A Kind Of Madness Part 5

She and her mother were a similar height and shape, although her mother was a couple of sizes larger than Elspeth. In fact, her parents always remarked when they saw her that they thought she was too thin, and Elspeth had given up trying to explain to them that, in the high-pressure world of business, a slightly lean and hungry look added an extra sharpness to one's image.

And besides, without the constant temptation of her mother's wonderful cooking, it was all too easy to fall into the habit of eating light, nutritious meals. Without someone to share a meal with, there was no temptation to linger at the table; sometimes she found herself remembering wistfully the meals of her childhood, especially breakfast, when her father would come from his early morning farm ch.o.r.es and the three of them would sit down together.

Her parents had never been the kind of couple with nothing to say to one another; despite their rural life they had a keen interest in everything going on in the world about them, and when she herself had received her offer of promotion with the bank they had been the first to encourage her to take it up, even though it had meant her moving away from home.

She had missed them desperately at first, and sometimes she was ashamed to admit that even now she woke up in the morning, confused by the direction of the light coming into her room, wondering why she wasn't in her familiar bedroom at the farm.

She prepared for bed in the pretty, but thoroughly practical bathroom which her mother had had designed by local craftsmen, admiring the solid-lined oak cupboards, and the skilful way in which every inch of s.p.a.ce had been utilised.

Outside the window the security lights suddenly went on, and as she tensed she heard Carter calling to her father's dogs.

His voice floated up to her through the half- opened window.

"Come on, girls, let's go and check the greenhouses."

She found she was still holding her breath as she 6listened to his footsteps dying away across the yard.

Why had this had to happen to her? Why had fate seen it necessary to lure her into making such an idiot of herself? Why in fact had fate seen fit to thrust Carter back into their lives, to be the source of so much anxiety and irritation?

Sighing, she climbed into her parents' old fashioned high bed, with its feather bolster and pillows, welcoming the coolness of her mother's linen sheets with their faint scent of lavender.

Tomorrow she would deal with the problem of Carter. Tomorrow.

CHAPTER THREE.

distastefully Elspeth studied the clothes she had discarded the previous evening, reflecting that when she had decided against braving Carter in order to get her case, she had not looked far enough forward.

She had heard him calling to the dogs ten minutes or so ago. In fact, shamefully it had been that sound which had wakened her. Normally an early riser, she had been shocked to discover it had been well gone seven.

But now, with Carter out of the way, it might be a strategic time to nip downstairs and retrieve her case. Then she could get dressed and confront him with her ultimatum that he must find himself some accommodation elsewhere. She was quite sure that once she had pointed out to him the impropriety of their both sharing the same roof in her parents' absence, he would have no alternative but to agree with her.

The early morning sun had warmed the flagstones of the yard, and Elspeth's toes curled in sensuous appreciation of that warmth as she darted from the kitchen door to her car, quickly tugging on the driver's handle, only to discover that it wouldn't open. The wretched thing was locked, she realised frustratedly. But by whom? She knew she had not locked it--on the contrary. She gnawed worriedly at her bottom lip, knowing how Peter would have reacted to that piece of folly. He was extremely security-conscious, so much so that sometimes she almost found it irritating.

She was just mulling over this recognition when she heard the excited yelps of the dogs. Turning round, she fended off their affectionate welcome, bending down to pet them both.

Peter did not approve of pets, especially not dogs. especially hairy, over-enthusiastic and slightly undisciplined dogs. Perhaps once they had children she might be able to persuade him to change his mind. She would hate her children to grow up without knowing the pleasure of having a pet.

She was just about to stand up when she realised that the dogs hadn't come into the yard alone. Her breath hissed out of her lungs as she saw Carter standing in front of her, looking down at her with an expression she couldn't interpret.

This morning he was dressed in worn jeans, tucked into Wellingtons, and a faded denim shirt that seemed to have shrunk as well as faded from the way the b.u.t.tons strained across his chest.

Suddenly, for no reason at all, she was acutely self-conscious of the fact that her eyes were just about on the same level as his hips and that his jeans, while not exactly skin-tight, were certainly old and soft enough to make her aware that he was a man in a way that she was never aware of Peter's body.

Angry with herself for her almost too prsdictable feminine reaction to the sight of such a totally male and physically strong body, she attempted to stand up, forgetting that one of the dogs was standing on the hem of her borrowed nightdress.

As a result the neckline of the nightdress, while possibly perfectly demure on someone of her mother's proportions, dipped alarmingly under the pressure she was exerting on it, revealing, as she realised when she looked down to see why she couldn't move, a good deal more of her body than she had antic.i.p.ated.

It wasn't her fault that, while her legs, hips and waist were enviably slender, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were unexpectedly, and to her, embarra.s.singly voluptuous. So much so that she normally deliberately chose blouses and sweaters large enough to. merely hint discreetly at their curves;

her office suits had neatly tailored, pencil-slim skirts, but she always teamed them with long-line, generously cut jackets. This nightdress though was not designed for such a function, and as she stood there, trapped by Bess's paws and her own stupidity, trembling with chagrin, she felt the slow burn of hot colour seeping up over her skin.

To make matters even worse, as she bent down to free her hem, one frilly shoulder of the recalcitrant and devious garment slipped down her arm, so that she looked for all the world like some seventeenth-century milkmaid, flaunting her body for the delectation of her master. A small shudder of horror gripped her; that she who was always so modest, so coolly protective where her s.e.xuality was concerned, that she should be put in this kind of position. All she had wanted to do was to retrieve her suitcase.

She finally managed to eject Bess from her feet, and, while the dog gave her a pathetic, ingratiating look, she managed to stand up, clutching what was left of her dignity--along with the nightdress-firmly around her to demand bitterly, "Did you lock my car?"

"Yes. I should have thought you'd have done it yourself," came the reproving reply.

"After all, you live in London. You must be aware of the incidence of car thefts. Just because we don't live in a city, it doesn't mean we're safe from crime here."

Elspeth stared at him. At another time she would have been very quick indeed to reject his allegations, but right now she had more important things on her mind. Like her clothes.

"Well, if you wouldn't mind giving me my keys," she began acidly, but he ignored her, frowning slightly as he came towards her.

For a moment she actually thought he was going to touch her, and she shrank back against the car. She could smell the clean soap scent of his skin, her awareness of that scent an intimacy that made her mind recoil in shock at her body's weakness.

"I shouldn't stay out here too long," he told her warningly.

"The sun can be surprisingly strong;

you're very fair-skinned and, by the look of you, you're not used to exposure to strong sunlight. "

Briefly Elspeth was lost for words. What did he think she was? A child? She opened her mouth and told him freezingly, "Thank you for your advice, but it really isn't necessary. For one thing, it isn't yet eight o'clock in the morning and the sun's hardly strong enough to burn me at this hour, and for another, when I came out here it was simply to retrieve my case from my car. If it weren't for the fact that you had seen fit to lock the car and remove my keys, I shouldn't be standing out here now. So if you would kindly tell me where they are..."

She was conscious when she had finished speaking that her voice had risen several notes above its normal, even, calmly pitched tone, and that she was almost shaking with anger, while he--hateful, odious man--was simply standing staring at her with the sort of frown that made it plain that he thought she was overreacting.

"Your case--I brought that in for you last night. It's in the hall. I realised when I saw it in your car, when I was doing my last round to check on the greenhouses, that you'd most likely need it this morning."

A brief but telling look at her borrowed nightdress immediately made her uncomfortably aware of her nudity beneath it.

This was getting ridiculous, she told herself. She must stop over-reacting to the man in this totally inappropriate way. Just because, for half an hour or so yesterday, she had formed the totally incorrect impression that he had been trying to pursue her, that was no reason for her to be physically aware of him in a way that was so totally unfamiliar and so completely out of place that she felt burningly humiliated by it.

And that feeling was intensified by the realisation that, in her anxiety to retrieve her case from the car, she must have virtually walked past it in the hall without seeing it.

All her emotions, her humiliation, her anger, her feeling of helpless fury rolled into a hot, tight ball that lodged painfully in her chest, and for the first time in her adult life she experienced a sirong desire not only to vocally tell her tormentor what she thought of him, but also to either throw something or burst into tears.

The knowledge that Peter, had he known how she was feeling, would have reacted with both horror and distaste did nothing to ease her feelings.

Peter hated emotional displays of any kind.

Knowing that if she didn't put some distance between Carter and herself immediately she might well give in to the temptation to say or do something she knew she was bound to regret later, she turned on her heel and stalked furiously back to the house. Or at least she tried to stalk. It was rather difficult when wearing a borrowed nightgown that flapped round her bare feet, and with two dogs gambolling joyously at her ankles, and in the sudden and horrifying knowledge that, with the sun shining fully on her, the thin cotton of her mother's nightdress had more than likely become completely see-through, thus affording Carter ample opportunity to see the outline of her naked body.

When she got inside she discovered that she was trembling, her hands balled into two tight fists, tension a physical band gripping her forehead. Why, when she could deal with any amount of difficult situations at work, was she suddenly falling apart, and all because of one impossible, scheming man?

In the kitchen, Jasper the parrot caught sight of her, and cackled hideously, screeching in a leering voice, "Hold on to your knickers, girl!"

It was the last straw. Something seemed to snap inside her and, before she knew what she was doing, she was advancing on the parrot to say menacingly, "For your information, I'm not wearing any, and if you don't keep quiet I'll wring that scrawny neck of yours, and bake you in a pie, you... you chauvinist."

It was only when she heard stifled laughter behind her that she realised Carter had followed her in. As her head snapped round, two dark patches of colour staining her cheekbones, he turned his laughter into a hurried cough.

"Er--I wouldn't do that, you know. Your mother's very fond of Jasper."