by Rose Amberly
“So how did it go from absolute refusal to ‘fine’?” he asked, leaning back in his chair to watch her.
Millie took a moment.
He waited.
Her fingers touched the stem of her wine glass, then moved the silver cutlery a little closer to the side plate before meeting his eyes.
“Mr Du Montfort, from what I understand, used to govern all of La Canette.”
Here we go. “Yes.” Go on. Tell me you want to restore him to his former glory and bring love into his life.
Her fingers smoothed the crisp white linen tablecloth in front of her. “A powerful man accustomed to giving orders and being in control.”
Great assessment, but you forgot to say rich. Come on, don’t be coy. He kept his face expressionless.
She took a sip of her wine, then put her glass down. “Mr Du Montfort, as I see him, is a proud man. It’s a big comedown for him to need help with the simplest of movements.”
A proud man, yes, his father was certainly that. George’s eyes travelled down to the table, to Millie’s fingers curled around the stem of her wineglass. Reflections of the candle flame danced on the pale liquid.
She went on. “How can we expect him to let his staff see him struggling to lift a spoon with his left hand? To see him struggle to walk three short steps?”
The first, and only time, he saw his father try to walk after his stroke was at the hospital. Two nurses had held him upright while his left leg shook like a leaf.
An unfamiliar pain squeezed George’s heart for an instant.
“I thought about the indoor gym,” Millie went on. “But it has huge windows to the main hall, and the house is full of people all the time. If it’s not Mrs B, it’s the agent or the boy who brings the newspapers.” She adjusted the shawl, which had started to slip over her shoulder. “I’ve used the indoor gym myself, and the very next day, the post-office lady asked me how I liked the step machine.” Millie met his gaze, her eyes sparkling with hidden laughter. “You know, for an island with no transport, news travels surprisingly fast here.”
He almost laughed, almost. But it wasn’t funny. And this young woman had an uncanny ability for touching old, bitter memories. “Go on.”
“Liam and I talked about finding an out-of-the-way spot where he wouldn’t be visible from the house.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “So one day, when it was sunny, I suggested we read in the garden. And when Liam came over, I excused myself. I thought your father might refuse to talk to him. I waited just inside the house for Liam to come back disappointed like always. I waited for three quarters of an hour. Eventually Liam returned and told me Mr Du Montfort could do with a rest and something hot to drink.”
So that was why they went to the white-rose garden. George looked away from her, trying to picture this. He’d imagined all manner of illicit activities in the secluded rose garden. Yet, it turned out to be nothing more than Liam and his dumbbells.
The Jazz trio in the far corner of the restaurant had started playing a gentle foxtrot. His fingers tapped along with the rhythm on the side of his wine glass for a while. “So away from prying eyes, my father allows Liam to help him? And you watch to make sure—”
“No.” She shook her head, making her hair dance around her neck. “I never watch. I never even mention it. Mr Du Montfort and I have an unspoken understanding. We never speak about his health. So, I leave them alone.”
“So you could both pretend that he is not paralysed?”
“Unfair.” A hint of disapproval touched her face before she schooled her features. When George said nothing, she went on, trying to convince him. “Have you noticed how he holds his back straight all the time whenever someone comes into his room?”
George nodded.
“Nurse Ann told me he has a lot of back pain because half his body has to carry the other half. It’s a common problem with stroke patients. Yet he never, ever allows anyone to see him slumped. He hasn’t complained to me of pain, not once.”
George wasn’t normally lost for words, but Millie’s gentle argument silenced him.
Fortunately, Hitten arrived with their starter. He topped up their wine glasses and withdrew discreetly.
Millie looked at the parcel of browned crispy filo pastry and back at George.
She was probably wondering if it was filled with frogs’ innards. His earlier trick of ordering in French—calculated to unsettle her—now looked mean spirited.
“It’s baked camembert with apricot jam,” he said. “The cheese is very good. It comes from a local farm, and the fruit is from our orchards.”
They ate in silence. The Jazz sax and bass played in the background to the soft chatter of other diners.
How could he have been so wrong about his father’s challenges, about his pain, about everything? Yet this young woman had seen it within a month, perhaps less.
Wasn’t that what he wanted from an assistant for his father? Someone to solve problems? Someone to notice, to understand, to care?
The remarkable thing was, Millie had been all of those things quietly, without bragging about it, without showing off. And all he, George, had been worried about was why she looked pretty.
He’d not only underestimated her; he’d been hugely unfair.
She adjusted her shawl for possibly the twentieth time tonight. Not a woman comfortable with her body. A faint memory tugged at the edge of his awareness.
She looked up and caught him staring at her, and she coloured slightly. Her bright eyes were the most amazing hazel, halfway between green and brown. He looked away, searching for something to say. Anything to say.
* * *
Main Course
Millie wished he’d stop staring at her like she was a suspect package at an airport. She wanted to relax and enjoy her first dinner at a swanky restaurant. And Pascale’s was as swanky as they came.
No clatter of cutlery and plates from the kitchen here. Every sound was softly muted, civilized. There were indigo roses in a little crystal bowl between her and George. The colour coordinated with the furnishings. Everything was white, indigo and silver. A small circle at the centre of the restaurant was left empty of tables; instead, a huge light installation hung from the ceiling down to the floor. Or was it rising from the floor? A haphazard vertical burst of white-and-blue glass spirals and loops, it looked to Millie like wild curly hair gone crazy.
George cleared his throat, and she turned back to him. “I’ve employed nearly ten different physiotherapists since my father’s stroke,” he said. “None of them managed so much as a hand massage. Now he’s doing Pilates. I should thank you.”
Was this recognition? At last? Father and son were so alike, getting them to admit they were wrong was like pulling teeth. Joanie was right about one thing, though; George did have the most amazing grey eyes. She could look into them for hours. If only he didn’t fix them on her so intensely.
She put her fork and knife down. The starter had been delicious, and she’d allowed herself to relax. But the interrogation wasn’t over.
Thank God for the waiter. He turned up, cleared their plates and brought the main course. He placed the plate in front of her and turned it so the small printed logo was at the top in the twelve o’clock position. Even the logo was blue. She blinked as she recognized it for the island’s coat of arms.
“Ballotine of wood pigeon with wild mushrooms and rainbow chard.” The waiter refilled their wine glasses and placed the nearly empty bottle back in the cooler. “Would you like another bottle?”
Millie said, “No, thank you” just as George said, “Yes, thank you.” Their voices overlapped.
Millie quickly told the waiter, “Okay, yes” at the same time George was saying, “Then, no.”
They looked at each other; each waited for the other to speak first. The waiter looked from one to the other. George finally put th
e poor man out of his misery by ordering another bottle.
“If my father were here, he’d have told me to ‘Stop acting like a big girl’s blouse and order wine like a man.’ Beautiful manners, my dad.” George grinned. “Does he still call Mrs B ‘Mrs Spit-and-polish’?”
She did her best to keep a straight face. “Only once.”
“Once?” He crooked an eyebrow.
She couldn’t laugh. It was one thing for George to poke fun at his father, quite another for an employee to laugh at her boss. But she had to squeeze her lips shut to hold back a giggle. Du Montfort had names for everyone from Evans the driver—Clippety-Clop—to the newspaper boy who always hid behind the door when handing Millie the papers and therefore got the name The Artful Dodger.
But George wasn’t letting her off the hook. “What does he call you? I’d love to know.”
Where should she begin? She kept her mouth shut.
“Oh, let me guess, Nosey Millie?”
She had to laugh. “Close. ‘Meddling Millie’. And sometimes ‘That Girl’.” In the beginning, it used to be Fat Girl, Pale Girl, but she kept those to herself.
But George was sharp and he must have sensed her keeping something back. “Go on. What else?”
“For a while at the beginning it was Deaf Girl because I stayed despite the many times he told me to ‘get out.’ But more recently, I seemed to have progressed to Smiley.”
“I’m glad to know I’m not the only victim.” He laughed.
He had the kind of laugh that pulled you along with it. It was a nice, warm feeling to know she made him laugh, made his eyes crinkle like this.
“My father’s famous temper—what did you call it? Pride?”
The serious interrogation over, George was a different person now, relaxed, warm. When he held her gaze, his eyes didn’t bore into her like a laser. No, they invited her to share the conversation. “You know, in my world, pride can be an asset as well as a liability. If not handled the right way, it can be a nightmare.”
She crossed her legs under the table, feeling the silk of her dress caress her thighs and knees. She relaxed into her chair, blissful. The small crystal chandelier, low over their table, refracted light into beautiful tiny rainbow prisms over the pristine white linen.
She listened to him talk to her about himself and his work, as if he really cared what she thought. This gorgeous man wanted to hear her opinion, made her feel interesting, witty and clever, treated her like she was worth talking to.
She felt like a crystal chandelier herself, refracting light into a hundred tiny rainbows.
“You see, I can always spot what it is people are proud of,” George was saying. “And what they aren’t. I plan their workload to take this into account.” His grey eyes had silver threads radiating from the pupils, and the long black lashes shadowed his eyes, black on silver. Women would die for such eyelashes. There really was no justice in this world.
“That’s very accommodating of you,” she said, gently teasing. The evening, the wine and the attention were making her rather daring.
“Not really. I’d be lying if I said I did it to accommodate them.” He shrugged. “Just practical. It helps me get the best out of people and avoid any pitfalls.”
“So?” A mischievous thought bubbled up her like a giggle. “Were you hoping to discover if there were any hidden pitfalls in the quality of my work?”
It was a joke, but he seemed to take it seriously. He paused, his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Not the quality of your work, precisely.”
She waited. His fork remained suspended mid-air. “What, then?”
“You really want to know?”
She took a sip of wine. “I’m all ears.”
He put his fork down on the plate. “I was worried you might be”—he looked down, then continued—“interested in my father.”
She didn’t understand.
“Romantically.”
She put her glass down a little too fast, making the wine slosh around. She stared at him, her eyes wide.
“Not romantically, precisely.” He seemed lost for words.
“You thought I might be a gold-digger trying to seduce him?”
He looked up at her, straight, honest.
“You’re not even denying it!” How could someone say that and still look so, so… so courteous?
“Millie, I advertised for a Plain Jane specifically to shield my father from temptation. I was assured by the agency that you were, erm…” He paused, glancing around.
His silence screamed fat, ugly and beige. The memory felt like a slap.
He cleared his throat. “Yet it seems you got here and quickly became, well, not plain.” He smiled.
Why was he smiling? Did he think she was flattered by his backhanded compliment?
How dare he? How bloody dare he suggest she’d been beautifying herself to ensnare an old man?
She kept her mouth shut, with difficulty. Nothing could be gained from giving him a piece of her mind. But she glared daggers at him.
The anger, if she were honest, was in part fuelled by remembered pain. Which wasn’t his fault.
Okay, focus on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Better.
Okay, she was calm.
George was staring at her, his mouth open. “Now I remember where I met you.”
What? No!
“I’ve been racking my brain for three days trying to remember.”
Bollocks, she’d given herself away. Just when she’d been making a good impression, winning respect and credibility.
“You were the driver of that car, the Nissan Micra?”
Heat flushed up through her neck into her face and to the roots of her hair. What had she screamed at him? Had she called him arrogant? Selfish? No, she’d said something about washing with champagne, and she might have called him Mr BMW. Oh, nooooo.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t remember.” Her voice came out barely above a whisper. She made herself speak up. “I can’t imagine what I must have looked like shouting in the street.”
George blinked but didn’t speak.
She exhaled a long breath, heavy with recollection “It’s not a day I like to think about, probably the worst day of my whole life.”
He opened his mouth, but then he closed it again.
She tried for a smile and failed. “I was at a very low ebb, so whatever I said, I’m sorry.”
His face coloured, and he pushed back his chair. “Excuse me a minute.”
And he walked away from the table, past the glass light installation thing and all the way out of the restaurant.
* * *
Dessert
George stood in the courtyard by Pascale’s entrance. A monkey-puzzle tree spread and twisted overhead. He wished he still smoked; a cigarette would have been great right now. A double scotch, too.
The discovery had caught him off guard. Christ, he hated surprises, especially when they involved his past mistakes. How had he not recognized her? He’d practically had her in his arms while walking her into that little café in London. Her face had been inches from his.
But it wasn’t the same face anymore. Or the same figure. That woman in the street had been faded, out of focus, easily forgettable. This woman here was warm, and vivid, and beautiful. She sparkled. He’d have remembered her.
Why did it bother him so much? He’d dealt with bigger and more serious surprises in his life. Handling the sale of the railway franchise had been a minefield. Yet he always thought fast and stepped in to plug every hole, quickly and decisively. This was different.
She was different, and he didn’t know how to handle her.
Something in the way her lips held a hint of a smile when she was about to disagree with him. The flash in her eyes that spoke of inner self-respect and tol
d him that he’d gone too far. In the space of two sentences, she’d held up a mirror to him, and he didn’t like what she showed him about himself.
The worst day of her life. She’d been at her lowest ebb. He remembered her eyes now, the unmistakable heartbreak. And he had humiliated her. For what, a scrape of paint off his car? And then he’d walked out on her without the courtesy of saying goodbye.
He didn’t know how to react to a woman in need who refused his help, so he’d run away.
He glanced through the window into the restaurant. The waiter was clearing their uneaten main course. Millie sat alone, sipping her water.
Cursing himself for being a coward, he stepped over his unease and walked back in.
“I owe you an apology,” he said, taking his seat. “I behaved badly just now.” He drank what was left in his wine glass. “I actually behaved badly three months ago when I first met you. Please forgive me.” He met her eyes.
Her lips twitched. “What did you do? Go outside and put on a different personality?”
Unexpected laughter burst from him. “Of all the things a woman might say in reply to an apology, this is the last.”
“What did you expect me to say?” There was no coyness in her, no intrigue, just curiosity, like an innocent child. No, not like a child, his eyes dropped to her lovely shoulders. Definitely not a child.
He cleared his throat. “In my experience of women, and perhaps it’s limited—”
Now it was she who laughed. “Oh, I doubt your experience of women is in any way limited.” She grinned at him, wrinkling her nose. Again, not a woman flirting, more like a friend calling him on a lie.
“Well, possibly.” He lifted one shoulder in partial agreement.
She was still grinning. “False modesty does not become you, mein Herr.” The exaggerated German accent was hilarious.
He had to laugh. She’d not only noticed his penchant for control, but was gently poking fun at it, draining the power out of it. Her shawl had dropped a little, revealing smooth, soft arms.
“You’re nothing like other women.”