CHAPTER TWO

      MAX VELLA was not the first and he would not be the last man to want Sara—she had always attracted admirers. A few hours ago she could never have imagined Max Vella fancying her. Tonight it was possible. Surprising but possible, and she said with mock gravity, ‘What if your promise wasn’t on offer?’

      ‘That might make things more difficult.’ He was certainly coming on to her, but this was said with a smile, not to be taken seriously, and Sara was bubbling with laughter, all her problems forgotten for a few hours.

      When the party-goers were surging out of the courtyard, back into the house and the buffet and the band, Max still held her hand through his arm. She was wearing her shoes again now, and if he asked her to dance she would dance, but in the great hall, at the foot of the wide oak-panelled staircase, he asked, ‘Do you want the guided tour?’

      She had never seen more than the grounds and the ground floor, when she had come here covering charity functions. She had heard the house was fabulous and of course she was curious. If he was offering to show her around himself that was an incredible bonus. ‘I would like that very much,’ she said, and knew that most of the company watched speechless as she and Max Vella went up the staircase together.

      Up here there were lights everywhere, and the sounds of the Bonfire Night Ball reached them. Household staff occasionally flitted around but most of these rooms and corridors were empty. The Moated House had fallen on hard times when Vella had bought it but now it looked as it must have done in its glory days. Sara was entranced, and awestruck at the mighty effort and expense that must have gone into restoring the house.

      The decor and furniture were perfect. Every piece seemed right for its setting, and Max Vella told her how he had acquired some of them. From private collections and salesrooms, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, auctions all over the country and abroad. In getting what he wanted the master of the Moated House seemed to have set himself no bounds.

      When she gasped with delight at a charming pair of porcelain figures of Harlequin and Columbine he took Columbine out of the black lacquered cabinet and put it into Sara’s hands. ‘She’s lovely,’ she said.

      ‘Chelsea red anchor period.’ Whatever that was. If she had not been a collector’s piece she would not have been here, but Sara wondered if he had ever looked into the exquisite little face and thought how pretty she was.

      ‘She’s lovely,’ Sara said again. ‘It’s magic, this house. I don’t know how you could ever think of leaving it.’

      ‘Did I say I was?’

      ‘You said you were probably staying.’

      The scarred eyebrow lifted. ‘Always the newshound. You do remember what you hear.’ He was teasing her, and she looked up from the little figurine with a slanting smile.

      ‘If it’s interesting enough, I remember.’

      Flirting and fooling with Max Vella was a heady experience. When Sara got away from here she might find it hard to believe that this had been going on, although there would be plenty around to remind her. By tomorrow she would be the talk of the town for a few days. Well it was worth it. She was having a really good time—seeing the house, being flatteringly targeted by a mesmerising man and she’d almost been promised an interview. Let them talk. She had weathered worse gossip before now. ‘I should be going. I’m in the office in the morning. It has been a memorable evening.’

      ‘For me too.’ He sounded like a courteous host. ‘Are you driving back?’

      Her little car was parked with others near a side door, which meant she didn’t have to push her way through the throng and she could get away almost unnoticed. Max Vella went with her, and she wished he had not. With him standing over her, she could hardly keep her hand steady enough to get her car keys into the door lock, and then in the ignition. She did manage to say, ‘You won’t forget about the interview?’

      ‘Could I?’

      Of course he could. He could do anything he damn well pleased. Her gaiety ebbed away, replaced by a reaction bordering on panic. She had been playing with fire, and now she headed for town, and her own little apartment, with her heart hammering.

      Her flat was over a delicatessen in the town square. She parked her car in the delivery yard and let herself into the building by a back door, into a narrow hall with a steep flight of stairs. The old red-patterned carpet was wearing thin, and the magnificent staircase in the Moated House came into her mind. Compared with that this was like climbing a ladder, and compared with that house Sara’s flat was a dump.

      Through the door at the top of the stairs she went into the living room where a small lamp on a side table had been left on. There were toys on the floor so Beth and the twins must still be here, and they were—all three of them lay in the same bed, the children nestling in their mother’s arms.

      A beam from a street lamp cast enough light to show Sara a picture that brought a lump to her throat. Her sister’s dark red hair fanned out over the pillow, and long, silky lashes lay like shadows on her pale cheeks. Sleeping Beth looked hardly more than a child herself, although she was only a year younger than Sara, and the flaxen-haired children were so fragile and so vulnerable that Sara wanted to put her own arms around them all, to protect them as she always did.

      ‘Oh, Lord, what is going to happen to you?’ she whispered, and she went quietly out of the room, closing the door very gently. At least she would have a bed to herself tonight. Last night it had been the sofa and the twins’ bilious turn.

      She tiptoed into the bathroom, undressed and washed, making as little noise as possible. She often came back from these high-fashion affairs feeling like Cinderella, and her dress tonight had been rather special. Silky, in deep pine-green with bootlace-thin shoulder straps, tight fitting to the low hipline then flaring to mid-calf. With a haute couture label, although Sara had found it in an up-market jumble sale:

      Most of her wardrobe came from sales and nearly-new shops, because she had to make every penny of her salary count. And she wouldn’t be wearing her ‘bargain’ shoes again. Worry and weariness were creasing her smooth brow so that her reflection in the bathroom mirror looked older than her twenty-three years. At this rate, she thought wryly, Beth will be mistaken for my daughter before long. And it was crazy that Beth’s troubles should make her seem more like a delicate child while Sara aged for both of them.

      The sisters had a family resemblance in features. And both were redheads, but Beth’s hair was dark auburn while Sara’s flamed, and Beth’s soft, pretty mouth was stronger, fuller, more sensuous in Sara. Beth faced the world with wide eyes while Sara’s eyes often narrowed as she assessed the situation, and that included the men in her life. There had been men in Sara’s life but she’d never taken them seriously enough for a deep relationship to develop. A touch of mockery at the wrong time had lost her several would-be lovers.

      Her reflection blurred in the mirror as a wave of fatigue swept over her. She had to get into bed before she slumped down on the bathroom floor. It was a narrow bed in the little spare room but Sara slid gratefully between cool sheets and was on the edge of sleep when a faint report brought her awake again. Somewhere they were still letting off fireworks, and her thoughts drifted back to the bonfire at the Moated House and to Max Vella standing beside her.

      His arm around her shoulders had been light, but she could imagine a heavier touch crushing her so that the sheets and duvet seemed suddenly unbearably weighty. His face was in shadow that could have been a mask, and she didn’t need that flash of waking nightmare interpreted. Common sense was warning her loud and clear: if he should get in touch she would have to come up with a very good reason why she couldn’t see him again.

      She could say that although she hadn’t taken a partner to the ball she did have a lover. Someone to whom she was completely committed. Max Vella’s