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She leaned closer, until the tips of her breasts brushed his jacket, and added the final insult: ‘Or did you just pay to watch?’
Later she would shudder at the foolish risk she had taken, but her bold tactics worked. The ice-floes moved back in and smothered the spark of fire.
‘I don’t consider sex a spectator sport,’ he said bluntly, in a voice like sharpened flint. ‘Nor is it something I pay for. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few questions for your gracious host, and then I’ll leave you to it.’
And with that sarcastic little jab he walked around her to start a low-pitched conversation with a befuddled and increasingly defensive-looking Mikey.
Emily was free!
Free to walk out of the room, out of the house, and out of a world of trouble.
CHAPTER TWO
EMILY nudged her borrowed car around the rising bend and floored the accelerator, leaning forwards as if her shifting body weight could help push the aging engine up the final hill. Perhaps this was one of those rare times when a few extra pounds could prove to be an advantage!
The engine’s high-pitched whine became a labouring scream as she ground painfully towards the brow. She gripped the steering wheel and prayed she wasn’t about to blow something vital and start hurtling backwards down the narrow, winding road. Apart from the fact that the car was only on loan, her credit with insurance companies was rock-bottom right now. She didn’t need another accident to add to her current set of worries.
She sighed with relief when she saw the distinctive stone pillars topped with unique, hand-blown glass light-globes rise into view, turning thankfully into the paved driveway edged with flowering trees and shrubs and letting the car coast gently down towards the large turning circle at the front portico.
Built of white stone, the long, low Nash house was perched on the high point of a ridge that had once been open farmland. Over the last half-century the lush pastures and stands of native bush on the northern side had been gradually nibbled away by the creeping urban sprawl of New Zealand’s largest city, while along the ridge and its hilly surrounds the council by-laws had limited subdivision to five-acre “lifestyle” blocks that eased the transition from town to country.
The house itself was sited on the footprint of the original farmhouse, commanding views south across rolling green farmland and market gardens as far as the distant smudge of the Bombay Hills, thirty kilometres away, and north over the marching tracts of suburbia to the commercial centre of Auckland where skyscrapers were stacked like toy blocks to the edge of the blue-green waters of the Waitemata Harbour.
Peter Nash had built his house as a home rather than a showcase for his wealth, well before the area had become fashionable. There were plenty of other, far more palatial residences springing up along Ridge Road, where wealthy ‘lifestyle block’ owners could play at being countryfolk within thirty minutes’ drive of the CBD, but none, Emily thought as she drove around to the side of the house, with such perfect placement and unpretentious charm.
A large part of that charm was due to the efforts of Peter’s late wife, Rose, who had been an avid gardener and homemaker. She had also been a passionate collector of antique china and regularly sent pieces to Quest Restorations for cleaning and repair.
Emily parked beside the Dutch-barn-shaped garage and allowed the car to cough and shudder into respectable silence before she got out to heft a bulky carton from the crammed back seat.
The air was warm and still, laden with the sweet scents of early summer, and she took a deep, appreciative breath. It was bliss to her lungs after all the smoke-and-chemical tainted air she had inhaled earlier that morning. She paused to enjoy the single slice of panoramic view that was visible between the barn and the corner of the house. It directed her gaze down towards the beaches of the inner suburbs, and she couldn’t help her eyes measuring the distance between a cluster of moored yachts and a particular crooked finger of land.
Of course, she couldn’t distinguish the actual house from so far away, but somewhere in amongst that patchwork blur of buildings was the slate roof of the Webber residence. It had been two years since the hideous debacle of the Chinese flask but she still remembered every second of that infamous party as if it were yesterday. She had had nightmares for weeks before and after her desperate venture, and even now sometimes woke in a cold sweat of fear, her heart racing from the pursuit of some nameless dread. The threat of exposure had faded with the passage of time but she could never quite rid herself of the guilty notion that she had cheated fate, and she still got a queasy feeling in her stomach whenever she drove in the area. If she had learned one good thing about herself that night, it was that she was not cut out to be a criminal!
Nudging the car door closed with her hip, she carried her burden around to the front door and manoeuvred her elbow to push the doorbell, wincing a little as she identified another undiscovered bruise. While she waited she heeled off her sooty shoes and checked the soles of her white cotton socks.
‘Hello, Mrs Cooper.’ She smiled at the dour-faced woman who opened the door. ‘I hope you don’t think I should have gone around to the tradesman’s entrance with this lot!’
She was slightly surprised when Kay Cooper’s peppercorn-black eyes remained chary as she stood back to let her in.
‘He’s been waiting for you all morning, Miss Quest,’ she said, pursing her thin lips, her tone just short of outright criticism.
Knowing how fiercely protective the housekeeper was of her long-time employer, Emily accepted the rebuff. Mrs Cooper had worked for the Nashes as their “daily” for more than half of her sixty years, and had earned the ri
ght to be proprietorial.
‘I’m sorry, I know I’m running a bit late but I finally got permission to go back into my studio and see if there was anything I could salvage,’ she explained, putting the box down on the immaculately clean tiles just inside the door. ‘I’m afraid it took longer than I thought. I was going to call ahead from the car to let Mr Nash know I was on my way…but then I remembered that my mobile died in the fire,’ she added with a rueful lift of her shoulders.
The shameless play for sympathy succeeded. Mrs Cooper’s tight lips eased a fraction at the reminder of Emily’s catastrophic loss. Her helmet of improbably black hair hardly moved as she inclined her head towards the back of the house.
‘He’s in his office.’
It was still called an office, in spite of the fact that little business was now conducted within its walls. Peter Nash had sold out his booming chain of hardware stores ten years before, during his wife’s first, successful battle against cancer. That he had had eight more years of companionship with his beloved Rose before the cancer returned in a more aggressive form had vindicated his decision to retire when he had, but since her death he had struggled to find a purpose for himself and fill the empty gap in his life.
‘Thanks. Is it all right if I leave this stuff here for now?’ she asked meekly, indicating the box. If she was going to be working here for the next few weeks it wouldn’t do to get offside with Mrs Cooper. Emily had always got on well with her before, so was a little puzzled at her stiff reception.
Mrs Cooper looked down her beaky nose at the carton. ‘I suppose the rest of your things are in the car?’
Was there something faintly accusing in that remark? Emily’s puzzlement increased. ‘Well, some of them, yes…but I’ll leave them there until I know where I’m going to put everything. When Mr Nash made his offer, he was rather vague about the details…’
