For the rest of him, he was tall, with a lean tanned face and heavy-lidded dark brown eyes. Not good-looking, was her overriding impression. Not with that thin-lipped, uncompromising mouth, nor that beak of a nose, which looked as if it had been broken at some point, and a chin that by contrast seemed to threaten to break any fist which dared approach it.
And yet he was, in some incomprehensible way, faintly familiar, and she found this disturbing.
But Barney had no reservations about the newcomer. With a whine of delight, he broke free of Ginny’s suddenly slackened hold and pushed himself against the stranger’s legs.
‘Barney! Sit down, sir.’ There was a faint quiver in her voice, but the dog obeyed, tail thumping and brown eyes gazing up in liquid adoration.
She said, ‘I’m sorry. He’s not usually like this with—people he doesn’t know.’ Or with people he does know most of the time...
The man bent and stroked the smooth golden head, gently pulling Barney’s ears.
‘It is not a problem.’ A low-pitched voice, slightly husky, with a definite accent that was certainly not local.
As he straightened, Ginny realised she was being looked over in turn. His face betrayed nothing, but she sensed he was not impressed by what he saw.
Which makes two of us, she thought.
She took a breath. ‘I’m sorry. Were we expecting you?’
‘Mr Hargreaves expects me,’ he said. ‘He asked me to meet him here.’
‘Oh—I see,’ she said untruthfully, trying and failing to connect this tough who appeared to need a shave with the ultra-conservative firm of Hargreaves and Litton. ‘In which case, you’d better come in.’
And if he turns out to be a master burglar and/or a mass murderer, she addressed Barney silently, I shall blame you.
She turned and walked back to the study, knowing without looking round that he was following her, the dog at his side.
She said, ‘If you’ll wait here. Would you like some coffee?’
‘Thank you, but no.’
Civil, she thought, but terse. And the way he was looking round him, appraising what he saw, much as he’d done with herself, made her even more uneasy.
‘Mr Hargreaves should be here at any minute,’ she went on, and he responded with a silent inclination of the head, as he put down his satchel and shrugged off his trench coat. His shirt she noticed was pearl-grey, open at the neck and he wore a black tie tugged negligently loose.
Feeling she was observing altogether too much, Ginny murmured something about her mother and sister and retired.
In the drawing room, Rosina rose, smoothing her skirt. ‘I presume Mr Hargreaves has arrived, and we can get this farce over and done with.’
‘No, that was someone else—from his office apparently,’ said Ginny, frowning a little as she remembered the tanned and calloused fingers that had fondled Barney. Not, she thought, the hand of someone who worked at a desk. So, who on earth...
Her train of thought was interrupted as the doorbell sounded yet again. She rose but was halted by her mother.
‘Stay here, Virginia. It’s Mrs Pelham’s job to answer the door, while she remains under this roof,’ she added ominously.
Just as if she didn’t know how many of the household tasks Ginny had quietly taken over in the past six months.
The drawing room door opened again to admit Mrs Pelham, back upright, but walking with the aid of a stick. ‘Mr Hargreaves is here, madam. I have shown him into the study.’
Rosina nodded. ‘I’ll join him presently.’
She and Cilla disappeared upstairs to tidy their hair and no doubt freshen their make-up. Ginny, content that she looked neat and tidy enough in her grey skirt and cream polo-necked sweater, remembered the unexpected arrival and grabbed an extra chair on her way through the hall.
As she entered the study, she saw him deep in quiet conversation with Mr Hargreaves, who immediately broke off to come across and relieve her of her burden.
His normally calm face was creased in worry. He said quietly, ‘I am so sorry for your loss, Miss Mason. I know how close you were to your stepfather. Even now, it hardly seems possible...’ He paused, patted her arm and went back to the desk, placing the chair beside his own.
Then there was the sound of voices and Rosina and Cilla entered, their blonde hair in shining contrast to their black dresses.
Mr Hargreaves’s unknown companion glanced round and paused, his attention totally arrested by the exquisitely melancholy vision being presented, particularly by Cilla, who was even carrying a handkerchief, and whose dress clung to every delectable contour of her exquisite figure.
Don’t even think about it, Ginny advised him under her breath. Cilla prefers the smooth, safe type. You don’t qualify on either count.