The Longest Pleasure. Anne Mather
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like to have told him she didn’t need anything from him, but for the present, it seemed, she had no choice but to do as he suggested.
Rafe unlocked the door of a dark green Range Rover which was also parked in the hotel yard, and then said: ‘Give me your keys?’
‘Why?’
Helen was unwilling to be more amenable than she had to, and Rafe’s nostrils flared. ‘All right,’ he said, opening the door of the Range Rover and climbing indolently behind the wheel. ‘Get your own luggage then, but be quick about it. As you can see, the conditions are getting impossible. And I have no intention of spending the night trapped in here just because you choose to be awkward.’
Helen’s jaw clamped, but she had brought this on herself. With ill-grace, she slipped and slid across the yard, almost losing her balance as she lifted her bags out of the Porsche, and then struggled back again to deposit them on the back seat.
‘Is that all?’ inquired Rafe drily, viewing the two suitcases and the navy-blue canvas hold-all with a sardonic eye. ‘You don’t believe in travelling light, do you?’
‘Is it any of your business?’ snapped Helen, casting one last regretful look at the sleek little sports car, now becoming submerged beneath the unabating blizzard. Her lips tightened as she turned back to observe his comfortable vehicle. ‘Does this belong to the estate? It’s quite an improvement on the Land-Rover your father used to drive.’
‘It’s mine,’ remarked Rafe in a laconic tone as he reversed out of the space the Range Rover had occupied, and swung the wheel towards the road. ‘Sorry to disappoint you. I bought it myself.’
‘With money my grandmother gave you, I suppose,’ retorted Helen tartly, still smarting from having to carry her own cases, and Rafe cast her a brief look.
‘With money she paid me,’ he amended, with an inclination of his head. ‘I’ve worked for the old lady for the past three years. Naturally, I was paid a salary.’
‘Worked!’ Helen was scathing. ‘I can think of other names for it!’
‘As I can for the allowance she made you,’ conceded Rafe, revealing a discomfiting familiarity with her grandmother’s affairs. ‘Now, shut up, there’s a good girl! I’ve got enough to do here keeping us moving.’
‘Don’t patronise me!’
Helen fairly flung the words at him, but Rafe ignored her. As he had said, the treacherous conditions left little room for error, and although she was tempted to tell him exactly what she planned for him right there and then, common sense warned her to wait until she was on her own territory. She had plenty of time to deal with him. He would soon learn the difference between a gullible old lady and an astute young one.
OUTSIDE the town, the lowering skies made headlights a necessity, even in the middle of the day. Such traffic as there was could only move at a snail’s pace, and although the Range Rover would have had the advantage, the crawling stream of vehicles made overtaking impossible.
Yelversley was still some fifteen miles away when Rafe turned right on to a side road which, though being blessedly free of other traffic, was obviously more hazardous. Helen, who did not recognise any of the names on the partly obliterated signpost gave Rafe a wary look and, as if relenting, he explained:
‘We can get on to the Castle Howarth road if we cut through Farnham Woods,’ he told her evenly. ‘With a bit of luck, the snow won’t have drifted among the trees. It may be a bit rougher, but it should be a damn sight quicker.’
Helen lifted her shoulders. ‘If you say so.’
‘A concession?’ Rafe’s mouth took on a mocking slant. ‘Do you want to take a turn at driving?’
‘No, thanks.’
Helen looked away from his humorous expression, unwillingly aware that even with the advantage of being able to control all four wheels she would not have wanted the responsibility. She didn’t want to admit it, but she knew that if Rafe hadn’t come to meet her, she would never have got this far. As it was, she realised that for all her dislike of the man, she had complete confidence in his abilities, and if anyone could get her to Castle Howarth, it had to be Rafe.
Of course, he knew the area so much better than she did, she consoled herself defensively. He had lived here most of his life, whereas she had spent her formative years at boarding school and left home as soon as she gained her maturity.
All the same, she had reason to admire Rafe’s driving skills as they turned on to the woodland track and began the perilous passage through the trees. He had been right in assuming the snow would be less deep here, but the earth beneath the tyres was frozen solid, and the Range Rover skidded frequently on patches of black ice. Helen’s fingers were locked on the rim of her seat, even though her seat-belt provided adequate protection. Nevertheless, her hands were sticky by the time they emerged from the wood, and she didn’t relax until they had covered the width of the verge and made a crab-like swerve back on to the road.
‘All right?’ Rafe inquired, as she ran her tongue over her dry lips and shuffled back in her seat, and after a moment Helen nodded.
‘Fine,’ she proffered in a taut voice, and he gave her a half-amused look.
‘It’s no shame to admit to being scared now and then,’ he observed. ‘I was a bit scared myself back there. Especially when I felt the wheels going away from me!’
Helen held up her head. ‘And is that supposed to make me feel better?’ she demanded, her tone deliberately scornful. ‘The fact that the macho Rafe Fleming was scared, too?’
There was a pregnant pause and for the space of a heartbeat Helen thought she had gone too far. She had a momentary image of Rafe stopping the Range Rover and tipping her out into the snow—but, thankfully, it didn’t happen. Instead, he cast another hooded glance in her direction before saying: ‘you!’ in such a pleasant tone, that Helen could hardly believe he had used a word she had hitherto only encountered on the written page.
Thereafter, there was silence between them. Helen’s hands were balled into fists, but she refused to sink to the level of bartering that kind of language with him. Besides, she wasn’t at all convinced she would come off best in such an exchange, and she contented herself with anticipating his fury when he learned what she had in mind for him.
The road to the village had been reduced to a single track, but they met no other vehicles before turning into the lane that ran along beside the churchyard. The church itself looked like a cut-out from a Christmas card, thought Helen fancifully, the gravestones softened by the clinging flakes of snow. Across the yard stood the grey-stone mausoleum, where generations of Sinclairs had been laid to rest, and where her grandmother would be interred on Friday. It was a forcible reminder that Nan would not be waiting for her at the house, and a wave of shame swept over her. Ever since encountering Rafe, she had thought of nothing but the revenge she was going to have on him. The reasons for her being here; the guilt she had felt in London; all normal, human instincts, had been obliterated by the hatred that was simmering inside her. And it didn’t help to acknowledge that without Rafe’s intervention, she would probably have been stranded in Salisbury. It was galling, but she had to admit his behaviour today had not warranted so ungracious a response.
The stone gateposts that guarded the boundary of the estate were only a short distance from the village. The gates themselves were open and someone, one of the estate workers probably, had used a snow-plough to clear a path through them. Beyond the grid that prevented cattle from straying, acres of rolling countryside lay beneath a winter carpet. They were still some distance from the house itself. A slight rise, on which a stand of larch and pine trees grew, provided a natural screen to the chimneys of Castle Howarth, but once that rise had been breached, the sprawling elegance of the mansion would be visible.
The Range Rover had no