He looked unimpressed.
She had to do better. She rummaged around for something he’d believe. ‘If you grew up like I did in a very modern house in a relentlessly upmarket housing estate you’d see the beauty in old things too.’
He looked skeptical.
‘It was the most soulless place on this green earth. I knew from an early age there had to be something better. More meaningful.’
Sybella took a breath, realising she’d told him a little more than she had meant to.
‘Why does furniture have more meaning if it’s old?’
‘Because old things have stories attached to them, and the furniture that’s survived tends to have been made by craftsmen and women. Artists.’
‘You’re a romantic,’ he said, again as if this were a crime.
‘No, I’m practical.’ She’d had to be. ‘Although I guess as a child I read books about other children who lived in old houses and fantasised that might be me one day.’
‘Is that so?’
Nik was tempted to ask her if she could see herself in this house.
‘It’s not unusual,’ she said defensively. ‘Lots of children have thoughts like that, and I had a good reason to.’
Nik suspected he was about to hear a sob story. He was also aware if he gave her enough rope she’d probably happily hang herself. She was nervous around him and it was making her talk.
‘I’m more curious about your interest in this house,’ he growled.
‘No, you asked me why I was interested in the past.’
He added pedantic to overweight and possibly a con-artist.
‘Old houses, miserable childhood, check.’
‘I didn’t say I had a miserable childhood.’ She looked affronted. ‘I said the house was soulless,’ she said firmly. ‘We were the only people who had ever lived there. Which was ironic.’
‘I’ll bite—why?’
She tried to fold her arms, which was rendered difficult by the bulk of her clothing. ‘Because the woman who raised me was obsessed with genealogy. Her genealogy, not mine, as it turned out.’
‘You were adopted?’
She nodded, for the first time looking less communicative. Her pretty face was closed up like a fist.
He’d been fifteen when he was told his father was not his father, and Nik had always looked at his life in terms of before and after.
‘When did you find out?’
She looked up at him as if gauging whether to tell him. ‘I was twelve. It was when my parents separated.’
‘Must have been difficult.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was more difficult when they handed me back.’
‘They handed you back?’
She was radiating tension now. ‘Dumped me in a very nice boarding school and left me there for six years.’
He almost laughed. That was her complaint?
Spoilt upper-class girl still bemoaning her school years at what—going by her elocution—was an upmarket school. He wondered what else she had to complain about. And here he was, actually feeling sorry for her.
She was good, he had to give her that.
‘Have you ever considered they were giving you a good education?’
‘They gave me a very good education,’ she said tonelessly, looking down at her clasped hands. She probably understood her bid for sympathy was going nowhere. ‘But I saw them very rarely in the term breaks and now not at all. It was as good as handing me back.’
Sybella was pleased with her command of herself and that she could talk about her adoptive parents in a forthright way. He’d asked the questions; she’d merely answered them. No external emotion needed.
Only for all her firmness on the subject she could feel the cold running like a tap inside her and she would have trouble turning it off tonight.
‘That is a sad little story,’ he said, something in his tone making her think he didn’t quite believe her.
She suddenly felt self-conscious and slightly annoyed. ‘I guess it is. I don’t know why I told you all that. I’m sure it’s not at all interesting to a man like yourself.’
‘You’d be surprised what interests me.’
Sybella discovered she didn’t have anything smart to say in answer to that. But she couldn’t help running her gaze over his broad shoulders, remembering how strong and sure he’d felt holding her.
His eyes caught hers and something flared between them. ‘And what exactly interests you, Miss Parminter?’
Sybella knew what interested her, and it wasn’t going to happen.
She could feel her face filling up with heat.
‘It’s Mrs,’ she stated baldly in a desperate attempt to deflect whatever he might say next. ‘Mrs Parminter.’
‘You’re married?’
There had been a current of awareness zipping between them from the time she’d been grappling with him in the snow, only Sybella didn’t know that until this very second as it was sucked back to nothingness and what was left was a tense, awkward silence.
Sybella didn’t know what to say.
But he did.
‘Does your husband know you’re out at night running around with other men?’
WITH TOO MANY bad memories still beating around in her head something snapped inside Sybella, enough to have her hand arcing through the air.
Fortunately his reflexes were quicker than hers and he gripped her wrist, holding her immobile.
There was a fraught silence in which all she could hear was her pulse drumming in her ears. Then he said quietly, ‘That was out of line,’ releasing her arm so that Sybella could slowly lower it to her side.
‘It’s none of my business,’ he added. Which was when she realised he wasn’t talking about her trying to hit him. He was apologising for what he’d said.
The fight went out of Sybella, and with it flooded in the knowledge she’d almost hit another person.
Last year Fleur had pushed over a little boy in her social group and Sybella had sat down and had the talk with her. Physically hurting someone was wrong. Whatever the provocation, she must use her words, not her fists. And here she was, mother of the year, trying to slug a perfect stranger!
She’d had provocation all right, but that wasn’t an excuse.
She needed to apologise to him but Sybella found herself struggling because he’d implied something, and he hadn’t taken that back. Which was very different from saying it was none of his business.
‘Six years ago my husband kissed me and climbed into his van and drove it out to the Pentwistle Farm,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and on the road between the farm and the turn-off he was struck by another car coming over the rise.’
Nik was looking at her with an expression she hadn’t seen before in this man.
As if he were taking her seriously.
‘So no, Mr Voronov, my husband has no idea what I’m doing nowadays—but I do. I wish I hadn’t tried to