Wildwood by Janine Ashbless Read Free Book Online

free.’
    ‘I’d like to know why you hired me. I mean, I’m good at my job, don’t get me wrong, but you know, given the circumstances …’
    He smiled. ‘I hired you because I like what I saw.’
    I gritted my teeth.
    ‘But on the other hand, what I see is not always what others see. Does that make you feel better?’
    I was perplexed. ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Well, Avril, since you’re keen on honesty perhaps I might clarify a couple of points. First, I need someone to do your job. If you want to do it, and I want you to do it, I can’t see that we have a problem.’
    I nodded, waiting for the caveat.
    ‘Second, if you’re implying, which I think you are, that I might be considering using our professional relationship as leverage to get you into bed with me –’
    I winced.
    ‘– then I’m rather insulted.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Why should I need to resort to methods that crude?’
    I’d been on the verge of feeling relieved, but those last words kicked the rug out from under me. I searched his face for signs of humour but found only amusement, which was not the same thing at all. There it was again, that enigmatic arrogance. That absolute certainty. And, undisguised this time, a promise. ‘I see,’ I said.
    ‘Good. I’m glad we understand each other.’
    ‘I have a rule,’ I said in a low flat voice. ‘I don’t get involved with people I work with.’
    ‘Ever?’
    ‘Ever. That’s the rule.’
    ‘Sounds like that one came from bitter experience.’
    I shrugged, but my mettle was up. ‘You live, you learn.’
    ‘And yet,’ he said, breaking into a slow, sweet, chilling smile, ‘even though you suspected me of the lowest motives, still you took the job.’
    I had no answer to that one.
    ‘Hh.’ He nodded, satisfied. ‘Well, I’ll be getting back. I’m sure you’ve plenty to be getting on with.’ He was doing it again, I realised: walking away and leaving me thrown completely off balance. ‘Think, Avril,’ he advised as his parting shot. ‘Rules are for the weak, to keep them safe. Is that what you are?’
    I waited till he was out of earshot, then I ran my hands through my hair and swore a blue streak.
    After lunch, as instructed, I left the others trimming a laurel hedge and set out to explore Grange Wood. I took with me only a clipboard and pencil, intending to sketch a map and make a few notes. I knew the wood was walled and that it blanketed a low hill and dropped away to the river valley and public road beyond, but that was about all. I was still wearing my chainsaw trousers and my helmet, since the padding of the former gave good protection should I have to wade through brambles and the latter was useful when ducking under branches. Passing through the old orchard, with a pause to shake my head wistfully at the cankered apple trees so shamefully left to waste over the last decade, I climbed over the gate in the stone wall and entered the wood. Within ten minutes I was in love.
    Woods, like people, vary in character, from lofty cathedral-like beech woods to grim, pitch-black western hemlock plantations. But Grange Wood was one of those western-seaboard oak forests that seem to have been crafted by goblins, purely to enchant. Overhead, the first flush of leaves was turning from salmon pink to light green. Beneath my feet the spring flora was in full surge, seizing every last hour of sunshine before the shade grew too dense. Pink spires of foxglove were in flower and, in the middle distance, a mist of bluebells hung over the ground. Unlike the main garden where the earth was deep and rich, here the ground was rocky and the boulders covered in moss, and ferns grew in abundance. The trees themselves, twisted oaks bearing great twiggy burrs and piebald birches grown fat on the wet soil till their swollen boles seemed ready to burst, were splotched in lichens and mosses. Many of the trees had fallen. Some of these had died and their rotting trunks provided new footing for the