A Kind Of Madness Part 13

She reached out for the bean, but somehow or other her fingers closed instead around his wrist, and she discovered that instead of it being her hand that carried the tender vegetable to her lips, it was his, and that, despite the tight grip of he- fingers, there was nothing she could do to stop him. She opened her mouth automatically, biting into the firm flesh of the bean, and then tensing in surprise as she discovered how wonderful it tasted.

"It makes all the difference in the world when it's the real thing, doesn't it?" she heard Carter saying, and for a moment she didn't realist he was referring to the bean, but thought-Quickly she swallowed, trying to pull herself together, trying to remind herself why she was here and what Carter was.

It surprised her how long it took to finish all the watering, and that was only a small part of her parents' day's work. The neatly organised beds had to be kept free of weeds, the growing vegetables constantly checked, watched over.

"Your mother talks to them," Carter told her as they walked back to the house.

"She claims that they like to feel loved."

Yes, she could imagine her mother saying that. Her mother firmly believed that everything and everyone needed love.

"So who's telling them that they're loved in her absence?" Elspeth asked flippantly, trying and failing to imagine Carter performing such a task.

"No one as yet," he informed her so promptly that she stopped to give him a suspicious and hard look.

"You're not suggesting that / should start talking to them, are you?"

she challenged him.

"Well, you have eaten one of them ... and in full view of the others,"

he reminded her seriously.

"They're probably too terrified of you to listen to you now. Your mother makes a point of never telling them where they're going. She says she doesn't want to frighten the little ones."

"You're making this up," Elspeth accused, trying not to laugh.

"That's better," he told her softly, thoroughly confounding her as he added gravely, "Your mouth was made for smiles, Elspeth. Smiles and kisses."

What was he trying to do? Flirt with her? If so, then it was high time she reminded him that she was committed to someone else--or was he simply trying to make fun of her, to confound and deceive her? Did he really think she was stupid enough to fall into that kind of trap, no matter how temptingly it was baited?

How temptingly'I What on earth was she thinking? That it would be heaven on earth to run her fingertip down that bared male forearm and trace the shape of its muscles. For a moment her imagination swung crazily out of control so that she was mentally reliving this morning's kiss. Reliving it, and actually yearning for it to be repeated.

This was madness, she told herself. Complete and utter madness. She had no idea how it had happened either. One moment she had been sternly and firmly reminding herself that Carter was a devious and dangerous man, the next. the next she had focused briefly on his body and had suddenly been swept away into such dangerous and turbulent waters that she was fighting to find a safe foothold.

Thank goodness she had always been 'he practical, sensible type, not the type to give in to her own emotions, her own foolishness that side of her nature was something she had brougnt firmly under control a long time ago.

As they walked into the yard, the dcgs came bounding up to them, giving her a welcorre excuse not to make any retort to his extraordinary comment as she bent down to fuss them and asked him as naturally as she could, "What about feeding these two?"

"Yes, I suppose we'd better, and the goats as well. Do you know the routine or should I do it?"

"I think I can manage," Elspeth told him, anxious to be free of the dangerous potency of his presence.

"Well, if you're sure... I'll go in and shower, and then start on supper. Chicken salad OK for you?"

"Fine," Elspeth agreed, too surprised by his offer to make supper to offer any objections. That was something Peter would never have offered to do. In fact Peter's mother had already made it plain to Elspeth that, despite the fact that she would continue to work after their marriage, it would be her duty to take care of Peter as devotedly as she, his mother, had always done. That had irked her a little, especially when Peter had smugly reinforced his mother's opinion. But she had decided that it was an issue she would take up with him later, once they were married, gently making it plain to him that they were partners in all things and that included their domestic duties. Now to hear such a male man as Carter calmly suggesting that he make their supper made her blink and stare a little at him.

"What's wrong?" he asked her quizzically.

"Had second thoughts about the chicken?"

"What? Oh, no--I was just wondering about the goats," she fibbed quickly.

"Who's going to milk them?"

"Oh, that's John's task," Carter a.s.sured her.

"There are a good many things I'm prepared to do for your mother, but milking that precious pair is not among them."

He said this with such feeling that Elspeth laughed. She knew how troublesome and truculent her mother's spoiled pets could be.

As she heard the sound of her own laughter, she realised how long it had been since she hac laughed so freely, since she had felt so. so unconstricted, so free to be herself and not to fall into line with someone else's image of her. And yet who was it who had forced those images on her? she asked herself frowningly as she left Carter to have his shower and started to prepare the dogs' food.

It had been herself, surely. She had been the one who had insisted that she wanted a city life, a highprofile career. She had been the one to force herself into that mould, and no one else. But why?

Surely not because a thoughtless, silly, empty- headed girl had made fun of her parents' way of life. Surely that wasn't what had made her decide to prove to the rest of the world that, despite her upbringing, she could be just as clever, ji st as career-orientated, just as successful as someone from a different background.

Startled by the direction of her own thoughts, she stopped what she was doing and stared emptily into s.p.a.ce.

But she was happy with her chosen life, wasn't she? Content with all that she had achieved, all she would achieve, her job, her flat, her relationship with Peter, the life they had planned together?

Would she really prefer to be living here with her parents, sharing their haphazard lives, sharing their hopes and their disappointments, their tears and their laughter?

Something quickened inside her, a feeling that was a combination of joy, pain and regret, and with it came an unwanted recognition that somehow, somewhere, she had perhaps allowed her life to take a wrong turning, that the reason she always felt this odd reluctance to come home, this defensiveness with which she sometimes deliberately shut out her parents, sprang from a very real fear that if she stayed too long, said too much, she might never be able to force herself to go back to the life she had chosen for herself.

As clearly as though they were being spoken now beside her, she heard the high-pitched, cruel words of that girl she had brought home with her.

"Her parents are complete country b.u.mpkins. You wouldn't believe it, honestly... And the house--my dears, I don't think her mother even possesses a vacuum cleaner, never mind knows how to use it. There were actually animals wandering around in the kitchen--imagine! The lack of hygiene... And she's just the same, for all that she pretends not to be. One morning I actually found her feeding a lamb with a bottle. She was nursing it on her knee while she ate her own breakfast at the same time. The germs! My dears, my skin was positively crawling when I left. You just an't believe..."

And on and on it had gone, until she hadn't been able to endure any more. And yet now, leplaying those words, listening to them with the ears of maturity, she heard more than their surface cruelty, saw more of what might have lain behind them. Sophy had come from a broken home. Her parents were divorced, her father remarried with a much younger second family, her mother living somewhere in America. Neither of them, it seemed, wanted to know about their shared daughter.

Sophy's background couldn't have been more different from her own, and she, like the credulous fool she was, had been impressed by the other girl's stories of her parents' seemingly exciting ives, not realising until it was too late how little oi' that excitement Sophy herself actually shared. How much her own parents' love and care was to be valued and cherished.

Was it really for that, for the desire, the need, the thirst to prove something to someone who had been little more than a lonely child crying out for love and attention herself, that she had redirected the whole course of her life?

But she was happy, wasn't she? Wasn't she? She couldn't possibly want to change things--could she? No--no, of course not. Of course she couldn't, she told herself quickly. What she was doing was just indulging in a fit of nostalgia for the country. It was a very fashionable pastime these days. Once she got back to London she would laugh at herself for what she was feeling now. Of course she would.

Of course she would. Wouldn't she?

CHAPTER SEVEN.

'supper won't be long. "

As she opened the back door, Elspeth saw that Carter was standing in front of the sink washing a lettuce. He had obviously had a shower because, rather disconcertingly, he was barefoot and barechested, wearing only a pair of clean, worn jeans, his hair still damp and slicked back off his face, but the smile he gave her as she came in was casual and easy, completely free of any kind of s.e.xual undertones.

She wasn't sure she wanted to a.n.a.lyse why instead of rea.s.suring her this should make her feel slightly piqued.

"I forgot to mention it earlier," he added, 'but tomorrow is one of our days for getting orders ready for collection, which means a very early start, I'm afraid. Watering at five, picking at six. There's no need for you to get up if you don't feel up to it, but I'm just warning you in case I disturb you and you wonder what on earth's going or. "

The moment he suggested that she neeij not get up, Elspeth felt her are rising. She wasn't a visitor here, to be cosseted and indulged. She was family. He was the one who was the outsider, not she.