Blind Date Rivals

She leant in contented silence and grasped the balustrade with both hands and inhaled the warm air and the warm atmosphere drifting out from the party, which was going on quite well without them. She was also aware of how very close she was standing next to this man she had only just met. Close enough that she could hear his breathing and the way his cloak rustled in the slight breeze, silk on silk.

This was new! It had been a long time since she had spent the evening alone with a handsome man. Especially one content to enjoy the view in silence. He seemed happy to allow her to do all the talking but she was relaxed enough in his presence to chatter on about nothing in particular.

Of course he knew very little about her and they could enjoy the type of conversation that could only happen between strangers, unfettered by past history.

Perhaps she should start talking about orchids and fertiliser and the poor man would run away for help? As it was, she knew Helen would soon send out a search party to track her down so that she could be introduced to her blind date whether she liked it or not.

A twinge of guilt made Sara wince. Caspar’s friend was probably inside, feeling most neglected and rejected. She should go in and face the music in more ways than one.

Soon.

She would go in soon.

She could stand here for another few minutes and enjoy herself before going back to the party and throwing herself into Helen’s celebrations. She was not going to spend her best friend’s party hiding in the garden feeling sorry for herself or mourning the life she had once known. Especially when she had such a good listener as a companion.

‘I don’t come here very often,’ she whispered, even though there was only the two of them on the terrace. ‘My cottage is just across the lane so I can see the house every day if I want. But this garden is for hotel guests now, not previous residents. This is a rare treat.’

‘That’s because you love this place so much and you miss it,’ he replied in a gentle voice and chuckled at her gasp of surprise. ‘Yes. It is fairly obvious. Especially …’

‘Especially?’ Sara asked in a shaky breath. She was not used to opening up to a complete stranger in this way and it startled her, and yet was strangely reassuring. Weird.

‘I was going to say, especially considering that your family sent you away to boarding school when you were only eight years old.’ He blew out hard and blinked. ‘Eight! That’s hard for me to get my head around. You must have been so miserable.’

Miserable? How did she even begin to explain to a stranger the misery of leaving her home in the middle of the most traumatic time of her life? Abandoned by her mother, who didn’t know what to do with her. Worse, by the father she adored, who thought he was doing the right thing by leaving them to start a new life in South America when the life of luxury he’d thought he had married into when he’d chosen a girl with an aristocratic title and a country estate had completely failed to materialise.

Her whole world had shifted under her feet and was still shifting now. Even after three years of living in her tiny cottage, there were some days when she had to remind herself that she had a home that no one could take away from her. She might be unloved but she would never again be homeless and rootless. She had sold everything she had and burnt her bridges to make the orchid nursery a reality—but it was hers.

Sara blinked hard. The blur of constant activity which she used to fill each day created a very effective distraction, but even talking about those sad times brought memories percolating up into her consciousness. Memories she had to put back in their place where they belonged.

Selling the house and most of the contents had been the price her mother had to pay for the chance for them both to be independent. But it had still been incredibly painful.

Instinctively, she felt the man in the black costume looking at her, watching her, one elbow on the metal railing, waiting for her to give him an answer to this question.

She turned slightly towards him and noticed for the first time, in the light from the party room and the twinkling stars in the trees, that his eyes were not grey but a shade of blue like the ocean at dusk. And at that moment those eyes were staring very intently at her.

On another day and another time she might even have said that he was more gorgeous than merely handsome. He was certainly striking and wore the cape and costume as though it had been made for him.

Allure of this quality did not come cheap.

It was a shame that she had sworn off dating for at least a year or two until she had a new greenhouse up and running. Until then, she could keep her loneliness to herself and wear her happy face to the world, even if it was a struggle sometimes.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘they had their reasons. And it wasn’t all bad. I knew that I would always have this home to come back to in the holidays. My grandmother had such fun here. She loved this old house, especially the gardens.’

‘The gardens?’ he asked and his hand swept out towards the long stretches of simple grass lawns. ‘What was so special about the gardens? They seem pretty normal to me.’

‘Oh,’ she breathed, and a great grin creased her face. ‘The gardens then were nothing like they are today. They were … extraordinary. Unique. People used to come for miles just to see the gardens of this house.’ Sara turned back to face the lawns and gestured past the cherry trees towards the beech hedges and the long drive to the lane. ‘It’s only a few minutes’ walk to Kingsmede village from here and the gardens were somehow part of the community. She used to hold the most remarkable parties here. The local village fete, of course. Then there were weddings, birthday parties and all kinds of local and family events.’

She flicked a smile at Dracula, who was still watching her, almost as though he was studying her. ‘I can remember my grandmother’s eightieth birthday party as though it was yesterday. We started in the afternoon with most of the village turning up for afternoon tea, and then moved on to dinner with a live band with dancing and singing. Then there were fireworks. Lots of fireworks.’

Sara shook her head but when she spoke her voice trailed away. ‘It was a magical night. The end of an era, I suppose.’ Then she looked up into the sky at the new moon and felt the sting of tears in the corners of her eyes as the memory of the event swirled through her. She was so captivated by the intense memory of her grandmother dancing in her ballgown and jewels, and the music and the fairy lights and trees, that when Dracula shifted next to her on the railing, she suddenly came crashing down to earth with the harsh reality that those moments and those parties were long gone like the gardens that used to be here.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said through a tight, sore throat. ‘Here I am, rambling on about people you don’t know and a world which has already long gone. How embarrassing! I don’t usually go on about the house like this. The hotel company own it now and there’s nothing I can do about that. But thank you for listening.’

Dracula inclined his head towards her. ‘I got the feeling that you needed to talk. Apparently I was right. And you weren’t boring, not in the least.’

He took a step closer in the fading light and in the harsh shadows his cheekbones were sharp angles and his chin strong and resolute. His body was tall and slim but anything but boyish.

Just the opposite. The masculine strength and power positively beamed out from every pore and grabbed her. It was in the way he held his body, the way his head inclined just that tiny fraction of an inch as he looked at her as though she was the most fascinating woman he had ever met, and oh, yes, the laser focus of those intelligent blue-grey eyes had a lot to do with it as well.

He was so close that she could touch him if she wanted to. In the calm tranquillity of their pergola she could practically feel the softness of his breath on her skin as he gazed intently into her eyes. Loud laughter and bright music was playing somewhere in the house but all of her senses were totally focused on this man who had outspokenly captivated her.

She couldn’t move.

She did not want to move.

And then he did something extraordinary. He leant forward so that their bodies were almost touching and she sucked in a breath, terrified, exhilarated and excited. Was he going to kiss her? But, with a faint smile, he lifted his chin, his eyes broke away from hers and he reached out to the climbing rose behind her head and stepped back a second later with a perfect full white rose.

She stared, wide-eyed, as he swept his thumb and forefinger down the stem with his naked hand.

‘A lovely rose for a lovely lady. No thorns allowed. May I?’

Completely at a loss as to what he was asking permission to do, Sara simply nodded and smiled as he stretched out his hand, lifted her left wrist towards him and carefully pressed the rose stem under the jewelled strap of her watch.

‘I never had more than a window box growing up, so I am totally clueless when it comes to flowers,’ he murmured in a smooth warm voice. ‘But I hope you will accept this small token as a pitiful excuse for a wrist corsage.’

She smiled and bit her lower lip, and was instantly grateful for the cover of darkness to cover up her blushes. ‘It’s lovely. Thank you.’

‘Excellent,’ he replied and stepped back and extended both arms, his cloak flapping behind him. ‘Well, that only leaves one more special request to complete the evening.’ He twirled his right hand in the air and gave a dramatic short bow from the waist. ‘May I have the pleasure of this dance, young lady? I shall try not to step on your toes or spread chocolate on the back of your dress.’

‘Well,’ Sara replied with a sigh and looked from side to side on the deserted terrace, ‘my dance card is already quite full, but I suppose I could spare you a few min utes.’

Instantly she found his right hand resting lightly at her waist, and her right hand resting lightly inside his fingers. ‘They’re playing our song.’ He smiled and drew her closer towards him so that the front of his black jacket was just touching her chest.

Stunned by being pressed against him by a firm hand in the small of her back, Sara blinked hard, swallowed down a gulp of shock and paid attention. ‘We have a song?’ she asked, then looked up from his shoes to find him smiling deep into her eyes.

‘Of course.’ He grinned and stepped forward with his right foot, then shifted onto his left, carrying her with him onto the wider part of the terrace. ‘Just listen,’ he whispered into her ear, and moved gracefully from side to side.

It was a waltz. A dreamy concoction from a long gone world of Viennese dancing in crystal ballrooms, captured for ever on celluloid and movie soundtrack albums so that she could listen to those soaring strings in a country garden in England, through the open patio doors of a party. And it took her breath away.

Sara was so entranced that it took her a second to realise that her feet were moving instinctively into the waltz positions she had been taught at school all those years ago.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ her dance partner whispered and she opened her eyes to find him smiling down at her. ‘Is the Danube really blue? And are there woods in Vienna?’

‘Ah. Caught me out,’ she tutted back, suddenly grateful that he did not know what she had actually been thinking, which had a lot more to do with just how close their bodies were pressed together.

‘I do have one question,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Don’t you find it difficult to go back into the house as just a normal guest?’

‘Yes, I do,’ she answered as truthfully as she could. ‘But I couldn’t miss the chance to catch up with Helen for a few hours. We lead such busy lives these days.’