Duelling Fire. Anne Mather

Jude’s harsh mouth softened into irony. ‘Okay, Harriet, I’ll leave you to—instruct our guest in her—duties.’ He paused. ‘You might be interested to know, however, that she met the heir this afternoon.’

      Sara blinked. What did he mean? She met the air? It didn’t make sense. But Harriet was looking up at him now with scarcely concealed agitation.

      ‘What do you mean?’ she exclaimed. ‘Jude, what have you done? How could she—how could Sara have met anyone between here and the station?’

      Jude rocked back on his booted heels. ‘Hadley almost straddled the bonnet of the car,’ he remarked indifferently, and Sara realised he was referring to the accident they had almost had. ‘Crazy young idiot! He could have killed us all.’

      ‘Might I remind you, that “crazy young idiot” is only eight months younger than you, Jude,’ Harriet retorted. Then she turned back to Sara. ‘What did you think of Rupert, my dear? A handsome young man, isn’t he?’

      ‘He seemed very nice,’ Sara conceded, a little awkwardly, and Harriet nodded her agreement.

      ‘He is. He’s a little wild, of course, a little reckless, perhaps. But charming, nonetheless.’

      ‘Not to mention the fact that he’s heir to his father’s fortune,’ inserted Jude drily, and Sara suddenly realised what his earlier statement had meant. Not air, but heir. She had met the heir that afternoon.

      Harriet ignored Jude’s mocking comment, and offered Sara more tea. ‘I—er—I’ve known Rupert’s father for a number of years,’ she said. ‘Lord Hadley, you know. This house was once part of the Hadley estate. You may have noticed Linden Court on your way here.’

      Sara glanced awkwardly up at Jude, then she nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I did,’ she confirmed. ‘It looks a beautiful building.’

      ‘It is.’ Harriet’s mouth curved, whether reminiscently or not Sara couldn’t quite judge, but for a few moments she was silent, thinking. ‘I’ve always loved it. Ever since my father bought Knight’s Ferry.’

      ‘More than three decades ago,’ inserted Jude flatly, bringing Harriet’s eyes back to him. ‘You’ll excuse me, I’m sure, if I go and check on Midnight. Unlike the rest of us, she can’t call for help.’

      When the door had closed behind him Sara expected her aunt to make some explanation for his conduct, but she didn’t. Apart from offering the information that Midnight was a mare who was presently in foal, Harriet said no more about him, returning instead to Sara’s reasons for coming to stay with her.

      ‘I think we should show you your room first,’ she declared getting to her feet, and Sara copied her. ‘After all, we want you to be happy here, and you can’t possibly decide that you want to stay, before you’ve even looked over the house.’

      ‘I’m sure it will be perfect,’ protested Sara, picking up her jacket and her handbag as she followed her aunt out of the room. ‘Honestly, Aunt Harriet, I’m so grateful to you for inviting me. Where I sleep is of little importance.’

      ‘Oh, you’re wrong.’ Harriet turned to smile at her as they began to mount the carpeted stairs. ‘And my dear, would you think me horribly conceited if I asked you not to call me Aunt Harriet? I mean,’ she hastened on rather apologetically, ‘when you were a little girl—well, it was a token of respect. But now we’re both grown-ups, your calling me aunt does seem rather silly, don’t you think?

      Sara lifted her shoulders. ‘Whatever you say.’

      ‘You don’t mind?’ Harriet was endearingly anxious, and Sara shook her head.

      ‘Of course not. Why should I mind? After all, it isn’t as if you are my aunt really.’

      ‘That’s what I thought.’ Harriet looked pleased. ‘So, it’s just plain old Harriet from now on, hmm?’

      ‘Harriet,’ Sara agreed, realising that no one else would describe her father’s cousin as either plain or old.

      The staircase curved in a graceful arc to the gallery above. A railed balustrade overlooked the hall below, and wall sconces illuminated several white panelled doors and two corridors leading in opposite directions, to the separate wings of the house.

      ‘This is my room,’ Harriet declared, indicating a door near the head of the stairs. ‘I’ve put you in the rose room, which is along here. It’s quite a pretty apartment, so I hope you like it.’

      They walked along the corridor which lay to the left of the gallery. It was a wide corridor with a number of doors opening from it, and a long window at the end which allowed shafts of evening sunlight to stripe the dark red carpet. Harriet stopped at one of the doors and thrust it open, then preceded Sara into the room, switching on the lamps.

      Sara’s first impression was of a comfortable sitting room, set with a desk and armchairs, and even a table for taking meals, if she chose. But as her eyes surveyed the room she saw that the living area was only half the apartment. A wide archway and two shallow steps gave access to the sleeping compartment, where a square four-poster bed was daintily hung with chiffon drapes. Everything—the carpet, the silk curtains at the windows, the drapes above the bed, even the patterned quilt itself—was tinted a delicate shade of pink, and Sara had no need to wonder why this was called the rose room.

      ‘The bathroom’s through here, of course,’ declared Harriet, mounting the two steps and indicating a door at the far side of the bedroom. ‘Well, what do you think? Do you like it?’

      ‘Who wouldn’t?’ Sara was bemused. It was so vastly different from the austere little room she had expected. ‘You really oughtn’t to have gone to so much trouble.’

      ‘Trouble? Trouble? It was no trouble, my dear.’ Harriet came down the steps again, and with a surge of sudden gratitude Sara hugged her. ‘Really,’ she averred, with what the girl felt was genuine sincerity. ‘It’s the least I could do for dear Charles’s orphaned daughter.’

      Sara sighed. ‘But you hardly saw us,’ she exclaimed, guiltily aware of their neglect. ‘Harriet, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to repay you.’

      ‘Oh, we’ll find a way,’ declared Harriet, squeezing her shoulder warmly. ‘And now I must go and check that everything’s organised for dinner, or your opinion of our hospitality will suffer a distinct setback.’

      Left to herself, Sara wandered about the apartment. Her suitcases, she saw, had been deposited on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, and her step faltered a moment as she thought of the man who had brought her here. The relationship he had with Harriet was certainly a strange one, and she pushed aside the unwilling suspicion that it was more than that of employer and employee. After all, Jude had worked for her aunt for ten years. He had said so. And the familiarity of their association could well be the result. But what did he do? What was his designation? And why should it matter to her, when she was unlikely to have anything to do with him?

      There was a ready supply of writing paper and envelopes in the desk, and Sara decided she would write to Laura this evening. The older girl had been much concerned about her decision to accept Harriet’s invitation, and it would be a relief to her to know that everything had turned out so well. Indeed, Sara doubted she would believe that such a fairy godmother still existed, and she was looking forward to describing the house to her, and this room which was so delightful.

      There was plenty of hanging space in the long fitted closets, and realising she was probably expected to change for dinner, too, Sara hastily rescued her keys and unlocked her suitcases. The drawers of the dressing table and a squat little chest took all her underclothes and nightwear, and there were lots of hangers to take her suits and dresses.

      One of the suitcases and the holdall contained her personal possessions. These were treasured mementoes and photographs, newspaper cuttings of her father’s, the silver-backed brushes he had bought her on her eighteenth birthday, and the books she had collected over