‘We are on our way to a laboratory, aren’t we?’ she muttered, peering out through the rain-bleared windows at houses that were getting grander and sparser by the minute.
‘We sure are,’ he replied, with a soft laugh, as they entered what was more of a lane than a road, at the end of which stood huge, wrought-iron gates set into a massive, creeper-clad wall. He stopped the car in front of the gates, released his seat belt and opened his door. ‘Your turn to drive.’
Before Maggie could utter a word he was out and drawing aside the heavy, creaking gates.
He motioned her to remain where she was once she had driven through, and got in beside her, spraying her with droplets of rain as he shook his glossy dark head like a boisterous puppy.
‘Straight on up,’ he directed.
It was like driving through a miniature forest, and then a house loomed into view.
‘This looks more like a minor stately home than a laboratory site!’ exclaimed Maggie as they neared the impressive, ivy-clad building. ‘Who on earth owns it?’
‘Maurice Ryan—an old friend of my father’s,’ replied Slane. ‘Just follow the drive round to the back of the house and on down to that line of trees—you’ll see where to turn once we’re there. Maurice is a character and a half, but unfortunately we won’t see him—he’s off picking daisies at the end of some rainbow or other.’
‘He’s what?’ exclaimed Maggie, following the curve of the drive and bringing the car to a halt in front of a white, single-storey building, hidden from view by the trees behind which it stood.
‘Maurice is a botanist. He eats, sleeps and breaths botany. Fortunately he has vast independent means with which to indulge his passion.’
‘I take it he’s the one who’s grown this plant you’re going to test?’ said Maggie.
Slane nodded. ‘Yes, he—Ah, that must be John,’ he said as a man clad in waterproofs and wellington boots appeared from around the side of the building. ‘You might just as well stay here in the dry while I have a word with him about setting things up for the morning.’
He got out of the car and approached him, and a while later the two of them disappeared inside the building. In less than five minutes they reappeared and stood deep in conversation, the other man every now and then pointing towards a row of greenhouses of varying sizes and shapes and sometimes to the land beyond.
What am I doing here, and with this of all men? Maggie asked herself incredulously as a shiver that was entirely unrelated to the bleakness of the late November weather shuddered through her.
She busied herself for a while, moving back to the passenger seat, but, with that little distraction over, her eyes were drawn back to the taller of the two figures. Whatever it was his shorter companion had said, Slane suddenly threw back his head and laughed, oblivious of the rain now deluging down on them.
That ruinously expensive-looking coat of his would be soaked, thought Maggie; then she found herself smiling at her own innate practicality—after all, what was the odd cashmere coat or two to the seriously wealthy? And Slane Fitzpatrick, apart from everything else he had going for him, was very seriously wealthy.
He slapped the man on the shoulder, then turned and walked back to the car. He was walking to the passenger side, then stopped, gave a lopsided grin, and changed direction.
He’s also a very seriously attractive man, thought Maggie as her heart gave a drunken lurch, and I’ve got to get my act together before I make a complete and utter fool of myself.
‘How can you do this to me, Maggie?’ he groaned, laughing as he got back into the car. ‘I have enough problems with which side of the car to get into in this country without you complicating matters by switching seats on me.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, her pulse rate still chaotic, ‘but it’s better if you drive as I’d never find my way—’ She broke off with a gasp at the sight of him. ‘Have you any idea of the state you’re in? Your coat’s soaking—and as for your hair…!’
He made a soft growling sound in his throat as he turned towards her with a wicked grin, then shook his head vigorously. With a yell of protest Maggie grabbed a box of tissues from the door pocket and flung a handful at him.
‘Any intelligent person would have done his talking inside,’ she protested.
‘Gee, sorry, Mom,’ he replied, with an idiot grin, scrunching up the tissues and rubbing his hair with them. ‘Oh, great!’ he exclaimed in indignant disgust an instant later when the tissues began disintegrating and peppering his hair like soaked confetti. ‘This is all your fault,’ he complained, running tissue-smeared fingers impatiently through his hair and making matters worse, ‘so you can get it out—every last scrap of it!’
‘The intention was that you should dry your face with them, not smear them all over your hair,’ laughed Maggie as he lowered his head and leaned towards her.
She began removing the clumps of sodden tissue, but as her fingers delved into the thickness of his soaked hair her mind hurtled her back to another time, when it had been the exertions of passion that had dampened the hair in which her fingers had feverishly explored—a passion that had dewed their entwined, naked bodies with its own sultry rain. She snatched back her hand as though scalded, her entire body tensing as it shrank towards the door.
‘I—Y-you really ought to get out of that coat,’ she stammered when he lifted his head a little to gaze up at her with coolly mocking eyes.
‘Ought I?’ he drawled, his mouth curving into a smile tinged with mocking malevolence as he straightened. ‘We’ll go find somewhere to eat…I can get out of it there,’ he announced with sudden briskness and started the car.
Maggie gave inordinate attention to fastening her seat belt, racking her brains for something to say that would miraculously clear the air of the almost palpable tension fogging it.
‘I wasn’t exactly needed on this trip, was I?’ she muttered, and realised that those were hardly the words to produce any miracle. ‘I’ll do the gates,’ she offered when, having made no response, he halted the car before them.
‘What, to justify your coming along?’ he drawled, opening his door. ‘There’s no point us both getting wet so I’ll do them. It’s best if I drive through as well—the seat’s probably all messed up too.’
The leather upholstry was wet, Maggie conceded to herself as they went through the tortuous procedure of negotiating the gates, but she could easily have wiped it dry.
‘John’s got it all in hand for us to start tomorrow,’ he said once they were on their way. ‘He’s been with Maurice God knows how many years. Maurice swears John has forgotten more than the average botanist learns in a lifetime about plants—exotic or otherwise.’
‘Does he usually accompany Maurice on field trips?’ asked Maggie, welcoming the distraction of the topic with limp relief.
‘No,’ chuckled Slane. ‘It seems Maurice has never been able to persuade John to set foot on a plane, so John and the team run everything while he’s off gadding about.’
‘You must have been pleased to hear they’d managed to grow this plant. How near to extinction is it?’
‘Extremely near—in its natural habitat, that is,’ he replied as he eased the car into the city’s rush-hour traffic. ‘It grows like a weed just about anywhere. The trouble is it mututes and ends up lacking the vital properties that made it of interest in the first place.’ He swung the car into the entrance of a multi-storey car park. ‘I’ve just realised,’ he muttered, turning to her once they were parked, ‘I don’t have any change on me—how about you?’
Maggie rummaged in her bag. She took out her purse, and a comb which she handed to him.
‘I’ll get a ticket while you get the rest of that tissue out of your hair.’