Second-Best Husband

‘As I said, Mrs Gibbons comes up from the village a couple of times a week. I’ve managed to make the kitchen habitable, plus one of the bedrooms, but as for the rest…’

‘It’s a very large house for one man,’ Sara ventured.

They had almost reached the back door and he paused now, turning to look at her.

‘Yes,’ he agreed bleakly. ‘When I bought it, I hadn’t actually visualised living here alone.’

Immediately Sara guessed what must have happened. Like her, he had obviously been rejected by the person he loved. Perhaps she had not wanted to live in such an isolated spot. Perhaps she had been someone he had met in Canada who had not wanted to come and live in England, who had not loved him enough. No one knew better than she how much that kind of rejection hurt…how it scarred and wounded. She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, to offer him her sympathy, her understanding, but he was already turning away from her, extracting some keys from his pocket and unlocking the kitchen door.

As he held it open for her, he reached inside and flicked on the lights.

Sara stepped past him and into the generous-sized room, catching her breath in admiration as she saw how it had been transformed from the dreary place she remembered.

Walls had been moved to make the room larger; the kitchen range, which she vaguely remembered as a crouching evil monster that belched smoke and was covered in rust, had been transformed somehow or other into a model of polished perfection, whose presence warmed the entire room, offering the two cats curled up on top of it a comfortable place to sleep.

Where she remembered a haphazard collection of tatty utilitarian cupboards, and a chipped stone sink, there were now beautifully made units in what she suspected was reclaimed oak, from the quality and sheen of their finish. The original stone floor had been cleaned and polished and was now partially covered with earth-toned Indian rugs; the walls had been painted a soft, warm, peachy terracotta colour; on the dresser, which like the units was oak and softly polished, stood a collection of pewter jugs and a service of traditional willow-pattern china.

A deep, comfortably solid-looking settee was pulled up close to the range, and the table in the centre of the room looked large enough and solid enough to accommodate a good-sized family.

In fact all that the room lacked to make it perfect was perhaps some flowers in the heavy pewter jugs, and of course the delicious warm smell of food cooking which she always associated with her mother’s kitchen and her mother’s love.

‘This is wonderful,’ she commented admiringly, swinging round to face Stuart and to say wryly, ‘I don’t know who installed these units for you, but I do know that they must have cost the earth—the quality of the wood alone…’

‘Reclaimed oak,’ he told her offhandedly. ‘I picked it up quite cheaply, and as for the units…’ He shrugged, and turned away from her.

‘I made them myself. Not a particularly difficult task.’

He sounded so offhand that for a moment Sara felt embarrassed that she had enthused about them so much, and then she recognised that her praise had probably embarrassed him, that he perhaps wasn’t actually used to his talents being admired.

While she assimilated these thoughts, she chalked up another black mark against the woman who had rejected him. Had he built this kitchen for her, working on it with love and hope, only to find…?

Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away hurriedly, and heard herself saying in an oddly choked voice, ‘Well, no matter what you say, I think they look wonderful. The wood—there’s something about it that makes you want to touch it…to stroke it almost…’ She broke off, feeling thoroughly embarrassed as she realised that he had turned round and was scrutinising her.

‘Not many people recognise that quality in wood, that appeal; to most of them it’s simply…wood. They don’t recognise its tactile appeal…’ He stopped. ‘Sorry, I’m starting to lecture you. If you haven’t eaten all day you must be starving. I’ll see what Mrs G. has left.’

He opened the door and disappeared in the direction of what Sara remembered as being one of the house’s cold pantries, returning within seconds with a covered dish.

‘It looks like shepherd’s pie,’ he told her.

‘Wonderful.’ She could feel her empty stomach starting to grumble hungrily at the thought of food.

This was the first time she had actually felt hungry since Ian had dropped the bombshell announcement of his engagement. The first time she had found herself able to forget her own problems and become interested in something and someone else, she recognised as Stuart switched on the oven and opened it, placing the pie dish on one of its runners.

‘Mrs G. tells me that it is possible to cook things in the range,’ he told Sara ruefully. ‘But as yet I haven’t quite mastered the knack.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

Sara told him about her visits to the house as a child, admiring the way he had managed to restore the range.

‘I enjoyed it. In the winter, when the daylight hours are so short, having the house to work on is an ideal means of finding something to do.’

He paused, his face slightly shadowed, and Sara wondered sympathetically if he was thinking about her, the woman he loved…thinking about how different things might have been were she here to share his life with him. He looked so sombre that she half turned away from him, instinctively wanting to give him privacy for his feelings, and she was surprised to hear him saying, ‘The problem is that, instead of renovating the house, what I ought to be doing is tackling the mountain of paperwork that’s amassing in the study.

‘That’s proving to be my biggest headache since I inherited the business. It seems that an inability to deal accurately and efficiently with paperwork is a family trait. My uncle’s affairs were in such a mess that I had to hire a firm of accountants to get them straightened out. They recommended a computer and a software program, both for the financial aspects of the business and for keeping a record of the replanting schemes I intend to set up, but the first time I tried to use the damn thing…’ He sounded so exasperated that Sara turned to look at him. He had pushed his fingers into his hair as he spoke to her in a gesture of impatient irritation which confirmed her earlier opinion that it needed cutting.

His hair was thick and glossy, almost black, so very different from Ian’s expertly styled blond hair.

‘I don’t know why it is, but I seem to have a blind spot where paperwork is concerned.’ He was scowling slightly, suddenly looking very much younger…almost like a little boy. The thought of anyone considering such a large and tough-looking man as a little boy amused Sara enough to make a small smile curve her mouth. She saw Stuart looking at her, and realised that he was focusing on her face…on her mouth itself.

The instant reaction that ricocheted through her body stunned her into immobility, followed by an astonishing urge to touch her tongue-tip to her lips to relieve their unfamiliar dryness. It was so long since she had been aware of how very erotic it could be to have a man’s attention focused on her mouth in that particular way that it was several seconds before she recognised her reaction for what it was.

Immediately her face became suffused with a wave of hot colour, which intensified as she realised abruptly that Stuart probably hadn’t been focusing on her mouth in any remotely sensual way at all, but had far more likely mistaken her smile for contempt at his inability to cope with his paperwork.

Embarrassment and a desire to rectify matters rushed her into ill-considered speech, so that before she knew it she was saying quickly, ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do to help… I’m going to be here for…for some time. I might not be familiar with your software, but I could perhaps make some headway with the ordinary paperwork.’

He was watching her with so much surprise that she stopped speaking, her face burning again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she started to apologise. ‘You’ve probably made arrangements of your own. You—’

‘No. No, I haven’t,’ he assured her. ‘And if you really mean it… I can’t tell you what a headache it’s been. I just don’t seem to be able to get to grips with it at all. You’re intending to be around for some time, then?’