DONNA ALWARD - The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy - The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm / One Dance with the Cowboy

‘It’s a spare.’ He refused to take it. ‘And only a loan.’

She looked at him, feeling stumped. The phrase ‘hoist with her own petard’ came to mind. She had told him her watch would be all right again once it had dried out—but he knew that, no matter how dry it was, it would never be serviceable again.

‘I’ll let you have it back in due time.’ She accepted it with what dignity she could muster, and was glad when, with a kind pat to Ruby’s flank, Ty Allardyce bade her, ‘Adieu,’ and went.

Phinn stayed with Ruby, wondering what it was about the man that disturbed her so. In truth, she had never met any man who could make her so annoyed with him one second and yet on the point of laughter the next.

Eventually she said goodnight to Ruby and returned to the house, musing that it had been thoughtful of Ty to loan her a watch. How many times that day had she automatically checked her left wrist in vain?

The evidence of just how thoughtful he was was again there when, having gone up the stairs and into her room, Phinn discovered that someone had been in there.

She stood stock still and just stared. The small round table that had been by the antique gold chaise longue had been removed. In its place, and looking every bit as if it belonged there, was the small round table that had been in the drawing room when last she had seen it.

‘Grandmother Hawkins’ table,’ she said softly, and felt a warm glow wash over her. Welcome home, it seemed to be saying. She did not have to guess who had so thoughtfully made the exchange. She knew that it had been Ty Allardyce.

Phinn went to bed liking him again.

PHINN sat on the paddock rail around six weeks later, keeping an eye on Ruby, who’d had a bout of being unwell, and reflecting on how Broadlands Hall now seemed to be quite like home. She knew more of the layout now. Knew where Ty’s study was—the place where he always spent some time when he was there.

Most of the rooms had been smartened up, some replastered and redecorated. The room next for redecoration was the music room—the room in which she had often sat listening with Mr Caldicott while her father played on his grand piano. The music room door was occasionally left open, when either Wendy or Valerie, who came up from the village to clean, were in there, giving the room a dusting and an airing. Apparently the piano had been left behind when all Mr Caldicott’s other furniture had been removed. Presumably Ty had come to some arrangement with him about it.

Phinn patted Ruby’s neck and talked nothings to her while at the same time she reminded herself that she must not allow herself to become too comfortable here. In another four or so months, probably sooner if she were to get anything established for Ruby, she would have to begin looking for a new home for the two of them.

But meantime how good it was to not have that worry hanging over her head as being immediate. What was immediate, however, was the vet’s bill that was mounting up. Last month’s pay cheque had already gone, and the cheque Ty had left on Grandmother Hawkins’ table for her to find a couple of weeks ago was mostly owed to Kit Peverill.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Kit had told her when she had settled his last veterinary bill. ‘There’s no rush. Pay me as you can.’

He was kind, was Kit, and, having assumed she had come to the Hall to work in the estate office, he had called to see Ruby as soon as he could when Phinn had phoned. She could not bear to think of Ruby in pain, but Kit had assured her that, though Ruby suffered some discomfort, she was not in actual pain, and that hopefully her sudden loss of appetite would pick up again.

Kit had been kind enough to organise some special food for Ruby, and to Phinn’s surprise Geraldine Walton had arrived one day with a load of straw. Ash had been off on one of his ‘walk-abouts’ that day. But soon after that Geraldine had—again to Phinn’s surprise—telephoned to say she had a surfeit of hay, and that if Ash was available perhaps he would drive over in the pick-up and collect it.

Having discovered that Ash was at his best when occupied, Phinn had asked him if he would mind. ‘Can’t you manage without it?’ he had enquired, clearly reluctant.

‘Yes, of course I can,’ she’d replied with a smile. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you.’

He had been immediately contrite. ‘Yes, you should. Sorry, Phinn, I’m not fit company these days. Of course I’ll go.’ Muttering, ‘With luck I shall miss seeing the wretched woman,’ he went on his way.

From that Phinn gleaned that it was not so much the errand he was objecting to, but the fact that he did not want any contact with the owner of the riding school and stables. Which gave her cause to wonder if it was just that he had taken an aversion to Geraldine. Or was he, despite himself, attracted to her and a little afraid of her because of what another woman with her colouring had done to him?

Phinn had kept him company as much as she could, though very often she knew that he wanted to be on his own. At other times she had walked miles with him all over the estate lands.

She had talked with him, stayed silent when need be, and when he had mentioned that he quite liked drawing she had several times taken him sketching down by the trout stream. Which had been a little painful to her, because it was there that her father had taught her to sketch.

She had overcome her sadness of spirit when it had seemed to her that Ash appeared to be less stressful and a shade more content when he lost himself as he concentrated on the sketch he was creating.

But Ash was very often quite down, so that sometimes she would wonder if her being there made any difference to him at all. A point she had put to Ty only a week ago. Cutting her nose off it might have been, had he agreed with her and suggested that he would not hold her to their six-month agreement. But it was nothing of the sort!

‘Of course you’ve made a difference,’ Ty assured her. ‘Apart from the fact I feel I can get back to my work without being too concerned over him, there is a definite improvement from the way he was.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ he replied, and had meant it. ‘Surely you’ve noticed that he’s taking more of an interest in the estate these days? He was telling me on the phone only the other day how you had both met with some forester—Sam…?’

‘Sam Turner,’ she filled in. ‘I was at school with his son Sammy. Sammy’s followed in his father’s footsteps.’ And then, getting carried away, ‘Ash and I walked the whole of Pixie End Wood with Sam and Sammy…’ She halted. ‘But you probably know that from Ash.’

Ty hadn’t answered that, but asked, ‘Is there anybody you don’t know?’

For the weirdest moment she felt like saying, I don’t know you. Weird or what? Anybody would think that she wanted to know him—better. ‘I was brung up around here,’ she replied impishly—and felt Ty’s steady grey glance on her.

‘And a more fully rounded “brung-up” female I’ve never met,’ he commented quietly.

‘If I could decide whether that was a compliment or not, I might thank you for it,’ she replied.

‘It’s a compliment,’ he informed her, and she had gone about her business wondering about the other women of his acquaintance.

By ‘fully rounded’ she knew he had not been talking about her figure—which if anything, save for a bosom to be proud of, she had always thought a little on the lean side. So were his London and ‘other capitals’ women not so generally ‘fully rounded’? And was being ‘fully rounded’ a good thing, or a bad thing? Phinn had given it up when she’d recalled that he had said that it was a compliment.