A Masterful Man

‘Well, you have got a problem, Mr Warwick.’

‘Davina,’ he said gently, ‘don’t concern yourself with it. I realise most women’s minds tend to run along that track, they simply can’t help themselves it seems, but the more obvious they are, the less—interested I tend to get.’

Davina kept a hold on her temper and replied smoothly. ‘I do apologise—I was talking generally but you obviously mistook it for a personal interest in the matter. Perhaps I didn’t make myself very clear.’

‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Her temper eluded her. ‘Do you seriously imagine I’m now making plans to—somehow inveigle a wedding-ring out of you?’

‘You did bring the subject up,’ he pointed out. ‘And your generalities did have a personal touch, despite your denial. You mentioned my abrasiveness and impossibly high standards—’

‘And I should never have opened my mouth,’ she said bitterly. ‘There are some men who just can’t help taking anything one says in a personal context. You’re obviously a prime example.’

‘And you, Mrs Hastings,’ he said softly, ‘are obviously somewhat intrigued.’

‘Oh, no, I’m not,’ she countered. ‘The very last thing I intend to do with my life, Mr Warwick, is to allow some man to have any say in it—so put that in your pipe and smoke it,’ she added, and leant against the door frame with a hand to her brow and a weary look of defiance in her eyes.

Steve Warwick drove in silence for about five minutes. Then he said, ‘So, he was a right bastard?’

Davina looked out of her window.

‘How did he get you in in the first place?’

‘How do they all—?’ She stopped and clenched her teeth. ‘Please, don’t say any more.’

‘OK.’ He shrugged good-humouredly. ‘There’s one thing we haven’t discussed—your time off.’

‘I don’t need any set time off.’

‘What about your photography?’

‘What I usually do on these jobs is just take the time when it comes, if it comes.’

‘I see.’

‘You don’t approve?’

‘I’d be a fool not to approve,’ he replied drily, and turned the Land Rover off the road and across the cattle-grid.

‘Thank you very much for the tour,’ Davina said stiffly. ‘Would you care to let me know your plans for the rest of the day? Will you be home for lunch et cetera, in other words?’

Steve Warwick pulled the Land Rover up beside the house and turned to her with all the wicked mockery he was capable of glinting in his hazel eyes. ‘Do you know how that sounded?’ he queried. ‘Like a much-maligned wife conducting a domestic dispute with her errant husband—we’ll have to watch ourselves, Mrs Hastings. Uh—I’ll be home for dinner, so you can have the rest of the day to yourself. Well, you and Maeve, my cleaning lady, that is. Good luck with her.’ He leant over to open her door and added, ‘Off you go, Davina. I know you’d love to hit me, but if I know Maeve she’ll be spying on us from somewhere.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I ALWAYS say to people that Mr Warwick is a lovely, lovely man. I know! I know he can be a bit hard to handle sometimes, but he’s really dependable.’

Davina drew a deep breath and stared a little helplessly at Steve Warwick’s cleaning lady, who resembled nothing so much as a talking, walking beach ball, from her round red face to her round, brightly clad figure. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know yet,’ she murmured.

‘Take it from me, luv,’ Maeve confided. She had not, in fact, stopped talking since they’d met an hour ago. ‘Now, is there any china you’d like me to get out and dust off? Mrs Warwick—that’s his grandmother—she’s got an eye like an eagle. She could see a speck of dust on them rafters.’ Maeve looked upwards and pointed. ‘So—’

‘No, no thank you,’ Davina said hastily and looked around a little wildly. ‘Uh—oh, yes, I’d like their bathrooms to be polished up if you wouldn’t mind, Maeve. Then perhaps you could start the ironing. I’ve aired some sheets for them on the line, I’d like them to go through the Elna Press.’

‘Certainly!’ Maeve said with a wide smile. ‘I love that machine. Takes an awful lot of the slog out of ironing. See what I mean about him, Davina? Mr Warwick? It’d be a lucky wife who got him; there’s not a thing to make housekeeping easier he hasn’t thought of!’ And with this further paean of praise she rolled upstairs with bucket and mop and an assortment of cleaning agents.

Davina breathed a sigh of relief and made herself a cup of coffee. She also darted a barbed thought at Maeve’s Mr Warwick who could have warned her beyond simply wishing her good luck, she felt—added to all the other things she felt about him. But, as the day wore on, she got more used to Maeve’s ways and found that as long as she wasn’t given anything too delicate to do, she was a tower of strength. She even cleaned and shone the barbecue which had been neglected since its last use with vigour and much good will.

All the same, when she left at three o’clock, the peace and silence was like a blessing. Davina walked around the house and decided it was nearly perfect and also decided that she was hot, it was a beautiful day, and she’d like nothing more than a swim. So she put her togs on beneath short white shorts and a shirt, stowed a beach towel in the carrier of the bike she chose, donned a helmet and set off towards Blinky Beach.

It was sheer magic pedalling through the golden afternoon with green, green grassy fields leading down towards the lagoon on one side and wooded hills rising on the other. She passed a dell of agapanthas and had to stop and simply gaze at their blue and white heads tossing gently in the breeze. She also couldn’t help but feel glad that Steve Warwick had chosen the almost deserted southern end of the island for his house because the feeling of space and aloneness didn’t disturb her at all now.

Past the airport she discovered a swamp full of birdlife alongside a paddock of contented cows and she made two resolutions: never to leave home without her camera again, and to buy a book so that she’d be able to identify all the birds.

There was the inevitable bike rack at the bottom of the steps that led over the grassy slope to Blinkys, with several bikes in it and she added hers to it with a slight smile. The beach, she discovered, was perfect. A long crescent of fine sand beneath the almost limitless blue sky, bordered at each end by rocky outcrops and with a decent surf rolling in. The few people on it looked tiny and insignificant and she wasted no time.

The water was delicious, cold and bracing at first but, once you were in, marvellously refreshing. She was a good swimmer and enjoyed surfing and she must have spent half an hour playing in and under the waves before she caught a roller back to the beach, and stood up with water cascading off her and wiping it out of her eyes to come face to face with Steve Warwick.

‘Why, Davina.’ His hazel eyes laughed at her. ‘I thought it might be you!’

She took in, in one swift look, his bare chest, his black board-shorts, the freckles on his arms and legs, his lean, hard physique, and said the first thing that came to mind, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘The same as you, my lovely mermaid, the same as you,’ he drawled, but there was nothing swift in the way his gaze lingered on her figure beneath her pink swimsuit and he smiled as his eyes met hers again. ‘I’ve come to cool off in other words. I often do on the way home in the afternoon. Although, you’re looking at me as if there should be a law against it,’ he mused.

‘There should be a law against the way you’re looking at me,’ she retorted fiercely.

‘Sorry,’ he murmured, but his eyes laughed at her again. ‘I think we’ve been through this before, I’m talking about the—er—men will be men syndrome. Is that a good way of putting it?’

Davina opened her mouth but decided to storm off instead, something she was unsuccessful in simply because he put out a hand, took one of hers in it so that she couldn’t free herself, and said in a different voice entirely, ‘No, let’s not ruin a beautiful afternoon like this, Davina. Come in and have another swim. I need a break and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did too.’

She tightened her mouth but out of the corner of her eye noticed that a couple strolling along the beach had stopped and were watching them interestedly. ‘Damn,’ she muttered, and then, ‘All right, but you don’t have to hang on to me as if I was a prisoner.’

So she had another swim and was perversely pleased that she was able to go out as far he did and do everything he did but of course, pride often comes before a fall she was to remember later. Her downfall came in the form of a dumper which caught them both by surprise but he reacted faster and, with all the strength he was capable of, grabbed her just as she was about to cartwheel into the sand and held her safe in his arms as the wave surged beneath them. He then coasted gently into the shore, still holding her. They lay together in the shallows as she spluttered a bit and took some deep breaths to restore air to her lungs.

‘Davina?’ he said after a few moments.

‘Mmm...?’

‘OK?’

‘Yes,’ she panted. ‘Thanks—I haven’t been dumped for years.’

‘That’s why Blinkys can be a bit tricky sometimes.’

‘I believe you.’ She stopped abruptly, and her eyes widened as she realised she was lying cradled against Steve Warwick with gentle wavelets washing up to their waists, and realised that her body fitted against his as if it had been made for it, that their legs had somehow got entwined and that she felt wet and silky where their skin touched, protected and safe in the circle of his arms yet with every inch of her body aware of his and stirred by that awareness. And, finally, aware that she was not alone in this reaction...

They parted by mutual consent, and wordlessly, a bare few moments later. But, while Steve Warwick released her and helped her up and did so expressionlessly, she felt a torrent of colour rushing up beneath her skin and her movements were a bit uncoordinated. She also turned abruptly to walk back up the beach but he said quietly, ‘No. At least rinse the sand off you. I’m in need of another swim.’

He swam for at least ten minutes although she just dipped herself and walked back to her towel. But as she dried the moisture from her body and her hair, she couldn’t help wondering how she was ever going to face him again. How, for that matter, he would be when he came out... She pulled her shirt and shorts on with unsteady hands.