Through the polar whiteness of his cotton shirt she could actually see the dark shadow of his body hair. A small shudder ran through her, heat zigzagging through her body like lightning, searing along her cheekbones. She could feel her face burning with mortification as he looked at her.
There had been a time in her life when the sight of a bare male chest covered in body hair had been enough to make her want to curl up and die with embarrassed, shocked awareness of such sexuality—and her own reaction to it. But that had been a long time ago and she had got over it… Just as she had got over…other things.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘N-n-n-nothing,’ Courage lied. ‘I—’
‘Don’t you want to know whether or not you have got the job?’
He was playing with her, taunting her. Angry sparks flashed in Courage’s eyes.
‘You said yourself that I was over-qualified for it.’
‘Which means that I’d be a fool not to snap you up, doesn’t it? When can you start?’
As she fought to control the jumble of confused thoughts and emotions stampeding wildly through her, Courage was still aware of her apparent new employer’s watchful scrutiny of her. It was as though he was looking for some kind of specific reaction, the angle of his head, his jawline as he studied her… The angle of his head?
She frowned, desperately trying to catch hold of the tail-end of the vague wisp of dark memory which still eluded her. It was no use, it was gone. But she had the job, and that was what she ought to be concentrating on right now, not some uncomfortable feeling that there was something somehow familiar to her about her new boss.
Familiar but not familiar-pleasant, or even familiar-indifferent, she acknowledged half an hour later as she drove home in her grandmother’s ancient Morris. No, the kind of familiarity which had stirred so elusively through her was the kind that carried with it un-comfortable feelings of fear and anxiety.
Frowning, Courage changed gear for a sharp bend. There was no point in worrying about it. Wherever it was she had seen him before it would come back to her sooner or later. And, after all, she didn’t have to like the man; she simply had to work for him.
Ideally, he might not be her choice of employer, but that was hardly important; what was important was being able to be close to her grandmother. She was only sixty-seven—not old at all, really—and if Courage could just persuade her to take things more easily until she could have the operation…
The salary Gideon Reynolds had offered her had been astonishingly generous, far more than she had been earning—when he had mentioned the figure he would be paying her her mouth had dropped slightly.
‘What’s wrong?’ he had asked her. ‘Isn’t it as much as you already earn?’
‘It’s more,’ Courage had told him honestly—and had caught the quickly suppressed flicker of surprise in his own eyes. ‘It seems a lot to pay someone for the amount of work involved.’
‘A good workman is always worthy of his hire,’ Gideon had responded smoothly. ‘And I promise you won’t find that the job is any sinecure.’
‘I shouldn’t want to,’ Courage had countered promptly.
What was it about the man that made her feel as though he was constantly challenging her, constantly probing…? Constantly testing her, almost…
As she turned off the main road and into the lane which led to her grandmother’s cottage her frown deepened. Why had Gideon Reynolds been so surprised by her honesty? Surely he wouldn’t have employed her if he had felt that he couldn’t trust her?
Stop worrying about him, she advised herself mentally, and start worrying instead about what Gran’s going to say when she hears your news.
‘YOU’VE done what? But why? You’ve always said how much you love your job… The travel, meeting different people, the—’
‘Yes, I know, Gran, but things have changed,’ Courage told her, frowning as she saw the small set of step-ladders standing next to the large old-fashioned dresser which dominated one wall of her grandmother’s kitchen.
‘What are those doing there?’ she demanded accusingly.
‘What does it look like? It’s time that dresser had a good clean. The awful weather stopped me getting on with my usual spring cleaning, and it’s high time I got down to it…’
‘Gran, you haven’t been climbing those steps? You know what the specialist said,’ Courage scolded her worriedly.
‘Yes, I know,’ her grandmother agreed grimly. ‘But if you think I’m going to spend the rest of my days being wrapped in cotton wool and treated like a semi-invalid… I’ve got a minor heart condition, that’s all…’
If only that were the case.
‘And if you think I’m going to let you give up your job because of me…’
‘I’m not,’ Courage was quick to reassure her, mentally crossing her fingers as she added untruthfully, ‘The hotel trade has been hit very badly by the recession, Gran. I didn’t want to say anything before and worry you but… Well, there’s been a lot of talk about enforced redundancies…’
‘Is that why you got that part-time job at the supermarket?’ her grandmother questioned her.
‘Yes,’ Courage told her. Originally she had told her grandmother that her three-month stay with her would be too much for both of them if they spent every second in one another’s company, and that her part-time job would give them both a bit of space.
‘This new job will give me a chance to broaden my experience. I’ll be in full charge of the organisation of the household for all his social and business events. Apparently, one of the reasons he bought the estate was to use it for business purposes; his Japanese customers in particular enjoy that kind of thing.’
‘What is his business, exactly?’ her grandmother asked her.
‘His company designs parks and gardens on a large scale rather than a small one. You know the kind of thing—municipal open spaces, hotel grounds, atriums. He does a lot of business in the Middle East—especially Kuwait. Apparently he’s an expert in “greening” arid areas, and his assistant was telling me that he’s been consulted by the authorities in Australia and California following the fires they’ve had there. He has an office in London but apparently he’s presently in the process of moving everything down here.’
‘Mmm… Well, from what I’ve heard he’s an extremely shrewd businessman, and very single-minded when it comes to getting what he wants. When does he want you to start work?’
‘Next Monday. I’ve got an appointment with him on Friday afternoon to sign my contract of employment and go over the way he wants me to work. Apparently he’s flying out to New York on Monday morning, so he won’t be there, and he won’t be back until later in the week.’
‘Mmm… Well, if you’re sure it’s what you want…’
‘I’m sure,’ Courage told her firmly.
It was just as well she had left herself plenty of extra time to make the appointment, Courage acknowledged wryly, as the Morris had stubbornly refused to start. She had had to ring for a taxi and then book the Morris into the garage for a service. It was just as well that a car was one of the perks of her new job.
She noticed that Chris Elliott’s smile was only slightly warmer as the PA opened the front door to her.
‘He’s in the study