As she had expected, there had been no telephone call from Merlin in response to her letter, and so she had made her own arrangements to drive down to see him, at the same time hoping she wouldn’t have to book into a local hotel for the night; what she really hoped was that she wouldn’t be physically ejected from his home, as Stephen had been two days ago.
‘Watch out for the two large German shepherd dogs when you get to the gates,’ had been Stephen’s final warning when she had left the house this morning.
She could see now exactly what he meant by ‘large’!
They must be two of the biggest of their breed Arabella had ever seen, with almost identical black and brown coats which seemed to imply some sort of relationship between them. But it wasn’t their size, or their loud barks, that kept her firmly enclosed inside her car. It was the fact that they weren’t behind the tall gates at all, but leaping up and down outside her car window, the two gates at the entrance of the house having been left open, and so allowing the two dogs their freedom.
Obviously Merlin had been expecting her, she decided ruefully as she watched the two huge beasts slavering on the other side of her car door.
They didn’t give any indication of stopping their cacophony of noise. Or of going away. She had a feeling that if she tried to back out onto the road the dogs would follow her, possibly go under the wheels of her car. And, much as she found their behaviour irritating, she didn’t want to injure either of them. To drive down the driveway would probably produce the same reaction. Or worse! Which left her with a dilemma: what should she do now?
She had seen a film once in which the leading character had confronted some dogs on their own territory and thereby succeeded in totally disarming them, throwing them into confusion. After all, dogs of this size would be more used to people running away from them than going towards them. It had worked in the film, anyway...!
But this was real life, and both dogs looked to have large teeth and wide jaws, the former, she would imagine, able to do great damage to soft human skin in a matter of seconds. But, by the same token, she couldn’t sit here all day just looking at the beasts, and they certainly didn’t look as if they were tiring of the game!
Taking a deep breath, she took the bull by the horns—or rather, she challenged the two dogs. She didn’t get out of the car slowly or apprehensively but simply thrust open the door, and two seconds later she was standing on the gravelled driveway confronting the animals.
If the situation hadn’t been so fraught with tension, the look on their faces might have been laughable; the two huge beasts dropped back several feet in surprise, although their barking continued intermittently. But, as Arabella continued to stare at them, even that died down, and after several minutes they viewed her with what she could only describe as puzzlement. If dogs could look surprised! These two certainly did.
‘Where’s all the noise gone now, then?’ She spoke to them derisively, although inwardly she was mightily relieved still to be in one piece. ‘Now, are you going to take me to your master, or do I have to find him myself?’
The dogs continued to look at her quizzically, obviously wondering what she was saying, but seeming to accept, for the moment, that she spoke with a certain amount of authority. Although quite what she should do next she wasn’t sure. Would the dogs continue to keep their distance if she made an attempt to walk down the driveway? After all, at the moment she wasn’t quite inside the property; maybe the two of them would decide to become protective again if she took a step in the direction of the house?
Well, she could hardly stand here all day hoping someone would come along and rescue her, or that the dogs wouldn’t attack. In the circumstances she decided to risk it. The worst they could do was tear her limb from limb.
What a cheery little thought!
She began to walk, the dogs trotting along behind her down the driveway, seeming confused after her audacity in daring to challenge their authority. Which was what she had hoped for.
It was a longer walk than she had thought, though, and as she finally approached the house the two dogs were walking one at either side of her, like escorts, although, to give them their due, they hadn’t made any threatening moves.
Arabella could hear the sound of male voices as she neared the house, which became even louder as she turned the last corner.
She came to a gasping halt as she rounded that last bend and saw the house, not impressed by the building itself, but by the two men in the garden outside. Merlin was exactly as she had always imagined him, seated on a low veranda overlooking the garden: a wizened old man well into his sixties, his hair long and grey, skin weathered brown by the many seasons he had seen in his lifetime. Although she had omitted his raggedy beard in her imaginings, a beard as grey and unkempt as his hair.
But it wasn’t Merlin who made her gasp, it was the younger man working in the garden below hint—a tall man with over-long blond hair, the muscles of his shirtless golden-brown torso rippling as he struggled with the roots of a tree stump that seemed to be proving stubborn. His only clothing, as far as she could see, was a pair of faded denims that rested low down on his hips.
As he became aware of her presence in the driveway he slowly straightened, looking at her with a pair of the deepest blue eyes Arabella had ever seen in her life, and she found herself face to face with the man she was already half in love with. A man straight out of the pages of Merlin’s books. Obviously not a complete figment of his imagination, either.
Robert Palfrey was Merlin’s gardener!
CHAPTER TWO
‘PALFREY’ recovered from the unexpected encounter a lot quicker than Arabella did, his eyes narrowing questioningly as he looked at her warily. Well, it wasn’t surprising he had got over his amazement quicker than her, he hadn’t just been confronted with a live, flesh-and-blood hero—more flesh than blood!
Arabella had been instrumental in commissioning the illustrations for the covers of the Palfrey books—and if she had met this man beforehand, and given the illustrator a description of him, she couldn’t have been more accurate. He—
‘Who the hell are you?’ he suddenly rasped, the harshness of his voice bringing her out of her dazed stupor.
Although not enough to actually be able to answer him, as she was still tongue-tied by all this glistening male beauty. He was beautiful, completely secure in his own maleness. And so he should be. He—
‘Daisy, May—heel!’ he instructed the dogs tersely, and the two animals trotted obediently over to sit at his feet, salivating for a different reason now as they gazed up at him, adoringly.
Arabella knew how they felt; she could cheerfully have sat at his feet and done the same thing herself. He was real! Robert Palfrey, alive, and standing just feet away from her.
‘I asked you a question,’ he rasped again. Those deep blue eyes narrowed flintily as he stood almost protectively in front of the house and its occupants.
‘Daisy and May?’ Arabella mused, aware that she still wasn’t answering his question as to who she was. But she found the names of the dogs so incongruous for two such fierce-looking creatures. They were obviously guard dogs, and yet it was doubtful that calling them Daisy and May would put the fear of God into anybody. Stephen would be mortified when she told him he had run away from Daisy and May!
‘Palfrey’s’ mouth tightened at her slightly mocking tone. ‘Don’t be fooled by the names,’ he bit out sharply. ‘They guard what they’re meant to guard!’
Merlin! Arabella realised, her mind suddenly returning to exactly why she was here. Coming face to face with this man had just thrown her totally.
‘I’m sure