The dress was, Kate recognised wryly, the representation of a female urge as old as time, that of needing to make herself as attractive as possible to the man she desired. But hadn’t she already decided that she was going to do all she could to discourage Dominic?
The sound of a car coming up the drive put an end to her musings and she got downstairs just in time to greet the estate agent as he stepped out of his car.
‘Martin Allwood, Mrs Hammond,’ he introduced himself, extending his hand. ‘We did meet when you came into the office.’
His fair hair glinted in the sun, his expression openly admiring as light blue eyes studied her tall slender body.
‘If I may say so, you present a charmingly cool appearance on a very hot morning.’
‘I’m due to have lunch with a friend,’ Kate responded coolly, warning him that she had not dressed for his benefit, and the interest in his eyes sharpened slightly.
‘I think if you don’t mind we’ll do the garden first,’ he suggested. ‘There’s much more land with the property than I had realised. It would make an ideal family home—just the sort I’d like myself, if I was married…’
Kate, falling into step with him as they followed the crazy paving path round the side of the house, looked sharply at him, wondering if he was deliberately informing her that he wasn’t married. He was attractive enough, although a little too bland and squeaky-clean for her taste, but she had no doubt that most women found him attractive.
They went over the garden and then through the house, Kate answering his questions about the history of the house. He had discarded the jacket of his suit, after asking her permission, and unfastened the top buttons of his shirt.
They had reached the main bedroom when Kate heard another car coming down the drive. Frowning slightly for she wasn’t expecting anyone, she went to the window and leaned out, her frown lifting as she saw that it was her own car. The garage had obviously finished working on it and had brought it back for her.
Obviously drawn to the window by the new arrival, Martin Allwood came to stand behind her, one arm extended behind her to support himself as he too leaned forward.
The car door opened, and Kate felt her stomach cramp protestingly as Dominic got out.
He looked up at the window straight away, and it was only when she saw his mouth compress that Kate realised that the way they were standing suggested an intimacy between herself and the estate agent that actually had no reality.
‘I’d better go down,’ she told him as they both moved away from the window.
‘I’ll follow you…there isn’t much more for me to do up here…this was the last room, wasn’t it?’
Nodding her agreement, Kate hurried downstairs. She had left the front door open and Dominic was standing in the hall, his face contorted with savage anger.
‘What have you done with your lover?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Left him to finish dressing on his own? You’re being very indiscreet entertaining him so early in the day, Kate. Does he know, I wonder, that he’s satisfying a desire I aroused in you?’
The bitter mingling of anger and contempt, his totally erroneous suppositions about her, took Kate’s breath away for a moment. It was ridiculous that Dominic should think that she and Martin Allwood were lovers…and she opened her mouth to tell him so when she realised what he had said about her desire for him, and anger replaced her stupefaction.
‘You’re very arrogant, Dominic,’ she told him softly, veiling her eyes with her lashes before he could see the gleam of temper in them. ‘You’re not the only man I’ve wanted, you know.’
She hadn’t expected her gibe to have the effect it did. Almost immediately the bitterness died from his eye, to be replaced by pain. He took a step towards her and then stopped, looking at the stairs. Glancing over her shoulder, Kate saw Martin Allwood coming leisurely down the stairs, shrugging on his jacket as he did so, for all the world as though he were indeed perhaps her lover.
As she turned away from Dominic to follow him outside to his car, he said to her with a smile,
‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.’
He got into his car and was just about to drive off when Dominic walked up to it and asked casually, ‘If you’re going back in the direction of the village, I wonder if I might beg a lift. I left my own car at the garage.’
‘Sure… Get in.’
Her forehead creased in a frown, Kate watched them drive away. Why had Dominic begged a lift from Martin? To warn him about the sort of woman she was? She went cold at the thought, but could not think of any other reason for his behaviour. It was obvious to her that having brought out her car he must have expected that she would drive him back to the garage…but he had gone almost without exchanging a word with her.
* * *
As always, Sue was pleased to see her, commenting appreciatively on how attractive she looked.
‘Obviously you’re not letting what Dominic said get to you. Good for you, Kate, it’s high time you started living again. By the way,’ she added curiously, ‘you never did say why he reacted to you the way he did.’
The secret Kate had guarded so assiduously in the past no longer seemed so important and so, taking a deep breath, she explained to her friend what had happened that fateful weekend.