For heaven’s sake, she chided herself, sitting up straighter and refusing to look around. What was the matter with her? Dominic could not hurt her now. So once she had believed herself attracted to him; had thought she had seen in him all the compassion and security lacking in her husband, and she had been wrong. So once he had spurned her, humiliating and hurting her badly, but that was all in the past, she told herself firmly, her back stiffening slightly as a sixth sense told her that he was getting closer to them.
‘Dominic is staying with us for a while,’ she told Kate brightly. ‘He and my husband…’
‘I’m sure that Mrs Hammond isn’t interested in my reasons for being down here, Vera.’
Kate wasn’t surprised to see the older woman colour slightly under the cool hauteur of Dominic’s voice, and, angry on Vera’s behalf, she turned sharply to face him, catching her breath as she realised how far back she had to tilt her head to look into his face, her voice as cool as his had been as she said, ‘You’re quite right. I’m not the least bit interested.’
The distantly polite smile she gave him was all that saved the words from being downright rude, but she was beyond caring about that now, and turning her back on him she said calmly to Vera, ‘Perhaps it isn’t convenient for me to discuss the conservatory with you now. I’ll…’ She made to get up, but Vera protested quickly,
‘Oh no… of course it is.’ She got up. ‘Please come through and have a look at it.’
In order to follow her, Kate would have had to brush past Dominic, almost touching him, but instead, she made a deliberate detour, not even looking at him as she followed her hostess’s hurried footsteps.
The conservatory was attached to the opposite side of the house, very traditional in design, with a typical, high vaulted roof, the glass panels supported by delicate wrought iron work.
‘I’ve had the gardening contractors clean everything out,’ Vera told Kate as they stepped on to the marble-tiled floor. She wrinkled her nose slightly. ‘It looks awful at the moment, but…’
‘But the potential’s there,’ Kate finished for her with a smile, banishing from her mind her mental image of Dominic’s darkly brooding features as she forced herself to concentrate on the conservatory.
She had brought her portfolio with her, and sitting down on a wrought iron bench she opened it to show Vera.
Half an hour later Vera said enthusiastically, ‘Kate, they’re all lovely, but I think you know I’ve fallen for the freestyle design of the cottage garden flowers.’
Kate knew the one she meant; a rather over-the-top design which would cover all three sides of the conservatory with the glowing colours of traditional cottage garden plants.
‘It will be expensive,’ she warned Vera now.
‘Mmm… I can see that, but could you leave the sketch with me to show Ian?’ Vera made a slight face and added wryly, ‘In his business he has to do a certain amount of entertaining—the kind where it’s important to create a good impression. It’s not really my style, but it is something I have to do. Your design for the conservatory would make a stunning visual impact—you know how it is, there’s a certain amount of vying for supremacy among that sort of set, and I suspect our American visitors will be particularly impressed, but I do want Ian to see it before I commit myself.’
‘I quite understand that,’ Kate assured her, her brain ringing with the implications of what Vera was saying. The sketch she had favoured had been one Kate had only done on a last-minute impulse, loving the idea of it, but knowing that very few people would be able to afford such extravagance. It had never occurred to her that Vera Benson might actually opt for it. It just went to show how much money there was in merchant banking, Kate thought wryly, collecting her sketches together. The cost of implementing her design into the conservatory would probably have enabled her to run the house for another three or four years, but then she was not in the Bensons’ income bracket, nor had ever wanted to be, she acknowledged.
Now that the first shock of hearing Vera say she liked the design had passed, she was beginning to realise what a challenge implementing it would be, and what a marvellous opportunity for Harry and herself as one of their first ventures in their new partnership.
All of a sudden she couldn’t wait to get home and tell him all about it.
There was no sign of Dominic as Vera showed her to the front door, and imperceptibly the tension that had gripped her as they left the conservatory eased. Having thanked Vera and made her farewells Kate got into her car. Vera stood in the open doorway, frowning slightly as she witnessed Kate’s unsuccessful attempts to get the recalcitrant vehicle started.
It wasn’t going to start, Kate recognised balefully after ten fruitless minutes trying to ge
t a response, and what was more, with each attempt the battery was getting flatter and flatter.
At last she was forced to recognise defeat, and getting out of the car, she asked Vera if she might use her phone.
‘Of course… I’d run you home myself, but I’m afraid Ian’s got the car.’
Kate was just about to follow Vera back into the house when Dominic walked round the side of it, frowning as he saw Kate’s car and the two women.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked crisply, his question directed at Vera, not at herself, Kate recognised. In some strange way it was almost as though Dominic himself considered his outburst on the evening of the dinner party as some sort of mental aberration, to judge by the way he was now studiously ignoring her.
‘Kate’s car won’t start,’ Vera told him worriedly, ‘and I can’t offer her a lift because I don’t have my car…’
Before she could say anything else Kate interrupted quickly, ‘That wouldn’t have been necessary in any case, thanks, Vera. I can get the garage to pick me up and drop me at Sue’s. She’ll give me a lift home.’
Quite by chance she caught a glimpse of Dominic’s face as he registered her remarks. The scorn and contempt in his eyes was almost like a physical blow. It hurt so much that the intensity of the pain froze her as she waited like a trapped animal for it to subside. What was wrong with her? Why should anything this man said either to her or about her have the power to hurt now? Once she had acted irrationally and stupidly and she had paid for that mistake… Oh, how she had paid… but she had paid.
‘There’s no need to do any of that,’ he announced laconically, his eyes on Kate’s face, but his words directed to Vera, as he added, ‘I can give Mrs Hammond a lift home. I was just about to go into the village anyway… I assume that’s where the garage is,’ he asked Kate, continuing before she could confirm or deny his remark. ‘We can call there on the way and get them to come out to your car… What’s wrong with it, by the way?’
He walked over to her ancient Mini and stood looking at it. He still moved with that same indolent masculinity that had had such an effect on her eight years ago, Kate acknowledged, but now she was not an impressionable twenty-year-old. So why was her stomach doing crazy, physically impossible stunts?