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'How good of you to remember me, Mrs Pearce,' he interposed smoothly and, graceful as a panther, came to his feet, hand outstretched.
'Oh, I remember you all right, Jared.' She gave him a smile that managed to be faintly coy.
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'And how are you? You're looking very fetching.'
He stood, smiling down at her, and Petra watched, rather sourly, as the middle-aged woman blushed and simpered like a young girl.
'But it must be—what? Ten years. What brings you back to these parts, Jared?'
'Oh, it's a long story,' he replied easily. 'Remind me to tell you some time—'
'But whatever are you doing in here?' Her gaze took in the breakfast table, set for two. 'I left food and milk in for you. I always do, to start my tenants off, and—' she sucked in her breath suddenly, her gaze going sharply from one to the other of them, and Petra knew what was coming
'—and you didn't sleep in the bed I made up for you.'
Past Mrs Pearce she shot him an imploring look. All he had to do was laugh and say something about a delayed flight . . . arrived just at breakfast-time . . .
'I'm afraid when I got here last night, I—well, I mistook the house, didn't I Petra?' He flashed her a bright, boyish smile, which she met with daggers of ice. 'But I was made very welcome.'
'Really?'
Mrs Pearce, her blue eyes bright, put a great deal of eager expectation into the word, but he had picked up his coffee and was gulping it down, so she turned instead to Petra, who heard herself mumbling lamely, 'The power cut . . . ' as if that explained all. The older woman scrutinised her closely. 'You look very flushed, dear. I hope you're not getting this nasty flu that's going about. I told you yesterday, you've been working much too hard.'
'Oh, no, I'm fine.'
Petra managed a sickly smile, half wishing she was succumbing to flu—the three-month variety—as Jared picked up the cream sheepskin and slung it casually over his shoulders.
'At your service, Mrs Pearce.' Turning to Petra, he took her hand and, horribly aware of a pair of bird-bright eyes that missed nothing, she was forced to submit. 'Thank you for a lovely breakfast, P e t r a ... 'his eyes gleamed, wholly grey as usual when he was engaged in mischief
. . . and for a wonderful Cornish welcome.'
'Bye, dear.' As Mrs Pearce went on ahead Petra snatched hold of Jared's arm, one sheepskin sleeve softly caressing her wrist.
'Thanks a million,' she hissed, anger finally taking over from discretion.
'For what, sweetie?' he enquired blandly.
'Just how long do you think it'll be teatime? No—Avril Pearce is the fastest worker in north Cornwall. Lunchtime.'
'For what?'
'Don't come the innocent with me. For the entire village to know that you and I—' she swallowed, hardly able to get the hateful words off her tongue '—spent the night together.'
'But darling,' lifting his hand, he brushed his fingers lightly over her lips, 'why should that worry you? After all, that's precisely what we did do.'
Petra sat for a long time, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the kitchen wall, from behind which she could hear faint noises: doors opening and closing, footsteps going up the winding stairs as Mrs Pearce showed Jared his bedroom—the one he should have slept in last night. Then there was the soft sound of running water—she must be showing him how to work that fabulous whirlpool bath, which she'd had installed when she'd turned Pear Tree Cottage into a luxury holiday let. He'd be able to soak in it; maybe those soothing jets would free his writing block . . . Her mind was etching in images of his dark head lolling back against the rim, that superb, oliveskinned body —
Abruptly she swallowed a mouthful of coffee, grimaced as it went down, lukewarm, then got to her feet, cleared away the breakfast things—hers untasted—and set to work on a dozen Dundee cakes.
It was no use, of course. The gentle ritual of weighing, stirring, beating, which had never yet failed to soothe her, failed this morning. She looked down into the mixing bowl and saw Jared's lazily amused face, reached for smooth almonds and her fingers touched his satin skin, as they had last night.
Did he remember? Did he still think about it? What had he said just now? ' Suppose I say that I've come back for you, Petra?' But that, surely, was no more than merely another ploy in his private little game of unnerving her? For, after all, a tremulous, wholly inexperienced adolescent girl, throwing herself at him, must barely have registered on the Richter scale of his sexual encounters.
But for her . . . Finally the images of that ten-year-old summer surfaced like slow bubbles from that furthest part of her mind where she had so long imprisoned them . . . She'd haunted Jared all that hot summer, so that he'd alternately teased her, been irritable with her, and very occasionally been kind to her, putting his arm round her and dropping a light kiss on her hair.
That Saturday afternoon her mother had been off on the local Women's Institute annual outing. From behind the curtains she'd watched until, just when she'd given up hope, Jared, in his old jeans and black T-shirt, had sauntered past and turned into the cobbled alley which led steeply up past the backs of the cottages and on to the cliffs. He had been alone—as usual. He'd had plenty of friends, but there was an inner Jared that no one w a s allowed near. In the small hall she'd surveyed herself in the mirror, smoothing down her blouse and skirt, the sixteenth-birthday present from her parents the previous week that she'd begged for. Bought from a boutique in Newquay that specialised in Indian clothes and jewellery, it was in coarse cotton, the colour of clotted cream, the skirt fringed, the matching short-sleeved Mouse faced with cotton lace on the yoke.
