Innocent Sins

She shivered again as tears pricked behind her eyelids, and, dragging the folds of her ratty chenille dressing gown closer about her, she moved nearer to the hearth. Thank heavens they still used an open fire in winter, she thought, hunching her shoulders. There were still a few embers giving out a tenuous warmth.

She sighed and glanced about her. She’d come downstairs to get herself a glass of hot milk because she couldn’t get to sleep. She was still on eastern standard time and, although it was after midnight here, it was still early evening in New York. She’d decided a warm drink might help, but the milk was taking so long to boil. Perhaps she should have looked for a hot-water bottle and filled that. At this rate, she’d be frozen before she got back to bed.

She started suddenly as an ember shifted in the hearth. At least, she thought it was an ember. There had definitely been a sound like something falling either in here or outside. She was feeling particularly edgy this evening and she was very aware of being alone downstairs. With the snow falling heavily outside, Penmadoc had an air of expectancy that was hard to ignore.

The milk came to the boil at the exact moment that someone tried the outer door. The sound was unmistakable, the latch rattling as it had always done when the bolt was still in place. Laura’s breath caught in her throat and she was hardly aware that the pan was boiling over until the hob started sizzling and the acrid smell of burnt milk filled the room.

‘Oh, God,’ she groaned, dragging the pan off the heat. But she was more concerned about who might be trying to get into the house at this time of night. As she listened, she was almost sure a masculine shoulder was applied to the door-frame, and while she stood there, frozen into immobility, an audible curse accompanied another assault on the latch.

Breathing shallowly, Laura left the smoking pan on the Aga and edged towards the long narrow lobby that opened off the kitchen. There was no door between the kitchen and the passage where boots and coats and other outdoor gear occupied a row of pegs. Stella called it the mudroom, but that was just an affectation. It was a lobby, plain and simple, that protected the kitchen from the immediate chill when you opened the outer door.

Breathing shallowly, Laura sneaked a look into the passage. There was definitely someone outside: a man, judging by the muffled oaths she could hear even through the door. But human, she assured herself, despising her timidity. Pushing away from the archway into the kitchen, she stepped nervously into the passage.

‘Who’s there?’ she called sharply, consoling herself with the thought that the door was apparently impregnable.

‘Who the hell do you think it is?’ the man snapped. ‘Didn’t you hear the Jeep?’

‘The Jeep?’ Laura frowned. She hadn’t known anyone was expected tonight. ‘Do you mind telling me who you are?’

‘What?’ His incredulity was audible. ‘Open the door, Ma, and stop f—mucking about.’

Ma!

Laura’s stomach clenched. Oh, no, it couldn’t be. Not tonight, not when she was wearing this old dressing gown that she’d found at the back of the closet upstairs. She’d put it on for comfort, because her father had bought it when she was a teenager. But it wasn’t particularly clean or flattering, and it clashed wildly with her hair.

‘O—Oliver?’ she ventured weakly, realising that she’d have to admit him, and he seemed to become aware that she wasn’t his mother, after all.

‘Laura?’ he exclaimed. Then, evidently reorganising his reaction, he said, ‘For God’s sake, is that you, Laura?’ She heard him blow out a breath. ‘What are you doing? Waiting up for me?’

Laura fumbled with the bolts at the top and bottom of the door and then, turning the heavy key, she pulled it open. ‘Hardly,’ she said, keeping her eyes averted as she stepped back to let him in. ‘Don’t you have a key?’

‘Don’t tell anyone, but they’ve yet to invent a key that can open a bolt,’ he retorted, and she guessed his sarcasm was an attempt to hide his own surprise at seeing her. He shook himself, dislodging snow from the shoulders of his leather jacket on to the floor of the passage. Then, sniffing expressively, he asked, ‘What’s that awful smell?’

‘I burnt some milk,’ said Laura defensively, closing and locking the door again before brushing past him into the kitchen. She knew she must look a sight with her hair mussed and her eyes still puffy from weeping. Not the image she’d wanted to present to the stepbrother who hadn’t seen her since she married Conor. ‘Did your mother know you were coming tonight?’

‘I thought so.’ Oliver followed her into the kitchen. Then he gestured towards the Aga. ‘Oughtn’t you to do something about that before anyone starts to think you’re trying to burn the old place down?’

‘Your mother, you mean?’ she asked tersely, plunging the saucepan into cold water before snatching up a dishcloth to mop the stove. Anything to avoid looking at him, she thought, though she was perfectly aware of how attractive he was.

‘Possibly,’ he said now, and she wished she hadn’t jumped so childishly to her own defence. She had told herself that if—when—she saw Oliver again she would behave as if the past was another country. She had no wish to go there; no wish to resurrect his memories of the naïve teenager she’d been. He set down his canvas rucksack and draped a garment bag over the back of the old rocking chair that stood on the hearth. ‘Anyway, I was sorry to hear about your father. It must have been a terrible shock.’

‘Yes. Yes, it was.’

Laura didn’t look at him. She merely lifted her shoulders before continuing to scrub the burnt-in stains off the hob.

‘It was a shock for me, too,’ he added softly. ‘Your father and I might not have always seen eye to eye about things, but in recent years I like to think we grew to respect each other’s views.’

Laura stiffened her spine and forced herself to glance in his direction. ‘In recent years?’ she echoed, as her eyes took in the fact that he was broader. But it only served to give his lean frame an added maturity without adding any fat to his long bones. ‘I didn’t know you spent so much time at Penmadoc.’

‘I don’t.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘But you were in the States whereas I was available. He used to come up to London occasionally and, less frequently, I’d come down here.’

Laura tried not to feel any resentment. After all, it wasn’t as if her father hadn’t wanted her to come home. But, after her marriage to Conor broke up, it had seemed to her that she was a failure. At that, as in everything else, she mused bitterly. And Stella would never have let her forget it.

‘He didn’t tell me,’ she muttered now, turning back to her cleaning, but she was aware of Oliver crossing the room to open the fridge door.

‘Why would he?’ Oliver asked, peering inside. ‘I doubt if he thought you’d be interested.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Is there anything to eat around here?’

Laura permitted herself to view his broad shoulders. ‘Didn’t you have any dinner?’ she asked, and he swung the fridge door shut again with an impatient snort.

‘Dinner?’ His amusement was bitter. ‘What dinner?’ He gave a grunt. ‘I just got back from Singapore late this afternoon. Ma had apparently been ringing for hours, trying to get in touch with me. I only stopped long enough to take a shower before driving down.’

‘Singapore?’ Laura’s curiosity was showing and she quickly changed what she had been about to say. ‘Haven’t you had anything to eat at all?’

‘Soup. And a sandwich.’ Oliver glanced into the fridge again. ‘Don’t people eat any meat these days?’

Laura hesitated. Then she said, ‘I expect Aunt Nell has the freezer stocked. She always used to do a weekly shop at the supermarket in Rhosmawr.’

‘So she did.’ Oliver gave her a sideways glance. ‘I guess I’ll have to make do with another sandwich.’ His mouth took on a humorous twist as he looked at what she was wearing. ‘That new?’

Laura held up her head. ‘Don’t you recognise it?’ she asked coldly, and had the dubious satisfaction of seeing a trace of colour enter his lean cheeks. The fact that her own face was red, too, offered little compensation, however. Once again, she’d betrayed what she was thinking and laid herself open to his contempt.

But instead of making some sarcastic comment Oliver merely closed the fridge again and leaned back against it, arms folded across his chest. ‘Okay,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s start again, shall we?’ His green eyes were narrowed and glinting with suppressed emotion. ‘I don’t want to argue with you, Laura. I know this can’t be easy for you—’

‘You flatter yourself!’

‘I mean losing your father,’ he interjected harshly. ‘For God’s sake, can’t you think of anyone but yourself? I know you don’t like me, Laura, but this is one occasion when I’d have thought you’d have put other people’s feelings before your own.’

Laura trembled. ‘It’s late—’

‘Yes, it is. But not too late, I hope!’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘Look, like I said, let’s try and come to some kind of compromise, shall we? For—well, for your aunt Nell’s sake, if no one else?’

Laura dropped the dishcloth into the sink and tightened the belt of her robe. ‘Very well,’ she said, and heard his resigned intake of breath.

‘Very well?’ he mimicked drily. He cast his eyes towards the beamed ceiling. ‘Oh, Laura, don’t make it easy for me, will you?’

‘I said—’

‘I know what you said.’ He straightened away from the door. ‘Okay.’ He held out his hand towards her. ‘Friends?’

Laura moistened her dry lips. She didn’t want to touch him. Dear God, she’d have done just about anything rather than put her hand into his. But that was stupid! Stupid! Did she want him to think she was afraid of him, that she hadn’t got over that childish infatuation that had almost ruined her life?

‘Friends,’ she got out, almost gagging on the nausea that had risen into the back of her throat, and his strong brown fingers closed about her hand.

His fingers were cold but the impact Laura had was one of heat, a fiery heat that spread up her arm and into her breasts, making them tingle with an unwelcome awareness. The warmth of his breath invaded the neckline of her robe and she felt as if she was enveloped by his scent and his masculinity. An image of how he’d looked, lying naked and unashamed on his bed, flashed briefly before her eyes, and she suppressed a groan. But it was all she could do to prevent herself from jerking her hand out of his firm grasp.

‘Hey, you’re shivering,’ he said, and Laura had to bite her lip to silence the instinctive denial. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, you know.’

‘You didn’t.’