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‘What is it? Who’s there?’
The querulous questions came from above—nothing wrong with the barmy old lady’s hearing apparently.
‘It’s just some fellow I threw water at,’ the woman yelled back, not bothering to hide her smile now.
She was gorgeous, Charles realised. Tall, statuesque, carrying her pregnancy with pride. And the condition suited her, for her auburn hair shone and her skin was a clear, creamy white tinged with the slightest pink of embarrassment across high cheekbones.
‘Don’t let him in,’ came the instruction from on high, but it was too late. He was already standing, dripping, in the black and white tiled entry, watching the woman disappear into the darkness beyond.
She returned with a large towel, but as she handed it to him she laughed and shook her head.
‘That won’t do, will it? You’re drenched. Come through, there’s a bathroom off the kitchen—a little apartment from the days when the house had servants. Mind the bucket! Have you dry clothes in your bag or shall I find something for you?’
* * *
Of course he’d have dry clothes in his bag, Jo thought, but she was in such a muddle she barely knew what she was saying. It was shock, that was what it was! Opening the door to find a man standing there—a man at whom she’d just hurled a bucket of water. A man so stunningly attractive even her very pregnant body felt the heat of attraction.
And Dottie was probably right, she shouldn’t have let him in. But he’d been drenched, and he didn’t look like an axe murderer.
In fact, even wet, he was the visual representation of tall, dark and handsome.
Was she out of her mind?
Tall, dark and handsome indeed.
All this was flashing through her head as she led him through the kitchen to the minuscule bathroom beyond.
‘Servants obviously didn’t get many luxuries,’ she said as she waved him through the door and watched him duck his head to get in.
Which was when she recovered enough common sense to realise she had no idea who the man was!
Or why he was here!
Well, she could hardly ask now, as he’d shut the door between them, and she was not going to open it when he was doubtless undressing.
Or think about him undressing...
She didn’t do men—not any more, not seriously...
She shook away painful memories of that long-ago time when a man had betrayed her in the worst possible way.
Had being pregnant brought those memories back more often?
Think of this man. The stranger. The here and now.
She’d ask his name later.
The growling noise of the stair lift descending told her Dottie had tired of waiting for an answer and was coming to see what was going on for herself.
Jo hurried back through the kitchen, meeting Dottie in the hall.
‘Who is it? What’s going on?’ the old lady demanded.
‘It’s a man,’ Jo explained. ‘He was on the doorstep and I didn’t see him as I emptied the bucket. He was soaking wet so I’ve put him in the downstairs bathroom to dry off.’
‘You invited him in?’
Incredulous didn’t cut it. The words indicated total disbelief.
‘Dottie, he was wet. I’d thrown a bucket of water over him, on top of whatever rain he’d caught getting to the house.’
‘He had an umbrella!’ Dottie retorted, pointing to where the large black umbrella stood in a pool of water in a corner of the hall.
Jo took a very deep breath and changed the subject.
‘I need to check the buckets upstairs,’ she said. ‘According to the radio reports, the weather is going to get worse.’
Better not to mention that the road to the village was likely to be cut, and the man, whoever he was, might have to stay the night.
Would have to stay the night most probably!
‘You can’t leave me down here with your stranger,’ Dottie told her.
He’s hardly my stranger, Jo thought, but said, ‘Well, come back upstairs with me. I’ve just emptied the one down here.’
She waved her hand towards the bucket responsible for all the trouble.
Dottie glared at her for a moment, five feet one of determined old lady, then gave a huff and stalked into the living room, which was bucket-free as there were bedrooms or bathrooms above most of the downstairs rooms.
‘I won’t be long,’ Jo promised, taking the stairs two at a time, glad she’d continued her long walks up and down the hills around the village right through the pregnancy.
There were six buckets upstairs and she emptied them all into the bath before replacing them under the leaks. How Dottie slept through the constant drip, drip, drip she didn’t know. For herself, too uncomfortable to sleep much anyway, the noise was an almost welcome distraction through the long nights.
She was back downstairs when their visitor returned to the hall.
‘I left my wet clothes over the shower, if that’s all right,’ he said, his beautiful, well-bred, English accent sending shivers down Jo’s spine.
‘That’s fine,’ she said, ‘although I could put them in a plastic bag for you if you like, because you really should be going. The road to the village will be cut off any minute. The weather bureau’s warning that the place will flood at high tide.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ the stranger said with a smile that made Jo’s toes tingle.
But Dottie was made of sterner stuff. Ensconced in her high-backed armchair in the living room, she made her presence known with an abrupt, ‘Fiddle-faddle! Stop flirting with the man, Joanna, and bring him in here. If he had any manners he’d have introduced himself before he came through the door.’
Jo shrugged and waved her hand towards the inner door.
‘After you,’ she said, smiling at the thought of the diminutive Dottie coming up against the stranger.
‘Who are you?’ Dottie demanded, and Jo watched as the man pulled a chair up close to Dottie and sat down in it, so he was on a level with her, before replying.
‘I’m Charles,’ he said. ‘And I believe I’m your grandson.’
His voice was gentle, so hesitant Jo felt a rush of emotion that brought a wetness to her eyes. Pregnancy sentimentality!
She held her hand to her mouth to stop her gasp escaping, and waited for Dottie to erupt.
She didn’t have to wait long.
‘Are you just?’ Dottie retorted. ‘And I’m supposed to believe you, am I? You turn up here with your fancy voice and good shoes and expect what? That I’ll leave you my house?’
Trust Dottie to have checked his shoes, Jo thought. Dottie was a firm believer that you could judge a person by his or her shoes...
‘No,’ Charles was saying politely. ‘I wanted to know more about my mother and her family—my family—and you seemed like the best person to tell me.’
‘You can’t ask her?’
Not a demand this time, but a question asked through quivering lips, as if the answer was already known.
The stranger hesitated, frowning as if trying to make sense of the question, or perhaps trying to frame an answer.
Maybe the latter, for he leant a little closer.
‘I’m so very sorry but I thought you’d been told. She died when I was born.’
The words were softly spoken, the stranger bowing his head as he said them, but Jo was more concerned with Dottie, who was as white as the lace collar on her dress.
But even as Jo reached her side, Dottie rallied.
‘So, who’s your father? No doubt that lying vagabond she ran away with. I suppose you’ve proof of this!’
If the man was disturbed by having his father labelled this way, he didn’t show it.
‘My father is Prince Edouard Alesandro Cinzetti. We are from a tiny principality in Europe, a place even many Europeans do not know. It is called—’
‘Don’t tell me!’ Dottie held up her hand. ‘I’ve heard it all before. Some place with liver in the name, or maybe the vagabond’s name had liver in it.’
‘Liver?’ Jo repeated faintly, totally gobsmacked by what was going on before her eyes.
The stranger glanced up and smiled.
‘Livaroche,’ he said, imbuing the word with all the magic of a fairy-tale.
But Jo’s attention was back on Dottie, who seemed to have shrunk back into the chair.
‘Go away, I don’t want you here,’ she said, so feebly that Jo bent to take her arm, feeling for a pulse that fluttered beneath her fingertips.
‘Perhaps if you could wait in the kitchen. This has been a shock for Dottie. I’ll settle her back in bed and make us all some supper.’
Dottie flung off Jo’s hand and glared at the visitor.
‘You can’t stay here!’ she said. ‘If you are the vagabond’s son, next thing I know you’ll be making sheep’s eyes at my Jo, and whispering sweet nothings to her.’
Dark eyes turned towards Jo, his gaze taking in her bloated figure, and the man had the hide to smile before he answered Dottie.
‘Oh, I think someone’s already whispered sweet nothings to Jo, don’t you?’
The rogue!
But he’d turned her way again, serious now, frowning.
‘That’s if you are Jo! I’m sorry, we didn’t meet—not properly. You know I’m Charles, and you are?’
His aunt? Charles wondered, though why that thought upset him he didn’t want to consider.
No, Dottie had said ‘my Jo’, but it was impossible she could be Dottie’s daughter. Dottie must be touching ninety, and if Jo was much over thirty he’d eat his hat.
Maybe a cousin...
But the statuesque beauty was talking.
‘I’m Jo Wainwright, local GP in Port Anooka. I took over the practice a couple of years ago, but I have a locum there at present.’
‘Then why are you here? Is D—my grandmother ill?’
Somehow saying Dottie seemed far too informal—inappropriate really.
Jo was shaking her head, the red in her hair glinting in the lamplight.
‘Dottie is probably the fittest eighty-five-year-old it’s ever been my pleasure to meet. She’s also the stubbornest—’ She broke off to smile at the old woman. ‘And she’s not entirely steady on her feet, while as for the stair lift—you’d swear she was taking off for Mars, the speed she roars up the stairs on it.’
‘Fiddle-faddle!’
Charles ignored the interruption.
‘So?’
But again it was Dottie who answered.
‘Oh, she thinks I’m not safe to be out here on my own, and she knows darned well I won’t move to one of those nasty places where old people rot away and die, so now she spends all her spare time here, eating me out of house and home, and leaving spies here during the week to report back to her.’
As the words were warmed by fondness, and Dottie was clinging to Jo’s hand as she spoke, Charles knew it was only bluster, and understood there was a special bond between the pair.
‘Dottie’s right,’ Jo told him. ‘I don’t like her being out here on her own, but I’ve grown to love the place almost as much as she does, so staying out here when I can is no hardship.’
She paused, looking a little rueful as she added, ‘Mind you, I didn’t know about the roof. I keep asking Dottie what needs maintenance and although we’ve done a bit, there’s been a long dry spell so the roof didn’t get a mention.’
She had such an animated face the words seemed to come alive as she spoke them, but he could hardly keep staring at her, any more than he could ask her what her husband thought of this arrangement.
So he watched as she spoke quietly to Dottie, helping her to her feet.
