CHAPTER TWO
BRYN DROVE OFF feeling oddly dissatisfied with himself. At least they’d brought that old business into the open, and that should have cleared the air between him and Rachel, as well as easing his conscience. He’d sensed a constraint in her from the moment their eyes met at the bus terminal, and he didn’t believe her claim that she’d not given any subsequent thought to their last meeting. A soft, rueful laugh escaped him, remembering the deliberate put-down with which she’d denied it. “Rather overdoing it there, honey,” he murmured aloud.
She certainly was different from the rather gauche innocent who sometimes reappeared in his dreams. If she’d never had a similar nocturnal problem he ought to be relieved, but at first he’d felt nothing but chagrin, and had to quell an impulse to exact a sweet revenge on her lovely mouth even as it mocked him.
Instead he’d swallowed the unaccustomed medicine like a man, because she was entitled.
There was an intriguing dislocation between the Rachel Moore he remembered and the Rachel he’d met today. Now and then a glimpse of the ardent, uncomplicated girl peeked through the cool reserve of the woman, arousing in him a capricious desire to probe deeper and find out just how much she had really changed.
A glance at the clock on the dashboard reminded him his departure was later than he’d intended. He’d been seeing a lot of Kinzi Broadbent lately, and he’d half promised to drop in after delivering the historian his mother had hired to Rivermeadows. But he hadn’t even thought to call Kinzi.
Already on the motorway, he didn’t want to use his mobile phone. For some reason he didn’t feel like seeing Kinzi now. Instead he drove home and phoned her from there, saying he’d stayed for dinner with his mother, was tired and wanted an early night. Although she accepted the excuse, her voice was a little clipped as she wished him a good sleep. He’d have to make it up to her.
Three days later Rachel was in the smoking room, sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries and papers and spreading the contents over the big table—made of a single slab of thousand-year-old kauri—that dominated the space.
The door opened and Bryn strode in carrying a large cardboard box. Absorbed in her task, she hadn’t heard the car.
“Your scanner,” he said. “Where do you want it?”
“On the desk?” She stripped off the gloves she was wearing to handle the fragile old documents and hurried to clear a couple of boxes from the heavy oak desk in a corner of the room where she’d placed her computer. “I didn’t expect you to deliver it yourself.”
“I wanted to check on my mother.”
“She seems fine. Did you see her on your way in?”
He’d taken a paper knife from a drawer and began slitting the tape on the carton. “Yes, busy watering potted plants on the terrace. She’s excited about this,” he said, nodding towards the documents on the table. “How’s it coming along?”
“Deciding what to leave out may be a problem. There’s such a wealth of material.”
They connected the machine to her laptop and she sat down to test it while Bryn stood leaning against the desk.
A sheet of paper eased out of the printer and they both reached for it, their fingers momentarily tangling. Rachel quickly withdrew her hand and Bryn shot her a quizzical look before picking up the test page and scrutinising it. “Looks good,” he said, passing it to her.
“Yes.” Rachel kept her eyes on the paper. “Thank you. It’ll be a big help.”
“Glad to oblige,” he answered on a rather dry note.
Looking up, she found him regarding her with what seemed part curiosity and part…vexation? Then he swung away from the desk and strolled to the table, idly studying the papers laid out there, some in plastic sleeves. Carefully turning one to a readable angle, he said, “What’s this?”
She went over to stand beside him. “A list of supplies for the old sawmill, with notes. Probably written by your great-great-grandfather.” Samuel Donovan had built his first mill on the banks of the nearby falls, using a water-wheel to power it. “You haven’t seen it before?”
Bryn shook his head. “I know who’s in the old photographs my father got framed and hung in the hallway, they have brass plaques, but I had no idea we’d have original documents in old Sam’s handwriting. It’s an odd feeling.” He studied the bold writing in faded ink. “Intimations of mortality.”
“There are letters, too.” Rachel pointed out a plastic envelope holding a paper browning at the edges and along deep, disintegrating creases where it had been folded. “This one is to his wife, before they were married.”
“‘Dearest one,’” Bryn read aloud, then looked up, slanting a grin at her. “A love letter?”
“It’s mostly about his plans to build her a house before their wedding. But he obviously loved her.”
His eyes skimmed the page, then he read aloud the last paragraph. “‘I am impatient for the day we settle in our own dear home. I hope it will meet with your sweet approval, my dearest. Most sincerely yours, with all my heart, Samuel.’”
Lifting his head, Bryn said, “Quite the sentimentalist, wasn’t he? You’d never have thought it from that rather dour portrait we have.”
“That was painted when he was middle-aged and successful and a pillar of the community.” The man in the portrait had curling mutton-chop whiskers and a forbidding expression. “When this was written—” she touched a finger to the letter “—he was a young man in love, looking forward to bringing home his bride.”
“Looks like he’s won your heart, too.” Bryn was amused.
“I think it’s rather touching,” Rachel admitted. Bryn would never write something like that, even if he were headlong in love. “There’s some wonderful stuff here for a historian. I can’t wait to read it all.”
He was studying her face, and said, “I remember you had much the same light in your eyes after your dad bought you a pony and you’d had your first-ever ride. You came bursting in at breakfast to tell us all about it.”
“And got told off for that,” she recalled. Her father had hauled her out of the big house with profuse apologies to his employers. It was then she became conscious of the social gap between the Donovans and her own family, although the Donovans had never emphasised it.
“Do you still ride?” Bryn asked.
“Not for years.”
“There’s a place not far from here where I keep a hack that I ride when I can. I’m sure they’d find a mount for you if you’re interested.”
“I’ll think about it. But I have a lot to do here.”
“Hey,” he said, raising a hand and brushing the back of it across her cheek, “you can’t work all the time. We hired a historian, not a slave.”
She tri ed not to show her reaction to his casual touch, the absurd little skip of her heart. Her smile was restrained. “I’m certainly not on slave wages. The pay is very generous.”
“My mother’s convinced you’re worth it.”
“I am,” she said calmly, lifting her chin. She would show him she was worth every cent before she finished this job.
His eyes laughed at her. “You haven’t lost your spark. I don’t doubt that, Rachel. I trust my mother’s judgement.”
“I had a feeling that you have definite reservations.”
“Nothing to do with your ability.”
“Then what…” she began, but was interrupted by his mother coming into the room, offering afternoon tea on the