‘Away? Oh, you mean that trip to London,’ Hannah answered carelessly. ‘No, he’s back. He got back last night, or so he told me this morning. He telephoned and asked me to go round so that we could go through the rooms he’s putting on one side for his mother. They’re lovely,’ she added enthusiastically. ‘A bedroom and sitting-room plus bathroom on the first floor, overlooking the side of the house. They’re over the library, I think. Do you remember them?’
‘Yes,’ Rue told her shortly. The rooms her friend was referring to had once been her own, but she didn’t want to say so. She didn’t want to say anything which would encourage Hannah to linger, because she wanted…no, needed to be alone with the pain that was threatening to destroy her.
Neil was back, had been back for almost a full day, and had made no attempt to get in touch with her.
It made no difference that she herself had told him to stay away…her eyes felt sore and gritty and she had a horrible feeling that she was about to cry.
‘Most of the work he wants done is simple enough. The rooms are so lovely that there shouldn’t be any problem sorting something out. I’m going back home to outline a couple of schemes now so that I can get Neil’s approval and put things in hand before we leave for Spain.’ She eyed Rue thoughtfully and then told her firmly, ‘You’re getting too thin, Rue. There’s almost nothing of you apart from your chest,’ she added teasingly, eyeing her friend’s body with rueful envy. ‘How is it that when I lose weight, I immediately become flat-chested?’ she demanded wryly. ‘Whereas when you lose it, you immediately begin to look fragile and haunted, all high cheekbones and delicate wrists, and not one single centimetre do you lose off your bust.’
‘Genes, I suppose,’ Rue offered her absently. It was true that she had lost weight. Food seemed to have lost its appeal completely, and twice since Neil had left she had stopped work in the evening and discovered she had gone all day without eating a single thing.
Hannah stayed a few more minutes, chatting about her proposed trip to Spain. Despite the fact that she had wanted to be alone, once she had gone Rue found the house almost disturbingly empty.
What was it that Neil had done to her that made her find her once-prized privacy something which now made her feel acutely lonely?
She made herself a cup of coffee and called to Horatio. There was still work to be done: the watering, and all the flowers she and Neil had picked, which were now being carefully dried, needed turning and checking.
The very thought made her back ache, and she couldn’t help remembering how quickly the time had passed when she had had Neil to help her. How having him there working beside her had encouraged her to work that little bit harder. How, on those odd occasions when he had raised his head to smile at her, her aching back had suddenly been forgotten.
She worked until gone ten, all the time her ears straining for the ring of the telephone, the sound of the car which would herald Neil’s arrival, but everything remained quiet. Too quiet, she acknowledged with a tiny shiver as she walked back to the house, Horatio at her heels.
She knew she ought to have something to eat, but she felt too listless, too drained to be bothered. A hot bath and a milky drink, that was all she really wanted.
Lies, an inward voice taunted. You want Neil. And it was all too painfully true, but it seemed that he must have taken her words at face value. Because he didn’t rush to see her the minute he got home? she scorned herself. Why should he? She had no importance in his life. She sighed faintly.
She knew even as she went to bed that she wouldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, and, dangerously, she wondered what would happen if she got dressed again and went to see Neil. The worst he could do would be to ask her to leave…to tell her that he had no interest in her, sexual or otherwise. How easy it would be to give in to the temptation, but she mustn’t. What had happened to her pride? Her self-respect?
It was a long time before she fell asleep, and then Horatio, who was still sleeping in a basket in her room, got up and whined, his doggy ears catching something that couldn’t reach those of the woman asleep on the bed.
He looked at her and whined again, and then got out of his basket and padded downstairs, sensing an intruder somewhere outside in the darkness of the night.
It was his barks that woke Rue, sharp, fierce barks that warned of danger, and at first, still muddled by sleep, she thought that Neil must have come round after all, and she sat up, her face wreathed in smiles, her heart thudding frantically, wishing she had thought to wear something a little more exciting than her old nightshirt, trembling with anticipation and pleasure as she waited for him to knock on the door.
Only there was no knock, and Horatio’s barks were growing steadily more frantic, punctuated by deep growls that rumbled in his throat.
Calling to him, Rue got up and hurried downstairs, switching on the lights. Sometimes a fox or a badger disturbed his sleep and he barked like this, resenting their infringement on what he saw as his territory. He was standing by the back door, his hair on edge, the growls becoming more and more menacing by the time Rue got down to the kitchen.
She tried to quieten him, telling him that there was no one there, but he refused to heed her, scratching at the door and whining to be let out.
Knowing that he wouldn’t quieten until she had done so, she gave in, telling him firmly as she opened the door that there was nothing there. To reaffirm it, she went out with him, shivering a little as the cool night air struck her skin. She hadn’t bothered to pull on a robe, and all thought of going back into the house to get one was shocked from her as she walked to the end of the yard and then stopped, arrested by an ominous crackling sound and the smell of something burning.
Instinctively she started to run towards the sound, rounding the corner just in time to see the flames licking greedily at the window on the stable…right next door to the drying shed where she had put the newly cut flowers to dry and where she had thankfully placed nearly all her spare stock, only that week, cleaning out the shelves in the stable ready for the new season’s flowers.
Without stopping to think, she raced to the drying shed, flinging open the door and tearing inside, grabbing the nets that held the drying flowers, staggering outside with her arms full and hurrying to put them in the relative safety of the yard.
The thought that she herself might be in danger never even occurred to her. All she wanted to do was to save her stock, and while she worked she wondered frantically how on earth the fire had started. She was always so careful, so very careful…
A small explosion from the stable made her tense fearfully, and she staggered outside to see flames leaping from the loft window.
The fire was spreading quickly; soon it would reach the drying shed. Appalled, she realised the danger that she was in…and all that she stood to lose. Not just her business, but her home as well if the flames should spread, and potentially her life, and yet still she stood there, completely unable to move, mesmerised by the lethal tongue of red and yellow fire, ignoring the heat that scorched her skin, and the ominous crackling sound of dry roof-timbers being eaten away by the furious flames, unable to do anythi
ng but stand there and watch her whole world being destroyed. She saw the flames burst out through the loft door and burning timbers crash down on the drying shed. She heard in the distance the sound of a fire engine, and just for a moment her head turned towards it, but the flames captured her again. Dry-mouthed, she watched them devour everything she had worked for, while the fire engine raced ever nearer.
She was almost surrounded by a circle of flame when the Daimler screeched to a halt in her yard, its driver wrenching himself out and across the distance that separated them, snatching her off the ground just as a heavy roof-timber burned through and crashed down to the ground, hitting the spot where she had been standing.
‘You crazy fool!’ Neil told her roughly. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Don’t you realise the danger?’
Danger…? Oh, yes, she knew all about that. Her eyes widened and darkened, her gaze fastening on him in shocked panic as she tried to claw her way free. This man was danger…danger and torment and almost unbearable pleasure all rolled into one.