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Maggie kept her head bent over her own plate, totally unable to lift her gaze to look at Marcus as she prayed he could not think that she had made the dish just because he liked it.
She heard Marcus confirming that the delicately flavoured lamb was indeed one of his favourites, but she dared not allow herself to look directly at him, not even when all the plates were clean and she had to get up to go to the kitchen to bring in the ice-cream she had made during the afternoon. Sweetened with honey and served with more of the fresh raspberries, it had a clean, fresh taste that made both Susie and Sara say enthusiastically that it was the best meal they had had for ages.
There was an expectant pause during which both girls looked at Marcus, and Maggie got up awkwardly, pushing back her chair. She had no wish to hear him paying lip-service to good manners by giving her compliments he would rather have withheld, but instead of agreeing with his half-sisters he said only, ‘Susie, Sara…you will both help Maggie with the washing up.’ And then he got up himself, such a look of agonised tension crossing his face that Maggie ached to go over to him and help him. It was plain that he was in considerable pain, and she had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to prevent her own small gasp of sympathy escaping.
In point of fact, the kitchen was equipped with an excellent dishwasher, but nevertheless the girls helped her to clear the table and tidy the kitchen. While they loaded the machine, she made coffee, using the beans she had bought and grinding them in the blender.
‘Mm…gorgeous smell,’ Susie said, sniffing enthusiastically.
‘It won’t be ready for a few minutes, so I’m just going to dash upstairs and have a look at the north-facing rooms on the second floor.’
‘Oh, to use for your painting?’ Susie asked knowledgeably. ‘Well, they’re all virtually empty apart from some old furniture.’
She wasn’t gone very long. Any of the four large rooms facing north would do admirably, but, before taking one of them over as a studio and work-room, she would have to check with Marcus that he had no objection to her doing so. She must not forget, after all, that this was Marcus’s house and not her own. It was amazing what a difference that knowledge made to her thinking, and she wondered uneasily whether, if she had known the truth earlier, she would have been so insistent in her determination to stay. Then, she had felt that she had right on her side…that this house was at least in part her own home. She felt no possessiveness about the house from a material point of view, and was sensible enough to realise that there could never have been any way for her to either buy out her cousins’ shares or indeed run such a large property, and nor had she ever considered that once they were of age the property could be sold and the proceeds shared between them. No, the loss she felt was more of an emotional than a material one: as though a safety net had been removed from underneath her.
She had always looked on this house as a refuge…as a cornerstone of her life…as a place where she had an immutable right to be; and to discover that she was wrong, that she had no more right to be here, to call this house her home, than any stray passer-by made her feel acutely uncomfortable…rather like a trespasser, in fact.
When she got back to the kitchen, she was half tempted to ask Sara or Susie to take Marcus his coffee.
He had gone straight back to the study after dinner, announcing that he had work do do.
‘Can’t be going out with Isobel tonight, then,’ Susie commented after he had gone. ‘They don’t go out much at all now. I wonder if they’ve had a row.’
‘Marcus’s private life is his own affair,’ Maggie told her severely. ‘I’ll take this coffee to him, and then I suggest you two make sure you’ve got all your homework finished.’
Either Marcus had made the excuse that he had work to do simply to get away from her, or he was finding it difficult to concentrate on it, Maggie reflected as she knocked briefly and then opened the study door and saw that he was standing in front of the window with his back to her.
He was dressed casually, as he had been ever since she had arrived, in a short-sleeved, thin cotton shirt, through which she could see the hard leanness of his back, and a pair of faded jeans slit up one side, to accommodate the cumbersome plaster which encased him.
She cleared her throat nervously, tensing as he swung round, his eyes chilly with rejection as he saw her hovering just inside the door.
‘Marcus, if you’ve got a moment to spare, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.’
She saw his mouth twist in cynical bitterness and felt her stomach go hollow as she read the message of contempt in his cold stare.
‘You…discuss? This must be a first.’
And she flushed guiltily at the accuracy of the thrust, remembering how many times in the past she had gone her own way, deliberately ignoring his advice, and how, when she’d arrived, she had announced that she was going to stay no matter what he chose to say.
‘It’s about my work,’ she told him quietly, putting the tray of coffee down on his desk. ‘I was wondering if you would object if I used one of the north-facing rooms on the second floor. I’ve got a couple of commissions to finish and…’
She broke off at the terse sound he made, lifting her head instinctively so that she couldn’t avoid seeing the surprise that drew a frown to his face.
‘Why ask me?’ he told her brutally. ‘Why not just go ahead and move your stuff in there?’
Maggie flushed again and, much as she wanted to lie to him, she knew she couldn’t.
‘I felt I had to,’ she told him painfully. ‘You see, I hadn’t realised until Isobel told me this afternoon that Grandfather left the house to you.’
His reaction was not at all what she had been expecting. Contempt…derision…even an outright demand that, since she did now know, she leave the house immediately; she had steeled herself for all of those, but to her shock he bit out sharply, ‘Isobel told you that?’
‘Yes,’ Maggie confirmed in some bewilderment.
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‘And now you want to know just how it came about that your grandfather left his place to me, is that it?’
‘No!’ Maggie denied, openly appalled. ‘Of course not.’
