A Time To Dream. Penny Jordan

she needed right now was the kind of highly charged sexual affair she was pretty sure was all he had to offer her.

      The most sensible thing she could do was to forget she had ever met him and concentrate on all the work that lay in front of her, beginning right now by returning to those gardening books.

      Louise had expressed doubt when Melanie had told her that she intended to tackle the wilderness that was the garden by herself, demurring that she felt that Melanie ought to ask around to see if there wasn’t someone in the village who could give her some help

      ‘The lawn will have to be scythed,’ she had warned Melanie, ‘and that’s no job for an amateur. And if you do intend to try and grow some salad stuff and soft fruits you’ll need someone to dig over the vegetable beds for you.’

      ‘I’m not sure if I can afford to employ someone to do that.’ Melanie had hesitated, not wanting to explain to Louise her reluctance to touch a penny of the capital she had inherited, wanting to donate it in its entirety to some deserving charity, which was why she had insisted on paying for her small car out of her own savings.

      She wasn’t too worried about finding a new job once the summer was over. Without being vain, she knew she was a good secretary with excellent qualifications, and if the worst came to the worst she could always do some temping for a few months until the right job turned up.

      In the meantime…in the meantime…She took a deep breath. In the meantime she had better get down to reading her way through that very large pile of books.

      MELANIE DIDN’T go to bed until very late, determined to exorcise the memory of Luke Chalmers by forcing herself to concentrate on her reading. Eventually it had worked, after a fashion, although unfortunately it hadn’t been the chapters on vegetable growing which had caught her attention, but those on the flower borders traditional to cottage gardens, and she hadn’t been able to stop herself from daydreaming about how her own garden might look, transformed into such a vision of delight, its lawns smooth and green, its borders filled with silky-petalled poppies, the tall spires of dark blue delphiniums, the sturdiness of lupins and monkshood and the delicacy of the old-fashioned single-coloured ‘granny’s bonnets’ growing against a background of climbing roses and everlasting sweet peas. There would be a lavender hedge edging the path down to the front gate, mingling their scent with the rich clove-like perfume of the pinks that grew between them.

      Dizzy with the headiness of her thoughts and plans, she went upstairs, and yet ironically, instead of dreaming of the perfection of the garden she wanted to create, she dreamed instead of Luke Chalmers.

      SHE WOKE UP LATE, heavy-eyed with an aching head and a dull sense of bewilderment and confusion. Her dreams had disturbed her, leaving her feeling edgy and insecure.

      Her bout of flu had robbed her of her appetite, making her lose weight so that Louise had clucked her tongue and warned her that she needed to eat more.

      Melanie knew it was true, but she had no appetite for the toast she had made for herself, pushing the plate away with the bread barely touched. She was just sipping her coffee when the phone rang.

      Her heart jolted to a standstill and then started to race so much that she was actually trembling as she went to answer it.

      Why on earth she should think it might be Luke Chalmers she had no idea, but when she recognised that the male voice on the other end of the line belonged to a stranger, it wasn’t relief she felt, but something paralysingly close to disappointment.

      ‘Miss Foden?’ the caller enquired a second time, causing her to swallow hard and reply in the affirmative. ‘You don’t know me. My name is Hewitson, David Hewitson. Shortly before his death, John Burrows and I were having discussions about the sale of the cottage and the land to me. John had, in actual fact, accepted my offer, sensibly realising that he had reached an age at which it was no longer wise for him to live in such isolation. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his death, the sale would have gone through.’

      Listening to him, Melanie frowned. For some reason, despite his calm, almost gentle voice, she felt as though David Hewitson was almost issuing a subtle threat against her; perhaps even suggesting that by rights he ought to be the owner of the cottage. Her frown deepened. The solicitors had said nothing to her about any such sale, which surely they would have done had it been so advanced that the actual paying over of the money was virtually only a final formality.

      What they had said was that there had been several offers of purchase, which might or might not have been motivated by the fact that a proposed new motorway, if approved, could add dramatically to the cottage’s land value.

      ‘What I should like to do,’ David Hewitson was continuing smoothly, ‘is to call round to see you. I’m sure a girl such as yourself would much rather have a few hundred thousand in the bank than a decaying old cottage.’

      It was said carelessly, arrogantly, contemptuously almost, so that Melanie felt an atavistic reaction to his suggestion so sharp and intense that it was almost as though she already knew and disliked the man. And yet she had never met him; knew nothing whatsoever about him, and for all she knew her benefactor might genuinely have come to some kind of gentleman’s agreement with him concerning the sale of the cottage prior to his death. In which case, surely she ought to honour it?

      ‘Yes, with that kind of capital behind you, a girl as clever as you could go a long way.’ There was a brief soft laugh. ‘After all, a girl clever enough to get an old skinflint like Burrows to leave her every penny he possessed must surely be wasting her talents in an out of the way village like Charnford.’

      Melanie froze, unable to believe what she was hearing, what he was implying. Her body went cold and then hot as her skin crawled with revulsion and disgust. Her hand started to shake as she wondered sickly how many other people had jumped to that same horrible conclusion.

      Summoning up every ounce of self-control she could, she said shakily, ‘I don’t think there’s any point whatsoever in your calling, Mr Hewitson. You see, I have no intention of selling either the cottage or the land.’

      ‘But Burrows and I had an agreement—’

      ‘Which, being merely verbal, is not legally binding,’ Melanie told him with what she hoped was conviction. Not for the world was she going to lower herself to deny the horrible untrue allegations he had made about her relationship with John Burrows, who had been only a few days short of his eightieth birthday when he died. Instead she said quietly, ‘Goodbye, Mr Hewitson.’

      She was just on the point of replacing the receiver when the mask of cordiality was stripped from his voice to reveal its true acid venom as he told her savagely, ‘You think you’re being very clever, don’t you, trying to push up the price? Well, let me tell you, you’re playing a very dangerous game, little lady. A very dangerous game.’

      She slammed down the receiver again without speaking to him again. She was shaking all over, as much with revulsion as anything else. His threat had barely sunk into her awareness. She was far too sickened by his earlier imputation about the reason why she had inherited John Burrows’s estate to be aware of anything else.

      It was well over an hour before she felt calm enough to pick up the receiver and dial the number of the solicitors.

      When she got through to the partner who had dealt with John Burrows’s affairs, she asked him without ceremony, almost brusquely, if he knew anything about an agreement John Burrows might have made to sell the cottage to David Hewitson.

      When the solicitor confirmed that he had no knowledge of any such agreement, she discovered that she had actually been holding her breath. Had his reply been the opposite, she would have felt that she had no alternative but to allow the sale to go through, since it would have been what her benefactor had intended.

      ‘Why do you ask?’ the solicitor enquired.

      Briefly she told him, leaving out David Hewitson’s imputations about her relationship with John Burrows.

      ‘Mm. David Hewitson is a very well-known local builder with a somewhat unsavoury reputation for the