Wildest Dreams

If the situation hadn’t been so fraught with tension, the look on their faces might have been laughable; the two huge beasts dropped back several feet in surprise, although their barking continued intermittently. But, as Arabella continued to stare at them, even that died down, and after several minutes they viewed her with what she could only describe as puzzlement. If dogs could look surprised! These two certainly did.

‘Where’s all the noise gone now, then?’ She spoke to them derisively, although inwardly she was mightily relieved still to be in one piece. ‘Now, are you going to take me to your master, or do I have to find him myself?’

The dogs continued to look at her quizzically, obviously wondering what she was saying, but seeming to accept, for the moment, that she spoke with a certain amount of authority. Although quite what she should do next she wasn’t sure. Would the dogs continue to keep their distance if she made an attempt to walk down the driveway? After all, at the moment she wasn’t quite inside the property; maybe the two of them would decide to become protective again if she took a step in the direction of the house?

Well, she could hardly stand here all day hoping someone would come along and rescue her, or that the dogs wouldn’t attack. In the circumstances she decided to risk it. The worst they could do was tear her limb from limb.

What a cheery little thought!

She began to walk, the dogs trotting along behind her down the driveway, seeming confused after her audacity in daring to challenge their authority. Which was what she had hoped for.

It was a longer walk than she had thought, though, and as she finally approached the house the two dogs were walking one at either side of her, like escorts, although, to give them their due, they hadn’t made any threatening moves.

Arabella could hear the sound of male voices as she neared the house, which became even louder as she turned the last corner.

She came to a gasping halt as she rounded that last bend and saw the house, not impressed by the building itself, but by the two men in the garden outside. Merlin was exactly as she had always imagined him, seated on a low veranda overlooking the garden: a wizened old man well into his sixties, his hair long and grey, skin weathered brown by the many seasons he had seen in his lifetime. Although she had omitted his raggedy beard in her imaginings, a beard as grey and unkempt as his hair.

But it wasn’t Merlin who made her gasp, it was the younger man working in the garden below hint—a tall man with over-long blond hair, the muscles of his shirtless golden-brown torso rippling as he struggled with the roots of a tree stump that seemed to be proving stubborn. His only clothing, as far as she could see, was a pair of faded denims that rested low down on his hips.

As he became aware of her presence in the driveway he slowly straightened, looking at her with a pair of the deepest blue eyes Arabella had ever seen in her life, and she found herself face to face with the man she was already half in love with. A man straight out of the pages of Merlin’s books. Obviously not a complete figment of his imagination, either.

Robert Palfrey was Merlin’s gardener!

CHAPTER TWO

‘PALFREY’ recovered from the unexpected encounter a lot quicker than Arabella did, his eyes narrowing questioningly as he looked at her warily. Well, it wasn’t surprising he had got over his amazement quicker than her, he hadn’t just been confronted with a live, flesh-and-blood hero—more flesh than blood!

Arabella had been instrumental in commissioning the illustrations for the covers of the Palfrey books—and if she had met this man beforehand, and given the illustrator a description of him, she couldn’t have been more accurate. He—

‘Who the hell are you?’ he suddenly rasped, the harshness of his voice bringing her out of her dazed stupor.

Although not enough to actually be able to answer him, as she was still tongue-tied by all this glistening male beauty. He was beautiful, completely secure in his own maleness. And so he should be. He—

‘Daisy, May—heel!’ he instructed the dogs tersely, and the two animals trotted obediently over to sit at his feet, salivating for a different reason now as they gazed up at him, adoringly.

Arabella knew how they felt; she could cheerfully have sat at his feet and done the same thing herself. He was real! Robert Palfrey, alive, and standing just feet away from her.

‘I asked you a question,’ he rasped again. Those deep blue eyes narrowed flintily as he stood almost protectively in front of the house and its occupants.

‘Daisy and May?’ Arabella mused, aware that she still wasn’t answering his question as to who she was. But she found the names of the dogs so incongruous for two such fierce-looking creatures. They were obviously guard dogs, and yet it was doubtful that calling them Daisy and May would put the fear of God into anybody. Stephen would be mortified when she told him he had run away from Daisy and May!

‘Palfrey’s’ mouth tightened at her slightly mocking tone. ‘Don’t be fooled by the names,’ he bit out sharply. ‘They guard what they’re meant to guard!’

Merlin! Arabella realised, her mind suddenly returning to exactly why she was here. Coming face to face with this man had just thrown her totally.

‘I’m sure they do,’ she dismissed smoothly. ‘I’m actually here because I have a business appointment with Mr—er—Merlin,’ she amended awkwardly, peering around ‘Palfrey’ to where the elderly man still sat on the veranda.

Those deep blue eyes narrowed even more. ‘You do?’ He sounded sceptical.

Didn’t she look the part? She had checked her appearance very carefully before she’d left the house this morning to drive down here. Admittedly, the jacket of her dark grey pinstriped suit was still in the car at the end of the driveway, but, even so, the smart white blouse and straight skirt that reached just above her knees, the neutral-coloured tights and moderately heeled black shoes were surely quite businesslike? Her hair was in its usual bun at her nape, her glasses rested firmly on the bridge of her nose; in what way didn’t she look the part?

‘I do,’ she assured the younger man briskly, recovering a little now from the shock of actually meeting the real, live Palfrey; after all, she wasn’t here to see this man at all, but the elderly one seated behind him. Having got this far without actually being thrown out, she intended to make the most of her opportunity. Especially since she had been so angry with her father and Stephen two days ago; it would be too humiliating if she ended up being treated the same way. ‘I wrote to him and told him of my arrival this afternoon,’ she added pointedly, wishing he would get out of the way so that she might speak to Merlin himself.

The younger man scowled frowningly. ‘You did?’

Much as she had initially been bowled over by this man’s devastatingly good looks, she was now starting to find this conversation with him irksome. After all, it was Merlin she had come here to talk to, not his gardener! ‘If I could just have a few private words with Merlin.’ She tried to look around the younger man to where his elderly employer sat listening to them unconcernedly.

‘Concerning what?’ the young man prompted tersely.

There was something very odd going on here. Merlin hadn’t spoken a word since her arrival, and the blond man was distinctly hostile; surely the gardener was overstepping his duties by speaking for his employer in this way? Unless he also acted as security guard to the older man? But even so...! ‘My name is Atherton—’

‘It’s the publisher, boyo.’ The elderly man spoke for the first time, his voice gravelly, as if he didn’t use it very often. He stood up, moving to stand beside the younger man, the two of them looking slightly ridiculous together, one so tall and golden, the other shrivelled with age. ‘Is that right, miss?’

‘Quite correct.’ She nodded in confirmation, at last feeling as if she was making some sort of progress. ‘I wrote to you—’

‘You’re A. Atherton?’ Again it was the younger man who spoke to her.

Irritation flickered in her eyes as she gave him a brief glance. ‘Arabella Atherton, yes,’ she dismissed impatiently, looking at Merlin with some surprise as he began to chuckle throatily. The chuckle soon became a fully fledged cackle.

What was so funny about her name? Admittedly it sounded as if it came from another century, but her mother had loved to read historical novels, her father often saying he thought his wife would rather have been born in earlier times. But, even though Arabella had found her name a bit of an encumbrance when she was younger, she now found it rather attractive. It was certainly different.

‘I realise the two of us have never been formally introduced.’ She held out her hand, taking a couple of steps closer to Merlin, careful of the dogs as they began to growl low in their throats. ‘But we have been writing to each other for the last five years.’ She smiled warmly. ‘I’m Arabella Atherton. And you’re—’

‘Andrew, the gardener.’ The chuckling had stopped, although the elderly man still grinned his amusement. ‘The aged family retainer,’ he added pointedly.

‘Your age only comes into it when it comes to uprooting stubborn tree stumps,’ the younger man said dryly. ‘The rest of the time you take pleasure in telling me how fit you are!’

‘But I am, boy.’ Andrew grinned at him before turning back to Arabella. ‘He’s Merlin.’ He nodded in the direction of the man Arabella had come to regard as Palfrey.

This young man, his muscular body still glistening and golden after the exertion from his efforts with the tree stump, a man who might have posed for the Palfrey book covers himself, was actually the author of those books? Merlin was Palfrey? No, Palfrey was Merlin! The two were one and the same person?

The elderly gardener chuckled again as Arabella and Merlin stared at each other. ‘I think you may have come as much of a surprise to her as she has to you, boy,’ he murmured wryly.

Merlin’s mouth tightened, his gaze flinty as it swept scathingly over her businesslike appearance. ‘I had assumed A. Atherton was a man,’ he finally acknowledged contemptuously.

He wasn’t pleased to discover his editor was actually a woman, Arabella realised, her cheeks becoming flushed.

‘I think the two of you made some erroneous assumptions concerning each other.’ The elderly gardener still sounded amused by the situation.

Merlin shot him a look of irritation. ‘Go and ask Stella to put the kettle on, and we’ll all have a cup of tea.’

‘Certainly, sir.’ Andrew pulled on an imaginary forelock. ‘Right away, sir.’ He nodded before turning to walk around the side of the house, disappearing into what Arabella assumed must be the kitchen.

Merlin’s irritation had deepened to a scowl. ‘I think I’ve allowed him too much familiarity over the years,’ he muttered with a shake of his head.

Familiarity breeding contempt? Somehow she didn’t think so. The two men obviously liked and respected each other very much; an easy affection existed between the two.

‘A cup of tea would be very welcome, thank you,’ she said, smoothly changing the subject. And it wasn’t a lie either; she had been driving for several hours and a cup of tea certainly wouldn’t come amiss.