‘In your own time,’ he encouraged.
Faced with a pair of sharp blue eyes that suggested Richard Mallory would not be so easy to flannel as a ‘daily’ with dalliance on her mind, that seemed a very attractive idea. Right now, however, she had a more pressing problem and she trawled her brain in a desperate attempt to come up with a story that was just a little less…ridiculous.
Her brain had, apparently, taken the day off.
But then why else would she be here?
Please, please, she prayed, let the floor open up and swallow me now. The floor refused to oblige.
She was out of time and stuck with the excuse she’d prepared earlier.
‘I was looking for my hamster,’ she said.
‘Excuse me?’ He laughed. ‘Did you say your hamster?’
Faced with his amusement she felt a certain irritation. A need to defend her story. It wasn’t that ridiculous.
Okay, so maybe it was. A kitten would have been cuter, but the cleaner would have known she didn’t have a kitten. Nothing uncaged was allowed within the portals of Chandler’s Reach.
‘He escaped,’ she said. ‘He made a break for it through the hedge and headed straight for your French windows.’ And when this didn’t elicit polite concern…‘It took me longer to get through it. He’s smaller,’ she elaborated when Mallory remained silent. ‘He was able to scoot underneath.’ Then, in desperation, ‘It’s really scratchy…’
She could not believe she was saying this. Richard Mallory’s expression suggested he was having problems with it too, but was making a manful effort not to laugh out loud.
In an attempt to distract him, she took a step closer and extended her hand.
‘We haven’t met, Mr Mallory, but we’re temporarily neighbours. I’m Iphegenia Lautour.’ Only the most truthful person in the entire world would own up to a name like that voluntarily, right? ‘I’m looking after Sir William and Lady McBride’s apartment. For the summer. Next door,’ she added, in case he didn’t know his neighbours. ‘While they’re away. Flat-sitting. You know—dusting the whatnot, watering the houseplants. Feeding the goldfish,’ she added. Then, as if there was nothing at all out of the ordinary in the situation, she said, ‘How d’you do?’
‘I think—’ he said, looking slightly nonplussed as he took her hand, gripping it firmly for a moment, holding it for longer than was quite necessary ‘—that I need notice of that question.’
He sat up, leaned forward and raked his hands through his hair, as if somehow he could straighten out his thoughts along with his unruly curls.
It did nothing for the curls, but the sight of his naked shoulders, a chest spattered with exactly the right amount of dark hair, left her with an urgent need to swallow.
He dragged his hands down over his face. ‘Along with coffee, orange juice and a shower. In no particular order of preference. I’ve had a hard night.’
Ginny didn’t doubt it. She’d seen the evidence for herself…
She gave a little squeak as he flung back the covers and swung his feet to the floor. Backed hurriedly away. Knocked the lamp, grabbed to stop it from falling and only made things worse, flinched as it hit the carpet.
Mallory stood up, reached down and set it back on the table, giving her plenty of time to see that he wasn’t, after all, totally naked but wearing a pair of soft grey shorts.
Naked enough. They clung to his hips by the skin of their teeth, exposing a firm flat belly and leaving little else to the imagination.
It was definitely time to get out of there.
‘I’m disturbing you,’ she said, groping behind her for the door handle but succeeding only in pushing the door shut. With her on the wrong side.
‘You could say that,’ he agreed, picking up the remote and using it to draw back the curtains so that daylight flooded into the room.
‘Neat trick,’ she said. ‘Is that how you turned on the light?’ It was a mistake to draw attention to herself because he turned those searching blue eyes on her.
One of them was definitely disturbed.
‘I’m really sorry—’
‘Don’t be,’ he said, cutting off her apology. ‘I’d have slept all day if you hadn’t woken me. Iphegenia?’ he prompted, with a frown. ‘What kind of name is that?’
‘The kind that no one can spell?’ she offered. Then, ‘My mother’s a classical scholar,’ she added—at least she was, when she could spare the time—as if that explained everything. He looked blank. ‘Iphegenia was the daughter of King Agamemnon. He sacrificed her to the gods in return for a fair wind to Troy. So that he could grab back his runaway sister-in-law. Helen.’
‘Helen?’ he repeated. If not dumb, definitely founded…
‘Of Troy.’
‘Oh, right, “…the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium”?’
‘That’s the one,’ she said. Then, ‘He got murdered by his wife for his trouble. But you probably knew that.’ There was more, a lot more, but years of explaining her unusual name had taught her that was about as much as anyone wanted to know. ‘Homer was writing about the dysfunctional family nearly three thousand years ago,’ she offered.
‘Yes.’ He looked, for a moment, as if he might pursue her mother’s choice of name… Then, thinking better of it, said, ‘Tell me about your wandering hamster. What’s his name? Odysseus?’
Irony. He’d just woken up and he could quote Christopher Marlowe, recall the names of mythical heroes and do irony. Impressive.
But then he was a genius.
‘Good try, but a bit of a mouthful for a hamster, don’t you think?’ she asked, keeping her mouth busy while her mind did some fast footwork.
‘I’d say Iphegenia is a bit of a mouthful for a girl,’ he said, as if he knew she was simply playing for time. ‘The kind of name that suggests your mother was not feeling particularly warm towards your father when she gave it to you. If I gave it any serious thought.’
He wasn’t even close.
‘So what is this runaway rodent called?’ he asked when she made no comment, pushing her for an answer.
‘Hector,’ she said.
‘Hector? Not Harry—as in Houdini?’
No, Hector. As in heroic Trojan warrior prince slain by Achilles. Classical scholarship ran in the family but she thought she’d probably said more than enough on that subject.
‘Harry who?’ she asked innocently.
His eyes narrowed and for a moment she was afraid she’d gone too far. ‘Never mind,’ he said, letting it go. ‘He must be quite a mover if you chased him up here. Didn’t the stairs slow him down?’
She hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t thought, full stop. Certainly hadn’t even considered the possibility that Richard Mallory would be at home in bed recovering from a hot date instead of where he was supposed to be, in deepest Gloucestershire.
Thank you, Sophie…
She supposed she should be grateful that the woman with the black silk stockings wasn’t under the duvet with him. Although she would at least have offered a distraction.
Ginny attempted to recall exactly how large hamsters were. Four or five inches, perhaps, at full stretch? And she realised she was so deep in trouble that the only possibility of escape was to keep on digging in the hope of eventually tunnelling