Fight For Love. Penny Jordan

      Did that apply to her, too? If so, she ought to be relieved. She was so tired that she could have stretched out on the hard packed earth and dropped straight off to sleep!

      ‘I suppose he’s going down to the cow barns. Come on, let’s get inside.’

      It was Cherry who took charge, pushing open the heavy door and calling out, ‘Dolores, we’re home!’

      The Mexican woman who came in answer to her summons was smiling broadly. She hugged both girls and then turned to look at Natasha, her smile fading abruptly, as she said coolly, ‘You’ll be wanting to go to your room, Miss Ames. I’ll have one of the girls bring you a tray up … Jay said to tell you that breakfast will be at eight, and the lawyer will be here at nine. Tomas will see to your bags. If you’ll just come with me.’

      What had she done to provoke this degree of antipathy from Tip’s staff? Too proud to show how hurt she was by the woman’s attitude, she trailed tiredly behind her as she mounted the elegant double-banistered stairs.

      ‘Jay said to put you in the guest suite—for the time being …’

      Why was it that those last few words should have such an ominous ring to them? Natasha wondered, as Dolores paused and pushed open one of the many doors leading off the galleried landing.

      In London, she had looked forward with hope and anticipation to being asked to stay on for a brief time, but now … Now she was half wishing she had never come, she admitted, as she stepped past Dolores and into her room.

      She was left alone to explore it. It was certainly very elegant: not just a bedroom, but a bedroom, a sitting-room and her own private bathroom.

      It was decorated in a style that Natasha found slightly pretentious, and not suited to the beautiful simplicity of the Spanish-style house. The furniture was too modern, the pale Nile-green leather settee not in keeping with the building. Her bed was swathed in flimsy printed silk covers, where she would have instinctively chosen a heavily carved Spanish bed and covered it with one of the beautiful heritage quilts she had seen in a display of American goods in Harrods, or perhaps even an Indian or Mexican woven spread. Certainly, she would never have chosen the bedroom’s delicate pseudo-French gilt and white trappings.

      At home in Cheshire, the farmhouse had been furnished with sturdy heirlooms collected over the generations, each one suited to its purpose and its background. Here she found her surroundings jarred on her, so out of step was the décor with the exterior and the ambience of the house.

      Who had been responsible for choosing them? Not a man—they were too flimsy, too delicate for that. They spoke of a woman who loved luxury; a woman who despised the sturdy building that was her home …

      She was getting fanciful again, Natasha told herself. For all she knew, Tip might have commissioned interior designers to decorate and furnish this suite.

      She was in the bathroom freshening up when she heard her door open. When she returned to her sitting-room she discovered a pot of fragrant coffee and a generous plate of sandwiches waiting for her, along with her luggage.

      She poured some of the coffee and ate a couple of sandwiches, stifling her yawns, as she started to make an attempt to unpack. She had to give it up half-way through, overcome by intense exhaustion. A shower and then bed, she decided sleepily. That was what she needed now …