He took a deep breath and faced her again.
“I am Ian Wincott. This is my home. I live here.”
The tone of voice he had employed usually guaranteed him a quailing, obsequious reply. In fact, he counted on it. To add to the impact, he set his face into his best no-nonsense, jaw-lifted expression.
The woman, bold as brass, actually had the nerve to give him a quick up-and-down look, as if she were assessing him. She wasn’t quailed. Didn’t even take a step back!
“I’m Abigail Porter. I forked over a lot of money to stay at Bowness Hall for two weeks.”
The blood draining from Ian’s head so quickly made him feel faint. Forked over? Paid money? What the bloody hell was going on?
“You paid money to stay in my home?”
Abigail Porter started to unfold her arms but stopped and brought them up again. “Yes.”
Ian felt the world spinning out of control, along with his rage. He brought his hand up to his forehead for a second, trying to clear away the woman’s words, hoping desperately she had not really uttered them.
The Yank remained before him, arms in place, causing her breasts to jut over her forearms. Her hair, still mussed from sleep, curled in soft dips and turns about her face. He noticed, through his turbulent emotional storm, that she had beautiful skin. Her eyes, alight with strong feeling that radiated from them like heat from a hob, were the color of aquamarines with a golden ring around the pupil.
He turned away again as soon as he felt his body reacting to her in a most primitive way. She’s American, he reminded himself. Usually that thought cooled him off better than a swim in the River Brue in April. The sight of her rather pulchritudinous femininity would be, however, permanently etched in his mind.
Better to leave and sort this out with Duckie and Imp before he did something he would ultimately regret for the rest of his life.
The American woman hadn’t moved until she placed her hands on her hips and said in a very controlled voice, “I’m about to make breakfast. There will be plenty should you care to join us.”
What cheek! Ian felt his blood pressure surge upward.
“I doubt I will be doing that,” he sputtered.
As he left the kitchen in search of his housekeeper and sister, he distinctly heard a snort followed by the clatter of glassware and tins.
Tish stood in the office, her chin notched higher than usual, listening to her brother’s tirade. He’d been nattering on for close to fifteen minutes already.
“You let out a room in my house?”
She had already been over this. “Yes, I let a room to a complete stranger. Two, in fact. The other didn’t come.”
Ian slapped his forehead, then turned from the window to glower at her. “Why in the name of all that is holy did you do such a rabbit-brained thing?”
Tish weighed her answer. Since things had already gone so terribly wrong, it didn’t seem wise to let her brother have the information all at once. He already knew about Duckie’s accident. That had disturbed him a great deal. But she knew he was seething. Answering his tedious questions while trying to make him see reason never, ever really worked once he’d got the wind up.
“Ten thousand dollars, American,” she said at last, hoping desperately that would be sufficient.
It wasn’t.
Her brother stood stock-still.
“You mean to tell me this…woman…paid ten thousand dollars to live in my home for two weeks? Hell, I thought they were all mad. Now I’m sure of it.” He laughed, the bitterness undisguised and raw.
Sensing his true feelings, Tish quickly added, “Abby is really quite delightful, Ian. She’s a real sport, too. After being locked out of her flat by some gruesome character who stole her money, she came anyway! That’s how much she wanted to come to England! She’s terribly nice, what with all that’s happened to her—not that I’ve heard the entire story. And as I said, she was supposed to have someone with her, but at the last minute, he backed out.”
Ian shook his head. “Enough, Imp. She paid to live in my home?”
“Actually, she paid for two people to spend two weeks in legendary Bowness Hall.”
His hand went up to rub the back of his neck.
“Who thought up that drivel?”
Tish took umbrage. “I did. I wrote the advert. Thought it was rather effective. ‘Two weeks in legendary Bowness Hall. Tour the famous sites of historic Great Britain while living like royalty.’”
Ian’s eyes closed, then quickly opened again. “And just where did this wonderful advert appear?”
As she walked away from the big desk that held her brother’s drawing equipment, Tish’s thoughts flashed with lightning speed. How should she drop this bomb?
“Well,” she paused and steeled herself, “Brian Brightly was delighted to help me out. He said he owed you, and this would go partway to paying you back. It went in last month’s Gourmet Cuisine magazine.” She smiled, unaware that her brother’s temper could erupt any further or even hotter than before.
Ian’s head snapped up so quickly she thought he’d break his neck if it weren’t so thick.
“You went to Brian Brightly to run an advert to let a room in Bowness Hall?”
The sheer bloodcurdling timbre of Ian’s voice made Tish’s legs go jelly.
“I…no, we needed that money, Ian. The plumbing in the cottages…the pipes, they burst. Water was pouring out of the walls when I went in last month. Everything was getting ruined. You weren’t around—you were off in the States, and I was here alone. I had to come up with a solution after we shut off the lines. I didn’t know what else to do. Duckie and John and I didn’t want to bother you once we’d come up with this solution. We thought,” here she sniffed, for tears rolled down her cheeks and curved into her nostrils, “we thought that we could do it quickly and quietly and you’d never know.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to hold in the anguish. It had been years since she’d cried in front of her brother.
Ian rose from his seat and, to her surprise, handed her his handkerchief. Gingerly, he put his arm around his sister’s shoulders.
“Oh, Imp. Please, don’t…”
At this display of sympathy, so unexpected in the heat of battle, the young woman dissolved into full-blown wails.
Ian squirmed and dropped his arm.
He waited for his sister to regain her composure.
Slowly, she sniffled, wiping her hand across her teary face. “I thought I could solve just one problem, Ian. I thought you had enough to deal with, and that this was a good, viable solution.”
Slowly, Ian’s head shook from side to side. “So now Brightly knows that I’m in the soup,” he said, his chest heaving a big sigh.
“Oh, no,” Tish protested. “I never said that we needed the money! I just told him that I wanted something to do…some company. I told him that I hoped I could make this a regular thing—Easter week at Bowness. And I told him it was entirely my idea, now that I’m out of school with nothing to do.”
The look he gave her, from under his dark brows, showed her that he still suspected Brightly. Her hopes plummeted.
“Tish, you know I’ve had trouble obtaining funds for the Rivendell project. Nobody wants to lend me money, for a perfectly sound development.