CATHY WILLIAMS - In Want of a Wife?

‘I don’t need to stay here and listen to this.’ She gave a few warning revs of her engine and waited for his apology, which was not forthcoming.

Instead he stood back, folded his arms and gave her a long, speculative look. The rising moon caught the angle of his face and she drew her breath in sharply.

The man might be aristocratic, arrogant and high-handed, but he was beautiful. Black hair was blown back to reveal the harsh, arresting contours of a face that was shockingly perfect. His mouth was drawn in a tight, displeased line but it didn’t take much imagination to realise that under different circumstances, it would be curving and sensuous.

‘How old are you?’ Louis asked suddenly. The question caught Lizzy unawares and for a few seconds she was silent, wondering where he was going with it.

‘Why? What business is it of yours?’

‘You’re a kid, aren’t you? That why you don’t want to take the helmet off? Do your parents know that you’re riding that thing like a bat out of hell, putting other people’s lives in danger?’

‘There’s no one else out here except for you! Trust a tourist to break down,’ she muttered. Prickles of angry, nervous perspiration shot through her. ‘If you’re going to tackle this part of the world, then you should know to do it in a more reliable vehicle.’

‘You should try telling that to the crook who owns the car-rental company by the station.’

‘Ah.’ Fergus McGinty could, she admitted to herself, be a bit shifty when it came to outsiders renting his cars. And anyone opting for the one and only Range Rover would have been cheerfully taken for the proverbial ride. She doubted the thing had been serviced since the start of the century.

‘Friend of yours, is he?’ Increasingly ill tempered, Louis allowed a short pause to elapse. ‘So he’s bound to know the teenager on the big bike when I decide to report you to your parents … Which makes me think that you have no choice here but to graciously give me a ride to wherever it is I happen to be going. Either that, or you’ll find yourself answering to the police for getting on that thing when you’re under age.’

Lizzy was tempted to burst out laughing. Yes, she could see that the high tones of her voice might have led him crashing into the wrong impression, and it was pretty funny when you thought about it. But somehow she didn’t think that this was the kind of man who would take very kindly to being laughed at. Something about the way he held himself made her think that, when there was any laughing to be done, he would be the one doing it at someone else’s expense.

‘You can’t just leave that car there,’ she objected, purely to be difficult.

Louis made an exaggerated show of looking around him before his glinting black eyes settled back on her, his reflection bouncing off the helmet. ‘Why? Do you think there are people lurking behind the heather, waiting to steal it? Frankly, if anyone is stupid enough to break in and able to drive it away, then they’re more than welcome. They would be doing the world at large a service.’

Lizzy shrugged. ‘Where are you headed?’

‘Climb off that machine and you’ll find out.’

‘Climb off? What are you talking about? I thought you said that I would be giving you a ride.’

‘Did I say that? Must have been a crazy slip of the tongue. Why would I endanger my life by getting on the back of a motorcycle ridden by a kid who should be at home doing his homework?’

‘I could leave you right here.’

‘I really wouldn’t consider that option if I were you.’

Lizzy recognised a threat when she heard one. ‘Where are you going?’ she repeated reluctantly. ‘If it’s out of my way, then you’re going to have to wait here and I’ll send someone out to fetch you.’

Louis almost laughed out loud at that. Send someone out to fetch him? For starters, he had had enough of the great Scottish countryside when seen at night from the perspective of a stranded driver. For another, he wouldn’t put money on the odds of the boy doing his civic duty when it would be a lot easier to bike off into the night and get his own back for being taken down a peg or two by an outsider.

‘Really? Well, we’ll have to differ on that one. I’m going to Crossfeld House and you’re coming with me.’

Crossfeld House! Lizzy froze.

‘You know where that is, don’t you?’ Louis said impatiently. ‘I can’t imagine there are too many manor houses with golf courses in this part of the world.’

‘I know where it is. Why are you going there?’

‘Come again?’

‘I just wondered why you were going there, because you can’t stay there … It’s, um, up for sale. I don’t think they’re renting out rooms any more. And if you’ve come to play golf then the course isn’t that great. In fact, it’s wrecked.’

‘Is that a fact, now?’ Louis looked narrowly at the slight figure dismounting the bike, standing back to let him get on. ‘So I should leave my clubs in the car?’

‘Definitely. Do you even know how to ride this?’

‘You’ll find out soon enough. Let’s put it this way—I prefer to risk my neck at my own hands than at the hands of someone else.’ He revved the engine and enjoyed the full-bodied sound of the throttle. It had been a long time since he had been on the seat of a motor bike. He had forgotten how free and powerful they could make you feel. It was going to be an enjoyable ride, especially when he intended to make full use of it by squeezing as much information out of his passenger as he possibly could. Communications with Nicholas had been frustratingly restricted to his friend singing the praises of the Sharp girl, interspersed with one or two essential facts and figures about the estate. But this lad obviously knew the area, was almost certain to know the Sharp family and who wasn’t up for a bit of gossip? In a place like this, it was probably the mainstay of their existence!

‘So,’ Louis shouted encouragingly over the roar of the motorbike. ‘If you know Crossfeld House, then you might know the chartered surveyor there … Nicholas Talbot?’

‘Sort of …’ Lizzy clung to him. He wasn’t kitted out for riding a motorbike, but he had managed to hitch his coat up, and through it she could feel the muscularity of his body. He had clearly ridden a motorbike before; it was apparent from the ease with which he manoeuvred it. ‘Why?’

‘I’m here to supervise what he’s been up to. He should have sent reports back about the state of the place, but his communications have been erratic.’

‘Really? So, you’re his boss?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘You’re checking up on him?’ Lizzy demanded angrily. ‘That’s awful—Nicholas has been working really hard, actually!’

‘So you know him?’

‘I don’t know him, but he’s … It’s a small town, put it that way, and Nicholas has become a very popular member of the community.’

‘Has he, now? Made friends …?’

‘I think he might be interested in one of the girls here, yes …’ Lizzy said in a guarded voice, although she had to shout that information over the noise of the engine. She realised that she had yet to discover the name of the guy to whom she was clinging for dear life but, that said, at least she knew that he wasn’t dangerous—at least, to her. But as for Nicholas, would he lose his job just because he hadn’t filed daily reports to someone who was obviously a control freak?

‘He did mention something of the sort.’ Louis’s voice was non-judgemental, encouraging, persuasive.

Lizzy grasped that and thought that she would make her excuses for Nicholas’s absent-mindedness in reporting back to his master, because she knew that Nicholas would never make excuses for himself. He was too non-confrontational, too mild-mannered. He would probably stammer and stutter and thereby secure his own sacking, because the motorbike rider was just the sort of guy who sacked people. Or maybe he wasn’t even responsible for actually doing the sacking. Far more likely was that he was an errand boy of sorts, someone sent to check out the situation.