So Close And No Closer

‘I see.’ Without looking at him, she could tell from the clipped tone of his voice that she had angered him. ‘Well, Miss Livesey…I think I ought to warn you that I’m a man who never takes no for an answer. Everything has its price,’ he told her cynically, and as she turned round to deny it Rue flinched beneath the look in his eyes.

It seemed to say ‘even you’, and her breath caught in her throat, locked there on a huge wave of pain and fear. Once his comment might have been all too pertinent…but over the last five years she had truly learned the value of her own self-respect, her own pride, her own independence and, most of all, her own peace of mind, and these were things that were so important to her that they were worth more than the most fabulous of king’s ransoms. And all of them were directly linked with Vine Cottage. It was her security blanket…her base…her own special private place; and too late she realised that in allowing this man to invade it she had allowed him to bring in with him values and emotions that made her tremble a little with fear.

Horatio felt it and growled again, his ears flattening to his head.

He had a good deal of Alsatian in him, and when he bared his teeth, as he was doing now, he could look extremely ferocious. Neil Saxton, though, seemed totally unafraid. He clicked his fingers to the dog and made a soft sound under his breath that changed Horatio’s growl to a whine, and from that to a fawning adoration that made Rue stand and stare in disbelief.

Over Horatio’s head, her eyes met Neil Saxton’s cool grey ones in shocked anger.

Instantly the masculine hand that had been fondling the dog’s soft head was removed, a frown drawing the dark eyebrows sharply together. He had thick, dark hair, well-groomed, and so clean that the sunlight bounced light back off it.

As he moved towards her, the air in the room seemed to stir lazily, warmed by the sun, and Rue just caught a hint of some tangy and very male cologne that made her think of the coolness of lavender mixed with the sharpness of her favourite herbs.

‘There’s no need to get worked up,’ the cool, masculine voice told her almost mockingly. ‘I came here to make you a genuine offer for your property, not steal it from you.’

He said it cynically, anger just beginning to darken his eyes as though he found the thought of her defensiveness both unnecessary and ridiculous.

His cool words penetrated Rue’s anger. She focused on him and the blood came rushing into her face as she realised what a fool she was making of herself. But, as she looked at him and read the mockery in his eyes, her common sense was defeated by her anger. Gripping hold of Horatio’s collar, she told him fiercely, ‘I’ll never sell this house…never! Now, please leave.’

She didn’t accompany him to the front door, but stayed where she was until after she had seen him walk down the front path and out of the gate into the village street where his car was parked. An expensive, gleaming Daimler saloon with new numberplates on it, she recognised absently as he drove away.

Only when she was sure he had gone did she move, almost stumbling into the hallway and, once there, locking the heavy front door with both its old-fashioned key and the bolts she had had put on when she’d moved in. It was disconcerting to discover that she was actually shaking.

The telephone rang, and she took a deep breath that hurt her chest as she went to answer it.

It was Jane Roselle, apologising and asking if it would be all right if she collected the flowers she had ordered in the morning.

Assuring her that it would, Rue walked back, not into the sitting-room, but into the room on the left of the narrow hallway—the original rectangular cottage kitchen, which now served as her study-cum-sitting-room and which was comfortably furnished with two large old-fashioned armchairs, one either side of the fireplace, and the big, old desk which had once belonged to her grandfather and which really was out of place in the humble cottage sitting-room, but which she had not been able to bring herself to part with. What had once been the outbuildings to the original cottage had now been converted into a pretty kitchen-dining-room. Upstairs the cottage had three good-sized bedrooms and a pretty bathroom. She felt comfortable here…far more comfortable than she had ever felt at…

She dismissed the thought, shivering a little as she went into the kitchen and started to make some fresh coffee. How long would it be before Neil Saxton discovered that…? Her hand shook and cold water splashed down on to it as the jug jolted.

She had heard that Parnham Court had changed hands. The last people to own it had rarely used it; there had been talk locally of them converting it into a country hotel, but that had evidently come to nothing and now it had been sold again.

An unlucky house, so some of the locals believed. The story went that the house had originally been built on the site of an abbey, and that stone from the abbey had been used in the construction of the original Tudor house, now concealed somewhere behind the impressive Georgian additions made in the eighteenth century. It was said that the man who had originally built Parnham Court had also been responsible for the destruction of the abbey, and that, because of that, he and the house itself had been cursed. Rue shivered again, and at her feet Horatio whined. He followed her everywhere and even slept on the end of her bed if she let him, although he had a comfortable bed of his own on the floor just outside her bedroom door. His presence made her feel comfortable and safe. It protected her from her own aloneness, and from the memories that haunted her during her sleepless nights.

Neil Saxton had gone away, but how long would it be before he came back? Even without his saying so to her in as many words, she would have known he was not the kind of man to give up on something he wanted. And he wanted her home and her land.

She knew why, of course. Once, this cottage and its land had been part of the Parnham estate, and then it had been left to its then incumbent, the head gardener, for the duration of his lifetime, after which its ownership would return to the estate.

Parnham Court was two miles or so outside the small village of Parnham Magna. The drive to the house was long and straight, bordered on one side by an impressive row of lime trees; but on the other side, spoiling the symmetry of the driveway, was her land…her field, the border of which went right up to the edge of Parnham Court’s drive.

Her hawthorn hedge now grew where the lime trees must have once been, and her cottage disrupted the long, elegant line of the high brick wall which surrounded Parnham Court. Oh, yes, she knew quite well why Neil Saxton wanted her home. He wanted it so that he could destroy it.

He wasn’t the first person to approach her with a view to buying her home. Only last summer there had been a builder, a tough, self-made man from a nearby city who had driven through the village and seen at once the possibilities of her home and its land with its valuable main-road frontage, in a small, rural area that would be so conveniently close to the city once the new motorway system was completed.

He had been very angry when Rue had turned his offer down.

It was a pity it was Saturday, otherwise she could have got in touch with her solicitor and asked him to write to Neil Saxton, making it plain that she had no intention of selling. If she hadn’t been so busy she would have done so before now. But it had been a good summer for her. Her field was now crammed full of the flowers she grew to pick and dry. Only this spring she had planted up the last quarter of it, paying half a dozen teenagers from the village to help her with the work. Upstairs in the loft above the stable, she had rack upon rack of those spring and early summer flowers which had already been harvested.

She had never envisaged herself as a businesswoman, but that was what she had become, albeit in a small way. Her talent for drying and arranging flowers had been something she had done merely for her own pleasure, until a friend had asked her if she would supply her with some of her arrangements, and her skill had spread by word of mouth until another friend had suggested she turn her talent into a full-time business.

It had helped having the new country hotel and club open less than ten miles away. The two young chefs who ran it had come to the house to buy dried flower arrangements for the hotel and, seeing the walled herb garden to the rear of the property, had begged her to sell them some fresh herbs. That side of her business too had escalated, and she now supplied not just them but several other local restaurants as well.

All in all, she had carved out a very pleasant life for herself, even if her friends did bemoan the fact that there was no man in it.

They all knew about the past, of course; it was impossible to keep a secret in such a small village, even if she wanted to, and they all respected her refusal to talk about what had happened. She suspected that the more romantically inclined of them thought her reticence was due to grief.

Grief…If only they knew.

RUE HAD TO MAKE THE MOST of the long summer evenings, and it was gone ten o’clock before she tiredly acknowledged that she had had enough.

Calling Horatio, she set out in the direction of her field, opening the door in the wall that led to it.

Horatio knew better than to do anything other than stick to the narrow paths between the flowers. When his mistress paused to examine some blooms more closely or to test the richness of their scent, he too waited, knowing that, once her inspection was done, he would be allowed to run free along the footpath that ran behind her field and back to the village.

This was one of her favourite parts of the day, Rue acknowledged, savouring the colour of the tall spikes of delphiniums glowing richly against the evening sky.

Her other favourite time of day was early in the morning, just after dawn, when the dew was still on the grass and she felt as though she had the whole world to herself. She liked it that way: clean…new…uninhabited by anyone bar herself and Horatio.

As she finished her inspection and climbed the stile that led to the footpath, she saw in the distance the outline of Parnham Court. Lights shone at the windows; evidence, if she needed it, that the new owner was in occupation.

What was he doing? Reading in the quiet solitude of the panelled library…eating in the awesomely elegant crimson dining-room, or perhaps relaxing in the comfort of the south drawing-room?

Her own curiosity made her feel uneasy. She had never speculated about the inhabitants of Parnham Court before…perhaps because they had not come knocking on her door, spoiling her peace, making demands on her which she could not and would not meet.

Healthily tired, she made her way back to her cottage. Horatio, used to his mistress’s evening routine, padded into the kitchen, waiting for her to make the hot milky drink she always took to bed with her.

CHAPTER TWO

AT TEN past nine on Monday morning Rue had just returned from checking her field—something she did meticulously twice a day during the height of the summer and early in the autumn, those all-important times of the year for her when even a couple of days’ neglect could mean the difference between picking her flowers at their very best or finding she had left things too late and the petals were already beginning to shed—when the telephone rang. She picked up the receiver in one hand while she poured herself a cup of coffee with the other.

The unexpected sound of her solicitor’s voice, faintly hesitant and apologetic, surprised her.

‘I wonder if you could come in and see me,’ he asked her. ‘There are one or two things I need to talk over with you.’

Instantly suspicious, Rue told him, ‘If it’s about Neil Saxton’s offer to buy the cottage and my land, then I might as well tell you that I’m not interested.’

‘It isn’t something we can discuss over the telephone,’ her solicitor told her and, sensing his determination and knowing how much he had her interests at heart, Rue gave in and agreed reluctantly that she would drive in to the local market town and see him. He suggested taking her out for lunch, but Rue turned his invitation down, explaining to him that she was far too busy to be able to spare him more than half an hour of her time. She didn’t add that she wouldn’t have been able to spare him as much as that if she hadn’t needed to go into her local market town to stock up on supplies. The village, lovely though it was, only had one very small general store, and Rue normally made the trip once a month to the local market town to stock up on groceries.

At eleven o’clock she bundled Horatio into the ancient estate car she had bought three years ago when her business had first started to grow. The car was old but reliable, its roomy rear-section ideal for carrying her stock.

It took her just over half an hour to drive into town. She parked her car in the pretty market square, empty on a Monday of the bustle of traffic which filled it to capacity on Wednesdays and Saturdays—market days.

Her solicitor’s office was up a rickety flight of stairs in a tiny Elizabethan building, part of what had once originally been the old Shambles. Now the whole street was a conservation area, the shop beneath the offices a prestigious book store.

It was still possible, from the attic room at the top of the house, to reach out from the window and shake hands with somebody doing the same thing in the house on the opposite side of the street, but it wasn’t the building’s history which was on Rue’s mind as she rapped on the outer door of her solicitor’s office and walked into the small reception area.

David Winten had originally been her father’s solicitor, and the two men would have been about the same age if her father had been alive. As always when she was invited into the tiny, cramped office, Rue was reminded unbearably of her father. He had married fairly late in life, and she had been born eighteen months after her parents married.