Catherine told him with absolute truth.
‘Did you?’ He sounded unconvinced for some inexplicable reason.
She continued to gaze at him with a pleasant, noncommittal expression on her face and was relieved to see the deep line between his brows easing a little. She noticed a long scar on his forehead and wondered apprehensively how he’d acquired it.
‘Can I see her? Is she in?’
‘No.’
How to win friends and influence people, she thought drily. He really was the most surly of men!
‘Then I think I’ll come back later when she’s at home,’ she suggested gravely.
‘No, you don’t. Wait!’ The command was barked out just as she turned to go.
Caught off-guard as she whirled around, her wide-eyed look of utter surprise seemed to take him unawares too. For a split second she thought his steely eyes had softened to a misty grey.
Then she realised it must have been a trick of the light. When she looked again they were hard and shuttered with no hint of his feelings at all.
‘You’ll talk to me,’ he said sharply. ‘Let’s see if you can come up with a convincing excuse for being here.’
‘Of course I can!’ she replied in surprise, not allowing herself to be riled by his rudeness.
‘In that case, I’m not standing here knee-deep in muck,’ he exaggerated. ‘Come to the house.’
Without waiting for her response to this arrogant order, Zach Talent strode off down the path, his shiny leather shoes squelching in the mud.
Catherine hesitated and then, before she knew it, she was following. She felt almost as if she had been drawn by a magnet. And as she walked and marvelled at the man’s compelling authority she ruefully prepared to tug her forelock. A lot.
She heaved a sigh. Somehow she felt it wouldn’t help even if she tugged out handfuls of hair in the process.
Zach was clearly one of those suspicious types who imagined everyone was trying to pull a fast one. He’d looked at her as if she might be planning something evil.
From his manner, she reckoned that he also liked to be in control. He wasn’t the kind of man to do anyone a favour. For him, she suspected that it would be a matter of honour not to show any sign of weakness by granting concessions to any passing peasant.
Anxiously she studied his taut body as he strode rapidly along, rocketing out staccato orders to someone on his mobile phone as if every second and every word was precious and not to be wasted by adding pleasantries.
With gloom in her heart, she hurried after him through Edith’s—Zach’s!—beautiful wild-life garden. And she wondered how long it would be before Killer Heels and The Frown strimmed every blade of grass within an inch of its life and installed soulless carpet bedding. Perhaps even artificial turf and security lights. With a helipad.
She mourned for the island’s bleak future. Lifting her bowed head, she listened to the insistent warble of a blackcap, high on its perch in a lemon-scented azalea. It was joined by the unmistakable trill of a robin, singing its heart out from an oak tree.
Ring doves were cooing lovingly from the gnarled old mulberry tree and occasionally she heard a watery scuffle as a mallard drake enthusiastically courted a lady friend.
She and Zach were making their way through the rhododendron walk. Here, the peeling trunks arched over their heads like arms reaching out to embrace one another. In a few weeks the walk would be a blaze of colour.
The perfume of the lilies of the valley beneath made her catch her breath in wonder and she believed that, although Zach’s ear was still attached to his phone, even he had slowed his relentlessly brisk stride to savour the beauty of the garden.
Still holding her breath, she waited till he reached the glade. And was pleased to see that he had stopped, briefly looking around. But her pleasure was short-lived. When she quietly came to stand beside him, she realised that the man was a heathen after all.
‘Sell,’ he was curtly instructing some hapless minion, his hand massaging the back of his neck abstractedly. ‘And let’s have your investment strategy for the Far East by the end of the day…’
Barbarian! Infuriated by his insensitivity, she firmly shut him out. They were on different planets. This could be the last time she enjoyed the poignantly familiar sight that met her eyes, and she wanted to savour it to the full.
Bluebells had colonised the grassy glade, creating a sea of sapphire waves as the breeze stirred the nodding bells. The blossom-laden branches of ancient apple and pear trees bowed down almost to the shifting patches of blue, but where the path ran, ornamental Japanese cherry trees formed a vista to the house.
Framed dramatically, and with the shedding cherry blossom fluttering to the ground like confetti before it, the lovely Georgian manor house basked in the sun, its honey stone walls glowing as if they’d been dipped in liquid gold.
Entranced, she looked up at Zach for his reaction, hoping that he’d been stirred by the glory of it all. But with his frown resolutely in place he was intently tapping in a new number on his wretched mobile.
‘Tim? About those Hedge Funds,’ he growled, giving his mud-spattered shoes a basilisk stare.
She despaired, doubting that the funds were a charitable donation to the preservation of England’s beautiful country hedges.
He’d seen nothing. Not the rich dark throats of the dazzling white azaleas brushing his jacket, or the ladies fingers, violets, forget-me-nots and scarlet pimpernel which were shyly peeping from the undergrowth beside the path.
Deaf to everything but the grinding machine of business, he’d heard nothing of the jubilant birds filling the island with sweet song. And he was too busy sniffing out a deal to register the mingled fragrances that drifted on the slight breeze, or the musty, warm aroma that arose from the leaf litter in the surrounding woodland.
Edith’s heaven was totally lost on him. Catherine watched sadly as he strode on, discussing High Fidelity Bonds instead of being alive to the wonders of the natural world around him. She felt a wave of sadness jerk at her chest. He would never love this place as she did.
It was small consolation that he hadn’t ploughed straight through the bluebells, but had skirted the edge. He wasn’t a total heathen then. But she could see that he would have no empathy for Edith’s carefully rampant style of gardening.
Zach and his wife were obviously people with different values and priorities. Sophisticates, who lived the fast life of the City.
Catherine knew instinctively that they would definitely not approve of the way she earned her living. Nor would they be sympathetic towards a woman who chose to live on a boat like a water gypsy.
Her face fell. She might as well accept now that she’d probably be hurled out on her ear. She’d be obliged to wander the rivers and canals of England until she found a vacant mooring that she could afford. And then she’d have to start building up her clientele all over again.
She bit her lip, trying to stop herself from crying with frustrated anger. And she wondered crossly why this man had taken on Tresanton Manor when it was so patently wrong for him.
With her ears assailed by a barrage of fast-paced business deals which broke the gentle, monastic peace of the magical garden, she trudged silently towards the house she loved, aching to think that not only would she be leaving the island and all her friends, but that a Philistine and his wife would be ignorant of its joys.
She had to try to persuade him that there were benefits in having someone around to keep an eye on things. But in her heart she knew that she didn’t stand a chance.
Oh, Edith! she sighed. If you only knew who was about to desecrate your lovely island!
CHAPTER FOUR