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A Savage Adoration
PENNY JORDAN









Celebrate the legend that is best-selling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan’s novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan’s fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.




About the Author


PENNY JORDAN is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.




A Savage Adoration

Penny Jordan







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CHAPTER ONE


CHRISTY opened the kitchen door and stepped out into the garden. The air smelled of snow. She breathed it in slowly, savouring the crisp scent of it, and looked at the leaden winter sky.

A thin curl of smoke from her father’s bonfire smudged the skyline before mingling with the greyness of the cloud. Beyond the garden lay a vista of fields broken by clumps of woodland, backed by the slopes of the Border hills, their peaks already whitened by the first fall of snow. Everything lay intensely still beneath the cold January air. It was all so very different from London and the life she had lived there, but it was familiar as well. After all, she had spent the first seventeen years of her life in these Border hills. And the last eight away from them, apart from brief visits home.

She reached the bottom of the garden and stood for a moment watching her father as he threw the last of the rubbish on his bonfire. He was wearing the same tweeds she remembered from her teenage years, shabby and well worn. He turned and saw her, and smiled affectionately at her; a tall, mild-mannered man who had passed on to her, his only child, his height.

‘Lunch is ready,’ she told him.

‘Good, I’m hungry. I’ll just damp this fire down and then I’ll be in.’

If her height had come from her father, then her oval green eyes had come from her mother’s Celtic ancestors, like her rich banner of copper hair, and her quick temper. Scots and English had quarrelled and married across the Border for centuries, but her mother’s family had been Highlanders from Glen Coe, and she had often bemoaned the fact that Christy seemed to have inherited their fierce warring spirit.

Christy waited for her father to finish putting out the fire.

‘You know, Christy,’ he said, ‘it’s good to have you home, although I wish it could have been in happier circumstances. You don’t have to stay, you know. Your mother…’

‘I want to stay,’ she interrupted firmly. ‘I would have come home even if Mum hadn’t had to have that operation. You know, in London it’s all too easy to get out of touch with reality, with everything that’s important in life.’ She sighed faintly, a frown touching her smooth forehead. ‘I’ve given up my job, Dad.’

There hadn’t been time in the frantic telephone call telling her of her mother’s emergency operation for Christy to tell her father her own news, but now that the danger was over and her mother was safely back at home, it was time for her to talk of her own plans.

Now it was her father’s turn to frown, and Christy looked away from him. She could sense his surprise and concern, and bit down hard on her bottom lip.

‘But you seemed so pleased to be working for David Galvin,’ he said. ‘When you came home last summer you seemed so happy.’

‘I was. But David has been asked to write the music for a film and to do that he has to go out to Hollywood. He asked me to go with him, but I didn’t want to, so I handed in my notice.’

She prayed that her father would accept her explanation at face value and not press her any closer. What she had told him was in effect the truth, but there was a great deal that she had concealed from him.

There was David’s desire for them to become lovers, for a start. She shivered slightly, a frisson of sensation running through her that had nothing to do with the cold. She didn’t love David, but he was a very magnetic and masculine man; she had known that if he continued to press her she might have been very tempted to give in to him—and how she would have hated herself if she had done so. She wasn’t blind, or a fool; she knew that David was almost consistently unfaithful to his wife Meryl, and that Meryl accepted his infidelities as the price of being married to a man whose artistic abilities had made him world-famous by the time he was thirty years old.

The sort of affairs David indulged in meant nothing in any emotional sense; he was an intensely sensual and sexual man who enjoyed women and, shamingly, she knew that there had been the odd moment when she had not been sure of her own ability to withstand him should he choose to use the full force of his sexual power against her.

She had worked for him for four years, and had been accepted by Meryl and his children almost as an honorary member of the family. She knew what his brief affairs did to them, and the last thing she wanted was to inflict further hurt on them, so she had done the only thing possible: she had run away.

He had flung that at her in their final confrontation. She had told him just before Christmas that she was resigning. There had been no need for him to ask why, and she remembered how his mouth had compressed with anger and mockery. There was an almost childish side to him that loathed being thwarted or denied anything he had set his heart on, and he had wanted her. Consequently he had used that skilful tongue of his mercilessly to destroy her defences, bringing her close to the edge of tears and total self-betrayal, but somehow she had managed to hang on to her self-control. A small, bitter smile twisted her mouth. She knew whom she had to thank for that self-control, for that hard-won ability to refuse to give in to her feelings. It seemed that she was doomed to be unlucky in the men in her life.

She had spent Christmas alone, refusing Meryl’s pleas to join them in their huge Wimbledon house, as she had done at other Christmases, and then, just when she had felt that her loneliness and misery might cause her to give way, she had received a telephone call from her father telling her of her mother’s collapse.

She hadn’t wasted a moment in racing home, and now that she was here she intended to stay. She felt calmer, safer, more secure than she had felt in a long time. Her mother was going to need careful looking after for at least a couple of months—plenty of time for her to think about what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She could even work for her father in his busy country solicitor’s practice if need be; his secretary of thirty years was on the point of retiring. She knew she had made the right decision; the only decision. If she had stayed in London, David might have found a way of persuading her to go to Hollywood with him after all, ostensibly as his personal assistant, of course… but she had known that her agreement to go would have been her agreement to their affair.

So, instead, she had ruthlessly cut all her links with London, giving up her flat and her few friends. It had been disturbing to realise how few friends she had to show for eight years in London, but then she had always been something of a loner, cautious about revealing or giving anything of herself, and even more so after that disastrous summer when she was seventeen.

Her mouth compressed again as she opened the back door and went into the warm kitchen.

Her parents’ home stood almost alone at the end of a narrow country lane, some ten miles outside the town where her father practised. They had come here shortly after their marriage, when her father had bought himself into the partnership. Now the other partners were either dead or retired, and her father ran the business alone with the help of a young articled clerk.

The house was solidly built of local stone, sheltered from the harsh winters that could affect the Borders by the small valley in which it stood. The village, with its school and church, was less than a mile away, and Christy could vividly remember the long winter trudges through the snow to the village bus stop, where as a teenager she had waited with the other children for the bus to take them to school. Those had been good days; life had been simple then, and she had been happy, if somewhat alone. The other children had often teased her, calling her ‘Carrots’ because of her red hair.

What was past was past, she reminded herself as she dished up the lunch. She had already been up to see her mother and supervise the very light meal that was all she was allowed at present.

‘I had a message from the surgery this morning to say that the doctor would be out to see Mother this afternoon. Do you still have Doctor Broughton?’ she asked her father as he sat down.

‘No. Didn’t your mother tell you? Alan Broughton retired early just before Christmas. Dominic Savage is our doctor now.’

Christy’s arm jerked and she spilled some carrots. She was glad that she was facing the Aga and that her father couldn’t see her expression.

‘Dominic? I thought he was in America?’

‘So he was, but he decided to come back. I suppose it’s only natural in a way. His grandfather was the only GP here for a long time, and he was responsible for starting up our present practice.’

‘But Dominic always seemed so … so ambitious …’

‘People change.’ Her father smiled, and there was a slight twinkle in his eye. ‘Look at you, for instance. I seem to remember a time when we couldn’t mention Dominic’s name without you colouring up like a sunset.’

She fought down the panic and pain clawing through her stomach and summoned a brief smile.

‘Yes, I was rather obvious in my adolescent adoration, wasn’t I? Thank goodness we all grow out of that sort of thing! I must have driven you all mad, especially Dominic…’

‘Oh, I don’t know. It always seemed to me that he had rather a soft spot for you.’

A soft spot! If only her father knew. The last thing she had expected or wanted when she came running for home and safety had been to meet up with Dominic Savage again—the very last thing. She doubted her ability to face him with equanimity and coolness even at her most self-composed, but having to face him like this, when she was feeling so vulnerable and torn … She shuddered slightly, remembering how his cold grey eyes could see through her defences, and how that deep incisive voice of his could shred through her puny arguments.

Her heart was pounding as she served the rest of the meal. If she could have, she would have got on the next train to London and stayed there, but it was too late, she had burned her bridges, and then there were her parents to consider. Her mother needed careful looking after—someone to watch over her and make sure that she didn’t do too much. Christy knew her mother; she had always led an active, busy life, and she wouldn’t take kindly to her restricted regime.

Dominic Savage back in Setondale; that was the last thing she had expected, or wanted.

While she cleared away after their meal, her father went upstairs to sit with her mother. Dominic was due at three o’clock, and Christy wondered cravenly if she could find some excuse not to be there when he called. Her face burned as she remembered their last horrific meeting.

It was true that at seventeen she had had a mammoth crush on him; but what her parents didn’t know was that it was Dominic who had been indirectly responsible for her decision to leave home and go to college, and ultimately to work in London. After that last traumatic meeting she had not been able to endure the thought of seeing him again, and so she had virtually run away. Quite needlessly, as it turned out, for Dominic himself had left Setondale that autumn to continue his medical studies in America.

Unable to stand the pressure of the old memories surging inside her, she paced the kitchen. She needed to get out, to breathe in the cool, calm air and gather her composure.

An old anorak from her college days was still hanging on its peg in the laundry-room, and she pulled it on with jerky, unco-ordinated movements.

Outside the sky had grown more leaden and menacing, the scent of snow stronger now. On the hills she could see a shepherd and his dog working the sheep, bringing them down to lower pastures. She started walking at a speed that set her hair bouncing on her shoulders, tension bracing her muscles, the cold air stinging her face. The path she took was a familiar one, climbing up towards the foothills, and gradually as she walked she felt her tension ease slightly. She passed the Vicarage, disturbing a dog that set up a clamorous barking. The house and its grounds had recently been sold, but she didn’t pause to wonder about the new inhabitants of the sturdy Georgian building.

Dominic back! Her body shook with renewed tension and she expelled her breath on a pent-up sigh.

Her father had said that Dominic had had a soft spot for her. How little he knew. Savage by name and savage by nature, that was Dominic, and God, how she had suffered from that savagery!

With words that even now were engraved on her soul he had torn apart her childish fantasies and destroyed her innocence, holding up to her his contemptuous awareness of her adolescent feelings, giving her a distorted mirror-image of them that had scorched her with shame and anguish that still lived on in her soul.

It had all been her own fault, of course. She should have been content with simply worshipping him from a distance, and blissfully cherishing their longstanding friendship. Their parents had been friends, and from an early age she had attached herself to him even though he was eight years older. Dominic had lived with his parents in the house attached to the medical practice while he worked as a very junior doctor at the hospital in Alnwick. Her crush on him had developed the year she was sixteen. No doubt she would have been content with simply seeing him, and sighing over him, if it hadn’t been for her schoolfriends.

For a reason she had never been able to define, during her last year at school she had been befriended by a crowd of girls led by the precocious daughter of their local MP. Helen Maguire was far more sophisticated and worldly than the other girls in the class, and she had sought out Christy as her best friend. How flattered and delighted she had been! Until then she hadn’t had many friends. She was too quiet and shy to make friends easily, but she had glowed and relaxed in the flattering warmth of Helen’s friendship, pushing aside her own doubts and natural reticence about the wisdom of joining in the giggled discussions on sex and boyfriends initiated by Helen. Naturally, since Helen was the one with the most experience, she was the one who did most of the talking, and although sometimes she had experienced a sense of revulsion when Helen described her sexual exploits, for the most part Christy had been caught too deep in the adolescent thrall of having such a wonderful friend to question too deeply Helen’s values and morals.

Of course, it was as inevitable as night following day that Helen should worm out of her her feelings for Dominic, and that once having discovered them, she should exhort Christy not to be such a baby.

‘If you want him, you ought to go out and get him,’ she had informed Christy, giving her a sly sideways smile as she added softly, ‘it’s easy when you know how. Shall I tell you?’

The stitch in her side made Christy pause and lean momentarily against a large rock. A feeling of nausea gathered in the pit of her stomach as she tried to drag her thoughts away from the past. Remembering did no good … and no matter how often she went back she couldn’t change the past; she couldn’t wipe out or obliterate what had happened, no matter how much she might want to. She shuddered deeply as she drew in lungfuls of air, icy cold now that she had climbed above the valley bottom, stinging the inside of her chest. She welcomed the pain, because pain meant reality, and reality was now, eight years on from that awful summer.

She ought to have forgotten it long ago. Dominic Savage’s memory should have faded and been lost beneath happier memories of other men, but it stood between her and her fulfilment as a woman like some sort of revenging spirit.

She smiled without mirth as she remembered David’s incredulous look of disbelief when she had told him.

‘You’re still a virgin? But that’s impossible! God, Christy, a man only has to look at you! Those eyes … that red hair … your body … they don’t belong to some chaste Victorian maiden.’

She hadn’t been able to stop her mouth from trembling, and he was sensitive and intuitive enough to know that she wasn’t lying. If only David hadn’t been married. How willingly she would have given herself over to his sexual mastery. Physically she had found him attractive, even while she knew she didn’t love him. She had wanted his lovemaking, his skill, and his expertise, like some sort of sleeping princess awaiting the awakening kiss of a prince, she thought now, dourly. But she couldn’t hurt Meryl, and so the chasm of fear and self-loathing that Dominic had blasted between her and her sexuality had remained unbreached.

As she stood leaning against the stone, the first fine flakes of snow began to fall. She knew that she ought to go back, but she was unwilling to do so, unwilling to face Dominic until she had made herself relive the full horror of that awful night.

She wasn’t going to blame Helen; the fault, the desire had been hers. She was the one who had listened with awed fascination to Helen’s description of how easy it was to seduce a man. The other girl’s voice had been edged with the contempt of an intrinsically sexually cold female for the vulnerability of the male, but then she had been too naïve to see it, and so, round-eyed, and inwardly faintly shocked, she had drunk in Helen’s detailed instructions.

‘But what if he doesn’t … you know? What if he doesn’t make love to me?’

Helen had shrugged. ‘You don’t need to worry about that. Once you’ve aroused him, he won’t be able to stop himself. None of them can.’

Alarm and excitement had twisted inside her; excitement at the thought of Dominic making love to her, and alarm at the thought of her own daring in imagining that he might.

It had been quite easy to discover an evening when Dominic would be at home alone. Every fortnight her own parents and his met up to play bridge, and she only had to wait until the venue for this fortnightly get-together was her own home.

‘Wear something sexy,’ had been Helen’s first instruction. Easy enough to say, but there was nothing in her wardrobe that remotely deserved such a description.

In the end, feeling more uncomfortable and embarrassed than sexy, she had taken off her bra, and unfastened her cotton shirt to show the taut upper swell of her breasts, before tugging it into her habitual jeans.

A cardigan hid the evidence of her bra-less state from her parents as she said her goodbyes, guilt and desire mingling in almost equal quantities as she got on her bike and sped down the drive.

It had been a hot summer, and the French windows of the Savages’ house stood open as she cycled down the drive and round to the back door.

Since their parents were close friends, it was not unusual for her to visit the house, but as she got off her bike she was filled with an awareness that she was trespassing, not just against the Savages’ friendship but also against her parents’ trust.

She would have turned back then if it hadn’t been for the fact that she would have to face Helen in the morning, and so, quelling her feelings, she went round to the French windows and knocked briefly before walking in.

The sitting-room was empty; her heart thudding, she walked through into the hall, and then stood there transfixed as she saw Dominic coming towards her down the stairs, pulling on a white shirt.

His hair was damp, his skin tanned and firm against the powerful male muscles. Something seemed to expand and flower inside her, a deep pulsating excitement that brought a delicate flush of colour to her skin and deepened her eyes to dark jade.

‘Christy, is everything all right?’

The sharpness in his voice brought her back to reality. ‘Yes.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’ He was frowning at her as he buttoned his shirt, and because he had never before spoken to her in anything other than a teasingly indulgent voice, Christy could only stare at him. ‘I asked you what you came here for.’

He was at the bottom of the stairs now, frowning at her, and even though she was tall she had to tilt back her head to look at him. She had taken off her cardigan as she stepped back from him, the dying rays of the evening sun falling across the thin cotton of her blouse, revealing the uncovered peaks of her breasts.

She heard Dominic catch his breath on what sounded like an impatient sigh, and said hurriedly, ‘I … I came to see you …’

‘Me?’ He was frowning even more now. ‘What about?’

Panic flared inside her. This wasn’t going the way it should. By now he shouldn’t be questioning her; he should be looking at her … wanting her. It wasn’t going to be as easy as Helen had said. Confusion flooded through her, and she turned puzzled, worried eyes up to him, betraying more than she knew.

‘I … I just wanted to talk to you,’ she said lamely, flushing a brilliant shade of red as he suddenly said harshly, ‘Christy, what’s this all about? You aren’t in some … some kind of trouble, are you?’

Her eyes widened, and went brilliant with shock as she absorbed his meaning. There was only one kind of trouble he could mean, and she jerked back from him indignantly.

‘No … no, of course not! How could you think anything like that …?’ She was shocked and hurt that he could think that she would give herself to anyone other than him, barely taking in his curt, ‘All too easily, especially when you parade yourself around dressed like that.’ A flick of his hand indicated that he was aware of her near-nudity, and she flushed again. This wasn’t the way he was supposed to react. Helen had said …

She bit her lip and moved closer to him, her voice shaking as she implored huskily, ‘Dominic, please don’t be angry with me …’ Tears weren’t very far away; she could feel them clogging up the back of her throat.

She heard him sigh, and then rapturously felt his arms go round her; she was being cradled against him, her head resting on his shoulder, the bare heat of his chest against her thinly covered breasts.

She quivered with nerves and excitement, aching to reach out and touch him, but scarcely able to even draw breath, never mind do anything else.

Helen was right, and it had worked! Her legs shook and threatened to give way beneath her. Her heart seemed to have lodged somewhere in her throat and was threatening to suffocate her. Could Dominic feel it beating? She could feel the steady, even thud of his. Instinctively she moved her hand to touch the place where she could feel that strong beat.

Her fingertips trembled against his skin and then, shockingly, almost frighteningly, her wrist was seized in an iron grip and she was forcefully pushed away from him.

Angry grey eyes glared down into the bemused jade of hers. ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

The shock of his sudden withdrawal was too much for her to cope with. She was still lost in the rapturous dream of her own intense desire and love, and without comprehending his anger she burst out eagerly, ‘Dominic, make love to me. Please … I know you want to.’

For a moment it was as though they were frozen in time: she gazing pleadingly up at him, her mouth soft and trembling, her body, supple and eager for his touch; he, tense and angry, the grey eyes darkened almost to black, his mouth drawn in a tight hard line, his body tense as though he was too furious even to draw breath.

And then the spell was broken, and the reality of his anger crashed through her physical arousal as he breathed harshly, ‘My God, I don’t believe I’m hearing this. Is this why you came here dressed like … like … like a modern-day Lolita? To ask me to make love to you? And you’re so damned blatant about it, as well!’

He saw the shock and pain on her face, and although she wasn’t aware of it, his voice softened slightly. ‘Christy, I can’t make love to you … you know that.’

‘Because you don’t want me?’ She made herself face him, and saw his face grow cold and shuttered.

‘Among other things,’ he agreed evenly, adding, ‘it is customary for the woman to wait to be asked, you know. Who put you up to this? Come on, Christy, no lies. I know you; you’d never have thought of doing this for yourself.’

She had been too distraught and humiliated to keep back the truth, and he had kept on and on at her until she had told him everything. She had had to sit there answering his questions and seeing the look of contemptuous disgust darken his eyes, until he had moved away from her as though even to look at her had contaminated him.

‘Well, now it’s my turn to tell you something,’ he had said at last, when she was finished. ‘Contrary to what your friend informed you, it isn’t that easy to make a man desire you.’

She had flushed with shame and pain then, but he hadn’t let her look away, holding her chin with hard, hurting fingers as he said cruelly, ‘Look at me, Christy. Go on … take a good look … your friend has told you what to look for. Do I look as though I want you physically?’

She had wanted to get up and run away then, but shock and pain had held her rigidly where she stood, shivering like a rabbit before a hawk, totally unable to do anything other than stare blindly back into his savagely dark eyes.

When she couldn’t turn her eyes in the direction of his body, he taunted with soft menace, ‘If you won’t look at me, perhaps you’d like to touch me instead. Just so that you know I’m not lying to you …’

She had shuddered deeply then, knowing that he had just destroyed her childish illusions, exposing her as what she was, and how she had hated the image of herself that he had held up to her gaze! She had turned away from him then, struggling to subdue the sob of terror and anguish that rose up in her throat.

He hadn’t let her go, though; there had been more for her to endure. A lecture about the physical dangers she was courting: about the health risk of promiscuity, about the danger of rape and worse, and a reminder of how much her parents loved and trusted her and how shocked they would be if they knew what she had done. Worse still, he hadn’t let her ride home on her bike, but had sent her upstairs to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her hair, and once she had done that he had waited until she had buttoned herself into her concealing cardigan and then had driven her home.

There was only eight years between them, but he had been as stern and forbidding as any Victorian parent, and when he had let her out of the car at the end of her parents’ drive she had known that she would hate and loathe him for the rest of her life.

But not as much as she would hate herself, she reflected bitterly as she emerged from the past and came back to the present.

She had avoided Helen after that and had asked her parents if, instead of going back to school, she could attend college instead. They had agreed and found her comfortable digs in Newcastle, where in addition to her secretarial skills she had learned how to begin living with herself again.

It was as though those hectic weeks when Helen had been her friend had been some sort of sickness from which she had emerged with a revulsion for all that she had been and done. The very thought of meeting Dominic in those early days had been enough to make her feel physically ill, and if her parents thought it was curious that she never mentioned him, they kept it to themselves.

She sighed faintly. The snow was coming down more heavily now. It was time for her to return home. She glanced at her watch. Ten past three. Good, by the time she got back Dominic should have left. She knew she couldn’t spend her entire life avoiding him, but discovering that he was back had been such a shock. She hadn’t been ready for it. Now, having endured the catharsis of making herself relive the past, she should be stronger, more able to judge her teenage actions with tolerance and compassion. But she couldn’t. That was the problem: she couldn’t get over the feelings of shame and self-disgust that Dominic had given her; they still haunted and tainted her life like a disease that, although dormant, still possessed the power to return.

She hated Dominic because of the picture he had drawn of her and made her face. She hated the fact that he had witnessed her shame and humiliation. She hated him because he made her hate herself.

Sighing, she pulled the hood of her anorak up against the snow and started for home.




CHAPTER TWO


SHE almost made it. She was just treading down the lane, head bowed against the snow, when she heard the car, and instinctively began to move out of the middle of the lane, but the snow had made it treacherous and she slipped and lost her balance, going down with a bump that robbed her of breath and jarred her body.

Christy was distantly aware of the car stopping and a door slamming, but it wasn’t until he came and lifted her out of the snow that she realised who her rescuer was.

‘Dominic!’

Her body froze in instant recognition and panic. Eight years hadn’t changed him at all, except to make him seem more formidable. That aura of leashed power that had once so excited and intrigued her was still there; the black hair was still as thick and dark as ever, the grey eyes as alert. He even had the same deep tan, while she …

As he hauled her to her feet, she grimaced inwardly, bitterly aware of her soaked jeans and ancient anorak. Why on earth hadn’t she taken the trouble to put on some make-up and do her hair? She could feel it tangling untidily round her head, and surely she might have had the sense to put on one of the stunning skisuits she had bought for last winter’s skiing holiday with David and his family.

Oh God, if she had to face Dominic, why on earth couldn’t it have been with all the armour she had learned to adopt in the last eight years instead of this, looking much as she had done as a teenager, instead of the sophisticated woman she had learned to become?

‘Christy, are you OK?’

Incredibly, he sounded concerned as he brushed the snow off her face and, even more astounding, he was smiling at her, a smile she recognised from before those traumatic days when she had tried to turn the casual affection of an adult male towards the young daughter of his parents’ friends into something more personal. As she looked into his concerned eyes it was almost as though that dreadful summer had never been. She caught her breath at the shock of it. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten …

No, of course he hadn’t, but perhaps he judged it more politic to pretend he had. She stiffened and pushed him away, her brusque, ‘I’m fine, no thanks to you,’ causing his smile to change to a frown. ‘Do you always drive about without any thought for the safety of others?’ she demanded tartly. ‘Hardly the sort of behaviour one would expect in a member of the medical profession.’

His smile had faded completely now, to be replaced by a sharp-eyed scrutiny of her pale, set face.

‘I was driving slowly enough to be able to stop, and hardly anyone ever uses this lane,’ he pointed out calmly.

Christy knew that she was over-reacting, but it was the only way she could hold at bay her shock at seeing him. She had thought she had managed to avoid him, and it struck her now that she would have much preferred to face him again in the familiarity of her own home rather than out here like this, when she was at such a disadvantage. Again she cursed her own folly in being stupid enough to try and avoid him. Far better if she had stayed at home and greeted him in one of the elegantly expensive outfits she wore for work—outfits that said quite unmistakably that she was an adult.

His eyes monitored her pale face and shaky limbs, his forehead furrowing in a deep frown.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ He reached out to help her, and instinctively she recoiled.

‘Get in the car,’ he told her, still watching her. ‘I’ll run you home. It won’t take me a minute, and as your family doctor, I …’

‘You’re not my doctor!’

The passionate denial was out before she could silence it, leaving them staring at one another, her, tense with shock, and Dominic narrow-eyed with an expression she could not interpret.

‘Christy.’

His voice was clipped now, his dark eyebrows drawn together over those clear grey eyes, the dark head inclined towards her at an achingly familiar angle. ‘Look, it’s pointless us standing here arguing. It’s a good half-mile to the house. Even if nothing’s damaged, a fall like that can be quite a shock.’

Christy knew that it was pointless and childish trying to argue with him, especially with her nerve ends jumping like discordant wires and her heart beating so fast she could hardly draw breath. He was right, she was suffering from shock, but not because of her fall. With a brief shrug she moved towards his car—a brand new BMW, she noticed wryly, staring at the glossy paintwork. He moved towards her, his body brushing against hers as he opened the door. Instantly she stiffened and drew away.

‘What’s wrong?’

Did he really honestly need to ask?

‘Nothing. I just don’t like being touched, that’s all.’

Too late she registered his expression. What she had said was quite true, and it was an excuse she had used so often that she was barely aware of the import of it any more, but as she brushed the snow off her anorak she was suddenly aware of Dominic studying her with a curiously fixed intensity.

Suddenly his mouth twisted, giving him a faintly satanic air, and she coloured hotly, knowing what he must be thinking, but knowing equally that there was no way she could refute his thoughts, or stop him from remembering a time when she had wanted far more than just his touch.

Feeling sick with reaction, she pulled back from the car. ‘I don’t want a lift, Dominic,’ she told him huskily. ‘I’d much rather walk,’ and before he could stop her, she set off down the lane at a brisk pace, not daring to turn round in case she saw him following her.

It was an unnerving sensation, and one that turned her legs to rubber, but at last she made it to the garden gate, and it was only once she was inside that she heard the sound of Dominic’s car engine firing, and realised that he must have watched her walk the whole way.

Well, of course, as a doctor, he could hardly have it said that he had neglected any of his responsibilities. Her mouth curled bitterly as she limped towards the front door.

As she closed it behind her her father called out, ‘Christy, is that you?’ His study door opened and his eyebrows rose as he studied her wet clothes. ‘You’ve just missed Dominic. What on earth happened to you? You look as though you had a fight with a snowdrift and came off worst!’

‘You’re almost right.’

She saw him frown. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes … I fell over in the lane. Fortunately nothing’s damaged apart from my pride. How’s Mum?’

‘She’s coming along very nicely, so Dominic says, but you’ll be able to ask him for yourself tonight. He’s coming for supper.’ He looked guiltily at her. ‘Your mother invited him. She worries about him, living all alone in the Vicarage. You know what a fusser she is.’

So it was Dominic who had bought the Vicarage. Christy’s heart sank as she registered her father’s words. She could hardly fabricate an excuse to absent herself tonight.

‘You needn’t worry about what to cook. Your mother said to tell you that the freezer’s full. We miss Dominic’s parents. The four of us used to have some good times together …’

Guiltily Christy chastised herself for her selfishness. Dominic’s father had died four years ago, and then his mother had gone to live with her widowed sister in Berkshire. They had been her parents’ closest friends, but until now all she had been conscious of was her own relief that their absence meant that there was no longer any reason for Dominic to return to Setondale. But he had returned …

‘Is Mum awake? I thought I’d go up and see her.’

‘Yes, do. She’s complaining already that she’s getting bored, but Dominic has told her that she has to stay in bed at least another week.’

Her mother was sitting propped up against her pillows when Christy walked into her parents’ bedroom. Sarah Marsden was a striking-looking woman, with her daughter’s green eyes and the high cheekbones of the Celtic Scots. She smiled warmly as she saw Christy, and patted the bed. ‘There you are, darling. Come and sit down and talk to me. I’m bored out of my mind lying here, but Dominic insists.’ She watched her daughter carefully as she added, ‘You know, of course, that he’s back?’

Sarah Marsden had far more intuition than her husband, and she was well aware of her daughter’s reluctance to talk about anything or anyone connected with Dominic Savage. She knew about her adolescent crush on him, of course; it had been glaringly obvious, but Dominic had been at pains to treat her gently. She had never fathomed out what it was that had led to Christy’s abhorrence of the very mention of his name, and she knew her daughter far too well to pry. Instead she said calmly, ‘I invited Dominic to come round for supper. A man living on his own never eats properly.’

‘Nonsense, Mum,’ Christy interrupted crisply, ‘there’s no reason why on earth a man shouldn’t be able to take care of himself in much the same way as a woman has to.’

‘Oh, I wasn’t suggesting that Dominic wasn’t capable of looking after himself, Christy,’ her mother corrected gently. ‘I’m sure he can. But as a very busy doctor, I’m also sure that he doesn’t have the time to do more than grab the odd snack. There’s a ragout in the freezer; I thought you might give him that. It always used to be his favourite …’

‘Stop worrying about Dominic Savage and try and get some rest,’ Christy instructed her. Really, her mother was impossible at times! Here she was recuperating from major heart surgery and all she could think about was Dominic Savage’s stomach.

It wasn’t because she wanted to impress Dominic that she took particular pains with her appearance that night, Christy told herself, donning an elegantly sophisticated jersey dress that David had urged her to buy from a shop in South Molton Street.

The camel-coloured jersey, so dull on anyone else, on her was the perfect foil for her copper hair, the knitted material designed to cling lovingly to every inch of her body. Despite the fact that it covered her from throat to knees, it was undoubtedly a dress designed for women with men in mind. Which no doubt was why David had chosen it in the first place, she thought wryly, remembering her own doubts the day she had tried it on. That had been before David had told her how he felt about her. Her mouth compressed slightly as she busied herself blow-drying her unruly curls into sleek copper order.

Now her make-up: just the merest hint of green eyeshadow, and then mascara to darken the blonde tips of her eyelashes. Blusher to emphasise her cheekbones, and then the merest slick of lip gloss. She stood up and slipped on her high heels, smiling rather grimly at her reflection.

Yes … This was the woman she now was, not the child she had once been. No one looking at her now could doubt her maturity. As she walked away from the mirror she didn’t see the glimmer of vulnerability that darkened her eyes, nor the soft quiver of her mouth.

Her father’s eyebrows lifted slightly as she walked into the kitchen, but he was familiar enough with her London clothes and the sophistication that went with it not to make any comment. She found the ragout in the freezer and started the preparations for supper. She couldn’t very well avoid eating with her father and Dominic, but once the meal was over she intended to excuse herself on the pretext that she was tired. After all, she thought cynically, Dominic could hardly want her company.

A pain, as though someone had twisted a knife in her heart, tore through her as she remembered the open warmth of his smile, for all the world as though he had actually been glad to see her. No doubt there were times when a doctor needed to conceal his true feelings, and he had obviously more than mastered that art.

Her mother wasn’t allowed any heavy meals, so just before Dominic was due, Christy took her up a light snack.

‘Oh, very nice; I do like that, Christy,’ Mrs Marsden approved, as she studied her daughter’s dress. Despite the fact that she lived a rural existence, Sarah Marsden had retained a vivid interest in fashion and was able to comment knowledgeably on her daughter’s outfit.

‘David chose it,’ Christy told her, failing to notice the look of concern darkening her mother’s eyes. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was really me, but you know what he’s like. He overruled all my objections.’

‘Yes, he can be a very forceful man. And a very magnetic one as well …’ She paused, and Christy looked across at her.

‘You’ve always seemed so happy in your job, Christy. Your father and I were a bit surprised to hear that you’d given it up. I hope it wasn’t anything to do with this silly heart of mine.’

‘It wasn’t,’ Christy assured her truthfully. ‘As I told Dad this morning, David has been offered some work in Hollywood, and since there’s every chance that he might stay on over there, naturally I couldn’t go on working for him.’

‘But he could have taken you with him.’

Christy could sense the direction of her mother’s thoughts. ‘Yes, I suppose he could,’ she agreed airily. ‘But he didn’t, and quite fortunately, as it turns out that that means I’m free to come home and spend some time with you. Unless, of course, you’re trying to tell me that my help isn’t wanted …’

‘Christy, darling, this is your home. We’re both delighted to have you back. Umm … that sounds like Dominic’s car. You’d better go down and let him in. Your father will never hear him. He’s getting dreadfully deaf, you know.’

Reluctantly Christy headed for the door. As her mother had predicted, the sound of the doorbell had not brought her father out of his study, so she made her way down to the hall, shivering in the blast of cold air that swirled in as she opened the front door.

Dominic had changed out of the suit he had been wearing earlier and was now dressed casually in navy pants and a matching jacquard sweater. His eyebrows rose as he saw her, and for a moment something almost like pain seemed to flicker in his eyes.

‘I’ll just tell my father that you’re here,’ Christy told him formally, stepping away from him. ‘Supper shouldn’t be long.’

Her father, roused from his study, apologised to Dominic for not hearing the bell.

‘I persuaded Christy that we’d be better off eating in the kitchen. Our dining-room faces north and it’s freezing in there at this time of the year. Come on in, and sit down.’

Christy gnawed anxiously at her bottom lip as she followed them. The very last thing she had wanted was to have Dominic sharing the warm intimacy of the kitchen with them, watching her while she worked … it made no difference that there had once been a time when her parents’ kitchen had been as familiar to him as his own, and she resented his easy assumption that all was as it had once been. Surely he must be aware how hard it was for her to have to face him like this, but he was behaving as though nothing had happened, as though he had never humiliated and hurt her in a way that was branded into her heart for all time.

While she busied herself putting the finishing touches to their supper, Christy could hear her father and Dominic chatting, and yet she was also conscious, every time she happened to glance at him, that Dominic was also watching her. Watching her, she thought shakily, not just simply looking at her. What was he watching her for? Did he think she was going to fling herself at him and beg him to make love to her? Did he think that she was still suffering from that dreadful teenage crush?

‘Ragout. My favourite.’ Dominic smiled at her as she served out the meal, but she refused to smile back.

‘Your mother tells me that you’ve given up your job in London.’

‘The man I worked for is going out to Hollywood.’ Although it was impossible to refuse to answer Dominic’s questions with her father smiling benignly at them, she kept her answers as curt and clipped as possible, and after several attempts at conversation with her, all of which she blocked, she saw his mouth compress into a hard line and a steely glint darken his eyes.

The phone rang in the hall, and her father got up to answer it. While he was gone Dominic took advantage of his absence to say curtly, ‘What’s wrong, Christy?’

That he should actually need to ask her robbed her of the breath with which to answer him, and by the time she had recovered her wits, her father was back in the kitchen.

For the rest of the meal Dominic directed his conversation almost exclusively towards her father. Eight years ago she would have felt hurt and left out and would have made a childish attempt to break into their discussions, but now she was glad to be left alone.

After supper, her father’s suggestion that he and Dominic play a game of chess left Christy free to clear up the kitchen and then go upstairs to check on her mother.

‘You needn’t sit up here with me, dear,’ Sarah Marsden told her. ‘I’m perfectly all right. In fact, I was just thinking I’d like to go to sleep. Why don’t you go back downstairs and join your father and Dominic?’

‘They’re playing chess.’

Her mother laughed. ‘Oh dear, I remember how you always used to resent that. Dominic tried to teach you to play several times, didn’t he?’

Memories she didn’t want to acknowledge surged over her; an image of her petulant sixteen-year-old face pouting protestingly as she tried to divert Dominic’s attention from his game to herself. That had been in the days before she had realised the true nature of the strange restlessness that seemed to possess her.

‘You were always far too restless to concentrate,’ her mother added fondly. ‘I remember one Sunday afternoon, you picked up the board and threw all the pieces on to the floor.’

‘The year I took my O-levels. Dominic threatened to wallop me for it.’

‘Yes, I remember.’ Her mother laughed, and Christy wondered if she also remembered how that miserable afternoon had ended. She certainly did.

For weeks she had been troubled by a vague but persistent feeling of restlessness; she wanted to be with Dominic, but when she was, she wasn’t satisfied with their old comfortable friendship. Too young and inexperienced to be able to analyse her own feelings, she had taken refuge in fits of sulks alternated with bursts of temper. Dominic’s threat to put her over his knee and administer the punishment he thought she deserved had acted like a shock of cold water on her newly emerging feminine feelings, and she had retreated from him to the sanctuary of her bedroom, in floods of tears.

The next day he had been waiting for her when she came out of school. He had driven her half-way home and had then stopped the car on a secluded piece of road.

‘I’m sorry about last night, infant,’ he had said softly. ‘I forget sometimes that you’re not a little girl any more.’

She had burst into tears again, but this time there had been nowhere to run and she had sobbed out her misery and confusion against the hard warmth of his shoulder, even in her anguish conscious of the pleasure of his body close to her own and his arms wrapped round her.

He had kissed her briefly on the forehead as he released her, offering his handkerchief so that she could dry her eyes. That had been the day she knew she had fallen in love with him.

‘Come back, Christy …’

Her mother’s teasing voice jolted her back to the present and reality, and although she listened to her chatter as she smoothed her pillows and checked that she had everything she needed, Christy was wondering what her mother would say if she told her that now she could play chess. Meryl had taught her. Meryl, whose patience made her an admirable teacher; Meryl, whose patience allowed her to turn a blind eye to a husband to whom a continuous string of brief sexual affairs seemed to be as necessary as the air he breathed. And yet without Meryl, David would be very unhappy. She was his wife, and in his way he loved her. He also loved their children. Sighing faintly, Christy walked towards the door. Adult relationships were very complex things. As a teenager she had daydreamed about the perfect life she would have with Dominic if he loved her; she had imagined that love alone was enough, that nothing else mattered, but different people had different needs.

She herself was too old-fashioned in her moral outlook to involve herself in an affair with a married man, especially a married man whose wife she knew and liked.

No matter how awkward and unsettling it was discovering that Dominic had come back to Setondale, she knew that she had made the right decision in refusing to accompany David to Hollywood. Already, the effect of his sexual magnetism was beginning to fade now that he was no longer there to generate it. Maybe even the desire she had felt clawing so sharply within her had really been the desire of an inexperienced woman for experience rather than a particular desire for David himself.

Ever since the humiliation of her rejection by Dominic, Christy had kept the sexual side of her nature firmly under control. She was not and never had been the sort of woman to whom sex could be sufficient in itself, but there were times, increasingly so these days, when she saw lovers embracing, couples together, when she was pierced by an intense need, coupled with sadness for all that she had lost in not having a lover of her own.

And that was Dominic’s fault; his strictures, his contempt had made it impossible for her to be open and honest in her dealings with his sex; she was quite frankly terrified of misinterpreting a man’s feelings and suffering once again the savage rejection which still haunted her.

She went downstairs and started to make a tray of coffee for her father and Dominic. It was gone ten o’clock and, as Dominic no doubt remembered, her parents preferred early nights.

When she took the tray in it was obvious that Dominic was winning the game.

‘He’s got me completely tied up,’ her father commented with a mock grimace as she handed him his coffee.

‘Mmm.’ She studied the chess board knowledgeably. ‘Another two moves and you won’t be able to avoid checkmate.’

Her father’s eyebrows rose, but he looked pleased. ‘Well, well, so you have managed to learn something while you’ve been in London!’ Turning to Dominic, he asked teasingly, ‘Do you remember how often you tried to teach her?’

‘There are teachers and teachers,’ Christy responded acidly, watching the way Dominic frowned as he looked up at her. The humour she had seen warming his eyes earlier was gone now, and they were a hard, flat grey.

‘And pupils and pupils,’ he taunted back, while her father looked from one set face to the other as though suddenly conscious of the fast-flowing undercurrents racing between them.

Christy was glad that the phone rang, cutting through the thick silence. Her father went to answer it, and she started to follow him until Dominic’s smooth voice stopped her.

‘You’ve changed, Christy. And I don’t suppose for one moment that chess is the only thing you’ve been taught!’

She swung round, her eyes glittering with the temper he had always been so easily able to arouse inside her, but before she could say anything, her father came back into the room, frowning slightly.

‘The call’s for you, Christy. It’s David.’

‘My ex-boss. I suppose he’s lost an all-important piece of filing.’ She knew she was flushing and that moreover, Dominic was aware of it, but David ringing her when she had thought she had made it quite clear to him that there was no point in him pursuing her had caught her off guard.

She hurried to the phone, curling the flex round her fingers in nervous agitation as she spoke into the receiver.

‘Christy, my love, you can’t know how much I’ve missed hearing your voice. I miss you, Christy. Come back.’

She gritted her teeth together. She had always known that David was persistent when there was something that he wanted, but she thought she had made it clear there could be nothing between them.

‘I can’t come back, David,’ she responded coolly. ‘My mother is ill and she needs me.’

‘I need you. God, how I need you! Come back, Christy …’

Her body had started to tremble. This was too much to cope with coming on top of her clash with Dominic.

‘I can’t, David.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And I wouldn’t even if I could. I’ve already told you that. You’re a married man. You know how much I like Meryl.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she heard him swear sharply. ‘Listen, Christy …’

Suddenly she panicked. ‘No … no … I don’t want to hear any more.’ She held the receiver away from her, but before she could slam it down she heard him saying furiously, ‘I’m not letting you go as easily as that. I want you … and I can make you want me …’

Even with the receiver held away from her, the words were plainly audible. She slammed it down, literally shaking with reaction.

‘And that’s your boss, is it?’

The shock of Dominic’s hard voice coming from behind her made her whirl round to stare at him.

Correctly reading her expression, he added evenly, ‘I just came in to say goodnight, on your father’s instructions. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Do you love him, Christy … is that why you’ve come running home?’

‘He’s a married man.’ She cried out the words desperately, hating him for seeing her like this when she was so weak and vulnerable.

‘I see …’

Surely that wasn’t compassion she could see in his eyes. She shook her head disbelievingly and heard him say, ‘If there’s anything I can do to help …’

Eight years ago she had needed his help, but he had rejected her, and suddenly she wanted to throw that in his face, and to tell him that it was his fault she was the person she was now; that it was his fault that she was a twenty-four-year-old virgin with ridiculously unrealistic ideals of love and marriage, but common sense told her that the blame wasn’t all his, so instead she stormed past him, saying bitterly, ‘Stop trying to bigbrother me, Dominic; I don’t need your help, either as a doctor or as a man.’

His face closed up immediately, and she was conscious of an unfamiliar hardness about it, an expression that warned her that he would be a dangerous man to push too hard.

‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’ He paused in the act of stepping past her to the front door and said quietly, ‘Just tell me one thing. Was he …’ he gestured to the phone, ‘the one who taught you to play chess?’

Briefly she frowned. ‘No … no … he wasn’t …’

What an odd thing to ask her. She was just about to ask him the reason for his question, but he opened the door and stepped through it before she could do so.

‘Dominic gone, then?’ her father asked, coming into the hall a moment later. ‘He’s a nice lad. Clever, too.’

Christy’s eyebrows rose as she went into his study to collect the coffee cups. ‘If he’s so clever then what’s he doing coming to work here as a mere GP? I thought he would have been better off staying in America?’

‘Financially, maybe,’ her father agreed, his expression slightly reproving. ‘But the Savage men have been general practitioners here for three generations, and Dominic has a tremendous sense of duty. He always did have; don’t you remember how protective he always used to be of you? We never needed to worry about you when you were in Dominic’s care.’

‘I would have thought he had more ambition than to want to spend all his life in Setondale.’

‘Oh, he’s got ambition all right. He was telling me tonight about his hopes and plans. He wants to try to raise enough money locally to buy and equip a local surgery that’s capable of carrying out most of the more common operations. He’s seen it done in the States and is convinced it can be copied here, and I think he’ll do it, too. There’s going to be quite a lot of work involved in raising the initial finance, of course, but I’ve promised to give him what help I can—oh, and I told him that you’d probably be prepared to take on the secretarial side of things for him. It’s a very worthwhile cause, and I’m sure he’ll be able to get a lot of local support. After all, it’s going on for forty miles to the nearest hospital, and the sort of clinic-cum-operating theatre Dominic plans for Setondale could only benefit everyone.’

Her father’s enthusiasm for Dominic’s plans made it impossible for Christy to tell him that there was no way she was going to be involved in anything that brought her into closer contact with Dominic. She tried to comfort herself with the conviction that she was the very last person Dominic would want to assist him, but she couldn’t help remembering that since his unexpected return he had behaved as though that final annihilating scene between them had simply never taken place. Maybe he could do that, but she couldn’t. Every time she looked at him she remembered her humiliation.

Thoroughly infuriated and exasperated by her father’s lack of intuition in realising that she wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Dominic, she carried the coffee tray into the kitchen.




CHAPTER THREE


FOUR days passed without Christy seeing anything of Dominic. She told herself that she was glad, and concentrated on settling into a proper routine. By the end of the week she was finding that she had time to spare, and because she was used to being busy, it weighed heavily upon her hands. So heavily, in fact, that her father’s announcement that a meeting was going to be held to discuss the setting-up of a committee to organise fund-raising for Dominic’s clinic-cum-operating theatre came as a welcome relief.

‘I’ve volunteered you to take notes and keep the minutes,’ he warned her. ‘Dominic was a bit dubious about whether you’d want to be so closely involved.’

Meaning that he didn’t want her closely involved? She felt a totally unexpected pain shaft through her, which she suppressed instantly, instead concentrating on fanning her anger.

‘Was he? Well, you can tell Dominic from me that I do want to do it. It will stop my secretarial skills from getting too rusty.’

‘You’ll be able to tell him for yourself,’ her father chuckled. ‘He’s coming round for supper tonight, so that we can make a few preliminary plans.’

The sudden lurch of her heart was so intensely reminiscent of her reaction to the mention of his name at seventeen that it drove all the colour from her face. What was the matter with her? She wasn’t that susceptible, adolescent, any more. She felt nothing for Dominic Savage, unless it was dislike.

‘Who else will be at the meeting?’ she asked her father, trying to distract herself.

‘Oh, John Howard, from the bank. He’s bringing a client of his who’s just moved into the area. A self-made man who’s just retired and who he thinks might be interested in making a donation. I think I’ve managed to persuade Lady Anthony to join us. She suffers quite badly from arthritis now, and isn’t as involved in local affairs as she was once, but I think she’ll consider this is something worth being involved with. She’s always had a soft spot for Dominic.’

‘Yes. Ever since he presented her with the chocolates he won at the summer fête!’

Her father gave her an indulgent smile. ‘Yes, you’d plagued the life out of him to give those chocolates to you.’

‘And he said they weren’t good for me.’

That had been the summer she was eleven, and Dominic had been, what? Nineteen and at medical school. She had adored him then, and he had put up with her adoration in much the same way as he might have tolerated the friskiness of an untrained puppy.

‘Lady Anthony has a relative staying with her at the moment. I haven’t met her, but I have heard that she’s a very attractive young woman. You’ll probably find you have quite a lot in common with her. She’s been living in London, but when her marriage broke up she came to stay with her godmother. The Vicar will be there of course—oh, and Major Barnes.’

When Christy’s eyebrows rose, her father grinned. ‘Yes, I know. He and Lady Anthony will argue like mad. They always do, and secretly, I’m sure both of them enjoy it. He’s an indefatigable organiser, though. We’re all meeting at Dominic’s house—you know he’s bought the Vicarage.’ He glanced apologetically at her. ‘I’m afraid I’ve volunteered you to take charge of the refreshments. Your mother …’

Christy sighed, not needing him to finish the sentence. Yes, had she been well enough, her mother would have been the first to offer her services. Like the Major, her mother was also an indefatigable organiser, and many was the hot summer afternoon when Christy had been detailed to assist with a mammoth cake-baking session for some local bring-and-buy sale or summer fete.

It must be her nostalgia for those long-ago times that made her refrain from objecting to her father’s casual disposal of her time, she decided the next morning as she surveyed the cooling sponges on their wire trays.

The inhabitants of Setondale were old-fashioned about some things; bought cakes were one of them. No self-respecting Setondale housewife would ever serve her visitors with something she had not prepared with her own hands.

Well, at least she didn’t appear to have lost her touch with a sponge, Christy thought approvingly as she tested the golden-brown confectionery. In addition to the sponges, there were biscuits, made to her mother’s special recipe, and later on she would make sandwiches and carefully cover them to stop them curling at the edges. She would have to borrow her father’s car to run them over to Dominic’s house, but since her father was out playing golf with one of his cronies he was hardly likely to object.

As she drove over to the Vicarage later in the day Christy wondered curiously why Dominic had bought it. Surely a smaller house in the centre of Setondale itself would have suited him more? The very reason the Church had sold off the Vicarage was its size, and the cost of maintaining and heating it. As far as she remembered, it had at least seven bedrooms, and then there were the attics.

The wrought-iron gates were permanently open; indeed, they had stood open for so long that she doubted they could ever be closed. Weeds and brambles had grown in between the spars, and the bright winter sunshine highlighted their neglected state.

The drive to the house too was overgrown, and the trees, which would look lovely in the spring, now looked gaunt and dreary without their leaves. Even so, the Georgian façade of the house was undeniably elegant, and the gardens, encircled as they were by a high brick wall, would be a haven of privacy once they had been brought under control. But who was going to do that? Not Dominic, surely? He would be far too busy.




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