Or maybe it was as he’d implied: her private life was too tame. Could that be the reason? It had been a while—a long while, it seemed—since her last abortive relationship had made celibacy an attractive option.
Yes, that had to be it. Sex-starved after three years of abstinence, she might have kissed any personable man in the same circumstances.
It didn’t say much for her self-restraint but she rather liked it as an explanation. In fact, she almost managed to convince herself of its truth. She would have but for the image of Charles Bell Fox, the nearest thing she currently had to a boyfriend. She’d known him for ever, liked him always and, encouraged by her mother, had even recognised him as good husband material. Yet she had repelled all his gentle overtures.
But then Charles was a gentleman. He’d never kiss her against her will, never force physical intimacy until some base sexual urges kicked in. Perhaps if he had, they might have progressed further than their current careful friendship.
A perverse thought, she shook her head, and, checking that Jack Doyle and his undoubtedly expensive motor had disappeared from the drive, locked and bolted the front door, before keying in the burglar-alarm code on the box above the cellar steps.
She exited smartly via the kitchen to the courtyard, then beyond to the back service road through the woods, passing her current home.
Intended originally for an unmarried gamekeeper, and built in the late 1890s, it wasn’t a pretty cottage, the stone roughly hewn and with ramshackle outhouses tacked on. But Esme had done her best to improve the outside with a bright terracotta masonry paint and bold blue doors and an array of pots and baskets of flowers to distract from the random ugliness of the house. She doubted Jack Doyle would have recognised it as his old home.
She slipped inside for a moment to collect a denim jacket and change her heels to flats. Transformed instantly from fashionable woman-about-town to young practical mother, she didn’t bother locking her door as she set off along a short cut through the wood to the rear gates of the estate.
She glanced at her watch, and, though on time, she quickened her pace. It was always an anxiety—that one day the bus would arrive early and deposit Harry alone at the side of the road.
The high wrought-iron gates were locked, so she used the door in the wall, its key hidden behind loose stonework. She emerged onto the verge of the main road and only then did she observe the car parked on the far side.
It was a sleek dark green auto, built on racing lines; she didn’t recognise the make or number and, with the inside obscured by tinted glass, it was impossible to see the driver. But she knew all the same. Who else would be sitting opposite the rear gates to Highfield when there was nothing else of interest on this back road?
He had to have spotted her, too, so no point in scuttling back inside. It would smack of panic and fear, and, besides, the bus was due to arrive. She could only stand there and pray he would tire of staring at two rusting locked gates and a six-foot-high stone wall.
Under her breath she muttered the word, ‘Go,’ over and over, as if she could will him to leave, and believed the spell had worked when she heard his engine start up.
She cheered too early, however, as he pulled out onto the road and executed a 180-degree turn to bring his car alongside her.
The driver’s window slid silently downwards and Esme wasn’t certain if she would prefer it to be him or a total stranger lurking for nefarious purposes.
She opted for the total stranger at about the same second as Jack Doyle offered her one of his slightly crooked smiles.
‘Waiting for someone?’ he enquired.
A ‘no’ formed on her lips but thankfully she never got round to uttering it. Because why else would she possibly be here, standing at the roadside?
She limited herself to a nod.
‘Not very reliable, are they,’ he suggested, ‘leaving you out here on your own? Anyone could come along.’
Fake concern? Had to be.
It prompted Esme to retaliate with a dry, ‘They already have.’
A jibe he ignored as he ran on, ‘I’ll give you a lift to wherever you’re going.’
She was surprised into a passing polite, ‘No, thanks.’
‘All right, suit yourself.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll just hang around until he comes.’
‘No, you mustn’t!’ Esme didn’t have to feign horror at the idea.
He looked at her curiously. ‘Jealous type?’
He had the wrong idea, totally, but Esme didn’t disabuse him. The important thing was for him to be gone by the time the bus arrived.
‘Yes, yes, he is,’ she agreed. ‘I mean really. He’ll be here any second and if he sees you…’
Esme glanced fearfully down the road and left him to fill in the rest.
He did so with darkening brow. ‘Is that why you were so upset when I kissed you?’
Esme nodded. It was too good an excuse to waste. In fact, a little embellishment wouldn’t go amiss.
‘He’s very possessive. Doesn’t like me even speaking to other men. So please, Jack, just go.’ She trained appealing blue eyes on him.
Jack saw traces of the old Esme and was torn. He suddenly felt responsible for her, certain that any man so possessive had to be bad news. But then what right had he to interfere? He had been away too long.
‘Please,’ Esme repeated with genuine urgency as she heard the bus in the distance.
‘Yes, all right.’ He remained a moment longer, holding her anxious gaze, then, putting the car into gear, roared off along the highway.
If Esme felt guilty, she also felt justified as the bus came into view, passing Jack going in the opposite direction. Talk about close calls.
‘What’s wrong?’ Harry asked as she practically pulled him off the bus and hustled him through the door in the wall.
‘Nothing.’ She just didn’t trust Jack not to change his mind and return.
Because that was something else she remembered about him. How protective he’d been at times, looking out for her when she’d been hurt, physically and emotionally. Her hero until he’d proved otherwise.
‘So how was school?’ She tried to sound normal to Harry and it came out forced.
Her son frowned before shrugging. ‘The same.’
‘And those boys?’ This time genuine worry.
He pulled a face.
Esme interpreted that as bad. ‘Look, if you’ll let me go into school—’
‘No,’ Harry cut across her, ‘you mustn’t, Mum. You’ll just make it worse.’
Perhaps he was right. Esme could see his point. Having your mother go wading in on your behalf to complain about Dwayne and Dean, the twins from hell—or at least the roughest housing estate in Southbury—wasn’t going to do his street cred much good, but she felt so helpless.
‘OK, OK.’ She put an arm round his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘But if it escalates, you must tell me.’
He gave a brief nod.
Unsure if he understood, Esme added, ‘By escalate, I mean—’
‘I know, Mum,’ he cut in once more. ‘If they threaten me with an AK47, I have to tell you, right?’
He gave her a wry smile and she smiled back, although hardly reassured.
‘I realise you’re