The Last Woman He'd Ever Date (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted) Read online

  ‘Hardly nothing if it had you racing up here to check up on him.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Just a stupid throwaway remark.’ He waited. ‘It involved the phrase “cats’ meat.”’

  He would have been affronted if she hadn’t been so obviously embarrassed. If she hadn’t been so desperately concerned.

  ‘I suppose I should be grateful that you bothered to check rather just starting a hue and cry with a story about a missing donkey.’

  ‘We’re not so short of stories at the Observer that we’re reduced to manufacturing them. I’ve been remarkably restrained.’

  ‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’

  ‘I haven’t written a word about being attacked by livestock running wild on a public footpath, my trashed bicycle, the cuts and bruises I sustained without so much as a penny-piece in compensation from the landowner. On the contrary, it was the landowner who demanded—’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked, cutting short her list of complaints.

  Claire looked at the cloth, rubbed at a stubborn grease spot, grateful for the interruption. If she reminded Hal about the on-the-spot fine he’d levied, he might also recall how enthusiastically she’d paid up.

  ‘You know why not,’ she said. ‘He’s had enough bad press.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why you’re going easy on me. Isn’t it your public duty to warn your fellow citizens about my wicked past?’

  He was closer. Too close…

  ‘You haven’t mentioned the poaching,’ he pointed out. ‘Or the graffiti on Cranbrook’s factory walls, or the time I rode a motorcycle up the venerated steps of Cranbrook Hall and in through the front door. Why is that, Claire?’

  ‘You were a kid. I’m more interested in what you’re doing now.’ Which was the truth. This was a different world, they were different people… ‘Were you?’ she asked. ‘Wicked?’

  His smile took her unawares and, as he caught her hand, the heat of it went straight to her knees, burning up her lips, firing the same melting ache between her thighs as his kiss…

  ‘Do you want to come inside and repeat that question?’ he offered.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ she managed, her voice remarkably steady considering the fact that the rest of her appeared to be slowly melting.

  ‘Good decision,’ he said.

  Was it? Right now melting was deeply appealing. The thought of being touched by those oil-stained hands, being kissed, being wicked…

  ‘Did you really ride your motorbike through the front door of Cranbrook Hall?’ she asked.

  ‘You hadn’t heard about that?’ He seemed surprised.

  ‘No one ever talked to me.’ Oh, good grief, that sounded so pathetic. ‘Was that why Sir Robert banned you from the estate?’

  ‘It wasn’t Sir Robert who did that, Claire, it was your father.’ And his hand slid from hers, leaving her feeling oddly bereft.

  ‘My dad?’

  ‘Acting on Robert Cranbrook’s instructions I have no doubt, but he enjoyed delivering the message.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ She swallowed. ‘Not that it matters,’ she added quickly. ‘I’m far more interested in how you progressed from estate tearaway to millionaire businessman.’

  ‘Are you?’ His doubt suggested, worryingly, that he knew exactly the effect he had on her. ‘Well, you’re the journalist, if a somewhat ineffectual one judging by your performance so far. You won’t get far in your chosen profession unless you toughen up, learn to be ruthless.’

  ‘Is that how you succeeded?’

  ‘There is no other way. The difference between us is that in your business it doesn’t matter who you hurt so long as you sell newspapers.’

  She opened her mouth to protest. Closed it. Took a breath. ‘I told you, this has nothing to do with my job.’

  ‘A real journalist is never off duty, Claire.’

  ‘Then I guess I’m not a real journalist…’

  There was moment of shocked silence as the reality of what she’d just said sank in.

  ‘So, what? You’re just playing at it?’

  She shook her head, as if to deny it but her mouth was clamped tight and Hal felt a moment of pity for her. What the hell was she doing in a job she clearly wasn’t cut out for?

  ‘Would it reassure you if I told you that I was the one who used apples to train Archie to be my wing man?’ he said.

  He saw the ripple in her neck as she swallowed hard, taking a mental step back from what she’d just said.

  ‘Wing man?’

  ‘Once he got the hang of being bribed to be quiet, he kicked up a fuss whenever anyone came near.’

  ‘Giving you time to disappear.’ A smile broke through, lighting up her eyes. ‘That would be the same apples,’ she said. ‘From the tree in my garden?’

  ‘It would.’

  She shook her head. ‘Now I feel really stupid.’

  ‘You look it. Here…’ He took her chin in her hand, lifted her face and taking the cloth she was holding, wiped at the smear of grease.

  Her skin was warm against his fingers and her soft pink lips, parted as if to ask a question she’d thought better of, invited a kiss. Not the harsh, punishing kiss he’d inflicted on her that day on the path, that she’d subverted into something else, but the kind that could only ever have one conclusion.

  ‘Has it gone?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I’ve just made it worse,’ he said, dropping his hand, turning away.

  Not in this lifetime.

  ‘You’d better come inside and clean up. You don’t want to be on the street looking like that.’ Gary was in the kitchen, emptying the biscuit tin. ‘Lunch break’s over,’ he said. The lad looked startled and Hal being aware that he’d been abrupt said, ‘We’ll finish your bike tomorrow.’

  ‘Really? Gosh, thanks, Mr North… Hal. Actually…’ He waited. ‘Would you mind if I brought a mate with me to watch? We’re hoping to start a scramble team and—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Now get back to work.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ she said, when Gary had gone.

  ‘It’s nothing. Pure self-indulgence.’

  ‘Helping Gary isn’t nothing. Recapturing your boyhood isn’t nothing.’

  ‘I don’t have time for that.’

  ‘No?’ She gave a little sigh. ‘Growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it? I’d better go and wash my hands.’

  ‘I’ll be in the morning room.’

  *

  Claire used the staff cloakroom to clean up, splashing cold water onto her face and neck to cool herself down.

  Standing out there in the courtyard she’d been sure that Hal was going to kiss her again and not to punish her this time, even if she deserved it.

  For one reckless, forget-the-world moment, she’d wanted him to. She scooped up more water, splashed herself again. Gathered the ends of her hair and re-fastened the clip. Tidying everything up. Restoring order out of the chaos of her thoughts, her life.

  Blanking out that moment when he’d challenged her and the ground had seemed to open up in front of her. What on earth was she thinking?

  Not a real journalist…

  A glance in the mirror belied any hope of order.

  She wasn’t about to use anti-bacterial hand wash on her face and she’d been a bit too enthusiastic with the splashing. Her shirt was wet, almost transparent. She had to change, get back to work. Bad enough to be going back empty-handed, but late buses was an excuse that she could only take so far.

  Hal wasn’t in the kitchen and she pushed open the green baize door that divided upstairs from downstairs. She’d expected it to be stripped bare, but it was much as she remembered, family portraits and all.

  ‘Having a good look round?’

  ‘I’m just surprised it’s all still here, but I don’t suppose there’s much of market for second-hand ancestors.’

  ‘It depends whose ancestors they are,’ he said.

  She glanced at him.

  �
�There’s no one here important enough, distinguished enough to excite anyone who isn’t a Cranbrook, and the previous owner’s nursing-home room isn’t big enough to accommodate them.’

  ‘Poor man. It must be so difficult for him.’

  ‘He made bad choices, Claire. He has to live with them.’

  He sounded, looked so hard.

  ‘Have you never made a bad choice?’ she asked.

  ‘I got married.’ For a moment she thought he was going to say more, but he just looked at her. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I fell in love with the wrong man,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure that choice had much to do with it but I let down my family.’

  ‘And Robert Cranbrook let down his.’

  ‘I suppose.’ She looked up at a portrait of Sir Robert’s mother, holding her son. There was a faded border around it, where there had once hung a larger portrait of his father, replaced when it was damaged. ‘So,’ she said, turning away, looking around at the serried ranks of Cranbrooks rising up the stairs, ‘the portraits were thrown in with the fixtures and fittings. Like unwanted carpets and curtains.’

  ‘I can almost see the cogs turning in your brain. It’s not a story, Claire.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Something told her that it was, but she let it go. ‘I told you, I’m off the clock.’

  ‘So you did. Shall we take these into the morning room?’

  He handed her a mug and led the way to a small, shabby but comfortable sitting room with French windows that stood open on to a sunken walled rose garden.

  She carried her mug onto the terrace.

  ‘It breaks my heart to see it in this state,’ she said, sipping at her tea. ‘It makes my fingers itch to get stuck in with the sécateurs.’

  ‘You love gardening?’

  ‘There’s something about restoring order out of chaos that appeals to me,’ she said. ‘And then putting back just enough chaos to make it interesting.’

  ‘You’ll find all the chaos you need here. This has been neglected since Cranbrook’s wife left him. Fortunately, it’s not like the Hall, where every single item of architectural detail has to be approved before it can be replaced.’

  ‘Replaced?’ She looked up at him. ‘Please tell me that you’re not planning to grub it up? Plant tidy rows of bedding plants. All the same colour, the same height…’

  ‘You said it. Order out of chaos.’

  ‘I didn’t mean… Some of these roses are really old, Hal. Heritage varieties.’

  ‘Old, dying, heritage varieties.’

  ‘It takes more than neglect to kill a rose. These just need some TLC. You should consult a specialist. You might be able to interest a grower in a restoration project.’

  ‘And have sponsorship signs all over the place? I’ll stick to the bedding plants, thanks.’

  ‘All they’d want is a discrete little plaque somewhere, acknowledging their contribution. I’ve seen them in other great gardens.’

  ‘So what do they get out of it?’

  ‘In this case I imagine they’d love the chance to take cuttings, use modern methods to breed from your old varieties,’ she offered. ‘Their PR people would commission a book on the restoration project—you could sell it to your guests—and provide articles for gardening magazines, the Sunday supplements, lifestyle magazines. Everyone wins.’ She put down the mug, aware that she was letting her passion run away with her tongue. ‘I have to get back to work, Hal.’

  ‘Next time bring cake.’

  ‘Is that an open invitation? I do a great Victoria sandwich with homemade raspberry jam—’

  ‘Goodbye, Claire.’

  ‘I make the jam myself,’ she said, her mouth running away with her, even while her head was saying, ‘Go. Now.’ ‘With raspberries from my garden.’

  ‘That would be perfect. And don’t forget that you owe Archie two applies.’

  ‘Two?’ He’d remembered her desperate appeal as she was chased down the path? ‘While I’d be the first to admit that Archie is a smart donkey, I doubt he keeps a tally,’ she said. ‘Besides, since he didn’t deliver on the deal, I don’t think he has a leg to stand on.’

  ‘Then just come yourself. He gets lonely.’

  ‘What about you, Hal? This is a big place to live in on your own.’

  ‘Two apples, a Victoria sandwich,’ he said, ‘and you can send me the name of a rose specialist. Just in case I change my mind.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HAL stood at the open French windows, listening to a blackbird sing, trying to blot out the image of Claire Thackeray.

  Her concerns for an old donkey, a neglected garden, for Gary were beginning to eat away at his armour, undermine his determination to visit the sins of the father on her head.

  Bea was right. He should have left this to the professionals.

  *

  Claire walked home, her head in a whirl, scarcely noticing where she put her feet. Talk about the good news and the bad news…

  All she’d wanted to do was reassure herself that Archie was okay. Job done. But walking into the courtyard and seeing Hal on his back with a motorcycle in bits around him had been a heart-leap moment, a flashback to the boy in leathers astride his own bike. Today, though, she hadn’t been an outsider. She’d been there, working alongside him and for a while had felt like a kid herself.

  It couldn’t last.

  On some subconscious level, she’d always known that her father must have been involved in Hal’s banishment. He’d been the estate manager, he ran Cranbrook Park. He engaged and dismissed staff, dealt with maintenance, arranged shoots and fishing parties.

  Keeping order had been his responsibility.

  She might be reduced to jelly-bones by Hal, but she could well understand why he’d been so peppery when they’d met. It hadn’t just been the crash. She was a Thackeray and in his shoes she wouldn’t have wanted to have anything to do with her, either.

  She was amazed that he answered her phone calls. He could easily have left them to Penny, or let them go to voice mail. And he’d listened to her on the rose garden. That was good news. It would mean he was invested in Cranbrook Park, in the Hall.

  As for that moment when he’d challenged her commitment to her job, being a journalist was what she did.

  It put food on the table, kept Ally safe. It was what she’d always been going to do. She might not be working for the BBC, or be a high-flying correspondent for one of the broadsheets, but she was doing her best to fulfil the ambitions of her parents. Speaking of which—

  She sat on a grassy bank, took out her phone and called Brian.

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’ he demanded.

  ‘It’s a big estate, Brian, but I haven’t seen any sign of surveying so far.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Which was true. ‘But I have heard a whisper that Mr North is thinking about restoring the rose garden.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s a famous garden. Bags of history.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’ll be a waste of time coming back to the office. I’ll do some research at home and maybe we can run something tomorrow?’

  ‘We’re running the Teddy Bear’s Picnic story tomorrow.’

  ‘I haven’t finished it.’

  ‘I have. Mr Mean Targets Teddies. The garden story can go in the home supplement on Saturday.’

  She muttered an expletive she wouldn’t have used at home and dialled again.

  ‘North.’

  ‘Hal…’

  ‘Claire… Twice in one day.’

  ‘Sorry, but I need to talk you out of cancelling the Teddy Bears Picnic.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not a chance?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s a shame. The news editor’s wife is the treasurer of the animal-rescue charity that benefits from the event.’

  ‘Then I’ll brace myself for tomorrow’s edition.’

  ‘Don’t buy it unless you want to see a really sweet photograph of
you, aged six, dressed as one of the three bears in a primary-school play on the front page,’ she said,

  ‘I take back everything I said. You are ruthless.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said, heart sinking.

  ‘Why don’t they hold it at Memorial Park?’ he suggested.

  ‘You’re not getting it. We need woods. If you go down to the woods today…?’ She sang a snatch of the song.

  ‘You are not doing your case any favours.’

  ‘You’ve got until the paper goes to press to reconsider.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

  ‘No. Right. Breathing in and out.’ She didn’t want to hang up. ‘I forgot to ask Gary when my bike will be ready.’

  ‘Apparently they don’t make wheels like that any more but he’s doing his best to find a second-hand replacement. I’d buy you a new bike, but I’m sure you’d just tell the world I’m trying to buy your silence.’

  ‘Not the world,’ she assured him, saying goodbye to any chance of that. ‘Just Maybridge.’

  ‘Shame. I saw one on the Net that would have been perfect. Pink and white. Just like the one you had when you were a little girl.’

  ‘I’m all grown up now, Hal.’

  ‘Goodbye, Claire.

  *

  Hal picked the newspaper out of the bin, looked again at the fairy lookalike. Claire’s hair was still the colour of rich cream with a tendency to escape the tortoiseshell clip she used to hold it back and curl in soft tendrils around her face. It was the kind of clip that gave a man ideas. Which was, no doubt, its purpose.

  Not that he needed any help.

  At a distance, he could be rational about her. Remember that she was the daughter of his enemy.

  Close up, with her scent—a combination of shampoo, soap, the memory of bluebells—blanking out the smell of motor oil, her eyes smiling even when her mouth was trying not to, her mouth smiling because she forgot to keep it in line, he’d wanted a re-run of a kiss that should never have happened. To feel her body soften in response to him the way it had that morning on the path.

  Taking Claire Thackeray in a ditch… Against one of the estate’s ancient oaks… In the Queen’s bed…

  All grown up and he knew that he’d dream about letting loose her lovely hair to fall over pale, naked shoulders.