a deep, involuntary sigh.
‘Still nervous?’ asked Jonah, glancing at her.
She smiled. ‘Not in the least. The sigh was thanksgiving. Once I’m on the bridge I feel I’m home.’
Jonah’s jaw tightened. ‘If you’re so deeply attached to “home” why stay away so much?’
‘You know exactly why,’ she said bitterly.
‘Now that, Miss Dysart, is where you’re wrong. I do not. I have no idea why you ran off and left me, nor the reasons for your self-imposed exile.’ He turned a chill, penetrating stare on her for a moment, then returned his attention to the road as he negotiated the descent into Chepstow. ‘I got back from New Zealand to read your charming little note ordering me to stay away from you in future. Everything was over between us, you wrote. Unfortunately you omitted a single word of explanation. By that time the funeral was over and you were in Italy, refusing to see me or take my calls, and returning my letters as fast as I posted them. Somehow I could never bring myself to bare my soul in a fax,’ he added cuttingly. ‘Nor risk the possibility of some Florentine door slammed in my face if I came after you in person.’
‘As I said before,’ said Leonie coldly, ‘it’s pointless to rehash the past. Besides,’ she added, with sudden heat, ‘don’t try to play the jilted innocent, Jonah. You know exactly why I—’
‘Dumped me?’ he said affably.
Leonie glared at him as she pulled a cellphone from her bag. ‘Either stop talking about it or let me out of the car. I can always ring Dad.’
Jonah gave her a searing glance, then drove on in such absolute silence, as she’d requested, that by the end of the journey to Stavely, and home, Leonie was desperate to get out of the car.
‘Drop me outside the gates, please,’ she said tersely. ‘I can walk up to the house.’
He ignored her as they reached the final rise towards Friars Wood, which, like several of its neighbours, was set back from the road in acres of garden and perched high on the cliffs overlooking the Wye Valley. To Leonie’s fury Jonah turned in at the gates, driving up the steep, rising bends of the drive to draw up on the terrace in front of the house. The front door immediately flew open, and Adam Dysart hurtled out, grinning from ear to ear as he sprinted down the path and took a flying leap down the steps to pluck his sister from the car into a bear-like hug.
‘You made it after all!’ he crowed, and whirled her round like a dervish until Leonie begged to be put down, by which time her father and mother were hurrying down to join them. There was a flurry of delighted greetings and kisses as Tom and Frances Dysart welcomed their eldest child home, and, after a swift, incredulous look, behaved as though it were the most natural thing in the world to find Jonah had driven her there.
‘Look out!’ yelled Adam, as a yellow retriever came streaking up the lawn to hurl itself on Leonie. Jonah’s arms shot out to catch her as she tripped, and in the ensuing hubbub any awkwardness was smoothed over as Frances Dysart ordered everyone inside, insisted Jonah came in for a drink, and told her son to go and look for the girls.
‘They took Marzi for a walk,’ she explained. ‘So now they’re probably running round in circles, searching for him.’
Leonie hurried inside the house to breathe in the familiar home scents of flowers and cooking and polish, and the occasional whiff of dog. In the kitchen, which had once been two rooms, Frances waved Jonah to a seat with Tom at the oak table the family used for informal meals, then took Leonie with her to the business end of the room. She filled a kettle, put cakes on a plate and took cookies from a tin as she exclaimed over her daughter’s surprise appearance.
Leonie leaned against the central island, aware of Jonah talking quietly to her father on the far side of the room as she explained about the flu bug and its unexpected bonus, and how she’d met Jonah by accident on the train and accepted a lift from him.
Frances Dysart gave her a searching look, but made no comment. ‘I’m sorry for the flu victims, but it’s so good to see you, darling. Roberto couldn’t come with you?’ she added in an undertone, pouring tea.
‘No, too busy,’ said Leonie guiltily, fondling the excited dog. The idea of suave, sophisticated Roberto Forli at a party with carousing undergraduates had been so unimaginable she hadn’t invited him. ‘Besides, there wouldn’t have been room to put him up if Adam’s crowd are staying the night.’
‘We would have managed,’ her mother assured her. ‘Take these cakes over to your father and Jonah; I’ll bring the tea. Where can those girls have gone?’ she added anxiously. ‘It’s getting late.’
Leonie put the plate on the table in front of the men, then darted to the window. ‘Here they come now. Something’s wrong.’
Adam was striding across the lawn, carrying a small figure in his arms, with seventeen-year-old Kate hurrying after him, wild dark curls blowing in the wind as she tried to keep up with her brother’s long legs.
With her husband and Leonie close behind Frances hurried through the old-fashioned scullery to the kitchen door and threw it wide. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘She fell down and grazed her knee,’ said Adam cheerfully, and surrendered his wailing burden to his mother, while Kate flew into the kitchen to hug her sister in elation.
‘Leo—you came after all. Adam never said a word!’
‘Couldn’t make myself heard above the din,’ said Adam, grinning when the invalid’s woeful sobs stopped like magic as she slithered from her mother’s arms to hurl herself at Leonie.
‘Leo, they said you couldn’t come!’
‘I couldn’t miss Adam’s special day!’ Leonie hugged the little girl, then knelt in front of her, swabbing at her face with a tissue. ‘Now then, Fenny, what’s all the crying about?’
‘I hurt my knee, and it’s bleeding, and it’ll show at the party.’ The blotched, elfin face lit up with a sudden beam. ‘Guess what, Leo! I can stay up—’
‘For a little while,’ warned Frances.
‘And only if you stop crying right away,’ said Tom Dysart indulgently. ‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s wash that knee and see the damage.’
But the invalid had finally noticed the visitor, and shot across the room in delight.
‘Jonah, you came early!’ shrieked Fenny rapturously. ‘Will you dance with me tonight?’
‘Of course I will,’ he promised, smiling at her.
Leonie stared, narrow-eyed, then gave her family a look which threatened questions later. ‘Come on, darling,’ she coaxed, detaching Fenny from Jonah. ‘Let Dad see to your knee.’
When the knee had been washed, anointed, and a plaster applied, the six-year-old charmer promptly settled herself beside Jonah at the table to eat cake and drink milk, going into great detail as she described her party dress. Leonie shot a resentful glare at Jonah as he listened to the little girl, then turned away to talk to Kate, who was watching her apprehensively, plainly on edge about the entire situation.
‘So when’s Jess arriving, Kate?’
‘She’s
