Irresistible Temptation

‘Ah,’ Sasha said with satisfaction. ‘You’ve been given official approval. Isn’t that nice?’

Olivia was bound to agree as she stroked the silky golden-brown fur, and found herself observed by a bright dark eye.

‘But what I really came for, darling, is this.’ Sasha laid a large iron key on the table. ‘Now that you’re a resident, you have the right to use the garden. This unlocks the main gate.’

‘Really?’ Olivia’s sore heart lifted slightly as she remembered the magical green wilderness she’d spied from Declan’s window. ‘That’s—wonderful.’

‘And these are the communal rules.’ Sasha put a typewritten sheet beside the key. ‘Just look them through when you have a moment. Now I must dash. I have to take Humph for his constitutional before my bridge party, and I’m running late as usual.’

‘Couldn’t I take him for you later?’ Olivia suggested. ‘After all, it seems a pity to disturb him when he’s so comfortable.’

‘I can’t ask you to do that,’ Sasha objected. ‘It’s such an imposition …’

‘No,’ Olivia said firmly. ‘I’d enjoy it.’ She hesitated. ‘I haven’t a great deal else to do.’

Sasha gave her a swift, shrewd glance, then nodded briskly. ‘Very well, darling. Here’s his lead—and also a key to my flat. Just pop him into the kitchen when you bring him back, and then drop the key through the letterbox.’

‘Are you sure about this?’ Olivia accepted the key, brows raised. ‘After all, you hardly know me.’

‘Call it instinct. Humph trusts you.’ Sasha smiled suddenly, almost mistily. ‘And my beloved would have liked you too. Have fun.’ And in a whirl of emerald she was gone.

As Olivia returned to her crossword she found herself wondering who Sasha’s beloved had been.

She’d finished her puzzle by the time Humph decided he was ready for his walk. He pranced ahead of her up the steps and along the road to a pair of wrought-iron gates, which Olivia used her key to open, then locked behind her.

As soon as she stepped inside, the peace of the place seemed to wrap itself around her. Even the incessant traffic noise faded to a distance.

She began to walk along the gravelled path, glancing shyly around her, half expecting to be challenged.

The fine weather had brought the residents out in force, she noticed. They spilled out of their houses and flats on to their rear steps, or the nearby grass, chatting together, playing with their children, drinking wine, picnicking, or attending to the plants in the vast ornamental urns which stood at the back of almost every property. All of them were too occupied to pay her anything but passing attention, although some of them seemed to recognise Humph and gave her a half-smile.

Presently, Humph turned off the main path, choosing a track through the towering shrubs which Olivia guessed was his preferred route.

It was rather like trying to unravel a maze, she thought as he trotted ahead of her, following some scent or other.

‘I only hope you know the way back,’ she told him.

Eventually she found herself in a massive lawned area with a large central pond. Humph, however, pulled her across it to where a gap in the surrounding shrubbery was marked by an ornamental arch, decorated with climbing roses.

A narrow path led to a small clearing—a patch of grass with a sundial at its centre, and one elderly wooden seat. Very sheltered, and very peaceful, Olivia thought approvingly.

She walked across to the sundial, and read the inscription. ‘Love makes Time pass. Time makes Love pass.’ Now there’s a cynical viewpoint, she thought, wandering back to the seat and subsiding on to its aged timbers.

Humph was getting restive, so she bent down and slipped off his leash.

‘Don’t wander off,’ she adjured him. And saw, as she straightened, a movement in the bushes. A cat.

She grabbed at Humph’s collar. But in a crescendo of yapping he was off, his legs a blur, pursuing the fleeing cat through the shrubs with Olivia flying after the pair of them.

She hurled herself through the bushes, guided by another flurry of hysterical barking and an angry feline yowl, and arrived panting on the gravelled walk, just in time to see Humph’s hindquarters disappearing up a flight of stone steps and in through some open French windows.

‘Oh, no,’ she groaned, and started after him.

She was halfway up when Declan Malone appeared at the window. He was carrying Humph, who was licking his face frantically.

He looked at Olivia, his mouth tightening inimically.

‘Miss Butler,’ he said expressionlessly. ‘Now why am I not surprised? If you’re here looking for Jeremy, he’s not back yet.’

‘I’m not,’ Olivia said stiffly, silently cursing the day she was born.

He was wearing chinos, she noticed, and a white shirt, with the sleeves turned back to reveal tanned forearms, and his feet were bare. His hair was damp, as if he’d just got out of the shower, and she found herself wondering if last night’s lady was still around somewhere.

Not, she reminded herself hastily, that it had anything to do with her.

She mounted the last few steps and took the little dog from him. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. Humph was chasing a cat. I—just followed him through the bushes.’

‘You seem to have brought a fair bit of them with you.’ Declan reached out and removed a twig and some leaves from her hair. It was the last thing she’d expected him to do, and an odd shiver ran through her at his touch.

He said abruptly, ‘The rules of the garden state that dogs must be kept on leads at all times. Did Sasha not tell you?’

Olivia bit her lip, recalling the typewritten sheet she hadn’t bothered to read. ‘Yes—I mean, I think so.’

He said silkily, ‘But then rules don’t mean much to you, do they, Miss Butler?’

‘And you seem to invent yours as you go along, Mr Malone,’ she returned icily. ‘But I’ll make sure I remember in the future.’

‘You do that,’ he said with a certain grimness.

‘Before I go,’ she said, ‘there’s something I’d like to say. You implied I was a home-wrecker. But it’s not true. Jeremy’s marriage was finished long before I met him again.’

‘You’ve known him for a while?’

‘It seems like all my life. Perhaps like you—and Maria.’

‘I doubt that.’

She said, ‘Sasha told me she was your cousin—that you were close. So you must have known that things were—going wrong.’

‘I’ve never had many illusions about the state of her marriage.’ His tone was short. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’d choose to connive at its breakdown.’

‘Nor I.’ Olivia lifted her chin. ‘But—these things happen.’

‘Indeed they do,’ he drawled. ‘I’ve read the statistics.’ He gave her a level look. ‘Have you anything else to say in mitigation?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Actually, I didn’t have to explain to you at all. But I felt I owed it to myself.’ She paused. ‘Do you have no other comment?’

‘Nothing you’d particularly want to hear. Just a repetition of advice already given. Which is: go back to—’ his brows lifted enquiringly ‘—where was it?’