not that bad, truly.’ And it wasn’t. She just needed to get a grip, pull herself together. ‘Just the odd bump and scrape, but there was rather a lot of mud,’ she said, attempting to make light of it. ‘Once I’ve had a quick shower I’ll be out of here. With luck I’ll catch the eleven o’clock bus.’
‘No, no… These things can shake you up. We can manage without you.’
Her immediate reaction was to protest—that was so not something she wanted to hear—but for some reason she appeared to be shaking like a jelly. If she hadn’t been sitting down, she would almost certainly have collapsed in heap.
‘Take the rest of the week off, put your feet up. We’ll see you on Monday.’
‘If you insist,’ she said, just to be sure that he was telling her, she wasn’t begging. ‘I’ll call Mr Peascod now to apologise. Reschedule for Monday.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about Charlie. I’m taking him to lunch and, let’s face it, he’s much more likely to be indiscreet after a glass of wine.’
Of course he was. All boys together. On the golf course or down the pub. No need for Brian Gough to make an effort with his hair, wear his best suit, flutter his eyelashes. He’d take Charlie to the King’s Head and over a plate of their best roast beef—on expenses—he’d hear all about what was going on at Cranbrook Park. It was how it had always been done.
Forget the news desk. At this rate, she’d be writing up meetings of the Townswomen’s Guild, reviewing the Christmas panto until she was drawing her pension. Thank goodness for the ‘Greenfly and Dandelions’ blog she wrote for the Armstrong Newspaper Group website. At least no one else on the staff could write that.
And that was the good news.
All that expensive education notwithstanding, it was as good as a single mother without a degree, a single mother who had to put her child first could hope for. Even then she was luckier than most women in her situation. Luckier than she deserved according to her mother.
The bad news was that the Observer was cutting back on staff and a single mother with childcare issues was going to be top of the chop list.
‘All done?’ Hal unhooked a couple of mugs from the dresser, keeping an eye on Claire while he filled a bowl with warm water. Despite her insistence that she was fine, she was deathly pale.
‘All done,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to call the Town Hall and make your apologies?’
‘No need.’ She looked at the phone she was still holding, then put it on the table. ‘The news editor is handling it.’
‘Right, well I’ll clean up your foot.’
She frowned as he placed the bowl of water at her feet, then she rallied; he could practically hear her spine snapping straight. ‘There’s no need to make a fuss. I’ll get in the shower as soon as you’ve gone.’
‘It’s cut,’ he said. ‘There’s blood on the floor.’
‘Is there?’ She looked down and saw the trail of muddy, bloody footprints on her clean floor. ‘Oh…’ She bit back the word she’d undoubtedly have let drop if she’d been on her own. ‘It must have been when I stepped on a stone.’
One sharp enough to cut her and yet she hadn’t so much as whimpered. His fault. If he hadn’t kissed her, if he’d just scraped the mud off her shoe, let her go…
‘It might have been a piece of glass,’ he said, not wanting to think about that kiss. About the button she’d been playing with or how she’d felt as she’d leaned against him as he’d helped her home. ‘Or a ring pull from a can. I can’t believe the litter down there.’
‘A lot of it blows in from the towpath. It used to drive my dad wild.’
‘It wasn’t just me, then.’ Before she could answer, he said, ‘Stick your foot in this and soak off the dirt so that I can make sure there’s nothing still in there.’ She didn’t bother to argue, just sucked in her breath as she lifted her foot into the water.
‘Okay?’
She held her breath for a moment, then relaxed. ‘Yes…’
He nodded and left her to soak while he made tea, adding a load of sugar to hers. Adding rather more than usual to his own.
He shouldn’t have come to Cranbrook. He hadn’t intended to come here. Not now. Not until it was all done. It had been his intention to keep his distance and leave it all to the consultants he’d engaged, but it was like a bad tooth you couldn’t leave alone…
‘Have you got any antiseptic?’ he asked, setting the mug beside her.
‘Under the sink, with the first-aid box.’
‘Towel?’
‘There’s a clean one in the airing cupboard. It’s in the bathroom at the top of the…’
‘I know my way around.’ He took a chocolate biscuit—it had been a long time since breakfast—and handed another to her. ‘Eat this.’
‘I—’
‘It’s medicinal,’ he said, cutting off her objection, opening the door to stairs that seemed narrower than he remembered. He glanced back. ‘You might want to lose the tights while I’m fetching it.’
‘Are you quite sure I can manage that all by myself?’
He paused, his foot on the bottom step, and looked back. ‘You have a mouth that will get you into serious trouble one of these days, Claire Thackeray.’
‘Too late,’ she said. ‘It already has.’
‘It’s not a one-time-only option,’ he pointed out and as she blushed virgin pink, he very nearly stepped back down into the kitchen to offer her a demonstration.
Peeling down tights over long, shapely legs that he’d already enjoyed at his leisure as she’d lain sprawled on top of him with her skirt around her waist would have offered some compensation in a day that was not, so far, going to plan.
He’d arrived at sunrise and set out for a quiet drive around the estate, wanting to claim its acres for himself. To enjoy his triumph.
The rush of possessiveness, unreasoning anger, when he’d seen a lad fishing from what had once been his favourite spot had brought him up short. Or maybe it had been the fancy rod and antique reel wielded so inexpertly that had irritated him. The boy had sworn it had belonged to his granddad, but he was very much afraid that it had been stolen.
Not the most pleasant start to the day and, once the boy had gone, he’d stopped to look, remembering his own wild days.
That’s when he’d noticed that the bank opposite had been seriously undermined by the torrential winter rain. He’d pulled on the overalls and boots that had been lying in the back of the Land Rover and crossed the stream to take a closer look at the damage and walked right into the Claire and Archie double-act.
And if it hadn’t been part of his plans to come back to Cranbrook Park until he’d made it his own, that was doubly so with Primrose Cottage.
There had been no reason to come down a lane on the edge of the village, a lane that stopped at a cottage that was hidden unless you were looking for it. Forgotten by the estate.
Jack North had never been prepared to use good drinking and gambling money to decorate, repair a house he did not own and Robert Cranbrook would have seen it fall down before he’d have allowed his workmen to touch it.
He never could understand why his mother had stayed. Some twisted sense of loyalty? Or was it guilt?
In his head the cottage had remained the way it had looked on the day he’d fired up his motorbike and ridden away. But, like him, it had changed out of all recognition.
The