Passionate Possession

Was Tom right? Was she over-controlled? She looked at her reflection gravely as she cleaned off her make-up. What was she supposed to do? Give in to every tiny emotion she felt, abandon herself to them, embellish and exaggerate them? No. That was not her way.

She told herself that she was being silly, that Tom had not meant to be deliberately hurtful, but somehow that made it worse.

Beyond her bedroom window was the familiar outline of the trees ringing the grounds surrounding the flats. The developer had been forced to keep those trees; she was lucky, living here. Maybe her neighbours were all elderly…maybe the flat was small, but at least it was hers. Her haven…her security.

She shivered a little. How much longer would she be able to keep it if Eric Barnes continued to press her to repair the cottage?

Beside her bed there was a photograph of her parents.

Her father had always wanted to be a painter. It was the one disappointment of his life that he was, as he had put it, good enough to know he was just not good enough. Lucy knew that sometimes it had frustrated him that he could only have as a hobby something he would have liked to have made his whole life.

The trip to Provence had been a special treat her parents had given themselves. A twenty-fifth wedding-anniversary present. Lucy wasn’t able to go with them because they had to take advantage of a cheaper out-of-school-holiday-time offer.

It had been a hot, dry summer, and when first she had heard of the fires sweeping France she had had no intimation, no intuitive sense of what was to come.

Her parents hadn’t been the only ones to lose their lives in those fires. There had been so many other deaths that perhaps it was understandable that the authorities had only been able to send that brusque telegram.

She had been alone when it had arrived, and at first she had not been able to take in what had happened.

She sat down on her bed, blinking rapidly, fiercely refusing to allow herself to cry. It was almost ten years ago now, but she still missed them…still missed their love.

She did not, as she knew some of his friends had, blame her father for not taking more financial precautions…for not at least insuring his life, so that there would be something for her. After all, how could he have known, any more than she had, what was to come? And her parents had given her one priceless, precious gift: they had given her love. The kind of love that Tom’s two small children did not have.

Was that part of the reason why she knew she could never do as so many others did and allow herself to become involved with someone who had commitments elsewhere? Or was she, as Tom had implied, simply too cold and prudish to ever experience the intense, heady physical desire that drove everything else out, including honour and self-respect?

Tiredly she climbed into bed. Rather than philosophising over something that was never likely to happen, she ought to be directing her thoughts to more important things. Like what she was going to do about the cottage and about its tenant.

Perhaps if she tried again to reason with Eric Barnes, to explain her situation…

A DINNER PARTY was the very last thing she felt like tonight, Lucy acknowledged as she stood under the shower, but Verity would never forgive her if she didn’t turn up. Her non-appearance would put out Verity’s numbers.

Perhaps because she had very little else to occupy her time Verity was almost obsessional about such things.

To Lucy’s knowledge, she had rung Don at least four times during the week to consult him about proposed changes in her planned menu.

Lucy had winced a little at the irritation she could hear in Don’s voice on the final occasion, but she had tactfully said nothing, and now here she was, getting ready to play the role Verity had set for her.

‘Of course, I’m partnering you with Niall Cameron,’ Verity had told her. ‘After all, you’re both single.’

‘Single? I thought you said he was living with someone,’ Lucy had reminded her.

‘Yes, he is, but you know what I mean. I meant that he’ll be coming alone, and so will you.’

‘I hope you aren’t thinking of doing any matchmaking,’ Lucy had told her drily.

‘Certainly not,’ Verity had assured her.

But she hadn’t been able to resist asking, ‘Have you met him yet? He really is—’

‘I haven’t met him, but I have seen him,’ Lucy had interrupted her, guessing what she was going to say. ‘He definitely isn’t my type.’

Verity’s eyes had rounded.

‘Lucy, he’s every woman’s type,’ she had told her fatuously.

‘I don’t like arrogant men,’ Lucy had overruled her, and for once Verity had seemed to have nothing to say.

No, it wasn’t going to be a particularly congenial evening, but she was too fond of Verity to upset her by refusing her invitation, and Don had been a good and generous boss to her. And, after all, what would she have to do, other than be polite to the man…a man who was one of their clients?

She gave a tiny shrug and then grimaced as she realised that she had soaped the same leg twice.

Lucy was as careful in buying her clothes as she was about everything else. Her job was such that she was often required to mix socially with Don’s clients, as indeed she was doing tonight and as she had done while in France, and, apart from her very casual clothes—the jeans she kept for the long country tramps she enjoyed, her tennis kit, her comfortable loose sweaters—most of her wardrobe was geared to her working life.

Tonight she was wearing a very simple dark blue creˆpe wool dress with a round neckline and a dropped waist. The skirt was gently gathered on the dropped waistline and narrowed elegantly towards the hem. It had long sleeves and fastened up the back with pearl buttons.

It was Italian, like a good many of her clothes, because the Italians seemed to specialise in clothes for women of her height.

With it she wore sheer tights and plain navy suede pumps. Her only jewellery was the things she had inherited from her mother. Three strands of good cultured pearls, her rings, a pair of pearl earrings and a very heavy red-gold bracelet.

The neckline of her dress wasn’t suitable for the pearls, so she wore the bracelet. Not for anything would she have ever admitted to anyone that she wore these things not just as a memento, but as a kind of safeguard…a security blanket for when she was feeling vulnerable.

As she brushed her hair she paused, wondering what she had to feel vulnerable about tonight. She knew everyone who was going to be there, everyone except Niall Cameron, and even he wasn’t a complete stranger to her. She had seen him; she knew a good deal about his business; she even knew that he had purchased the farm in his own name rather than in the joint names of himself and his lover. She smiled cynically to herself. That showed the kind of man he was, didn’t it? Not a man who believed in sharing, obviously.

She wondered briefly what the woman was like. Confident of herself and him, evidently; certainly confident enough to leave him for so many months while she was in New York.

She amused herself by building a mental picture of her. She would be tall and elegant, blonde, perhaps, with patrician features. Certainly not a pouty bimbo type. He would want a woman who could match him in style and looks, a woman who dressed as elegantly and expensively as he did himself; a woman who would look equally as at home in the sophisticated cities of the world as she would standing beside that immaculately polished Discovery, her hair just slightly touched by the breeze, a couple of gun dogs at her side…chocolate-brown ones, of course. An unkind smile touched Lucy’s mouth. She was being bitchy and probably very unfair, she told herself, but she just couldn’t help it; there was something about the man, something about the way he had looked at her…virtually as though she had been an interloper, which had grated on her.

Was that how she felt, secretly? Did she feel she was an outsider…that she was alone? A tiny tremulous sensation fluttered inside her.

Of course not. Now she was being silly. She had good friends…close friends…and, if she didn’t get a move on, one of those friends was going to be extremely irritated with her, she reminded herself.

Verity hated people being late. Surprisingly, perhaps, she was an excellent cook, and if nothing else Lucy knew that she would enjoy her dinner.

There were several other cars in the drive when Lucy arrived, including the Discovery. It was, Lucy was amused to note, not quite as immaculate as it had been when she had first seen it. There were distinct signs of mud-splashes on its shiny paintwork, and in the light from the powerful security lights around the house she could see how that same mud was clinging to the vehicle’s tyres.

She wondered mischievously if his highly polished shoes had suffered the same fate. From what she remembered, the farm’s cobbled yard was every bit as dirty as the lane.

Once that farm had been owned by her family, and let to tenants, but that had been before she was born.

She realised when Don let her in that she was the last to arrive. The others were gathered in the drawing-room, exchanging chit-chat over their pre-dinner drinks.

Don, knowing that she didn’t drink, immediately poured her a glass of mineral water.

She had seen Niall Cameron the moment she had walked into the room. He was standing by the fireplace and was deep in conversation with Bill Broughton, a local builder. His wife was also with them, gazing very attentively at Niall Cameron. Bill had been a widower for eight years when he had married Amanda. She was fifteen years younger than him, thirty-five to his fifty, which must have made her around the same age as Niall Cameron, Lucy guessed.

She didn’t know why, because she certainly wasn’t staring at them, but for some reason something must have alerted Niall Cameron to her observation, because he turned his head and then moved so that he had an unobstructed view of her.

Did he recognise her? Had he really seen her in her car, or was he simply trying to place her? Her heart was beating a little bit too fast. She was suddenly sharply conscious of the sounds all around her, people’s voices, the chink of glasses, hyper-sensitively aware, hyper-conscious that Niall Cameron was watching her.