tea she had made him some delicately cut little sandwiches, as well as buttering two of the home-made scones she had brought with her for him. She knew he had a weakness for them, and couldn’t help smiling at the enthusiasm he exhibited when he saw them.
‘I didn’t realise that you and Hugo had kept in touch,’ she commented carefully when she was pouring his tea. He had insisted that he didn’t either need or want to go back to sleep.
‘Mmm…Well, to be honest, we hadn’t…didn’t. But then I happened to run into him a few months ago quite by chance. He was here in Lexminster on business and we were both guests at the same drinks do. I wasn’t sure it was him at first…but then he came over and introduced himself.’
‘Mmm…he has changed,’ Dee agreed, bending her head over the teapot as she poured her own tea and hoping that her voice wasn’t giving her away. She would have recognised Hugo anywhere—there were some things that were just too personal ever to be changed. The aura that surrounded a person’s body, which one knew instinctively once one had been permitted within their most intimate personal space, their scent, as highly individual as their fingerprints, and even the way they breathed. These were things that could not be changed.
‘What’s he actually doing these days?’ she enquired as carelessly as she could.
‘Hasn’t he told you? He’s the chief executive in charge of a very special United Nations aid programme. As I understand it, from what he’s told me, their plan is to educate and help the people they’re dealing with to become self-sufficient and to combat the ravages of the years of drought their land has suffered. He’s very enthusiastic about a new crop they’re still working on, which, if it’s successful, will help to provide nearly forty per cent of the people’s protein requirements.’
‘That is ambitious,’ Dee acknowledged.
‘Ambitious and expensive,’ Peter agreed. ‘The crop is still very much in the early experimental stages. The whole scheme involves huge amounts of international funding and support, and one of Hugo’s responsibilities is to lobby politicians for those funds. He was saying that he’d much prefer to be working in the field, but as I reminded him he always did have a first-class brain. At one time I even thought he might continue with his studies and make a career in academics himself, but he was always such a firebrand…’
A firebrand. Dee had thought of him more as a knight in shining armour, rescuing not distressed damsels but others less fortunate than himself and with far more important needs. Being romantic and idealistic herself, it had seemed to her that Hugo had met every one of her impossibly high ideals and criteria, morally…emotionally…and sexually…Oh, yes, quite definitely sexually! Her virginal reluctance to commit herself physically to a man had been totally and completely swept away by the passion that Hugo had aroused in her. Utterly, totally and completely. She hadn’t so much as timidly crossed her virginal Rubicon as flung herself headlong and eagerly into its tumultuous erotic flood!
‘You should talk with him, Dee,’ Peter was continuing enthusiastically. ‘He’s got some very good ideas.’
‘Mmm…I hardly think learning to grow our own protein is a particularly urgent consideration for the residents of Rye,’ Dee couldn’t resist pointing out a little dryly.
It irked her a little to be told she should crouch eagerly at Hugo’s feet, as though he were some sort of master and she his pupil. In fact, it irked her rather more than just a little, she admitted. She might not have completed her degree course—her father’s death had put an end to that—and she had certainly not been able to go on to obtain her doctorate, but what she had learned both from her father and through her own ‘hands-on’ experience had more than equipped her to deal proficiently and, she believed, even creatively with the complexities and demands of her own work. So far as she was concerned she certainly did not need Hugo’s advice or instruction on how to manage her business.
‘You’ve got a definite flair for finance,’ her father had told her approvingly, and Dee knew without being immodest that he had been quite right.
She also knew she had a reputation locally for being not just astute but also extremely shrewd. Her father, on the other hand, had been almost too ready to trust in other people’s honesty, to believe that they were as genuine and philanthropic as he himself had been, which was why…
‘Dee, you aren’t listening to me,’ Peter was complaining tetchily.
‘Oh, Peter, I’m sorry,’ Dee apologised soothingly.
‘I was just saying about Hugo, and about how you would be well-advised to seek his advice. I know your father was very proud of you, Dee, and that he meant it for the best when he left you in charge of his business affairs, but personally I’ve always felt that it’s a very heavy burden for you to carry. If you’d married it might have been different. A woman needs a man to lean on,’ Peter opined.
Dee forced herself not to protest. Peter meant well, she reminded herself. It was just that he was so out of step with modern times. It didn’t help, of course, that he had never married, and so had never had a wife or daughter of his own.
‘By the way, did you ever find out what had happened to that Julian Cox character?’ Peter asked her.
Immediately Dee froze.
‘Julian Cox? No…why do you ask?’ Warily she waited for his response.
‘No reason; it was just that Hugo and I were talking over old times and I remembered how badly your father was taken in by Cox. That was before we knew the truth about him, of course. Your father confessed to me—’
‘My father barely knew Julian,’ Dee denied fiercely. ‘And he certainly had no need to confess anything to anyone!’
‘Maybe not, but they were on a couple of charity committees together. I remember your father being very impressed by some of Julian’s ideas for raising money,’ Peter insisted stubbornly. ‘It was such a tragedy, your father dying when he did. To lose his life like that, and in such a senseless accident…’
Dee’s mouth had gone dry. She always hated talking about her father’s death. As Peter was saying, it had been a tragic, senseless way to die.
‘Hugo said as much himself…’
Dee felt as though her heart might stop beating.
‘You were discussing my father’s death with Hugo?’
The sharp, shocked tone of her voice caused Peter to look uncertainly at her.
‘Hugo brought it up. We were talking about your father’s charity work.’
Dee tried to force herself to relax. Her heart was thudding heavily as anxiety-induced adrenalin was released into her bloodstream.
‘I’m a little bit concerned about this bee you’ve got in your bonnet about these young people, Dee,’ Peter was saying now, a little bit reprovingly. ‘I’m not sure that your father would have approved of what you’re trying to do. Being philanthropic is all very well, but these youngsters…’ He paused and cocked his head. ‘I applaud your concern for them, but, my dear, I really don’t think I can agree that we should fund the kind of thing you’ve got in mind.’
Dee’s heart started to sink. She had always known it would be difficult to convince Peter to support what she wanted to do, and the last thing she wanted to do now was to upset
