Joanna Neil – His Very Special Bride (страница 3)

He studied her thoughtfully for a second or two, his grey gaze flicking over her, and she looked away, feeling awkward. Then pride came to her rescue and she braced herself to deal with the situation. Why should she feel guilty for simply trying to counter the estate agent’s mistake?

Dragging her eyes back to his tall frame a moment later, she forced herself to meet his gaze.

To her surprise, he nodded. ‘You’re probably right.’

Sarah gave a soft sigh of relief. Was he finally accepting that she wasn’t an intruder? His expression was noncommittal, though, and she studied him closely, trying to work out what might be going on in his mind. It was a doomed effort, and after a moment her thoughts wandered idly. She couldn’t help but notice how well the short-cropped cut of his midnight-black hair suited him. It seemed somehow at one with his strongly defined features, the angular jaw and the straight line of his brows.

He said crisply, ‘I dare say there must have been a mistake somewhere along the way…only the property wasn’t supposed to be going on the market for another couple of days. By then I would have finished with the clearing up.’

Sarah’s attention came back with a jerk. ‘Yes, the agent did tell me that they weren’t quite ready…but he didn’t seem to be at all concerned about me coming to look the place over.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me at all.’ His mouth made a crooked shape. ‘The cottage is in such bad condition that they’ll probably struggle to find a tenant. I wouldn’t have thought many people would want to take it on, and Alfred’s family haven’t yet managed to find a buyer.’

A small line indented her brow. ‘Has something happened to Alfred? You said that he went into hospital.’ All at once Sarah found herself concerned with the fate of the poor man who had been too ill to maintain his property and who’d had to abandon all his worldly goods to another’s care. ‘You’re a friend of his?’

‘Neighbour. I live next door. I used to call round to make sure that he was all right. Then, one day, I found him in a state of collapse after he’d had a fall. It turned out that his heart had gone into an abnormal rhythm, causing him to black out for a short time. He cracked a rib as he fell against the sideboard and he wasn’t able to get up again.’

Sarah sucked in a quick breath. ‘Had he been lying there for a long while?’

He shook his head. ‘A matter of minutes, I believe. I think he was just about to prepare for bed when he became ill. Luckily, I was on a late shift that day, and when I came home happened to check on him.’

‘So you called for an ambulance and waited with him?’

He nodded. ‘I did. It wasn’t too long before the paramedics arrived.’

She tried to imagine how she would have coped under those circumstances. ‘Even so, that must have been nerve- racking wait.’

‘From the point of view of a friend wanting to lend a helping hand, yes, it was, but I’m a doctor, so at least I knew what to do to stabilise his condition. I had my medical bag to hand, fortunately.’

‘A doctor…’ Sarah studied him all over again. Perhaps that accounted for his calm, confident manner, both in his handling of Alfred’s crisis and in his way of dealing with finding a potential trespasser on the premises. It was beginning to look as though this man was a force to be reckoned with.

‘And how is he now? Did he pull through?’ It hadn’t been all that long ago since Sarah herself had been in a desperate, helpless situation, and she could readily identify with the injured man. She had no idea who it was who had attacked her and left her fighting for her life, but someone had come along and rescued her, just as this man had done for Alfred.

‘He did.’ He made a brief smile. ‘He’s OK, but he’s not well enough to live on his own any longer. His family live some distance away, down in Somerset, and I don’t think they realised how frail he was until I called them.’

‘So, are they taking care of him now?’

‘Yes, they are.’ He glanced around. ‘As to the cottage, Alfred has a sentimental attachment to the place, but he’s leaving it up to his family to sort things out. I believe they would like to sell, but they decided to put it up for rent while they make up their minds. Not that anyone is likely to take it on, given the state it’s in.’

‘Well, you never know, do you? Perhaps I could take a look around?’ Sarah ventured. ‘I really need to find somewhere to live.’

He frowned. ‘I doubt very much that this will be what you want, but certainly I can let you into the house. I’m Ben, by the way. Ben Brinkley.’

‘Sarah…Hall.’ She hesitated over the words that still seemed strange to her. She had no idea who she really was, but the name Sarah had been on the tip of her tongue when they’d asked her at the hospital, and from the outset, as young as she was, Emily had called herself Emily Hall. So that was the name that had stuck. Despite all the attempts that had been made to track Sarah’s origins, though, none had revealed anything of who she was and where she had come from.

He reached into his pocket and took out a key, inserting it into the lock of the back door. ‘If you take my advice, you’ll look elsewhere. I’ve been opening the windows to air the place, but I suspect there’s a problem with damp, and I don’t think anyone’s going to be dealing with it any time soon. I arranged for someone to come and put in a new fire for Alfred in the living room, so that he could be warm at least, and I’ve decorated the main bedroom and replaced the rotting window-frame in there, but there’s a limit to how much I’ve been able to do, given the hours I work.’ He pushed open the door to the kitchen and waved a hand for her to go inside.

Sarah walked into the room, and her spirits sank as soon as she looked around. It seemed as though the kitchen hadn’t been touched since the turn of the previous century, with battered stand-alone cupboards lining the walls and a plain, rectangular wooden table in the middle of the room. The north-facing wall showed patches of damp, extending along its length. As for any means of cooking, there was a rusty old range up against one wall. She frowned. ‘I wonder how Alfred managed to cook his meals.’

‘I think he mostly relied on the microwave to heat things up,’ Ben said, ‘or he would come round to my place to share a meal with me.’

Sarah smiled. ‘It sounds as though you were a good neighbour to him.’

Ben gave a negligent shrug. ‘I did what I could.’ He glanced around. ‘Let me show you the rest of the place. It won’t take long, because there’s only the kitchen and living room downstairs, and just the two dormer bedrooms and a small bathroom upstairs. It’s all very much on a par with what you see down here.’

He sounded as though he thought the tour was a waste of time, and Sarah gave him a quick sidelong look. Why was he so sure that she wouldn’t want to live here?

‘Are you hoping to put me off?’ she queried lightly.

He pushed open the door to the living room. ‘I think the house will do that all by itself,’ he said. His glance skimmed over her. ‘Besides, you’re as slender as a string bean and you don’t look as though you have the wherewithal to tackle the work that would be needed to put things right.’

Sarah made a face at that. His comment about her slender shape had struck home. People had remarked on how slim she was. Perhaps it had been the time she had spent in hospital and the confusion as to who she was and what had happened to her that had made her lose weight. The clothes she had been wearing when she had been found no longer fitted her, but hung on her slender frame.

She stiffened her shoulders. All that was going to change. She was determined to make a new start, if only for Emily’s sake.

‘Isn’t that the landlord’s responsibility?’

‘Maybe, but it’s unlikely that Alfred’s family will be doing any renovations in the short term. Their responsibilities end with matters of health and safety…things like making sure that the appliances are in sound condition.’

So any changes to make the place comfortable would be left to the tenant, assuming that permission was given. Sarah pressed her lips together, absorbing that fact before she started to look around.

The living room was drab, in need of decorating, and the heavy curtains tended to block out the light, lending a sombre air to the place. On the plus side, there were one or two small pieces of furniture that pointed to someone with a collector’s eye, and she noted a cabinet housing several antiques that wouldn’t have been out of place in a fine country mansion.

Upstairs, the main bedroom was clean and comfortable, with softly patterned walls and freshly painted woodwork, though the second bedroom was in a sorry state. The floor covering was brittle and cracked, and the paper on the walls was yellowed with age. Poor Alfred must have been in desperate need of help until Ben had come along.

‘The bathroom isn’t too bad. It’s a bit cramped, but at least the plumbing is in order.’ Ben showed her into the room and then waited outside on the landing while she took a look around.