Hot Blood. CHARLOTTE LAMB

if she did he would probably only give her another one. Irritably she pushed the card into her coat pocket.

      ‘Is this a recent affair?’ he asked, his body casually at ease as he leaned on the wall. ‘I mean, how long have you known this guy?’

      Very flushed and angry, she bit out, ‘Honestly, you take the biscuit! I’m not telling you all about my private life!’

      ‘I’m just trying to work it out. You aren’t living with him yet you say it’s serious, and tonight you were on your own—why wasn’t he with you? Does that mean it’s serious for you but not for him?’

      She felt a stab of pain because he had hit on the truth and it hurt. ‘Mind your own business!’ She wasn’t answering his questions, however close he came to guessing the truth. She had no intention of telling him anything more about herself; he already knew too much and she didn’t like the way he had chased her up here.

      ‘Don’t get cross, Kit,’ he said reproachfully.

      ‘I’m tired. Goodnight,’ she said, sidestepping him, not sure what she would do if he wouldn’t let her walk away. Her nerves jangled as she took her first step.

      But he didn’t stop her; he just turned and watched her go, then said softly, ‘Do I need references?’

      She ignored him. As she reached her door and put her key into the lock he said, ‘Goodnight, then, Kit. See you again soon!’ And then she heard the door to the stairs banging behind him, the sound of his feet running up the stairs.

      Although Kit was tired and went straight to her bedroom, washed and was in bed in about ten minutes, she didn’t get to sleep for another half an hour.

      She kept thinking about him, going over everything he had said to her, remembering every look on his face, every glance from those vivid blue eyes.

      She had never met a man who had made such a deep impression at first sight and she hoped she would be able to put him out of her mind; she certainly meant to forget him as fast as she could. He wasn’t even her type.

      She didn’t like men who played games in the way she sensed he did. How many other women had he chased the way he’d just chased her? What was his success rate?

      It worried her that she had immediately been attracted to him without knowing a thing about him. It wasn’t like her; it was completely out of character. She had told him that she was the cautious type and it was true. Kit had always preferred to look before she leapt, even when she’d been young.

      She and Hugh had known each other for years before they’d got married. She couldn’t blame the failure of their marriage on too much haste in the beginning. They had been teenagers when they’d met, and had taken six years to get to the altar. They had both been so very sensible. No doubt that was why, at the age of forty-five, Hugh had suddenly lost his head over a girl half his age and run off with her one night without warning.

      For the first time in his entire life Hugh had acted on impulse, had let emotion rule him, and once Kit had got over the shock she had come to feel a certain sympathy for him. Their divorce had been entirely amicable and they had stayed friends—at a distance.

      Hugh and his bride, Tina, had gone off to live in Germany, near Tina’s family. He now worked for a museum in Bonn, heading its ceramics department. He was brilliant at his job; he had a strong international reputation and could identify an object almost at a glance.

      Hugh liked living in Germany, and he got on well with his colleagues. Cool-headed, logical, sensible in everything except the way he felt about his new wife, Tina, and their little blonde twin girls, aged two now, he was happier now than he had ever been in his life before.

      Kit had met them all last summer when they’d visited England to see her son, Paul, and his family. She had been struck by how happy Hugh had looked and had been glad—she felt no bitterness towards him.

      If she had really loved him she would have done, presumably—but had she? she wondered, yawning, and couldn’t be sure. She barely remembered the way she had felt in her teens. A very different emotion had blotted out everything that went before it, had made all other love pale into insignificance. Now she really understood her ex-husband in a way she hadn’t done before. When real love hit you everything else vanished.

      But she wouldn’t think about that. She had to get some sleep. She had a busy day ahead tomorrow.

      She thought about work instead, and slowly fell asleep.

      Next day she was up very early. She showered, dressed in an elegant, pale coffee-coloured silk dress, blow-dried her hair into its usual style, had coffee, orange juice and a slice of toast, and at eight o’clock was waiting for Paddy and Fred to pick her up in their van, which was crammed so full of antiques that she had to sit squeezed into the front with them.

      ‘Sorry there isn’t much room,’ Fred apologised, so close that she was almost on his lap as he drove. ‘I brought everything I thought we might sell.’

      ‘And then some,’ said Paddy, grinning.

      ‘Well, you never know!’ Fred defiantly told her. He was a gentle giant of a man; over six feet, curly-haired, with broad shoulders and huge hands that were astonishly deft and sensitive.

      By contrast Paddy was even smaller than Kit, barely five feet tall, tiny and fragile-looking, yet she had a muscular strength that belied her size, and could carry heavy furniture or packing cases for miles if required.

      They weren’t married but they were planning a wedding in just six weeks and meanwhile were getting a home together in an old terraced cottage down near the river. Kit had often had supper there with them, helping out with their work on the cottage before they ate a meal together—usually a casserole slow-cooked in the oven by Paddy for hours.

      They had hardly any furniture yet. They were both keen on do-it-yourself—Paddy was a marvel with a sewing machine and had made all the curtains and chair covers; Fred had done some of the plumbing, and was putting in a fitted kitchen and building a wall-to-wall wardrobe in the bedroom.

      They worked on their future home at weekends, and of course their furniture was all antique—not necessarily very valuable, but always well made and handsome to look at. Paddy could pick up objects for a song and refurbish them—mending chair legs, replacing torn materials, French-polishing surfaces that had been scarred or rubbed away.

      Kit’s partner, Liam Keble, was proposing to give them a Victorian bedroom set that he had noticed them coveting in the shop—tallboy, bed and dressing-table, all mahogany, in very good condition. Paddy and Fred had been over the moon when he’d told them it would be their wedding present.

      Paddy had hugged Liam. Fred had kissed Kit, hugging her so enthusiastically that he had almost crushed her ribs.

      ‘I suppose Liam’s meeting us at the market?’ asked Paddy, breaking in on Kit’s thoughts.

      She nodded. ‘I imagine so; he didn’t say he wouldn’t be there.’

      He wasn’t saying anything to her at all but she didn’t tell Paddy that, although the other woman had undoubtedly noticed the atmosphere between the two partners.

      Liam lived in an elegant Georgian house on the edge of town, a few minutes from the little village where today’s market was being held in an old school. The early Victorian building was sited beautifully, looking down over the village of Great Weatherby, and framed by trees and fields.

      As they drove towards it Kit thought how wonderful it must have been for small children to start learning in such surroundings, where their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had all gone before them. No wonder local people had been up in arms over the loss of their school, but there had only been sixty-odd pupils, and however violently parents had protested they had been defeated by economics.

      Now the children all went by bus to the next village, some three miles away, and the old village school was to be sold. In the meantime it was being used for a monthly market in antiques and secondhand