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  Ed badly wanted to disapprove of Perdita, in fact, but was uneasily aware that he was intrigued by her too. He had more of a problem resisting her than Perdita knew, although he decided to keep that fact to himself.

  ‘I think the idea is that we learn to work together without the need to resist each other at all,’ he said in a carefully dry voice that earned him a sharp look from those dark eyes. Perdita might act as if she were silly and superficial sometimes, but she was no fool.

  ‘What exactly is it that we have do?’ she asked briskly, and Ed unfolded a map, relieved at the change of subject.

  ‘We’ve got to get ourselves to here,’ he said, pointing.

  ‘And where are we now?’ asked Perdita, peering at the map and wishing that she hadn’t noticed what strong, capable-looking hands he had.

  ‘Here.’

  Her eyes followed one long, square-tipped finger. ‘But that’s miles!’ she exclaimed, horrified.

  ‘I don’t think it’ll be as bad as it looks, but we’d better get going.’ Ed looked dubiously down at her feet. ‘Are those the only boots you’ve got?’

  ‘I didn’t realise that the course involved trekking across the countryside in the pouring rain,’ she said, regarding her boots mournfully. They were the most comfortable pair that she owned, but they were designed for city pavements, not windswept hillsides. ‘They’re going to be ruined.’

  ‘They are,’ Ed agreed without any noticeable sympathy. ‘Didn’t you read the instructions about bringing outdoor gear?’

  Of course, he was practically dressed in a waterproof jacket, boots and wet weather trousers. Perdita eyed him with dislike. ‘This is my outdoor gear,’ she said. ‘I don’t do the outdoors.’

  ‘You do now,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  Perdita pulled up the hood of her jacket as she followed him out through the doors.

  ‘Ugh, it’s horrible out here!’ she said, reminding Ed forcibly of a cat, shaking its wet paws fastidiously. ‘I don’t know why I bothered to wash and dry my hair this morning,’ she grumbled on. ‘I’m going to get soaked!’

  Pulling the zip of her jacket up as far as it would go, she screwed up her face against the rain. ‘I really don’t see why we can’t do all this inside, like we did yesterday,’ she went on. ‘You know, if I was as dominating as you all make out, I would make them let us do just that. It’s unfair of them to lull us into a false sense of security and then spring this on us today. They’re just making us suffer for the sake of it!’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s interesting to see how people react to different situations?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it’s interesting,’ she said, following him out of the hotel grounds and on to a tussocky hillside. ‘I might think it were slightly more interesting if we were sitting inside, but even then I have my doubts. What I really think is that this whole course is a complete waste of time,’ she added roundly. ‘I just don’t see how this is supposed to help me at work, to be frank. The only thing it’s doing is making me wish that I was there rather than here. I could be warm and dry and catching up on all my work with a cup of coffee now.’

  Ed shot her an amused glance as she trudged next to him ‘Do you complain like this at work?’

  ‘No, I like my job.’

  ‘Even though you’re over-qualified for it? I’ve read your CV,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s very impressive. You used to work in London, and you spent a couple of years in New York and a stint in Paris.’

  He could imagine her there, Ed thought. She had that sharp, sassy, city quality, and even in a waterproof jacket and quite unsuitable boots she managed to look chic.

  ‘I’d have thought Ellsborough was a little slow for a woman like you,’ he said, and she looked at him with that bright, challenging gaze.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Ellsborough is very attractive, and it’s got lots going for it, but it’s never going to have the buzz of a big city, is it? And you seem like someone who likes a buzz,’ he tried to explain, thinking of how she had looked in the bar last night, the dark hair swinging glossily around her vivid face, that throaty laugh ringing out.

  Perdita was someone who created a buzz all of her own, he realised wryly. Maybe she didn’t need a big city.

  Perdita wasn’t quite sure how to take that. ‘It’s true, I like to have a good time,’ she said. ‘New York was fabulous, and I did love London. I would happily have stayed there for ever.’

  ‘So what made you give it all up for Ellsborough?’

  Digging her hands into her pockets, Perdita sighed. ‘My father died two years ago and my mother was getting on…When a job came up at Bell Browning, it seemed sensible to apply so that I could go home before I had to. I was terrified that I might end up having to move back and not having anything to do. Ellsborough isn’t exactly handy for commuting to London, and there aren’t that many jobs there that fit my profile.’

  And moving back to Ellsborough had seemed a good opportunity to leave Nick and all the sad memories of her time with him behind too, she remembered, although she didn’t tell Ed that. His interest in her was purely professional. He wouldn’t care about her broken heart.

  ‘So you’re a local girl?’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I couldn’t wait to leave Ellsborough for the bright lights when I was growing up, I have to admit, but it’s not so bad now. Bell Browning has been a good company to work for, and I can afford a much better standard of living in the north than I could in London. I’ve got a lovely flat and good friends…’ Perdita trailed off, uneasily aware that she sounded as if she were trying a little too hard to convince herself that she was perfectly happy there.

  ‘But you still miss the big city?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ Ed didn’t say anything, but there was a disbelieving quality to his silence and she glanced at him from under her hood. ‘OK, more than sometimes,’ she conceded. ‘I do like what I do at Bell Browning, but yes, I miss the excitement of the City. It’s not just the shops or the restaurants or the fact that there’s so much to do in London. It’s a kind of energy that you get day and night that you just don’t get in a small provincial city like Ellsborough.’

  ‘So you don’t regret your high-flying career?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ she said, ‘but we don’t always have a choice, do we? We can’t just walk away from our responsibilities, no matter how much we might wish that we could.’

  Her mother had needed her, Nick hadn’t wanted her. At the time, it hadn’t seemed to Perdita that she had much option. Going back to Ellsborough had been the right decision, yes, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t regret the way things had turned out, did it?

  Hearing the thread of bitterness in her voice, Ed studied her profile with a new interest, seeing for the first time the faint strain that underlay the surface sparkle. Perhaps her life wasn’t always as much fun as it seemed to a casual observer. Ed knew all about responsibilities, knew all about putting on a brave face for the world. Perhaps he would have to revise his opinion of her, he thought. He, of all people, should know that how things seemed on the surface weren’t always the way they really were.

  Perdita had stopped for breath at the crest of a hummock and was squinting into the rain. ‘I can’t see anything,’ she said. ‘Are you sure we’re going the right way?’

  ‘I think so.’ Ed stood near her to shelter the map from the rain and turned it round so that she could see. ‘I reckon we’re about here,’ he said, pointing.

  ‘Still miles to go, then.’ Unsettled by his closeness, Perdita took what she hoped would be a casual step back, only to stumble over a tussock of grass. She would have fallen if Ed hadn’t shot out a hand to catch her under the arm and haul her upright once more. His grip was hard and strong, and Perdita felt ridiculously breathless as he let her go.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Yes…yes, I’m fine.’ Her voice sounded all thin and silly. She just hoped he would put it down to her almost-
fall.

  ‘Do you want a rest?’

  She shook her head. The sooner they found some other people, the better. ‘We’ll just get wetter and colder if we stop. Let’s go on.’

  They set off in a diagonal line across and down the hillside, heading for the river that was hidden in the murky mist at the bottom of the valley-at least according to Ed’s map. Perdita was very conscious of him walking beside her. He never slipped or tripped the way she kept doing, but moved with an easy, deliberate stride.

  Of course, that would be the panther in him, Perdita tried to joke herself out of this disturbing awareness of him, but it didn’t really work. Even in this dreary light, he seemed extraordinarily well-defined, with a solidity and a steadiness that was both reassuring and unsettling at the same time. With her head bent against the rain, she couldn’t see much of his face, but if she peeked under her hood she could catch a glimpse of the edge of his mouth and, in spite of her cold feet and the rain trickling inside her collar, something warm would flicker and glow deep within her.

  Any extra warmth should have been welcome in this weather but, frankly, it was making Perdita decidedly edgy. A decent jacket, gloves, thick socks…that was the kind of warmth she needed, not this melting, squirmy feeling she got whenever she looked at a man who was not only her boss, but was also responsible for her being out here in the first place.

  Huddling herself deeper into her coat, she plodded on and did her best to ignore him, or at least ignore the way he was making her feel, but when Ed broke the silence by asking her what she did with herself when she wasn’t at work, she snapped at him.

  ‘What’s with the interrogation?’ she asked sharply, and Ed raised his brows at her tone.

  ‘I just thought this would be a good opportunity to learn a bit more about each other,’ he said, lifting his hands in a gesture of conciliation.

  ‘I’m not learning much about you, I notice!’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  A little flustered by the open invitation to ask him about himself, Perdita hesitated.

  Of course what she really wanted to know was whether he was married, or if had a girlfriend, but she could hardly ask that, could she? Not when he had read her CV and presumably knew that she was single.

  ‘Why are you moving to Ellsborough?’ she asked instead, mentally shushing Millie, who would be furious to know that she had passed up such a golden opportunity to ask about his personal life. ‘You thought it was odd that I’d ended up there, but I wasn’t nearly such a high-flyer as you,’ she pointed out. ‘We’ve all heard about the companies you’ve run in London, and Bell Browning is a very small fish compared to them.’ She sent him one of her sharp glances. ‘You’re not planning to carve it up and sell it on, are you?’

  ‘No,’ said Ed. ‘It’s a sound company. There’s plenty to do, of course, but I see no reason to restructure-not yet, anyway.’

  Perdita was only partially reassured. ‘Still, it’s not much of challenge for a man who’s been chief executive of some household names the way you have.’

  ‘I don’t know. It could be quite a challenge dealing with my new staff if you’re anything to go by,’ he said, but his smile glinted and Perdita despised herself for the way that treacherous warmth in the pit of her stomach spread insidiously through her veins at the sight of it.

  ‘Won’t you miss London, though?’ she asked, mentally dousing herself inside.

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t had time to appreciate living in London for a while now,’ said Ed with a sigh. ‘I wanted to downsize and move somewhere new, somewhere less frenetic, so when the opportunity at Bell Browning came up, I took it. A small, specialist company targeting niche markets will be an interesting change, and I’m looking forward to it, but it’s not really about me. The whole family needs a fresh start.’

  So he had a family. Damn.

  Come on, Perdita caught herself up, alarmed by the depth of her disappointment. What were you thinking? How many attractive men in their forties do you know who don’t have a wife and kids? Of course he was always going to have a family!

  ‘Oh?’ was the best she could manage as a response.

  ‘My wife died five years ago,’ Ed told her as they scrambled down a steep path, and Perdita was immediately overwhelmed by guilt for having been disappointed, even briefly, at the thought that he was ‘taken’.

  ‘Since then, I’ve been trying to keep the kids on an even keel,’ he went on. ‘At first it seemed better to keep them in a familiar environment, but…well, the fact is that my son has been in trouble recently,’ he admitted. ‘He’s not a bad boy, but he got in with the wrong crowd.’

  He caught himself up with a twisted smile. ‘I’m sure every parent says that,’ he acknowledged, ‘but Tom really is OK.’

  ‘I’m sure he is,’ said Perdita quickly. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about your wife, Ed,’ she added, picking her words with care. ‘I didn’t realise that you were a widower. It must be very difficult bringing up children on your own.’

  ‘Especially when they start going off the rails,’ he said ruefully. ‘Tom’s always been quite withdrawn-he’s much less resilient than the girls-which is why I didn’t really know how to cope when things went wrong. I’m hoping the move will give him a fresh start, though. He’s due to start at sixth-form college in September, so the idea is that we’ll move to Ellsborough at the end of the summer and they can all begin a new term at their new schools.’

  ‘All?’ Perdita wasn’t sure how she felt now. She had gone from an uneasy attraction to disappointment at hearing that he had a family and then guilt at discovering his personal tragedy. The sensible thing would be to feel absolutely nothing for him at all, but that didn’t seem to be an option at the moment. Best to stick to polite interest, she decided, and put her feelings away to be examined later when she was on her own. ‘How many children have you got?’

  ‘Three,’ said Ed. ‘Tom’s the eldest, and then there’s Cassie, who’s fifteen going on twenty-five, and Lauren is just fourteen.’

  Perdita wondered how two teenage girls who were used to the big city would get on in provincial Ellsborough. It had been hard enough for her, and she had been coming back to a place she already knew. ‘How do they feel about leaving London?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘They’re complaining like mad, of course,’ said Ed, ‘but they’re much more sociable and confident than their brother. I think they’ll cope OK-I hope so, anyway, as it’s too late now. I’ve bought a house and we exchanged contracts yesterday, so if all goes well we’ll be able to move at the beginning of September.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Not far from the centre. It’s an area called Flaxton-do you know it?’

  Perdita nodded. ‘It’s the other side of town from me,’ she said. ‘My mother lives there, in fact.’ Flaxton was a part of the town known for its big, comfortable Edwardian houses, but she would have expected Ed to have chosen somewhere a little more exclusive. He must have earned a packet in London. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t go for one of the villages around Ellsborough, though. Some of them are lovely.’

  ‘It’s too easy to spend all evening as a taxi service when you’ve got three teenagers in the house,’ said Ed wryly. ‘They want to be out with their friends, not stuck in the country with me. And since I’m making them move away from London, buying a house near the centre is a compromise I can make.’

  He was putting his kids first, the way Nick had always done, thought Perdita, and that was how it should be. Still, she couldn’t help feeling depressed as they trudged the rest of the way to the river.

  Not that she had any business feeling depressed. It wasn’t as if there had ever been any prospect of a relationship, anyway. Ed hadn’t given the slightest indication that he was ever likely to see her as more than a colleague. But if he had Perdita tried to reason with herself, it would have been depressing to realise that it would never have worked.

  She had already had a relationship
with a single father, and it had been too hard. She wasn’t going to put herself in the position of always being second-best again, so it would never have been a runner with Ed, anyway, she told herself firmly.

  Oh, and a relationship with your boss was never a good idea either, she remembered a little belatedly. No, Edward Merrick was definitely out of bounds for all sorts of good reasons.

  The fact that he had a mouth that made her weak at the knees was neither here nor there.

  ‘It wasn’t as if he was that attractive,’ she told Millie when she got home the following day and had endured an interrogation about Edward Merrick and his entire emotional history.

  Millie wasn’t convinced. ‘It sounds a sinful waste to me,’ she said. ‘The poor man’s been a widower for five years. This move will be a fresh start for him too, remember. I bet you anything he gets snapped up as soon as he arrives-and if you hold his children against him, you’ll miss your chance and you’ll only have yourself to blame!’

  ‘I don’t want a chance,’ said Perdita loftily. ‘All I’m looking for with Ed Merrick is a good professional relationship.’

  And, given that she had started off by insulting him, followed up by grumbling about the course he’d sent her on and showing off in the bar every night, she might have to work quite hard just to have that.

  Not that she had the chance to build any kind of relationship with him for some time. The dreary June turned into a changeable July and a belated burst of summer in August, but Edward Merrick made only fleeting visits to Bell Browning in that time. Perdita saw him once, getting into a lift with fellow directors, and another time walking across the car park, deep in conversation with the head of human resources, but she wasn’t invited to meet him.

  It wasn’t that she wanted to see him again particularly, but she couldn’t help feeling a little miffed. Didn’t he think the Operations department important? And, come to think of it, weren’t they supposed to have bonded on that stupid course?

  Luckily, she was too busy to spend too much time thinking about him. There was plenty to keep her occupied at work, and her mother caught a chill at the end of July which left her frailer and more irascible than normal. Perdita thought she was vaguer, too, although her will was as strong as ever. She was still stubbornly resistant to the idea that she might have any kind of outside help, and Perdita took to going over every evening to make sure her mother had something to eat and to tidy up as much as she could.