The Courting Campaign

Hester listened in awe. It all sounded a long way from the laid-back lifestyle of Chastlecombe.

‘On one of my trips to the Washington office I took Alicia with me and introduced her to an American colleague, Jay Benedict the Third.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘Big mistake. Jay earned more than I did, and his daddy’s rich, too. Jay’s also an ex-college quarterback, half a head taller than me—all shoulders and flashing white smile. And a brilliant lawyer, the swine.’

Hester let out an involuntary giggle.

Patrick grinned. ‘I gave them my blessing through clenched teeth, flew back to London and proceeded to expand the office and make an even bigger packet for myself. Then one day I took a good look at myself and didn’t much like what I saw. After some soulsearching I resigned and became a defence lawyer with a firm where I did as much legal aid work as the more remunerative stuff. I trust,’ he added, ‘that you are now full of respect for my U-turn?’

‘Deeply impressed,’ agreed Hester. ‘So why did you retire?’

‘I’m coming to that. Let’s have some coffee?’

When they were settled in the study, Patrick went on. ‘So now, dear reader, we come to the really interesting bit. After Alicia’s desertion I worked twice as hard, but the playing no longer appealed. So in the long winter evenings I began to write a book—a novel about a hot-shot, materialistic lawyer and the various cases, lost and won, that bring him, with help from the woman he loves, to a final, shattering epiphany. The realisation that there’s more to life than possessions. Corny, I know. But it worked. It comes out here next month, and it’s already been auctioned off in the States. And there’s a pretty good chance of film rights.’

‘In that case,’ said Hester, with a smile, ‘you should soon be able to run to some furniture for this place.’

‘From Conway’s, of course?’ he said swiftly.

Hester coloured to the roots of her hair, angry because she felt so hurt. She looked at her watch and got up. ‘It’s late. I must go.’

Patrick jumped to his feet and caught her hands. ‘I was joking, Hester. Please stay.’

She shook her head, feeling suddenly tired. ‘I won’t, thank you. I’m entertaining a guest for Sunday lunch tomorrow. I’ll need an early start.’

Ignoring her attempts to withdraw them, Patrick kept hold of her hands. ‘Hester,’ he said urgently. ‘I never thought for a moment that you were drumming up trade. Damn,’ he added bitterly, ‘I’m not usually so maladroit.’

She stared down at their clasped hands, unwilling to indulge in a struggle she was unlikely to win. ‘Thank you for the meal,’ she said at last, and the grasp on her hands relaxed.

‘Any thanks involved are due to you, not me,’ he said quietly. ‘It was very good of you to drive out here with the desk.’

Hester looked up, meeting his frowning green gaze very directly. ‘I often make deliveries. Even on Saturday evenings. It’s all part of the Conway service. Now, I really must go.

Outside, the wild, tangled garden was bleached free of colour in a twilight scented with warm earth and new-mown grass.

Patrick breathed in deeply. ‘I would like to be your friend, Hester.’ His voice was crisp and incisive, almost startling in the stillness. ‘It seems a shame to let one ill-considered flippancy prevent that. Unless the idea of friendship with me is anathema to you, of course.’

It wasn’t in the slightest. And taking umbrage with a potential customer was a touch immature for a thirty-something widowed lady, thought Hester, recovering her sense of humour. She smiled at Patrick with sudden, deliberate warmth.

‘It’s not. I’m sorry. I was touchy.’ And, to prove she had recovered, her smile deepened. ‘But I’m not proud. Joking or not, if you do need any furniture you know where to come.’

‘I may take you up on that.’ His smile was just visible as a show of white in his sun-bronzed face. ‘Can’t I persuade you to tour the house again, give me advice about what I need?’

‘Could we leave that for another day—?’ She stopped, flushing.

‘Certainly—when?’ asked Patrick promptly. ‘Not tomorrow, I know. Is your lunch guest male or female?’

‘Male,’ said Hester, oddly flattered. ‘A regular arrangement. We alternate. Sometimes I cook lunch for him, sometimes he takes me out.’

‘Would he object if I did this?’ He bent suddenly and kissed her surprised mouth. ‘Which means I’ve really scuppered myself now,’ he said, stepping back. ‘So I may as well go the whole hog and admit that last night I was furious with myself for feeling attracted to another man’s wife—one who was playing around with Galbraith all night, to add to my joys.’

‘Oh, I see,’ she said in sudden comprehension. ‘That’s why you were eyeing me with such disapproval.’

‘I’m surprised you noticed. You kept your distance.’

‘I thought the pregnant lady with you was your wife. And I’d been on the bench when her sons were in court. Of course I kept away from you—both of you!’

‘Is Galbraith a close friend?’ he asked bluntly.

‘I wonder what you mean by close?’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Tim’s just a friend. Like all my menfriends, he keeps to the rules.’

‘Whose rules?’

‘Mine.’

‘Tell me what they are and I’ll keep to the letter of your law, I promise. Though I admit to a dislike of the sound of “all”. Are there that many?’

‘Three, if you’re counting. One’s a widower, another’s recovering from a divorce and Tim harbours a much-publicised allergy to marriage.’

Patrick moved closer to peer down into her face. ‘If I want to be your friend do you expect me to be one of this crowd of yours?’

‘I don’t expect anything of you,’ she retorted. ‘Until yesterday I didn’t know you existed.’

He laughed suddenly. ‘How true. All right, let’s start again. If I stick to your rules like glue will you let me take you out to a proper dinner one night next week?’

She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yes, thank you. I will.’

‘Then come back in and let me make you some more coffee. You can’t go home yet. It’s early.’

When she eyed him doubtfully Patrick grinned and held up his right hand. ‘I swear to behave like a monk, so come back inside. Please.’

It was late before Hester left to drive home, mainly because Patrick had kept his word and made no more attempts to touch her—while at the same time, in some unspoken way, managing to make it quite clear he would have liked to. It was flattering, and added zest and an underlying element of spice to their conversation. Patrick’s kiss had been sudden but not threatening, and while she’d felt no response to it she had a feeling that, if he’d persisted, she might have.

He was a very attractive man. Not handsome in a movie-star way, but his colouring, clever face and clipped, assured voice combined to form a very potent form of charm. Alone among the men she’d known since Richard, he touched a chord inside her. A matter of wavelength rather than physical chemistry. Even on such short acquaintance she felt very much in tune with him. And knew, without being told, that he felt the same towards her.

While they despatched a new pot of coffee Patrick talked about his London flat, loaned, for the time being, to house-hunting friends.

‘I had thought of transferring some of the furniture down here until I have time to decide what this house would like, but in the circumstances I had to leave everything there for my temporary tenants and content myself with the bare rudiments in my bucolic retreat,’ he said, looking relaxed and, to Hester, physically elegant in a way peculiarly his own—as if every part of him was put together with such precision he could move in any way he chose and never look awkward or ungraceful.

Very different from Richard.

‘Do you intend to keep your London flat?’ she asked.

‘Definitely. I’ve never lived in the country before. I might find it hard to settle down here.’

‘While I’m a real country cousin,’ said Hester lightly.

‘And happy to stay that way?’

‘Yes. I lead a busy, pleasant life here.’ She looked towards the desk. ‘Are you writing another novel?’

‘I certainly am, which is why I need a desk so badly. I keep losing the various books of reference I’m using for research.’ Patrick smiled at her. ‘I enjoy writing, but I’m not the world’s most efficient researcher. I get too absorbed in the text and forget to make notes.’

‘Is this another legal story?’

He nodded. ‘But a period one this time. Turn of the century. A cause célèbre-type case with a beautiful woman accused of murder, and the defending counsel who gets her off.’

‘Sounds fascinating.’ Hester got up. ‘If you can’t get up to London for research material the Chastlecombe public library is very well equipped—or they’ll find books for you if they aren’t in stock.’

‘Good idea—I’ll join next time I’m in the town.’ He walked outside with her into the still, starry darkness, which in this remote spot had no streetlights to lessen its intensity. ‘It’s very peaceful here. I only hope it isn’t too peaceful and gives me writer’s block.’

‘Is that likely?’

‘I hope not.’ His smile gleamed white in the light above his venerable front door. ‘I’ve been paid a sizeable advance already.’

Hester held out her hand. ‘Then the best of luck. I don’t think I could function with that kind of pressure.’

Patrick took her hand and held it lightly in his. ‘This has been a very good evening for me, Hester. Thank you. I know you’re a busy lady. When can I take you out to dinner?’

‘I don’t have my diary with me.’

‘Then I’ll ring you.’

As Hester drove away she experienced the oddest sensation, as though she was doing the wrong thing, that she was meant to stay. And, though she’d said nothing to Patrick, on the tour of the empty rooms of Long Wivutts she’d experienced a strong feeling of homecoming, as though she belonged there. Strange. She wasn’t the fanciful type. And she’d never even heard of the place before, let alone set foot inside it. Nor, when she’d asked for directions, had David.

When Hester got home she decided to go straight to bed. Tomorrow she was giving her father-in-law lunch, and though Robert Conway was the least critical of men she always felt on her mettle to provide Richard’s father with as delicious a meal as she could contrive. It had been Richard who had taught her how to cook. She had learned so much from him in the cruelly short period of their marriage.

Hester got ready for bed, then looked at the photograph on the bedside table. Richard Conway smiled his crooked smile at her, his heavy black hair unruly on his forehead. He had been a large man in every way, in stature and in temperament. A gentle giant with deep, abiding passions, one of which had been his work. Hester had been the other. Richard had never tired of telling her he’d been waiting for her all his life. The only shadow on their union had been the lack of children, a lack Hester had mourned all the more deeply when she’d been left alone after his death.

Hester turned out the light quickly and lay in the dark. At first, in the weeks after Richard had died, she’d talked to his photograph every night. As some people wrote in diaries, she’d communed with Richard—told him about her day, confided her hopes and fears—just as though he’d been alive and in the bed beside her. Not that they had ever talked much in bed. Richard, from the first, had been a sexually demanding husband, and she had responded gladly, always. And had cried many bitter tears in this same bed after he’d died, missing his physical presence. But, if she were totally honest, there had been more actual conversation with his photograph than with Richard when he’d been alive.

Hester lay staring at the stars through the window, wondering why she’d used her lack of diary as a means of avoiding a definite date for another evening with Patrick Hazard. She always knew exactly how her week was arranged, sometimes for weeks in advance, without reference to a diary or any other reminder. And when Tim Galbraith or John Brigham asked her out she always knew instantly whether the dates they suggested were convenient or not. Yet with Patrick she’d hedged a little, giving herself time to—to what? Plead a previous engagement, or put him off altogether? Hester shrugged, unseen, in the dark. One evening was no big deal. It needn’t be repeated. If discouraged gently, Patrick Hazard had too much pride to persist.

Hester was on the point of falling asleep when she discovered why, exactly, Patrick Hazard was to be tactfully discouraged. Tim Galbraith, Edward Moore and John Brigham, the trio she went out with on a fairly regular basis, were not only nice men and good companions, they had one important thing in common: Richard would have had no objection to any of them. Patrick was different. He posed far more of a threat. Unlike the others, for whom she felt nothing warmer than liking, she was strongly attracted to Patrick Hazard. Even on such short acquaintance. But at this stage the attraction was merely cerebral. Whether it would remain that way if she saw more of him was open to question.

So, one evening with him would have to do. And if he wanted more she would have to think of a convincing reason for her refusal. Patrick Hazard would think she was mad if she cited her dead husband’s disapproval.

CHAPTER THREE

ROBERT CONWAY rose from the table with a smile of appreciation. ‘Excellent lunch, my dear, as always.’

Hester smiled, pleased, as she took their plates. ‘Tea?’

‘Please, Hester.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Not even an indulgent father-in-law like me can praise your coffee.’

‘The caffeine’s bad for you anyway,’ she said, chuckling. ‘Would you like it out in the garden? The sun’s moved away a bit now.’

When they were settled in deck chairs, Hester in full sun and Robert in the shade of a pear tree, she filled their cups then sat back to enjoy the warm afternoon.

‘So what did you do last night?’ asked Robert.

‘I went out to Avecote to deliver a desk.’ Hester looked at his spare, relaxed frame consideringly, then gave him an account of Patrick Hazard, his novel, and his semi-unfurnished home, and included the meal she’d stayed to share, stressing the fact that her motive had been more in the nature of future furniture orders than to eat dinner with Patrick Hazard.

‘It sounds like a very interesting evening,’ said Robert neutrally. ‘Are you seeing him again?’

Hester nodded, feeling irrationally guilty. ‘Just once, anyway.’

‘Why just once?’ said Robert, and fixed her with a probing eye. ‘Is he married?’

‘No.’

‘Yet you say he’s interesting, and both clever and attractive. Is he gay?’

‘No, nothing like that.’

‘Then enjoy his company.’ Robert drank his tea tranquilly. ‘You’ve done wonders in this garden, Hester. The blossoms on that cistus are like a fall of snowflakes. Your hydrangeas look healthy, too.’

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