Firmly she refused to allow herself to feel disappointment that she would never complete the task of restoring the tapestry. How could she do so now? It was a job that demanded absolute concentration and dedication; she wouldn’t be capable of either with Slade Ashford’s presence to contend with. On a suddenly stifled breath she remembered his threat that there was still an outstanding debt between them. The tranquillity of the Borders was ruined for her now for ever; all at once it was all too easy to imagine the valley stained red with the blood of Armstrongs and Grahams.
Hardly any imagination at all was required to picture Slade Ashford riding at the head of a band of Border reivers intent on death and destruction, and perhaps even the abduction of an enemy’s daughter.
It was a long time before she fell into a fitful sleep disturbed by nightmares filled with cloaked riders and the harsh sounds of warfare and burning peel towers while she herself fled despairingly on foot from the horseman pursuing her, knowing without the need to turn her head that the eyes fixed so steadily on her fleeing form would be the colour of polished jade.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHELSEA was up early, showering quickly in the bathroom off her bedroom and then dressing in serviceable jeans and a checked shirt, pulling them on with brisk determined movements.
As she stepped out of her room the door opposite opened and Slade Ashford stood there, a towel draped round his neck, his body bare to the waist. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked away hurriedly, her face burning from his openly sexual exploration of her slim jeans-clad frame.
‘Tell Mrs Rudge to hurry up with my tea, will you?’ he demanded carelessly.
It was unnecessary for her to pass on the message, because she bumped into the housekeeper in the hall. Mrs Rudge’s mouth was compressed into grim disapproval, as she muttered, The old master wouldna ha’ tolerated none of this. You’ll find your breakfast in the dining room,’ she told Chelsea. ‘Coming and going without a word of warning… inconsiderate, that’s what he is!’
Her brother-in-law had mentioned that Slade Ashford had widespread business interests, and Chelsea wondered how frequent his trips north were.
Unable to face any breakfast, she hurried straight to the study and picked up the phone, quickly dialling Jerome’s home number.
He answered almost straight away, sharp anxiety giving way to pleasure as he heard Chelsea’s voice.
‘Don’t you dare tell me you’re not feeling well!’ he warned her before Chelsea could speak. ‘Louise has just been rushed into hospital with acute appendicitis.’
Louise was the only other skilled embroiderer he employed, and Chelsea’s heart sank. She had been hoping to persuade him to allow her to swop jobs with Louise, but in the present circumstances she could scarcely do so now. Louise’s job was nearly complete, and Chelsea knew that the National Trust were anxious to have work on the tapestry completed as quickly as possible.
‘Chelsea, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘I was just ringing to tell you that the tapestry is coming on very well.’
‘Thank God for that! I badly needed some good news.’
They chatted for a few minutes and Chelsea was just hanging up when a soft footfall made her spin round, the receiver clutched in one hand as she glared angrily up at the tall male figure lounging against the closed door, hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans emphasising the powerful muscles of his thighs.
‘Another string to your bow?’ Slade drawled. ‘Does your employer know you make personal phone calls during his time?’
‘That was my employer,’ Chelsea gritted at him, ‘and for your information, I was ringing him to ask if I could be taken off this job.’
‘Why? Scared I’ll blow your cover?’
Anger flooded moltenly through her veins.
‘Nothing you could do could frighten me,’ she told him furiously.
‘No? Then perhaps it’s time it did.’
Before she could stop him he had crossed the room, grasping her wrist with one hand while the other removed the telephone receiver. Before she had time to react she was trapped between Slade and the desk. Fear coursed through her at the proximity of his body; her own acutely sensitive to the heat coming off it; the dark hairs sprinkling arms bare to the elbow where he had rolled up his shirt sleeves. A muscle beat in his jaw, and she realised that his eyes were not, as she had thought, completely green, but flecked with yellow like those of a jungle animal, holding her in thrall.
‘No!’
The sharp denial rang out between them, then the electric silence was suddenly broken as the telephone rang shrilly.
‘This I believe is where we came in,’ Slade drawled sardonically as he released her and reached for the receiver. ‘But it isn’t over between us yet by a long way, Chelsea.’
Her legs were shaking as she stumbled out of the study. Mrs Rudge was waiting outside, so close to the door that Chelsea was sure she had been eavesdropping.
‘Gallivanting off again he’ll be now, no doubt,’ she commented, sniffing disapprovingly. ‘The master should have married and got himself some sons.’
Sentiments with which she was totally in accord, Chelsea reflected bitterly as she forced down a piece of toast and drank her coffee scalding hot in her haste to be gone from the table before Slade reappeared.
Where before she had loved the remoteness of Darkwater, now she wished it was closer to the village and that it was possible for her to find accommodation there, but she knew that it was impossible. For one thing she hadn’t brought her car north with her, and for another she already knew that there was no hotel or efficient public transport service from the village to Darkwater. Like it or not, she was forced to accept Slade Ashford’s hospitality until her work was completed.
And the annoying thing was that there was no way the work could be rushed without risk.
There had been an overnight frost that made a lacy wonderland from dead bracken and grasses. A rabbit scampered away as Chelsea walked down the drive, a plover hung against the autumn blue of the sky. Gradually as she walked her anger started to drain away, and her mouth began to twitch slightly as she started to appreciate the macabre humour of the situation. Slade Ashford must have been as shocked as she had been herself!
She bit her lip, suddenly remembering his arrogant claim that all was not at an end between them. She had sensed on the night of the party that he was not a man to make a fool of lightly, but she had told herself that no harm had been done, and hone would have been if their paths hadn’t chanced to cross again like this.
For a moment she toyed with the idea of telling him the truth, but dismissed the idea as too danger
ous. She had no guarantee if she did that he would not simply return to Melchester and savagely undermine all that she and Ann had done.
No, there was simply no other course open to her but to carry on as though nothing had happened and hope that given time he would either tire of seeking retribution or come to see that he had been mistaken in her.
The phone rang while she was busily engaged in checking the dyed embroidery silks which had been delivered that morning.
It was Tom on the line, and Chelsea acknowledged with a pang of remorse that Slade Ashford’s presence had almost driven Tom from her mind.
‘Just wanted to thank you for last night,’ Tom told her cheerfully, ‘and to coax you into coming out to dinner with me again tonight—some friends of mine are having a dinner party.’
‘I’d love to,’ Chelsea told him warmly. Going out with Tom would mean that she wouldn’t be forced to spend an evening in Slade Ashford’s company.
When he had hung up her work engrossed her, and studying the faded design of stitched figures under a strong lamp and a magnifying glass she forgot everything in the wonder of the story stitched by so many busy female fingers so very long ago.
Slade Ashford would have fitted better into those times than the 1980s, she thought wrathfully at one point. He was the archetypal macho male with firmly entrenched views about women’s inferiority; their lack of any right to the same sexual freedom he so clearly and arrogantly demanded for himself.
Busily feeding her growing anger, Chelsea ignored temporarily her own view that women who indulged in sex purely for sex’s sake were a very rare breed indeed and that unlike men most women were vulnerable through the emotional commitment they gave automatically and sometimes unknowingly whenever they gave their bodies.
When the growing darkness made further work on the tapestry itself impossible Chelsea returned to the photographs and drawings, working out in her own mind her next task, and feeling a tiny thrill of pride as she studied the work she had already done.
‘How demure—and how deceptive!’