Lydia forced a smile. ‘I think it was the house,’ she said at last, trying to put words on thoughts she couldn’t quite catch hold of. ‘You’ve never seen anything like it. She lives in a cottage that time’s all but forgotten. All alone in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Perhaps she likes solitude? Some people do.’
‘It’s not that…It’s…’ Lydia frowned. ‘The cottage smells of damp and cat urine…and then there are all these frozen meals for one in the freezer. It’s so incredibly…sad. There’s no other word for it—’ She broke off. ‘Oh, no!’
‘What?’
‘I’d forgotten about the cat.’ Lydia put down her wineglass. ‘She’s got a cat.’
‘It’s not your problem, Liddy.’
‘But who’s going to feed it?’
‘Probably the irritating Nick Regan. It really isn’t your problem,’ Izzy repeated, taking in her sister’s expression. ‘If not him, there’ll be a neighbour.’
‘You think?’
‘There’s bound to be.’
Lydia relaxed. Of course there was. Wendy Bennington went abroad for long stretches of time. There were bound to be structures in place to take care of her pet. Lydia picked up her knife and fork. ‘You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just…’
Izzy smiled. ‘You really like this Wendy Bennington, don’t you?’
‘I hardly know her.’ Lydia cut a bite-sized piece off her crab cake. ‘We’ve spoken on the phone half a dozen times, no more. I’d never met her face to face.’ Until today—when she’d been confused and frightened. Nothing like the woman she’d been expecting. The image of her slumped in her bedroom doorway hovered at the front of Lydia’s mind.
‘But you like her. I can tell you do.’
Lydia paused, fork halfway to her mouth. Did that explain it? She certainly admired Wendy. Had been flattered and very excited at the prospect of writing her biography.
Izzy seemed to follow her thoughts. ‘There’s no reason to think you won’t still write the biography. Give it a few days and see how serious her stroke was. You might be surprised.’
‘I might,’ she conceded.
‘Perhaps that Nick Regan will phone you.’
Lydia pulled a face. ‘I’d be surprised at that. He didn’t like me at all.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea.’ Lydia thought for a moment. ‘It didn’t help that he found me standing on a flat roof, trying to get into the cottage through an upstairs window, but—’ she looked up as Izzy gave a sudden spurt of laughter ‘—I don’t think it was that.’
‘I can’t think why. Most people would think it odd.’
Lydia shook her head, a reluctant twinkle in her eyes. ‘It probably didn’t help,’ she conceded, cutting another mouthful off her crab cake, ‘but he really didn’t like me. At all. You know, eyes across a crowded room, instantaneous dislike. No mistaking it.’
‘Is he handsome?’ Izzy sat back.
‘That’s irrelevant.’
‘It’s never irrelevant.’
Lydia ignored her.
‘Well, is he?’
‘No.’ Even without looking up she could feel Izzy smile. She put down her fork. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Which means he is.’
‘It does not!’
And then Izzy laughed again. ‘He is, though. I searched for his name on the Internet while you were having your shower. He’s gorgeous. A bit like…what’s the name of that actor in…Oh, stuff it, I can’t remember. Regency thing. You used to have him as your screensaver.’
‘The actor from Pride and Prejudice? Nick Regan looks nothing like him!’ Lydia protested.
‘Not exactly, but a bit. He’s got the same brooding, intense expression. At least, this Nick Regan does. He’s an inventor. I think.’ She waved her hand as though it didn’t matter in the slightest. ‘Basically, he is Drakes, if you get what I mean. He owns the company and came up with the idea of the electrical component in the first place. Worth millions.’
Lydia frowned. ‘He can’t be. That’s Nicolas…’ Regan-Phillips. She closed her eyes. Damn it! It couldn’t be.
Could it? And, if so, what had he got to do with Wendy Bennington?
‘I’ve bookmarked it for you to see.’
‘I’ll look later.’
Could Nick Regan be Nicolas Regan-Phillips? Izzy must have made a mistake. A multimillionaire corporate businessman and a human rights campaigner—what could possibly link the two together?
The cottage had been securely locked up. Lydia moved the terracotta pot with very little expectation of finding the key beneath it—but there it was.
She clutched the small tin of cat food and bent to pick up the key. If the almighty Nicolas Regan-Phillips had anticipated she might return to the cottage he might not have put it back there. So much for his apparently awesome ability to read character, but at least the cat wouldn’t starve.
The back door opened easily. Izzy had laughed at her for deciding on making the thirty minute detour, but it felt like the right thing to do. How could she return to London knowing she could have done something to help Wendy but had chosen not to? And this was little enough.
‘Cat,’ she called softly. She set her handbag on the stainless steel draining board. ‘Cat, where are you? Breakfast time.’
The bowl of leftover cat food on the floor looked revolting. Lydia picked it up with two fingers and carried it across to a plastic swing-bin. ‘Why do people keep pets?’ she mumbled softly to herself, turning back to the sink and giving the bowl a swill out. ‘This is disgusting.’
‘To keep them company?’
Lydia gave a startled cry and whipped round.
‘Because they love them?’ Nicolas Regan-Phillips said, leaning against the kitchen doorway, looking much more like the photograph Izzy had found than he had the day before. He wore a sharp and very conventional pinstripe suit. Power dressing at its most effective.
And he was handsome. Her sister’s words popped into her mind and she silently cursed her. The resemblance to her favorite actor was really very superficial, but it was there all the same.
‘I—I came to feed the cat.’ Lydia turned away and pulled back the loop on the tin, irritated at the slight nervous stutter. Where had that come from? And, more importantly, why?
‘So did I.’ He placed a brown paper bag down on the draining board.
‘I hope you don’t mind that I—’ She stopped herself, swinging round to look up at him as a new thought occurred to her. ‘How did you get in?’
He held up a key. ‘Front door.’
‘Oh.’ Lydia cursed herself for the inanity of her reply. Of course he would have Wendy’s key. He would have needed it to lock up the cottage. What was the matter with her?
She carefully scooped out the contents of the tin with a spoon, aware that Nick continued to watch her. He made her feel uncomfortable, as though, perhaps, she’d been caught out doing something he considered wrong rather than the good deed she’d intended. ‘I suddenly remembered I’d seen a cat. I couldn’t leave it to starve,’ she said, glancing up.
He really did have