The Disobedient Mistress

Colouring and confused by what she could not explain to her own satisfaction, Misty climbed into the van in Brewsters’ car park and drove to the premises she rented on the outskirts of town. There she joined her three staff in the clean-up operation that concluded every working day. It was after five by the time she locked up and all she could think about was how her business had become so vulnerable that one lost contract could finish it off.

Carlton Catering was just over a year old. She had started out small, doing private dinner parties and the occasional wedding. Nothing too fancy, nothing too big and her overheads had been low. But when, five months ago, her supplier had mentioned that there was a tender coming out for providing lunches at Brewsters, the biggest, swankiest company on the industrial estate, she had been eager to put in a bid and expand. On the strength of that trial contract, she had borrowed to buy another van and upgrade her equipment.

However, disaster had struck soon afterwards. Her premises had been vandalised and the damage had been extensive but her insurance company had refused to pay out, arguing that her security precautions had been inadequate. That had been a bitter and unexpected blow, for the repairs had wiped out her cash reserve and from that point on she had been struggling to stay afloat.

‘Your need to reduce your personal expenditure to offset that loss,’ her bank manager had warned her only six weeks earlier. ‘In spite of your cash-flow problems, you’re continuing to pay the mortgage on a house that doesn’t belong to you. I respect your generosity towards Mrs Pearce, but you must be realistic about the extent of the drain on your own resources.’

But sometimes being realistic utterly failed to take account of circumstances and emotional ties like love and loyalty, Misty reflected painfully as she drove home. Birdie Pearce lived in a rambling old country house called Fossetts, which had belonged to her late husband Robin’s family for generations. Unable to have children of their own, Robin and Birdie had chosen to become foster parents instead. For over thirty years the kindly couple had opened their home and devoted their lives to helping countless difficult and disturbed children.

Misty had been one of those foster kids and she too had been unhappy, bitter and distrustful when she had first gone to Fossetts. She had been twelve years old, hiding behind a tough front of not caring where she lived or who looked after her, but Birdie and Robin had worked hard to gain her trust and affection. They had transformed her life by giving her security and having faith in her, and that was a debt she knew that she could never repay but, above all, it was a loving debt, not a burden.

For the past fourteen months, a fair proportion of Misty’s earnings had gone towards ensuring that Birdie could remain in her own home. Not that Birdie knew that even yet, for her husband had once managed their finances and Misty had taken over that task after the older man’s death. Misty had been shocked to discover that Fossetts was mortgaged to the hilt. When Robin’s investments had failed and money had become tight, he had borrowed on the house without mentioning the matter to anyone.

Now over seventy, Birdie had a bad heart and she was on the waiting list for the surgery that would hopefully ensure that she lived well into old age. But in the short term, without that surgery, Birdie was very vulnerable and her consultant had emphasised how important it was that Birdie should enjoy a stress-free existence. Birdie loved her home and it was also her last link with Robin, whom she had adored. From the outset, Misty’s objective had been to protect the older woman from the financial worry that might bring on another heart attack. But even Misty had not appreciated just how much it would cost to keep Fossetts running for Birdie’s sake.

It was a tall, rather Gothic house with a steep pitched roof and quaint attic windows. Built in the nineteen twenties, it sat in a grove of stately beech trees fronted by a rough meadow. Parking the van, Misty suppressed a troubled sigh. Fossetts was beginning to look neglected. The grounds no longer rejoiced in a gardener. The windows needed to be replaced and the walls were crying out for fresh paint. Although it was far from being a mansion, it was still too big a house to be maintained on a shoestring.

Yet the minute Misty stepped into the wood-panelled front hall, she felt for a moment as though all the troubles of the day had slipped from her shoulders. On a worn side table an arrangement of overblown roses filled the air with their sweet scent and dropped their petals. She walked down to the kitchen, which was original to the house and furnished with built-in pine dressers and a big white china sink.

Nancy was making salad sandwiches for tea. A plump woman in her late fifties, Nancy was a cousin of Robin’s, who had come to live at Fossetts and help out with the children almost twenty years earlier. These days, she looked after Birdie.

‘Birdie’s in the summer house,’ Nancy said cheerfully. ‘We’re going to have tea outside.’

Misty managed to smile. ‘Sounds lovely. Can I help?’

‘No. Go and keep Birdie company.’

It was a beautiful warm June evening but Birdie was wrapped in a blanket, for she felt the cold no matter how good the weather. She was a tiny woman, only four feet eleven inches tall and very slight in build. Her weathered face was embellished by a pair of still-lively blue eyes. ‘Isn’t the garden beautiful?’ she sighed appreciatively.

Misty surveyed the dappled shade cast by the trees, the lush green grass of early summer and the soft pink fading show of the rhododendron blooms. It was indeed a tranquil scene. ‘How have you been today?’

Birdie, who hated talking about her health, ignored the question. ‘I had visitors. The new vicar and his wife. They’ve hardly been living here five minutes and already they’ve heard those silly rumours about how I’ve been reduced to genteel poverty by some greedy former foster child.’ Birdie tilted her greying head to one side, bright eyes exasperated. ‘Such nonsense and so I pointed out. Where on earth are these stories coming from?’

‘That business with Dawn, I expect. Someone’s heard something about that and got the wrong end of the stick.’ Misty neglected to add that the more curious of the locals had evidently noted the visible decline in the Pearce fortunes and put the worst possible interpretation on it. But then over the years that the Pearces had fostered, more than one pessimistic neighbour had forecast that they would live to regret taking on such ‘bad’ children.

And sadly, the previous year, Dawn, who had once been fostered by the Pearces, had come to visit and had stolen all Birdie’s jewellery. Birdie had refused to prosecute because Dawn had been a drug addict in a pitiful state. Since then, yielding to Birdie’s persuasions and her own longing to reclaim her life, Dawn had completed a successful rehabilitation programme but none of the jewellery had been recovered.

‘Why do people always want to think the worst?’ Birdie looked genuinely pained for she herself always liked to think the very best of others.

‘No, they don’t,’ Misty soothed.

‘Well, what have you got to tell me today about that handsome Sicilian at Brewsters? I would love to get a peek at a genuine business tycoon. I’ve never seen one except on television,’ Birdie said naively, for all the world as though Leone Andracchi were on a level with a rare animal.

Misty smiled at the little woman, but a great surge of loving tenderness made her eyes prickle and she had to look away. She told herself that she ought to be copying Birdie’s sunny optimism, turning her problems round until a silver lining appeared in the clouds. And, lo and behold, Leone Andracchi began looking more like their saviour! So why the heck was she still festering with anguished loathing over one stupid kiss? Was she turning into an appalling prude?

‘Actually…Mr Andracchi’s offered me work in London.’ Misty’s gaze was veiled, for she could not have looked Birdie in the eye and told that partial truth. ‘How would you feel about me going away for a month or two?’

‘To work for a handsome millionaire? Ecstatic!’ Birdie teased after she had recovered from her surprise at that sudden announcement.

After tea, Misty went upstairs and opened the wardrobe which contained the clothing that Flash had insisted on buying her in an effort to lift her out of her depression after Philip had broken off their engagement. Fancy frivolous designer garments that had not seen the light of day in over two years. She selected a turquoise faux snakeskin skirt and top and a pair of spiky-heeled shoes. After a quick bath, she dug out her cosmetics, which dated from the same period and which had been similiarly shelved after she had said goodbye to her brief foray into Flash’s glitzy, unreal world.

Flash had transformed her into a rock-star chick and she had learned how to make the best of her looks. Not that it had been much comfort then to see a sexy, daring image in the mirror when the man that she had loved had rejected her. It had wrecked things between her and Flash too, she acknowledged with pained regret. The day Flash had made her fanciable on his own terms had seemed to be the beginning of the end of their friendship. He had stopped thinking of her as a sister, stopped seeing her as the skinny little kid who had shared the same foster home with him for almost five years and had decided that he wanted more.

Making use of the elderly car that only Nancy used now, Misty drove over to the country house hotel where Leone Andracchi was staying. The gracious foyer exuded expensive exclusivity, and when she enquired at the desk she was informed that Leone was in the dining room.

While she hovered, working out whether she ought to wait or seek him out in the midst of his meal, a fair-haired male emerged from the lounge bar and stopped dead at the sight of her, reacting in a similiar vein to the doorman, who had surged to open the door for her, and the male receptionist, who had tripped over a waste-paper basket in his haste to attend to her.

‘Misty…?’

For a split second, Misty thought she was dreaming for, even though it had been three years since she had heard it, she recognised that hesitant, well-bred voice immediately and she spun round in shock. ‘ Philip?’

‘It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.’ Philip Redding stared at her; indeed, his inability to stop staring was marked. ‘How a-are you?’ he stammered.

‘Fine…’ Her lips barely moved as her silver-grey eyes lingered on him for, although they still lived within miles of each other, she had been careful to avoid places where they had been likely to meet and, apart from seeing his car on the road occasionally, had been very successful in ensuring that they had not run into each other again.

‘You look…you look quite incredible.’ His colour heightened as he found himself forced to tilt his head back to meet her gaze. ‘I’ve often thought of calling in at Fossetts—’

‘With your wife and children?’ Misty enquired in brittle disbelief.

Philip paled and stiffened. ‘Just the one child…Helen and I are getting a divorce, actually…it didn’t work out.’

Twenty feet away, Leone Andracchi stilled, stunned by the vision of Misty Carlton shorn of her shapeless grey suit. With her wealth of copper hair tumbling loose, eyes that gleamed like polished silver were soft on the face of the man she was regarding, her wide peach tinted mouth parted to show pearly teeth. Leone could not quite work out what she was wearing. The top seemed to be held up by the narrow chains bisecting her slight shoulders. The rich fabric gleamed beneath the lights accentuating the thrust of her breasts, the slender indent of her waist, and screeched to a death-defying halt above long, long, endless legs capable of stopping traffic.

‘Misty…?’

Taken aback by Philip’s blunt admission that his marriage was heading for the divorce courts, Misty shifted her attention to the tall dark male poised several feet away. Leone Andracchi. She collided with sizzling golden eyes that seemed to burn up all the available oxygen in the atmosphere and instantly she tensed, butterflies fluttering in her tummy. But even as she reacted to his vibrant presence her mind was marching on to make uneasy comparisons between the two men. Leone was much taller, more powerfully built and strikingly dark next to Philip with his boyish fair good looks.

‘Sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, amore,’ Leone murmured smooth as silk, moving to her side to place an infuriatingly possessive hand on her spine.

‘Philip Redding…’ Philip shot out a hand with all the easy friendliness that was natural to him. ‘Misty and I are old friends.’

‘How fascinating,’ Leone drawled in a tone of crushing boredom that made the younger man flush. ‘Unfortunately, Misty and I are running late.’

‘Look, I’ll call you,’ Philip told Misty, giving Leone a bewildered look, quite out of his depth when faced with such a complete lack of answering courtesy.

‘Don’t waste your time,’ Leone advised before Misty could respond, shooting Philip a derisive glance of cold menace as he pressed her over to the lift and hit the call button with one stab of a punitive finger. ‘She won’t be available.’

Her face flaming but her lips sealed, for she could not intervene when she did not want Philip to phone Fossetts and upset Birdie, Misty stalked into the lift while listening to Philip mutter in disconcerted response, ‘Well, I must say…really, for goodness’ sake…’

‘Do you like behaving like the playground bully?’ Misty enquired dulcetly as the lift doors whirred shut.

‘While you’re with me, you don’t talk to other men…you don’t even look at other men,’ Leone delivered with simmering emphasis.

Misty clashed head-on with brilliant golden eyes that went straight for the jugular and a bone-deep charge of grateful excitement surged through her long, slender length for the very last thing she wanted to think about just then was Philip, whose rejection had torn her apart with grief and despair for longer than she cared to recall. ‘Is that a fact?’

‘Particularly old flames…’ Leone decreed, impervious to sarcasm.

Misty tilted her copper head back and shrugged a slim shoulder, glorious silver eyes wide and mocking, the knot of sexual tension he had already awakened licking through her like a dangerous drug in her bloodstream. ‘Then you had better watch me well.’