Книга - The Cinderella Factor

The Cinderella Factor
Sophie Weston


The French chateau is the perfect hiding place for Jo–until its owner, sardonic reporter Patrick Burns, comes home…At first Patrick thinks the secretive runaway is a thief–or worse–until he sees that what Jo's hiding is her painful past. Soon the brave, lonely girl is the woman he can't live without. But can a man who's never loved win the trust of a girl who's never been loved? Or will her frightening new feelings for him make Jo run again?







Jo shook her head a little, trying to break that mesmeric eye contact.

Her ragged hair was plastered to her head, darkened to coal-black, all its red lights doused in the soaking it had received. The movement sent trickles of water from the rats’ tails down her shoulders.

“I didn’t realize anyone was there,” she said blankly.

At once she was furious with herself. Stupid, stupid, she thought. Of course you knew he was there, the moment he spoke. And of course you didn’t know before that, or you would not have been jumping about in the water with no clothes on.

Realization hit her then. She gave a little gasp and plunged her shoulders rapidly under the water. But she couldn’t quite break the locking of their gaze.




The Cinderella Factor

Sophie Weston





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


SOPHIE WESTON

Born in London, Sophie Weston is a traveler by nature who started writing when she was five. She wrote her first romance while recovering from illness, thinking her traveling was over. She was wrong, but she enjoyed it so much that she has carried on. These days she lives in the heart of the city—with two demanding cats and a cherry tree—and travels the world looking for settings for her stories.




CONTENTS


PROLOGUE (#ud6a3bcf4-5770-51cb-8cab-fcb8a867b8ec)

CHAPTER ONE (#ubd693388-1d3e-526f-8e8f-cd7cf33690ae)

CHAPTER TWO (#u85d97ad5-0391-5df2-a41f-633cb513d9c1)

CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)




PROLOGUE


THREE continents watched foreign correspondent Patrick Burns torpedo his brilliant career on live television.

The first person to notice was the assistant editor in the London office.

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘He’s going to take sides.’

Nonsense, they said. Patrick Burns had just been voted International Reporter of the Year. When he was on a roll like that, why on earth would he risk his job?

‘For the second time,’ muttered Ed Lassells, the head honcho, though nobody noticed.

Besides, Patrick always said it himself, when he lectured at conferences or made one of his modest, witty speeches accepting yet another award. ‘We can’t get involved,’ he would say. ‘We’re journalists. We’re impartial or we’re nothing.’

But that had been before Patrick had lain on his face in the dust for twenty minutes while snipers held their fire for the sake of the eleven-year-old village boy squatting beside him. Patrick was involved now, come hell or high water.

His cameraman had suspected something was up the night he finally broke loose. A great moon gave them a wavering train of dark shadow across the stony mountainside. It picked out anything shiny: the face of Patrick’s watch, the screen of a cellular phone, a metal button. They didn’t need a torch to guide their scramble up the bleak slope.

‘Blasted moon. We might as well be in a spotlight,’ muttered Tim, stopping for a moment, a hand to his side. The air was thin at that height, and he was not as used to it as Patrick. Or as fit.

‘Then let’s hope the enemy is looking the other way,’ said Patrick, still climbing.

‘The girls in the office should see you now,’ Tim said dryly.

Patrick did not falter, but he gave a bark of laughter. ‘You mean the pin-up portrait in the velvet jacket?’

Tim was surprised. ‘You know about it?’

Patrick looked over his shoulder. ‘The poster of me in the girls’ restroom looking like a Las Vegas gambler? Sure, I know about it. Last Christmas party they asked me in there to sign it.’

Tim was even more surprised. The girls shivered in mock trepidation whenever Patrick’s name was mentioned. But, then again, they laid elaborate plans to get him on a date.

It was an office game. Only one girl had ever gone out with him seriously. It had taken her three weeks to come to her senses. Then, when Patrick had gone off abroad on his next assignment, she’d confided to her best friend, the Balkan specialist—and thence to the whole company—that Patrick was tricky.

‘Very tricky,’ nice Corinna had said, shaken out of her light-hearted sophistication. ‘If you let him take you to bed, it’s like he doesn’t forgive you.’

‘Doesn’t like loose women?’ the Balkan specialist had asked, fascinated by this anachronism.

But Corinna had shaken her head, sobered by her brush with blazing Patrick Burns. ‘It’s like it makes him hate himself.’

Which, of course, had been much too intriguing to keep to themselves.

There was much speculation on Patrick Burns’s inner demons in the ladies’ cloakroom. A more sober picture of him from an awards ceremony, frowning and intense in an impeccable dinner jacket, appeared on the wall of the newsroom beneath the international time clocks. Lisa, the receptionist, dubbed him Count Dracula, and most of the women in the place agreed—and sighed. Much to the annoyance of their male colleagues.

‘The man’s a sex god,’ the Balkan specialist had said in a matter-of-fact voice when her boss had wondered aloud, irritably, what Patrick Burns had got that other men didn’t have. ‘Get over it.’

‘But you say yourselves that he isn’t kind to his women,’ roly-poly Donald had said, bewildered. ‘I mean, that’s not the modern woman’s dream man, is it?’

The Balkan specialist had grinned. ‘Who needs dreams? Patrick can give you one hell of a sexy nightmare.’

Now Tim bit back a smile. He was very keen on the Balkan specialist. If she saw Patrick Burns now, she wouldn’t think he was sexy, Tim thought with faintly guilty satisfaction.

Like Tim himself, Patrick was swathed in a triple-lined all-weather jacket. The hood had a fur inset and his gloves would have got him up Everest without frostbite. It was the right gear for this bitter mountainside. But suave Count Dracula was definitely out.

Patrick put down the equipment he was carrying and shaded his eyes, looking across the valley. The distant peaks were like a silhouette out of a Victorian Arabian Nights. But he was not looking at the mountains. He was looking at the town in the plain. From their vantage point, it looked incredibly small. Clouds of smoke, colourless in the night air, were billowing up from the road they had travelled with the tiny group of stunned, silent refugees only this morning. The village where the refugees had stopped, hoping for a brief rest, was now invisible behind the smokescreen. The thud of bombs reached them a few seconds later.

‘Poor bastards,’ said Tim, following Patrick’s gaze.

A muscle worked in Patrick’s jaw. He had not shaved for two days now, and the throbbing muscle was very clear under the residual beard.

But all he said was, ‘Yes.’

Tim made the satellite link and went through the routine methodically. He had done it three times a day for the last ten days, and he and his opposite number in London had it down to a fine art now. They finished with plenty of time to spare, and Tim stood down, idling, waiting for the countdown to air time.

Patrick stood where Tim told him to. He had to push the fur-lined hood of his parka back to insert his own earpiece.

‘You look like a brigand,’ said Tim.

The brown fur at Patrick’s shoulders was ruffled in the icy breeze, brindling his uncropped dark hair. Between the gypsy hair and two days’ growth of beard, Patrick did not look so different from some of the hard-eyed men they had met on commandeered tanks in the field.

Patrick gave a grim smile. ‘Thank you.’

Suddenly, Tim’s vague unease crystallised. Everything began to make sense—the long hair, the beard, the urgent conversations with the interpreter. Even giving away his rations like that to the bedraggled locals. It was as if Patrick was wound so tightly he no longer needed food. As if he was preparing for a great adventure…

‘You’re going underground, aren’t you?’ Tim said slowly.

Patrick nodded. ‘I’ll give it a try, anyway.’

‘Man, you’re crazy,’ said Tim, awed.

The countdown to live broadcast started.

Against the black sky, lights flared intermittently. The distant wump, wump of bombs landing drifted across to them. It was out of synch with the flares.

In their earpieces, they could hear the newscaster setting the scene. The man’s voice said in their ears, ‘…and, in the mountains, our correspondent Patrick Burns. Any sign of the struggle abating, Patrick?’

Over him, the editor said, ‘Three, two, one—cue Patrick.’

Patrick launched fluently into broadcaster mode. Only it wasn’t the agreed script at all.

He said, ‘This is a terrible place.’

‘What?’ screamed the editor. ‘Patrick, get back to the agreed line, you bastard.’

Patrick ignored the voice in his ear.

‘The night air is bitterly cold, even worse than the day.’ He was serene, intense. ‘There has been a drought here for two years. The dust is everywhere. It’s in our shoes, our clothes, the food in our packs. My cameraman and I have to keep scarves across our mouths or the dust gets in our throats.’

‘The battle,’ yelled the London editor. ‘Talk about the battle, you insubordinate son of a camel.’

And for a moment Patrick did, listing the advances, the losses, the claims by both sides. He nodded to Tim and the camera swung slowly round to focus on him.

Oh, yes, he looked good on camera, Tim thought. Alert and reliable, like the captain of a ship. The sort of man you could trust. The public of the English-speaking world certainly trusted him. According to the company’s latest annual report, he was Mercury News International’s greatest asset.

It had to be that trick he had of looking straight into the camera, earnestly, as if he really wanted you to understand. He was doing it now. And he had finished with the battle.

‘The bombs our government sold one side,’ Patrick told the world, in his measured, unemotional way, ‘hit the arms dumps our government sold the other. You can see the explosions in the night sky behind me.’

He gestured. Obediently, Tim ran a long, slow tracking shot along the smoky line of bomb fog. It went on, and on, and on.

‘And while the bombardment goes on,’ said Patrick levelly, as the camera tracked relentlessly, ‘we come across little groups of people on the road. They have lost their homes. There is no food. There will not be any food next year, either.’

The editor was now keeping up a steady stream of profanity in their earpieces. Patrick talked through it as if he could not hear the woman.

‘This land had already been turned to concrete by drought. Now it is a junkyard of weapons.’ He paused. ‘Weapons made in the developed world. Sold by Western governments. Like ours.’

Tim brought the camera back to him. Patrick was shaking now. That had to be the fierce cold on his unprotected head. He did not seem to notice.

‘There are mines here. And the rest. Nobody knows what is live and what is safe. Nobody will know until a farmer sets one off when he comes out to plant next year’s crops. Or a child throws a ball and the earth explodes in his face.’

He was mesmerising, thought Tim, shaken in spite of his professional cynicism.

‘And the truly terrible thing,’ Patrick told the camera quietly, ‘is that nobody knows how to stop it. Too many people are making money out of it.’

The furore in their earpieces quietened. A new voice spoke. An authoritative voice.

‘Patrick, stop this,’ it said coldly. ‘Give me the balance of power analysis.’

Veteran newsman Ed Lassells ran a tight ship. You obeyed him or you walked.

Patrick went on as if he had not heard Ed Lassells, either. He was shaking with cold. ‘For the last day my cameraman and I have been travelling with eight people from a village that doesn’t exist any more.’

‘Give me the analysis, Patrick,’ said Ed, in a voice like lead.

Patrick ignored him so completely that Tim wondered if he had actually removed his earpiece. He realised suddenly that Patrick was not shaking with cold. It was passion.

It was unprofessional. By God, it was awesome.

‘The adults are stunned,’ Patrick told the camera levelly. ‘They are being led by a boy of eleven. “Why?” I asked one of the women. “Because he is so young he does not yet know it is hopeless,” she said.’

Even Tim, who had been there when the tired woman had said it, was moved.

‘That boy saved my life,’ said Patrick Burns starkly.

‘Right, that’s it. I’m pulling the plug,’ said Ed.

They heard the studio presenter say, ‘We seem to have lost contact with Patrick Burns. We’ll try to link up again and bring you the rest of his dispatch later in the programme.’

Patrick said nothing. He drew a long breath, as if he had come to the end of a race that had pushed him to the limit. Then he pulled up the hood of his parka again and began to dismantle his microphone, quite as if nothing had happened. He looked very peaceful.

Through the earpiece Ed Lassells spoke again. Old, weary, infinitely cold. ‘Well done, Patrick. That was professional suicide.’

Patrick said lightly, ‘Hey, sometimes the truth is bigger than the sponsors.’

Ed didn’t even bother to answer. The line went dead.

‘Oh, boy, you are so out of a job,’ said Tim, torn between sympathy and straightforward hero-worship. ‘What are you going to do now?’

And Patrick Burns, prizewinner and danger addict, said, as if it were a joke, ‘Justify my existence.’




CHAPTER ONE


JO ALMOND had finally worked out that she was not lovable when she was just fourteen.

It had hurt. But, after the first searing shock, Jo was philosophical about it. She’d known she had other things going for her. She was practical. She had found she could be brave. She didn’t give up easily. She was energetic, clear-headed and calm. But lovable? Nah.

The man who finally taught her this painful lesson was her language teacher—a French student on teaching practice. He’d been twenty-three, with kind eyes and a passion for learning. For a while he’d believed in her. He’d been the only person in the whole world who had.

He’d also listened to her. Not for long, of course. But for a precious few hours she’d seen what it could be like if someone was on your side.

She ran away again. That time she’d got as far as Dover. She’d been just about to step on a ferry when a kindly policeman had caught up with her and organised her return home. Well, to her aunt’s house. Jo would not call it home.

Jacques Sauveterre asked her to stay behind after French on her first afternoon back in school. By that time, Jo was good at keeping her own counsel. She stood there, not meeting his eyes, fidgeting.

‘But why, Joanne? I would really like to understand this.’

‘I wanted to go to France,’ muttered Jo.

‘But of course.’

She did look up at that. ‘What?’

His kind eyes were twinkling. ‘Everyone in their right mind wants to go to France. France is paradise. It is only natural. But maybe it would be easier if you waited until the school holidays?’

For a moment she stared at him, disbelieving. He wasn’t shouting. He didn’t think she was next stop to a criminal. He was laughing at her, but very gently.

She gave a tiny, cautious smile—just in case this was real.

He sat on the corner of the teacher’s desk and looked at her gravely. ‘You know, people keep telling me that you are a tearaway. You don’t care about school. You hardly ever do your homework. But you don’t seem like that in my class, Joanne.’

No one had looked at her like that before. So interested. So warm.

‘Oh.’

‘Now, why don’t you tell me why you really ran away from home, hmm? The real reason?’

Well, that was impossible, of course. What could she say? My so-called aunt hates me and her husband is a drunk who hits me? No, she couldn’t say that. Carol and Brian Grey were pillars of the community, and Jo had just demonstrated how irresponsible she was. No one would believe her if she said that.

But she told him a tiny bit of the truth. ‘My aunt won’t let me do Latin.’

He was utterly taken aback.

‘Latin?’

‘I asked if I could. She said no.’

Just as she said no to anything that Jo might enjoy or that might make her feel normal. It was not that Jo refused to do homework. Her aunt insisted that she do housework every night. And she had to make little Mark’s tea and wash and mend his clothes. Jo didn’t mind that. She loved Mark, who was the closest she had to a brother, in the same boat as she was and who loved her back. They took good care that the Greys didn’t find out, though, and always growled at each other when Brian or Carol was around. If she knew they were close, Carol would find a way to use it against them. As she used everything else; even Jo’s love of cars.

When Jacques Sauveterre called to protest about the block on Jo taking his extra new class in Latin, Carol was all concerned interest.

‘Jo is a natural linguist, Mrs. Grey,’ he told Carol earnestly in his melting French accent. ‘It’s a crime to keep her out of Latin.’

Carol widened her pansy brown eyes. ‘But of course, Jo must do whatever she wants at school. She told us she wanted to do car maintenance classes.’ She gave that tinkling, treacherous laugh and added, ‘I suppose poor Geoff Rawlings isn’t the pin-up he was, now that you’ve arrived.’

She didn’t have to say it. The message was loud and clear. Clumsy, plain teenage Jo has got a crush on you. And, as so often with Carol, there was just a hint of truth among the lies. Jo was good with cars. She did like them. And everyone knew it.

It was Jacques’s first job. The whole staffroom was warning him about the risk of teenage emotionalism. Carol Grey was pretty and appealing—and she sounded so sensible. He believed her. Of course he believed her.

Standing there listening, Jo was helpless. She burned with shame.

‘Maybe it’s adolescence,’ Carol Grey told him sadly, glancing at Jo with spurious kindness. ‘She’s such a great gangling thing, poor child, and with those shoulders. Like a wardrobe. I suppose a man can’t really understand that, Monsieur Sauveterre.’

Jacques blushed. In the face of this gentle female mockery he forgot all his campaigning zeal and nodded.

‘Oh,’ he said, avoiding Jo’s eyes. ‘Well, I’m sure you know best, Mrs Grey.’

And he fled. Leaving her to deal with the fallout on her own.

Carol’s mask dropped frighteningly the moment the door closed behind him. ‘So you thought you’d run away with the pretty little Frog Prince, did you?’ Carol said softly. ‘Think again. Who would want a giraffe like you?’

Jo put her head down and didn’t answer.

It maddened Carol. ‘If you’ve got time to do bloody Latin, you’ve got time to help me in the business. You can start filing tonight.’

So there was the end of ever doing homework again.

‘No point in getting ideas above your station,’ Carol said, again and again. ‘The next thing we’d know, you’d be wanting to go to college or something.’ And she laughed heartily. ‘Much better if you stay here and learn to do as you’re told. That’s all you’re good for. All you’ll ever be good for.’

Jacques Sauveterre did not talk to Jo after that. Never singled her out in class again. Never so much as smiled at her when she took Mark to the under-elevens football game that he coached. He was kind to Mark, though. Jo tried to be grateful for that.

And his example also inspired someone else. The car maintenance teacher was more streetwise than Jacques Sauveterre.

‘She just doesn’t fit in,’ he said to Carol. ‘The others are tough kids in combats. Jo isn’t. But she soon will be if you aren’t careful.’

That night, every garment disappeared from Jo’s wardrobe except two pairs of army surplus trousers and some khaki tee- shirts.

‘See if Monsieur le Frog looks at you now,’ said Carol, gleeful.

‘I’m sorry, Jo,’ said Mr Rawlings. ‘Hope I didn’t make things worse. Well, at least I can give you the history of the combustion engine.’

He started lending her books on classic cars. Jo read them at school in the breaks. She also became a first-class mechanic.

Carol never knew. She thought she was keeping Jo fully occupied, caring for Mark and working in her home sales business. It gave her a whipping boy and she enjoyed that. She even laughed when Brian Grey came home drunk and hit out at Jo.

‘Life isn’t all pretty Frenchmen, kid. Get over it.’

On her sixteenth birthday Jo ran away for the fourth and final time.

Oh, the Greys looked for her. They were being paid good money for her keep. Anyway, Carol didn’t like her victims to get away. It spoiled her fun for weeks.

But this time, Jo had planned well. She knew where her papers were because Carol had taken delight in showing her the betraying birth certificate.

‘There you are. “Father unknown”. You’re a little illegit. Nobody wanted you. They paid us to take you off their hands.’

Jo had looked at it stonily. The one thing she would not do, ever, was cry. It drove Carol wild with frustration.

So she’d just taken note of where Carol had put it away. And that night she took it, along with her passport and an oddly shaped envelope she had never seen before. But it was addressed to her, in unfamiliar handwriting.

Inside there was an old book—a hardback with cheap card covers. It had pen and ink drawings on the printed pages and smelled of old-fashioned nursery sweets—liquorice and barley sugar and mint humbugs. It was called The Furry Purry Tiger. It was a present for a child.

Maybe someone had wanted her after all, thought Jo. For a while, anyway.

She didn’t get too excited about it. She had enough to do just surviving in the next three years. And making sure that Mark did not have to pay for her defection.

She went on the road—moving from place to place, doing casual jobs, finding new places to stay every few weeks. One way or another, though, she always managed to call Mark once a week. They got adept at making contact without Carol finding out. They always ended by saying, ‘See you soon.’

When she ended a call Jo always thought: I’ll get Mark away. I will. And then we’ll go to France, which is earthly paradise, and be happy.

Another thing she’d managed to do was keep in touch with Monsieur Sauveterre. Whether he’d seen the marks Brian’s fists left or whether he was just kind-hearted, she never knew. Maybe it was because he coached Mark’s football club and it was nothing to do with Jo at all. But before he’d gone home, he’d pressed his address in France into her hand.

‘You and Mark. When you come to France, you must look me up. You will always be welcome. I promise you.’

For Jo, it was like insurance. Every so often, when she was settled somewhere for a few months, she sent him a postcard with her address. It was a way of saying, Remember your promise.

Jacques always replied. He’d even invited them to his wedding.

And then one day, when she spoke to Mark, she knew they could not put it off any longer. He was still only fifteen, but that couldn’t be helped. One Saturday morning, on a borrowed cell-phone, Mark’s voice sounded odd. More than odd. Old. Very, very tired. Or ill.

At once Jo knew what had happened. Drunken Brian Grey had beaten him. Badly this time. Just as he had once beaten Jo.

Only once. The second time he’d tried, the night before her birthday, Jo had got him in an arm lock, ground his telephone under her heel and locked him in the cupboard under the stairs. That had been the evening she’d taken her papers and the money she had saved, from the babysitting that Brian and Carol did not know about, and melted into the night.

Now, she knew, Mark would have to do the same.

‘Get out of there now,’ she said, ice cool now that the worst had happened. ‘Do you know where he keeps your birth certificate and your passport?’

‘Yes. I saw him put them in the old biscuit barrel the last time he changed the hiding place.’

It figured. As well as being violent, Brian Grey was sly and secretive. But nobody ever said he was bright. What an uncle I have, thought Jo.

Aloud, she said, ‘Get them, and meet me at the bus station as soon as you can.’

‘But—’ Mark sounded ashamed. ‘I’m not like you. I haven’t got any money, Jo.’

Her heart clenched with pain for him. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she said gently. ‘I have. I’ve been saving for this a long time.’

She waited at the bus station for hours. When Mark came he was limping, and one side of his face was so badly bruised that his eye was closed. Jo’s heart contracted in fierce protectiveness. But he grinned when he saw her.

‘Got them,’ he said, waving the small red book at her.

She hugged him swiftly. ‘Did you have trouble getting away?’

He shrugged. ‘Brian’s out cold and Carol was shopping. They think I haven’t got anywhere to run to.’

The adult world didn’t believe Mark any more than it had believed Jo.

‘Where are we going?’

‘First the ferry. Then, France,’ said Jo, out of her new, beautiful certainty.

Mark sucked his teeth. ‘To Mr Sauveterre?’

‘Yes.’

Mark looked at her oddly. ‘Oh.’

It looked as if Carol had told him the tale about her adolescent crush. Jo winced inwardly, but aloud she said in a steady voice, ‘Jacques is married now. He said we’d always be welcome.’

She bought their tickets at the big bus station and they embarked on an adventure of long-distance buses and ferries, crowded with families going on holiday. Mark talked cricket with a father and son, while Jo tried out her careful French. She was astonished to find the crew speaking back to her as if they understood.

After Boulogne there were more buses, slower and cosier—and a lot chattier. Then a lift from a kindly lorry driver. By that time Jo was rattling away easily in French. Even Mark was inserting a grunted comment or two.

This is going to work, Jo thought.

She had not realised how deeply pessimistic she had been. Not for herself, so much. After four years she knew she could survive pretty much anything if she kept her head. And she’d had a lot of practice in keeping her head by now. But she was scared for Mark. After all, he was a source of income for the Greys. Carol did not lightly let money pass out of her hands.

All through their journey Jo was alert for any sign of pursuit. But once they reached the Lot et Garonne she accepted it at last. No one was chasing them. They were home free.

In the little village they got directions to the Sauveterres’ organic smallholding.

They walked along a small winding path that climbed a hillside, golden in the evening. The French countryside opened green arms to them. The sun turned the quiet road to gold dust between the hedges.

And when they got to the Sauveterres’ property Jacques hugged them as if they had just got back from Antarctica.

‘I have always had such a conscience about leaving you two behind in that rainy place,’ he said, ruffling Mark’s hair.

Though he smiled, Jo thought from the look in his eyes that he meant it.

Over the years, Jacques had forgotten all about her teenage crush. He and his pretty, kind wife Anne Marie welcomed their unannounced visitors without reservation. Mark could stay with them as long as he wanted, they said. They pressed Jo to stay, too.

Jo said no. Not for more than a couple of nights.

Jacques might have forgotten her crush on him. But Jo hadn’t. Blond Anne Marie was even prettier than the photograph he had sent. Prettier, and sweeter, and a petite five foot three. Also, just at that moment, six months pregnant.

Jacques was no longer a teacher. The Sauveterres were trying to make a living from their organic market garden. Their tumbledown farmhouse was wonderfully homely, but Jo knew about being hard up. Her sensitised antennae picked up lots of signs that money was tight. For all their kindness, the Sauveterres could not afford another mouth to feed. And anyway—

Whenever she thought about it, Jo hugged her arms across her breast defensively.

Well, Jacques and his Anne Marie were breathtakingly, idyllically happy. Every time they met—in the fields, in the kitchen, even on their way to and from the barn—they touched and kissed. And smiled into each other’s eyes. Every gesture said Look at us, see how in love we are.

Jo did not wish them less in love. Of course she didn’t. But pretty Anne Marie, with her soft flying hair and tanned, perfect legs, made Jo realise just how tall and plain she was herself. How unfeminine.

There was nothing to be done about it. Some people were just born unlovable. She accepted that. But, watching Anne Marie and Jacques—well, she minded.

‘This,’ said Jo, taking herself for an early-morning walk with the goats, ‘is a bit of a shock.’

She had so focused on getting Mark away from the Greys that she had not thought about herself. Now she took stock, and it was like a douche of cold water.

She did not have to spend long in front of Anne Marie’s mirror to see what the world saw: a six-foot scruff in combat trousers. Her nails were bitten. Her hair was a brown thatch like the rag doll scarecrow she’d had as a very small child. Her tee-shirt had holes. Her shoulders were as broad as Jacques’s. No one was ever going to put their arm lovingly round shoulders like that.

‘And just as well,’ said Jo, aloud and firm. Aloud and firm usually helped. ‘Love makes you weak. You can’t afford that, Jo Almond.’

She wandered down the hillside, attended by curious goats. ‘I am happy,’ she told herself firmly.

It sounded good. And it was—nearly—true.

‘I have never been this happy before.’

And that was certainly true.

Suddenly Jo grinned, stretching her arms above her head. ‘It’s a start,’ she said gleefully. ‘It surely is a start.’

It was more than a start. Within a week she had a job, and a place to stay, too.

It came about by pure chance. She was in the local market town, trawling round the businesses to see if anyone needed a waitress, a storeroom hand, a messenger. The square had cobbles and stone arcades and a balcony that looked as if the Black Prince should be standing on it in full armour, making an arousing speech. To her amusement, she saw that a small crowd had gathered round some object of fascination.

Not the Black Prince, though. Approaching, she found they were grouped about an elderly open-topped Rolls Royce. It was shunting backwards and forwards between a medieval wall and the end of a colonnaded arcade, driven by a young Englishman getting more flustered and profane by the minute. People had even taken seats in the café opposite to enjoy the show.

Jo propped herself up against the wall and watched, too.

The driver was not much older than herself. He had a Caribbean tan which just might be natural, and expensively streaked hair which certainly wasn’t. Her lips twitched. She folded her arms and waited.

‘Look,’ he said to the assembled market-goers. ‘This isn’t helping. Do any of you know how to—? Oh, damn.’ This last as the car hiccupped forwards and grazed one of the columns.

Jo took pity on him. She strolled across and leaned on the driver’s door.

‘Drive her much, do you?’

He glared. ‘She’s my brother’s. I was bringing her down for a grease and a spray. But I took a wrong turning and ended up in the damned square.’ He looked with loathing at the medieval buildings as if they were personal enemies.

She opened the door. ‘Let me. I’ve driven big and old before.’

One of the bonuses of those long-ago car maintenance classes had been that she’d got to drive a lot. None of those cars had been an aristocratic Rolls, but they had been old and cranky—and some of them had been very big. She had no doubt that she could move the car without demolishing the picture-postcard corner.

She was right.

The Rolls came gently to rest in front of the café. The audience at the tables gave a small, polite round of applause. The rest of the crowd dispersed now the fun was over. The young man recovered his temper and thrust out a hand.

‘How did you do that?’ he said, in what appeared to be genuine awe. And, before she could answer, ‘Crispin Taylor-Harrod. Oh, boy, did you save my bacon. Can I buy you a drink?’

Jo accepted coffee. Soon she was sitting beside him in the sunshine, sipping the headily fragrant stuff that bore no relation at all to the mid-morning brew of her last employer.

‘What a bit of luck, bumping into you. I knew it was no good calling the garage to come and help. Old Brassens hates driving anything with right-hand drive. What are you doing round here?’

Jo told him. Well, not everything, obviously. Nothing that would put Mark or the Sauveterres at risk if Carol and Brian had organised pursuit. Just enough to make pleasant conversation in the sunshine before she went back to the serious business of tracking down a living wage.

Crispin frowned when she finished. ‘You want a job? Seriously?’

‘Yes,’ said Jo simply.

‘And you don’t mind what you do?’

‘No. Well,’ she amended hurriedly, ‘within reason. No gogo dancing, no brain surgery.’

He laughed, but his eyes were narrowed as if he were thinking deeply.

‘And you know about old cars?’

Jo was taken aback. ‘I know about old bangers. Nothing in the league of a Roller.’

He dismissed that with a wave of the hand. ‘Yes, but you know about gearsticks and double de-clutching and stuff. You could drive them if you had to move them in and out of a garage, say?’

Jo agreed gravely that she did and she could.

‘Do you like cars?’ He sounded as if it were virtually impossible.

Jo thought about it. ‘Yes, on the whole. They don’t make promises and they don’t let you down unless they can’t help it. They don’t spring many surprises as long as you look after them.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Would you like to?’

‘Like to what?’

‘Look after them?’

‘Look after—’ She broke off, staring at the gleaming aristocrat parked in front of the café. ‘Them? How many Rollers do you have, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Not me. My brother, Patrick. He has a collection.’

‘Well, if he’s a collector he must want to look after them himself.’

‘Inherited,’ said Crispin simply. ‘He’s going to sell them all. He told me to come here and take a look. He’s got some expert coming from Rouen to put the cars back into running order. I’m supposed to be his little helper on the spot. But—well, it’s not really my bag, and I’ve had an invitation to do some sailing up the coast of Spain. So I wondered…’ He looked at Jo speculatively. ‘I’d pay you.’

‘I’m not qualified,’ protested Jo.

Crispin laughed heartily. ‘Good Lord, neither am I. You just have to book in the experts and take notes. I’ve got all the contact details. And it would get me out of prison.’

‘Prison!’

But prison in Crispin Taylor-Harrod’s terms turned out to be a fifteenth-century château, complete with turrets and a world-famous garden, albeit run down. The trouble was…

‘It’s miles from anywhere. No girls.’

Also no transport, no nightclubs, no bands.

‘And my mate Leo has asked me on a boat which is wall-to-wall babes in bikinis,’ said Crispin dreamily. ‘Sex and sangria—that’s what I need. Bit of beach life. Not a load of rusting radiators that haven’t been out on the public road in twenty years.’

‘It seems to me,’ said Jo, torn between laughter and the first stirrings of hope, ‘that you weren’t the ideal choice for the job.’

Crispin grinned unrepentantly. ‘Ah, but I came first. There was a bit of unpleasantness at college, and my mother threw me out. My brother Patrick said I could come here and do something useful. But what he really meant was stay out of trouble and do some revising.’

‘You can’t pay me to do that,’ said Jo, disappointed.

‘Oh, I’ve done all the revising. Nanny Morrison saw to that.’ He tapped his teeth with the little coffee spoon. ‘And now I want to get me some trouble before it’s too late and I have to go back to school.’ His face fell suddenly. ‘Nanny Morrison. I’d forgotten. Blast and botheration.’

‘What?’

‘My brother Patrick doesn’t employ women,’ said Crispin simply. ‘On principle. Nanny doesn’t count. But nothing under fifty need apply.’

‘That’s illegal,’ said Jo, affronted.

Crispin shrugged. ‘Patrick’s house. Patrick’s law.’

Jo bristled. ‘Nobody is above the law.’

Crispin gave a crack of laughter. ‘You should meet my brother Patrick.’

‘He sounds extremely arrogant,’ she said crushingly.

‘Yup. Arrogant, bullying, absolutely no feeling for a young man in his prime, and a hotshot wizard at just about everything.’

‘Revolting,’ she said, from the heart.

‘Yes, but he’s a good guy really,’ said Crispin, changing tack with surprising suddenness. ‘He likes his own way, but he’s not mean with it. Last year he was up for some big award—the Ajax Prize, or something—and when he got it my ma wanted him to go off with a load of big cheeses to celebrate. But he said he didn’t get to the States often and he wanted to spend time with his brother. So he came out clubbing with me and the boys instead.’ He smiled reminiscently. Then his face darkened. ‘Pulled all the talent in sight, too. Me and the boys didn’t stand a chance.’

Jo sniffed. Patrick Taylor-Harrod could be a love god in person. She would still detest him. His stupid prejudice stood between her and the job of a lifetime.

‘But it’s so unfair. I could do this job.’

‘Well, nobody argues with Patrick,’ said Crispin fatalistically. ‘Nanny Morrison would have you out in minutes. She reports to Patrick about everything.’

‘Ah. I wondered how she’d got you to revise,’ said Jo unwarily.

He chuckled, unoffended. ‘Oh, well. It was a nice idea while it lasted. Drive me to the garage? Then you can meet her. She’ll probably ask you up for tea and a swim. Grab it. Her teas are worth it.’

Jo laughed and went with him. But there was a little sting in the invitation as well. Crispin had made it plain that he was desperate for a girl to flirt with—and Jo didn’t even figure on his radar. He liked her. He was grateful to her. He was happy to throw one of Nanny’s teas in her direction, with the careless hospitality of the inherited rich. But she was not flirt-worthy.

Oh, well, it only confirmed what she already knew, she told herself.

And worse was to come. Or better, depending on which way you looked at it.

Mrs Morrison, who looked more like a jobbing gardener than a nanny, wore substantial cotton shorts and a shirt, and, more importantly, huge bottle-bottom glasses. As Crispin had predicted, she took one look at his companion and said, ‘Would you like to bring your friend back to the house for lunch, Crispin?’ And then, not at all as he had predicted, and stunning Crispin and Jo alike, ‘He would be very welcome.’

Crispin barely faltered. ‘That would be great, Nanny. He’s at a loose end right now,’ he said smoothly.

Jo was not as quick as he was. Her mouth opened and shut. No sound came out.

He?

He?

‘Work with me here,’ breathed Crispin.

‘But—’

‘I’ll show you the cars,’ he said loudly. ‘You’re going to love them.’ Then he was shoving her into the back of an old truck. ‘Don’t argue. This could be just what we need.’

‘But—’

He thrust an industrial-sized bag of flour at her. ‘Shut up.’ He raised his voice. ‘Ready when you are, Nanny.’

The truck rattled off at speed. They lurched and clung to the sides.

‘Hell’s teeth, she shouldn’t be driving this thing,’ said Crispin, momentarily side-tracked. ‘If she thinks you’re a boy she must be as blind as a bat.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jo hollowly.

‘But, as she does, she’s not going to be bleating to Patrick about you.’

‘But other people will know I’m a girl.’

‘The only other person around is old George, her husband. He’s in a wheelchair. You can keep out of his way easily enough.’

‘What if your brother comes back, though?’

That gave Crispin pause, but only for a moment. ‘He’s off war-reporting at the moment. Won’t be home any time soon. And when he does get leave he goes to London or Washington or Paris. Definitely one for metropolitan amusements, my brother Patrick. Not a run-down château in rural France. It is so very rural. Besides, even the wine isn’t up to his standard here. Not a premier cru in sight.’

‘Then why on earth did he buy it?’ said Jo, unreasonably annoyed with the unknown Patrick all over again.

‘Didn’t. Also inherited,’ said Crispin absently. ‘Look, the way I see it, you just fill in here for me for a month. I’ll pay you cash. So your name never gets into the books. No one will ever know.’

‘A month?’

He grinned. ‘I’ll be all partied out by then. If Patrick does visit it will be at the end of the vacation to check that I’ve followed orders. I’ll be back from my babe and beach fest by then. You can slip off. He need not know you even existed.’

‘It sounds wonderful,’ said Jo, with longing.

A month would give her time to look round for a proper job, not just waiting tables or scrubbing floors. A month in this heavenly place, where poppies bobbed in the hedgerow and the long evening shadows were warm and smelled of herbs!

‘Done,’ said Crispin.

But she still held out. It seemed nasty, lying to Mrs Morrison because the poor woman couldn’t see properly. But, then again, Mrs Morrison wasn’t the one who had set up this stupid interdiction on female workers. Patrick Taylor-Harrod positively deserved to be lied to.

And then she saw the Bugatti. She was old and dusty, and her front number plate hung off at a crazy angle. She was beautiful. It was love at first sight.

She could just about resist the scented nights and poetic turrets, thought Jo wryly. The unloved car was irresistible.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s just hope arrogant Patrick stays where he is, that’s all.’

‘No worries,’ said Crispin blithely. ‘He won’t be back home until the war is over. Once Patrick is onto a hot story, he never gives up.’

Jo banished her misgivings and tried a joke. ‘I’ll just have to make sure he never sees me as a hot story, then.’

Crispin went on laughing at that for a long time.




CHAPTER TWO


IT WAS a heavenly day and a heavenly place. Jo stopped in the middle of the little eighteenth-century bridge and looked around. She sighed with pleasure.

The willows almost met over the stream below. Bees murmured in the wild roses that clustered at the end of the decorative stone bridge and tumbled down the slope of the bank. The warm scented air was still. Only the occasional plop of some insect hitting the water disturbed the perfect silence. She was quite alone.

Jo shut her eyes, hardly daring to believe it was real. Less than a month ago she had been trawling for extra work among Manchester’s cleaning agencies and late-night pizza bars, always worried about Mark. And now Mark was safe and she was in France.

France!

A France, what was more, that was straight out of the fairytales. A France where there were fields of lavender and hillsides of sunflowers, their big faces following the sun as it crossed the sky; fortified medieval towns on the hilltops, like something out of a Book of Hours; little fast silvery rivers that fed the great golden swathe of the Garonne; grass that was so green it hurt the eyes. Warmth. Light.

Jo sighed. The summer sun filtered through the leaves and lay soft against her bare arms. It touched all her vulnerable places—under her hair, behind her ear, the base of her throat where the pulse beat. Touched then with the tiny assured kisses of a lover. When she closed her eyes it warmed her eyelids. All the locals wore sunglasses to protect them against the glare, but not Jo. For her the sun was a treasure.

Warmth, light and safety.

She opened her eyes. The fairytale landscape shimmered a little in the heat haze but it did not disappear. She breathed in the soft scents of summer: hot herbs, an elusive honeysuckle perfume on the breeze, grass.

‘I am happy,’ she said aloud. ‘I am so happy.’

She recalled the heady perfection of the roses George had brought her this morning. He had wheeled himself into the neglected rose garden to cut them himself, and had brought them to her with the dew still on their softly crowded petals.

‘Well, almost happy.’

There was a hint of wormwood in the perfect mix, of course. All her own fault, too. The lie that she had told seemed nastier every day. For the Morrisons had taken her to their hearts as if she were family.

At first Jo had followed Crispin’s advice and tried to stay away from them. But Mrs Morrison cooked her little treats and left them on the work bench in the garage. And George, tooling round the grounds in his wheelchair, showed her all the neglected walks and copses of the place that he could reach. When he said how much he loved fishing, and how sad he was that he could no longer get his chair to the river, it had only been civil to find a path and wheel him down there.

Well, that was what Jo had told herself. The truth was, of course, that she was beginning to love the Morrisons. She loved the way Nanny’s face lit up when Jo scratched shyly on the kitchen door. She loved the way George wheeled himself to meet her, full of some discovery he had made during the day. They liked her. After the superior expert from Rouen had arrived, shuddered, and left again, they had formed a sort of club. Jo basked in it as much as in the sunshine.

More and more, she wanted to tell them the truth. But how could she?

Hey, guys! Guess what? I was a girl all the time!

It was impossible, even for the sake of her conscience. She might just as well say Nanny was blind and George was stupid. So she kept quiet.

And most of the time she could forget it. She ran a grubby hand through her ragged chestnut hair, newly chopped by herself into a boyish crop. There were compensations, she reminded herself. Lots of them. A place of her own—and no shared bathroom or metered heating. Unbelievably, a job she was good at, and getting better at by the day! Even—oh, blissful thought—a library.

At the thought, Jo felt her lips stretch in a grin that was pure childish glee. A whole library to play in! This place was heaven.

She sometimes thought that the worst thing about her years as a runaway was how far it had kept her from books. She had never owned a book. Except for The Furry Purry Tiger, of course, she thought, with a choke of sudden laughter.

She said aloud, ‘Tiger said, in his furry purry voice, “Look into my eyes, my dears. How can you resist me?”’ She gave a little skip of pure delight.

No, notwithstanding her own stupidity, the lie was only a slight shadow over her bliss.

‘Blow nearly. I am completely happy,’ she said aloud.

The sound of her own voice brought her up short. She looked round, embarrassed. But the birds sang undisturbed. The cicadas scissored away. And the landscape, under its shimmer of afternoon heat haze, was deserted.

‘Still, that’s no reason to go on standing in the middle of the road,’ she scolded herself, adding with wry self-mockery, ‘You never know when life is going to zap you again.’

Laughing, she went to the elegant parapet and leaned her elbows on the warm stone. Below her, a dragonfly was skimming the gold-shot water. Jo gave a deep, delighted sigh.

‘But just at the moment I’ve got nothing left to wish for.’ She breathed in the warm, scented air. ‘Better enjoy it while it lasts.’

The little parcel Mrs Morrison had asked her to collect from the farm bumped against the stone as she moved. Jo made a face, reminded. Well, perhaps there was something to wish for.

She could wish that she knew exactly where Patrick Taylor-Harrod was—and that he would not pop up like the demon king in a pantomime and spoil everything.

Crispin made him sound very demon king-ish: casual, arrogant, and quite without heart. Even Mrs Morrison, who was as fond of him as only a former nanny could be, admitted that no woman was safe from her Mr Patrick’s charm. Though she also claimed that was largely their own fault, because they flung themselves at him.

Not that Jo would have flung herself at him. Or that arrogant elder brother Patrick would have taken her up on her offer if she had, Jo thought dryly.

At the thought, her eyes lit with sudden laughter. Maybe there were some advantages to being a sexless maypole, after all. It sounded as if arrogant Patrick was used to an altogether higher class of sexual harassment than she could offer.

She peered over the edge of the bridge at her reflection. Years of living from hand to mouth had left her with dramatic hollows under her cheekbones and a chin as pointed as a witch’s, she thought disparagingly.

The water did not do justice to the depth and expressiveness of the strange greeny-brown of her eyes, of course. Nor did it reflect the long curling eyelashes or the exquisite softness of her skin. Jo would not have noticed if it had. All she saw was what she always saw when she could not avoid looking at her reflection. A stick-thin scarecrow with shoulders like a wardrobe. Carol had been right about that, at least.

Jo surveyed the dark rippling mirror dispassionately. She could not blame anyone for thinking she was a boy, she thought. And a boy she must stay—until Crispin came back.

She shook her shoulders and leaned further over the edge of the warm stone. The water looked inviting. And the sun was like an animal, a big friendly puppy, butting gently against the bare skin of her arms, saying, Come and play.

She had no swimsuit with her. She had not even owned one since primary school. But the little river was on private land, and the landscape was deserted. Wheelchair-bound Mr Morrison was resting, Mrs Morrison was waiting indoors for a phone call. Crispin was somewhere off the coast of Spain.

And it was a day made for swimming. Jo had not swum for years. Even then it had been in a municipal pool that smelled of chlorine. She had never swum in a river, with bees humming and the air full of the scent of grass and wild flowers.

It was irresistible.

Under a tangle of hazel bushes Jo found the narrow stone steps that spiralled down from the bridge. They were old and worn, covered in moss and lichen. She took off her shoes, feeling the warm moss under her toes in delight. Then she slipped down the curved stairs to the bank.

She lodged her package between the roots of a willow in deep shade, then quickly stripped off her clothes and left them where they fell. Her body was white and thin in the dappled shade. Thin, but tough, Jo thought cheerfully, shaking out her arms and dancing her bare feet in delight on the moss. Then she took a little run at the water and dived cleanly.

The dive made hardly a sound. But it was enough to alert the man.

He was leaning up against the bark of a willow on the opposite bank, completely hidden under the umbrella of its drooping branches. He had his hands in his pockets and his head bent. He was wearing a grim, bitter expression. At the faint splash, he looked up in quick offence.

This bridge was on private land! Nobody should be here! Behind his dark glasses, annoyance flickered uncontrollably.

Jo was unaware of the watcher. She was utterly caught up in the delight of the moment. She swam and turned and somersaulted in the water, laughing aloud with pleasure.

The man in the shadows watched, suddenly arrested.

She batted the surface of the water with her hands, making rainbow droplets fly up like a fountain. She shook her face in them, revelling in the sensation. Then she submerged completely and swam through the arch of the bridge.

The man took his hands out of his pockets and came to the edge of the bank, looking keenly after her. The fall of the willow would still have hidden him from Jo even if she had suspected that he was there. But she was enjoying herself too much to sense that she was being watched.

She streaked down to the bend in the river, where it was deeper and the water flowed faster. Then she turned in a neat dive and stroked lazily downstream again, on her back, looking at the clear sky through the tracery of overhanging leaves. She turned her head on the water to watch the bank dreamily. There were little patches of green-gold, where the sun streamed through unimpeded, areas of black shadow, like the cool place where she had left her clothes, and long stretches where the sun filtered through the trees as if it was creeping in round the edge of a mask, printing a sharp, delicate pattern of black lace on the turf.

She drew a deep breath, did a backward somersault into the weedy depths and disappeared. Instinctively, the man stepped out of the curtain of the willow, scanning the unbroken surface of the water.

Still unaware, Jo came up, shaking the water out of her hair and eyes, laughing. And it was then that she saw the bird, in a flash of emerald and blue, skimming the surface of the stream and flying away into the trees.

Jo went quite still. She stood where she was, the water up to her waist, tilting her head to watch the little creature. It had found a branch and was sitting there with whatever it had caught. She could make out the flash of a beady eye and the amazing jewel colours of the feathers.

She had heard of kingfishers. Seen pictures. But nothing had prepared her for this—this living iridescence, so small and yet so brilliant that it hurt the eyes. She held her breath.

Behind her, a voice said harshly, ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

Jo was so absorbed she was not startled, much less embarrassed by her nakedness. She was hardly aware of it, she was concentrating so hard.

‘Hush,’ she said, the softness of her voice failing to disguise the clear note of command. ‘That has to be a kingfisher.’

She was aware of movement behind her, as if whoever it was had been on the very edge of the bank and was now retreating a few paces.

‘Where?’ The voice was no less harsh, though this time it was scarcely above a whisper.

Jo raised a bare arm and pointed. Water fell from her fingers and elbow in a sparkle of silver.

‘You look like a statue in a fountain,’ the harsh voice said abruptly.

But Jo did not notice. The kingfisher was on the wing again. It streaked past them, a flash of sapphire and jade fire, and was lost in the foliage at the bend of the river.

Jo expelled a long breath.

‘Oh, wasn’t that wonderful?’she said, turning to face the voice.

It was a shock.

He was tall and slender, with an alarming air of compact, confident strength. He had a thin, proud face, which most women would probably call handsome. And his eyes were masked by the ubiquitous dark glasses. Jo registered all this in the blink of an eyelid and it left her unmoved.

And then he took his glasses off. And she froze to the spot as if he had cast a spell on her.

His eyes! They were deepset, under heavy brows. At first she thought they were black, then brown, then a strange golden yellow like old brandy. And they were staring at her as if she was an apparition from another world.

He was the first to speak.

‘Well,’ he said softly. All the harshness was gone, as if it had never been.

Jo shook her head a little, trying to break that mesmeric eye contact. Her ragged hair was plastered to her head, darkened to coal-black, all its red lights doused in the soaking it had received. The movement sent trickles of water from the rats’ tails down her shoulders and between her breasts.

‘I didn’t realise anyone was there,’ she said blankly.

At once she was furious with herself. Stupid, stupid, she thought. Of course you knew he was there—the moment he spoke. And of course you didn’t know before that, or you would not have been jumping about in the water with no clothes on.

Realisation hit her then. She gave a little gasp and plunged her shoulders rapidly under the water. But she couldn’t quite break the locking of their gaze.

He smiled a little. ‘I didn’t intend that you should.’

Jo digested that. ‘You were spying on me?’ she said, incredulous.

It did not seem likely, somehow; it was out of character with that haughty profile, she thought. Years of living on her wits had taught Jo to sum up people fast. She was not usually wrong.

His face reflected distaste. ‘Quite by accident.’

He sounded so weary that Jo flushed, as if it were she, not he, who was at fault. She was indignant.

‘How do you spy on someone by accident?’ she demanded hotly.

He smiled again, startling her. It was a sudden slanting of that too controlled, too uncompromising mouth and it changed his face completely. Suddenly it was not just other women who would have called him handsome. And more than handsome.

Disconcerted, Jo swallowed. And huddled deeper under the water.

He said, ‘I was here first. I saw you come down from the bridge. By the time I realised you were intending to strip off and leap into the water it was too late to warn you that you were not alone.’

‘Oh.’

He relented. ‘But I admit I watched you playing in the water. I suppose a gentleman would have gone away. But you looked so—happy.’

The mouth was a thin line again. Not so much harsh, Jo thought in sharp recognition, as holding down a pain of the soul that was scarcely endurable. She knew something about that.

She said gently, ‘It’s the place. Anyone would be happy here.’

His eyes held hers. There was a little silence. For a moment even the bees stilled in the summer air. He shook his head slowly, as if this time he was the one under a spell—and trying desperately to break free.

‘Only if you’re very young.’

Jo thought of those years—in shabby rooms when she’d had some money, sleeping in bus shelters and an old boat-house by a canal when she hadn’t. Of cold, and intermittent hunger, and the need to stay painfully alert against theft and worse. The longing for a bath. The loneliness. The need to stay lonely because you never knew who you could afford to trust.

‘I’m not that young,’ she said dryly.

He looked up, arrested. Then seemed to pull himself together. He almost shrugged.

‘You look about sixteen.’

‘Nineteen. But experience speeds up the clock.’ And she looked at him very straightly.

Something seemed to stir, shift in his eyes. Something—she did not know what—half physical sensation, half a strange emotion that made her want to abandon good sense and laugh and cry at once, seemed to wake in Jo in answer. Bewildered, she knew she had never felt anything like it before. All she knew was that it reached out to whatever was waking in him.

Then, like a snake striking, it arced between them. Eyes widening in shock, she realised it had taken him by surprise as much as it had her. He looked shaken.

Jo gasped and sat down suddenly on the riverbed. The water closed over her head. She thought the man winced. She saw his head go back as if at a blow. But she was too busy expelling water to be sure.

When she came up she was spluttering. She shook the water away and looked at him. He was hunkered down on the bank. But now he was laughing.

It changed his face completely, emphasising those startling good looks. It made him look like a fully paid-up heartthrob, she thought sourly, rubbing water out of her eyes.

In some ways it was a relief that the grim look had gone. So had that electric awareness. That should have been a relief too. Yet, if she was honest, Jo did not know whether she was glad or sorry. On the whole, she thought, it was probably just as well.

And yet…And yet…

He said, ‘Hadn’t you better come out and get dry? You don’t look very safe.’

Putting her disturbing reflections away from her, Jo shook her damp head vigorously. ‘I’ll have to run around to get dry,’ she warned him cheerfully. ‘No towel.’

The man’s look of amusement deepened.

‘An impulse bathe, then?’

She looked guilty. ‘I just saw the water and couldn’t resist.’

He shook his head. ‘Dangerous.’ But he was still laughing.

Jo liked him laughing at her. She decided to tease him back. ‘Giving in to your impulses is dangerous?’

‘Usually.’

He stood up and shrugged off his dark jacket. He was wearing a soft navy shirt underneath, open at the neck. Without bothering to undo the buttons, he hauled it over his head and held it out to her.

‘There you are—dry yourself on that.’

His chest was a lot paler than his face. There was a dusting of dark hair along the ribs. Jo’s mouth dried. This sudden nakedness seemed to give off a primitive heat. And he looked so strong.

She stepped back, but the water resisted. The little river seemed to be pushing her towards him. She fought not to look. She did not know why. It had something to do with getting herself back under control.

Am I out of control, then?

Despising herself, she said hurriedly, ‘That’s very kind of you, but I don’t need it. Really.’

‘You might not,’ he said with wry self-mockery. ‘I’m not sure how much of your running around to get dry my self-control could take.’

‘Oh,’ said Jo, completely taken aback.

So the awareness was still there after all. Just coated lightly with good manners. Jo did not know a lot about manners, but she was certain that this man knew all there was to know. He had decided they were civilised strangers meeting in unusual circumstances. And he had almost convinced her that was all they were. Almost.

Her eyes fell. She felt shamefaced, yet oddly excited.

‘Go on—take it,’ he said. ‘In weather like this, I can certainly spare it.’

She nodded, not lifting her eyes. As quickly as the water would allow, she waded forward and took it from him. Their fingers did not touch.

Was that because it was me being careful not to touch? Jo wondered. Or was it his decision? And was that good manners? Or something else?

She held the shirt high out of the water and waded back to the other bank. Putting one hand on the bank, she vaulted lightly up onto it and disappeared among the trees. The shirt was linen, soft against her tingling skin. In fact, her whole body was tingling, her bones, muscles and nerves and all.

Ridiculous, Jo told herself. Because of a man I’ve never seen before and won’t again?

But she fluffed up her damp hair before she climbed back up the stone steps and emerged into the sunlight.

He was waiting for her. He had strolled along the bank and up the other set of steps. Now he was leaning on the stone coping, looking upriver.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Jo said, approaching softly.

Even more ridiculous, now that she had her clothes on she felt shy. It was crazy. She was never shy. And she had talked to him without constraint when he’d surprised her cavorting naked in the stream. So why this crushing embarrassment now?

With a great effort she met his eyes and gave him what she hoped was a friendly smile without complicated shadows. From his wry look she wasn’t sure she had succeeded.

She thought suddenly, There’s a game going on here. He knows how to play it and I don’t.

But all he said was, ‘Yes, beautiful. It’s also private. How did you find your way here?’

‘Oh, I’ve been to the farm,’ Jo said, with a wave at the distant farmhouse.

‘Ah. The old back drive. I see.’

‘No one uses it,’ she assured him, blushing at the criticism she detected. ‘I was sure I was alone.’

‘So was I,’ he said with a sharp sigh. ‘It seems we were both wrong.’

It occurred to her that he might have wanted to be alone with his thoughts. That harsh voice had not sounded happy. Suddenly she felt less shy.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said with quick contrition. ‘I know what it’s like to want to get away from people. Were you fishing or something?’ she added, remembering Mr Morrison’s daily pilgrimages to the other river.

‘No. Not fishing. Thinking. Trying to work out what to do—’ He broke off, gritting his teeth.

Jo recognised that look. ‘Ouch,’ she said, with sympathy.

He gave a fierce shrug, as if he were angry with himself. ‘I can normally find my way through things. But this time—there are just too many people getting in the way.’

Jo nodded. ‘Been there,’ she said, with feeling.

He was glaring at some unseen enemy. ‘I doubt it,’ he said impatiently.

She bit back a smile. ‘You’d be surprised.’

He looked at her then. In fact he swung round on her, and the fierce look went out of his eyes.

‘What?’

Jo was running her fingers through her wet hair.

‘Other people have always been my biggest problem,’ she said wryly and—to her own amazement—without bitterness. ‘You just have to go round them. Or turn and face the enemy.’

‘You’re very wise for nineteen.’ He sounded startled.

She shrugged. ‘I told you. Experience puts a lot of extra miles on the clock.’

He leaned against the parapet, the curious golden-brown eyes searching her face.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ he said slowly. Almost as if he were thinking of something else.

Jo remembered The Furry Purry Tiger: those warm eyes that lured and lulled the tiger’s victims. Look deep into my eyes, my dears. Can you resist me?

She gave a gasp and took two sharp steps backwards.

And the spell was broken.

The man looked at her frowningly. ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ he said in quite another tone. ‘A student on some exchange?’

Jo realised for the first time, with a start, that he knew she was a girl. It was like a douche of cold water. Her face went blank.

The Morrisons spoke to her and about her as if she was a boy. The kindly farmer’s wife accepted her as a boy. When she went into the bank, the bored counter clerks treated her as a boy.

And now here was someone who had the most precise and irrefutable evidence that she was a girl. And that she was English. If he asked in the neighbourhood the local people would recognise the English factotum looking after the château’s antique cars, all right. And this stranger was now able to tell them that she was not everything they had thought.

Jo went cold.

‘Sort of,’ she muttered.

‘And where did you learn about turning to face the enemy?’ he asked in an idle tone.

Jo bit her lip, hardly paying attention. How could she have been such a fool? How could she?

‘On the road, mostly,’ she said absently.

Perhaps if she told him she was just passing through…

The black brows flew up. ‘On the road? What does a student study on the road?’

Jo could have kicked herself. Yet another unwary detail let slip because she wasn’t thinking clearly. This man was dangerous—or at least the effect he seemed to be having on her was dangerous. At this rate, she would talk herself right out of her magical new job.

She shook her damp hair, spraying droplets on his powerful naked chest. She saw his muscles contract as the water made contact and her heart gave a funny little lurch. Concentrate, she told herself. Concentrate!

‘Life,’ she said flippantly.

He frowned.

‘I’ve heard about the university of life. But I’ve never heard of anyone selecting it,’ he said dryly. ‘What happened? Drop out of college?’

Jo gave a little laugh that broke. Her ruined education was one of the things that hurt most.

‘Never got that far,’ she said briefly.

The frown did not lift. ‘Why not?’

She shrugged. ‘Oh, this and that.’

‘The open road looked more attractive?’

She thought about the night she had finally run away. Since then she had occasionally slept in railway stations and not had enough to eat, and there had been one or two hairy moments. But no one had set out to beat her senseless because he was in a bad temper and drunk. No one was going to, ever again.

‘The open road looked more attractive,’ she agreed quietly.

‘On your own?’

She hesitated.

‘Not any more?’ he interpreted.

Jo shrugged.

He was persistent. ‘Boyfriend pushed off?’

Jo said carefully, ‘Mark is staying with some people he knows.’

‘So it was you who decided to keep on moving?’

She gave a little laugh. ‘Not much choice. They only had room for one, and Mark had first claim.’

His mouth twisted. ‘So he’s found himself a billet. Where does that leave you? Have you found somewhere to stay?’

Jo was unnerved by his curiosity. It stampeded her into an uncharacteristic lie.

‘Not round here,’ she said quickly.

‘In one of the towns, then? How did you find your way to the river here? Just out for a day’s picnic in the country?’

‘Yes.’

She sounded curt and he looked surprised.

But she had told enough lies here. She did not want to contaminate this beautiful place, this moment, any more. For some odd reason she did not want to lie to this man, either. She began to edge away.

‘Can I drive you somewhere? To join your friends, perhaps?’ he said. ‘I left my car on the road.’

‘No,’ she said, horrified.

But a bit of her mind noted that he seemed to be passing through, that he was not one of the locals who could inadvertently expose her deception. It was a relief.

His eyebrows flew up. She had sounded almost rude, Jo thought in despair.

‘I mean, no, thank you,’ she corrected herself.

‘Hey,’ he said, half gentle, half affronted, ‘you don’t have to be afraid of me. If I were that sort of villain I’d have already jumped on you.’

Jo winced. ‘Sorry.’

Her voice was constrained, almost sulky. She hated it. She didn’t want this man to think she was sulky. But it was better that he knew nothing more about her.

She went on hardily, ‘I know where I’m going, and I’m not in any hurry.’

He looked at her searchingly. ‘You’ll be all right on your own?’

Her chin lifted. ‘I always am.’

He gave a wry smile. ‘I guess you are. Well, no more skinny-dipping, hmm? Not when you’re on your own, anyway.’

‘You mean, no more impulses,’ Jo corrected him with a touch of bitterness.

His eyes narrowed. ‘That would be a pity.’

Her head came up, suspicious.

He added, with quite unnecessary emphasis, almost as if he were reminding himself of something, ‘At your age, I mean.’

She gave a little awkward nod. ‘Okay.’

‘And where will I find you?’

Alarm flared. Her head reared up again.

‘What do you mean, find me?’ she demanded sharply

‘You’re walking off with my shirt,’ he pointed out, amused. ‘It’s rather a favourite. I’d like it back sometime.’

‘Oh!’ Jo looked down at the damp, crumpled linen she was still clutching. She thrust it at him. ‘Here.’

This time their fingers did touch. He caught her hand and held it strongly. If he pulled it back to his body she would touch that warm naked chest with its dusting of hair and its steadily beating heart—and its frightening strength.

Jo’s mouth dried. She stood very still.

He did not carry her hand to his body.

‘Where are you staying?’ he said again. This time it was not casual.

Jo was mute with misery. But she didn’t dare tell him. A whole summer with a roof over her head, a job, close to Mark. She couldn’t put it at risk. She couldn’t.

When she met his eyes, her own were swimming in tears. She who never cried. She shook her head, denying him. It was the most difficult thing she had done in a long time.

He let her go and stepped back.

‘As I said, you’re very wise.’

His voice was light, hard. His smile did not reach his eyes.

For some reason it hurt. She felt almost as if she had let him down. But what choice did she have?

Run, said her inner voice.

She hated it. She was not afraid of him.

But she was afraid of his questions. And these days it was not just her safety that depended on her. She needed to make sure the Greys could not track down Mark through her. She could not afford to answer him.





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