‘I don’t see the difference between travelling with him and travelling with you,’ Julia said tartly. He must have seen the hug and jumped to his own conclusions. It obviously hadn’t even occurred to him that she might know the driver of the truck.
‘I rest my case,’ he said, but didn’t try to read her a lecture. Non-involvement seemed to be his speciality.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ Julia called out after his retreating back and received a careless wave in acknowledgement. She battled to stow her two suitcases and handbag in the truck and climbed in after them to wait patiently for John.
The trip was fun. Julia liked being perched up above the rest of the lowly road-dwellers and John was a pleasant companion. He was intending to stay the night at Whitianga with his aunt and when he asked whether she’d like to have dinner with them Julia accepted with alacrity, thinking that Richard should still have a good deal left in his hamper.
‘Let me report in first, though,’ she said. She didn’t want Richard to worry when she didn’t arrive to cook his dinner!
Since the truck was too large to tackle Craemar’s long, over-grown gravel driveway they had to park it on the roadside and leg it the rest of the way, carrying a bag each. When the house came into sight Julia paused for a moment, admiringly.
The colonial timber merchant who gave the house his name had done himself proud. He had begun its construction in the 1830s using imported red brick and native timber and as the two-storeyed edifice grew he had tacked on extra rooms to the design so that it had an oddly asymmetrical appearance by the time the last nail was hammered in five years later. Julia loved it for its oddness. It was a house with character, and most importantly of all, it had a fabulously large kitchen that was a joy to work in.
Julia lead John up the wide front steps to the white marble portico, a fussy, twentieth-century addition, and Julia pounded on the heavy kauri door with the ornate brass knocker. Silence. For several minutes they knocked and called without luck.
‘Would you mind going around the side to have a look in the garage—I’ll go and open the kitchen door.’ Julia said, and they split up.
Richard could have gone out for the afternoon, Julia supposed as she lifted the flowerpots surrounding the back doorstep to find the one which hid the key. It was there, just as Connie had told her, and Julia used it in the stiff, old-fashioned lock and went into the silent kitchen. Dusk was beginning to slip into darkness and Julia switched on lights. The colours of the kitchen were warm—browns and yellows with natural wood cupboards, but the room itself was very cold and empty, not a dish out of place. No sign of Richard’s hamper either, not even in the pantry. A nasty suspicion sneaking up on her, Julia turned as John came panting up the stone steps.
‘All locked up,’ he said, pleasant round face creased in puzzlement. ‘There’s even a cobweb on the lock so I’d say he hasn’t garaged his car while he’s been here.’
‘If he’s been here,’ said Julia grimly. ‘I’ll just go and have a look in his room.’
It was upstairs, one of the rooms which opened out on to the north-facing balcony, and it proved to be as empty as the kitchen. It was spotless and there was a fire set in the grate, but there were no clothes in the wardrobe.
‘The rat!’ cried Julia as she swooped back into the kitchen, to find John had fetched her bags from the front of the house. ‘He’s not here!’
‘Perhaps he changed his mind,’ John offered.
‘Oh no he didn’t,’ said Julia, seeing it all now. She had been neatly manoeuvred into offering to make up that hamper, which was probably even now being consumed in some snug hideaway by Richard and his latest dolly-bird. No wonder he had oozed charm when he had picked it up, his conscience had been pricking him. Not enough to confess, of course. Well, Richard Marlow, you’ll get yours, Julia promised with silent wrath as she took her bags into the room which was to be hers. It was one of Henry Craemar’s afterthoughts, bulging out from the side of the kitchen, the only bedroom on the ground floor. A box bed took up one end of the room, a mirrored bureau and huge old wardrobe the other. There was a small handbasin too, but if Julia wanted a bath she would have to troop upstairs to the main bathroom. She marched out again to John, determined that the discovery of Richard’s little practical joke would not spoil her evening.
It was just after midnight when John drove her back to Craemar in his aunt’s comfortable Wolsey. Refusing his offer to come in and check the dark house Julia dashed around to the kitchen door and fumbled for the key under the pot where she had replaced it. It wasn’t there. Julia swore softly and pulled her jacket closer around her. It was freezing!
She circled back around to the front of the house and looked up. Ahhh! A window was slightly ajar, she could see the moonlight gilding the bottom of the white sash. Richard’s room. He must have arrived while she was out and was now sound asleep, the deep sleep of the guilty!
Without a second thought Julia slipped over to the wooden fire-escape which was fixed to the corner of the house. Rapidly, silently, she climbed up and over the rail of the balcony. She quietly tried the french windows to Richard’s room. Locked—she had expected that. Carefully she pushed the sash window far enough up so that she could squeeze through. Like a wraith she glided across the polished floorboards and paused beside the hu
mped bedclothes, savouring her moment of revenge.
Taking a deep breath she reached out and ripped the bedclothes from the bed, letting out a shriek like a banshee as she did so:
‘Ricky, Ricky, my idol!’ she threw herself at the prone figure as it jerked to life, thrusting Richard back down on to the bed as she poured out her hysterical pleading. ‘Darling, Ricky, let me be yours for one night of love.’ She dug her fingernails deeply into the bare chest beneath her, feeling him wince with glee. ‘Take me, take me, carve your name on my body … it’s already on my heart!’ She tried to stifle her giggles with hot and heavy melodrama.
Julia wasn’t quite sure when she realised something was wrong. By now Richard should be roaring with temper, or convulsed with laughter. And surely … surely Richard didn’t have all that hair on his chest … her hand explored with sudden trepidation. My God— it wasn’t Richard! Julia started to rear backwards off the bed when a dark shape snaked out from the bed and grabbed her wrist.
‘Loath as I am to disappoint you, I am not “darling Ricky”.’
Julia froze. That voice … that pedantic phrasing—it couldn’t be! The dark figure in the bed rose up … and up, while Julia’s heart sank in horrified disbelief. There was a click, and the bedside lamp sprang into yellow brightness.
The owner of the gunmetal grey Maserati regarded her frozen features with sleepy resignation.
‘Why is it, I wonder, that I don’t feel surprised to see you?’
CHAPTER THREE
‘YOU!’ Julia squeaked crassly. ‘What are you doing here?’ She wrenched her wrist out of his bear-like grip and leapt accusingly to her feet.
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ His hand dropped in support as he heaved himself more upright in the bed, the feather duvet falling away to his waist. His shoulders and chest were massive under the black silk pyjamas, the thick mat of hair she had felt when she had thrown herself on to him revealed by the unbuttoned jacket. What a body! The thought came unbidden and Julia hurriedly qualified it—if you had a liking for all-in wrestlers.