Hot Blood

The town was going to sleep, and she was very conscious of being alone with a stranger. It was an experience she had not had since her own teens, which were so long ago that it gave her vertigo to remember that far back.

Joe fell into step with her without haste, his strides longer. ‘How about dinner tomorrow? I’ll book a table in advance so we won’t have a problem. Have you got a favourite restaurant? I haven’t had time to check them all out yet; you’ll have to advise me.’

‘I’m rather busy, I’m afraid. Sorry.’ Kit reached her little red Ford and stooped to unlock the door, not looking at him. ‘Goodnight,’ she said quickly, sliding into the driver’s seat and pulling the door shut.

He bent down and tapped on the window. She touched the button which made the glass slide down and looked warily at him.

‘What changed your mind?’ he asked, his face wry.

She decided to be as blunt in return. ‘I told you, I’m not free; I already have a man in my life.’

‘And it’s serious?’

‘Yes, it’s serious,’ she said, meeting his eyes levelly. ‘Goodnight.’

He had his hand on the glass and had to snatch it back as the window silently closed again. The engine started. Kit put her foot down and drove off, leaving him standing there, staring at her. Something in the way he watched her made the hair prickle on the back of her neck.

There was almost no other traffic about, so she was able to drive quite fast, yet as she drew up at the traffic lights at the end of the high street she saw a sleek black Porsche pull in behind her. Kit looked at it idly in her driving mirror, envying the style and potential speed, then stiffened as she recognised the driver. He raised a hand in greeting.

Kit waved back briefly, but her heartbeat had speeded up and she felt her nerves jumping as she drove on.

Oh, stop it! Of course he’s driving the same way; he’s going to the same block of flats, isn’t he? she told herself impatiently. What’s the matter with you? Does he look dangerous? She flicked another glance into the mirror to watch the Porsche following right on her tail.

Photography obviously paid well. His clothes looked expensive and his car certainly did. He must have earned a good deal if he could afford a Porsche! Was he famous? Should she have heard of him? She knew very little about anything outside her own chosen sphere of interest. Antiques were the only things she knew much about.

In her eagerness to get away from him, to get home, she was driving too fast. As she turned the next corner she almost hit another car coming out of a side road.

Tyres screeched, a horn blared, and Kit got a glimpse of a furious, alarmed face before the other car was lost from sight behind her. She slowed down after that and behind her the black Porsche slowed too.

She shot a look into her mirror and saw his reflection in it; the gleam of amused blue eyes, the cynical mouth. There was something about him—something disturbing; she had sensed it from the minute she’d set eyes on him but hadn’t been sure what it was she saw or felt.

She had thought she recognised him, and perhaps she had seen him before going in or out of the block of flats, or maybe it was just that faint resemblance to Clark Gable she had picked up on, but she suspected that she had also been reacting instinctively to the man himself. He had charm and he was attractive and he was certainly persistent—but there was a sense of threat from him too. He worried her, and she had enough emotional problems in her life already. She didn’t need another one.

The chief thing on her mind at the moment, though, was getting back home before he could beat her to it. She wasn’t going to relax until she was safely in her flat with the door locked.

The block of flats had an underground car park. Kit had always hated parking there at night, walking through the dimly lit vault of the basement to the lift to go up to her flat, and tonight was no exception. She was desperate to get there before the man driving behind her.

She shot down the steep slope, parked in her numbered space without worrying about doing it perfectly, jumped out, hearing the Porsche smoothly reversing into another space nearby, locked her car and ran for the lift as if she were training for the Olympics.

She was lucky. The lift doors opened as soon as she touched the button; she leapt inside and jabbed the button for her floor, silently praying that they would close before Joe Ingram could catch up with her.

The doors closed. Kit breathed a sigh of relief. The lift went up and stopped, the doors opened and she walked out, her keyring swinging from her finger, then she stopped dead in shock.

Joe Ingram was leaning on the wall, waiting for her. ‘What took you so long?’ his voice drawled, and he laughed at her stunned expression.

He must have run up the stairs but he wasn’t out of breath. It was Kit who was having to drag air into her lungs, her heart beating twice as fast as normal.

‘Look, can’t you get the message—?’ she began, but he interrupted.

‘I only wanted to say that if you ever changed your mind and wanted to see me again I’d give you my phone number,’ he drawled, looking amused, his blue eyes teasing, and she felt stupid. She had overreacted, so now she tried to sound calm and reasonable.

‘No, sorry; I won’t change my mind. Goodnight.’ ‘

At least take my card,’ he said, pushing a printed card into her hand.

She was tempted to drop it on the floor, but 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 furniture.

When Fred drove into the school car park the yard was already crowded with cars—mostly other dealers who had got there early.

Fred began moving the heavier items while Kit carried a box of lighter objects into the high-ceilinged old Victorian hall.

As she walked in she heard a deep voice and her heart turned over instantly. Liam!

Her green eyes searched for him among the crowds of people milling about. He was standing beside one stall, picking up a delicate French clock which, even at this distance, she registered as nineteenth century and exquisitely enamelled. His black head gleamed in the watery sunlight streaming down from arched windows set high in the panelled walls.

Kit looked at him with pain and yearning, walking towards him, waiting for him to see her. They had quarrelled a week ago and Liam was still furious. How would he look at her today?

For two years he had been her entire life, but Kit wasn’t sure how much she meant to him, and it was eating her up.

‘How about dinner tonight?’ she suddenly heard him ask and stopped in her tracks, staring at the woman behind the stall that he was visiting.

‘Dinner?’ the woman repeated, smiling a curling little smile.

Kit had never seen her before. Slender, elegant, with dark red hair styled in light, waving ringlets, she had a pre-Raphaelite look to her, and a cool, acquisitive face too, with a witchy, pointed chin and sharp, cat-like yellowing eyes.

‘There’s a very good French restaurant in the market square in Silverburn,’ Liam murmured.

‘Is there? I love French food. I haven’t discovered many of the local restaurants since I moved here. I’d love to have dinner tonight, Liam.’

Kit felt sick suddenly. She can’t be much above thirty, she thought. She’s young and beautiful, and Liam is staring at her as if she’s what he’s been looking for all his life. I know that mesmerised look—I saw it in Hugh’s face when he fell for his blonde.

When Hugh had walked out on her for a younger woman it hadn’t hurt like this, though. Nothing in her life had ever hurt like this.

CHAPTER TWO

LIAM turned and saw Kit a second later. His smile died instantly to be replaced by a frown. She wasn’t surprised—he had been scowling at her for days—but it still saddened her, angered her too—how dared he look at her like that? It wasn’t she who was behaving like a spoilt child, wanting to have everything its own way. But then wasn’t that just like a man?

She looked at him with love and anger, wanting to smack him hard. His well-brushed black hair showed only fine streaks of silver although he was fifty himself now; it wasn’t fair, thought Kit, wishing she didn’t feel that deep surge of emotion just looking at him. Why did men retain their looks long after women’s had begun to fade? Liam didn’t look fifty. He was still lean and vibrant—a tall man with powerful shoulders, long legs and a lot of energy.

Paddy whispered to her, ‘Oops! Someone’s in a bad temper again! Whatever is the matter with him these days?’

Kit didn’t tell her. She couldn’t possibly have confided in Paddy—in anyone. The quarrel between her and Liam was too private to be talked about. It would be humiliating for anyone else to know about it.

Liam said goodbye to the woman he had been talking to and came over to them, his pale grey eyes glittering with ice as he held up his wrist and pointed to his watch.

‘What time do you call this?’

Kit pondered the question, staring at his gold Cartier watch, which she knew had been a twenty-first birthday present to him from his father thirty years ago. It was still as beautiful as it must have been then, but Gerald Keble had been dead for twenty years. Was that part of the power of antiques—that they outlasted those who had created them or owned them? Or was it more that they somehow carried the patina of the times they had lived through, their surfaces polished by love over generations?

‘Are we late?’ she began, pretending not to be sure of it, and Liam’s face tightened. He wasn’t fooled by her wide-open eyes and surprised expression. He knew her too well.

‘You know damned well you are! You should have been here half an hour ago! Every other stall was set up and doing business by half eight. Why weren’t you here? I was; I was here by twenty past eight—where were you?’

She abandoned innocence in favour of defiance. ‘Fred’s van can only do forty miles an hour when it’s loaded down with stuff, you know that! It might break down altogether if he pushed it.’

Fred and Paddy became very busy, not wishing to get drawn into the battle. They didn’t enjoy confrontation or argument; they liked life to be peaceful, and Kit sympathised—she would rather have had a peaceful life too, but Liam was making that impossible for both of them.

‘You should have left earlier!’ he accused.

‘We left early enough—but there was a lot of traffic on the road!’

‘You should have made allowances for that.’

It was never easy to argue with Liam; he had an answer for everything. She looked at him furiously, her green eyes glittering. ‘This is just wasting time! I’ve got better things to do than stand here bickering with you!’

As she turned away Liam tersely demanded, ‘Where were you all last night?’

She froze, staring up at him. ‘What?’

‘Don’t give me that innocent look! I know you weren’t home. I wanted to remind you to get here by half past eight. I kept ringing from six-thirty onwards but just got your answering machine. I left a couple of messages asking you to ring me back, but you never did.’

Fred and Paddy had discreetly deposited their loads on the empty stall and melted away back to the van to get some more of the items they had brought, hoping no doubt that by the time they got back here she and Liam would have stopped snarling at each other. Some hope!

Turning her back on him, Kit began to unpack some of the wrapped pieces in one of the boxes, setting them out carefully on the stall. She felt Liam glaring at her as she unwrapped a piece of art nouveau glass—a twisty candlestick in rainbow colours which had been allowed to run like melting wax.

Casually without looking at him, she said over her shoulder, ‘I went to the cinema club to see Garbo in Camille last night.’

‘Was it a midnight performance?’ he bit out.

‘Midnight performance?’ she repeated, baffled. ‘Of course not!’ She couldn’t actually remember what time she had got back to her flat, but it hadn’t been that late, surely?

She went on unwrapping porcelain, talking without looking at him. ‘I was back home by midnight! I didn’t check my answering machine; I forgot it was on so I didn’t think of switching it off, and this morning I was in such a rush, grabbing some coffee and toast, that I still didn’t remember to check to see if there were any messages. I went straight to bed as soon as I got home last night.’

‘Did you go alone?’ he asked, his tone as cutting as a knife going through silk.

Kit gave him an incredulous, angry stare. ‘To bed?’ She couldn’t believe he had asked her that. Hot colour rushed up her face—the scarlet of rage rather than embarrassment.

‘No, to the cinema!’ he bit out like someone snapping cotton between their teeth.

‘Yes to both, as it happens!’ she snapped back. What was he suggesting—that she had gone out with someone else last night? Was having an affair? He was reacting with possessive jealousy, yet he kept saying that he didn’t want to own her or have her own him. Why didn’t he make up his mind? He was the most contradictory, bewildering man she had ever known.

‘Really?’ His mouth twisted cynically, disbelievingly.

She hated the way he was looking at her. ‘Believe it or not, just as you like! It doesn’t bother me,’ she muttered. ‘Look, are you going to stand there and watch me working? Would it be too much to ask you to help?’

His face tight, he took a set of six French silver dessert spoons out of the box and put them down on the stall in a prominent place, his long fingers automatically caressing even in his temper. Liam loved beautiful things; he and Kit had that in common, which was why their partnership had worked so well until now.

He had inherited the auction rooms from his father, Gerald Keble. He had worked for the firm ever since he’d left university with an art degree two years after Kit had graduated. Kit had been engaged to Hugh by then and hadn’t quite made up her mind what she was going to do for a career. She had worked in her father’s shop until she’d got married and had her son, and even while she was running a home and taking care of Paul she had still managed to work part-time for her father during his lifetime.

It wasn’t until later that she’d begun working with Liam, but she had always known him through the auction rooms which she and her father had frequently visited to buy objects for their shop. His family—on both sides—had lived in Silverburn for centuries; their names, many covered in moss and fading, were carved on rows of graves in the old churchyard behind St Mary’s, the medieval church which stood on the top of the winding high street, as were those of Kit’s ancestors.

Neither of them came from rich or powerful stock. They were descended from shopkeepers and market traders, farm labourers and wagoners—the ordinary working people of this little English town over many generations.

‘I saw Mrs Walton, the vicar’s wife, just now,’ Liam murmured as he set out a Waterford crystal rose bowl on the stall. ‘She told me she saw you last night coming out of the cinema with what she described as a very attractive man, much younger than you!’

Kit swallowed, going a furious shade of fuchsia. She should have known that someone was bound to notice her with Joe. This was a small town-anyone who had lived here for years knew almost everyone else; nothing you did was ever missed and people were always curious, and always talked about anything they saw or heard. You couldn’t hope to keep a secret here.

That was, paradoxically, one of the things she loved about the place for all that it made her cross too; there was no chance of being forgotten or ignored here, of leading a lonely existence. You were part of the community whether you liked it or not and your entire life was an open book. That might have had a down side but it also made you feel good; you knew you belonged.

‘I may have come out with him—I didn’t go in there with him!’ she said irritably, and then her heart suddenly began to beat like an overwound clock.