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He paused, and the older woman gazed at him open-mouthed, her face warming with undisguised annoyance.
‘Unless you have something else planned, of course,’ he added smoothly. ‘No? I thought not.’ He turned to Rhianna, who was also staring at him, dumbfounded and totally lost for words, but with an odd little tendril of disbelieving joy unfurling inside her too.
‘Wash your face, sea urchin,’ he directed. ‘And I’ll be back around six-thirty to collect you.’
Kezia Trewint found her voice. ‘Mr Penvarnon, this is nonsense. There’s absolutely no need for you to go to all this trouble…’
‘Now, there we disagree.’ His smile held charm, but it was also inexorable, and Rhianna felt a faint shiver between her shoulder-blades. ‘So—six-thirty. Don’t be late.’ And he was gone.
Alone in the moonlight, Rhianna let herself remember…
Aunt Kezia, of course, had not bothered to disguise her anger and bitterness at this turn of events.
‘Barely out of childhood, and already throwing yourself at a man.’ She chewed at the words and spat them out. ‘And a Penvarnon man at that. The shame of it. And he must have taken leave of his senses.’
‘I didn’t throw myself,’ Rhianna protested. ‘He felt sorry for me and was kind. That’s all.’
‘Because you told him the suffering orphan tale, I suppose? All big eyes and no bread in the house.’ Miss Trewint scrubbed at the paintwork as if determined to reach the bare wood beneath it. ‘And what will Mrs Seymour have to say when she hears? We’ll be lucky to keep our place here.’
Rhianna stared at her. ‘Mr Penvarnon wouldn’t let us be sent away—not for something he’d done,’ she protested.
‘So you think you know him that well, do you?’ Miss Trewint gave a harsh laugh. ‘Well—like mother, like daughter. I should have known.’ She paused. ‘You’d better get ready, if you’re going. You can’t keep him waiting.’
Rhianna went up to the flat. Whatever Aunt Kezia said, she thought rebelliously, she wasn’t going to allow it to spoil the evening ahead—the prospect of being taken out to dinner as if she was grown-up.
But she couldn’t entirely dismiss the older woman’s unpleasant remarks, especially when she recalled Carrie’s reluctant confidences.
She knew in her heart that Grace Carlow had been a good and loving person, and that she couldn’t have—wouldn’t have—done anything wrong. All the same there was a mystery there, and one day she would get to the bottom of it and clear her mother’s name.
But common sense told her that she must wait until she was older for her questions to be taken seriously.
She had a quick bath and washed her hair, being careful not to use too much hot water, while she mused on what to wear.
She would have given anything to have a cupboard full of the kind of clothes her classmates wore outside school, at the weekends and at holiday times, she thought wistfully, but her aunt considered serviceable shorts and tee shirts, with a pair of jeans for cooler days, an adequate wardrobe for her. And she couldn’t even contemplate what Kezia Trewint would have said about the make-up and jewellery the other girls took for granted.
Which only left her school uniform dresses, still relatively new, full-skirted and square necked in pale blue.
Sighing, she put one of them on, slipped her feet into her black regulation shoes, brushed her cloud of hair into relative submission and went downstairs to wait for him.
He was a few minutes late, and for a stricken moment she wondered if he’d had second thoughts. Then he came striding across the stable yard with a set look to his mouth which suggested that Moira Seymour might indeed have had something to say about his plan.
But his face relaxed when he saw her, and he said, ‘You’re looking good, Miss Carlow. Shall we go?’
His car was wonderful, low, sleek and clearly powerful, but he kept its power strictly harnessed as he negotiated the narrow high-hedged lanes leading out of Polkernick with a sure touch.
It wasn’t a long journey—just a few miles down the coast to another village built on a steep hill overlooking a harbour. The restaurant was right on the quay, occupying the upper storey of a large wooden building like a boathouse, and reached by an outside staircase.
Inside, it was equally unpretentious, with plain wooden tables and chairs, and the menu and wine list chalked up on blackboards.
There were quite a few people eating already, but a table for two had been reserved by the window with a view of the harbour, and a girl in tee shirt and jeans came to light the little lamp in its glass shade which stood in middle of the table, and take their order for drinks.
