The Vengeance Affair
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Carole Mortimer
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17
CHAPTER ONE
‘OH!’ SHE came to an abrupt halt halfway across the moonlit terrace as a shadow moved out of the darkness only feet away from her, the pounding of her heart only lessening slightly as she recognized the man who stood there looking at her with the glittering eyes of a cat. She drew in a deep breath. ‘Shouldn’t the guest of honour be inside the house enjoying the party, rather than outside on the terrace—?’
‘Enjoying the peace and quiet?’ Beau Garrett finished harshly.
She had come outside herself in order to do just that. In fact, she had hoped that, once outside, she may just be able to slip quietly away without her hostess, Madelaine Wilder, being any the wiser. Bumping into the elusive guest of honour had not been part of her plan!
‘They’re looking for you inside,’ she told him pointedly.
‘Are they?’ he returned uninterestedly, his overlong hair a dark sheen in the moonlight, his features shadowed. ‘I’m hardly dressed for the role of guest of honour, am I?’ he rasped impatiently, the casual sweater he wore looking black in the darkness, as did his trousers. “‘Do pop in, I’m having a few friends over for drinks”.’ He mimicked a pretty fair imitation of Madelaine’s gushing voice. ‘There must be half the village in there.’ He nodded disgustedly in the direction of the audibly noisy house as people talked and laughed too loudly, their glasses chinking.
‘At least,’ she acknowledged, moving out of the shadows of the house to join him at the balustrade looking out over the garden, a garden sheathed in the mystery of March moonlight. ‘I hate to tell you this, but this is the third drinks party Madelaine has given to welcome you to the village of Aberton—you just didn’t appear at the first two!’
It was somehow easier to talk to this man in the covering of darkness, his sensuous good looks, the sheer masculinity of him that was so apparent on the small screen as he hosted the chat show that had been such a success for the last ten years, muted in the covering of darkness.
The grimness of his dark scowl wasn’t. ‘If I could have got out of this, without being completely impolite, then I wouldn’t have appeared at this one, either!’ he rasped.
If the way he occasionally ripped to verbal shreds his often controversial guests was anything to go by, then she didn’t think politeness was necessarily a part of this man’s character. In fact, it was the sheer uncertainty of what was going to happen each week on his live television chat show that made it so popular.
‘Poor Madelaine,’ she sympathized softly, knowing that the other woman’s heart was in the right place, even if somewhat misguided on occasion.
Beau Garrett gave a snort of dismissal. ‘You’re obviously a local too, so I’ll ask you the same question I’ve been asking all evening—the only reason I’m here at all! The garden at The Old Vicarage is a mess; who do you know who could do something with it?’
She gave a faint smile. ‘What answers have you already received?’
“‘Jaz Logan, old boy”,’ he mimicked. “‘Unorthodox but brilliant”.’
‘The major.’ She nodded.
“‘Jaz turned the chaos of my garden into wonderfully manageable order”,’ he mimicked again, just as distinctively.
‘That was Barbara Scott from the village shop,’ she guessed.
“‘Jaz is an absolute treasure”.’
‘Betty Booth, the vicar’s wife.’
‘And according to our hostess, “Jaz is a darling”,’ he finished with some disgust.
She gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Good for Madelaine.’
‘No, wait a minute, I think I got that quote slightly wrong,’ Beau Garrett corrected harshly. ‘What she actually said was, “Jaz made something beautiful of my darling little garden”.’
She chuckled again; only Madelaine, bless her, could possibly describe the acre of land that surrounded this grand old house as a ‘darling little garden’.
‘So what appears to be the problem with the advice you’ve already been given?’ she prompted interestedly.
‘My “problem”, as you call it, is that this Jaz Logan sounds slightly effeminate to me,’ Beau Garrett bit out tersely. ‘The last thing I want is the Old English village cliché, masses of beds of pink flowers and roses around the door!’
‘Tell me, Mr Garrett—’ she turned to him frowningly in the darkness ‘—if you have so much contempt for village life, why on earth have you moved here?’
‘Surely that’s obvious?’ he rasped, at the same time turning so that the moonlight shone fully on the right side of his face, throwing into stark relief the livid scar that ran from brow to jaw, a lasting souvenir from the car accident that had almost killed him four months ago.
She would be lying if she didn’t inwardly acknowledge she was deeply shocked by the thought of the injury he had suffered to have received such a scar, but she forced her own expression to remain unemotional as she looked at it. She had a feeling, from the bitterness that edged everything he said, that the scars inside this man were much more destructive than the more obvious one on his face.
‘Not particularly,’ she shrugged dismissively. ‘Scars fade, Mr Garrett,’ she added gently.
‘So I’ve been told,’ he said bitterly. But not soon enough for him, his tone implied.
She looked up at him consideringly. ‘Tell me, Mr Garrett, have you ever lived in a village before?’
His gaze narrowed guardedly. ‘No…’
‘I thought not,’ she nodded. ‘Well, we’re a curious lot,’ she warned from experience. ‘If it’s “peace and quiet” you’re looking for, then you’ve come to the wrong place,’ she told him ruefully.
Beau Garrett moved suddenly, swinging violently away from her, his face once more in shadow. ‘I have no intention of satisfying anyone’s curiosity.’ The last word came out with suppressed scorn.
‘I wish you luck,’ she said quietly.
He became very still in the darkness, that very stillness all the more ominous because of his earlier impatience. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing really.’ She shrugged. ‘Except…’
‘Except?’ he prompted harshly.
She gave another shrug. ‘What people don’t know they will simply make up.’ And she should know!
He gave a scornful snort as he walked over to the door. ‘Let them!’
‘Oh, they will,’ she assured him softly, remaining on the terrace as he let himself back into the noisily crowded house, with the obvious intention of making his excuses and leaving.
But if Beau Garrett thought he had seen the last of her, either, then he was sadly mistaken.
