‘Hellish?’ exclaimed Maggie, wondering what on earth she was about to be let in for.
‘Pay no heed to me, darling,’ he responded, discomfiture ringing in his tone. ‘You might not remember, but James died just six months before Marjorie. Anyway, forget these old man’s ramblings of mine and just rest assured that Slane possesses one of the finest scientific minds there is.
‘Come to think of it, I should be giving thanks he’ll be putting it to its rightful use for a while, even if it is on something this elementary, instead of squandering it on running that damned company.’
‘Are you sure he hasn’t deliberately picked a time to return when you’ll not be here?’ teased Maggie, only too willing to follow his lead in lightening the subject. ‘Excuse me a moment—I thought I heard something.’
It was the sound of a car drawing away, followed by muffled movement in the area of the porticoed porch. ‘I’ve a feeling your illustrious cousin has just arrived. I’d better let him in.’
‘Connor, you old devil, where are you?’ bellowed an American-accented voice from the hallway.
‘Too late—he’s already in, and bellowing for you.’
‘Damn it, I’ll never get off this wretched contraption,’ grumbled Connor. ‘I’d better have a word with him.’
‘Mr Fitzpatrick,’ called Maggie, putting down the receiver and running over to the study door. ‘The professor’s on the phone and would like a word with you.’
It all happened in a blur—the tall, dark-coated figure striding past her to pick up the receiver she had placed on the desktop and the sensation of her world crashing to pieces around her.
It was a trick of the light, a voice inside her shrieked from amidst the chaos breaking out within her—the room was in virtual darkness save for the small desk lamp angled uselessly across the blotter…Then he spoke, not in the raised tones that had issued from the hall and struck no chord in her, but in softly exasperated tones that were her complete undoing.
‘That’s great, Connor—me here and you there… No, I haven’t seen Mom; I just got back in from Australia a couple of days ago and…OK, OK… Right, I am listening.’
His dark-lashed blue eyes rose as he listened and alighted on Maggie, standing immobile a few steps from the doorway.
‘Damn it, Connor, you must have a pretty good idea why I’m here!’ he exploded suddenly, and turned slightly, lowering his voice. ‘And I’m not about to act as surrogate instructor to some student you’ve taken under your wing.’
Although Maggie was no longer able to see his face, her mind’s eye took over and she was able to conjure up every last detail: the blue-blackness of his hair, tousled almost to curliness; eyebrows arching in elegant symmetry above heavy-lidded, lushly lashed eyes; the nose, fine-boned and patrician, in perfect proportion to the rest of those faultless features; the mouth, wide and dramatically defined in its intriguing blend of harshness and sensuality…The face of the stranger whose body, one night long ago, had time after impossible time possessed her own in a mindless frenzy of rapture.
‘OK, Connor, you have me convinced,’ he said, his tone softening with affection. ‘No problem—it’s just that right now I’m jet-lagged and dead on my feet… Yeah, all I need is some of Mrs Morrison’s food in me to restore me—that and a bed to fall into.’
Maggie felt herself sway. Bed…cool linen sheets slipping from glistening, passion-driven bodies to lie rumpled on the floor.
‘Perhaps you should tell her that for yourself.’ The laugher-filled words cut across the madness of Maggie’s wandering thoughts. ‘OK, OK, I’ll do that…And you have yourself a good time—and give Mom my love when you see her…No, she doesn’t know anything about this; I’ll tell her when I get back.’
He put the phone down, then dragged his hands wearily across his face before turning his attention to Maggie, who still stood where he had passed her, her body rooted to the spot by a petrifying mixture of horror and incredulity.
‘Hi, Maggie—I’m Slane. I guess that’s about the only place for us to start,’ he muttered, tiredness hoarsening his voice.
No, thought Maggie dazedly, the deal had been no names…complete anonymity. She wanted to protest, but remained frozen as everything slurred into slow motion and he began walking towards her, his hand outstretched.
She was too busy steeling herself for the impact of his belated recognition to have any consciousness of how her hand came to be briefly enfolded in the cool clasp of his. It was beyond her comprehension that she might have given it freely.
‘Look, whatever you heard me say to Connor,’ he said, the familiarity of his voice washing over her like an intimate caress, seeking out and threatening to expose those secrets whose very existence made her feel that she could more easily die than acknowledge them, ‘ignore it—apart from the fact that I’m dog-tired and jet-lagged.’
A state, in fact, in which his memory would be functioning well below par, reasoned Maggie—the idea that he actually might not have recognised her suddenly proving almost as impossible to accept as that of seeing him again—especially with regard to a woman he had met only once almost three years ago.
‘I can see we need to talk,’ he murmured, his eyes for a split second catching hers, their look momentarily confounding her with the certainty that he had recognised her. ‘I’ve plainly upset you.’
‘And what makes you think that?’ The coolness of that utterance astounded her; there was no way she could accept that it had emerged from her own traumatised person.
‘Come on now, Maggie—even aside from the fact that it’s written all over you, you hadn’t been able to bring yourself to utter a word to me until just now.’
‘I’d have looked a bit of an idiot trying to strike up a conversation wtih you, given that you’ve been on the phone to Connor ever since you walked in here.’ She was about to disintegrate into a gibbering wreck, she thought dazedly, yet once again she had managed to sound the epitome of cool composure. ‘But you’re right about one thing—we need to talk.’
‘Have you any objection to our doing that over coffee?’ he asked, tiredness once more hoarsening his tone.
‘No, of course not!’ she exclaimed, her momentary certainty evaporating. ‘I’ll make some…and I suppose we should do something about finding a room for you, though I’m afraid I haven’t a clue where the Prof keeps bedlinen and things.’
‘Don’t worry, I do,’ he murmured, his mouth quirking with humour. ‘And I still have my own room here, even though it’s a good while since I’ve used it’
Maggie’s legs were shaking beneath her as she led the way to the kitchen and her mind had also started playing horrifying tricks on her which she was ruthlessly suppressing.
‘My God, nothing’s changed,’ he muttered to himself, pausing to gaze around the large, comfortable kitchen before slumping down on one of the chairs, still huddled in his coat.
‘How do you like your coffee?’ asked Maggie, still thrown by how remarkably well her mind was working, seemingly independently of herself.
‘Exactly twice as strong as Connor drinks his,’ he replied, with a chuckle that slid over Maggie like warm silk and made her lose control of the thoughts she had been so frantically suppressing. ‘But you don’t have to wait on me,’ he added, rising. ‘I can make it myself.’
‘You stay where you are—you look exhausted,’ said Maggie. ‘I’ll hang up your coat if you like; you must be sweltering in it.’
It horrified her that she should even have mentioned his taking anything off, given the images she was battling to banish from her mind—of a body, golden and stark naked and as awesomely perfect as that of a Greek