Cate absorbed all this information in utter silence. In truth she was poleaxed. Stella had rarely spoken of her former life. Stella had made secrecy an art form. Cate hadn’t even known the house where Stella and her younger sister, Annabel, had grown up was called Radclyffe Hall until fairly recently when she had overheard a conversation between Stella and Arnold. So this all came as a revelation. Lord Wyndham was Stella’s father. My God! Wasn’t Stella a woman for burying the past? Cate felt incensed but shook it off.
“What’s lunch like at the pub?” she asked, swiftly changing the subject. It would take time to absorb it all. Lots of time. Quietness to reflect.
“Second to none!” the postmistress declared stoutly.
“Think they can put me up for a few days?”
“I’d say so, love. Me and my hubby, Jack, run it. Shall I book you in?”
“If you would. My name is Cate Hamilton, by the way. I have ID in the car.” She half turned to go out and get it.
“Won’t be necessary, love,” the woman stayed her. “We’ll get the particulars when you return from your sightseeing jaunt. I’ll have your room prepared.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind, Mrs—”
“Bailey. Joyce Bailey.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Bailey.” Cate put out her hand. It was heart-lifting to be so warmly received.
Joyce Bailey took it. She just loved that radiant smile. Funny thing was the girl—she couldn’t have been more than eighteen—reminded her of someone. She tried to think who. No one who lived in the village. She was absolutely sure of that. She knew every last soul. But the smile, the girl’s beauty, struck some sort of chord. Maybe it would come to her some time. Never an oil painting, she suddenly remembered the beautiful Radclyffe girls, Stella and Annabel. Dark-haired both, with lovely melting dark eyes; Annabel had been considered the more beautiful of the two. The whole district had been stunned when Stella and her husband had taken off for Australia. Annabel had gone with them at the time. But Annabel had returned almost a year later to marry a baronet who carried her off to London.
It had taken little time for Lord and Lady Wyndham to adapt to losing their beautiful daughters. The loss of their son, the heir, in infancy was the big tragedy. Everything else rated far below the line. The death of the son had come as the great blow of their lives. Other losses could be sustained. It was well known in the village the Radclyffes were a dysfunctional family.
After Lady Wyndham died, her husband retreated from the world, seeing few visitors. The Australian girl had no chance of getting a glimpse inside the hall. She could get as far as the garden. Beautiful girls had a way of getting in where the ants couldn’t.
* * *
So her objective Radclyffe Hall was only a few miles away. Cate couldn’t help feeling a quickening excitement. She slipped back behind the wheel with a parting wave to Mrs Bailey who, intrigued, had come to the post office door to see her off. Cate was really looking forward to this excursion. Lunch too for that matter. She was hungry. Back on the road there was a continuation of the chequered green landscape, a tapestry with all its different textures. It had the most potent charm. She had the window wound down so she could feel the breeze against her cheek. This was a muted world of soft pastel shades, and a totally different quality of light. Even the underlying colour schemes were different. She was used to such a flamboyant palette.
Just when she thought it was all plain sailing, the engine of the little hire car gave a cough, then a splutter. She urged it onto the verge where it quietly died.
“Blast!” Cate hit the wheel with both hands. Clever she might be at maths, but a car mechanic she was not. She looked ahead, then back. Nothing coming. She could lock the car, then proceed on foot. She couldn’t be that far off her objective. But what about getting back again? She got out of the car, setting about lifting the bonnet to have a peer inside. Perhaps the car had overheated and she could restart it after a while. She heard a vehicle coming along the country road behind her. She didn’t turn around, trusting whoever it was would stop. Help out a young lady in distress. The English were mannerly helpful people. Or so she’d been told.
The resonant male voice when it came wasn’t in the least solicitous. It was unmistakably a young man’s voice, but it proclaimed the legendary public-school accent—Eton? Harrow? Maybe modernised a bit.
“Think you can handle it?”
She found herself bridling at the tone. It was shocking in its languidness. “Clear off,” she muttered, risking she would be overheard.
He pounced. “I did ask a question.”
“Really!” She spun around, shocked by the level of aggression that tone had provoked. “And I’m asking you one. What’s so funny? Do you want to help or are you just being bloody-minded?” Of course he was. She could spot it.
He gave her an extraordinarily beautiful if condescending smile. Humour the girl. Beautiful white teeth, perfectly even and straight. She felt all her nerve ends clench. “Exaggerating, aren’t you?” he asked ever so slowly, at the same time taking her in. “I only enquired if you can handle the problem.”
She couldn’t mask the irritation his persona engendered. Such feelings had never attacked her before. He was as handsome as the devil. Those eyes! She had never seen eyes so intensely blue. Sapphires set in coal-black lashes. A wave of jet-black hair flopped down onto his high forehead. His skin faintly dewed with perspiration was very fine, lightly tanned. He had a nose disagreeable to her. An aquiline beak, the bone as straight as a blade. You could get impaled on it. He was using it to good effect looking down it at her. Some girls would really fancy him. Most would actually. “I’ve never met with a problem up until today,” she told him shortly. “A less than efficient hire car, in fact a bit of a rattle trap. Steering a bit wobbly. But it’s been okay up to date, which doesn’t explain why the engine suddenly died on me.”
“Would you allow me to take a look?” he asked, mock super suave. He wafted an elegant hand in the air. The Scarlet Pimpernel dressed like a gardener, square shoulders, narrow hips, tight jeans, navy jersey, a red kerchief tied loosely around his neck for a bit of dash, high muddy boots.
Cate didn’t rush to answer. “Know about cars, do you? I didn’t catch your name?”
“Nosey Parker,” he said, moving to stand beside her. Suddenly she was dwarfed when she wasn’t all that short: five-four.
She knew she was being terribly ungracious, but her feelings of hostility were expanding by the minute. “Suits you,” she commented.
From peering into the car, he stood to attention running his vivid blue eyes over her flushed face. Eyes that sparkled and snaffled her up. She preferred soft eyes. Gentle, humorous eyes. Brown maybe. “Have you been drinking?” he asked.
She couldn’t ignore that. “Right! You can smell the fumes, can you?”
“You could have stopped off at The Four Swans,” he answered, continuing to study her keenly.
She might have stepped out of a wrecked space shuttle instead of a beat-up piece of British engineering. Cate’s blonde head snapped up. “Ha, ha and ha! Apart from being nosey, you’re downright rude.”
“No different from you,” he returned with the arrogance that had to be bred into him. “Looks like we’ve rubbed each other up the wrong way.”
“You don’t stand a chance of rubbing up against