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And now here I am, she thought mirthlessly, as she climbed out of the bath and swathed herself in a towel. Out of the frying pan, straight into the inferno.
She towelled herself down swiftly, then rubbed the excess moisture from her hair and combed it back from her face with her fingers, grimacing as she remembered that her hairdryer was one of the items she’d been forced to abandon on the boat.
But I had a spare one here, she thought, getting back into her robe. I kept it in my dressing table.
Will it still be there—and do I have the nerve to check?
Yet, it was safe enough, she assured herself. Daniel was at the office, and she was surely entitled to retrieve her own property?
She limped across the living area, pushed open the door of her bedroom, and went cautiously inside—only to pause with a small, shocked gasp as she looked around her.
Because it was unrecognisable. The pretty wallpaper with its delicate tracery of honeysuckle had been painted over in plain ivory, and her pale yellow silk bedcover had been replaced by something far more austere in dark brown. The curtains were brown too, and even the bedside rugs had been changed.
Every trace of her, every charming personal touch that her earnings from the gallery had provided, seemed to have been deliberately erased.
They say you shouldn’t go back, she thought, because you’ll find the space you occupied has gone.
And I’m suddenly beginning to feel as if I no longer exist.
As if everything I loved most has been taken away from me. My father first, when I was a baby, then Simon, and eventually Abbotsbrook. Maybe it was never the sanctuary I imagined, and my last memories of it were pretty hideous, but it held a kind of security all the same.
I always thought one day I’d go back, and somehow rediscover everything that was precious from my childhood.
She bit her lip. Oh, come on, now, she adjured herself impatiently. You’re here to dry your hair, not collapse into sentimentality.
She took a breath, then raised her head and looked across the room into the dressing table mirror. If Daniel hadn’t changed, there was little difference in her either. Her hair was still mousy, albeit streaked by the sun, and her figure remained like a stick. Her eyes would always be more grey than green, although she did have her mother’s cheekbones, which perhaps redeemed her face from being totally nondescript.
But not a great deal to set, all the same, against Daniel’s known preferences in womankind. The glamorous leggy blondes with the knowing eyes who’d made her adolescence miserable.
Or Candida, she thought, flinching as she recalled the sultry mouth, the body that swayed inside its clothes as if impatient to be free of them, and the sweet husky voice like poisoned honey.
How could any man resist her?
Deep within her something twisted in renewed agony, and she heard herself gasp.
‘Do not,’ she said aloud, her voice vehement. ‘Do not go there.’
But it was too late. And suddenly it was all too much, the throb in her ankle swamped by this other fiercer pain. She was alone, broke and scared. And she’d been through forty-eight hours of sheer trauma only to find a different kind of hell waiting for her in the place that should have been her refuge.
And Laine put her hands over her face, sank down on the edge of that immaculately smooth, alien bed, and wept, her whole body shaking with her sobs, until she had no more tears left.
CHAPTER THREE (#u3d73b6e8-4152-5301-b598-c1f2c52f063a)
FOR a long time after she was calm again Laine remained where she was, lying face downward on the bed, her fingers digging almost convulsively into the quilted satin of the bedcover.
But she knew she couldn’t stay there. Recognised, in fact, it would have been better if she’d never entered the room at all. Because Daniel was here, all around her, tormenting her senses and her memory.
The faint scent of his cologne was in the air. The subtle musky fragrance she’d always associated with him. That she’d breathed in so many times in the past with all the helpless longing of first love.
‘Time I wasn’t here,’ she said aloud.
She got slowly to her feet, meticulously restoring the coverlet to its former pristine condition. Making sure there was no untoward sign of her presence. And she managed to find her hairdryer, too—not where she’d left it, of course, but at the back of a shelf in the row of immaculately organised wardrobes.
Out of sight—out of mind, she thought as she crossed the living area to the other room. Rather like myself.
He’ll probably never know it’s gone.
And at that same moment she heard the rattle of a key in the front door.
Oh, God, she thought, her heart thudding. He’s back. I got out just in time.
She tossed the hairdryer onto the bed, and turned defensively, pulling the door shut behind her as Daniel came in. He looked preoccupied and not particularly good-tempered.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said stiltedly, wincing at the absurdity of the remark.
His tone was acid. ‘Who were you expecting?’
‘Well, not you. Not so soon.’ She paused. ‘You—startled me.’
‘I can see that,’ he said brusquely. ‘You look like a ghost.’ He walked over to her, putting a finger under her chin as his frowning gaze scanned her face.
‘Don’t.’ Laine pushed his hand away.
‘You’ve been crying,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Is it any concern of yours?’
‘Probably not. But I’ve no wish to share my living space with the human equivalent of a leaking tap.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Do us both a favour, Laine, and give some thought to growing up.’
He walked over to the other room, disappearing briefly to emerge a moment later with a laptop computer in a carrying case slung over his shoulder.
She braced herself, but he made no comment, so it seemed she’d covered her tracks successfully.
‘See you later,’ he tossed at her as he passed.
‘As if I had a choice,’ she returned bitterly as the door closed behind him.
And he would, of course, catch her looking like something the cat dragged in, with wet hair and her old robe. Although that was probably safer, under the circumstances. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel even a momentary attraction to her. Not that it was likely, she reminded herself, and went into her room to dry her hair.
Although thick, it was soft and fine, and needed skilful layering to give it any real shape. No chance of that, however, until she discovered just how dire her financial situation was, she thought as she put down her brush.
She dressed swiftly in a blue denim skirt and a thin, collarless white blouse. Her ankle was still making her flinch whenever she put weight on it, so she fetched some more ice cubes and stretched out on the sofa, resting the aching joint on a cushion.
But she couldn’t completely relax. Her mind was buzzing—on fire—teeming with stray images from the past, all as vivid as they were unwelcome.
Reminding her starkly that she could barely remember a time when she hadn’t been in love with him.
Recalling the day when, at six years old, she’d emerged on hands and knees from her special den in the garden and looked up to see him—this stranger—standing at Simon’s side, tall and dark against the sunlight.
‘I told you this is where she’d be,’ her brother had said, his voice teasing and affectionate. ‘Jamie built this little place as a hide, so he could watch birds, but as usual he got bored with it, and now it’s Laine’s. Get up, scrap, and be polite to my mate Daniel.’
As she scrambled to her feet, she said with dignity, ‘It’s my secret place. You’re not meant to tell.’
Daniel bent and carefully removed a dead leaf from her hair. ‘My lips are sealed,’ he said. ‘I promise.’ He paused. ‘Are you a birdwatcher too?’
She shook her head. ‘I come here to read.’
‘What’s the book of the moment?’
She looked back longingly. ‘Treasure Island.’
‘Good God,’ he said, exchanging amused glances with Simon. ‘So, who’s your favourite character?’
She gave it some thought. ‘I don’t think any of them are very nice. They’re all greedy, and Jim spies on people.’ She paused. ‘Ben Gunn isn’t too bad, I suppose, because he only wants toasted cheese.’
‘You heard it here first, folks,’ Simon said, grinning. ‘Stevenson, eat your heart out. Come on, Dan, let’s leave her to her pirates and get some tennis in before tea.’ He ruffled her hair, dislodging more dead leaves. ‘See you later, Lainie. And clean up a bit before Ma sees you. She seems a bit agitated today.’
‘That’s because Mr Latimer was here yesterday,’ Laine informed him. ‘She’s always in a bad mood after that, because she hates him. She calls him that “bloody man”.’
There was a brief silence, then Dan turned away, apparently overcome by a coughing fit, while Simon looked down at his younger sibling, his young face suddenly weary.
He said quietly, ‘But you don’t have to do the same, Lainie. Is that understood?’
She said uncertainly ‘Are you cross too?’
‘No,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘No, of course not. It’s just that a visit from the trustee isn’t the ideal start to a vacation.’
It was good that Simon was home, Laine thought contentedly, as they departed and she went back to her book. Because it meant that Mummy would stop frowning, and smile instead.
The housekeeper, Mrs Evershott always sounded the gong for meals five minutes early, so she gauged she’d have plenty of time to wash her hands and comb her hair before tea.
But that day her mother had arranged for it to be served on the lawn, as a tribute to the good weather, and there was no way she could reach the house unobserved.
‘Elaine!’ Angela exclaimed from the shelter of her parasol. ‘What have you been doing? Rolling in mud? And where’s your hair ribbon?’ She turned to the others at the table, shrugging helplessly. ‘What a ragamuffin. A cupboard full of pretty dresses, and she insists on those old shorts.’
She sighed. ‘I don’t think her poor father would recognise his Lily Maid these days.’
‘Lily Maid?’ Daniel queried politely, while Laine stared down at the grass, shuffling her feet in their blue flip-flops, knowing what was coming next, and dreading it.
Angela sighed again. ‘My mother-in-law was a big Tennyson fan, and when she saw the baby for the first time she was folded in a white shawl—looking like a lily, apparently. So Mama persuaded Graham to christen her Elaine, after the girl in the poem—The Lily Maid of Astolat.’
There was a pause, then Dan said politely, ‘That’s a charming story.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Laine said with sudden fierceness. ‘Elaine’s a silly name, and Jamie says she was a wuss for dying just because Sir Lancelot wasn’t in love with her—and he says I’ll grow up to be a wuss, too, because I’m called after her.’
There was an odd silence, then Simon put down his plate and began to laugh, to be joined by Dan and eventually Angela.
‘It’s a bad day for literature in this house,’ Simon managed at last, wiping his eyes. ‘And we’re laughing with you, scruff, not at you. Now, come and have some tea, and I’ll have a word with Master Jamie when he shows up.’
Everyone had laughed that summer, Laine thought. It was one of the happiest she’d ever spent, and the start of many more.
And she’d had Simon and Daniel to thank for that.
Up to then, she’d been left pretty much to her own devices in the school holidays. Unlike Jamie, who’d attended a local preparatory school as a day boy prior to following Simon to their father’s old school in the autumn, Laine had made few friends locally. The other children at the village school, finding that she wasn’t interested in the latest junior fashions, and that she preferred reading to the television programmes they all seemed to watch, had tended to ignore her.
And even with her beloved books she’d found herself lonely at times.
But that holiday had been altogether different. The weather had been good, so they’d all been able to spend as much time outside as possible. And Laine had been included in all their activities. It had all been casual—no big deal. She’d just been expected to accompany them.
Until then she’d always been faintly nervous of the river that bordered the end of the Abbotsbrook grounds. She’d been learning to swim at school, but Angela had said firmly that the river was a very different proposition from the swimming baths in the nearby market town, and that Laine must keep well away from it at all times.
But Simon and Daniel had changed all that. Under their eagle-eyed supervision, her technique and confidence had surged ahead, until, as Simon had told their mother, she could swim like a fish.
‘Or an eel,’ Jamie had put in. ‘Eel-Laine.’ And he’d continued to torment her with the nickname, roaring with laughter at his own wit, until Daniel had taken him quietly to one side and stopped it.
But none of Jamie’s teasing had had the power to upset her. She’d been far too happy.
Some of the best days had been spent out on the water in the old dinghy. When the boys had fished, she’d been provided with a small rod and line to hunt for tiddlers.
If they’d played cricket she had cheerfully fielded for them, and had zealously located balls that had been hit into the shrubbery from the tennis court.
Most of all, they’d both talked to her as if they were genuinely interested in what she had to say.
But the holiday had ended far too soon for Laine. Simon had joined his school’s climbing club the year before, and had become swiftly and seriously addicted to the sport, so he’d been taking the last two weeks of his vacation in the Lake District, while Daniel had been summoned to join his father for a rare break in the South of France.
As goodbyes had been said, Laine had launched herself at Daniel, arms and legs wrapped round him, clinging like a monkey. Hugging him strenuously, she’d whispered, ‘I wish you were my brother, too.’
‘Elaine!’ Angela reproved. ‘Kindly stop making a spectacle of yourself. Daniel, do put the wretched child down. I must apologise to you for this ridiculous behaviour.’
‘It’s not a problem, Mrs Sinclair.’ He lowered Laine gently to the ground, ruffling her hair. ‘Please believe I’m very flattered.’
‘Also very tolerant.’ She offered him a limpid smile. ‘But you’re not a babysitter, you know. Perhaps on your visit at Christmas we can all do some rather more grown-up things.’
There was a brief, odd silence, then he said quietly, ‘Of course.’
Christmas, Laine thought ecstatically. He would be back at Christmas. He and Simon. And that would be the best present she could have.
Hero-worship, she told herself wearily, as she got up from the sofa to take the bag of melting ice cubes back to the kitchen. That was what it had been. The world’s most gigantic crush. A childish phase that she should have outgrown quite easily.
However, for the next five years, her entire life had seemed to take its focus from school and university vacations, and she’d waited for them with almost painful eagerness, knowing that Daniel would join them for a week or two at least.
Not that the holidays had been unalloyed delight any more. As she’d got older Laine had become aware that were undercurrents beneath Abbotsbrook’s seemingly tranquil surface. And that Mr Latimer’s all too regular visits were invariably a cause of friction.
She’d been curled up on the window-seat in her room one spring evening, when her mother’s voice, raised in complaint, had reached her from the terrace below.
‘I thought everything would change when you were eighteen,’ Angela was saying. ‘That you could persuade the wretched little man to keep his distance.’
He said tiredly, ‘Ma, the trust will stay in force until Jamie and Laine are both eighteen. You have to accept that.’ He paused. ‘And you’d see less of Latimer if you curbed your spending a little. Fewer weekend parties, maybe?’
