British Bachelors: Tempting & New: Seduction Never Lies / Holiday with a Stranger / Anything but Vanilla.... Liz Fielding

      He shrugged. ‘I suspect the alcohol content. And, as I said, I have to drive.’

      ‘To Barkland Grange?’

      ‘No, I’m spending tonight in London. After that—elsewhere.’

      Returning, she thought, to a life she could only guess at, and which, for so many reasons, it hurt her to contemplate. The sweet richness of the peaches suddenly tasted sour.

      She got to her feet saying briskly, ‘Then you’ll want to get on the road.’

      ‘Later,’ he said. ‘After I’ve taken you home.’

      ‘Oh, no.’ She heard the alarm in her voice, saw his brows lift, and temporised. ‘I mean—the walk will do me good. And I have things to do here before I leave.’

      ‘Such as?’

      She said feebly, ‘I left a window open upstairs.’

      ‘Then go and close it while I pack up.’ He saw her hesitate and added quite gently, ‘Boss’s orders, Octavia.’

      In the master bedroom, she went to the window and stood for a moment, trying to control the renewed tumult of her pulses.

      Because something had changed between them down in that candlelit room. Something she could neither explain nor dismiss, but which terrified her. Because for a moment she had found herself wanting to say the unbelievable—the unutterable ‘Don’t leave me.’ Or, even worse, ‘Take me with you.’

      When perhaps what she really meant was ‘Take me...’

      What’s happening to me? she wondered, drawing a quivering breath. I must be going crazy.

      She closed the window, securing the catch and stood for a moment staring at her reflection, his grey jacket rendering her ghostlike in the glass. She moved her shoulders under the fabric slowly, almost yearningly, as if trying to catch some trace of him, a fragment of memory to treasure, before reaching down for a sleeve and lifting it to her face.

      For ten heartbeats, she held it to her cheek, before brushing it softly across her lips.

      Then she slipped off the jacket, and draping it decorously over her arm, she went downstairs, where Jago would be waiting to drive her back to the Vicarage and safety.

      It was a silent journey and Tavy was thankful for it. Because she knew she did not trust herself to speak.

      I’m tired, she insisted silently. That’s why I feel so confused and stupid. Tomorrow I’ll be back on track. Become myself again instead of this creature I do not—dare not—recognise.

      Jago drove up to the Vicarage’s front door and looked up at the dark house.

      ‘Your father doesn’t seem to be back yet. Shall I come in with you? Make sure everything’s all right?’

      ‘There’s really no need,’ she said quickly, fumbling for the handle on the passenger door. ‘What could possibly happen in Hazelton Magna?’

      ‘You tell me,’ he drawled. ‘It was you about to call the emergency services earlier.’

      She said defensively, ‘Ladysmere’s a big house. Someone might think there was stuff worth stealing.’ She paused, adding stiltedly, ‘Goodnight—and thank you very much for the meal.’

      Pure schoolgirl, she thought, vexed and was not surprised to hear faint amusement in his voice as he replied, ‘It was my pleasure.’

      And my pain, she thought, her nails digging into the palms of her clenched hands as she stood alone in the darkened house, listening to the Jeep driving away. But didn’t people say pleasure and pain were two sides of the same coin?

      And realised suddenly how much she would have given never to know that.

      * * *

      The first thing she saw when she arrived at the house next morning was the erstwhile picnic rug draped over the back of her chair. Biting her lip, she folded it carefully and put it at the back of a shelf, out of her line of vision. Start, she thought, as you mean to go on.

      She went to the kitchen, filled the kettle and put it to boil, then put water in the small glass vase she’d brought from the Vicarage, before taking a pair of scissors from her bag and going into the garden.

      ‘Lovely day,’ said Ted Jackson, appearing from nowhere. ‘Another heatwave coming, they reckon.’

      ‘Well, we can always hope,’ Tavy returned, making for a bed of early roses in an array of colours from soft blush to crimson, and snipping a few buds.

      ‘Cheering the old place up, even when there’s no furniture?’

      In spite of herself, Tavy found she was glancing up at the first floor windows. ‘Not all the rooms are empty,’ she said.

      ‘Upstairs, maybe.’ He paused. ‘You were working late last night?’

      ‘Well, yes.’

      He nodded. ‘Jim forgot his tea flask and when he came back for it, he saw lights.’ His smile was almost cherubic. ‘He wondered, but I told him it must be that.’