Lindsay Armstrong - A Masterful Man

A book in the Pages & Privileges series, 1994

Davina Hastings breathed a sigh of relief and unclenched her hands. She didn't feel at home in small planes and the one she was in that had just landed was very small indeed. An eight-seater, it had seemed extraordinarily fragile to her to be flying across three hundred miles of the South Pacific from the Australian mainland to the island of Lord Howe. Fragile and cramped, so that she'd had to battle with claustrophobia as well as her other fears. Then, to compound matters, they'd had to descend through a storm to the airstrip-that was when she'd closed her eyes.

But, as the little plane zipped towards the terminal, she looked eagerly out of her window to gain some impression of Lord Howe, reputedly a gem of an island and a photographer's paradise, only to see a mist-wreathed mountainside and driving rain.

'Sorry about this, folks,' the pilot said cheerfully. 'The weather, I mean, but I can tell you this is an isolated front on its way to New Zealand and it should be fine as soon as it passes through, and it should do that quite quickly. Thank you for flying with our airline and I hope you all have wonderful holidays!'

Davina grimaced. From their conversation it had been apparent she was the only passenger not coming to this paradise on holiday, and for a moment she ardently wished that were not so. But a job was a job, and she squared her shoulders and took herself in hand as she prepared to disembark.

The terminal was tiny, she saw, as she ran through the rain. Then she was through the glass doors, brushing raindrops from her hair and shaking them from her jacket and blouse and she looked up, straight into the eyes of a tall man lounging beside the counter. And it was not hard to read, as their gazes caught and clashed, that he was looking her over in the way men did when they were mentally undressing a woman, and, although in a curiously sardonic way, giving her the benefit of his unasked for approval.

Davina looked away from those rather hard grey eyes expressionlessly yet she found she was inwardly fuming and wondered why-it was not as if it had never happened to her before. In fact, it sometimes gave her cause for amusement, the fact that she had the kind of figure that attracted a lot of attention, darkish fair hair, darker eyebrows, and violet eyes set in a classically oval face. Amused her because her pin-up exterior didn't quite match her prosaic, practical, down-to-earth inner self and because if, as many men contrived to make her aware, she was the kind of girl they dreamt about, none of them had yet set her dreams alight.

But this is a bit different, she thought. For some reason or other, this man contrived to say that she might be good to bed but that would be the sum total of it-how dared he? Or did she imagine it?

She pondered for a moment longer, still determinedly looking the other way, then shrugged and decided she ought to make herself known to whoever had come to pick her up. But the little terminal was bustling and crowded now as resort employees gathered their guests and their luggage, the only staff member the airport boasted, apparently, was on the phone and no one appeared to be looking for a Davina Hastings, engaged as the temporary housekeeper for a Mr S. Warwick and his family.

So she collected her luggage and looked around again. The crowd was starting to thin and the tall man who had been leaning against the counter now had his back to her and his hands shoved irritably in his pockets as he scanned the retreating stream.

Then the pilot came in from the tarmac and, with a look of delighted recognition, came straight over to her. 'Hi!' he said. 'Thought I might have missed you. Where are you staying? I wondered if we could have dinner together, I'm staying overnight.'

Davina groaned inwardly as she thought, Another one! But this one, in his smart navy uniform, at least looked engagingly friendly as he held out his hand-he also looked to be about her own age, which was twenty-five, and he went on ingeniously, as they shook hands, 'It's D. Hastings, isn't it? I checked the passenger list and there was only one Hastings and you appeared to be the only one on your own, you're also not wearing a wedding-ring so I thought, in those circumstances, you might not mind my asking!'

Davina glanced involuntarily at her left hand and opened her mouth, but before she could speak a deep growling voice said, 'Hastings?' And added with considerable biting annoyance, 'Oh, for crying out loud- don't tell me you're Mrs Hastings!'

Davina turned slowly, but she knew who it was. And as their gazes locked for a second time, she realised his eyes weren't entirely grey but had yellow flecks in them and that this man, whom she had a horrible feeling was Mr S. Warwick, was broad-shouldered as well as tall, was probably in his middle thirties and carried an aura of dynamism and, at this moment, angry power that struck out like a rapier. So that, despite wearing faded corduroy trousers and a bulky, nondescript sweater, despite having irregular features and windswept tawny hair and a tendency to freckles, you couldn't fail to be aware that he was very much a man of the world and very used to getting his way…

Davina blinked once, as she thought, so what? She said coolly, 'I am Mrs Hastings, yes. Who are you?'

He didn't answer immediately but he subjected her to a scathing reappraisal then said bitterly, 'I don't believe it! I told them I wanted a competent yet middle-aged, motherly sort of person, and what do they send me? Some aspiring film starlet who's probably just waiting for the right B-grade movie so she can take her clothes off!' he marvelled.

Two things happened simultaneously. Davina took a step forward with every intention of hitting him, and the pilot, who'd been looking almost comically confused, said hastily, 'I say, Mr Warwick, sir-'

'Get lost, Pete,' S. Warwick said briefly. And, to Davina's amazement, with a sheepish look, that was just what the pilot did.

'I don't believe this,' she said through her teeth. 'Who the hell are you? Anyone would think you own the island and have set yourself up as some kind of self-styled pasha able to make free with your insults and order people around as if they were dogs!'

S. Warwick raised an eyebrow. 'I do own a fair slice of the airline, so you'll have to forgive Pete for deserting you in your hour of need,' he drawled and added, 'Why aren't you wearing a wedding-ring, Mrs Hastings? Or did the agency mislead me about that as well?'

'They did not,' Davina replied cuttingly. 'I am a Mrs and whether I choose to wear a wedding-ring or not has nothing to do with you! I am also extremely competent at housekeeping and if someone needs mothering, I'm quite prepared to mother them-' She stopped abruptly and her eyes narrowed. 'But why mothering'! Don't tell me you're divorced or you're a single parent?'

'I am neither, but then again I never told anyone that I was-could we be at cross purposes here?'

Davina frowned. 'Does that mean to say,' she said slowly, 'that you have no living wife, or no wife living with you?'

He regarded her with enough scorn to wither most people but Davina didn't even flinch as he said, 'Let me try to set this straight in your mind, Mrs Hastings. I am not married and therefore, as night follows day, I don't have a wife-do you think you're able to understand it now?'

'No mistress, de facto or whatever you like to call it?' Davina merely enquired, refusing to be deterred.