Shadow Of Desire. Sara Craven

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СКАЧАТЬ into the kitchen she saw the car drawn up outside the main door.

      She bit her lip vexedly, snatching a handful of cutlery from the drawer and strewing table mats on to the kitchen table at random. She fetched a dish and spooned a helping of the chicken, vegetables and gravy into it, adding potatoes from the pan on top of the stove. It smelled wonderful.

      ‘Almost as good as I do,’ Ginny said half-aloud, and laughed. She took a last look at herself in the mirror—eyes wide and bright with expectancy, the lines of her mouth softened and vulnerable. She looked more like the child she had been than the woman she wanted to become, but there was nothing she could do about that, and she let herself out of the kitchen door and walked across the courtyard carrying her casserole dish.

      It was a cool evening for spring, and the breeze made her shiver a little—or was that only excitement?

      She didn’t call out as she usually did when she entered the hall at Monk’s Dower, but stood listening for a moment. From the kitchen she could hear an exasperated rattling sound, and guessed he was trying to light the range. It was quite simple really—a question of knack, but Toby hadn’t mastered it. And he’d be wondering why there was no supper either.

      She walked quickly and quietly to the kitchen door, and flung it open, She said gaily, ‘Surprise—did you …’ and stopped, her jaw dropping with shock and fright.

      Because the man kneeling in front of the range—the man rising to face her—wasn’t Toby at all. He was taller and very dark—dark as a gipsy with a thin arrogant face. He needed a shave and a haircut, and he was wearing faded denims and a dark roll-collared sweater which had seen better days, and she registered all these things as if she was seeing them in slow motion, and it was vital that she master every detail.

      Ginny was shaking suddenly. The car was here. Toby should be here. Then who was this disreputable-looking stranger?

      She said on a high breathless note, ‘Who are you? And what have you done with Toby?’

      She saw him react to that, dark brows drawing together above the thin high-bridged nose, then he moved towards her—one step, that was all—and she was terrified, seeing Toby lying somewhere covered in blood while this man robbed the house.

      She heard herself scream something, then she threw the casserole dish straight at his head across the kitchen.

       CHAPTER TWO

      SHE missed him completely, of course. The casserole whizzed harmlessly past him and shattered on the wall behind him, dropping a nauseous trail of meat and vegetables down the painted plaster. It had been a wasted gesture because it left her without a weapon, and he was still advancing on her. Ginny could almost feel the blaze of anger coming from him, and she looked round instinctively, her eyes falling on the rack of kitchen knives near the sink, every bright blade honed to razor sharpness.

      He must have guessed what she was thinking because he said, ‘Oh, no, you don’t, you violent, destructive little bitch!’ Before she could move to defend herself, he had vaulted lightly across the pine kitchen table and seized her by the shoulders in a grip which hurt.

      ‘Now then,’ he said grimly, ‘who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?’

      Dazedly it occurred to her that he didn’t sound like a criminal bent on housebreaking—always supposing she had the slightest idea what such a person would sound like. His voice was educated, low and resonant, and if there was menace in it, it was probably sparked off by the fact that he was good and mad.

      She said on a sob, ‘What have you done with Toby?’

      ‘Toby?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘I’ve done nothing with him, you madwoman. He’s in London as far as I know.’

      ‘But he was coming down here—I had a message.’

      He shook his head decisively. ‘Oh, no, he wasn’t. I’d made it quite clear I’d be using the house myself this weekend. He knows better than to intrude.’

      ‘You’re the intruder,’ she gasped. She was shaking now from reaction so violently that if it hadn’t been for that bruising grip on her shoulders, she thought she might well have collapsed to the floor at his feet. ‘You’re in his house—you’ve got his car. Why?’

      He swore under his breath. ‘So that’s it.’ There was a long silence, then he said, ‘Did Toby tell you this was his house? Answer me, damn you, or I’ll break your neck before I break his!’

      There was something in his voice, rather than the threatening words themselves, which caught her attention and held it riveted. Panic was filling her up, and a curious sense of unreality. She looked up into his face, absorbing other details—the firm hard lines of his mouth, and his eyes, as cold and grey as a winter sea, and as perilous, she thought wildly.

      She marshalled every vestige of self-control of which she was capable in order to say, ‘Will you let go of me, please. I think there’s been a mistake.’

      ‘I’m damned sure there has. I still want some answers to my question. Has my feckless cousin been passing off my property as his?’

      Ginny said numbly, ‘Your property?’

      He nodded. ‘Mine. The car certainly—as for the house, I signed the lease and I pay the rent.’ He looked round the kitchen and his mouth curled derisively. ‘I also pay a generous service charge. There’s supposed to be a housekeeper–caretaker woman living on the premises to keep the place in a permanent state of readiness. If this is a fair sample of the “service” then I’m wasting my money. There aren’t even sheets on my bed.’

      She said on a whisper, ‘I’m sorry.’ Her stomach was churning wildly, and she was afraid she was going to be sick. ‘Do—do you mind telling me your name?’

      ‘It’s Hendrick—Max Hendrick.’ He gave her an impatient glance. ‘Now do you mind telling me how you come to have the run of the place? Or need I ask? No matter how remote the spot, Toby can always be relied on to organise himself a village maiden.’ He cast a wry glance at the fragments of broken china, and the remnants of chicken casserole still adhering glutinously to the wall. ‘And this one can even cook, it seems.’

      Ginny felt slow hot colour stealing under her skin as she absorbed the implication in his words.

      ‘It isn’t what you think.’

      ‘No?’ He pulled a kitchen chair forward with his foot and motioned her towards it. ‘So tell me about it.’

      She moistened her lips frantically. ‘Toby never actually said he owned the house. I’m afraid I assumed …’

      ‘Altogether too damned much,’ he cut in abruptly. ‘Including that you have the right to come and go as you please. Well, you don’t, my child. I’ve rented this place for peace and privacy, and I have no wish for transient female companionship—or at least’—the flick of his eyes over her body was like the lash of a whip—‘not the nubile but immature brand you represent. Now if you’d care to clear up the mess you’ve made, you can go.’

      She said, ‘But you must let me explain.’

      ‘I don’t think any further explanations are СКАЧАТЬ