At His Service: Cinderella Housekeeper: Housekeeper's Happy-Ever-After / His Housekeeper Bride / What's a Housekeeper To Do?

There was nothing he could say. Nothing he could do but let her talk.

‘The police said it was joyriders. They’d been daring each other to go faster and faster … There was a head-on collision at a sharp bend on a country lane. Nobody could stop in time—the road was too wet.’

How awful. Such a tragedy. He wondered how she’d found out. Had the police come knocking at her door? A word she’d muttered earlier came back to haunt him.

We?

He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. ‘You were in the car too?’

She sniffed and hiccupped at the same time, then looked at him, a deep gnawing ache in her eyes. ‘I was driving.’

Mark pulled her back into his arms. He could feel her salty tears on his own cheek, smell her shampoo as she laid her head on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and drank in her gentle fragrance. Her soft ringlets cushioned his face, a corkscrew curl tickling his nose.

‘Feel,’ she said. At first he didn’t understand, but she pulled his hand away from her back and placed it on the right side of her head. Where there should have been smooth bone beneath skin and hair there was a deep groove in her scalp. Mark stroked the hair there too. Gently. So gently.

‘The police told me there wasn’t anything I could have done,’ she said quietly. ‘But I don’t remember. And it’s like having a huge question mark hanging over my life. I’m never going to know that for sure. What if I could have reacted a split second faster or turned the wheel another way?’

She drifted off into silence again.

His voice left him. He’d never imagined …

And he realised how stupid he’d been now. He should have curbed the adolescent urge to show off around her, racing his car down the winding lanes. All this was his fault.

Ellie sighed and relaxed into him. It felt perfect, as if she’d been carved to fit there. In recent weeks he’d not been able to stop himself fantasising about holding her close like this, kissing her brow, her nose, her lips. Well, not exactly like this. But he knew if he gave in to the fierce pull of his own desire now he would desecrate the moment, and he knew it would never come again.

She stirred, pulling back from him slightly to drag her hands across her face in an effort to mop up the congealed tears.

‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was so faint it was barely a whisper.

‘No. I’m sorry. For starting all this in the first place …’

‘You couldn’t have known.’ All the fizzing, spitting irritation she’d held in her eyes every time she’d looked at him since the night of the party was gone.

‘Well, I know now. And I am sorry. For anything—everything—I did to upset you. You must know I would never do that on purpose, however much of an idiot I may seem sometimes.’

Her mouth curved imperceptibly and her eyes never left his. He felt a banging in his chest just as hard as when she’d been thumping on it with her fist. He stood up and rested his hand on the door to steady himself.

‘Let’s go home.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

NO LIGHTS were on in the drawing room. The firelight flickered, playing with the shadows on the wall. Mark sat in his favourite chair and savoured the aromatic warmth of his favourite whisky as it smouldered in his throat. The only sounds were the cracking of the wood on the fire and the laborious ticking of the antique clock in the corner. Ellie had gone to bed early, and he was left to relentlessly mull over the events of the afternoon.

They had driven back to Larkford in complete silence, but it had been different from the combustible atmosphere of their outward journey. The calm after the storm. He hadn’t wanted to jinx the easy comfort by opening his big mouth. He hadn’t been sure if Ellie was lost in the recent past, or plumbing the depths of earlier memories, and it hadn’t felt right to ask.

The vivid evening sky had deepened to a velvety indigo by the time they’d drawn up in front of the house. Mark had carried the shopping in, forbidding Ellie to help, and had suggested she have a long hot bath. He’d realised, as he’d struggled with the dilemma of where to put the dried pasta they’d just bought, that he didn’t have a clue where stuff went in his own kitchen. He’d got down to a shortlist of two possible cupboards when he’d heard the unmistakable sound of Ellie’s bare feet on the tiles.

‘Top left,’ she said quietly.

‘Thanks,’ he replied, shutting the cupboard door he was holding open and walking to another one on the other side of the room. When he put the linguine away next to the other bags of pasta he turned to look at her. She was dressed in a ratty pink towelling robe that was slightly longer at one side than the other. Her hair was wet, the blonde curls darkened and subdued, but struggling to bounce back. Her face was pink and scrubbed, eyes bright. He had never seen her look so gorgeous.

She walked towards him. His heart thumped so loudly in his chest he thought she was bound to hear it. But she didn’t stop and stare at him. She didn’t laugh. Instead, she was smiling, eyes hesitant but warm. He was hypnotised.

‘Thank you, Mark. For everything.’

She was only a foot away from him now, and she stood on tiptoes and placed an exquisitely delicate kiss on his cheek.

‘Goodnight,’ she said gently, and she headed for the door.

‘Night,’ he replied absently, still feeling the sweet sting of her lips on his cheek.

Now, hours later, he could still feel the tingle of that kiss. He took another sip of the whisky and rubbed the spot with the tips of his fingers.

At least he understood that tragic look in her eyes now. Ellie was haunted; the ghosts of her lost family still followed her. She had lived through more hurt than he could possibly imagine and yet she had found the strength to carry on living.

He looked back at his own life over the last decade and berated himself for his self-centredness and cowardice. He’d been afraid to let anyone close because he’d allowed one gold-digging woman to discolour his view of the rest of her sex. Instead of moving on and growing from the experience he’d sulked and cut himself off from any possibility of being hurt again, learning to cauterise the wounds with sarcastic humour and a don’t-care attitude. He’d taken the easy way out.

Not like Ellie. She was brave. How did you pick yourself up again and keep on living after something like that?

He downed the rest of the whisky and sat for a long time, holding the empty glass. Once upon a time he’d written her off as fragile, but she was possibly the strongest person he’d ever met.

Be careful what you wish for, Ellie thought, as she exited the kitchen through the French windows and took her usual route round the garden. All those months in Barkleigh, longing for breathing space, the chance to be on her own without anyone fussing …

Well, now she had air and space in bucketloads. And for a while it had been good, and she thought she’d escaped that creeping sense of loneliness that had seeped into her bones at the cottage, but it had just followed her here.

Okay, most of the time it was pretty perfect. Like now, when the early-morning sun was gently warming her skin as she wandered a subconscious route round the gardens, her habitual cup of tea cradled in her upturned hands, but sometimes all this room, this space, it was a little … well …

She shook her head. She was just being silly.

It was hardly surprising she was finding life a little solitary. Only a couple of days after the disastrous trip to the supermarket Mark had disappeared, mumbling something about putting a big deal together, and she hadn’t seen him for more than a fortnight. She guessed he was staying up at his flat in London, going to meetings all day. She tried not to speculate on what he might get up to at night.

The view of the Thames from his flat must be stunning, the vibe of the warm summer nights exciting, but if she had a choice of living in a crowded city, full of exhaust fumes and scary commuters, and being here at Larkford, she knew what she’d pick.

She kicked her flip-flops off as she reached the edge of the lawn and sighed in pleasure as the soles of her feet met soft grass that was dry, but still cool from the early-morning dew.

It was silly, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Mark was staying away deliberately. Maybe he was embarrassed. He wouldn’t be the first person not to be able to handle her unique circumstances. She’d tried to run away from that feeling too, hadn’t she? And now it had tracked her down and turned up on her doorstep.

She looked around the garden. The roses on the wrought-iron arches that lined the main path were in flower, a variety with frilly shell-pink petals. The smell was fantastic.

She sighed. Well, if Mark wanted to stay away, she couldn’t stop him. It just seemed such a pity he was missing how beautiful his home looked. Every day there was something new to admire in the garden, another flower opening its buds or shooting out new green leaves. Maybe Mark wasn’t the sort of person to notice these kind of things, but even if you didn’t notice the details you couldn’t help but feel rested here.

When she went back inside the house and checked her laptop she found an e-mail from Mark, and this time, instead of giving another boring, bland reply, she decided to add a little bit about Larkford—about the rose walk and how the wisteria on the back of the house was fairly dripping with flowers, how the hazy summer mornings burnt off into hot, bright afternoons. At least he wouldn’t miss the magic of his house totally, even if he wasn’t here to see it for himself.

Just as she was about to turn the laptop off she heard a ping, announcing the arrival of an e-mail. Thinking it might be from Ginny, informing her of the latest in a long line of pregnancy-related stories about absent-mindedness, she almost ignored it, but at the last minute she clicked on the little window and opened up the message.

She blinked and opened her eyes a little wider. It was from Mark. He must be online right now.

Hi Ellie