The man did not smile, nor did he invite her into his car, exactly. What he did say, was, ‘Had enough?’
Mallon supposed that, with her blonde hair plastered darkly to her head, her dress clinging past saturation to her body and legs, she must look not dissimilar to the proverbial drowned rat.
She gave a shaky sigh. It looked as though she had two choices. Tell him to clear off, when heaven alone knew when another car would come along, or get into that car with him. He looked all right—but that didn’t mean a thing.
‘Are you offering?’ she questioned jerkily.
His answer was to turn from her and to lean and open the passenger door. Then, as cool as you please, he pressed a button and the driver’s window began to close.
Feeling more like creeping into some dark corner and having a jolly good howl, Mallon hesitated for only a moment or two longer. She still felt wary, but she also felt defeated.
She crossed in front of the vehicle and got in beside the stranger. When he stretched out his hand nearest her she jumped nervously. The man gave her a sharp glance, her wariness of him not missed, she gathered. Then he completed his intention of turning on the heater and directing the warmth on to her.
Instinctively she wanted to say she was sorry—but for what? She roused herself—all men were pigs; he would be no exception, and she would be a fool to think otherwise.
They had driven about half a mile when he asked, ‘Where are you going?’
The car had a good heater and she supposed she could have thanked him for his thoughtfulness. But she didn’t want to get into conversation with him. ‘Nowhere,’ she answered tiredly.
He gave a small snort of exasperation. ‘Let me put it another way. Where would you like me to drop you?’
He was exasperated? Tough! ‘Anywhere,’ she replied. She hadn’t a clue where she was going, where she was, even—none of the area was familiar territory.
He turned his head, grey eyes raking her. ‘Where have you come from?’ he questioned tersely.
She was feeling warmer than she had been, and while she was still wary, she felt a shade more relaxed. To her ears this man was sounding a touch fed up because he had bothered to act as any decent human being would to a fellow person and had bothered to pick her up at all. But she had a feeling that if she didn’t soon answer he would open the door and tip her out. It was warm in the car. Somehow she felt too beaten to want to squelch out in the rain again.
‘Almora Lodge,’ she said. ‘I’ve come from Almora Lodge.’
She wondered if he knew where Almora Lodge was, but realised he probably did when he asked, ‘Do you want me to take you back there?’
‘No, I don’t!’ she answered sharply, tartly. She drew a very shaky breath, and was a degree more in control when she added. ‘No, thank you. I don’t want to go back there—ever.’
Again she felt grey eyes on her, but was suddenly too tired and too emotionally exhausted to care. He said nothing, however, but motored on for a couple of miles, and then started to slow the car down.
Alarm rocketed through her. Apart from a large derelict-looking building to the right, which stood in what looked like the middle of a field, there seemed to be no other dwelling for miles.
He slowed the car right down and steered it to what appeared to be the only respectable part of the derelict property—mainly the stone pillars either side of a gateless entrance that declared ‘Harcourt House’.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she cried fearfully, her imagination working overtime. She could lie buried for years in the rubble hereabouts, or in one of those about-to-fall-down-looking outbuildings, and no one would be any the wiser!
In sharp contrast to her panicking tones, however, his tone was calm and even—if a shade irritated. ‘Like Sinbad, I appear to be lumbered,’ he answered, which—recalling the tale of the old man of the sea who refused to get off Sinbad’s back—she didn’t think was very complimentary. ‘You don’t know where you want to go, and I’m not in the mood to play guessing games. I’m stopping off here to pick up some of my gear and…
‘You live here!’ she exclaimed in disbelief.
‘I live in London. I’m having this place rebuilt,’ he said heavily, going on, ‘I hadn’t intended to come down this weekend, but with this rain forecast I came down last night to check if a bad part of the roof had been made sound.’ That, it appeared, was all the explanation he had any intention of making. Because he was soon going on, ‘I’ve a couple of things to do inside that may take some while—you can either stay in the car incubating pneumonia until I can drop you off at the first shelter for homeless persons I come to, or you can come inside and dry off what’s left of your frock while you wait for me in a heated kitchen.’ So saying, he drove round to the rear of the house and braked.
Mallon stared at him for several stunned seconds, the homeless persons bit passing her by as her glance went from him and down over her dress.
With horrified eyes she saw that her dress was torn in several places. The worst tear was where the material had been ripped away in her struggle, and her bra, now transparent from her soaking, was clearly revealing the fullness of her left breast—the pink tip just as clearly on view.
‘Oh!’ she cried chokily, her cheeks flushing red, tears of humiliation not far away.
‘Don’t you dare cry on me!’ he threatened bracingly, about the best tone he could have used in the circumstances, she realised. ‘Come on, let’s get you inside,’ he said authoritatively and, taking charge, was out of the car and coming round to open the passenger door.
She did not immediately get out of the car. She’d had one tremendous fright—she was not going to trust again in a hurry. Thankfully the rain had, for the moment, abated. The stranger was tall and he bent down to look at her as stubbornly, a hand hiding her left breast, she stayed where she was, refusing to budge.
‘You won’t…?’ she questioned, and discovered she had no need to complete the sentence.
Steady grey eyes stared back at her and every bit as though she had asked, did he fancy her enough to try and take advantage? his glance skimmed over the wreck she knew she must look, and ‘Not in a million years,’ he said succinctly. Which, while not being in the least flattering, was the most reassuring answer he could have given her.
He left her to trail after him when she was ready, opening up the rear door and entering what she could now see was a property that was in the process of undergoing major rebuilding.
Mallon stepped from the car and, careful where she walked, picked her way over builders’ paraphernalia. The rear hall was dark and littered with various lengths of new timber. It was a dull afternoon. Up ahead of her an electric light had been switched on. From this she knew that, electricians having been at work, Harcourt House was no longer as derelict as it had once been and, if the front of the house was anything to go by, it appeared still to be.
Holding her dress to her, she followed the light and found the grey-eyed man in the act of switching on an electric kettle in what, to her amazement, was a superbly fitted-out kitchen.
‘Your wife obviously has her priorities sorted out,’ Mallon commented, hovering uncertainly in the doorway.
‘My sister,’ he replied, opening one of the many drawers and placing a couple of kitchen hand towels on a table near Mallon. ‘I’m not married,’ he added. ‘According to Faye…’ he paused as if expecting the name might be familiar to her—it wasn’t— ‘…the heart of the home is the kitchen. With small input from me, I left her to arrange what she tells me is essential.’
As he spoke, so Mallon began to feel fractionally more at ease with the man, though whether this was his intention she