For His Eyes Only(86)

                Darius, pausing for a break, checked his phone. There was a text from Natasha.





                Needs full structural survey. Xxx





                She’d attached a photograph of the boathouse.

                Grinning, he took a selfie and sent it back with a text.





                Needs total scrub down. Xxx





                Natasha had kept in touch, sending pictures of the house emerging from its cocoon, but it was her suggestive little texts that made him smile. He’d replied with pictures of bones emerging from moulds. No comment needed.

                * * *

                Tash sighed with pleasure. Hadley Chase was gleaming, as perfect as she could have hoped, brought back to life, not just by sunlight and polish, but the laughter of children, the smell of baking, the armfuls of flowers from the long neglected cutting garden supplemented by cow parsley, willow herb gathered by her sisters-in-law to create huge free-form flower arrangements.

                Tables had been laid in the conservatory for tea, the hired water boiler and teapots lined up and ready, the doors thrown open to the lawn, where the children were playing croquet with a set Harry had found in one of the outbuildings as the first cars began to arrive.

                ‘It looks magical, Tash. If Darius were here he wouldn’t be able to let this go,’ Patsy said.

                ‘Maybe that’s why he’s staying away.’

                ‘Or not. Isn’t that his Land Rover?’ Patsy had offered to drive her home so that he could take the Land Rover back to London. ‘Go and say hello,’ she said as he drove straight round to the back of the house.

                ‘Too late,’ she said as the editor of the Country Chronicle advanced towards her, hand outstretched.

                ‘Tash! I’m so glad to see you looking so well.’

                ‘As you can see, Kevin, rumours of my breakdown were not just exaggerated but completely untrue.’ She took his hand. ‘Thank you for coming today. It means a great deal to me.’

                ‘You have Peter Black to thank for that. He is so angry with you that he threatened to withdraw all Morgan and Black advertising if I covered the Hadley Chase open day.’

                ‘A bit of a hollow threat, I’d have thought. There is nowhere else for this kind of property.’

                ‘Hollow or not, I can’t allow advertisers to dictate what we print.’ He looked around. ‘I have to congratulate you, my dear; your campaign has caused quite a stir. The children are a nice touch, by the way. Can we photograph them with the house in the background for our feature?’

                ‘Feature?’

                He smiled. ‘Two pages? Maybe more if Darius Hadley will talk to me. I don’t like being threatened.’

                * * *

                Darius stood back, watching Natasha greet visitors, delegate various members of her family to show them around the house, confident, professional, totally focused on the task she’d set herself. She’d told him she was the best and she was right. For a while she’d been entirely his but after this her world would reclaim her.

                It was what he’d wanted, he reminded himself. It was the way he always wanted things. A hot flirtation and then move on. No emotional engagement.