The Vital Spark Read online

  `What did you have to do that for?' she demanded

  angrily as he reached the top. 'Didn't you ever do anything you shouldn't, at his age?' Her voice quivered with indignation, and her eyes snapped as she faced him.

  `If he hadn't been checked, he'd have tried it again, and the next time he might not have been so lucky. There may not have been anybody there if he fell into the water. You may not have noticed, but there's no sign of his parents around,' he pointed out with sarcastic justification. Lee's face flamed. Her eyes told her he spoke the truth. The beach was practically deserted, and the boy was too young to be left to play about in the harbour on his own. The very fact that what the man said was reasonable only added fuel to the fire of her anger.

  `Need you have been quite so brutal?' she asked him icily. 'Surely a scolding would have been enough for a child his age?'

  `A child his age soon forgets a scolding. He won't forget a smacked seat.' His voice was as cold as her own. 'If nothing else, he'll have learned two lessons this morning.'

  `And what might those be?' Lee could have kicked herself for asking. He led her into the question, and she walked into the trap like an innocent abroad, she thought furiously.

  `He's learned not to grip a rope when he slides down it. And not to court death by walking across the guard rails of boats,' he returned evenly, no whit put out by her annoyance.

  `They say things always go in threes.' Betty was determined to put her oar in and be noticed. 'That's another lesson he's got coming,' she simpered, in a way that made Lee want to smack her.

  `He's probably learned his third lesson, too,' the stranger said grimly. 'That is if he's wise. He'll remember in future that it's dangerous to cross my path,' he added, and his eyes ignored Betty and sought and held Lee's, and in them there was anger, and a latent challenge. Instinctively she backed a step, and the tawny eyes fired as if with triumph, conscious of mastery. The look in them made Lee stop and draw herself up, and wish she was at least six inches taller. It had not seemed to matter before, but she did not like the feeling that this man towered above her, dwarfing

  her not only by his height but by the sheer force of his personality. Again she was reminded of a mountain lion, tensed, and ready to pounce.

  'Pig !'

  The shrill insult broke the tension between them. They both spun round and looked at the small urchin, one hand still nursing his smarting posterior, and his pink tongue stuck out rudely towards the stranger. Did the hint of a twitch show on the firm lips? Lee could not tell. If it had, it was gone as quickly as it came. The boy was a safe distance away, at the corner of the street, and well out of reach, she saw thankfully. The stranger took a quick step forward, but somehow Lee knew he did not intend to pursue the boy, although the youngster was evidently not prepared to take a chance.

  `Pig !' he shrilled again, then spun about and vanished round the corner of the street at top speed.

  `Betty, there's customers waiting.' Mr Dunn called his daughter's attention to business, and with a last wistful look at the stranger Betty reluctantly waddled back to the shop, and the mundane art of weighing potatoes and apples.

  For a brief moment of time the stranger waited. Lee looked up at him uncertainly, disconcerted to find him still watching her. His expression was aloof and enigmatic, and something else that was unreadable. She turned abruptly towards the Mini van, and fumbled for her key.

  `Allow me?'

  How did he guess she had left the driving door unlocked? It was something Jon always grumbled at her about, and she knew it was silly to be so incautious, but she just forgot. Something of her guilt must have expressed itself in her face, for the stranger's lips quirked upwards for the second time, his grin reaching his eyes as he read her expression, which told him clearly she knew he had guessed her thoughts, and found it amusing to make her feel guilty.

  `At least you know what the boy thinks about you,' she snapped ungraciously as she slid into the driving seat. 'And I agree with him. Entirely.' She slammed the door emphatically, and gave the ignition key a vicious twist. She would have liked to shout 'Pig!' at him herself. The male chauvi-

  nistic variety, she muttered through gritted teeth, but something in his look warned her not to say it out loud.

  The engine spluttered into life, protesting at her unusually violent treatment, and she saw with satisfaction that the arrogant stranger had hurriedly made himself scarce out of her path and on to the safety of the pavement. Realised too late, from his mocking bow, that his haste was a sarcastic questioning of her driving ability, and with compressed lips, she turned the Mini round and headed with an angry toss of her head back in the direction of Polrewin.

  `You look rattled.' Her brother looked at her curiously as she jerked to a halt in front of the house, and he emerged from one of the glasshouses with a stack of tomato trays in his arms. 'Simmer down,' he grinned, 'or you'll go off pop.' Jon had a milder temperament than Lee's. He had inherited it, along with brown hair and hazel eyes, from his father's side of the family, whereas Lee got her black hair and eyes, and fiery nature, from their Spanish grandmother.

  `Oh, I've just had a brush with an idiot holidaymaker,' she shrugged off her irritation with difficulty. 'Some of the summer visitors we have around here make me sick!' she declared tempestuously. 'Here's Mr Dunn's tally.' She fished it out of her pocket, and her brother patiently put down his burden to take it. 'And he says he could do with the same delivery every day now that new caravan site has got going along the coast,' she added. 'Betty says the stuff's selling like hot cakes there.'

  `Suits us fine.' Jon glanced at the tally and gave a whistle of satisfaction. 'At least it keeps us in the black with the bank until we've decided in which direction we want to go at Polrewin.' He glanced at the two big greenhouses with justifiable pride, and Lee saw his eyes wander across to the space where she knew he planned to put two more when finances permitted. 'By the way, talking of visitors,' he turned back to her impulsively, 'will it put you out much if we have one come to Polrewin?'

  `Of course it won't.' Lee felt she would welcome company, it would make a pleasant change for both of them. `I'm sure Nell won't mind,' she blessed the co-operative

  nature of the housekeeper they had taken on along with the flower farm, 'and with Mr Dunn's cheques coming in regularly like this we can afford to feed another mouth,' she said frankly. 'Do I know him? Or is it a her?' she asked mischievously.

  `It's a him, and you don't,' her brother grinned back. 'At least, you know of him. It's Haydn Scott. We were at college together, but I don't think you ever met him, did you?'

  `It was a bit too far for me to come,' Lee said drily, referring to the fact that she had been at finishing school in France at the time. 'I didn't know you still kept in touch with him?' Vaguely she remembered Jon talking of someone called Haydn, but it was too long ago to recall details.

  `Only now and then.' Her brother heaved the tomato trays back into his arms again. 'But I knew he'd be interested to hear about Polrewin. I wrote and told him we'd inherited it from Uncle Bill and decided to make a go of it between us. It seems he's over here on a sort of working holiday himself, and thought he'd look us up. He rang from Tarmouth just before you came back.'

  `How long will he be staying?' Much as she wanted Jon to enjoy his friend's visit, having to look after a guest would add to the workload outside. She would have to help Nell rather than lend an extra pair of hands for tomato picking.

  `Only for supper.' Jon allayed her fears. 'I thought we might offer him a bed for the night if we got talking late, rather than give him the bother of going all the way back to the harbour afterwards.'

  That meant he was probably staying at the Royal Anchor, Lee judged. Oh well, one night would make a pleasant break for them all, without unduly disrupting their busy routine.

  `Haydn came to see me while I was managing Whitefields last year,' Jon went on, 'but you were away at the time. It was just before we heard that we'd inherited Polrewin. That's wh
at made me write him, when we did.'

  She was away in Scotland, Lee remembered, trying to sort out her feelings about Dennis. In a way, Polrewin helped her to make that particular decision. It meant a place

  of his own for Jon, even if it was a rundown one that resembled a jungle rather than a flower farm. He would be his own master here, which was better than managing an estate for someone else, however big, and his interest had always been in horticulture rather than agriculture, in that he took after their uncle. He lacked experience, but he was learning fast, and if they could manage to survive the first two years, Lee reckoned he wouid turn Polrewin into a viable holding. As for Dennis.... She was glad, now, she had the courage to break things off between them. She was fond of him, she always had been, from the time they were both little. Perhaps that was part of the trouble, she reflected; they knew one another too well. There was a vital spark missing from their relationship—something that Lee felt ought to be there, but Dennis seemed quite content to do without.

  `I'm going in with Jon at Polrewin,' she told him, as gently as she could. 'With our joint savings, we can just about manage to start the business again. Uncle Bill must have had contacts there, he ran it as a flower farm once.'

  `But your uncle hasn't run it as a business for years,' Dennis protested, very upset. 'His contacts will all be taken over by someone else before now, probably one of the big combines from the Channel Islands. And your savings—we were thinking of a mortgage....'

  A mortgage on a semi. Perhaps eventually working towards a detached house of their own. Twenty-five years to pay, and their youth going while they trod a predictable middle path towards old age. Dennis was predictable, and to an increasingly restless Lee it was not enough.

  `I'll go and tell Nell, and see what we can manage for supper,' she promised Jon. 'Come on, Bandy—Jet—come here!' Her tongue sharpened with sudden panic as the two dogs circled the tomato trays still on the ground, with an interested stalk. 'We really must teach those two that tomato trays can't be used as trees,' she wailed despairingly, and grabbed the shaggy off-white mongrel with the bandy legs, the result of a road accident that first brought it to Polrewin, and the liver-and-white spaniel, before the worst happened.

  `You must admit there's a scarcity of trees around here,' Jon grinned. 'We'll just have to remember not to leave boxes of produce lying around, until they're trained.' He went off whistling, and Lee hauled the two animals indoors with her to impart her news to Nell.

  `There's plenty of supper.' The homely, middle-aged woman was unperturbed by her news. 'It's good to cook for hungry mouths again,' she expressed her satisfaction at the present arrangements. After cooking for their elderly uncle, her delight at the opportunity to use her culinary prowess on young people with healthy appetites had not abated even after twelve months,, and occasionally still made Jon groan at the amount of food she plied him with. `There's only the pie to finish, and the sauce to make.'

  `I'll do the sauce for you.' Lee sorted out a basin and saucepan and busied herself at the stove. 'It'll do Jon good to have a break,' she spoke her thoughts aloud, and Nell looked up from paring the pastry round the edge of the apple pie.

  `It'll do you both good,' she said significantly. 'Too much work isn't good for anybody, and it'll give you a chance to get into something pretty for a change.' She gave an unenthusiastic look towards Lee's jeans and workmanlike top.

  the work hasn't hurt me, I'm not exactly a teenager,' Lee reminded her with a smile. She was twenty-five, and Jon three years older, indisputable facts even if Nell chose to ignore them, and mother them as if they were chicks round a broody hen. Just the same it would be nice to wear a dress for a change.

  `It sounds as if your visitor's arrived,' Nell gave her a timely reminder as the two dogs set up a clamour and raced round to the front of the house.

  `I've finished the sauce.' Lee poured it into a jug and set it on the stove top. 'I'll go upstairs and change before I say hello.' She had not heard the sound of a car in the yard, but perhaps it was because she had not been listening for it. She fled upstairs to her bedroom, thankful for once that there was a back stairway from the kitchen quarters. Jon could do the honours while she tidied herself up.

  A glance at her watch told her she had three-quarters of

  an hour yet before supper. After a moment's hesitation she decided on a shower first, and her hair curled damply in soft ringlets round her head as she towelled the drips away, and pulled a hurried brush and comb through it. By the time she was dressed it would be nearly dry. That was the advantage of short hair, she reflected as she opened her wardrobe and glanced through the possibilities for the evening. A casual invitation to supper did not merit anything special, but since they were going to enjoy a rare evening's relaxation, she might as well do the occasion justice.

  She chose an acid yellow dress, sleeveless, with a scoop neckline and softly draped skirt, and a pair of scandals of the same colour. Yellow and white ringed bracelets gave a touch of coolness to the clear, astringent colour, which set , off her dark hair and eyes and even tan to perfection. She knew she looked attractive, and it gave her added confidence as she pushed open the living room door and stepped inside to join the male voices she heard talking there. One, of course, belonged to Jon. There seemed—something strangely familiar about the other.

  `Meet my sister, Haydn. This is Haydn Scott, Lee. I can't think why you two never met.' Jon performed the introduction.

  `But we have,' a lazy, amused drawl contradicted him, `though I didn't immediately recognise the transformation.'

  Lee turned, her colour flaring. She knew, now, with a sinking heart, what it was she recognised about the voice. The tawny-haired stranger from the harbour rose from where he lounged in the best easy chair, deliberately placed his glass back on the tray on top of the occasional table at his side, and looked down on Lee's discomfort from his annoyingly superior height with frank appreciation of the transformation. 'We met on the harbour wall this afternoon,' he answered Jon's surprised question with smooth ease, 'though of course I didn't know then you were related, You're not much alike.' He held out his hand—the hand that had so recently smacked the hapless child—and perforce Lee had to take it or appear unforgivably rude. She winced at its hard grip, which surely was just that bit

  harder, and held on for that much longer than was absolutely necessary in the cause of politeness. Perhaps he enjoyed inflicting pain on other people? Her eyes met his in mute, angry protest, and he released her.

  `Have a sherry before supper, Lee?' Jon rescued her, and she turned and accepted the thin-stemmed glass from her brother with fingers that smarted, and suddenly trembled. Why, of all people, did the first guest they had entertained since they came to Polrewin have to be this hateful creature? she asked herself stormily. And to think they had got to be polite to him for the whole evening ! Memory reminded her that he would probably stay the night as well. `Rather than go all the way back to the harbour,' Jon had said. That explained it, she realised vexedly. She had assumed he would be staying at the Royal Anchor, but of course he was probably sleeping in his cabin cruiser, which meant he would not have a car.

  `Haydn walked up,' Jon confirmed her guess. It was nearly three miles from the little town, but the picture of his long, easy stride between the two boats, and then again from the dinghy on to the dry pebbles of the beach, told her he would make short work of the distance. But no car probably meant no luggage, either. A quick glance round the room confirmed the absence of a case. Maybe that meant he would not stay the night. Sudden hope flared in her. He could not stay the night unless he had some nightclothes with him. Unless.... She glanced at him doubtfully over the rim of her glass. He looked quite capable of sleeping without them. Not in our sheets, she told herself firmly, and coloured furiously as a pair of amused, tawny eyes looked into her own, and read the thoughts that were going on inside her head, and laughed at them, not caring....

  `We've got quite a lot to show you.' Jon brok
e into her defiant stare, unaware of the twin daggers of dislike and challenge that passed between his sister and his guest. 'Stay the night, if you've nothing better to do. We can talk over supper, and you can have a look round Polrewin in the morning. I can lend you some 'jamas,' he offered accommodatingly. 'We're about the same size.'

  `Thanks, I'd be glad to,' his friend accepted calmly, at the same time glancing at Lee with a glint in his eyes which she did not know whether to interpret as meaning he did not have anything better to do, or he would be glad of the offer of pyjamas....

  `Supper's ready, Miss Lee.' Nell knocked on the living room door and put an end to her confusion, but only for the moment. The table in the low-ceilinged dining room was small and round, and although it gave adequate room for half a dozen people by normal standards, their guest seemed to dwarf it, and the room. All through the iced melon, grown at Polrewin as an experiment, but purely for their own consumption as yet, followed by delicate young Iamb and fresh picked peas, asparagus tips melted in butter, and ending with Nell's enormous apple pie, Lee could feel his eyes upon her, cool, assessing, and infinitely disturbing to her poise, to the point that she became clumsy and dropped her fork and her bread roll, and did not even think to scold the dogs for being in the dining room when they mopped up the unexpected titbit with relish.

  `Have I got a smudge or something?' she asked at last, irritably, and he leaned back in his chair, with his head to one side, and to her increased annoyance paid an even keener attention to her face.

  `Not that I can see,' he murmured consideringly. 'What makes you think ... ?'

  `I just wondered what you were looking at, that's all,' she retorted sharply, and he smiled, with a slow, amused, upward lifting of his lips that mocked her discomfiture.

  `I was merely thinking what a good photograph you would take. The contrast between dark hair and eyes, and that acid yellow colour of your dress would come out nicely.' Still he did not bother to take his eyes away from her face.