here at once, Ben,’ she shouted to the dog, her eyes rounding in surprise as she saw Harriet.
‘Oh! I didn’t know anyone else was here—I thought that Ben had got the scent of a rabbit. He never catches them, thank goodness, but I’m in enough trouble already, without having to spend half the morning chasing him all over the countryside. Oh, no, Ben…down, you bad dog!’
It was too late. Ben, evidently a gregarious animal, had flung himself enthusiastically at Harriet, almost knocking her over in the process, and was now proceeding to lick her, despite the girl’s attempts to call him to heel.
Harriet didn’t mind. She loved dogs and always had done. In London it had been impossible to keep one, but perhaps here…
‘Oh, dear, I am sorry,’ the girl apologised, rushing up to Harriet to rescue her from her pet.
She had wide-set hazel eyes, a retroussé nose, and the kind of warm smile that illuminated her whole face. She looked about sixteen or seventeen, and Harriet guessed probably had the kind of quick, almost intuitive intelligence that matched her manner. Altogether something of an enchantress, who would probably drive the male sex mad once she was old enough to recognise her own power, Harriet reflected, gently pushing the dog down and holding on to his collar for her.
‘Oh, goodness, look what he’s done to your jacket!’ The girl grimaced guiltily.
The front of Harriet’s yellow oilskin was covered in muddy pawprints, but she shook her head in dismissal of another apology.
‘They’ll wash off, there’s no real harm done.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ her companion said with disarming frankness. ‘All I need right now is someone to go complaining to Rigg about me. I’m in enough trouble as it is.’ She rolled her eyes theatrically, and giggled. ‘Right at this moment, I’m supposed to be in my room contemplating my sins. Have you ever heard anything so archaic? Rigg really is the end. I keep on telling him I’m an adult, not a child.’
Her mouth became stubborn and resolute all of a sudden, striking a vague chord of memory within Harriet. She frowned a little herself, but before she could say anything the girl was speaking again.
‘I’m Trixie Matthews, by the way, and this, as you’ve probably guessed, is Ben.’
Trixie. An unusual name, and now she had heard it twice within one single span of twenty-four hours…Not merely coincidence, surely? Could this be the niece of whom the man who had stopped her car last night had spoken so furiously?
The tempation to find out was almost overwhelming; it wouldn’t have been difficult, not with this girl, with her confiding, open nature, but Harriet had a very strict personal moral code, and to ask the questions teeming through her brain would undoubtedly break it—and, besides, what did it matter? Last night’s interlude by the roadside was over and done with, and had already occupied far too many of her thoughts.
Giving the girl a polite, dismissive smile, she turned round ready to head back to the cottage. The smile was one she had perfected over the years, for keeping other people at a distance, but the girl seemed unaware of that fact, and fell into step beside her. Ben, the Labrador, having drawn his mistress’s attention to the stranger in their midst, was apparently quite content to snuffle in the undergrowth a few yards ahead of them.
‘Are you staying in the village?’ Trixie asked Harriet interestedly. ‘Not that we’ve had much of a summer this year.’ She pulled a face. ‘I keep telling Rigg that I need a proper holiday.’ She gave Harriet a mischievous smile.
‘He’s so stuffy and old-fashioned…Loads of girls my age are living on their own, never mind going on holiday with a friend and her mother.’
Many girls were, Harriet acknowledged, but not girls like this one, whose every word and gesture betrayed how cherished and protected she was.
‘Where are you staying? At the Staple?’
The Staple was the village’s ancient pub, with a history dating back to the times when the village had been one of the staging posts on the long trek south to English markets for the shepherds who raised their flocks on the Border hills. Hence its name.
‘No…actually, I’m not a visitor. I’ve just moved up here from London.’
‘You’ve moved up here?’ Trixie’s expression said quite obviously that she was surprised. ‘From London, but…You must have bought the old gamekeeper’s cottage, then. Rigg said it had been sold. To a schoolteacher.’
The girl was frowning now, and for some reason she couldn’t truly explain, Harriet found herself saying, ‘I used to teach. I don’t now.’
She didn’t say what she did instead, and Trixie’s frown disappeared, to be replaced with a wide grin.
‘Thank goodness for that, otherwise Rigg would probably try to persuade you to give me extra lessons during the holidays.’ She pulled a face again. ‘He’s got this obsession about keeping me occupied. Just because both my parents were up at Oxford.’ She pulled another face. ‘I keep on telling Rigg that they may have been brilliant, but I’m not. Don’t you think that, at almost eighteen, I’m old enough to go on holiday with a girlfriend and her mother, without Rigg kicking up such a fuss?’ she then demanded indignantly.
Harriet, who suspected there was something she wasn’t being told, could only offer a gentle palliative. ‘Perhaps, but if your uncle has refused to give his permission…’
‘Refused! I thought he was going to have forty fits,’Trixie told her gloomily, ‘and all because of a silly mistake. I tried to tell him what had happened, but he wouldn’t listen, and then I tried to show him how easily circumstances can be misinterpreted, but instead of understanding what I was trying to prove he was furious with me…’
Indignation showed in the hazel eyes, and Harriet felt a sudden surge of sympathy for her uncle. The responsibility of a girl like this one could not be an easy one.
Trixie gave another faint sigh. ‘I suppose I’d better get back before he discovers I’ve broken out. Of course, he wouldn’t be like this at all if he wasn’t such a mis…such a missy…one of those men who hate women,’ she elucidated, leaving Harriet to supply the word automatically.
‘You mean a misogynist.’
‘Mmm…and all because some woman walked out on him years ago,’ Trixie told her, with all the scorn of youth.
Harriet knew she shouldn’t be listening to any of this, never mind wanting, almost encouraging the next confidence.
‘Of course, I suppose it wasn’t very nice, virtually being left at the altar, so to speak,’ Trixie allowed.
Left at the altar! Harriet blinked, wondering if after all she had jumped to erroneous conclusions about the identity of Trixie’s uncle. She couldn’t imagine any woman leaving at the altar the man she had met last night.
They were back in sight of her cottage and, guiltily aware that by rights she should have stopped Trixie’s confidences some time ago, she gave the girl another smile, and said quietly, ‘It’s been nice meeting you…I hope your uncle isn’t too angry when he finds out you’ve been out.’
‘Oh,
