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She was doing it again, wasn’t she? Running away just as she’d done twelve years ago. Assuming the worst about the man she loved without stopping to hear his side of the story.
Dorothy’s opinions weren’t conclusive evidence, were they? Opinions formed by village gossips, who had nothing better to do with their time than speculate, elaborate and embroider on the doings of others, weren’t to be taken as gospel truth.
And she, Caroline, wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. She would speak to Ben, tell him what Dorothy had said—implied—and listen to what he had to say with an open, trusting mind.
Briefly debating whether to retrace her steps, head back to the village and find Ben or flag him down if he happened to pass her on his way back to Langley Hayes, she glanced down at her wrist-watch.
In just under an hour Michael would arrive to pick her up so it would probably be better—less of a halfway-to-hysterical impulse—if she carried on up to the house, got cleaned up and changed so that when Ben turned up she could face him with some dignity and poise.
Looking as she did, her hair hanging in straggly rats’ tails, her blouse crumpled and the borrowed, too wide, too short jeans still damp and spattered with mud, she must look like a particularly unappealing tramp.
She would have time for a quick shower, she decided as she walked on up the lane trying to avoid the puddles and the rainwater that dripped off the overhanging trees. She’d probably change into the suit she’d arrived in, blow dry her hair and—
She cut her thoughts off with a muffled groan, aware of what she was doing—filling her mind with unimportant trivia to crowd out the terrible doubts.
That he had lied to her and would go on lying.
That the things Dorothy had said were the truth, that everyone knew he was the father of Maggie’s child.
She didn’t want to have doubts about him, she really didn’t, she didn’t want them festering in her mind so she’d been trying to blot them out.
She wanted to recapture that earlier faith, the blossoming of certainty that had filled her heart with such sweet joy.
Her throat tightened and thickened with tears as she turned into the Langley Hayes’ driveway and walked on towards the house. After what she’d seen and had heard, that earlier certainty was impossible to recapture, but she wouldn’t let herself dwell on these negative thoughts before she’d heard what he had to say.
The final bend in the drive brought her in sight of the house and of Michael’s blue BMW. Caroline bit back a groan of stark annoyance. Her employer’s son was leaning against the bonnet, perfectly relaxed, his legs crossed at the ankles, the hem of his pale green shirt coming adrift from the waistband of his crumpled grey chinos.
She would have much preferred him to be late rather than early. She was going to have to tell him that she couldn’t leave until she’d talked to Ben, that he could go on without her and she’d make her own way back to base.
Reluctantly, she returned his wave of greeting and he levered his stocky body away from the car and walked to meet her. His hazel eyes crinkled with laughter as he threw an arm around her shoulders.
‘You’re early.’ Caroline heard the accusatory tone in her voice and tried to moderate it. None of this was his fault. ‘I have to—’
No need to go on, the crunch of tyres on gravel told her that Ben had returned. The big car slowed as it drew level. She saw one comprehensive look from narrowed black eyes as Michael grinned and hugged her just that little bit closer, ‘What have you done to yourself, my darling? You look more like a scarecrow than my beautiful, elegant partner!’
She wasn’t his partner in any sense of the word; she was his colleague. She fumed inwardly, impatiently shrugging his arm from her shoulder and tucking a straggle of hair behind her ear as Ben shot her a fulminating glare then gunned the engine and ended up parking beside the BMW in a shower of gravel.
Caroline surged forward, her jaw at a determined angle, but Michael captured her waist in what felt like a grip of iron. ‘Hang on, what’s the rush?’
‘I need to speak to Ben—Mr Dexter—’
‘Fine. I’m in no hurry, and he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.’
He wasn’t. He was waiting. Feet apart, his extravagantly handsome features austere. Caroline’s stomach clenched as her heart turned over. The force of his anger was almost visible. She had never, ever, seen him look quite so forbidding.
But Michael seemed blithely unaware of it as they approached the waiting man. His hand outstretched, he acknowledged, ‘Dexter—good to meet the guy who gave my find a home!’ And at Ben’s blank, tight-lipped stare, he elaborated. ‘First Love—the find of the decade.’
Eliciting no response he belatedly introduced himself. ‘Michael Weinberg. Caroline
told me on the phone that she’s finished up here and I offered to drive her back. I’m a tad earlier than I said I’d be, but that’s probably a bonus, because I get the impression she’s anxious to get under way.’
He turned smiling eyes back to her, and to her ears his voice sounded decidedly intimate. ‘We’ll stop off for an early supper. I got on the mobile and booked a table at a rather good restaurant just outside Banbury—it will go some way towards making up for the dinner date we had to cancel when you came up here.’
Only when his hand gave a proprietorial squeeze did Caroline become aware that he still had an arm around her waist. Michael was giving entirely the wrong impression. About everything. Wanting to slap a hand over his mouth to stop him saying another word she felt herself redden with frustration then go cold all over as Ben turned contemptuous, half-hooded eyes on her for a long, blistering second before turning back to the other man.
‘Yes. I see now.’ His voice was flat, the pent-up anger disappearing, making him seem weary. He made a gesture with one hand towards the house. ‘Perhaps you’d like to wait inside, Weinberg? I’m sure it won’t take Miss Harvey too long to make herself beautiful for you. And would you like her to make you some tea to drink while you wait?’
All cool urbanity now, and then some. Caroline fumed as she escaped Michael’s clutches and stalked ahead of them into the house. Ben was savagely angry with her, that much was obvious. Less obvious was the reason.
