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He had threatened to. He might have done, but she was safe now. ‘There were moments,’ he said. But when she cracked and tried to destroy his work and ran wild he had shown only compassion. She promised, ‘I’ll be as quiet as a mouse,’ and wrinkled her nose, twitching mouselike, and he laughed,

‘Come on down and I’ll show you where I keep the cheese.’

She was wearing a slip, bra, pants and tights, but when she threw back the bedclothes and stepped out she suddenly felt absurdly shy. Her nervous little laugh must have sounded as though the cold air had hit her, because he said, ‘Get dressed by the fire.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘all right, and please would you have anything you could lend me while I wash my undies, like a shirt?’

‘Take your pick.' He nodded towards the chest of drawers. ‘I’ll see about breakfast and you’d better be hungry.'

She giggled again. She was feeling nervous as a kitten; and excited, because everything had changed. The lodge was no longer her prison, more like a spaceship heading for the stars.

Pattie took two shirts. There were plenty of them, so she picked out two, one for days and one for nights, because she could well be here another week or so. She got into the day shirt, cinched it in at the waist with her belt, then threw back the bedclothes and started to make the bed.

There was a double sleeping bag, with sheets and pillows and a duvet thrown over, and a good springy mattress. She made it neatly and stood back and looked down at it, and found she was blushing and knew that there was a glow about her.

Her boots clattered on the stairs as she hurried down. She didn’t need to creep any more. She would be unobtrusive while Duncan was working, of course, but he had forgiven her for being here—and what was more she had forgiven herself. So now she would make the best of it. She would get her article and she might get a very good friend. She might get just about the best friend she had ever had.

He was in the kitchen, at the stove, and again her heart gave that little leap at the sight of him. She asked, ‘Are you good at the cooking as well?’

‘Cordon Bleu it’s not,’ he said. ‘But my scrambled eggs aren’t to be sneezed at.’

‘I don’t ’ she began, and he turned from the stove and pointed a fork at her.

‘If you’re going to say you don’t like scrambled eggs you get what you do eat, because I don’t want you flaking out from starvation.’

‘Honestly,’ she protested, ‘I eat most things, and I like scrambled eggs. What I was going to say was, “I don’t suppose you’d let me cook dinner?”’

‘Splendid idea!’ He sounded all for it, and that would pass the day for her.

‘What time?’ she asked.

‘Sevenish.’

‘Just one hitch, I don’t have a watch. It’s in my handbag in my car.’

Duncan took off the heavy Cartier wristwatch he wore and put it on the kitchen table. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘you can make the toast.’

There was a long brass toasting fork with slightly bent prongs, and Pattie held the bread close to the embers and watched it curling and browning, and thought how much more satisfying this was than popping slices into a metallic container and waiting for them to be hurled back at you.

They ate breakfast in front of the fire. The toast had a faintly smoky taste, but Pattie still preferred it to the kind she had at home, and Duncan was right about the scrambled eggs, they were good. She ate hungrily, and so did he, as though he was in a hurry to finish and start work. She would have liked to talk, but the talking could wait. She had a feeling of timelessness. There was no urgency about today. Later they would talk, and it wasn’t just for her article that she wanted to know about him.

He finished before her and took his plate and mug into the kitchen, while Pattie chewed on the final crust of her toast and debated with herself about making another slice. The bread would be too stale to eat soon, and only get wasted, and she was giving the matter her serious consideration, sitting in the fireglow, when he handed her an oblong mirror in a narrow white plastic frame. ‘Sure you want this?’ he asked.

Her reflection made her wince and she wailed, ‘I’m sorry I asked for it now. Talk about the raggle-taggle gypsies! Could I have a borrow of your comb? You do have a comb?'

‘Look, lady,’ he glared at her, but it was mock pugnacity that made her laugh, 'on my own up here I grow a beard
—
a handsome one too, basically I’m a hairy feller
—
but my general habits are hygienic. I comb my hair, I clean my teeth, I wash—all over.’ She grinned. ‘Oh, what’s wrong with a bit of scruffiness?’ and couldn’t believe what she was saying. ‘But I would like to wash my hair.’

‘Hang on,’ he said. This time he went upstairs, and came back at once, carrying a bottle of amber-coloured liquid. ‘I hadn’t unpacked this.’ Pattie gave a delighted squeal. ‘Never got so much appreciation for so little before,’ he said.

‘Who wants perfume, chocolates, red roses?’ she chortled theatrically. ‘This is
beautiful
!’ She kissed the bottle of shampoo and Duncan said,

‘Now that’s a waste of a good kiss. I gave it to you.’

He stooped and kissed her lips and the light touch of his mouth sent ice-cold pins and needles up and down her spine. .

‘But right now,’ he said, ‘work.’

‘Of course,’ she said.

Work for him, but she was going to wash her hair and make herself presentable. If she could achieve that she would work on the next stage and try to end up looking seductive. She had longed for her luggage ever since she arrived here, but now more than ever she sighed for a change into pretty clothes, and something to brighten her lips and cheeks. She was naturally pale. The golden tan she acquired through her weekly sessions under the sun-lamps needed to be augmented with a cheek blusher and lipstick, but here she had neither.

A few months ago she had written an article on the ways Victorian ladies cheated before cosmetics became respectable. Beetroot was one aid. It stained red, and if you applied it lightly and quickly it didn’t look too hectic. There was a jar of pickled beetroot in the kitchen cupboard and she wondered about trying that out for lipstick and if it would leave her smelling and tasting of vinegar, and burst into giggles, and Duncan, who was sorting out papers at his work table, asked, ‘What’s the joke?’

‘Er—do you like vinegar?’ He probably thought she was thinking about dinner, but he’d wonder why that should strike her as funny. ‘Just a taste,’ she added.

‘Sure.’ He waited for further explanation and getting none went on with his paper sorting. He had picked up the work she had strewn around last night, before she came down this morning. She should have done that. She wouldn’t have known what order to put it in, but she could have gathered it up from the floor and apologised again. She said, ‘I’m—sorry about that.’

‘What?’ This time he wasn’t quite on her wavelength. It took him a moment to realise she was speaking, another to understand what she was talking about. ‘Forget it,’ he said, and Pattie knew she must shut up now.

She thought, thank God I didn’t get the chance to burn any papers, that I didn’t manage to lift the typewriter and smash it. She had done no real damage. She wondered how Duncan would have reacted if she had, because although he had been understanding he was not a tolerant man. If she had snarled up his work he might have hit her for real.

Lucky for me, she thought, and although she was without her health-and-happiness charm she had never felt so lucky in her life. Of course she desperately wanted to find it, but when she opened the back door fresh snow had covered her footsteps and her diggings into the wood pile. She would find nothing out there today, especially as tiny flakes were still falling.

She found herself smiling at them, and knew she would have been disappointed if there had been signs of a thaw. She no longer wanted to get away. Some time fairly soon, of course, but not until she knew Duncan Keld better. Not only well enough to write her article but well enough to be sure that he would phone her, keep in touch, stay in her life and want her to stay in his.

He had told her to help herself to the clothes in the chest of drawers in the bedroom, so she went up again and did that. By then the water was warm on the stove. Pattie washed herself and her undies and draped bra, pants and tights over a line she rigged up from a ball of twine she found in a kitchen drawer.. There were old black nails in the great beam fronting the fireplace. She twisted the twine around them and hung out her washing.

Then she cleaned her teeth, with toothpaste on her finger. They said it showed a man loved you if he let you use his toothbrush, but maybe she should settle for the comb, and she washed her hair in the melted snow that was soft as silk, and felt silken and sensuous as she knelt in front of the fire on a cushion combing her hair dry.

When Duncan got up she twisted round and looked enquiringly at him. ‘Coffee,’ he said.

‘I’ll get it.’

‘Thanks.’ He saw the washing and his eyebrows shot up, then he eyed her in comic speculation, dressed in his shirt sitting there with her undies all out on the line.

‘I’m wearing a string vest and Y-fronts,’ she informed him gravely.

‘Kinky!’

‘Draughty.’

‘I’d better boil the kettle,’ he said. ‘We don’t want the wind whistling through your string vest.’

‘
Your
string vest.’

He laughed. ‘Well, I’m sure it looks better on you.’

He brought two mugs of coffee from the kitchen and Pattie thought he might stay to drink his, but he handed hers over and went back to the table and his work. He was quite unconscious of her scrutiny, she was sure of that, in a world of his own thoughts, but looking at him gave her increasingly pleasurable sensations.

She could feel a rising warmth in her blood that didn’t come from the fire, a need stirring in her. She remembered looking across at Michael in the hotel dining room, and feeling nothing at all, but now she had to hold herself back because she wanted to go to Duncan so badly.

She made herself turn away. She pulled on her skirt and jacket over her hotch-potch of clothing. She would go into the kitchen and plan the meal, start cooking, start doing something. My goodness, she thought, I fancy him rotten, and she bit her lip thinking how light and trivial that sounded, and how strong and overwhelming was the hunger inside her, as though she had been starved all her life.

The
last dinner party Pattie had prepared for two was for herself and Michael. They had started with avocado pears, then filet au poivre and finally a rather special little lemon mousse, and Michael had complimented her on every dish and held her in his arms afterwards, and said, ‘We’re two of a pair.’

It was a compliment, he liked her being like him and he would be horrified to see her now. She was a long way from the elegant lady he admired, and he wouldn’t go much for the dinner she would be serving tonight either. Which proved they were not two of a pair, because Pattie was going to enjoy it and she had more fun going through Duncan’s food cupboard than she had had buying the avocado pears and the steak, although she wouldn’t have said no to them if there had been any around.

From the selection there was she decided on spaghetti bolognese, then tinned peaches in a little red wine and the rest of the wine to drink. Her knowledge of wines was limited, so she chose the prettiest label and hoped it wasn’t something special that Duncan was keeping by him. She wouldn’t ask. She would do nothing to disturb him. She would have to go to the table and touch him before she could get his attention. Or shout. He was immersed in his work again as he was yesterday. Pattie had left the kitchen door open, but glanced through continually and she could sense the intensity of his concentration, but today she didn’t feel resentful or shut out, she felt accepted. When he did look up and see her he would probably smile.

Her clothes dried and she changed into them. She would change back into the shirt for dinner by the fire. It was more casual than her jumper and skirt and with a little imagination she could dress it up, give it a bit of flair. Anyhow, it would be good for a laugh. Today she was filled with laughter. She had always had a sense of humour, but she had never been a giggler, but today she was finding things hilariously funny.

Herself stuck up here in the snowdrifts would make a riotous story in the telling. How she had set off to interview Duncan Keld, without checking on the weather forecast, and put her car out of action, and how he spent the first two days glaring at her while she sat by the fire too shaken to eat. But after that they declared a truce and she borrowed his shirt and his string vest and his comb and was given the freedom of the food cupboard.

It was a crazy situation. It made her smile more than once, while she wandered around rediscovering the lodge. She had seen most of it before, but today everything was different. For instance, the big empty room upstairs was no longer just empty, with two trunks, and dust on the floor. It was full of possibilities. It would make a marvellous studio with a portable gas heater or oil lamps. It should be furnished, from auctions maybe. Pattie knew just how she would love to see it, with bright rugs on the floor and comfortable chairs, a studio couch and a big desk.

Duncan wouldn’t let it, of course, not even to someone who promised only to use it when he wasn’t around, but she would have loved a stake in this house. The newspaper cuttings she had read before she came up here said that he had bought it as a near-ruin and helped to rebuild it himself, putting in the floorboards, mending walls, fixing roofs.

I wish I could have come along then, she thought, and done a little labouring and scratched my name in the plaster in some corner. She had never felt such empathy for a building. It was like coming on Tier old home again, although there was no similarity at all except that the house where she was born had been old too.

At midday she made more coffee, and cheese sandwiches of wholemeal biscuits, and put them on the table by Duncan’s elbow. He looked up with a quick smile and said, ‘Thanks, lovey,’ and although she knew that meant nothing she would remember the way he said it.