Sara Craven - Shadow Of Desire

‘Quite sure.’ Ginny’s voice was firm. ‘Aunt Mary, you can’t let me down. I—I need you. No matter what I told that woman, I’m going to have my work cut out looking after that house. If you could help with the cooking and—just be there when Tim gets in from school,’ she ended on a note of appeal.

‘I shall be pleased to do whatever I can.’ Aunt Mary allowed her firm lips to relax into a smile. ‘And I’m not entirely decrepit, Ginevra. I daresay I could make beds and help with the dusting, as well.’

Impulsively Ginny put her arms round her great-aunt and hugged her. Aunt Mary did not, as a rule, welcome random demonstrations of affection, but this time when Ginny released her, she looked pink and pleased, even though she said robustly, ‘Go along with you, child.’

In the intervening two months, Ginny thought, things had worked out better than she had ever dared hope. The move to Monk’s Dower had gone quite smoothly, and Tim was now settled at his new school, with only the occasional nightmare reminding him of the tragic disruption his young life had suffered.

The job itself was proving rather easier than she had expected. Mrs Petty who came in from the village on an ancient bicycle twice a week turned out to be slipshod but willing, but fortunately, Ginny thought with satisfaction, her new employer was not the type of man to go peering in corners after a few stray cobwebs.

The colour deepened in her face as she thought about Toby Hendrick. He was altogether different from what she had expected. For one thing, he was much younger, and far better looking, with fair hair and smiling blue eyes.

He had arrived at Monk’s Dower without giving her any preliminary notice, and the first inkling she had had that the main part of the house was occupied was the gleaming monster of a car parked in the courtyard. She had gone across immediately, her heart sinking. This was her first test as a housekeeper and she’d failed it pretty comprehensively, she thought savagely as she let herself in. His bed wasn’t made up, for one thing, and there was no bread or milk in his part of the house, although they had plenty and could share with him.

She was quaking when she arrived in the kitchen and found him on his knees, trying, with a lot of muffled cursing, to get the range going. Ginny had taken over from him, stammering her apologies, but he’d waved them laughingly aside.

‘I didn’t know I was coming down myself until a few hours ago, I’m a creature of impulse, I’m afraid, Miss—–?’

‘Clayton,’ she supplied. ‘Ginny Clayton.’

‘Toby Hendrick.’ He shook hands solemnly with her. ‘As we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, shall we cut the formality? I’d much rather call you Ginny.’

She said, ‘That’s fine with me,’ letting a curtain of hair fall forward across her face to mask her embarrassment.

No, Toby had certainly not been what she expected. Kathy’s descriptive phrase ‘all man’ had prepared her for someone rather different, although she was at a loss to know what. She was glad that the shadowy and rather formidable figure she had built up in her mind was only a figment of her imagination. He certainly wouldn’t have been as easy to work for as Toby, she thought, smiling to herself.

And Kathy had been wrong about Vivien Lanyon’s interest in him too. She had rung up a couple of times while Ginny was working in the house to make sure that everything was all right, but the exchanges between Toby and herself had been brief and formal in the extreme. Nor had she been over to Monk’s Dower, and Ginny told herself that if Mrs Lanyon had been really interested in Toby, she would never have been away from the door. Perhaps she had decided it was rather degrading to chase a young man who was patently her junior, Ginny thought.

After his first visit, which had lasted only two days, Toby had vanished for three weeks. Then one evening he had telephoned to warn that he would be coming for the weekend, and this time Ginny was fully prepared.

His room was ready, with fresh towels laid out in the adjoining bathroom, and a bowl of early daffodils set on the dressing table. The drawing room fire was lit, and the kitchen range was glowing, while the appetising aroma from a beef stew cooking in its oven crept through the house.

Cooking for Toby did not come within Ginny’s official list of duties, but she told herself rather defensively that as she was preparing the stew anyway, it took little effort to put some of the ingredients into a separate casserole. Aunt Mary had raised a caustic eyebrow as she had haltingly tried to explain this, but made no comment.

And Toby’s subsequent appreciative remarks had made the extra effort more than worthwhile, she decided smugly before she fell asleep that night. And perhaps it wasn’t altogether imagination that the warm gleam in his eyes when he looked at her hadn’t simply been prompted by gratitude for the food, delectable though it had been.

Since then he had been down to Monk’s Dower every weekend, and Ginny found she was looking forward to each visit with a strange intensity. She knew what was happening to her, of course. She had been vaguely attracted to men before, but it had never meant anything and such relationships as she had enjoyed had been casual in the extreme. But the feeling growing inside her was new to her, and she didn’t want to fight it, although common sense told her that she should. After all, she had not the slightest reason to think that Toby felt the same. He looked at her as if the sight of her pleased him, but reason told her that he might well look at any passably attractive girl that way. And he was practically a stranger to her. He worked in London, that much she knew, but she had no idea what he did for a living. She assumed his frequent absences were caused by his trips abroad, but he never mentioned them or any aspect of his life away from Monk’s Dower at all.

She sometimes wondered if he had a girl-friend. It was hardly possible that anyone as attractive and charming could still be unattached. She visualised the bleak prospect of his wanting to bring girl-friends down to Monk’s Dower with him, as he was perfectly entitled to do, she told herself. How would she feel about that?

There were all kinds of unanswered questions about Toby, she decided. One of the downstairs rooms had been fitted up as a study with a workmanlike desk and a large electric typewriter, but he made no attempt to use it, as far as she knew. Perhaps he went in there and worked during the night—but at what? she wondered.

Surely there was some easy way to find out, without sounding as if she was trying to pry, or get too close. Perhaps this very weekend—if he came down, because the expected message hadn’t arrived yet—she would get the opportunity to find out a little more about him, Ginny thought. Maybe he had telephoned while she was out shopping, and was on his way at that moment.

The weekends had begun to assume a kind of pattern. Toby would arrive some time during Friday evening and eat the food that she had left in the oven for him. Then he would come over to their part of the house and join them in their sitting room. Sometimes they would watch television, but at others they would play Scrabble, and Toby had taught Tim how to play gin rummy. He teased Aunt Mary outrageously, and scratched Muffin’s stomach with his foot, and behaved pretty much, Ginny thought, as if they were his family, and he had come home.

He was clearly a very social person, and enjoyed the company of others, and Ginny found it strange that he should choose to rent a house in a quiet remote corner like Monk’s Dower. She could only surmise that perhaps it presented the greatest possible contrast to his workday life.

On Saturdays he usually got up late and cooked himself an enormous breakfast combined with lunch. Then he went out during the afternoon. Once or twice he had taken Muffin with him for a walk. On another occasion, he had driven Tim into Market Harford and taken him to the cinema.