A Kind Of Madness Part 3

Looking into her mirror, she saw to her horror that the man was walking towards her. Heavens, he was huge. She had guessed he would be tall, but he was well over six feet--much taller than Peter, who was only four inches above her own five feet six. He was also broad, and the shirt he was wearing looked even more disreputable at close quarters than it had done at a distance. As he headed towards her, plainly intent on ignoring all her attempts to show him just how little his advances were welcome to her, Elspeth was so incensed that she forgot the cautious training of her adult years, forgot all the warnings constantly given by the papers and police against lone women stopping their cars and opening the doors to unknown men, forgot everything bar the anger boiling up inside her, and just as he reached her car she thrust open the door and got out, trembling with rage and indignation.

"I don't know what you think you're doing," she told him, going straight into the attack.

"But if you think for one moment that I'm flattered by your idiotic and juvenile behaviour, then you're wrong.

And if you imagine that by following me and trying to get my attention you're going to impress me, then think again. I've a good mind to report you to the police, but I suppose your poor wife has enough to put up with. Your behaviour must be embarra.s.sing in the extreme for her and for your children, but I don't suppose you ever think of that, do you? Men like you never do. I don't suppose you ever give a thought for anything or anyone but yourself. If you want my real opinion of you, I think you're detestable--detestable and contemptible, and if you don't stop following me immediately I shall report you to the police. "

Having said her piece, Elspeth suddenly discovered that she was trembling, as much with a strange sort of exhilaration as with anger.

He was standing in front of her in a most threatening manner, and she wouldn't have been surprised if he hadn't reached out and taken hold of her. She could see the way he was clenching and unclenching his hands.

No doubt it had upset him to discover how little she welcomed his pursuit of her. Well, it would do him good to realise that not every woman he chose to pursue was going to fall at his feet in grat.i.tude and admiration. Even so, justified though her anger was she had perhaps been rather foolish. They were virtually alone, and he was a very strong and now very angry man. A tiny thrill of sensation ran through her as she realised that if he did choose to take hold of her and, for instance, actually dared to kiss her, there was very little she could do to stop him. Of course, ;yhe did she would make it immediately clear to him just what she thought of such disgraceful behaviour. She would remind him that he had a wife and family. Shocked by the direction of her own thoughts, Elspeth suddenly realised that she was standing there practically inviting him to make some sort of attack on her, and that she ought to get straight back in her car and drive off before he realised it as well.

As she did so, he took a step towards her, and said something she couldn't quite hear as a huge lorry thundered past, but she was pleased to note that when she eventually managed to pull out into the traffic he turned in the opposite direction. No doubt he had quickly realised his mistake. Well, she was glad of it. Perhaps in future he would think twice before subjecting some poor female to his arrogant and unwanted behaviour.

She stopped in the village at the local garage, which she knew would still be open, and which thankfully still had some milk for sale.

Despite all his efforts, Peter had still not managed to persuade her to drink her coffee black, and since her mother was still valiantly attempting to convince herself that both she and her father actually preferred the milk produced by their goats, if she, Elspeth, wanted anything like a decent cup of coffee, she would have to provide her own milk.

Her stop at the garage delayed her longer than she had intended. The proprietor was a friend of her parents and wanted to chat, so that it was fifteen minutes before she could get away, by which time dusk had started to fall properly.

Never mind, she only had a very few miles to go, and there was virtually no traffic.

Secretly, if she was honest with herself, she still enjoyed coming home. There was something about

Cheshire with its pretty countryside, so neat and clean, its fields speckled with black and white cows, its crops growing on land which had yielded harvests since before the Romans had landed and built Chester.

As she turned off the main road and into the narrow lane leading to her parents' home, security lights suddenly sprang into life at her approach.

Automatically slowing down, Elspeth stared at them in a mixture of surprise and approval. Ever since her parents had moved here she had been advising them to have these lights installed, reminding them severely of their potential vulnerability to thieves, but her father, while listening to her, had never, seemed to take her advice to heart, and she had despaired of ever making her parents see the wisdom of her suggestion.

Now it seemed that she had been wrong. A further and equally pleasant surprise was the discovery that her mother's goats, which normally roamed the lane and the yard, providing a hazard for the unwary, were safely penned up in the paddock.

She could hear the dogs barking as she approached the yard, and the familiar feeling of antic.i.p.ation mingled with anxiety gripped her stomach.

Antic.i.p.ation because, no matter how much she might dislike it, there was still a part of her that missed this country environment in which she had grown up, and which reacted to her return to it with an almost heady sense of release; and anxiety because invariably she arrived home to discover that her parents had got themselves involved in one or other of the potentially dangerous situations they seemed to be irresistibly attracted to. Like children to water, she reflected in affectionate exasperation as she turned into the yard and neatly parked her car next to the mud-spattered red car, which must be the new one her mother had told her she was buying.

The mud-spattered red car!

Elspeth froze in her seat and stared at it in a mixture of dismay and disbelief. It couldn 't be the same car--of course it couldn't. It was just a coincidence. and besides, this one had its hood up-and besides, how on earth could he have possibly known her destination?

Shakily she opened her door, rea.s.suring herself that it was just coincidence, but as she did so a man rounded the corner of the house;

a tall, broad shouldered, dark-haired man who paused when he saw her and then looked at her.

It was the look that did it. She found she was literally grinding her teeth as she stood up, and she wished pa.s.sionately that she was taller so that she could look directly at him instead of having to look up at him.

At close quarters the tanned face was not quite as suavely handsome as it had seemed. For a start the strong, high-bridged nose had been broken at some stage and was now slightly crooked, but in some odd way that imperfection seemed to add something elusively attractive to the man rather than detract from his appeal, lending his face a strength and character that a more perfect profile would have lacked.

As she stared at him, Elspeth even caught herself wishing almost wistfully that it weren't quite so dark so that she could see what colour his eyes were. What did it matter what colour they were? she chastised herself furiously. What did matter was that he had no right to be here--none at all-and if he thought for one moment she was going to be flattered by his presence. Quickly, before she could weaken completely and give in to the totally unfamiliar foolishness that seemed to have caught hold of her, she told him as much, delivering the words in the sharp, crisp tones of the modern woman she considered herself to be;

a woman who knew exactly how to deal with his sort of man and who lost no time in doing so, making it abundantly clear to him exactly what she thought of his behaviour.

It was only when she stopped to draw breath that she realised indignantly that neither of her parents had appeared to rescue her from him and that, instead of looking thoroughly chastised by her justifiable denunciation, he was instead watching her with a mixture of mockery and disdain.

"I hate to stop you in mid-flood," he told her while she gulped in air.

"I applaud your performance, by the way. Your parents never said you were into amateur dramatics. A bit over the top, perhaps."

Elspeth was still staring at him.

"My parents?" she demanded, confused.

"You know them?"

"Yes. In fact... Look, why don't we go inside so that we can talk properly?"

Go inside? Talk properly? Elspeth looked wildly at him. Where were her parents? Why didn't they come and rescue her from this madman?

"Go inside..." she stuttered, stupefied that he should actually think she was willing to go anywhere with him.

"Mm. I've just about finished out here. I was going to wash down your mother's car, but I suppose that can wait."

Her mother's car. She looked from him to the mud-spattered vehicle.

"That ... that belongs to my mother?"

"Mm. She was going to buy a small hatchback,

but she saw this in the showroom and fell in love with it. She said you'd be horrified and probably give her a long lecture. "

Suddenly another emotion was added to her confusion. This one was sharp and painful--desolation mingling with a sense of betrayal that her mother should discuss her with this. this stranger.

Immediately another and potentially scorchingly humiliating thought struck her, and she asked huskily, "When you followed--er--saw me on the road, did you know who I was?"

She was praying that he wouldn't answer in the affirmative, and when she saw him nod his head she felt quite sick.

"Oh, yes. I recognised you immediately. You haven't really changed.

Of course I was expecting you. Stupid of me, I suppose, but I'd expected you to recognise me too and when you didn't..."

He rubbed his hand along his jawline, and suddenly, and far too late, she did.

"You're Carter!"

Impossible not to keep either the shock or the chagrin out of her voice, and she realised as he looked down at her that the smile had gone out of his eyes.

"Yes," he agreed curtly, 'and now that we've established that fact, perhaps we can go inside. I've had a long and tiring day, not made any better by a half-hysterical woman accusing me virtually of attempting to abduct her, not to mention my crimes against the wife and family I do not happen to have. "

As Elspeth stared towards the house, its silence suddenly made her suspicious.