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He leaned across the table towards her. ‘You don’t need to. It only takes a touch.’ He ran one finger down the back of her hand and Jess gulped, pulling her arm away.
‘So what about my foibles, then?’ Time to change the subject.
‘Your what?’ His gaze slid across her body, making her shiver.
‘Foibles. Pay attention.’
‘I am paying attention.’ He pushed the teacups and the plate that stood between them on the table out of the way. ‘Okay, so your eyes look as if they have flecks of gold in them. That’s not contacts, is it?’
‘Of course not.’ She nudged her leg against his under the table. ‘Foibles, I said.’
‘I heard. Well, you’re resourceful, talented, generally a force to be reckoned with. Only you don’t much like being out of your comfort zone.’
Yes, okay, he might have a point. There were good reasons for her to feel that way. ‘Maybe.’
He leaned forward, and Jess couldn’t help but move towards him. She felt his lips brush her ear. ‘It’s a rather nice comfort zone, though.’
‘Stop it.’ She was feeling better now. As if the weekend wasn’t so much of a trial to be got through. Jess almost wished that it was more than two days.
He drew back. From the look in his eyes there was no question that the dialogue was still continuing somewhere in the back of his mind.
‘Do you want to drive?’
‘What for?’
‘Sometimes driving can help if you’re feeling a bit queasy.’
She stared at him. He knew just as well as she did that this was an excuse. That somehow, indefinably, she would feel a bit more in charge of her own destiny if she was in the driving seat. He was good. Good at putting her at her ease. Very, very good at making her want him.
‘Okay. If you don’t mind.’
He shrugged. ‘Why would I mind?’
His car was a pleasure to drive. When she put her foot down on the motorway, it responded with a purr, rather than the laboured growl that her own car would have emitted. Greg pushed the passenger seat back so he could stretch his legs, and confined himself to giving directions. An hour later they turned into a long, gated drive and drew up outside the house.
‘It’s big.’ Jess scanned the complex roof structure, which accommodated an elaborate arrangement of mock crenellations beneath it. There was even a circular tower, tacked onto one side of the building, with a set of battlements and a flagpole at its top.
He grinned. ‘Yeah. Not the prettiest of places.’
‘It’s not meant to be. Victorian, right?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Then the architecture’s not about welcoming visitors, eh?’
He looked again. Leaned back to study the red-brick patterns over the windows and the heavy portico, as if this was the first time he’d seen the place. ‘Never really thought about it. So what is it all about, then?’
‘It’s a statement. This house is all about the people who live here being different from the people who live down in the village. They wanted to impress with their power, not their good taste.’
He nodded. ‘You think so?’
Yes, she knew so. The girl from a two-up, two-down felt confronted and challenged by this place and Jess imagined that was exactly how she was meant to feel. ‘It’s one way of looking at it.’
He nodded, obviously turning the idea over in his head. ‘Well, come inside. It’s a bit more homely there.’
Not so you’d notice. The large hallway was big enough to contain her whole flat, with height to spare, and the sweeping stone staircase continued the theme of a fortified castle. Leading up to a wide half-landing that was illuminated by a large, stained-glass window, the whole thing reminded her of a film set for a medieval saga.
‘Here you are!’
A woman’s voice sounded, and for a moment Jess couldn’t work out which direction it had come from. Greg turned and made his way towards the back of the hallway.
‘We stopped for breakfast.’ He spared Jess the indignity of mentioning why. ‘What are you doing here?’
A laugh. The first piece of warmth that Jess had met in this place. A figure emerged from the gloom, walking towards her. Mid-fifties, tall and slim. One of those women that made style look like a fortuitous accident.
‘I popped in to turn the heating on and put some food in the fridge.’ The woman ducked around Greg and made straight for Jess. ‘You must be Greg’s friend. I’m Rosa.’
‘My mother.’ Greg was grinning. ‘Who never misses a chance to check out who I’m associating with.’
Rosa dismissed him with a casual movement of her fingers. ‘Don’t be so parochial, darling. Your friends might want to check me out.’ She grasped Jess’s hand, holding it in both of hers, and leaned in to kiss her. ‘There. Both cheeks.’
‘The Italian way.’ Greg was leaning against the heavy stone balustrade which enclosed the stairs, his hands shoved into his pockets.
‘Don’t listen to my son. I hope you’ll come over to my home for something to eat.’
‘You live near here?’ This was Greg’s father’s house. He’d said that his mother and father had divorced when he’d been a child, but she seemed very much at home here.
‘Two miles in that direction.’ Rosa flicked her fingers towards the dark recesses at the back of the hallway. ‘You can walk across the fields, it’s a nice day.’
Jess shot a questioning look at Greg. Perhaps this wasn’t in his plan for the weekend.
‘Have you made cannoli?’ Greg was smiling at his mother.
‘Of course.’ Rosa turned to Jess. ‘Did he think to tell you to bring any walking shoes?’
No, he hadn’t. Jess wasn’t sure how well her own shoes would stand up to a cross-country walk. ‘Perhaps we can go by road.’
‘If you want. Or I think there may be a pair of wellingtons in the cloakroom. If they’re too big I’m sure that a couple of pairs of socks… ’
‘We’ll manage.’ Greg looked at his watch. ‘When do you want us?’
His mother shrugged. ‘Whenever you’re hungry.’
‘How does one o’clock suit you?’
‘Perfect. Make it one-ish. Don’t worry about being a little late.’
Greg rolled his eyes and kissed his mother, helped her into the waterproof coat that was slung on a low settle in one corner of the hallway and bade her goodbye. Alone again with him, the temperature in the cavernous, empty space seemed to drop a couple of degrees and Jess drew her jacket around her.
‘Sorry, Jess. My mother wasn’t really checking you out, she’s not like that.’
‘It was nice of her to come by, this place could do with warming up a bit. I didn’t realise that your mother lived so close to your father.’
‘My father wasn’t here much.’ Greg’s mouth twitched downwards and he turned away, moving to the door at the back of the hallway where his mother had appeared from. ‘He lived mostly in the States, but he came over here three or four times a year to take care of his business interests in Europe.’
‘He kept this place empty, then, most of the time?’ It was a huge house, even for a family. For one man, who was hardly ever there, it was ridiculous.
‘He used to entertain a lot when he was here.’ There was a trace of bitterness in Greg’s voice.
‘I suppose it was handy to see you as well.’ Jess followed him into the large, well-equipped kitchen, which could have accommodated an army of caterers.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘He was mostly working. Mum used to bring me over, and half the time we’d just make our own entertainment because my father was locked away in the study, on the phone.’
‘But she still brought you.’ A picture of Rosa, walking her young son across the fields so that he could see his father, floated into her head. How must she have felt when the boy was ignored?
‘My mother was an eternal optimist where my father was concerned. She always encouraged me to see him.’ He dumped the kettle down onto the range and lit the gas underneath it.
In this house, he seemed surrounded by things he didn’t want to talk about. But he’d come here. He’d brought her here. On some level he must be aware of that, and that the seemingly complicated tangle of his relationship with his father wasn’t going to straighten itself out all on its own.
‘So this is where you grew up?’ She settled herself onto one of a long row of kitchen stools.
‘Yeah.’
‘And you didn’t see much of your father.’
‘Nope. Not a lot.’
She’d hit a sore spot, but she kept pressing. Sometimes you had to do that. ‘But your parents were on good terms?’
He barked out a short laugh. ‘Yeah. She loved him, and in his way he loved her. They just had very different priorities. And it’s not particularly easy to maintain a relationship with someone who only has about five uninterrupted minutes a day to spend with you.’
‘No. I imagine not.’ Jess wondered whether Greg was talking about his mother’s relationship with his father or his own. Probably a bit of both. ‘Neither of them married again?’
‘Not straight away. But that doesn’t mean they were secretly yearning to get back together. My father had his share of women friends. They loved the lifestyle for a while and then realised that they’d always be playing second fiddle to his work. And my mother remarried when I was fifteen. The local doctor. You’ll meet Ted when we go over there.’ There was sudden warmth in his voice.
‘So it was his footsteps you followed in.’
‘Guess so. Mum made him wait, but he was always there when I was a kid. He’d take us out somewhere every weekend, we used to have great adventures together.’
‘But they never moved away from here?’
‘Why should they? Ted’s practice is down in the village. This is my mother’s home much more than it ever was my father’s.’ He shrugged. ‘Although he came back here at the end.’
‘You mean he died here?’
Greg nodded. ‘He hadn’t told anyone that he had cancer. But when he turned up here, two days after Christmas last year, it was obvious that he was ill. My mother called me, and I arranged for him to be seen by a specialist. My mother looked after him, right up until the end.’
‘That was a nice thing to do.’
‘Yeah. She’s a nice person. I think somehow my father reckoned that he could correct some of the mistakes he’d made, but it was too late.’ He poured the tea and set a cup in front of her on the marble worktop. ‘Does that cover it?’
‘I don’t know. Does it?’ Greg’s secrets ran deeper than this. Nothing that he’d said explained the eight-month absence after his father’s death. Or the air of weariness that broke through whenever he talked about his father.
‘Difficult to say. Would you like to see the house?’
‘Why not?’
CHAPTER FOUR (#udcd41815-2e96-55b8-b291-43726b4ce8df)
THE HOUSE WAS full of large, chilly rooms that could have been light if it weren’t for the heavy drapes at the windows and the dark wood panelling everywhere. Jess smiled politely and tried to see the best in it all.
‘What’s through here?’ She pointed to the door at the end of the corridor that led from the top of the stairs. If she could find some corner of this house that she could genuinely own up to liking, she was determined to do so.
‘It’s the inside of the old turret. I used to play in there when I was a kid.’ He strode forward, opening the door. ‘No one’s been in here for a while.’
The room was circular, with tall narrow windows that curved to a point at the top and a complex, many-angled ceiling above their heads. Dust sheets covered what looked like seating and occasional tables.
‘This is great, Greg.’ This time she could give unqualified praise.
‘You like it? It’s not very practical.’
‘It’s fun, though.’
‘Yeah, it’s definitely fun. I used to fight my way up and down those stairs quite regularly when I was a kid.’ He nodded towards the stone stairway, which followed the curve of the wall down to the ground floor.
‘Your very own medieval castle.’ Complete with a few ghosts from the past, if the memories flickering in Greg’s eyes were anything to go by.
‘Yeah.’ He was looking around, seeing things she couldn’t. ‘We had a film crew here once. It was just a B movie and I don’t think they set much store by historical accuracy but I loved it. I made my mother bring me here every day, just to watch.’ He grinned proudly. ‘I had a bit part.’
‘Really? Who did you play?’
‘A nameless, grubby urchin. Didn’t get any lines, but I gave it my all.’
‘I’m sure you did. So what’s the film?’
‘My mother has a copy. I dare say if you ask her, she’ll let you savour every moment of my time on the silver screen in glorious slow-mo.’ He went to turn but something stopped him. The ghosts weren’t done with him yet, and he seemed caught, unable to move, his breath misting white in the chill of the air.
‘Those memories are important.’
‘They’re… ’ He was making a visible effort to resist some beguiling force, but Jess couldn’t tell what, and it was difficult to imagine what Greg could want that he didn’t already have. His attention was suddenly focussed back onto her. ‘It’s cold in here. You’re shivering.’
So do something about it. Hold me. Keep me warm. ‘I should have packed a warmer sweater.’
‘I have a few here.’ He turned abruptly. ‘Come and pick one out.’
His sweater didn’t fit, but it was warm, and Jess could fold the cuffs so that her hands didn’t disappear completely. And it smelled of him. Warm and sexy, and not really hers. She’d packed her best jeans, on the off chance she might need them, and Greg produced a pair of wellingtons along with a pair of thick woollen socks from the cloakroom.
‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to turn up at your mother’s looking like this?’
