Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
He’s never been attracted to me before, so why would he start now?
Milo
An hour later we set off down the long drive leading away from the house. Niall stirs in his seat. “You sure we’ve got everything?” he grumbles. “Or will we have to go back and start moving the heavy furniture out?”
I snort and look back to check on Cora in her car seat, but she’s already sleeping. Oz swears by the car, and I know he and Silas used to take her out in it a few times a night in the early days so she’d sleep.
“Babies need lots of things,” I murmur. “Time was when Oz and I went out he’d just have his diary and wallet. Now he has bags and car seats and stuff. Lots and lots of stuff.”
“Starman” by David Bowie plays on the radio and trees throw their shadows into the car as he navigates the twists and turns of the long, gravelled drive.
He slows, and I look up to see his house appear.
In the past, the Dower House was used for the dowagers of the family who upon their husband’s death would relinquish the main house to the heir and retire, usually in luxury to this house in the grounds.
Niall moved into the Dower House on the estate last year, claiming he’d be catching family if he stayed any longer. However, he still makes his way up to the main house for meals and coffee.
With a quick stop to open the five-bar gate we pull up on the forecourt in front of the house, and I look up at it curiously.
It’s made of the same honey-coloured stone as the main house but was built at a later date, and it’s utterly charming.
It seems to belong in its setting of the woods like a fairy-tale cottage, and the architect obviously played up to that with its gables and tall chimney stacks.
It seems to flow over the space it occupies and its mullioned windows with their leaded lights twinkle cheerily in the moonlight.
We leave the car, and he saunters off to open the front door while I retrieve Cora’s car seat.
I look at him as he comes towards me. “I’m looking forward to seeing inside,” I say as he grabs the changing bag and Cora’s Moses basket.
“Last time I saw it, it resembled something that Miss Haversham might have been comfortable in.”
He looks startled. “You could have come round at any time.”
I break in quickly, feeling awkward because I sounded like I’d been angling for an invite and was piqued at not getting one. “Doesn’t matter. I was just curious. You know how I like those house renovation programmes.”
“You and old people,” he mutters. “What you find interesting in someone else’s house is beyond me. The only home I’m interested in is my own.”
“You have no soul or imagination.” I follow him into the hallway and look round. “Wow. This is lovely.”
The hallway has a floor made of aged flagstones which seem to be harmoniously mismatched, and the beams and woodwork have been sandblasted back to their natural pine. It’s warm and welcoming.
He smiles at me. “Have a walk around while I get the rest of the stuff.”
“Oh, I’ll help you,” I say hurriedly, but he shakes his head.
“Keep moving around. It might make her stay asleep and that’s our most important mission tonight, comrade.”
I shake my head but when he disappears outside again, I take his invitation.
Carrying Cora in her car seat, I wander up a set of steps and into a wide, white-painted lounge with more sandblasted beams. Two large sofas in a French grey material sit opposite each other with a low coffee table in front of them, on which is a huge pile of unopened mail and a couple of newspapers obviously abandoned mid-read.
Adjacent to the sofas is a large fireplace with a driftwood mantlepiece and there’s a set of French doors at one end which obviously leads out into the garden.
I wander over and peer out but it’s too dark to see much apart from a stone patio area.
I retrace my steps and find his study next.
That too is painted white with bookcases and a table over which there is splayed a big pile of maps.
A huge old desk sits in the middle of the room that is so big I can’t see how they got it through the door.
I wonder fancifully if the house was built around it.
The desk is piled high with more mail and maps.
I inhale the scent of his sweet woody aftershave and close the door behind me.
I turn and jump when I find a pretty little tabby cat sitting in the hallway and staring at me.
“Hey, puss,” I say softly so I don’t wake Cora. “I wasn’t aware that Niall had a cat. Aren’t you pretty?” I reach out to pet her but just as I get close, she hisses and swipes at my fingers with her paw before darting off.
“Bye,” I say faintly. “Nice to meet you.”
I wander down the corridor, poking my head into more rooms and finding a downstairs toilet and a dining room, painted grey. It has a table big enough to seat ten, and pulled neatly up to it are ten chairs upholstered in an expensive cream fabric. I shake my head and move on.
The last room is the kitchen, and he finds me standing in there when he comes back in.
“I’ve just met your cat,” I say cheerfully. “I wasn’t aware that you had a pet, let alone such a psychopathic one. How very cute.”
He flushes, and I watch the red flow over his cheeks with glee.
“Yes, well, I found her in the woods when she was a kitten and I couldn’t leave her out there,” he mutters.
“I kept trying to give her to people who wanted a cat, but she’s never been very sociable and they never seemed to warm to her after she removed the top layer of their epidermis. ”
As if she knows that we’re talking about her, the cat wanders in.
“Hey, Dotty,” he coos, smiling widely at her.
The cat immediately moves towards him, making little chirruping noises.
It’s quite adorable and I immediately want to check that we haven’t moved into an alternate timeline because nothing about Niall has ever screamed house in the woods and pet cat.
I settle for more winding up. “ Dotty ? Your cat is called Dotty?”
He scratches his head, looking slightly embarrassed. “My grandmother was called Dotty.”
“Was she actually christened that?”
“Well, she was Dorothy by birth but then she took off all her clothes and streaked through the house naked when the vicar was taking tea, and my father said she was quite dotty. The name stuck.” I laugh and he grins at me. “She was quite vicious too, like feline Dotty.”
“Not with you,” I say, watching as he bends and Dotty butts his hand demanding cuddles.
“Let’s not talk about her,” he says quickly as she puts her paws on his knees and reaches up to kiss his chin. “Let’s talk about war or poverty or famine.”
“That’s so adorable, Niall.” I reach for my phone. “I must get a picture for Oz.”
“If your finger moves on that button, I’ll murder you and let Dotty eat your remains.”
I blink. “Okay, that’s very explicit.” I look around the kitchen. “I think this room might just be my favourite part of the house.”
It’s a large room big enough to have an old pine table and chairs at one end by another set of French doors and still have room for lots of cabinets.
It’s obviously had a lot of money spent on it.
The cream cabinets sparkle and the wooden worktop gleams in the light and echoes the sandblasted beams above.
There’s a breakfast bar at one end with two cream leather bar stools pulled up to it and a coffee machine that looks like it could run the control tower at Heathrow Airport.
The walls are painted that French grey again and I wonder if he had a job lot of the paint, because so far the only colours I’ve seen are white and grey and one of them is a shade.
My heart cries out for some colour, but then I remember his horrified reaction to my colour choices in the attic and I grin at him. For some reason, his step falters but he recovers and looks around contemplatively at his room. “It’s nice. You know I like nice things.”
I laugh. “I know the main house makes you twitch.”
He shakes his head. “All those really old ornaments and pictures. Makes my skin itch. I like things plain.”
I rest Cora’s seat on the floor and stretch.
“I can tell that from the colours. This is a really lovely house though,” I say quickly, afraid that I’ve offended him.
“I’m just not sure if I’d have gone this far with the renovations.
” I come out of my stretch to find him staring at me, or more precisely at the slip of skin showing where my t-shirt has ridden up.
Feeling slightly self-conscious, I pull it down, and the movement seems to recall him.
He jerks and appears to pull his mind back. “Why wouldn’t you have gone this far?”
“Well, it’s not your house so I’m surprised you’ve spent so much money on it. You may scoff at my home programmes, but it means that I now know quality when I see it and how much that quality costs.”
“Not mine?” He sounds astonished.
I run my fingers through my hair, feeling embarrassed. “Well, it belongs to Silas and it’ll revert back to him at some point.”
He shakes his head. “It is mine. Silas gave it to me when I came back here.”
I gape at him. “He gave you this?”
He grins and switches the kettle on, bending down to pet Dotty as he does so. “Yes, he gave it to me. Deeds and everything.” He takes two mint-green mugs down from a cupboard and indicates a basket of different teas. “Pick one.”
I stare at him. “You have flavoured tea?”
“That sounded like the sort of voice you’d use to state that I have men chained in my basement.”
“That would have been slightly more believable than you drinking peppermint tea,” I say dourly, and he gives a snort of laughter.
I hush him as Cora stirs. We both stand still with bated breath as she stretches her little arms, extending them from her body, but then she smacks her lips and settles back into sleep. We both relax and grin at each other.