helped him set up the tow, and soon they were on their way to the village.
‘It’ll take me a few hours,’ Mike said when the Jeep was in his garage and he’d taken a quick glance. ‘Do you want to get a taxi home?’
‘No point,’ Jarvis said. ‘We’ve missed the afternoon low tide. But you should go,’ he added to Meryl. ‘I’ll call Ferdy to take you over with his boat.’
But she shook her head, teeth chattering. ‘I just need dry clothes. If I can have my bags and somewhere to change-’
Mike showed her across the road to a small inn called the Blue Gull, where she was able to hire a room with a minute bathroom. Mrs Helms, the plump landlady, brought her a huge mug of hot tea, which tasted better than anything in her life before, and half an hour in the shower made her feel almost human again.
Her elegant suitcases were largely water-tight, and she found her clothes in good condition. She picked out a heavy jersey sweater and skirt set in her favorite green, and brushed out her long black hair over her shoulders. It was still damp, so she left it hanging loose and went downstairs just as Jarvis entered the front door.
The rain was still pelting down, and in the short time it had taken him to cross the yard his hair had become soaked again. So had his jacket. Mrs Helms fussed over him, putting his jacket on a chair and giving him a towel for his hair. He rubbed vigorously and finally came up for air to find Meryl standing before him. He hadn’t noticed her before, and it gave him an unnerving feeling, as though she had appeared by magic.
‘Are you feeling better?’ he asked.
‘Fine, now I’m dry.’ She returned the mug to Mrs Helms. ‘Thank you so much for this. It saved my life.’
Mrs Helms had a fat, cosy chuckle. ‘You looked just about drowned,’ she said.
‘That’s Lord Larne’s fault,’ Meryl said wickedly. ‘I think there must be a law that says I can never meet him without getting soaking wet.’
‘So be warned,’ Jarvis growled.
‘You mean, “be off”, don’t you?’
‘If you know what I mean, I don’t need to say it.’ But he spoke without the rancour that would once have been in his voice.
‘How’s the car?’
‘It’ll be ready in time for the next low tide.’
‘And that’s when?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Two in the morning.’
‘I sure pick ’em.’
‘Shall I get you that taxi?’
‘No, but you can get me something to eat.’
‘I guess I owe you that. I expect you’re aching all over.’
‘Nothing a good, solid Yorkshire meal won’t put right.’
‘Ready in five minutes,’ Mrs Helms sang out. ‘I’ve put you a table near the fire.’
It was too early in the year for visitors, so they had the place to themselves. Rusty and Jacko had come in with their master and sprawled contentedly by the fire. Meryl looked around, enchanted by the oak beams and the fact that this building was clearly several hundred years old. Then she caught Jarvis’s eyes on her and read ‘theme park’ in them. Huffed, she joined Mrs Helms in the kitchen.
If anything this was worse, because the landlady showed her around like a royal guest. Evidently she too had heard the gossip. When she loaded a tray with more tea Meryl said, ‘I’ll take that,’ and fled.
She found Jarvis on an old oak settle by the fire, his body sprawled in an attitude of weariness, his head fallen back against a side wing. He was asleep.
Now she could see him with all expression stripped away Meryl realised that he looked older than thirty-three, not old in years but in strain and worry. There were two deep lines at the side of his mouth that mirrored the ones in his grandfather’s portrait, but which shouldn’t have appeared on this young man for several years. His eyes had a faint bruised appearance, as though he never slept-never dared, flashed across her mind-except, as now, in brief snatches. Then he would jerk awake with an alarmed alertness, bracing himself for the next burden to be laid on his back.
No wonder he was grouchy, she thought, and for a moment everything was washed away except compassion for him. He was being slowly ground down by problems others had created, and he no longer knew how to reach out for help. If, indeed, he’d ever known.
She purposely made a noise setting down the tray so that he would awaken to find her looking away from him. ‘Is there a special way I should pour your tea?’ she asked lightly as he rubbed his eyes.
‘Strong, with two sugars.’
She managed to get it right and he sipped the powerful brew with a sigh of satisfaction.
‘I suppose you heard everything in the Library this morning?’ he said. ‘Did you have a good laugh?’
‘I’m not laughing. It’s frightening how much it means to them.’
Jarvis gave her a quick glance. Frightening was the very word he’d been using to himself and it alarmed him to know how well their thoughts were in tune.
Mrs Helms bustled in with a big meal which she served on the little table between them. She didn’t leave until Meryl had tasted some of it and pronounced it delicious.
‘You know why she’s hanging on your opinion?’ Jarvis demanded. ‘You see the damage you’ve caused by raising their hopes?’
‘
He sighed. ‘No. It was Hannah. I know that. She thinks it’s all so easy.’
‘She thinks what they all think, that you’ve been offered a chance to get everyone out of trouble. If you don’t take it, they won’t understand.’
‘Then I’ll have to try to make them understand that there never was such a chance. You and I met, decided we couldn’t deal together, and that was it. I seem to recall your saying that I didn’t appeal to you.’
She looked at him, his profile sharp and uncompromising, and a tremor went through her as she remembered last night.
‘Will they believe that?’ she mused. ‘They think women must be falling over themselves to marry Lord Larne.’
‘Well, you can tell them they’re wrong, can’t you?’
‘That’ll reflect very badly on you. I think the idea is that you’re supposed to use your charms to persuade me.’
It was true, he realised with an inward groan. He’d been both touched and worried by his tenants’s fear, and their confidence that he could save them. And he had no other way of doing it. That was the plain truth. Perhaps, for their sakes, it was his duty to enter this appalling arrangement.
For it did appal him. From the day he’d become Lord Larne he’d always been in control-of his land, his people and of himself. But this woman threatened his control in every possible way.
‘Perhaps you ought to at least try,’ she mused. ‘After all, you owe it to them. It would be a shame if they thought Lord Larne couldn’t make it.’
‘You’ll go too far,’ he growled.
She chuckled. ‘It’s funny how people are always telling me that.’
Her hair fell forward and she swept it back, winding the long tail around and around until she could leave it in a twisted rope that immediately started to become loose again.
‘It’s a pity I arrived in a downpour,’ she said. ‘It reminds people of the legend so now they can’t see me as I really am.’
‘Yes, that must be it,’ he agreed slowly. The warmth from the fire was getting to him and he was relaxing, letting down his guard with her, against his better judgement.
‘Who was she in real life? Hannah said something about a French woman.’
‘That’s right. Marguerite de Vendanne, only child of one of the wealthiest men in France. She brought a fabulous dowry, and when her father died a year later she inherited everything.’
‘And “saved the family”?’ Meryl finished lightly.
‘Insofar as money could save it, yes. It wasn’t a happy family, although the marriage started out well. Giles Larne was handsome, and he dazzled poor Marguerite until she swore she’d marry nobody else. That was quite a
