JOSS felt her heart lift when she saw Anna, clad in the inevitable jodhpurs and riding boots, wild dark hair blowing in the breeze as she came running from the open door of Glebe House.
‘I took Goodfellow out for a ride first thing,’ said Anna. ‘Haven’t had time to change.’ She hugged Joss close, then held her at arm’s length. ‘Heavens, you look ghastly. Mother and Dad have tactfully taken themselves off to a flower show, so we’re on our own for a bit. You can cry as much as you like.’
‘No crying,’ said Joss firmly, returning the hug.
‘Want to tell me about it?’ said Anna as they went inside. ‘We’ll have lunch first; you can take your things upstairs later.’
The big kitchen, with its old-fashioned cupboards and big square table, was so hearteningly familiar and unchanged that Joss gave a sigh of pleasure. ‘It’s so good to be here. Thanks for letting me come.’
Anna gave her a withering look as she took a napkin from a plate of sandwiches. ‘It wasn’t a case of “letting,” Joss. I’ve been trying to get you down here for ages. I only wish it had been under happier circumstances. Come on, sit down. Do you want tea, coffee, or something alcoholic and mind-numbing?’
Joss grinned. ‘Tea. I draw the line at breathing gin fumes over your mother.’
‘That’s better,’ approved Anna as she made tea. ‘Nice to see you can still smile.’ She sat down and fixed Joss with a commanding hazel eye. ‘Right. Tell me what happened.’
Joss gave a short, succinct account of Peter’s visit, and apart from the odd exclamation Anna managed to keep from interrupting until the end.
‘You should have reported him to the police,’ she said, and bit into a sandwich as though it were Peter Sadler’s jugular.
‘What could I have said?’ said Joss. ‘He didn’t rape me—in fact, looking back on it, I know he never intended that. He just wanted to frighten and humiliate me, for some reason. Which is rich. He was the one who walked out.’
‘Hmm,’ said Anna, unconvinced. ‘Couldn’t you have charged him with bodily harm, or something?’
‘The harm he did wasn’t physical,’ said Joss bitterly.
‘But surely if you explained to Dan Armstrong he’d believe you?’
‘He wouldn’t answer the phone at home, and when I rang his office his secretary told me he was permanently unavailable to Miss Hunter.’
‘Ouch!’ said Anna, and nudged the plate of sandwiches nearer. ‘Eat one. Just to please me,’ she coaxed.
Joss did her best, but the food stuck in her throat. ‘I just don’t seem to feel hungry lately,’ she said apologetically.
‘No wonder!’ Anna poured tea, and handed a cup to Joss. ‘You haven’t known this Dan Armstrong long,’ she went on. ‘Will it be very hard to get over him?’
‘At the moment it seems impossible. But I’ll do it. Eventually.’ Joss managed a smile. ‘Journalists are persistent beasts, remember?’
Her friend eyed her thoughtfully. ‘Have you given up all idea of knocking the truth into the man’s head?’
Joss lifted her chin belligerently. ‘I did my bit of pleading, Anna, and hated it. No way am I doing it again.’
The weekend with the Herricks did Joss a lot of good. She was able to face work with more zest the following week, even though it became obvious, as days went by, that Dan had meant what he said. With all hope finally quenched, Joss buckled down to reshaping her life, and because it was holiday season there was no shortage of work to pass the time. In the evenings she reverted to having a meal after work with other journalists, and sometimes went on to a film or the theatre, no matter how tired she was. And the dreaded longueurs of the weekends were filled by sub-editing work for whichever Sunday paper required her services.
Some nights she fell into bed too exhausted even to mourn her ill-fated passion for Dan Armstrong. Because passion, she assured herself bitterly, was all it had been. She had been—and still was—deeply in love with him, but on Dan’s side the relationship had obviously been purely physical. But she was no teenager, mourning the death of calf-love. She was thirty-two years old, with sufficient maturity to prevent Daniel Adam Francis Armstrong from ruining her life. He had spoiled her for the company of other men, it was true. But that would pass. Time, and her own determination, would make sure it did. But her fine resolutions failed to damp down the rush of hope every time her phone rang. Or to prevent intense disappointment when her caller was never Dan.
To Joss’s surprise Francis Legh rang her one evening, to tell her he was bringing Sarah Wilcox up to an auction next day and wondered if Joss could spare an hour to have lunch with them. She made a hasty mental rearrangement of her itinerary for the next day and accepted with pleasure.
‘I know that something went wrong between you and Dan.’ Francis went on, startling her. ‘If you’d rather we didn’t mention him we won’t.’
‘It makes no difference to me,’ she lied airily.
‘Really?’
Joss sighed. ‘No, not really. Not yet, anyway. But I’m working on it. Thank you for the invitation, Francis, but bear with me if I’m not punctual to the minute.’
Joss looked thoughtful after she’d put the phone down. Lord Morville was a very subtle man, she decided. With Sarah along there was no ambiguity about his invitation—or his intention. Not that she had any aspirations where Francis was concerned. He was charming, friendly, good-looking in a well-bred kind of way, but though she liked him very much he paled into insignificance compared with Dan. In which case, Joss told herself viciously, it was time to stop comparing men with Dan Armstrong and from now on just view them on their own merits.
Next day it was hot and sunny, and Joss wore a dress bought to celebrate moving in with Dan. Sleeveless, V-necked, in a powder-pink knitted fabric fragile as cobwebs, the dress clung rather more than she’d remembered, but it was flattering and she felt good in it as she walked into the restaurant she’d read so much about in the reviews. At the mention of Lord Morville Joss was ushered to a table where Francis jumped up, hand outstretched, as she approached.
‘Joss, you made it.’
To her surprise he kissed her on both cheeks, then turned to the young woman smiling at them from a chair by the window.
‘You remember Joss, darling?’
‘Hello,’ said Sarah Wilcox warmly. ‘Nice to see you again.’
Joss took the chair Francis held out for her, and after conventional greetings looked from one face to the other with a questioning smile. ‘Is there something a journalist should know? Or are the hearts and flowers strictly off the record?’
‘Off the record, for the time being,’ said Sarah, flushing.
‘Haven’t asked her father yet,’ said Francis, beckoning the wine waiter.
‘So why am I playing gooseberry?’ asked Joss.
‘I proposed on the way up in the train this morning,’ said Francis, grinning. ‘No one knows yet—I haven’t even given Sarah a ring—’ He broke off to go into a discussion about the choice of wine, and when menus were put in front of them sat back in his seat, looking very pleased with himself.
‘Congratulations to you both,’ said Joss sincerely, quelling a dart of pain. ‘I hope—no, I know you’ll be very happy.’
‘Thank you,’ said Sarah, and gave her a very straight look. ‘Something tells me you’re not surprised.’
Joss tapped her nose. ‘My instincts are rarely wrong. I suspected as much the day I visited Eastlegh.’
‘Talking of which, Sam Armstrong took quite a fancy to you,’ said Francis. ‘He approved of the article you wrote. So do I—heartily. Business is twice as brisk since it appeared. This lunch is by way of a small token of appreciation.’
‘That’s very nice of you.’ Joss smiled warmly. ‘The photographs turned out so well my editor decided on Eastlegh as the main thrust of the article.’
Francis had placed her with her back to the room. When Sarah looked up with a smile of welcome a few minutes later Joss felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck, like an animal scenting danger.
Francis sprang to his feet, hand outstretched. ‘Hello, Dan, better late than never. Help us celebrate.’
For a moment time seemed suspended. Dan took one look at Joss and obviously wanted to turn on his heel and walk out. But good manners and his genuine attachment to Francis and Sarah prevailed. He took his friend’s hand and shook it, eyeing him in enquiry.
‘Celebrate?’
‘I’ve just persuaded Sarah to marry me. And I’ve sold another manorial title.’
Because every nerve in Joss’s body was hyper-sensitive to Dan’s slightest reaction she could have sworn that his first gut reaction was relief. Then he went round the table to kiss Sarah, and at last greeted Joss, with a courtesy which chilled her to the bone.
To the onlooker it was an ordinary lunch party, with four people enjoying the food and each other’s company, but to Joss it was a particularly refined form of torture. Not by a flicker of an eyelash did Dan portray the slightest hostility towards her. He was, if anything, far more pleasant to her than on the day at Eastlegh. Yet the experience was worse. Sheer determination made Joss eat some of the exquisite food and drink a sip or two of the celebratory champagne. But Dan said nothing directly to Joss, nor she to him, and only Francis’s skill as a host kept the conversational ball in the air as he discussed plans for a party at Eastlegh to celebrate the engagement in proper style.
‘You’ll come, Joss, of course,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she said, surprised. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
‘You too, Dan,’ said Francis, and gave his friend a straight look. ‘Wasn’t it on a similar occasion that you met Joss?’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Dan briefly, and changed the subject. ‘So which of your extraneous titles did you sell off today?’
‘I’ve heard about this,’ said Joss, her interest caught. ‘Was that the auction you came up for?’
Sarah nodded. ‘Quite a few manorial titles went under the hammer today. Ours did particularly well,’ she added, eyes sparkling. ‘Every time the price went up I totted up more lead for the Eastlegh roof.’
‘That’s my girl,’ said Francis lovingly, and raised the hand he held to his lips.
‘What did you do with the money I paid for mine?’ said Dan.
Joss stared at him. Daniel Armstrong had actually paid money to Francis so he could add Lord of some Manor to his credentials? In her astonishment she barely heard Francis talking about unromantic plumbing repairs. Dan caught the look in her eye and smiled sardonically.
‘Thinking up a new headline, Joss? “Gardener’s son aspires to Lord of the Manor status”?’
She shook her head. ‘One of my colleagues followed the sale of manorial titles some time ago.’
‘But I didn’t feature in it,’ he pointed out. ‘No one knows about mine.’
‘Nor would have done today, if you hadn’t mentioned it,’ said Francis, eyeing him narrowly.
Dan shrugged. ‘It’s not a dark secret.’
‘Well, no but—’
‘As Joss says,’ interrupted Dan firmly, ‘it’s old news.’
Joss got up, looking pointedly at her watch, and the men rose with her. ‘Talking of news, I’d better get back to it. Thursday’s a busy day for me.’ She noted a pulse throbbing at the corner of Dan’s mouth, and rejoiced. Mention of Thursday had struck a chord his impervious mask couldn’t hide.
‘It’s time we were all away,’ said Francis, helping Sarah from her chair, and to Joss’s dismay the four of them left the restaurant together. She had desperately wanted to leave first, and leave alone at that, due to an unpleasant feeling she put down to an overdose of stress.
‘Can we give you a lift, Joss?’ said Sarah.
To Joss, the heat of the day seemed intense after the cool room inside. She shook her head, meaning to say something about a taxi, then gasped as the earth shifted beneath her feet. Great spots of light danced in front of her eyes, and Dan leapt to catch her as she fell.
When Joss came to she was lying on a sofa in the restaurant’s powder room, with Sarah bending over her anxiously.
‘How do you feel?’
‘What happened?’ Joss struggled to sit up and Sarah sat beside her, supporting her with a comforting arm.
‘You fainted.’
Joss groaned. ‘I never faint! I hardly drank anything, either.’
‘I know. Maybe it was something you ate. Drink this.’ Sarah handed her a glass of water and Joss drank thirstily, then gave Sarah a rueful smile.
‘Sorry I messed up your celebration.’
‘You didn’t,’ said Sarah firmly, and smiled. ‘Nothing could do that.’
‘You really love Francis, don’t you?’ said Joss, mopping her forehead with the tissue Sarah gave her.
‘From the moment I first saw him, though he never seemed to notice me. But recently he started looking at me with new eyes, as though he’d never seen me before.’
‘I’m very glad for you both,’ said Joss with complete truth. ‘Now I really must get back to work.’ And against Sarah’s advice she got carefully to her feet, splashed cold water on her ashen face, applied lipstick with an unsteady hand, then smiled valiantly. ‘Right. I’m ready.’
‘You look ghastly, Joss,’ said Sarah with concern.
‘People keep telling me that lately. Very bad for my ego.’
After assuring the various members of staff that she was fully recovered, Joss went outside with Sarah, to find Dan still waiting with Francis.
‘How do you feel?’ asked Francis anxiously. ‘I’ve got a taxi waiting. We’ll get you home right away.’
‘I can’t do that,’ protested Joss. ‘I’m due back at work.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Joss,’ said Dan tersely. ‘You look like a ghost. You’re obviously coming down with something.’
Secretly Joss felt quite terrible, and in the face of three opposing arguments ran out of strength to argue. ‘Oh, very well,’ she said wearily, and let Francis hand her into the cab.
‘Sarah, move Joss to the middle,’ instructed Dan. ‘We’d better sit either side of her, in case she keels over again.’
Joss made no attempt to join in the conversation on the journey back to Acton. She felt muzzy, and oddly detached, and the voices of the others came and went in a very confusing way. When the car stopped Sarah and Francis jumped out, but Dan told the driver to wait for a moment before taking them on to Waterloo.
He took Joss by the arm, and looked at Francis. ‘I’ll see her inside.’
Francis put a restraining hand on Sarah’s arm. ‘All right, Dan. Ring me later.’
Dan nodded briefly, and asked Joss for her key. He unlocked the door, said goodbye to the others, picked Joss up and carried her inside, kicking the door shut behind him. And Joss, by this time almost totally unaware of what was going on, only registered where she was when her head met the cool comfort of her own pillow. She subsided gratefully, then shot upright, holding her head.
‘Must ring Jack Ormond,’ she muttered, but Dan pushed her back against the pillows, his large hands surprisingly gentle.
‘I’ll ring him,’ he said firmly. ‘Stay where you are.’
Convinced by this time that she was coming down with flu at the very least, Joss did as he said, feeling so ill she had no attention to spare for the fact that Dan was actually here in the flat, where she’d longed for him so much.
‘What did Jack say?’ she asked, when he came back.
“‘If you’re infectious stay home until you’re not,”’ he quoted tersely, and frowned down at her. ‘I should have let Sarah stay.’
‘Did she want to?’
‘Yes. But Francis took her off.’
‘Maybe he didn’t want her to catch whatever I’ve got.’ She turned her head into the pillow. ‘The same applies to you. You’d better go.’
‘Do you want me to go?’
In a more normal state of health Joss would have been ecstatic if he’d stayed. But she had a growing conviction that any minute now she was going to lose her lunch. ‘Yes, I do. Right now,’ she added with sudden urgency.
Dan’s face went rigid. He turned on his heel, then paused in the doorway. ‘Isn’t there someone I could ring to come and take care of you?’
‘I’ll ring Anna later,’ said Joss, swallowing hard. She began to breathe rapidly. ‘Go away. Please.’
Dan went precipitately, after giving her a look which acted like a green light on her digestive system. He was barely out of the flat before Joss bolted to the bathroom and surrendered to the sickness, which went on for so long she was shaking and cold by the time it was over. With trembling hands she washed her face, then undressed, pulled on a nightshirt and forced herself to go to the kitchen for a bottle of mineral water and a glass. At last she crawled under the covers and surrendered unconditionally to whatever bug was making her feel so ill.
It was dark when Joss woke. She rolled over to look at the clock and found it was after two in the morning. Wonderful, she thought morosely. Now she had a whole night to get through. But to her surprise she found she was hungry. The first thing on the agenda was food. After a visit to the bathroom she went to the kitchen, made tea and toast, curled up on the sofa with the tray beside her, and settled down to watch late-night television until it was time to get up. She stared at the screen with brooding eyes. Now she was feeling better she could have kicked herself for wasting the opportunity to talk to Dan. Not that the occasion had been tailor-made for discussion. After making a spectacle of herself at a very expensive restaurant she couldn’t have borne throwing up in front of Dan as an encore.
And now, thought Joss despairingly, she’d told him to go away. So things were back to square one again. She sighed heavily, wriggled deeper into the cushions and tried to think of some other way to see Dan. Maybe she could ask Francis…
When Joss surfaced again she found it was her usual time to get up. And once she’d confirmed, surprised, that she felt normal, she decided she might as well go to work. After a quick shower, she put on her customary white T-shirt and trouser suit, navy linen now in deference to summer, and decided her stomach bug had been one of the lightning, twenty-four-hour variety.
‘Joss?’ said the news editor, when she reported in. ‘I thought you were at death’s door.’
‘I was for a while,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘But I’m fine now. What’s on for today?’
He gave her a wolfish look. ‘The man who rang in to say you were ill yesterday insisted on speaking to me personally. Said his name was Armstrong. Is he, by any strange, wonderful chance, the Armstrong behind Athena?’
Her heart sank. ‘Yes,’ she admitted unwillingly.
Jack smiled. ‘Rumour has it you’re involved with him.’
She shook her head. ‘Not any more.’
‘But you know him well?’
Joss had doubts about that. ‘I know him, yes.’
‘Dammit, Joss, if he was in your flat when you were ill yesterday you must know him fairly well.’
‘What’s this about, Jack?’ she demanded.
‘There’s a row raging between conservationists and developers over buildings along the Thames. Dan Armstrong is in the front line with the latest Athena development. For once he might welcome the chance to air his point of view. Contact him.’
‘No way!’ Joss shuddered at the thought of it. ‘He doesn’t like reporters. Never gives interviews—’
‘Precisely!’ Jack’s eyes fixed on Joss without mercy. ‘This could be very good for you careerwise.’
Joss stared him out for a moment, then heaved a sigh. ‘Oh, all right. I’ll try. But I’m warning you, Jack, I’m not the best person for the job. My relationship with him is over.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Jack gave her another of his unsettling smiles. ‘He sounded hellish worried when he rang yesterday.’
‘Probably afraid of catching my bug!’
With a view to grasping the nettle, Joss dialled the Athena offices the moment she got back to her desk, expecting Dan’s assistant to give her the same message as before. But this time, to her astonishment, Joss was put straight through to the man himself.
‘Joss? Are you worse?’ Dan demanded.
‘No, I’m better today. This isn’t a personal call.’ She breathed in deeply. ‘Look, Dan, don’t slam the phone down. This isn’t my idea—’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Jack Ormond wants me to interview you. I told him it was out of the question,’ she went on quickly, almost gabbling in her rush to get the conversation over. ‘He assumed, because you rang yesterday when I was ill, that we were still—’
‘Lovers?’ said Dan abrasively.
‘Friends,’ she corrected. ‘I told him we weren’t, but he insisted I contact you about your row with the conservationists, to see if you’d like the opportunity to air your views.’
‘All right.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Joss blankly.
‘I said, yes. You can have your interview. When do you want it?’
Joss pulled herself together and told him journalists always want stories yesterday.
‘You can have half an hour at seven-thirty tonight.’
‘Thank you,’ she said faintly.
‘Come to the front entrance and tell Security you’re expected.’
‘Right.’ Feeling dazed, Joss went to report her success to the news editor.
On the strength of the coming confrontation with Dan, Joss wheedled her hairdresser into fitting her in at lunchtime on a busy Friday instead of her usual monthly slot, and on the way back afterwards bought a silk camisole to replace her T-shirt, and a pair of very expensive navy linen shoes with four-inch heels as an extra boost. Joss had conducted interviews with every kind of celebrity that caught the public fancy, but this particular interview, she well knew, would be more important and emotionally difficult than all the others rolled into one.
When she arrived at the Athena building just before seven-thirty Joss found it was smaller than she’d expected, and, though modern, blended so well with its surroundings it was a good advertisement for the skill and success of its owner. Squaring her shoulder, Joss pushed open the glass doors, her new heels clicking satisfactorily on the marble floor as she crossed to the desk. She gave her name, and with a pleasant smile the security man escorted her to the lift and pressed the button for the top floor.
‘Mr Armstrong is in the office at the end,’ he informed her.
When the lift stopped Joss girded herself mentally for battle, then walked along a corridor lined with deserted offices. She knocked on the closed door at the end, took in a deep breath, then in response to Dan’s command opened the door and walked in.