spent it alone with Jack. The food was simple—a casserole of fork-tender beef slow-cooked with vegetables, herbs and wine and eaten at the kitchen table, with Bran casting a hopeful eye on the proceedings from his bed.
‘It’s cosier in here for just three of us.’ Tom smiled affectionately at Kate. ‘And it’s not the first time we’ve eaten together round a kitchen table.’
‘No, indeed. I used to love meals at your house.’ She pulled a face. ‘There was more formality at ours. My sister brought out the best china if Jack so much as ate a sandwich with us.’
‘Which wasn’t that often,’ Jack reminded her caustically. ‘Our relationship was cut painfully short.’
‘Now then,’ said his father sternly. ‘You can’t ask a girl to dinner, then throw the past in her face. You’re not on firm ground there yourself.’
‘How very true.’ Jack gave Kate an ironic bow as he got up to take her plate. ‘My apologies. How about organic ice cream straight from Addison’s farm shop?’
‘Perfect,’ she said lightly.
After the meal Tom Logan took Kate into the living room while Jack made coffee. ‘So, what do you think of the house that Jack built?’ he asked as he put logs on the fire.
‘Impressive,’ she told him, gazing round the room. ‘It’s nothing like my preconceived idea of a mill house, much more of a home. But very definitely a man’s home. Other than that muscular bit of sculpture on the desk, there are no ornaments, no photographs—just one solitary landscape and the art deco mirror over the fireplace.’
‘It needs a woman’s touch,’ said Tom slyly, and laughed at the look she gave him. ‘Just teasing!’
She grinned. ‘I can just picture Jack’s face if I suggested cushions and a flower arrangement.’
‘I heard that,’ said Jack, coming in with a tray. He set it down on the massive slab of rosewood used as a coffee table. ‘You find my taste austere?’
‘It suits the house.’
‘Which doesn’t answer my question.’
She began pouring coffee. ‘My opinion doesn’t matter. You’re the one who lives here.’ She smiled at him as he added a sugar lump to his father’s cup. ‘But actually I like your house very much, Jack.’
‘It’s a big place for one man,’ observed Tom Logan, and looked round as Bran padded into the room. ‘Is he allowed in here tonight?’
‘Of course he is.’ Jack bent to fondle the dog’s head. ‘I give him the run of the ground floor when I’m at home, but upstairs it’s permanently off limits. To dogs, anyway,’ he added, as Bran stretched out in front of the fire.
‘Who cooked the dinner?’ asked Kate. ‘You, Jack?’
‘Molly made it this morning, and I followed her instructions and put it in a slow oven at the required time.’ He took a cup from the tray and sat down on the chair nearest to Kate’s corner of the sofa. ‘I forgot to ask if your tastes in food had changed.’
‘What would you have done if I was a vegetarian these days? Opened a tin of baked beans?’
‘We often shared one in the old days.’
Kate gave him a serene smile. ‘But these are new days, Jack.’ She turned to his father. ‘Are you playing golf tomorrow, Tom?’
For the rest of the evening Jack was the perfect host. He gave up sniping about the past, and even suggested that Kate came back to see the place in daylight one day and eat lunch on the terrace overlooking the mill pond. ‘I keep a small boat if you fancy a row some time. It’s a healthy way to keep fit.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Kate enviously. ‘My rare bouts of exercise are in a gym. Rowing on water in fresh air sounds a lot more tempting.’
‘Bring your niece in the school holidays,’ said Jack. ‘The garden in Park Crescent can’t be very big. You could give her the run of the grounds here.’
‘Poor little thing,’ said Tom with compassion. ‘It’s been a big upheaval for her. How’s she coping?’
Kate’s eyes shadowed. ‘Christmas was tricky—the first without her parents.’
‘Did she come to you in London for it?’ asked Jack.
Kate shook her head.‘ Apart from a brief stay with her grandparents, Joanna spent the entire Christmas break in the Maitland household with me. Both sets of parents were there and neighbours came in for drinks,so there was a lot goingon. One couple brought twin teenage sons along as company for Jo and she got on well with them, and spent quite a lot of time with them over the holiday.