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Somehow she found that she could not get thoughts of Leon Beaumont out of her head. Which was odd, because until she had seen that picture of him today, having just thumped Neville King and waiting for him to get up so he could give him another one, she’d had no idea of what the man her brother admired so much looked like.
He was tall, that much was obvious, even when bent over from decking the man on the floor. Good-looking too—dark-haired, athletic-looking—and loaded. As Johnny had said, as bachelors went, they didn’t come any more eligible. Varnie was unimpressed—she was off mid-thirties men, and Leon Beaumont looked only a year or two older than Martin Walker.
But where Martin was trying to build up a business—if what he said was true—Leon Beaumont, head of an international design and development company in the field of communication systems, had already done that.
That was according to Johnny who, while waiting to know if he had got the job as Leon Beaumont’s assistant, had never ceased singing the man’s praises.
Apparently the man already had a PA who was little short of brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that when she’d married last year, and then started to fret about being apart from her new husband when called to go on the many trips out of London and out of the country, Leon had taken action. Rather than lose his gem of a PA, he’d decided she could stay office-bound and he would create the new position of peripatetic assistant, who, when they were both in the office, could give her a hand.
Johnny was well versed in office routine, a wizard with his laptop and anything to do with computers. Plus, he had a pleasing personality and having learned something of a lesson from his car crash, was a very good driver.
To start with he had truly believed the position advertised would go to some female, but he’d felt he had interviewed well. There had then followed a period of him phoning home every day in panic that he had heard nothing, and they’d been in no doubt, as the days had gone by, that he would feel totally crushed if he did not get the job.
‘I’d work the first three months for nothing if only he’d give me the chance,’ Varnie remembered him saying one time. That, she realised, from a brother who never seemed to have any spare cash, just proved how desperate he had been to have the job.
The day he’d rung to say he had actually been offered the job, actually had the letter in his hand, Varnie had been so glad for him. Though she had thought that some of his enthusiasm might wane when he had been in the job for a month.
But, no, not a bit of it. Leon Beaumont could do no wrong, it seemed. Johnny drove him all over the country—and learned a great deal by just watching the man in action. Leon was this, Leon was that, and, though he did not suffer fools gladly, Johnny had never met a more fair-minded man. He took neither nonsense nor favours from anyone. In business he was his own man, and would not be indebted to anyone.
Johnny had driven him to one of their plants—the technology was absolutely amazing. He had been enthralled, and had subsequently taken notes at some high-powered meeting and, having prior to his interview taken an emergency course in speedwriting, been little short of ecstatic that he had got it all typed back perfectly and accurately.
Given that Johnny had a harum-scarum tendency, they had always known he had a fine brain—when he cared to exercise it. But, in short, having so desperately wanted this job, having got it, he was so happy, and was determined to do everything to keep it and to make his employer think well of him.
Which, she decided, with the hotel sold, Johnny settled and her parents settled, made her the only odd one out. Her parents thought that everything would now be fine and that they could sit back and relax—so how could she go home now and ruffle the calmer waters of their life?
Feeling glad she had made the decision she had, to drive by Cheltenham and head for the Welsh mountains, Varnie knew even so that she would not be sorry to reach Aldwyn House and her bed.
The moment she hit those twisting mountain roads though, she had little space to think of anything but where she was heading. She felt as though she had been driving for a dozen or so hours, and it was in fact after midnight when she at last hit a straightish run of road where she had space to once again let her thoughts in. But oddly, while her family and Martin Walker had their fair share in her thoughts, it seemed as though Leon Beaumont, a man she had never met, was determined to have an equal part in her head.
‘Oh, clear off,’ she actually muttered aloud, when the picture she’d seen of Leon Beaumont in the paper jumped into her mind’s eye. He might be scrupulously fair in his business life, but it was a pity he didn’t run his personal life so scrupulously!
It was one in the morning by the time she passed the little clutch of cottages that were the nearest neighbours to Aldwyn House. A quarter of a mile further on and Varnie climbed stiffly from her car to open the gates to the property. She drove through, but felt too weary suddenly to bother to close them behind her.
‘Have a wonderful holiday,’ her parents had bidden her. Varnie had not visualised then that she would be spending the next two weeks not skiing, but here at Aldwyn House.
She left her car standing in front of the garage. All at once she felt too used up to try and do battle with the heavy garage doors—she would put her car away in the morning. Similarly, the front door sometimes stuck in the damp winter months. She was too tired to contemplate finding the energy to wrestle with it.
With her house keys and flight bag in one hand, her suitcase in the other, and with some vague notion to take a shower prior to falling straight into bed, Varnie went to the rear of the house and let herself in through the kitchen door.
She noticed at once as she snicked on the light that someone had been there. She didn’t mind. Johnny had a key. He was a kind soul, and while she and their parents had been dealing with packing that which the new owners of the hotel were not taking over he had volunteered to come and empty her grandfather’s wardrobes and drawers.
Switching lights on and off as she went, Varnie left the kitchen, having noted that while Johnny had not got around to putting away the cup and saucer he must have used when he’d made himself some black coffee, he had rinsed them and left them drying on the draining board. She went up the stairs and to the room she always used when she visited. It was a pretty room, with a lovely view, and though not as large as the master bedroom it was a room she preferred.
Seated on the side of the bed, she eased off her shoes and reflected on one of the worst days of her life. But, bed calling, she got up, glad she had left the bed made up from her last visit. But when she went to unlock her suitcase she suddenly felt too weary to remember in which of the many compartments of her flight bag she had put the key.
‘Oh, hang it,’ she mumbled, and stripped off. Deciding for once not to obey the habit of a lifetime and shower before bed, she climbed into bed—and went out like the proverbial light.
As weary as she had been, however, she was awake at her usual time of six o’clock. She lay there in the pitch darkness and was briefly surprised that after all that had happened yesterday she had slept at all.
Then all at once several things struck her that she had been too weary when she had arrived to pay any heed to. The house was warm! Johnny again. The house was built of stone, almost two feet thick in places, which made it lovely during a heatwave, but bitterly cold in winter. Johnny must have put the central heating on when he’d arrived and forgotten to turn if off again when he left. Thank you, Johnny.
She clicked on the bedside lamp, smiling fondly as she thought of him. She hoped he had a fantastic holiday in Australia. His friends Danny and Diana Haywood would make him more than welcome, she knew that.
But, in the meantime, she would not have to make do with the low-powered hit and miss, not to say downright temperamental shower in her adjoining bathroom. She could use the brilliant and powerful one in the bathroom adjoining the master bedroom.
Varnie toyed with the notion of shaking some clothes out from her suitcase first, but all at once to take the shower she had missed last night seemed to be something of a priority.
Modesty was simply not required, and, stark naked, she left her room and padded along the landing to grab a large towel from the big airing cupboard as she went. She had the house all to herself after all. Not a soul there to see her.
With a towel over one arm, she trundled along to the master bedroom and opened the door. Her mind more on crossing the room to the door of the bathroom than anything, Varnie flicked on the light switch and was halfway across the room when all of a sudden it was borne startlingly in on her that she was very far from alone!
She wasn’t even looking at the bed when her peripheral vision detected the movement of bedcovers! She stared, stunned, at the bed. But before her brain could leap into action, electric light flooding the room had alerted the other occupant to another presence, and a body began to emerge!
‘What the…?’ His sleep disturbed by the sudden glare of light, the man was not thrilled and was already sitting up. And, by the look of his naked chest and hip as the bedcovers started to go back, he was as stark naked as she!
‘H…? Wh…? Oh!’ she gasped, frozen to the spot, her brain totally seized up as she stared, her sea-green eyes saucer-wide, at the dark-haired man about to leave the bed.
Her shaken rigid expression, her scarlet face, must have got through to the man. However, she was sure it was not to spare her blushes that he halted briefly and remarked, a shade toughly, she felt, ‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,’ adding, much in the same tone, ‘Want to shake hands?’
And, not a bit abashed by his own nakedness, he looked about to get out of bed—though not before he took a slow inventory of her—assets. His eyes—grey, she noticed, quite ridiculously, she afterwards felt—travelled meticulously from the top of her tousled long blonde hair, down over her face and, resting perhaps a fraction longer than necessary over her pink-tipped breasts, down over her belly and slender hips, past her beautifully shaped long, long legs.
But by the time he reached her toes Varnie was released from the shock that had kept her frozen still and was suddenly galvanised into action. Without a word or another glance at him, as one of his legs came from beneath the covers and it seemed he was going to stand up and shake hands anyway, Varnie got out of there. Had she had space, time, and had her head not been alive with horror she would have attempted to cover her fleeing naked buttocks with the towel, but she was much more concerned with doing a quick disappearing act.
She reached her room and slammed the door hard shut, to find she was breathing hard and shaking from head to foot. Johnny! Johnny Metcalfe, her brother—stepbrother, if you must. She’d stepbrother him! If he wasn’t in Australia, if she could get her hands on her, she’d kill him.
How could he? And it had to be him! He had invited a perfect stranger to sleep overnight at what was now, she started to accept, her place.
Johnny knew who he was, of course. The man was no stranger to him. And not totally a stranger to her either, not since she had seen that picture of him in the paper yesterday. There was absolutely no need for the man to introduce himself. She already knew who he was.
But what in blazes was Leon Beaumont doing here? And, more worrying than that, he—the first man ever to do so—had just seen her completely stark naked—stitchless. Oh, heavens above, how on earth was she ever to face him again?
CHAPTER TWO
HASTILY, flicking nervous glances to her slammed shut bedroom door from time to time, just in case Leon Beaumont should take it into his head to follow her, Varnie wrapped the large towel around her shape and searched her flight bag for the key to her case. With fumbling, agitated fingers she unlocked her case and extracted underwear, trousers and a shirt.
She heard plumbing noises and hated Leon Beaumont that he, when she was too panic-stricken to think of taking a shower in case he walked in, as nice as you please, was showering, quite unconcerned.
Varnie broke another unwritten rule. She rinsed her face and then dressed without first showering. After running a comb through her hair she left her room, went down the stairs and went into the kitchen—to wait.
He was in no particular hurry, it seemed, and still hadn’t appeared five minutes later. But, while still not looking forward to seeing him again—she went red just thinking of how she had stood, positively starkers, in front of him—she was beginning to feel much calmer than she had.
The longer he kept her waiting, though, and she was starting to think that perhaps there was no need for her to face the embarrassment of seeing him again. Johnny would have told him that his sister owned the house and…Or would he? There was no knowing with Johnny. At times that clever brother of hers could be totally feather-brained. It could be, she realised, that Leon Beaumont had not the smallest clue who she was. So why didn’t she just open that door, take a fast walk to her car, and get out of there? She could be back home in Gloucestershire by…
Hang on a minute, this was her house! Not his! And anyway, she wasn’t ready to go home yet. Soon the pain of Martin Walker’s perfidiousness would start, and she would prefer to be alone here rather than at home with her parents when that happened. She wanted to leave them in peace, blissfully believing she was abroad enjoying the ski slopes.
And on the thought that she had come here to be alone Varnie decided that it was time she got her act together. Time she took charge of the situation. She had no idea what Leon Beaumont was doing here, but she wasn’t leaving—he was!
Feeling in a sudden determined frame of mind, Varnie marched from the kitchen and along the hall to the bottom of the stairs. There she listened for sounds of the electric motor that would tell her that Beaumont was making the most of his shower. She could hear nothing, so knew he was out of the shower.
Preferring not to see him in any stage of undress, she decided against going up the stairs to give him his marching orders. He might be her brother’s boss, but he wasn’t hers. She was about to go back to the kitchen when she spotted a whole pile of junk mail on the floor by the front door. There was masses of it, and since she had cleared away anything that had come through the letter flap on her last visit…
Thinking to occupy herself while waiting for his lordship—what on earth had Johnny been thinking to give him his key?—she went and collected up the mound of clear plastic covered unsolicited mail. Then she found that one was a plain white envelope.
Taking the mail with her back to the kitchen, she knew that the only explanation for Beaumont being inside her property must be because Johnny had handed over his key. Now, why would he do that?
She had a sudden flashback of standing with not a stitch on in front of the man her brother thought so highly of, and knew she was red about the ears. She swiftly busied herself opening up the unaddressed white envelope—and very quickly learned why, or part of why, her brother had parted with his key.
The letter was from Mrs Lloyd, the lady who had come to clean and cook for Grandfather Sutton, and was in response to a telephone call that Johnny had made to her. For all his name was not on the envelope, it began, ‘Dear Mr Metcalfe’.
I am sorry I wasn’t in when you rang yesterday. And I am sorry too that I am not able to come and look after your guest.
Apparently Mrs Lloyd was now retired but, if Mr Metcalfe was really stuck for someone, she had written the phone number of a Mrs Roberts who might be willing, if he could call daily and collect Mrs Roberts, who had no transport.
Her breath caught as it hit Varnie that this was not intended to be just a one-night stopover, as she’d thought! So, she fumed, cross with Johnny and fuming against his employer, that was it. Leon Beaumont obviously fancied a bit of a break—away from outraged husbands, no doubt—and Johnny, doubtless mentioning Aldwyn House, had decided it would be an ideal spot for a hideaway. And, without doubt too, would not have needed much coercion to hand over his key. Naturally enough Johnny, being Johnny and aware that she wouldn’t be around for at least two weeks because she was flying off to Switzerland, had seen no need to inform her of what was happening. She felt fairly certain then that Johnny, as ever Johnny, just hadn’t thought to tell his womanising employer that the property didn’t actually belong to him.
The sound of footsteps interrupted her angry thoughts. She looked to the door. Leon Beaumont stood in the doorway. He was tall, as she had known he was. And, just as she had known she would, she went crimson.
He came further into the kitchen, but did not comment on her embarrassed colour; there wasn’t so much as a hint of embarrassment about him, she noticed. But then, he was probably used to seeing the female form unclad, she fumed sniffily. Though before she could tell him that now that he was dressed she was throwing him out, he demanded, ‘What’s your name?’
As if it had anything to do with him! ‘Varnie Sutton,’ she answered snappily, and watched to see if her name meant anything to him. Clearly it didn’t, so obviously Johnny had not thought to mention her. Not that he should in the ordinary run of things, but, dammit, this was her house! Realising that she was getting quite proprietorial about a house she would have to sell, Varnie decided it was high time she sent this man on his way. ‘And you’re Leon Beaumont,’ she began stiffly. ‘You—’
‘You know who I am?’ Beaumont demanded.
‘Ever think you’ve wandered into someone else’s nightmare?’ she retorted.
He ignored that. ‘How do you know who I am?’ he barked curtly. ‘Metcalfe had strict instructions that I wanted him to find me somewhere isolated where I wouldn’t have to put up with—unwanted intrusions.’
Unwanted intrusions! By that did he mean he thought that she might come on to him? Varnie was on the instant up in arms. She was off men in general, and him in particular. ‘For your information, I wouldn’t touch you with a disinfected line-prop ten feet long!’ she hissed. He favoured her with a searing look of scepticism. ‘For your further information—’ she went on.
‘That’s why you walked naked into my room, was it? Because you’re not interested?’ he cut in. ‘Had I shown the smallest inclination you’d have been in that bed with me like a shot.’
Varnie stared at him in utter disbelief; the whole of her skin felt aflame. Somehow, though, she recovered, to tell him in no uncertain fashion, ‘I’d sooner swallow prussic acid!’ And, building up a fine head of steam, ‘Your eyes were so busily engaged elsewhere…’ She wished she hadn’t said that. Her skin flamed anew as she again recalled his eyes going over her naked figure. ‘…otherwise you might have noticed I was carrying a towel. My only purpose in coming to that room was to take a shower. I didn’t even know you were here.’
‘What’s wrong with the shower in your room?’
‘My room?’
‘I checked. You slept here last night.’
The cheeky swine! ‘My shower needs fixing, there’s hardly any pressure and the shower’s better in your room.’ Why was she bothering to explain? Good…
‘You obviously know the house?’
‘This isn’t my first visit.’
Leon Beaumont stared at her, suspicion rife. ‘From the size of your suitcase, you appear to have some notion of staying for a while?’
Did she have news for him. ‘That’s the general idea,’ she replied. But before she could go on to tell him that she was staying and that he wasn’t, he cut her short.
‘You obviously know John Metcalfe.’ Varnie was about to agree that she did, and that Johnny was her brother. But what Leon Beaumont said next brought her up very short, and caused her to hesitate. ‘Obviously, too, you’re also very well acquainted with my inefficient, new and soon to be short-lived assistant,’ he rapped.
Varnie felt stumped. In an instant she recalled just how keen Johnny had been to work for this sharp and disgruntled-looking man. To work as Leon Beaumont’s assistant, not deskbound but travelling all over—smoothing his path, so to speak, to leave him to deal with bigger, more important issues had been everything Johnny wanted! She gave an inner sigh—protecting Johnny, for all he was three years older than her, had over the years become second nature.
And that was when suddenly, albeit reluctantly, but without having to think about it, Varnie knew she was going to have to change her tune. If she did not, then by the look of it when Johnny came home from Australia, he would not have a job to come home to!
So, okay, she would stick up for Johnny, but no way was she going to crawl to this tall, dark-haired, grey-eyed man who had now come up close to her and was looking toughly, icily at her, through hard, cold and unfeeling grey eyes. ‘Your assistant is extremely efficient,’ she retorted.
‘You know this?’ he questioned, his hard gaze fixed on her sea-green eyes.
‘I do,’ she said, her mind racing to strive to think up something brilliant that Johnny had done.
‘Surprise me?’ Leon Beaumont’s tone had turned to mockery.
‘I—er—know for a fact that—that he tried to get some domestic help to cover while you’re here,’ she brought out triumphantly. Thank goodness she had read that letter.
‘Mrs Lloyd?’
Rats! He already knew that. ‘I arrived late last night,’ Varnie answered, which was pertinent to nothing. She knew she was struggling. But, truth be told, she was more than a tiny bit fed up with this man’s questions.
‘I know that!’ he clipped. ‘I was late getting here myself.’
Oh, grief, he was growing narky again! For herself, she didn’t give a button. But for Johnny…Even if she did feel like wringing her brother’s neck for what he had done, she knew she would not let him down.
‘The fog was dreadful, wasn’t it?’ she commented pleasantly. Deaf ears. Leon Beaumont ignored her pleasant comment. ‘Actually, I somehow didn’t expect you to be here until today—er—the fog and everything,’ she added lamely. ‘Um, you must have put your car away in the garage.’ She came to an end to see that he had clearly heard quite enough of her rambling on.
‘Just what are you doing here?’ he challenged aggressively. ‘And how the hell did you get in?’
Tell him, urged her true self. And she knew she would derive a great deal of satisfaction from doing just that. But—Johnny…Somehow, just to tell this man that his assistant was her brother seemed like letting Johnny down. ‘Oh—sorry,’ she apologised, racking her brains. ‘Didn’t I say?’ What? What? What? ‘There’s a spare key hidden in the pyracantha bush by the tool shed. Er—Mrs Lloyd can’t come after all—’ Varnie broke off, her brain racing. ‘I’m here as her replacement.’ Had she actually just said that? She hadn’t—had she?
Looking at Leon Beaumont, Varnie saw that he didn’t appear to believe it either. He cast an eye over her trim figure, in her casual but obviously good clothes, and bluntly, scepticism rife again, questioned, ‘You’re here to do domestic work?’
Varnie, used as she was to looking out for her brother, couldn’t see what other choice she had. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.
His answer was to take hold of both her delicate hands. She immediately wanted to snatch her hands back, but by effort of will managed to stay still. She did not often have a manicure, but she had been going to go on holiday, for goodness’ sake, with someone she had up until yesterday thought of as someone a bit special. So why wouldn’t she go the whole hog and have her hands and nails professionally attended to?
‘These hands have never known hard work,’ he stated, tossing them disgustedly away from him.
‘Yes, they have!’ she argued.
‘You’ve skivvied?’ So absurd did the notion seem to appear to be to him, he looked as though he might burst out laughing. He didn’t.
‘I have!’
‘It looks like it.’
‘I was in the hotel trade!’ she defended, while hardly knowing why she was bothering. ‘I’ve worked all areas when required—chambermaid, cleaner, chef, secretary, accountant,’ she enumerated.
‘You were learning the hotel business?’ He seemed to reconsider. ‘So what happened?’ he wanted to know.
