched to the audience as it roared its approval, the men in agreement, the women apparently in hope. He acknowledged them with a slight bow. ‘As you see, they don’t object to either occupation.’
‘Oh, God,’ Kate said faintly. She felt suddenly quite sick.
‘Which do you consider the most important, Jay?’ his host prompted with devilish glee.
Jason Warwick’s face split to reveal a row of strong, white teeth. ‘I find the two combine quite naturally.’ He looked straight into the camera and Kate felt his eyes were focussed only on her and she moaned softly. ‘There seems to be an affinity between food and sex…’
There was a sudden stillness in the studio. The Irishman cleared his throat. ‘Are you telling us that you’ve found a woman who can cook?’ Getting no immediate answer, he added wickedly, ‘As well?’ He glanced at the audience, milking the laughter. ‘It must be serious, then?’
A flash of irritation crossed Jason Warwick’s face, but he quickly recovered himself, lounging back in his chair, a quixotic smile firmly in place. ‘Serious? My dear fellow, when have I ever been serious about anything?’
The other man laughed. ‘Not about women, that’s for sure. Are you going to tell us who she is?’ Kate, white-faced, held her breath.
‘No.’ In close-up she could see the fine line etched into his cheek that might have creased when he smiled. He wasn’t smiling now. ‘She knows who she is. Don’t you, Kate?’
Kate made a small sound in the back of her throat and Sam screamed with laughter. ‘Kate Thornley, I do believe you’ve been keeping secrets. Did the gorgeous Jason Warwick creep up behind you when you were up to your elbows in the dishwater? Is that why you can’t take your eyes off him?’
Aware that her face had gone a sickly, betraying white, she rubbed her cheeks. The teasing remark had been just a little too close to the truth for comfort. ‘I don’t wash up, Sam. People who can afford to hire me have machines to wash the dishes.’ She forced a smile. ‘Isn’t it time you were in bed? It’ll be a long day tomorrow.’
Sam disappeared into the kitchen for some milk and Kate turned once more to stare at the screen. Why had he done that? Used her name? It left her feeling exposed. She stood up and snapped the off button. She would be glad to get away to Norfolk. Flat and peaceful, and two hundred miles away from Jason Warwick.
THE soft burble of the alarm woke her instantly and Kate lay quite still, for a moment uncertain where she was. Then, remembering, she flung back the cover and leapt from her bed. The room was as pretty in the early sunlight as it had been welcoming in lamplight, with its delicate cream and pink wallpaper and ivory lace floor-length curtains.
She pushed them back now and stared once more across the park to the serene vista of a lake and beyond it, on a slight rise, a small Grecian temple. Fullerton Hall was all so much larger than she had imagined, so much grander, and yet not the least bit daunting.
Her first impression had been of warm brick, flowers and, despite the carved stone beasts that defended the footbridge to the entrance, of welcome as the house had smiled at her, rose-pink in the dying sunshine of a fine April evening. It had quite taken her breath away.
She flexed her toes against the thick carpet, stretched and luxuriated in the simple pleasure of a hot shower without for once having to worry about the electricity bill. Then, dressed in jeans, a soft cream shirt and a fine rose sweater that reflected a blush on to her pale translucent skin, she found her way down the back stairs to the kitchen. It was warm and comfortable but Kate didn’t linger, eager instead to explore the gardens nearest to the house before beginning work.
The kitchen door led to a small courtyard paved with bricks and brightened by tubs of early tulips. A hand pump next to a covered square brick wellhead had been recently painted black, as had the wrought-iron gate let into the old brick wall almost hidden by an ancient wistaria vine.
Kate opened the gate and stepped down into the walled kitchen garden. Neat, well-raked gravel paths edged with low-growing herbs divided beds planted with early vegetable crops and tender salad plants being coaxed under cloches.
She bent to crush a few leaves of lemon thyme between her fingers, breathing in the scent. ‘This,’ she told a watchful robin, ‘is going to be this cook’s paradise.’
‘Then perhaps you’d better be a little careful what you pick if you venture into the orchard.’
Kate spun around, shock sending her pulse-rate into overdrive. Jason Warwick was standing in the gateway in the wall, and regarding her inscrutably down his long, not quite straight nose. For one brief moment she dwelt on the agreeable picture of an angry fist breaking it.
‘My name is not Eve, as you already know, and it’s the wrong time of year for apples,’ she declared vigorously as she rose, trying to ignore the athletic grace of his figure and the way his well-cut beige cord trousers clung to his hips. She concentrated on the safer area of his chest concealed under a soft wool shirt of a deeper shade. Then she averted her eyes. There was nothing safe about Jason Warwick, and it would be a grave mistake to think he was less deadly in casual clothes than in the black broadcloth and starched linen he had been wearing on their previous encounter.
‘Your name is of considerably less interest at this moment than why you’re trespassing in my garden,’ he replied evenly, but she was not deceived. He was angry.
But he had met his match. ‘Your garden indeed! I’m not the one trespassing. You are. This house belongs to Lady Maynard.’
‘Does it, now?’ The touch of amusement that twisted his lips made her vaguely uneasy but, hands on hips, she stood her ground as he towered over her. ‘You’re nearly right. But since Tisha Maynard is my aunt and this is my home, I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that.’
‘You are Tisha’s nephew?’
His eyes narrowed at her use of his aunt’s given name. ‘I don’t know what tale you’ve told my aunt to inveigle your way in here. Whatever it is, you’d better make your excuses and leave.’ He took a step forward and grasped her firmly by the arm. ‘Right now.’ He turned and began to walk back to the kitchen, his fingers digging into her flesh as she resisted.
She ignored the pressure of his fingers on her arm, only fleetingly wondering why it was possible to dislike a man and everything he stood for yet still be aroused by him. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. But even as the words left her lips she knew it was too horribly possible that Jason Warwick was the nephew Lady Maynard had so casually mentioned, although she couldn’t understand how anyone could be casual about owning such an obnoxious relative. Perhaps that was the
