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Jane looked at him in panic. ‘Zach! You must have read the deeds! Tresanton Manor and Tresanton Island—’
‘No!’ He glared. How could she have ever thought this place was suitable? ‘That’s what I employ you for. To summarise everything. To identify the crucial points. And I think I’d call an island a crucial point, wouldn’t you? Where’s the road across?’ he rapped out.
‘There isn’t one,’ Jane replied in a small voice. ‘We have to walk from here—’
‘We what…? I don’t believe this!’ he muttered. ‘You expect me to park my Maserati here in the open—when I eventually get it back from the garage—to be vandalised by any idle yob who passes?’
‘I don’t think it’s that kind of area…’ Jane began nervously.
‘Every area is that kind!’ Zach muttered, thoroughly disenchanted with Edith’s house already. He could imagine what it would be like, stuck here on a wet wintry day with his bored son, unable to walk straight from an integral garage into the warmth of a welcoming house. Hell. Now what? He’d promised Sam a house with a garden. ‘I can’t stay here. I’ll have to hunt for something else,’ he added.
‘But you can’t do that, remember?’
Zach groaned. He recalled Edith’s peculiar requirement, which had seemed typically nutty but acceptable at the time:
…bequeath Zachariah Talent my house and all its contents, to live in for at least a year, otherwise the house is to be given to the first person he sees when he sets foot on the island.
Unbelievable. The milkman could end up owning two million’s worth of real estate! If there was a milkman in this uninhabited outback, he thought sourly.
‘OK. So I’ll come just on weekends and camp out,’ he growled.
He couldn’t disappoint Sam. But this wasn’t what he’d had in mind at all. He wanted proximity to burger bars, cinemas and zoos. How else did you entertain an eight-year-old?
‘Jane!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘What the devil are those scruffy boats doing there?’ he demanded, an extraordinary depth of disappointment making him want to lash out at anyone and anything.
She followed his scowl which directed her to the huddled boats, further down-river.
‘Canal boats. Or are they called narrow boats? I believe Inland Waterways allows them to tie up there,’ she replied helpfully.
Zach’s mouth hardened like a trap. They’d be a security risk. Slowly he scanned the area, his expression becoming grimmer as he realised that Jane had also conveniently omitted to tell him that the house was in the middle of nowhere. The jagged pains in his head increased.
This was an unbelievable mess! He’d made a terrible mistake in delegating something this important!
Cursing himself for letting Jane handle everything, he was pragmatic enough to know that there wasn’t much he could do for now.
All right. He’d grit his teeth and use the house on weekends for the required year, but no way was he going to rest until there were decent paths and safety rails to stop his son from falling into the river.
Nor was he going to live permanently on an island where goodness knew who could easily leap from a boat and merrily rob him of his entire art collection.
‘Get on to the garage and have my car delivered here as soon as possible,’ he rapped out. ‘I’m dealing with this mess personally, so cancel any engagements till further notice. I’ll e-mail you with the improvements that I decide will be necessary before the house goes on the market. And find me something more suitable in the meantime where I can live and secure my valuables. In a city. Near restaurants. A gym. Theatres. Understand? Keys!’ Peremptorily he held out his hand, knowing he was being unreasonably curt. ‘Please,’ he growled as the flustered Jane fumbled anxiously in her bag.
She was a good PA. But ever since she’d viewed Tresanton Manor there had been a light in her eye that had boded ill. She was ready to nest and he was in her sights. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to choose sofas and curtains with anyone ever again.
Choking back an urge to rant and rail that his plans had gone awry and his son was unlikely to bond with him in this rural hell, he grabbed his laptop, bade Jane a curt goodbye and strode over the bridge, wondering with some desperation if he would ever win his son’s love.
He’d been banking on this house to help achieve that goal. And only now did he realise how important it was to him that he was loved by his child. Of course, he’d talked about his son’s indifference to Edith, but he’d never let her know how deeply he was hurt. Or even admitted it to himself.
He felt a heavy ache in his heart. Pain tightened his mouth and burned in his charcoal eyes. One day his son would hug him, he vowed, instead of treating him with cool reserve.
Women he could do without in his life. All the ones he’d met socially had rung up pound signs in their eyes when they knew who he was.
And none of the women he’d dated had been able to cope with the realities of his hectic work-load. Nor had his ex-wife. But he wanted to give his son financial security, and you didn’t get rich—or stay rich—dancing attendance on females and taking them out shopping.
In a thoroughly bad mood at the collapse of his dreams, he stomped along the muddy path, occasionally ducking his head to avoid being attacked by the boughs of apple trees. You didn’t have such problems with pavements.
He couldn’t understand why Edith had thought she was doing him a favour by forcing him to live here for a year. How could she call this place a paradise? he wondered grumpily.
And then he noticed the woman.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE was walking ahead of him through the orchard. No, drifting. He stopped dead in his tracks, brought up short by what he saw.
She must have heard his approach because, slender as a flexing wand, she slowly turned to face him, her small face so delicate and fey that he wondered if he was hallucinating. Tiny and graceful, she stood up to her ankles in a sea of buttercups and she looked as though she had just stepped out of a medieval illustration.
Not normally fanciful, he tried to understand why he’d had this impression. It could have been her long, close-fitting skirt flaring out from below the knee, or the long-sleeved soft cream top that hugged her slim figure like a second skin.
Or perhaps it was the hair that made her look like a modern day Guinevere. It was black and cascaded in thick waves down her lissom back from an imprisoning twist of…
He narrowed his eyes in surprise. She’d caught up her hair at the nape of her long neck with a rope of living greenery. Ivy, or something. Entwined with real flowers. Weird.
A hippie flower child, he decided, and scowled. Maybe from one of those boats. Spying out the land. Instinctively he fingered the scar on his forehead.
After the unpleasant experience of a burglary and two muggings—one of which had involved a woman who’d diverted his attention with a plausible sob story—he’d learnt to be suspicious where itinerant strangers were concerned. Even medieval hippies as tiny as this one.
In London you didn’t look strangers in the eye. Never wore an expensive watch. Walked quickly everywhere, locked your car while driving, kept the car revved at traffic lights and stayed alert at all times. That’s how you survived in the City.
‘You’re on my land!’ he growled, deliberately projecting menace.
Her placid expression didn’t alter. She remained very still and calm, as if waiting for him to approach. Much to his surprise, he did. Usually people came to him.
As he glowered his way towards her a small hand came out in a meek greeting.
‘I’m Catherine Leigh. How do you do?’
It was a sweet, gentle voice and before he knew it he had taken the dainty, fluttering fingers in his and was muttering less irritably, ‘Zach Talent.’
Had he noticed how nervous she was? Hastily she retracted her fingers from the firm, decisive grip and clasped them behind her back so that he didn’t see how badly they were shaking.
‘You…said this was your island,’ she began huskily, her face puzzled.
‘Apparently it is,’ he replied, his mouth clamping shut into a hard, exasperated line as if that fact didn’t please him one bit. His intimidating frown deepened and it seemed that his eyes glinted with shards of icy anger.
‘Oh!’
She considered this, deciding that she’d rather deal with the woman with egg-whisk hair and killer heels than this elegantly clad grouch. Then she brightened. The woman must be his wife. Better to wait and talk to her. ‘Are you on your own?’ asked the owner of the frown.
He turned to scan the undergrowth as if marauding bandits might leap out at any minute.
‘Yes. Just me,’ she replied quietly.
‘Hmm.’ He relaxed his guard a fraction. ‘So what are you doing here?’ he shot out.
‘I came to speak to your wife,’ Catherine told him with absolute truth.
‘Did you?’ He sounded unconvinced for some inexplicable reason.
She continued to gaze at him with a pleasant, noncommittal expression on her face and was relieved to see the deep line between his brows easing a little. She noticed a long scar on his forehead and wondered apprehensively how he’d acquired it.
‘Can I see her? Is she in?’
‘No.’
How to win friends and influence people, she thought drily. He really was the most surly of men!
‘Then I think I’ll come back later when she’s at home,’ she suggested gravely.
‘No, you don’t. Wait!’ The command was barked out just as she turned to go.
Caught off-guard as she whirled around, her wide-eyed look of utter surprise seemed to take him unawares too. For a split second she thought his steely eyes had softened to a misty grey.
Then she realised it must have been a trick of the light. When she looked again they were hard and shuttered with no hint of his feelings at all.
‘You’ll talk to me,’ he said sharply. ‘Let’s see if you can come up with a convincing excuse for being here.’
‘Of course I can!’ she replied in surprise, not allowing herself to be riled by his rudeness.
‘In that case, I’m not standing here knee-deep in muck,’ he exaggerated. ‘Come to the house.’
Without waiting for her response to this arrogant order, Zach Talent strode off down the path, his shiny leather shoes squelching in the mud.
Catherine hesitated and then, before she knew it, she was following. She felt almost as if she had been drawn by a magnet. And as she walked and marvelled at the man’s compelling authority she ruefully prepared to tug her forelock. A lot.
She heaved a sigh. Somehow she felt it wouldn’t help even if she tugged out handfuls of hair in the process.
Zach was clearly one of those suspicious types who imagined everyone was trying to pull a fast one. He’d looked at her as if she might be planning something evil.
From his manner, she reckoned that he also liked to be in control. He wasn’t the kind of man to do anyone a favour. For him, she suspected that it would be a matter of honour not to show any sign of weakness by granting concessions to any passing peasant.
Anxiously she studied his taut body as he strode rapidly along, rocketing out staccato orders to someone on his mobile phone as if every second and every word was precious and not to be wasted by adding pleasantries.
With gloom in her heart, she hurried after him through Edith’s—Zach’s!—beautiful wild-life garden. And she wondered how long it would be before Killer Heels and The Frown strimmed every blade of grass within an inch of its life and installed soulless carpet bedding. Perhaps even artificial turf and security lights. With a helipad.
She mourned for the island’s bleak future. Lifting her bowed head, she listened to the insistent warble of a blackcap, high on its perch in a lemon-scented azalea. It was joined by the unmistakable trill of a robin, singing its heart out from an oak tree.
Ring doves were cooing lovingly from the gnarled old mulberry tree and occasionally she heard a watery scuffle as a mallard drake enthusiastically courted a lady friend.
She and Zach were making their way through the rhododendron walk. Here, the peeling trunks arched over their heads like arms reaching out to embrace one another. In a few weeks the walk would be a blaze of colour.
The perfume of the lilies of the valley beneath made her catch her breath in wonder and she believed that, although Zach’s ear was still attached to his phone, even he had slowed his relentlessly brisk stride to savour the beauty of the garden.
Still holding her breath, she waited till he reached the glade. And was pleased to see that he had stopped, briefly looking around. But her pleasure was short-lived. When she quietly came to stand beside him, she realised that the man was a heathen after all.
‘Sell,’ he was curtly instructing some hapless minion, his hand massaging the back of his neck abstractedly. ‘And let’s have your investment strategy for the Far East by the end of the day…’
Barbarian! Infuriated by his insensitivity, she firmly shut him out. They were on different planets. This could be the last time she enjoyed the poignantly familiar sight that met her eyes, and she wanted to savour it to the full.
Bluebells had colonised the grassy glade, creating a sea of sapphire waves as the breeze stirred the nodding bells. The blossom-laden branches of ancient apple and pear trees bowed down almost to the shifting patches of blue, but where the path ran, ornamental Japanese cherry trees formed a vista to the house.
Framed dramatically, and with the shedding cherry blossom fluttering to the ground like confetti before it, the lovely Georgian manor house basked in the sun, its honey stone walls glowing as if they’d been dipped in liquid gold.
Entranced, she looked up at Zach for his reaction, hoping that he’d been stirred by the glory of it all. But with his frown resolutely in place he was intently tapping in a new number on his wretched mobile.
‘Tim? About those Hedge Funds,’ he growled, giving his mud-spattered shoes a basilisk stare.
She despaired, doubting that the funds were a charitable donation to the preservation of England’s beautiful country hedges.
He’d seen nothing. Not the rich dark throats of the dazzling white azaleas brushing his jacket, or the ladies fingers, violets, forget-me-nots and scarlet pimpernel which were shyly peeping from the undergrowth beside the path.
Deaf to everything but the grinding machine of business, he’d heard nothing of the jubilant birds filling the island with sweet song. And he was too busy sniffing out a deal to register the mingled fragrances that drifted on the slight breeze, or the musty, warm aroma that arose from the leaf litter in the surrounding woodland.
Edith’s heaven was totally lost on him. Catherine watched sadly as he strode on, discussing High Fidelity Bonds instead of being alive to the wonders of the natural world around him. She felt a wave of sadness jerk at her chest. He would never love this place as she did.
It was small consolation that he hadn’t ploughed straight through the bluebells, but had skirted the edge. He wasn’t a total heathen then. But she could see that he would have no empathy for Edith’s carefully rampant style of gardening.
Zach and his wife were obviously people with different values and priorities. Sophisticates, who lived the fast life of the City.
Catherine knew instinctively that they would definitely not approve of the way she earned her living. Nor would they be sympathetic towards a woman who chose to live on a boat like a water gypsy.
Her face fell. She might as well accept now that she’d probably be hurled out on her ear. She’d be obliged to wander the rivers and canals of England until she found a vacant mooring that she could afford. And then she’d have to start building up her clientele all over again.
She bit her lip, trying to stop herself from crying with frustrated anger. And she wondered crossly why this man had taken on Tresanton Manor when it was so patently wrong for him.
With her ears assailed by a barrage of fast-paced business deals which broke the gentle, monastic peace of the magical garden, she trudged silently towards the house she loved, aching to think that not only would she be leaving the island and all her friends, but that a Philistine and his wife would be ignorant of its joys.
She had to try to persuade him that there were benefits in having someone around to keep an eye on things. But in her heart she knew that she didn’t stand a chance.
Oh, Edith! she sighed. If you only knew who was about to desecrate your lovely island!
CHAPTER FOUR
‘ALL these keys!’ Grumbling, Zach was turning the huge bunch in his hand, trying to find the one that opened the main door.
‘It’s like this one,’ Catherine said with commendable patience.
Tiredly she lifted the rope line at her waist and selected Edith’s key from the others for comparison.
Zach stiffened. ‘You have a key?’ he barked in staccato consternation, as if she’d committed a crime. Or was about to.
