Liz Fielding: British Bachelors: Tempting & New: Seduction Never Lies / Holiday with a Stranger / Anything but Vanilla...

Then she slipped off the jacket, and draping it decorously over her arm, she went downstairs, where Jago would be waiting to drive her back to the Vicarage and safety.

It was a silent journey and Tavy was thankful for it. Because she knew she did not trust herself to speak.

I’m tired, she insisted silently. That’s why I feel so confused and stupid. Tomorrow I’ll be back on track. Become myself again instead of this creature I do not—dare not—recognise.

Jago drove up to the Vicarage’s front door and looked up at the dark house.

‘Your father doesn’t seem to be back yet. Shall I come in with you? Make sure everything’s all right?’

‘There’s really no need,’ she said quickly, fumbling for the handle on the passenger door. ‘What could possibly happen in Hazelton Magna?’

‘You tell me,’ he drawled. ‘It was you about to call the emergency services earlier.’

She said defensively, ‘Ladysmere’s a big house. Someone might think there was stuff worth stealing.’ She paused, adding stiltedly, ‘Goodnight—and thank you very much for the meal.’

Pure schoolgirl, she thought, vexed and was not surprised to hear faint amusement in his voice as he replied, ‘It was my pleasure.’

And my pain, she thought, her nails digging into the palms of her clenched hands as she stood alone in the darkened house, listening to the Jeep driving away. But didn’t people say pleasure and pain were two sides of the same coin?

And realised suddenly how much she would have given never to know that.

* * *

The first thing she saw when she arrived at the house next morning was the erstwhile picnic rug draped over the back of her chair. Biting her lip, she folded it carefully and put it at the back of a shelf, out of her line of vision. Start, she thought, as you mean to go on.

She went to the kitchen, filled the kettle and put it to boil, then put water in the small glass vase she’d brought from the Vicarage, before taking a pair of scissors from her bag and going into the garden.

‘Lovely day,’ said Ted Jackson, appearing from nowhere. ‘Another heatwave coming, they reckon.’

‘Well, we can always hope,’ Tavy returned, making for a bed of early roses in an array of colours from soft blush to crimson, and snipping a few buds.

‘Cheering the old place up, even when there’s no furniture?’

In spite of herself, Tavy found she was glancing up at the first floor windows. ‘Not all the rooms are empty,’ she said.

‘Upstairs, maybe.’ He paused. ‘You were working late last night?’

‘Well, yes.’

He nodded. ‘Jim forgot his tea flask and when he came back for it, he saw lights.’ His smile was almost cherubic. ‘He wondered, but I told him it must be that.’

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