Catching Katie Read online

  Instead she said hurriedly, ‘I’ve got a rather—critical father. Not that we fall out exactly. He doesn’t approve of me.’ She was rueful suddenly. ‘Or my mother. The wonder is they stopped fighting long enough to have me.’

  Haydon nodded as if she had just given him a valuable piece of information.

  ‘Ah. Divorced?’

  Katie could not prevent herself shuddering. ‘Eventually.’ She turned away, looking out blindly into the green distance. ‘My father left when I was sixteen. But these things take time.’

  ‘Don’t they just?’ agreed Haydon. He said with great deliberation, ‘It took me longer to get free of my wife than the time we were actually married.’

  ‘Married!’

  Katie was so startled that she stopped looking out at extinct volcanoes she was not seeing. She felt as if the floor had given way and she was hurtling down towards the mosaic floor below. But of course he would be married. How could she not have thought about it before?

  She turned. Haydon’s expression was unreadable.

  ‘Does it bother you?’

  Katie was thrown into confusion.

  ‘Yes. No. Of course not. What has it got to do with me?’

  He did not smile but there was a gleam in his eyes. ‘Only you can answer that.’

  She backed up. ‘Nothing,’ she said hastily. ‘Nothing at all.’

  He bent his head in acknowledgment ‘If you say so.’

  He left.

  Katie did not have much to unpack but it took her a crazy amount of time. She kept getting things out of her bag and then sitting down, undecided about where to put them. This was partly because half the cupboards she opened proved to have a stock of painting tools and materials such as she had never dreamed of being able to afford.

  She ended up throwing her clean clothes all anyhow into the herb-scented drawers. Then she collected her box of paints and chalks, the soft roll of rag that kept her brushes straight and her pad of oiled paper and returned to the ground floor.

  Almost at once she was lost. The medieval part of the castle was really no more than the ancient hall she had come through and the rotunda where she was housed. The rest was an eighteenth-century mansion. She found herself in a high-ceilinged salon with wide windows and creamy tiled floors. And spectacular furniture: inlaid cupboards polished to a golden gleam, brocades the colours the sun struck out of the landscape outside, marble-topped tables, intricately carved bookcases.

  Katie was no expert on antiques. But she knew enough from her degree course to look about her and gasp at the treasures. Nothing else had brought home to her how truly—unimaginably—wealthy Haydon Tremayne really was.

  It made her obscurely angry. When the man himself appeared through the double doors at the end of the salon, she turned on him like an avenging angel.

  ‘This stuff is worth a fortune,’ she accused him.

  Haydon blinked. ‘I’m sorry?’

  Katie was working herself up into a real rage. ‘It should be in a museum. Not sitting around here getting faded.’ She remembered she was clutching her painting things and clenched the box to her bosom protectively. ‘I could smear charcoal on it. Or oil paint. Or—or anything.’

  His eyes danced. ‘You could,’ he agreed gravely. ‘Are you going to?’

  She stamped her foot. ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘I agree. It took eight weeks the last time the chairs were re-covered. We were sitting on the floor. I had intended to come here for Christmas. I had to go to the Caribbean instead.’

  ‘The Caribbean!’ That only made it worse. Katie was very nearly in tears. ‘You’re seriously rich, aren’t you?’

  Haydon looked at her with a curious smile. ‘Yes.’

  She hugged her painting box. ‘And you paid for me to come here. And put me up. And all that painting gear in my room.’

  She was clearly distressed. He watched her for a moment, unspeaking.

  Then he said, ‘The Tremayne Trust supports all sorts of artists.’

  ‘But not artists you know,’ Katie said, really upset.

  His eyebrows rose. ‘Don’t you mean not artists I want to go to bed with?’ he said coolly.

  ‘Oh’

  ‘We’re both adults,’ said Haydon. ‘Let’s not pretend.’

  Katie swallowed. Her eyes slid away. ‘I feel like a parasite,’ she muttered.

  He looked amused. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I do. I—’

  ‘Parasites,’ he drawled, ‘are quite happy with what they are. If the creature they’re battening on fancies them like crazy, so much the better.’

  Her painting box fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. Thoroughly disconcerted, she stared at him. He picked the box up and threw it carelessly on a satinwood drum table that was probably priceless. Katie winced.

  ‘Sit down.’

  He did not touch her. Still dazed, she sank onto a whiteand gold-painted spindle-legged chair. Its fan-shaped seat was designed for hooped skirts rather than jeans. Katie was beyond noticing.

  Haydon leaned against an open shutter, one thumb in the belt of his shorts. He looked as scruffy as she felt. And yet he owned all this. Katie felt her head spin.

  He said drily, ‘Some men are born rich. Some men achieve riches. Some men have riches thrust upon them. The last one is me.’

  She blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘It happened by accident,’ Haydon said patiently. ‘I’m no wheeler-dealer. I never went looking for money. I just thought of a process before anyone else did and—wham—there you are. The richest kid in the lab.’

  Katie shook her head, bewildered. ‘I don’t understand.’

  He passed a hand over his face almost as if he were tired.

  ‘I’m a chemist. I take little bits of this, little bits of that, put them in test tubes and wait for them to blow up.’ His face darkened. ‘Or I did.’ He shrugged it off. ‘Anyway, one day they didn’t blow up. I’d found the plastic coating of the twenty-first century. Or so they said. At least until someone improves on it. And I hold the patent.’

  Katie looked round at the still, sun-filled salon, the heavily ornate mirrors, the heritage furniture.

  ‘All this?’ she said in disbelief. ‘From a plastic coating?’

  ‘A plastic coating no one had ever thought of before,’ he corrected. ‘It improved every electronics system from jumbo aircraft to the in-car CD player. And, incidentally, my standard of living.’

  ‘You don’t sound very happy about it,’ said Katie drily.

  Haydon shrugged. ‘Maybe if that’s what I’d wanted from the start . . .’

  ‘Most people would have thanked their lucky stars.’

  ‘Would they?’ His eyes were hard. ‘I doubt it. Everything changes, you know. Not just the bad stuff. OK, once I’d got Tremayne up and running I could risk opening letters from the bank. I didn’t have to choose between taking a girl to the movies on Saturday night or eating on Sunday.’

  ‘Did you ever?’ said Katie, fascinated.

  ‘Sure. Carla—my ex-wife—wouldn’t look at me when I first joined the lab. She told me she didn’t waste her time with scruffy students.’

  Under the cool tones, Katie could detect an old pain. For a moment she almost put out a hand to him. Almost His smile was crooked.

  ‘My father was a mathematics teacher. He was paid peanuts. Mother sits on committees. She isn’t paid at all. I got through university by carrying bricks on building sites.’

  Katie tried not to look at the muscles in his naked shoulders and signally failed. He saw the direction of her glance. A grin split his sombre mood.

  ‘No, I don’t do it any more. These days I have to work out if I want to stay fit. Back then, it came with the territory. I hauled bricks or I didn’t eat.’

  ‘Well, that has to be an improvement,’ Katie pointed out.

  ‘I don’t deny it.’

  She heard the equivocation in his voice. ‘But—?’ she prompted.

  Haydon sh
rugged again. ‘I told you. It’s not only the bad stuff that changes. Everything stands on its head. Including people.’ He was cynical. ‘Particularly women.’

  Under the cynicism, Katie heard pain again and was shocked. ‘Surely not all women?’ she protested.

  There was a pause. His eyes were very blue, suddenly intent. ‘I thought so, certainly.’

  Katie found she could not look away. Her heart was thundering. He must hear it in the quiet room. The moment seemed to stretch out endlessly.

  And then, suddenly, there was another noise. A telephone beeped insistently. Katie jumped. The moment was gone.

  Haydon was annoyed. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have let Heather talk me into bringing that mobile. She promised the office wouldn’t disturb me but I ought to have stuck to my guns. Excuse me a minute.’

  He went quickly out of the salon. Katie hesitated for a moment, then picked up her painting box and followed him. After all, if she was going to stay here, it was only sensible to work out the lay-out of the castello, she told herself.

  The salon opened onto a hallway graced with a huge staircase that Katie suspected was marble. It was hung with dark portraits. Urns stood at every landing, filled with palms and trailing ferns. There was no sign of Haydon.

  Katie hesitated, then made her way cautiously into the room opposite the salon. No Haydon again. This time the furniture was second empire, including an impressive piano and a harp. There were also plenty of photographs.

  Katie inspected them quickly. They were happy, informal shots in the main. The people in them seemed to be having a great time, picnicking in woods she thought she recognised or grouped around a pooL There was one, much more formal, clearly taken in this very room, with the men in dinner jackets and the women in long dresses with bare, gleaming shoulders.

  One or two of the women were beautiful, she saw. She tried not to mind. Why should she, after all?

  The blonde that Katie had seen with Haydon on that first day was in several of the pictures. Even windblown and with wet hair by the pool she was gorgeous, Katie recognised. In black satin with a pearl choker, at some reception, she was devastating. It was a depressing thought.

  But Haydon himself was a notable absentee. So he must be the photographer, Katie judged. Presumably this was one of those master classes he had talked about. Katie wondered if he enjoyed them as much as the participants appeared to and decided he must do. A lone painter was going to prove disappointing entertainment by comparison. At least—

  She hurriedly gave her thoughts another turn and continued her exploration.

  She found the pool. It was still as a sheet of blue plastic, surrounded by great terracotta pots of pelargonium. Katie shook her head at it but she smiled. It was too much of a temptation for someone who was here to work. She plunged on through formal gardens to what was obviously the vegetable plot, then out into the wood itself.

  In the end, she found herself a corner in the lea of a hilltop wall where she could look back at the house if she wanted or out across the volcanic valley if she preferred. She tucked herself into the arm of the wall, unpacked her pad and chalks and began to sketch rapidly.

  As the day cooled, the birds began to sing again. A pair of swallows dived in and out of the trees beside her. Katie lowered her pad and watched them. By now she had eight or nine sketches of different subjects and was feeling quietly pleased with herself. The gentle air of the late afternoon must be having a calming effect, she thought. She even felt quite well disposed towards Haydon Tremayne. After all, it was due to him that she had found this magical place.

  So when she heard him calling, she did not retreat into the undergrowth but raised her head and called, ‘Over here.’

  He was bearing a bottle and two glasses. He had still not put on a shirt. Katie was shocked at the little lurch her stomach gave at the sight.

  What was wrong with her? She was a professional artist, for heaven’s sake. She had drawn naked men three times a week for years.

  He put the glasses on a mushroom-shaped outcrop of rock and undid the wire which held down the bottle’s cork. Katie raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Champagne?’ she said suspiciously.

  Haydon grinned. ‘Asti. As local as you’re going to get before dinner. This is red wine country. Good stuff, but it needs food with it.’

  Katie looked across the wild hillside. In the late sun the hills sent long shadows over a broad, flat valley. Beyond it she could see the trunk of an old volcano. The view looked as if it had not changed since the Ice Age. Not a hospitable vine in sight.

  ‘Doesn’t look like any sort of wine country to me,’ she said. She nodded at his makeshift table. ‘Pumice?’

  ‘Observant,’ he said, holding the cork and turning the bottle easily.

  ‘I’m an artist,’ she pointed out. ‘Part of the job description.’

  The cork came out with barely a hiss. He held the bottle with the carelessness of long practice and when he poured the foaming liquid, none of it spilled. He handed her a glass. Katie took it with caution.

  ‘I don’t drink very much.’

  Haydon smiled. ‘That’s all right. I’m not going to give you very much.’

  Katie’s eyes narrowed. She suspected an unpalatable meaning.

  ‘Why?’ she challenged.

  His eyes were wide with innocence. ‘That’s quite a climb back up to the castello. I can’t carry a comatose woman up forty steps.’

  Katie choked on her wine. He had carried her up the flight to his bedroom in London. From Haydon’s wicked expression he was remembering it—and everything that followed. The picture it conjured up made her feel hot. She had a nasty suspicion that that was exactly what he had intended.

  She drew several steadying breaths and said crushingly, ‘Then you’d have to summon help.’

  ‘Oh, I would,’ he assured her earnestly. ‘But it could take some time. The village is at the bottom of the hill.’

  ‘The village—’

  Katie realised that she had been given a new and unwelcome piece of information. And that he had deliberately kept it from her until now.

  ‘Are you saying there is no one in the house?’

  ‘Not while we’re out here, no.’

  ‘But’ She looked back up the hill. From this perspective you could see the tower very cleady. It looked like a small village. ‘It’s a mansion. You must have people to look after it.’

  He shook his head. ‘No one lives in. The Bateses look after my London house and they’re great. But sometimes a man wants to be alone.’

  Katie looked at the castello again. It did not get any smaller.

  ‘Then why buy a palace?’

  Haydon gave a crack of delighted laughter. ‘All the people who have come out here since I bought it, and not one of them has ever said, “Isn’t it too big?”’

  Katie sniffed. ‘Well, if you don’t want staff, it seems daft. Why did you do it?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Haydon said ruefully. ‘I was looking for a small farmhouse. But the castello was falling down. It needed rescuing.’ He added deliberately, ‘I like rescuing things.’

  ‘Don’t you mean subsidising them?’ Katie said waspishly.

  There was a small silence. Then Haydon put his glass down.

  ‘I’m getting the message that my income is a problem for you.’

  Katie realised she had been led into indiscretion. ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’

  He came towards her.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said hastily.

  ‘Good. Neither do I.’

  Haydon took her glass away from her. He seemed much taller. She had to put her head right back to look up into his face. He was laughing gently.

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to touch me,’ she reminded him breathlessly.

  ‘I lied.’

  She put her hands up to ward him off. A mistake. They met bare warm flesh. Katie jumped as if she had touched live electricity. He laughed quietl
y, privately, and touched his mouth to hers.

  And then she was lost.

  He slid his hands under her shirt. Katie swayed against him, eyes tight, tight shut. Feelings she had suppressed for too long bubbled up. This time the memories of that night in London were not so easily banished. Was it only four days ago? Remembered sensation caught her by the throat. Her head began to spin.

  I was born for this, she thought. It alarmed her.

  But he did not kiss her. Confused, she opened her eyes.

  ‘Your decision,’ he said quietly.

  Katie raced up the spiral staircase as if a screaming mob were after her. Which was nonsense. Haydon was still in the garden. He had let her go without resistance. He had not tried to pursue her. No, what was after her now was all in her own head, screaming at her that she was not going to escape much longer.

  She flung herself into her room and banged the door shut. She leaned against it, breathing heavily. She was shaking. This was crazy. She could not go on like this. If only she had more experience, any experience, something to give her a clue about what he meant and how she was supposed to hang onto any sort of dignity when he looked at her like that.

  She gave a little sobbing sigh and came away from the door. A tall mirror stood in the corner. Katie felt as if, like something else out of a fairy story, it had been waiting for her all her life.

  She swallowed. Stepped forward. Pulled her tee shirt over her head. Faced it.

  The scar was not as bad now as it had been when she was sixteen. It snaked up from her hip, across her body, in a jagged line where the bull’s horn had caught her. It no longer had the awful look of a weeping wound which had made her father turn away and had sent Mike Hobday leaping back in disgust.

  Katie put her fingertips to the puckered skin. No one had seen it since that terrible moment when Mike had fled. She had even avoided looking at it herself. Now she made herself.

  This was the ultimate test, she realised. Haydon wanted her trust. Well, here was the key.