What Happens in Tuscany... (2 page)

‘Hi Katie. I thought I saw you over here. What can I get you?'

She looked up at the sound of his voice, surprised to see him. ‘Oh, hi, Martin, shouldn't you be out on the practice field?'

He grinned and shook his head. ‘Nope. The season's just about over. I've got a couple more friendlies and then two months off.' He nodded towards the pile of papers. ‘Job hunting?'

‘Without much success, I'm afraid.' She couldn't help smiling at him. In spite of his recently broken nose, and the remains of bruising around his left eye, he really was a good-looking man. She had known him from her Pilates class for about six months, since the beginning of the year, but had only spoken to him for the first time a few days previously at a party she had been bullied into going to by Jenny. It was there she had discovered he was a solicitor and that he played rugby in his spare time.

‘Drink?' He repeated his offer. Just at that moment Jenny appeared with two glasses of white wine.

‘Hi, Martin. If I'd known you were here, I'd have got you a pint.'

‘No worries.' He gave her a wave and headed off to the bar. He was wearing shorts and trainers. Both girls eyed his broad shoulders and strong brown legs as he disappeared. Katie also found herself looking at his firm behind. Taking advantage of his momentary absence, Jenny lowered her voice and broached the subject they had been discussing only a few hours earlier. ‘Fancy Martin coming to this pub! I've never seen him in here before. I reckon he's come looking for you, Katie. This is your chance. Ask him out. He's obviously into you.'

Katie shook her head. ‘Don't be so silly.'

Jenny gave her an expression of disbelief. ‘Listen to me, girl. I know what I'm talking about. He latched onto you at the party and anybody could see he was keen.'

Katie took a deep breath. ‘I'm not so sure, but, anyway, enough's enough. The last thing I want is to leap back into another relationship. What I need to do now is to concentrate on getting myself a job and, hopefully, a career. I need to know that I can make a success of my life without having to rely on anybody else.' She looked across at Jenny. ‘The thing is, Jen, I can't just sit here waiting for Mr Right to appear. Besides which, there aren't many of them around these days. No, I'm afraid men are off the agenda for now.' She paused for a moment before admitting, ‘Even men with a body like Martin's.'

Jenny gave her a long hard look. ‘Don't let one bad experience sour things for you completely. It's like they say about riding. You fall off. You get straight back up on the horse again.'

‘I think I'll keep my feet firmly on the ground for now. Besides, he'd never go for it or, if he did, it would just be because he's sorry for me.' She saw Jenny's expression. ‘I told him all about the Dean debacle. And anyway, you're a fine one to be giving me relationship advice. You've hardly been out with a man since university. I never had you pegged for a career girl when we were students, but that's what you are.'

‘I'll get there before too long. If I had a Martin sniffing around me I wouldn't say no, and that's for sure. For crying out loud, Katie; strap on a pair, will you?'

‘A pair of what?' Martin reappeared with a pint of lager in his hand. If he noticed their embarrassment he was good enough not to show it. ‘All right if I join you? Not interrupting anything, am I?'

They waved him to a seat. He took a mouthful of beer then set his glass down on the table. He looked across at Katie. ‘So, anything good on the jobs front?' She shook her head and gave him a brief rundown of the three possibles. He shook his head in sympathy. ‘Doesn't sound too good. Of course, you could always go back to uni, take a conversion course and do law. Only a year and you'd be a more marketable proposition.'

‘You make it sound as if I'm selling myself.' Katie reached for her wine.

‘Well, if you were, I'd be the first to make you an offer.'

Jenny sat up. So she had been right. This tall, handsome man was making a play for Katie. Surreptitiously, she studied her friend, who was doing her unsuccessful best to avoid showing that she was blushing. Seeing her embarrassment, Jenny came to her rescue.

‘What about you, Martin? Thinking about giving up the legal profession and becoming a professional rugby player?'

He dragged his eyes away from Katie, turned towards her and shook his head. ‘No way, Jenny. I've had so much injury trouble this year, I don't think I'd hack it in the professional leagues. Have you seen the size of some of those guys?' His hand strayed to his bruised face. ‘Besides, if I was going to do that, it should have been ten years ago, maybe more. Thirty-one is not the age to try something like that. No, I'm pretty happy as a solicitor, just like my dad and my big brother.'

Katie glanced gratefully across at Jenny, glad of the change of subject. ‘My dad was a solicitor. He was always on at me about studying law. I'm beginning to think he might have been right after all. Forget languages, forget the humanities, do something that'll pay well. The trouble is, I haven't got the funds to take a year out to retrain. I'm afraid I'll have to keep looking for something that'll pay the bills for now.'

‘Can't you ask your dad?' When they were younger, Jenny had often visited the big house where Katie's folks lived, up on the cliffs with a view out over the sea. Katie shook her head.

‘That's the real last resort. I got myself into this mess and it's up to me to get myself out of it.' Jenny gave her a smile. Katie could be stubborn when she wanted.

‘There's more to life than money, Katie. It can't buy happiness, or so they say.'

‘It can make unhappiness a hell of a lot more comfortable, though.'

Chapter Two

‘Miss Katherine Parr?'

It was a man's voice, the accent difficult to pinpoint, maybe Scottish. Katie looked up hastily. She was standing on the platform, still checking that she had remembered to take all her luggage when she left the train. She had always had a fear of leaving something behind and only realising as the train pulled away from the station. She straightened up and studied the man who had addressed her. To her amazement, he was dressed like Toad of Toad Hall. He was wearing a flat tweed cap and heavy leather gloves, although the temperature that sunny July evening was still well into the twenties. All he needed was a pair of airman's goggles and he would have looked the part perfectly. She cleared her throat.

‘Hello. Yes, I'm Katherine Parr. Have you come to take me to Iddlescombe?'

‘Yes, Miss. My name is Mackintosh.' Yes, definitely Scottish. Mr Mackintosh nodded gravely and reached out for her two bags. She made a half-hearted attempt to take the smaller one, but his gloved hands were obviously attached to strong arms, and he whisked them away without appreciable effort. ‘If you would care to follow me, Miss.'

The station at Nymptonford was squeezed into the bottom of a wooded valley, between the road and the river. The evening sun at that time still illuminated the surrounding hills, but no longer reached into the valley floor. The air was refreshingly cool after the heat of the train whose air conditioning hadn't been working. Katie breathed in deeply, glad to be outside. As she followed her driver off the platform, through the small Victorian waiting room and onto the forecourt, she got another surprise. Clearly her journey up to the house was going to be quite different to anything she had ever experienced up till then.

‘I'll look after your bags, Miss. If you would like to take a seat.' Mr Mackintosh somehow managed to free one hand and open the rear door for her. Katie just stood there, looking on in amazement. She had never, ever, in her whole life seen a car like this. It was immensely long, immensely old and unbelievably beautiful. It was an open car, with the roof folded down and hidden under a leather cover. An amazingly elegant mascot in the shape of a bird stood on the gleaming chrome radiator, the bodywork was pure glistening white, as were the tyres, and the interior was rich blue leather. Incredibly, there were two windscreens. One was directly in front of the driver, sticking up from the bonnet on imposing chrome pillars. The second was behind the driver, obviously designed to keep the flies out of the faces of the important passengers in the rear seats. It was into these seats that Katie hesitantly stepped.

‘There is a plaid in the compartment by your left hand, Miss, if you feel the chill.' Mr Mackintosh stowed her bags on the seat beside him and came round to close the door for her. Katie settled back into what felt like a wonderfully comfortable sofa and looked around, feeling very conspicuous and, if the truth be told, a bit silly. Fortunately there was nobody else to be seen. She had been the only passenger to alight here and the only sign of life was a large black and white cow, who studied her meditatively from a gate on the opposite side of the road. Martin had told her that Iddlescombe was deep in the Devon countryside and he hadn't been joking. Thought of Martin cheered her and saddened her at the same time. As the huge car coughed into life and pulled away unexpectedly smoothly, she found herself thinking fondly of him.

Everything had happened so quickly. The previous Monday she had sent off her application for the position of companion as advertised in
The Lady,
and the invitation to interview had come back by return. It had been for that same week. The interview was in the legal chambers of a Mr Hereward Evergreen of the old established firm of Evergreen, Evergreen and Lighterman, just behind the Temple Church in London. Martin had offered to give her a lift up there as he claimed he had business to attend to. The drive up to London had been most enjoyable, mainly because it was the first time Katie had found herself alone with him for a relatively long period of time. In spite of her resolve to stay clear of men and concentrate on a career, she very much enjoyed his company and she got the impression that he had enjoyed hers.

Her reminiscing was interrupted by what could have been an expletive from the driver and a shower of feathers in the air. As she looked on, Mr Mackintosh eased the vast vehicle into the side of the road and engaged a huge handbrake. The engine subsided to a throaty rumble. He walked round to the front of the car and reached down. Seconds later, he emerged with a twitching pheasant in his gloved hand. It was a fine-looking cock pheasant, or at least it had been before it hit the radiator of their car. He wrung its neck expertly to put an end to its suffering and lobbed it into the undergrowth. Katie grimaced. As he returned to the driver's door, he felt obliged to offer an explanation.

‘I apologise for that, Miss. With animals, as with human beings, so often the beautiful ones are the stupidest. It's not even as if we were going at any great speed. I trust you were not disturbed by the incident.' Katie removed a handful of chestnut-coloured feathers from her hair and assured him that she was quite all right. Taking advantage of the relative silence, she asked how long it would take to get to Iddlescombe. He glanced down at the clock set into the walnut dashboard. ‘Not too long, Miss. We're into the Iddlescombe Valley now. It's about another six or seven miles to the great house. In this huge old thing that probably means about twenty minutes. If we were in one of Sir Algernon's sportier models, we could probably make it in ten.'

‘Sir Algernon?' Katie hadn't heard his name before. At the interview, Mr Evergreen had spoken of Miss Victoria, but had not mentioned a man's name.

The driver's face became more sombre. ‘Sir Algernon Chalker-Pyne, Miss. Alas, Sir Algernon passed away in the spring. There's just his daughter, Victoria, left in the house now.' He glanced down at the car and ran an appreciative hand over the faultless bodywork. ‘He liked his cars, did Sir Algernon. He had a fine collection of them. Miss Victoria knows that and she has asked me to ensure they're all kept in working order. That's why we're in the Hispano-Suiza today. I can only take this one out when there's no chance of rain in the forecast.' He opened the driver's door and was about to climb back in when Katie asked the question she had been dying to ask ever since reading the advert in
The Lady
.

‘Please, Mr Mackintosh, what's Miss Victoria like?' Mr Evergreen had given little away at the interview. In fact, he had been much more interested in finding out as much as he could about Katie and her parents. It turned out that he was familiar with her father's law firm and she had no doubt that that had greatly helped her chances. But he had said little about what or who awaited her.

She was reassured to see a smile cross Mr Mackintosh's face. She realised that he was probably not quite as old as she had assumed at first sight. ‘She's a fine young lady who's had an unusual life, Miss. We all like her very much and I'm sure you'll find her a kind and fair employer.' He hazarded a question in his turn. ‘You are to be her companion, I believe. Is that correct?'

‘That's right, Mr Mackintosh. It's all happened so quickly. I only applied for the job last week. It's all been a bit of a blur.' And it had been. The offer of the job and, amazingly, the details of a salary that made even Martin, the lawyer, sit up and take notice, had arrived by special delivery the next day. As they had all agreed, whatever or whoever might be waiting for her at Iddlescombe Manor, this was too good an opportunity to miss. She had replied that she would be happy to accept and had had little time to do more than pack her bags. Apart, of course, from the couple of times she had been with Martin.

As the car resumed its way up the increasingly narrow lane towards their destination, Katie did her best not to let her thoughts dwell on what Mackintosh might have meant by his use of the word “unusual” when describing Miss Victoria's background. She would find out very soon. She sat back and allowed herself a few more warm memories. Upon their return from London she had insisted on taking Martin down to one of the pubs by the river for a drink. This had extended into several drinks, food and a long chat. As the sun set over the water, she had learnt more about this kind, friendly and good-looking man. By the end of the evening she was seriously considering following Jenny's advice and saddling him up. Only the bitter memory of the last disheartening months of her festering relationship with Dean and her resolve to concentrate on achieving financial independence stopped her from doing more than kissing him goodnight. Although, she thought happily to herself as the big car swung round a particularly sharp corner, it had been a very good kiss.