Carole Mortimer - A Man To Marry

He looked at them both with assessing eyes. ‘I wasn’t aware I was saying something out of turn…?’

‘You didn’t,’ Kate answered him with a return of confidence. ‘Kitty—my grandmother—does live here with us. But she isn’t in the best of health, has few visitors, and goes out even less, and I would rather talk to her before you look round the house. I think you’ll be quite impressed when you see all of it,’ she assured him. ‘It’s really been very well looked after, with a lot of the original features kept in place—’

‘He doesn’t want to buy the house, Kate,’ Cat snapped. ‘Just look at it!’

‘I can see I’ve taken up enough of your time for one evening,’ Caleb put in sardonically, moving to the door. ‘So I’ll leave you all in peace.’

Peace? The man didn’t know the meaning of the word!

‘I’ll see you out.’ Kate followed him.

‘Cat.’ He paused at the door to nod abruptly in parting.

‘Mr Reynolds,’ she returned tersely.

She hadn’t moved when Kate returned to the sitting-room a few minutes later, looking up at her friend with bright green eyes. ‘He’s right,’ Cat told Kate fiercely, ‘I don’t like him!’ Her eyes flashed angrily.

‘He’s—unsettling,’ Kate acknowledged more cautiously.

‘Kate, the man is arrogant and condescending—and I don’t trust him one little bit!’

‘Let’s not get all of this out of proportion,’ Kate warned. ‘Admittedly I was a bit surprised when he said he would like to look round the house, but as his great-great-grandfather designed it—’

‘So he says!’ Cat snapped, scowling darkly. ‘Reynolds isn’t exactly an uncommon name, Kate,’ she pointed out scornfully as her friend looked at her questioningly. ‘And he mentioned nothing yesterday about his ancestor having designed this house, only came up with that idea today—when the name is engraved on the front of the house for all to see!’

Kate looked bewildered. ‘You don’t think Clive Reynolds was his great-great-grandfather…?’

‘I think it’s all just a little too much of a coincidence,’ Cat said firmly. ‘But I’m going to find out the truth,’ she added determinedly. ‘There are bound to be records, some way I can actually find out if he’s related to Clive Reynolds. In the meantime, I suggest we say nothing to Kitty about this. There’s no point in bothering her with it until we know for certain.’

‘I agree,’ Kate said slowly, momentarily closing her eyes. ‘Will it ever stop, do you think, Cat?’ she added wearily as the two of them strolled back out to the garden.

Cat squeezed her arm reassuringly. ‘Of course it will. We’ve all lived here in relative peace for the last few years; there’s no reason why that shouldn’t continue.’ Caleb Reynolds would be dealt with very firmly if he should turn out to be any other than what he claimed to be. She would see to that. And enjoy doing it, she realised.

‘Hello, darlings.’ Kitty beamed at them both; Kate’s grandmother, who supposedly wasn’t in the best of health, at this moment was down on her hands and knees as she weeded a flower bed!

In her early seventies, Kitty nevertheless looked years younger than that, shoulder-length blonde hair swept back from her face, her face relatively unlined by the years, her figure still youthfully slim as she stood up.

Despite the fact that she hadn’t performed in public for twenty-five years, she was still, to anyone who had admired and known her—as Caleb Reynolds obviously had!—instantly recognisable as the opera singer, Katherine Maitland!

‘HIS great-great-grandfather was Clive Reynolds,’ Cat announced crossly as she dropped down into one of the chairs placed around the kitchen table.

She had waited until the playschool closed for the day on Tuesday afternoon before going off in the car to the local library. What she had found there hadn’t cheered her up one little bit. She had been so sure there was something about Caleb Reynolds that didn’t ring true… But she was unable to refute his claim when it had been printed there in black and white!

‘That’s wonderful.’ Kate sighed her relief at the news. ‘You managed to find a book on Clive Reynolds, then?’

‘Er—not exactly.’ Cat grimaced. ‘I found a book on Caleb Reynolds,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘Actually, it was a book he’s written on the history of English architecture, but it had some blurb about the author inside the cover.’ It had been accompanied by a picture of the author, a photograph obviously several years old, no grey visible at the temples in Caleb’s dark hair as there was now, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses making him look studious. As photographs went, Cat had decided, it was pretty uninspiring—and nothing of the man’s intensity in the flesh came through. ‘He apparently became interested in the subject of architecture because of his great-great-grandfather, the architect Clive Reynolds.’ She grudgingly made a direct quote from the personal information given about the author of the book.

Kate grinned her relief, that smile starting to slip as she saw Cat was still scowling. ‘But that’s good news, isn’t it?’

‘I still don’t trust him.’ Cat shook her head stubbornly.

‘You don’t like him,’ Kate corrected. ‘Don’t confuse dislike with distrust.’

‘Why would someone like him move—even temporarily—to a small village like this?’ Cat muttered thoughtfully. Because that information about him inside his book had also listed his qualifications and the achievements he had made in his field; the list of letters behind his name was staggering. Caleb wasn’t only intelligent, but obviously deeply respected in his chosen field…

‘He already explained all that,’ her friend protested at her continued belligerence. ‘He has some research to do at the museum in York, and he’s interested in seeing round this house,’ she reminded her. ‘Heavens, Cat, I don’t remember this reaction from you towards Toby when he moved into one of the cottages in the village almost a year ago!’ She gave Cat an impatient look.

It was true. But then, apart from suggesting that one of them went to bed with him every time they saw him, Toby was harmless enough. And that was one accusation, she was sure, that could never be levelled at Caleb Reynolds!

‘Talking about Toby—’ Kate grimaced ‘—he called round earlier. I told him to come back later and have dinner with us. Kitty will enjoy that,’ she added before Cat could make any comment about Toby being here for a meal yet again.

Kate had used the right argument to silence Cat; Kitty would enjoy having Toby here this evening. Kitty found Toby amusing, enjoyed his company very much, and as he had no idea who she was—or had been!—it meant that Cat and Kate could relax when he was around.

It hadn’t been an easy decision to make when it came to buying this particular house to open their playschool. Kitty had lived in it many years ago, and some of the locals still remembered that—including Lilley at the post office, although she, like the other villagers, never told ‘outsiders’ that Kitty, Kate’s grandmother, and Katherine Maitland were one and the same person.

But Clive House had been on the market at the time they were looking for premises for their playschool, and Kitty had been delighted at the idea of returning to the house where she had lived during her married life, where she had brought up her children. To give the villagers their due, once the initial interest had worn off, they had rallied round Kitty in a protective way that didn’t allow outsiders into the fact that they had a celebrity—albeit a retired one—living amongst them! For twenty-five years Kitty had stayed out of the public eye, deliberately so; the family tragedy that Caleb had referred to yesterday had given her every reason never to open herself up to that sort of interest ever again.