"Where are my parents?" she demanded, frowning at him.
"That"s what I wanted to tell you. They decided to leave a few days earlier and spend some time with some old friends en route for Southampton. They left this morning--said to give you their love and to tell you you aren"t to worry about a thing. I promised them I"d be on hand when you arrived to explain everything. That"s why I was hoping to stop you earlier--I was on my way to drive over to Knutsford with some provisions for a restaurant we supply there, but in the circ.u.mstances..."
Several things struck Elspeth at once. The first and most immediate was that she had made an utter and complete fool of herself and that, far from following her for the kind of nefarious and s.e.xual purpose she had a.s.sumed. Carter was patently oblivious to her as a woman; the second was that betraying and very worrying "we". Had her foolish, too trusting parents already been tricked out of what was rightfully theirs?
Wishing desperately that they had waited until she arrived, she ignored Carter, turning her back on him and heading for the kitchen door.
To discover that it was not unlocked surprised her, and, while she was still staring at it in baffled fury. Carter stepped in front of her and inserted a key into the lock, deftly turning it and opening the door for her.
"A small precaution I"ve persuaded your parents to take. They"re far too trusting."
"Yes, they are, aren"t they?" Elspeth agreed through gritted teeth.
Why was it that this man was making her feel an outsider, an interloper, a stranger almost in her own home, frustrating and obstructing her at every turn she took?
Suddenly her head started to ache. She felt dirty and tired, and she longed almost ridiculously to see her mother come bustling towards her, soothing her with the promise of a cup of tea and some of her home-made bread. Silly tears of anger and weakness clouded her eyes.
Fiercely she dashed them away. Heavens, she hadn"t cried since. since that episode in the bank"s staff-room, and she certainly wasn"t going to do so now, in front of this horrible, horrible man.
Abruptly moving past him, she headed for the door and the stairs, pausing only when she had opened it to say frostily to him, "Well, it was thoughtful of you to be here to welcome me and a half-hysterical woman accusing me virtually of attempting to abduct her, not to mention my crimes against the wife and family I do not happen to have."
As Elspeth stared towards the house, its silence suddenly made her suspicious.
"Where are my parents she demanded, frowning at him.
"That"s what I wanted to tell you. They decided to leave a few days earlier and spend some time with some old friends en route for Southampton. They left this morning said to give you their love and to tell you you aren"t to worry about a thing. I promised them I"d be on hand when you arrived to explain everything. That"s why I was hoping to stop you earlier I was on my way to drive over to Knutsford with some provisions for a restaurant we supply there, but in the circ.u.mstances..."
Several things struck Elspeth at once. The first and most immediate was that she had made an utter and complete fool of herself and that, far from following her for the kind of nefarious and s.e.xual purpose she had a.s.sumed, Carter was patently oblivious to her as a woman; the second was that betraying and very worrying "we". Had her foolish, too trusting parents already been tricked out of what was rightfully theirs?
Wishing desperately that they had waited until she arrived, she ignored Carter, turning her back on him and heading for the kitchen door.
To discover that it was not unlocked surprised her, and, while she was still staring at it in baffled fury. Carter stepped in front of her and inserted a key into the lock, deftly turning it and opening the door for her.
"A small precaution I"ve persuaded your parents to take. They"re far too trusting."
"Yes, they are, aren"t they?" Elspeth agreed through gritted teeth.
Why was it that this man was making her feel an outsider, an interloper, a stranger almost in her own home, frustrating and obstructing her at every turn she took?
Suddenly her head started to ache. She felt dirty and tired, and she longed almost ridiculously to see her mother come bustling towards her, soothing her with the promise of a cup of tea and some of her home-made bread. Silly tears of anger and weakness clouded her eyes.
Fiercely she dashed them away. Heavens, she hadn"t cried since .
since that episode in the bank"s staff-room, and she certainly wasn"t going to do so now, in front of this horrible, horrible man.
Abruptly moving past him, she headed for the door and the stairs, pausing only when she had opened it to say frostily to him, "Well, it was thoughtful of you to be here to welcome me and tell me that my parents have left, Carter, but now if you"ll excuse me I"m tired and rather grubby. I think I"ll go straight upstairs and get ready for bed."
Not waiting to see how he had taken her dismissal, she went upstairs.
All she wanted was for him to take himself off to wherever it was he was living. Tomorrow would be soon enough to try to come to terms with the enormity of her own idiocy. All right, so she had made a mistake--a natural one surely in the circ.u.mstances. He was lucky she hadn"t reported him to the police, hounding her like that. She bit her lip, wishing she wasn"t able to imagine the scene at the police station had she done so. Carter she was sure would have relished revealing his ident.i.ty, making her look a complete fool.
Of course he must have known she wouldn"t recognise him. Why, it was over ten yeras since she had last seen him. Then he had had that thick, bushy beard and that wild, unkempt hair which had made him look unapproachable and rather dangerous.
He was still dangerous, to her parents anyway-but he was soon going to discover that she was a very different proposition, that she could see exactly what he was up to. Thank goodness Peter had had the wisdom to point out to her just what his motives might be.
Mingled with her exhaustion and her anger was another emotion, a sharp, dangerous emotion that hurt and ached, an emotion that made some secret place deep inside her heart feel sore and tender, and all because she had seen the amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes when he"d informed her just why he had been following her, and she had known how much pleasure it had given him to refute her accusations. If he had said the words out aloud he couldn"t have made it plainer just how little possibility there was of his finding her attractive or desirable.
Quite why that should hurt she had no idea--nor did she want to know.
She pushed open the door to the spare room. The house had four bedrooms, but as yet her parents had only got round to furnishing two of them. As it opened and she switched on the light, she stared at the room in confusion.
A man"s jacket hung on the back of the desk chair, a pair of trainers on the floor beside it. There were papers scattered on the desk, and other articles of clothing on the bed. male clothing.
"I"m sorry, I should have warned you," Carter"s voice came from behind her.
"Your parents asked me to move in while they"re away to keep an eye on things. Your mother said that you"d probably prefer to use their room, since it has its own bathroom."
"You"re staying her eT She couldn"t believe it. It was all some horrid joke.
"That"s right."
"But there"s no need. I"m here--I mean, that"s why I"m here, so that I can take charge--care of things."
"Your mother seemed to think you needed a holiday. I think she was concerned that it might be too much for you, and, since your folks have been good enough to offer me their spare room, until I find somewhere of my own, offering to take charge-care of things for them while they"re away seemed the least I could do."
She couldn"t believe it. She wouldn"t believe it.
Ignoring the man standing almost immediately behind her, Elspeth turned on her heel and with as much dignity as she could muster walked blindly into her parents" bedroom.
How could they have done this to her--and without saying a word? They must have known how she would feel.
She shuddered, trying to take a deep, steadying gulp of air. It would have been bad enough if she had simply arrived to find Carter already here, but to have discovered that he was a man she"d thought was pursuing her for a completely different kind of motive than he actually had been, was so deeply humiliating for her that even now the knowledge of her own folly was scorching her skin a dark and very hot red.
And Carter had enjoyed her embarra.s.sment, just as he had enjoyed telling her that her parents obviously did not trust her enough to leave her in sole charge. Oh, he might pretend it was out of concern for her, but she knew better. and so did he. She discovered that she was grinding her teeth again, a wild and bitter fury overtaking her.
Well, he might be laughing now, but he would soon discover that she had his measure.
First thing in the morning, once she had had a good night"s sleep and felt more like herself, she was going to make sure that he left. The simple reminder that she was virtually an engaged woman and he a single man should surely be enough to make him aware of the impropriety of their both sleeping under the same roof, even if her foolish, unrealistic parents had not done so.
And then, once she had got him out of the house, she would make sure that whenever he came to the small holding she watched everything he did. He might think it was going to be easy, cheating her parents, but she was going to show him otherwise.
On this satisfactory thought a huge yawn overtook her, reminding her that she was very, very tired, and that tomorrow she was going to need all her energy and guile.
She gave a faint sigh and smothered another yawn. She was tired. And then she remembered that her case was still in the car. The thought of coming face to face with Carter now, when she was still feeling so shocked and disorientated, made her stop halfway to the bedroom door.
For tonight she would borrow one of her mother"s night dresses she knew her mother wouldn"t mind, and after all it was the least she could do, having been a co-author to her present predicament. How could her parents have done this to her? They must have known--and to have left without telling her, without waiting to see her. The suspicion suddenly crossed her mind that they might have deliberately left ahead of her arrival in order to avoid her angry reaction to Carter"s presence.
For some reason that brought a resurgence of that odd pain in her chest. Angry with herself for being so silly, she pulled open one of the drawers in the old-fashioned chest her mother had inherited from her own parents, and removed the nightdress she found at the top of the pile.