While she was still trying to come to terms with what had happened he stepped past her to examine her wallpapering, commenting almost brusquely, ‘You know, these ladders aren’t really safe. Some lightweight aluminium ones would be far better. Think what could have happened if you had fallen and I hadn’t been here to catch you.’
If he hadn’t been there she wouldn’t have fallen off the ladders in the first place, Melanie told herself sturdily. Now that he wasn’t touching her any more she was rapidly returning to sanity, to the awareness that he was a stranger who had invaded the privacy of her home, uninvited, and that, for all that her feminine awareness of him urged her to think differently, he could be dangerous.
‘Umm…’ he added, moving closer to the wall on which she was working. ‘It looks to me as though you could do with a plumb-line!’
‘A plumb-line?’ She stared at him.
‘Mm. If you’ve got a piece of string and some chalk I’ll show you what I mean.’
He turned round then and smiled at her, a warm gentle smile that made her heart turn over.
‘I am sorry,’ he apologised. ‘You must be wondering who on earth I am and what I’m doing barging in on you like this. I’ve just moved into the cottage at the bottom of the lane, only to discover that none of the services seem to have been switched on. I was hoping I could use your phone to make a couple of calls. My name’s Luke, by the way.’
‘Luke,’ Melanie repeated, automatically reaching out to shake the hand he had extended to her.
His grip was firm without being painful, the palm of his hand slightly callused as though he worked outside, and yet, for all the casualness of his jeans and shirt, there was an air about him which suggested that he was a man used more to giving orders than following them. But then, what did she know about men? Melanie derided herself a little forlornly.
‘Luke?’ she queried a little more firmly, determined to let him know that she wasn’t a complete fool.
‘Luke Chalmers,’ he told her easily, adding softly, ‘I hope you aren’t too angry with me for taking advantage of the opportunity that fate so generously gave me.’
Angry! Her heart skipped a beat. Anger wasn’t exactly how she would describe her confused and chaotic emotions, but from somewhere she found the presence of mind to respond drily, ‘Do you make a habit of going round demanding forfeits from women you don’t know?’
‘Only when they’re as beautiful and tempting as you,’ he told her gravely. ‘And that, fortunately, is very rare. So rare in fact that I’ve never known it to happen before.’
Her heart was thumping frantically again. She felt as though she was suddenly caught up in a new game—a game that was both wildly exciting and frighteningly dangerous.
‘You wanted to use the phone,’ she reminded him breathlessly. ‘It’s downstairs. I’ll show you.’
As she walked past him he caught hold of her arm, his fingers sliding almost caressingly over the softness of its inner flesh so that she quivered. His fingers encircled her wrist, holding her in bondage while his free hand moved up to her face.
He wasn’t going to kiss her again was he? He wasn’t going to repeat that mind-blowing, devastating caress? No, he wasn’t, it seemed. He reached out and removed something from her face, causing her to gasp a little as she felt a sharp sting of pain. She looked at him in surprise as he held a small snippet of her wallpaper between his fingers.
‘I believe that in the eighteenth century ladies used to stick false beauty-spots to their faces in order to draw attention to their eyes and mouth, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen wallpaper being used for the same purpose.
‘What a pity it was so close to your cheekbone and not your mouth,’ he added sultrily, ‘otherwise I might have been tempted to demand another forfeit.’
Melanie thought of all the sensible and authoritative things she ought to have said in response to this outrageous piece of male flirtation, but oddly all she could do was to gaze mutely at him, while inside she prayed desperately that he wouldn’t read into her silence the compliant eagerness of her body that he should adopt just such a course.
What on earth was happening to her? After Paul she had surely learned her lesson; had surely realised that it was idiotic to trust men so quickly, that it was dangerous to continue to believe in her childhood dreams and fantasies of finding love and living happily ever after.
‘The phone,’ she reminded him weakly. ‘It’s downstairs.’
‘Ah, yes, the phone,’ he agreed gravely. So gravely that she half suspected that he might be laughing at her. The thought made her face sting with embarrassed colour. Well, if he was she surely deserved it, allowing him to take advantage of her like that…allowing him to kiss her…to…to what?
Her bruised heart ached in panicky reaction to her susceptibility to him, reminding her of her vulnerability…reminding her of the close escape she had had from Paul’s deceit.
The telephone was in the sitting-room. She escorted him to it and then left him alone, retreating to the kitchen. When he rejoined her she would show him by her dignified silence, by her cool remoteness that whatever might have happened upstairs she was not the kind of woman to be easily influenced by his outrageous brand of flattery and flirtation.
He was a man who was obviously well versed in the ways of her sex, in its vanities and vulnerabilities, and it would be as well to ensure that he was aware right from the start that, close neighbours though they might be, she was simply not interested in the kind of flirtatious, meaningless affair in which he no doubt specialised and that he might just as well save his flattery and his kisses for someone more appreciative of them.
However, when he did eventually return he was looking so grave that she felt compelled to ask him anxiously, ‘Is something wrong?’
‘In a sense.’ There was no flirtatiousness in his manner now. ‘It seems that it’s going to be some weeks before the telephone people can put in a phone. Luckily the electricity supply should be on within the next couple of days. Unfortunately, however, my work does mean that I need a telephone.’
‘Your work?’
‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘I’m a private detective.’
Melanie stared at him. ‘A…a what?’
‘A private detective,’ he repeated casually. ‘I’m working on a case in this area. Naturally I can’t disclose any details. I rented the cottage, thinking it would give me a good base from which to work. It’s secluded enough to ensure that I don’t get too many people wanting to know what I’m doing here. That’s the trouble with country areas—people are curious about their neighbours in a way they aren’t in the city.’
‘Yes, they are, aren’t they?’ Melanie agreed. She too had discovered that, and it had thrown her a little at first, until she had sensibly realised that behind their curiosity was a very warm neighbourly concern for her well-being.
‘You’re not local, then?’ he asked her almost in surprise.
‘Well, no…actually I’m not.’
He paused as though inviting her to go on, and when she did not said softly, ‘Then it seems that we have something in common. Two strangers in a foreign land.’
For some reason his words conjured up a warmth within her, a sense of shared intimacy with him that made her react against it, to say primly, ‘I should hardly consider Cheshire a foreign land—’
‘You think not? The countryside is always a foreign land to a city dweller,’ he told her with a grin, adding, before she could respond, ‘Look, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’d better go.’