Dark Mirror. Daphne Clair
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Название: Dark Mirror
Автор: Daphne Clair
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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* * *
The next week was a busy period for the guest house. As visitors moved out the rooms had to be prepared for those shortly moving in. The local organiser of the summer school who liaised with the university course co-ordinator was continually checking on this detail or that.
Rae and Fler allotted rooms for the tutors and the course co-ordinator. There was to be a creative writing course and one on European influences in the Pacific, as well as a geology group, print-making, a marine biology class and a course in video filming, all taught by visiting tutors from the university. Advanced pottery and two art classes were being conducted by local and visiting artists, and a saturation course in spoken Maori was to be centred on the nearby marae.
The course co-ordinator, a smartly dressed young woman with an air of brisk efficiency, arrived driving a van full of assorted teaching materials. She was followed within minutes by four of the tutors sharing a car. Fler was ushering the co-ordinator into her room while Rae did the same for the others, when they heard another car draw up in the courtyard outside.
The young woman peered out the window and said, ‘That’ll be the other tutor arriving now. Oh, by the way, you’ll have Mr Hathaway down for a room, but unfortunately he couldn’t make it after all. He made sure we got a very good replacement for European influences in the Pacific, though. It won’t make any difference to you, anyway, will it?’
‘None at all,’ Fler assured her, as the bell at the reception desk rang. ‘If you have everything you need...?’
‘I’m fine.’ The young woman put a bag on the bed and looked about. ‘I’m dying to use the loo, though. Will you tell him, please, that we’re all going to meet in the lounge in half an hour?’
‘Yes, I will. There’s a coffee machine there. I’ll make sure it’s refilled before then.’
‘That would be lovely. Thanks.’
The bell pealed again. Along the hall, Rae was still talking to one of the tutors who was asking where the nearest pub was.
Fler made for the stairs, and turned at the bottom to cross to the desk at one side of the entrance hall.
The man who had been lounging against the counter, idly studying one of the guest house’s address cards that he’d picked up from there, turned to face her as she approached. For a moment his expression was blank, then his hazel eyes suddenly darkened with shock and he straightened abruptly. ‘I don’t believe it!’ he said in stunned tones. ‘What in hell are you doing here?’
CHAPTER FOUR
FLER blinked. She felt pretty much the same way, herself. ‘I’m the proprietor,’ she said. ‘If you’re looking for Tansy, Mr Ranburn, she isn’t here.’ It gave her some satisfaction to be able to tell him that. Tansy might have been pleased to think of him coming after her, but Fler was convinced this man was nothing but bad news for her daughter.
‘Tansy?’ he said blankly, as though he’d forgotten who that was, and Fler immediately wanted to hit him. She’d like nothing more than for him to stay well away from Tansy, but he didn’t have to make it so obvious that he didn’t really give a damn.
Before she could say anything he glanced again at the card in his hand. ‘”F.H. Daniels, proprietor”,’ he read aloud. ‘I thought you were Mrs Hewson.’
‘I answer to my ex-husband’s name sometimes,’ she told him. ‘Especially in matters concerning Tansy. It saves explanations.’
He was still looking at her as though hoping she was going to disappear in a puff of smoke. The feeling was mutual, she wanted to assure him. Instead she said crisply, with only the forlornest hope that it wasn’t true, ‘If you’re not here to see Tansy, I presume you’re one of the tutors for the summer school. The others arrived ten minutes ago.’
‘Well, good,’ he said absently, looking as though he was trying to think of an excuse to leave. She wished he would.
‘Do you need any help with bags?’ she asked him.
‘Ah...no. No, I’ll manage. Thank you,’ he added, belatedly. ‘Tansy—’
‘She’s in the South Island,’ she told him. ‘Until the end of February. If you’re ready, I’ll take you to your room. You can sign the book later.’
She didn’t want to discuss Tansy with him. Didn’t want to discuss anything with him. Didn’t know how she was going to bear being in the same house with the man for the next three weeks. But she could hardly throw him out without explanation, and explanations would be humiliating for Tansy. The story would be bound to get back to the university.
‘This way,’ she said coldly, and led him up the stairs.
* * *
The only bright spot, Fler told herself later, filling the coffee machine, checking the sugar bowls and placing milk and cream on the lace-covered table, was that Tansy wasn’t here. At least she’d have had a three-month respite from his pernicious influence before she saw Kyle Ranburn again.
She opened up the wide doors that let in the sea breeze, and plumped some of the pastel-patterned cushions on the cane sofas and chairs around the room. It was quite hot. Iced water might be preferred by some of the guests to coffee.
She went to the kitchen to fill a jug, and also fetched a packet of biscuits and a plate. Perhaps it was the crackle of the packet as she opened it, pouring the biscuits expertly in overlapping circles on to the plate, that prevented her from hearing Kyle Ranburn come into the room.
When she turned and found him beside her, she jumped.
‘Sorry,’ he said. He’d been reaching for a cup, but now he stepped back. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’ He was staring a little, but she supposed she was too. He looked different, from when they’d first met at the hospital. It was probably the casual clothes he wore, jeans and a denim bomber-style jacket over a dark T-shirt.
What the well-dressed lecturer wears when catering to the country masses, she thought nastily. This man would look good in anything. He actually looked sexier now than in the suit she’d seen him in before.
Dismissing the thought, she turned away from him, but looked back when he said abruptly, ‘You’re alike, aren’t you—you and your daughter?’
‘What?’ Could he have picked up that wayward thought? Her eyes sparked with chagrin.
‘Hasn’t anyone commented on it before? For a second, as I came in, I thought you were her.’
‘Oh.’ Fool, of course he hadn’t meant that! Fler swallowed. ‘Yes, actually they have.’ Her voice sounded stiff, reluctant. She made to walk round him, get out of the room. No one else had come down yet.
Surprisingly, he caught at her arm as she went to pass him, not hard but firmly. ‘Just a minute!’
Fler pulled away from him almost violently. ‘Don’t you touch me!’ All her nerve-ends were tingling, the fine hairs on her skin prickling up with antagonism.
‘I’m not going to СКАЧАТЬ