It was several seconds before Ran bothered to respond to her unrehearsed but determinedly distancing little speech, and for a moment Sylvie thought that he was actually going to ignore what she had said, but then he turned towards her and said, 'So what you're saying is that it's to be purely business between us, is that it?'
It took every ounce of courage that Sylvie possessed, and then some, for her to be able to meet the look he was giving her full-on, but somehow or other she managed to do so, even if the effort left her perilously short of breath and with her heart pounding almost as painfully as her head, She agreed coolly, 'Yes.'
Ran was the one to look away first, his face hardening as he glanced briefly at her mouth before doing so.
'Well, if that's what you want, so be it,' he told her crisply, returning his attention to his driving.
His response, instead of making her feel relieved, left her feeling... What?
Disappointed that he hadn't challenged her, hadn't given her the opportunity to...to what?
Argue with him?
Why should she want to?
What was it she felt she had to prove?
What was it she wanted to be given the opportunity to prove?
Angry with herself, Sylvie shook her head. There was nothing, of course. She had made her point, said what she wanted to say and now Ran knew exactly how she viewed their working relationship and exactly how she viewed him.
He could be in no doubt that, were it not for the fact that he was the owner of a property the Trust had decided to acquire, she would have no cause, nor any wish, to be involved with him.
Up ahead of her she could see a grove, a small wooded area; Ran drove into it and through it towards the mellow high red-brick wall and through its open gates.
The house which lay beyond them took Sylvie's breath away.
She was used to grand and beautiful properties, to elegance of design, to scenery and settings so spectacular that one had to blink and look again, but this was something else.
This was a house as familiar to her as though she had already walked every one of its floors, as though she knew each and every single one of its rooms, its corners. This was a house, the house she had created for herself as a girlhood fantasy. A house, the house, the home which would house and protect the family she so much longed to be a part of.
Totally bemused, she couldn't drag her gaze away from its red-brick walls, her professional eye automatically noting the symmetrical perfection of its Georgian windows and the delicacy of the pretty fanlight above the doorway.
An ancient wisteria clothed the facing wall, its trunk and branches silvery gray against the rich warmth of the brick; its flowering season was now over but its soft green tendrils of leaves were coolly restful to her aching eyes.
Prior to her mother's second marriage to Alex's father, they had lived in a smart apartment in Belgravia—her mother had been a very social person, involved, as she still was, in a good many charities and a keen bridge player, but Sylvie had never really felt comfortable or at home in the elegant London flat.
Before his death her father had owned a large house in one of London's squares and Sylvie still missed the freedom that living there had given her.
To comfort herself she had created her perfect house and the perfect family to go with it, mother, father, daughter—herself, plus a sister for her to play with and a brother too, along with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.
It had been the house that she had given most of her mental energy and imagination to lovingly creating, though. A house for a family, a house that wrapped itself lovingly and protectively around you...a house with enough land for her to have a pony. A house... The house... This house...!
Ran had stopped the Land Rover. Shakily she got out, unable to take her eyes off the house, barely aware of Ran's expression as he watched her.
Just for a second, seeing that luminous bemused expression on her face, he had been transported back in time...to a time when she had looked at him like that, a time when…
Grimly he reminded himself of what Sylvie had just said, of the terms she had just set between them. She had made it more than plain, if he had needed it underlining, which he had not, that the only reason she was here in his life was because of her job and that, given the choice, she would far rather be working alongside someone else...anyone else.
The gravel crunched beneath Sylvie's feet as she walked slowly, as if in a dream, towards the Rectory's front door.
Already she knew what would lie beyond it—the soft-toned walls of the hallway with its highly polished antique furniture, its glowing wooden floors, its rugs and bowls of country-garden flowers.
In her mind's eye she could see it all as she herself had created it, smell the scent of the flowers...see the contented look in the eyes of the cat who basked illegally on the rug, lying there sunning himself in a warm beam of sunshine, ignoring the fact that his place and his basket were not here but in the kitchen.
Automatically her hand reached out for the door handle and then she realized what she was doing. Self-consciously she stepped back, turning her head away so that she didn't have to look at Ran as he stepped past her to unlock the door.
It was cruelly ironic that Ran, of all people, should own this house that so closely epitomized all that she herself had longed for in a home as a young girl.
The front door was open.
Ran paused to allow her to precede him inside but, as she did so, Sylvie came to an abrupt halt. Faded, unattractive wallpaper and chipped dark brown paint assaulted her disbelieving gaze.
In place of the polished mellow wooden floor she had expected was a carpet, so old and faded that it was no longer possible to even guess at its original color, but Sylvie suspected with disgust that it must have been the same horrendous brown as the paintwork.
True, there was some furniture, old rather than antique, dusted rather than polished, but there were certainly no flowers, no perfumed scent, nor, not surprisingly, was there any cat.