‘Does it pass the expert’s tests?’ he mocked lightly.
‘It’s very comfortable and homely.’ She couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of her voice, but if he recognised it he was not going to comment.
‘The antiques and the carpet came from the house I inherited from my grandfather on St Justine—it’s one of the Virgin Islands,’ he added.
‘Is that where you’re developing the new holiday complex?’
His eyebrows lifted again, and Jenna defended herself quickly. ‘I read about it in the papers.’
She was annoyed with herself for betraying that she knew anything about him. He was vain enough to think now that she was actually interested in him.
‘Yes, it is. The development’s coming along quite nicely. I’m due to go out there soon to check up on progress.’ He frowned. ‘It’s going to be quite a problem, I can’t take Sarah with me, and I’m not too happy about leaving her here alone. A nurse, no matter how skilled and well-trained, is no substitute for a family. It’s at times like these that I regret our mutual lack of relatives.’
‘Perhaps you should get married,’ Jenna told him idly. ‘That way you could leave her in the care of your wife.’
She had intended the comment as a mild form of mockery, but to her surprise, his expression became extremely thoughtful.
‘The papers,’ she reminded him hastily. She wanted to get away from him and the warm ambience of his flat that reminded her all too uncomfortably of the lack of male companionship in her own life.
‘Yes. I’ll get them for you, and you can browse through them while I make us some coffee. Can I offer you anything to eat?’
Jenna wasn’t particularly hungry and she shook her head, following him over to a beautiful Sheraton lady’s writing desk.
‘This belonged to the wife of the man in your portrait,’ he told her, opening it and removing a folder.
‘These are photocopies of the originals, but I think you’ll find them interesting. Do you have any plans for what you’re going to do to the old Hall?’
This was ground on which she felt relatively safe, and Jenna explained to him that she wanted all her restoration work to be as authentic as possible. ‘I want to be able to use the house as a display-case for our work.’ She broke off, laughing rather self-consciously. ‘I’m afraid I tend to get rather carried away when I’m talking about my work!’ She made a small face. ‘I must be boring you.’
‘Not at all. It makes quite a change to get more than half a dozen reluctant words from you. The Hall means an awful lot to you, doesn’t it?’ he asked quietly.
When she would have denied it, he added, ‘Listening to you then I could hear it in your voice, see it in your face. You look quite different when you’re animated…softer…younger. It?
?s very intriguing, a woman of hidden passions…’
Jenna tensed and looked away from him, picking up the folder. For a moment she had almost felt relaxed, but he had spoiled it all by that blatantly sexist remark.
‘I’ll go and make the coffee.’
She opened the folder and started to look through it, and was soon lost in its contents. There were photocopied extracts from the diary of the granddaughter of the man in her portrait, fine, delicate sketches she had made from her grandfather’s memories of his English home. It seemed that he had talked to her about it a great deal in his last years and Jenna was thrilled and amazed by the accuracy of his memory. The drawings and sketches of the rooms were remarkably accurate when she thought that the artist had never seen them, and she read on, excited by references to particular pieces of furniture and colours.
The French drawing-room, as the diary called it, had been decorated in that shade between blue and green so popular during the Regency. The ceiling had been painted in what Jenna suspected from the description in the diary had been an allegorical theme in a trompe l’oeil effect. She had wondered if this might be the case from her knowledge of the period, but it was intensely exciting to see down on paper a description of the original painting. Judging from what she read, Jenna suspected that the ceiling had been decorated with the astrological signs of the family—a popular theme at the time—combined with the artist’s impression of the Deveril crest. She was very familiar with this type of work and knew a brilliant young artist who was making a name for himself in restoration and reproduction work in the field.
As for the green silk hung on the wall panels and used to cover the chairs and Egyptian sofa, that would have to come from a firm who specialised in reproducing traditional patterns and dyes.
The original carpet would probably have been to a design specified by Robert Adam, almost certainly with a background of the same green as the silk, bordered in that subtle browny-pink he had been so fond of using, and decorated with shell and other motifs to match the ceiling in a soft cream. Lost in mentally viewing the room as it had once been and would be again she jumped when she heard James’s voice.
He was holding a mug of coffee which he handed to her. ‘Any good?’ He looked at the papers spread out on the desk in front of her.
‘Marvellous.’ She was far too excited to dissemble. Her cheeks glowed with it, her eyes sparkling a deep and clear green. ‘It’s fascinating how she managed to reproduce the rooms so accurately without seeing them.’ She hesitated for a second. ‘Would it be possible for me to have copies of these papers?’
There was no reason on earth why he should help her. After all, hadn’t he already made it clear that he resented her ownership of the Hall and that he intended to take it from her? The only reason she was being allowed to see these papers now was because of the trade-off they had agreed.
‘I don’t see why not.’ His mouth curled in a teasing smile. ‘At a price, of course.’
Instantly her excitement dimmed, washed out by the apprehension crawling along her spine. She stood up, moving jerkily, tensing as he reached out an arm to steady her. Instinctively she jerked back from him, her eyes dilating as fear swamped her. He was standing far too close to her—she could hardly breathe. She closed her eyes and tried to steady herself, and immediately a vision of the man in the portrait filled the darkness—not looking as he did in the portrait, but as he had in her dream: the lawn shirt open to the waist, the blue eyes dark with a mixture of anger and desire. Jenna shuddered deeply forcing her eyes open.
‘My God, you are frightened of me, aren’t you?’ She heard James mutter disbelievingly. ‘What ..?’ He reached out to touch her arm and a totally uncontrollable sense of oppression and terror blotted out reason completely. She heard herself scream and then she was falling into an endless black void, terrorised by some nightmare fear she could not subdue.