Passion & Pleasure: Savage Awakening / For Pleasure...Or Marriage? / Taken for His Pleasure

Fliss sighed now. This was an old argument and one she didn’t particularly want to get into today. It was true, while her mother was alive, she had been able to leave Amy with her and attend the local university. But when her mother died in a car crash just a year after she’d graduated, she’d had to give up her job as a trainee physiotherapist to look after Amy herself.

There’d been no question of paying a child minder. Her father’s business had been folding and money was scarce. And, although he’d offered to babysit, he’d had enough to do coping with his own grief. Looking after a lively four-year-old would have been too much for him to manage.

Now, of course, he could have coped, but Fliss didn’t think it was fair to ask him. He’d settled happily into his retirement and he would have missed being able to go to the library when he felt like it, calling in at the pub for a drink, gossiping with his cronies.

‘Anyway, we weren’t talking about me,’ she said, taking another swallow of coffee. ‘Hmm, this is good. Why does my coffee never taste like this?’

‘Because you don’t put enough coffee in the filter,’ replied her father comfortably, slipping a crust of bread beneath the table for Harvey to take. Then, seeing his daughter’s eyes upon him, he added swiftly, ‘Anyway, maybe the new owner will want a housekeeper, too.’

Fliss knew he’d never have said that in the ordinary way. It was just to divert her from his persistent habit of feeding the dog at the table, and she pulled a wry face.

‘I don’t think so.’

He frowned now. ‘Why not?’ He paused. ‘Oh, perhaps they already have a housekeeper, hmm?’

‘Perhaps they do.’ Fliss felt curiously loath to discuss Matthew Quinn with her father. ‘In any case, I’m going to have to go over there and fetch the rabbit back.’

‘Do you want me to do it?’

It was tempting, but Fliss shook her head. She wanted—no, needed—to see Matthew Quinn again. She needed to explain why Amy had felt free to deposit the rabbit on his doorstep.

When Colonel Phillips was alive and Fliss had worked at the house three mornings a week, Amy had often accompanied her. The old man had been especially fond of the little girl and he’d encouraged Fliss to bring her along. So, whenever Amy had been away from school, for holidays and suchlike, she’d been a welcome visitor at the house.

Sometimes the colonel had played board games with her, and she’d been fascinated by his display cases filled with coins gleaned from almost a century of collecting. The house had been an Aladdin’s cave to the little girl, and she’d been encouraged to share it.

In consequence, Amy had missed him almost as much as Fliss when he’d suddenly been taken into hospital. She hadn’t understood why she couldn’t go to visit him and, although Fliss had explained the circumstances of his illness, she suspected the child still regarded the Old Coaching House as his home.

When he died the house had been inherited by a distant cousin, who had apparently lost no time in putting it on the market, Fliss thought wryly. No one in the village had known anything about it or she was sure her father would have picked up the news on the grapevine.

Now she got up from the table, carrying her empty cup across to the sink. The overgrown lawn at the back of the cottage reminded her that she had other jobs she’d promised herself she’d do today. Dammit, if only Amy had let the rabbit go to the shelter and been done with it.

‘So what’s the new owner like?’ asked her father, getting up from the table to bring his own dishes to be washed. Then he opened the door to let the dog out, stepping outside for a moment and taking a deep breath of the warm, flower-scented air. ‘Mmm, those roses have never smelt better,’ he added. ‘I don’t know why you don’t bring some of them into the house.’

Because I don’t have the time, thought Fliss grimly, fighting a brief spurt of irritation. But it would never have occurred to her father to do something like that himself. No more than it occurred to him to wash his own dishes or make his own bed in the mornings. She filled the washing-up bowl with soapy water and dropped his cup, saucer and plate into the hot suds. She sighed. She mustn’t let her annoyance over the rabbit in—fluence her attitude towards her father. He was the way he was, and there was nothing she could do about it.

But despite his admiration for the roses, he hadn’t forgotten his original question. ‘Who is he?’ he asked, coming back into the kitchen. ‘The man you spoke to at the big house? Did he tell you his name?’

Deciding there was no point in prevaricating, Fliss shrugged. ‘I think he said his name was Quinn,’ she replied carelessly. She finished drying the dishes and hung the tea towel over the rail to dry. ‘I might as well go and get Buttons now. You never know, he may have gone out. Do you think it would be all right if I took the rabbit without his say-so?’

‘Why not?’ asked her father, but he was looking pensive. ‘Quinn,’ he said ruminatively. ‘Quinn.’ He frowned. ‘Where have I heard that name before?’

‘The Mighty Quinn?’ suggested Fliss, giving her reflection a quick once-over in the mirror beside the hall door.

She looked unusually flushed, she thought ruefully, and she hadn’t even set out on her mission yet. Pale skin, that never tanned no matter how long she stayed out in the sun, had the hectic blush of colour, vying with the vivid tangle of her hair. Blue eyes—her father insisted they were violet—stared back with a mixture of excitement and apprehension, and she felt a frustrated surge of impatience. She wasn’t going on a date! She was going to rescue a rabbit, for pity’s sake.

‘I know!’ Her father’s sudden exclamation had her swinging round in surprise to find him balling a fist into his palm. ‘That name, Quinn. I knew I’d heard it recently. That’s the name of that man—that journalist—who spent about eighteen months as a prisoner of the rebels in Abuqara. You remember, don’t you? They did a documentary about it on television recently. He escaped. Yes, that’s right, he escaped. But not before he’d suffered God knows what treatment at the enemy’s hands.’

Fliss swallowed with difficulty. Her breath suddenly seemed constricted somewhere down in her throat. ‘I—don’t remember,’ she said faintly.

But she did. Now that her father had reminded her of it, she remembered the documentary very well. Not that Matthew Quinn himself had appeared in it. It had simply been an examination of the situation in Abuqara, with Matthew Quinn’s imprisonment used to illustrate the violence meted out to foreigners who got caught up in the country’s civil war.

‘Not that I’m suggesting that your Mr Quinn is the same man,’ her father was going on, unaware of his daughter’s reaction. ‘That would be a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? What with his aversion to the media and me being a part-time hack myself.’

‘Y-e-s.’ Fliss let the word string out, not sure why she didn’t just admit what she was thinking there and then. But the memory of Matthew Quinn’s dark, haunted face was still sharply etched in her mind, and, if he was who she thought he was, she couldn’t betray him. Not even to her own father. ‘Um—I ought to get going. I’ll take the car. I can easily dump the hutch in the back.’

‘Right.’ But her father was still looking thoughtful and her nerves tightened. ‘Perhaps I ought to come with you. Introduce myself, welcome him to the village, show him we’re a friendly lot. What do you think?’

‘I—no.’ Fliss realised he might take umbrage at the sharpness of her tone and hurried to justify herself. ‘I mean—I don’t think this is a good time, Dad. What with the trouble over the rabbit and all. Let’s let the dust settle, hmm? We don’t want—the family—to think we’re pushy.’

‘Well, you could be right.’ He looked downcast. ‘It’s a pity, though. It would have been a good opportunity to get to know them.’

‘Later,’ said Fliss fervently, picking up the car keys. ‘See you soon.’

‘Wait.’ As she was about to leave, her father came after her. ‘How are you going to lift the hutch into the car? It’s heavy, you know. It was all Amy could do to push it on the wheelbarrow.’

‘I’ll manage.’ Fliss thought she’d do anything rather than have her father discover who the new occupant of the Old Coaching House was because of her. As he’d said, he took his journalism seriously, and he wouldn’t be able to resist talking about a scoop like this. ‘Bye.’

It was only a few minutes’ drive from the cottage to the Old Coaching House. Their cottage adjoined the grounds of the church on one side and the Old Coaching House adjoined them on the other.

But there the similarity ended. Cherry Tree Cottage was set in a modest garden whereas the Old Coaching House had extensive grounds, with lawns and flowerbeds and an apple orchard, as well as a tennis court at the back of the house.

As she drove, Fliss had to concede that Amy had done well to wheel the rabbit this far. Of course, when Fliss was working for Colonel Phillips, they had taken the short cut around the back of the church, but it was still some distance. She gave a rueful smile. Amy had obviously been determined to keep the pet that one of her school friends had given her.

The front of the old house was still impressive, despite its air of faded grandeur. Stone gateposts, with rusting iron gates that hung rather optimistically from them, gave access to a drive that definitely required some maintenance. Fliss’s father’s elderly hatchback bumped rather resentfully over the holes in the tarmac, and Fliss realised she would have to make sure the rabbit hutch didn’t bounce out again as she was driving home.

Tall poplars lined the drive, framing the house with greenery. The rhododendron bushes that flanked them had been a mass of colour a couple of weeks ago, but now they were shedding their brilliant petals onto the grass verge. They made Fliss feel sad. Colonel Phillips had loved those rhododendrons.

There was a car parked at the foot of the shallow steps that led up to the terrace, one of those expensive off-roaders, much favoured by people who wanted to make a statement about their financial status. It was not the sort of car Fliss would have expected Matthew Quinn to drive—if he was the Matthew Quinn her father had been talking about—but what did she know? She was a humble single mother who had to serve bar meals and clean other people’s houses just to make ends meet.

And how pathetic did that sound?

Parking the Ford beside the BMW, Fliss turned off the engine and opened her door. Sliding her legs out of the car, she wished she’d taken the time to change before coming back. Her sleeveless vest and canvas shorts were all very well for taking Amy to school, but they hardly created an impression of responsible motherhood. But then, she reflected, if she had changed, her father might have wondered why and that might have opened another can of worms.

Taking a deep breath, she rounded the car and mounted the steps to the heavy oak door. She couldn’t help noticing that no one had polished the brass work recently, or swept the terrace, and she pulled a wry face. It was true. She was developing a servant’s mentality. Go figure!

Dismissing such thoughts, she lifted the knocker and let it fall, wincing as it echoed around the building. There was no way anyone could ignore that.

There was silence for a few moments and Fliss was just considering knocking again, when she heard the sound of footsteps crossing the hall. They didn’t sound like a man’s footsteps, however, and she steeled herself for the ordeal of identifying herself to Matthew Quinn’s wife. She just hoped he’d clued her in to what had happened. She was going to feel such a fool if he hadn’t.

She straightened her spine, drawing herself up to the full five feet six inches she’d been blessed with. Squaring her shoulders, she looped back several strands of bright coppery hair behind her ears. As if that would improve her appearance, she thought wryly. She looked what she was; a slightly harassed woman in her mid-twenties, with a little too much weight both above and below her waist.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you—’ she was beginning as the door opened, and then broke off in surprise. ‘Diane,’ she exclaimed, recognising the girl she had used to go to school with. ‘Diane Chesney!’ She hesitated as the obvious thought struck her. ‘Or should I say Mrs Quinn?’

‘Diane will do,’ retorted the other woman shortly. She arched an enquiring brow. ‘Can I help you—Felicity, is it?’

Great!

Fliss blew out a breath. It was obvious that whatever the circumstances of Diane’s being here, she had no desire to rekindle old friendships. Fliss couldn’t believe she’d forgotten how much she hated her name, or that there was any doubt about her identity.