When She Was Bad... (32 page)

‘But, darling, I am serious,’ she said. She looked Edward right in the eyes. ‘I’m going to have to go to England.’

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Fairfield was quiet. So quiet that Becky had to unlock her front door with the old, huge, iron key they kept under the statue of the hind on two legs that guarded the entrance to the kitchen garden. Of course the first Friday of every month, Mrs Morecambe took off. She’d be on her own today. She sighed with pleasure. It was exactly what she wanted.

Inside the fridge there were a few essentials that Mrs Morecambe kept there in case Becky ever came home. Slices of smoked salmon, whole lemons, brown bread and a half-bottle of Moet. There was also an entire, sinfully moist and rich-looking chocolate cake. Becky’s mouth started to water. It was three p.m. already and she hadn’t touched any of the nasty British Rail food on the grimy train. She buttered a couple of slices of brown bread and heaped the salmon on them; it was wild, of course, none of that farmed rubbish at Fairfield. Despite the early hour, she also cracked the champagne. Sod it, Becky thought. She was going to enjoy herself today. She finished the salmon and deliberately cut herself a slice of cake. That was good, too. She ought to indulge herself more often.

Once she’d eaten she kicked off her shoes and slipped into the pair of green wellies they kept by the back door. She couldn’t be bothered to change. She tugged on the quilted Husky that Mrs Morecambe insisted she wear outdoors, and poured the rest of the champagne into a chipped china mug. The sun was blazing over the garden, and she drank in the glorious scent ofnew-mown grass and flowers, lots of flowers. Lavender and roses and God knew what else. She opened the door and walked out on to the back terrace and breathed in deeply, loving the country air, getting the gritty taste of London out of her mouth. The garden was in full bloom. It looked different, though. Gorgeous, but a little different. What was it?

Becky’s eyes focused on the walk at the base of the terrace, where her garden bordered the apple orchard. There was a yew hedge there.

She blinked. Was she going mad? There hadn’t been a hedge there

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before. It was clipped and dark and thick and very beautiful, but it was also new. Wasn’t it?

She held herself still and heard, as though it were a confirmation, the sound of clippers. Snip, snip, snip. Hand-held clippers. Becky took a great swig of chill champagne from her mug and wondered briefly whether or not she should call the police. But tell them what - that she had a mad hedge-installer in her garden? Maybe not. She walked down the steps.

‘Hello?’ she called, loudly. Keeping her distance just in case. ‘Hello,’ a voice replied. It was male and English and had what Becky now knew was a Yorkshire accent. But no head appeared. The snipping noise continued. She started to get a little aggravated. She walked down on to the lawn, right up to the hedge. Behind it there was a man, a tall, rugged-looking man, she thought in his mid-thirties, holding a huge pair of clippers and slicing at the leaves of the hedge with great concentration. He didn’t so much as look at her. Becky angrily cleared her throat.

‘I’m lebecca Lancaster. I own the place.’

‘That’s nice,’ he said mildly, continuing to snip.

‘Who are you? And what are you doing? And what is this hedge doing on my lawn?’

He sighed with an aggravation almost equal to her own and lowered the clippers. ‘I’m Will Logan. Your gardener. You hired me.’

Becky racked her brains. Oh, hell, this guy was the gardener she’d hired back when she was dating Rupert. She’d wanted to impress him with how well she was looking after Fairfield, and Sharon said this man

was making a good name for hlmself locally.

‘Yes. But … that was over a year ago.’

‘I was busy,’ he said unapologetically. ‘My last job took longer than I thought. If you don’t want me now, that’s fine. Just say the word.’ He suspended the heavy clippers lightly from his hand, looking at her steadily.

‘Why did you put this hedge in?’ Becky asked curiously.

He shrugged. ‘The first fifteen rows of your apple trees have to come down. They got blight. They’ll be affecting the rest of the orchard.’

Becky looked down towards her orchard in dismay. ‘But … that’ll look so bare.’

‘The alternative is an orchard full of dead trees.’ “

‘Oh, no,’ she said, genuinely upset.

The man regarded her for a few seconds, and seemed to soften a little. ‘You like this garden?’

‘Like it? It’s glorious. I wanted to protect it.’

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He gestured to the yew hedge. ‘I have several more to come. I’m going to plant a small maze here. Seems right for the old house. Then there’ll be a paved path leading into the rest of the orchard behind it. And you’ll get all the old trees chopped up for firewood in your log shed. All right? And it’s going to be expensive. Your boyfriend told us money was no problem.’

‘It isn’t. And he’s not my boyfriend,’ Becky said defensively.

‘I see.’ He grinned at her. Becky got the uncomfortable feeling he found her amusing. A small triclde of sweat ran off his neck down into the thick muscles of his collarbone. It didn’t seem to bother him. He was well built, but his hard muscles looked natural, not the narcissistic hairless look of the jocks she’d left behind in the States. He obviously got them from lifting trees and stones all day long. She couldn’t help glancing at his hands. They were powerful, with the skin thick and roughened from the elements. His eyes were light green, incongruous with his dark hair, and he had thick, dark eyelashes. ‘So, you’re in charge, Miss Lancaster.’

‘That’s right,’ Becky said defensively. ‘I own Fairfield and I run Lancaster Holdings.’

‘I plant gardens,’ he said solemnly. She coloured - he was teasing her. He hadn’t asked for her CV.

He set the hedge clippers to one side on the grass and wiped his hands down on his pants. She thought he was going to shake hands with her. Instead, he put his hands on his hips and looked her over in a way that made her drop her eyes. Shouldn’t this guy b’e at least a bit deferential? she thought, aggravated. She was the boss. He worked for her.

‘Just so there are no misunderstandings, let me explain what I do. As I told your ex-boyfriend before.’

‘I think that would be a good idea,’ she said as stiffly as she could manage.

‘I make gardens. I don’t mow lawns and pull up weeds. I already hired a teenager to come here once a week and do that for you. It will go on your bill. I plan the way the space looks, and I don’t take advice. If the client doesn’t like my plan, that’s the end of the job. Gardens are too important for clients to mess up.’

God, he’s arrogant. I should tell him to get lost, she thought. But she said, ‘So what is your plan for my garden?’

He looked around. ‘It doesn’t need much. The maze will cover the dead trees. And then I’m putting a formal rose garden with planned walks over there.’ He pointed to the croquet lawn on the west side of the kitchen garden.

‘But we play croquet there.’

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‘No, you don’t.’ His green eyes stared hers down. ‘I checked the hoops. They’re at an angle and they’re almost rusted through. Your croquet equipment is in the garden shed. One of the sticks has cobwebs all over it.’

‘What if I don’t want roses there?’

‘Then you pay my expenses and we part company. I’ve only been on this job two days, so I won’t have wasted much time.’

She felt like stamping her foot. ‘You’re very arrogant.’ ‘So I’m told,’ he said calmly. There was a pause.

‘Why a rose garden?’ she asked, despite herself.

‘This house is Elizabethan. It should have a garden that suits it. You need more colour in that spot. And besides, there was once a formal garden there. I can see the traces of walks and beds under that boring manicured lawn you have there now. It was probably a rose garden. I

see this as a restoration.’

She was impressed.

‘I know gardens,’ he said simply. ‘Now, Miss Lancaster, are we working for you, or not? Because I have a waiting list months long.’

Becky wanted that garden. She loved the idea of putting Fairfield back the way it was. She swallowed her pride.

‘You’re working for me, Mr Logan.’ She smiled and waited for him to ask her to call him Will.

‘Good. And the fee for the lawnmower boy is extra,’ he said, and picked up the hedge clippers again.

Becky had been dismissed. She turned on her heel and walked back

to the house so he wouldn’t seg her colour again.

So much for her relaxing weekend.

She went upstairs and ran herself a warm bath, turning on the taps viciously. She emptied halfa bottle of Floris gardenia into the hot water, but not even soaping her long limbs, shaving and rubbing halfa bottle of lotion all over her skin stopped her feeling annoyed. Maybe she had buckled. Maybe she should get dressed, go back downstairs and tell him to get off her property.

She took her white silk robe off the hanger and walked to her lead paned windows that looked out over her grounds. He was still there, working. Now he was next to the hedge, digging a trench along a stretch of ground. Presumably for the next hedge. He had his shirt off, and he was working in the blazing sun. The thick muscles of his back rippled; he was tanned, a golden brown, strong, well proportioned. He turned, and she saw that his chest had a wiry mat of brown hair. He was gorgeous. And she had a feeling he knew it, too. There was an easy

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confidence in that thick Yorkshire burr that said that girls had been

flinging themselves at him for quite some time.

What are you thinking? she chided herself. He’s ten years older than

you, easy. And he’s .just a gardener. You’re running a company. You couldn’t have anything in common. He was what Sharon would call a ‘bit of rough’. Not that she had time for them in her life.

He could cut her off, Becky reminded herself, but she was the one

with hundreds of people reporting to her. She was the one saving her father’s company. She was the one that had just pulled a refinancing deal out of the fire in London. So what if he knew about rose gardens? He worked for her. Bottom line.

She dried her long blonde hair and let it hang loose. Then she went

to her wardrobe and chose her tight-fitting blue jeans and her crisp white shirt with the three-quarter-length sleeves. She buttoned it up tightly and took off her earrings. No make-up for this guy. Of course, concealer and blusher didn’t count. That was .just to make her look normal. Mrs Morecambe wasn’t in; he had to have something to eat and drink.

The quicker I take it down to him, the quicker I can get away, Becky reasoned to herself. She searched through the fridge and rustled up the rest of the smoked salmon, some bread and butter and a slice of cake. She got out the ice tray and made him a tall glass of Ribena, arranged it all on a tray and pulled on her boots again.

He looked up as she came over, and straigh, tened up. Becky tried not

to let her eyes slide over his chest. He was sweating, and small beads of it trickled over the brown hair on his chest which thickened distractingly down to his navel.

‘Thanks.’ He took the glass of Ribena and drained it in one go,

wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I needed that. And you

might have to bring me some more. Lunch, luh? How thoughtful.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Becky said.

‘Oh, and in the future, Miss Lancaster, you’ll need to leave some

place in the house open for us. I’ll be bringing in workmen, and they

need access to a loo.’

‘Right,’ Becky said.

He sat down heavily on the grass and patted it, as though inviting her.

‘Join me?’

‘I ate already,’ Becky said.

Logan considered her. Yeah, the rumours were true. Gareth, his

mason, had teased him in the pub last night that he’d only taken this job to get a look at the Yank chick who owned the mansion. Not that that was true - he’d been itching to get at the grounds of Fairfield for years,

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and when this commission had come up he’d jumped at it, even though his books were full and he was getting a lot more money than this would pay. Fairfield was an almost pure Elizabethan garden. It was a nice change for him from the eighteenth-century landscaping that was fast becoming his speciality. But sure, he’d been curious. Ever since he’d come to this part of England last summer, he’d heard talk about her. American, and an heiress. It was almost enough to put him offtaking the work, but not quite. He dealt with rich, spoiled owners every day. And he was getting successful enough that if he didn’t like one, he could tell them to stuff it. That had been his insurance.

And now here she was. Young, definitely. Mid-twenties, with soft, buttery skin and long gold hair that invited a man to play with it. She was young enough that her insecurity was obvious. Her combative attitude was actually kind of sweet. Idly, he imagined her in a bikini, with those long, lean legs resting against white sand on some beach somewhere. Maybe a yellow bikini, or a string one, contrasting against her tan and her long flaxen hair. She was the kind of girl that painted her toenails. He imagined that waterfall of blonde hair playing over her little apple breasts, teasing the pale pink nipples, getting them erect before he even touched them.

She was a bit young for him, but that never stopped Will Logan from mentally stripping a woman. He did that for any female that was even remotely attractive, and Rebecca Lancaster qualified in spades. He hadn’t seen many girls like her in Rosedale, that was for sure. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Logan’s mind flickered to the old boyfriend. He’d been a lord. He’d also been a pussy. Logan could tell that right away. Urbane, charmirg, nicely dressed, and a coward. Logan was a fighter, and he could smell another fighter like he could smell an aroused female. Rupert Lancaster hadn’t been one. There was something small and mean in his eyes and, besides, he must have been about one-eighty, soaking wet. Tall and lanky, looked like he’d never lifted a weight in his life. He wouldn’t have been able to handle this girl.