‘Be my guest,’ he said gruffly, and turned away from her. ‘Ten minutes, Sophie, all right?’
‘All right,’ she piped, and, taking Beth’s hand, she led her into her room.
It was a lovely evening. Claire, the middle child, was quiet and watchful at first, but having established Beth was not a threat she opened up and was quite charming. Will was good fun, Beth decided, despite the shatteringly loud music, and Sophie—well, she had fallen in love with Sophie sitting on the hall floor and nothing had happened to change that. Gideon was a bit of an enigma, though, quiet and watchful like Claire but without opening up.
Maybe he never did. The children didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual in his behaviour, and he was perfectly polite. It was just that he was withdrawn, almost as if he regretted issuing the invitation, and when she said she ought to be going he leapt to his feet with alacrity.
‘I’ll walk you back,’ he said firmly, and so she said goodnight to the children, thanked William for cooking the meal and allowed Gideon to hustle her out of the door.
He didn’t really, it was just that she was being oversensitive—or perhaps just picking up accurately on something he had meant to keep to himself.
They walked back to the coach house with only the sound of gravel underfoot to break the silence, glad now of the outside lights that dispelled the shadows of the trees and drove the spooks away.
‘I’m sorry about the chaos when you arrived,’ he said finally as they arrived at her door.
She shot him a wry grin. ‘I should imagine it’s like that in most families in the evening,’ she replied, unaware of the slight wistfulness in her voice.
He tipped his head, watching her thoughtfully. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
She nearly laughed. ‘No,’ she told him instead. ‘Once was enough for my parents. I disrupted the even tenor of their peaceful academia quite sufficiently without them making a habit of it.’
‘You sound bitter.’
‘Do I? I’m sorry, I would have thought by now I’d got over that. I have, really. It’s just—well, tonight—you’re a very lucky man, Gideon. A very lucky man.’
His laugh was low and hollow. ‘It doesn’t always seem like that.’
‘When you’re mopping the bathroom floor, for instance?’
He snorted. ‘Exactly. Oh, well. Thank you for your help with Sophie, by the way. She can be a real treasure when she’s not arguing.’
‘I noticed.’
A silence fell between them, a silence heavy with awareness and tension. He reached behind her and opened the door, pushing it wide.
‘You’d better go in before you get cold,’ he muttered, his voice husky.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening.’
‘My pleasure. Goodnight.’ He turned and walked away, his footsteps crunching. She shut the door. Had he been about to kiss her?
She wouldn’t like to bet on it either way, but she rather thought…
Nonsense. She ran up the stairs, unable to resist looking out of the window towards the house. He was standing by the door and waved before turning to go in.
Waiting for her, to see if she would look at him?
God knows, she thought. She whipped the curtains shut. Involvement with another family man was the last thing she needed right now, even if he was widowed and his tiny daughter had felt so absolutely right in her achingly empty arms…
She spent the weekend moving things up from London and writing endless letters changing her address. The flat was rented, so she gathered all her meagre belongings and took them to Suffolk, storing them easily in the huge cupboards in the coach house flat.
At six o’clock, just as she realised she was starving and was wondering what she could find to eat, she heard footsteps on the gravel and her doorbell rang.
She went down to find William there, lounging casually against the wall, a lazy grin on his face.
‘Dad says would you like to join us for supper? He’s got something he wants to ask you about. He would have come but he’s had a bit of a crisis with the Yorkshire puds and Sophie’s spilt the gravy all over the table.’
She controlled the smile, but apparently not well enough.
‘I should get that out of your system here,’ Will told her with a grin. ‘He’s like Queen Victoria at the moment—definitely not amused.’
She laughed. ‘Poor Gideon. Yes, I’d love to join you—am I OK or should I change?’
Will ran an eye over her jeans and sweatshirt, and raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ll do fine. Dad’s probably changed, but then he had gravy down his front, so he didn’t have a choice.’
She ran back up for her keys, flicked off the lights and followed William back to the house. They went in through the back door this time, straight into the heart of the chaos.
It was a quieter sort of chaos this time, Beth realised, but still fairly hectic.
The vegetables were boiling over, and while William dealt with them Beth scooped Sophie off the worktop just as she tried to reach the top cupboard.
‘I want a biscuit!’ the indignant child yelled, but Beth was not impressed.
‘No. It’s supper-time, you’ll spoil your appetite. Let’s go and see if we can help Daddy.’
‘He doesn’t want to see me in there again until I’ve learned not to be a windmill,’ she told Beth dolefully.
She just managed to stop her lips from twitching. ‘Oh, dear. Never mind, you come with me and keep your hands down and you’ll be all right.’
She went out into the hall and found Claire sitting on the floor, the flex of the phone wound round her arm and hand, rolling her eyes. ‘Well, don’t do it, then! I can’t believe how you let them rule your life. Tell them no, you don’t want to practise—oh, Annie, what do you mean you can’t?’
Beth walked past her into the dining-room just as Gideon walked out yelling to Claire to put the damn phone down.
They both slammed to a halt, nose to nose, and Gideon ran his fingers through well-tousled hair and shot her a fraught grin. ‘Hi, Beth. Glad you could make it—I could do with a little sanity round here.’
She smiled back. ‘Anything I can do?’
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s as good as it’s going to get. Let’s eat and forget it.’
Together they brought the last of the food through and Beth watched as he deftly slivered the rare beef and piled it on the plates.
He might have had the odd crisis en route, but there was nothing wrong with the end product at all—if one discounted the absence of Yorkshire puddings and the small amount of gravy that had escaped Sophie’s wind-milling arms.
They all tucked in, and after it was finished and they had cleaned up a huge chocolate gâteau from the bakery in the village, Gideon sent Beth into the drawing-room while he put Sophie to bed and William and Claire cleared up the kitchen.
A few minutes later he reappeared, two mugs of coffee in his hands, and pushed the door shut behind him with his hip.
‘Peace,’ he said with a sigh, and dumping the coffee on the table, he dropped into the other end of the settee and smiled weakly. ‘Sorry it’s always so chaotic when you come round.’
‘It must be very difficult coping,’ she