She shrugged, smiling. ‘I must be, or I wouldn’t be spending the day with you on Sunday.’
He moved closer. ‘This Jeremy. Is he important to you?’
‘We don’t live together, if that’s what you mean. But we see a lot of each other. Common interest, and all that.’
‘Sounds a bit lukewarm.’
‘Unlike your relationship with the fickle Della?’
Adam chuckled, and held up his hand in surrender. ‘All right. Pax. No more personal questions. Except to ask whether you’ve been sleeping better at night.’
‘Actually, I have. The night you rang I went straight to bed and didn’t wake up until my alarm went off. Which was a first.’
‘I could ring you every night, if it would help,’ he suggested. ‘Even better, I could come and sleep on your sofa.’
Gabriel threw her head back and laughed, to the delight of the man watching her. ‘Not a chance!’ she assured him.
Adam sobered abruptly. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Gabriel. I meant what I said. I don’t like to think of you out here on your own. I could sleep downstairs every night and take off in the morning at first light. You wouldn’t even know I was here.’
Was he serious? Adam Dysart’s presence in the house would keep her awake far more effectively than any creaks and groans. ‘Thank you for the offer,’ she said with sincerity. ‘But I couldn’t put you to so much trouble.’
‘Pity,’ he sighed, and to her surprise bent and kissed her cheek. ‘Give my best to Harry. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Right,’ she said faintly, more affected by Adam’s light caress than she cared to let him know.
He hesitated, and for a moment Gabriel was sure he would kiss her again. But instead he gave her a wry grin, strode off to his car, and turned to wave before diving inside to drive off.
Ceasefire, thought Gabriel, as she locked the door. Did that mean hostilities were over? Thinking about it, she rather thought they were. They had only ever been on her side anyway. And, if she were honest, her resentment of Adam Dysart had been difficult to hang on to once she’d met him in the spectacular flesh. A good fairy might have endowed him with an abundance of gifts at his christening, yet he was anything but the spoiled brat of her imaginings. Adam had more than his share of good looks and charm, but he also possessed a work ethos very much in tune with her own. In short, she liked him far more than she would ever have believed possible before meeting him. And, unless she were very much mistaken, he felt the same about her. Especially her restoration skills.
CHAPTER FOUR
GABRIEL normally took weekends off, needing the break for laundry and shopping. But on this particular Saturday she couldn’t resist working on the portrait. With no distraction from Wayne and Eddie she worked steadily without interruption, and by late afternoon most of the overpaint was removed, leaving the portrait almost ready to part with its discoloured varnish. She pored over the two faces, so like and yet so unalike. The first, which had called to Adam from the corner of the saleroom, shone with such luminous happiness Gabriel felt a deep foreboding about the lady’s fate. Why had someone so beautiful and radiant suffered banishment to an attic all these years? Something, or someone, had obviously doused the light in those violet eyes. And Gabriel laid odds it was something to do with the pouting hussy smouldering at her sister’s shoulder.
‘Don’t worry if I’m a bit late tomorrow,’ Gabriel said, as she kissed her father goodbye later that evening. ‘Adam Dysart is taking me on a research trip into deepest Herefordshire.’
‘That’s a turn-up for the book,’ said Harry Brett, surprised. ‘I thought you were daggers drawn where Adam’s concerned. Why Hereford?’
‘His painted ladies hail from an old manor house there. Adam’s hoping for provenance for the portrait.’
‘I wish I were coming with you,’ said Harry, then chortled suddenly. ‘Not that Adam would want me along as gooseberry.’
‘It’s not that kind of outing,’ said Gabriel severely, then fixed him with a piercing blue look. ‘By the way, you haven’t told me your decision about the holiday with Mother.’
‘Haven’t I, pet?’ he said innocently, and smiled. ‘I’m saying yes, of course. I’d be a fool to turn down a free holiday.’
Gabriel was ready and waiting on the day of the trip, wearing a blue lawn shirt loose over a white halter top and long white denim skirt. The June day was so hot she was delighted when Adam arrived driving an elderly convertible with the hood down, the car in such immaculate condition it was obviously its owner’s pride and joy.
‘Good morning,’ she said, eyeing the car with admiration. ‘How dashing!’
Adam vaulted out of the car, and patted the bonnet affectionately. ‘The love of my life. Good morning, Gabriel.’ He frowned as he examined her face more closely. ‘You look wonderful, but the marks under your eyes match your shirt. Bad night last night?’
‘Not really.’ Though she had waited up far later than she should have, hoping he would ring. ‘I usually take weekends off, but I worked on your ladies yesterday.’ And had taken the portrait to bed with her rather than go down to the cellar once the light had faded.
He eyed her in disapproval. ‘You shouldn’t have done that!’
She shrugged. ‘You want it in a hurry. Besides, I was dying to see the second face more clearly. Want a look? She’s waiting for you on the kitchen table.’
Adam followed her inside, and stood gazing down at the portrait in silence for a moment, his eyes blazing with excitement. ‘I’m right!’ he breathed at last. ‘I’m sure of it now.’
‘You think it is an Etty?’
He shook his head, his eyes still glued to the canvas. ‘I had a change of heart after a spot more research in London. Though I wasn’t that far off the mark. I’m pretty sure this is by Richard Taylor Singleton. Like Etty, he did his pupillage with Sir Thomas Lawrence.’
Gabriel felt a rush of excitement. ‘Is that what you hoped?’
‘He might not fetch as much as Etty,’ said Adam, and grinned at her jubilantly. ‘But Singleton was less prolific, and he died quite young. There’s not a lot of him about so he has rarity value. And if it’s genuine this work is completely fresh—never been published.’
‘So it should cause a stir due to that, if nothing else,’ she said with satisfaction.
‘In which case let’s lock it away fast,’ said Adam, and gave her an accusing look as they went down to the cellar. ‘Which reminds me—if you laboured all day yesterday, Gabriel Brett, you had to do the locking up alone.’
‘It was worth it,’ she assured him, deciding not to mention the portrait’s sleepover in her bedroom. ‘So were the extra hours I put in.’
‘For which you can charge me lots of overtime,’ he said promptly.
‘Don’t worry. I will!’ Gabriel eyed him challengingly as they emerged into the back entry. ‘We haven’t discussed money. You do realise my services don’t come cheap, Mr Dysart?’
‘I’ll pay whatever you ask,’ Adam assured her.
‘A good thing I’ve got scruples, then.’ She smiled. ‘I warn you—I might not have my father’s experience, but I’ll expect his usual fee for my services, just the same.’
Adam threw back his head and laughed. ‘And you shall have it, Gabriel Brett. Not that I agree with you.’
‘You think I should ask less?’
‘No. I meant your work is as good as Harry’s, Gabriel. And he’d be the first to agree.’
‘But he’s biased!’
Gabriel had driven to Haywards Farm a fortnight earlier, intending to spend only a weekend with her father. When he’d been taken ill she’d stayed on, not only until he was out of danger, but to oversee the business and to take on his more urgent work herself. Today’s outing was the first purely social time she’d spent since her arrival, and as Adam drove her through the sunlit countryside she began to relax, the tension of her father’s illness loosening its grip at last.
‘I thought we
’d have a fairly early lunch on the way to Hereford,’ he said. ‘Afterwards we’ll go sleuthing.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘Wait and see.’ He smiled smugly. ‘I was busy yesterday. I had a hunch and I followed it. And today you’ll see the results. Eventually.’
‘Are you always this maddening?’ she demanded.
He kept his eyes on the road. ‘It’s my way of keeping you interested.’
‘Novel approach.’
‘Your art dealer probably entertains you with sophisticated pursuits. My gambit is a pub lunch and a mystery trip.’
It was successful. Even without the tempting promise of sleuthing Gabriel was enjoying the leisurely drive. Adam was no speed merchant, as she expected after seeing the car. He drove at a rate which allowed her to appreciate the scenery they were passing through, something Jeremy had refused to do on the rare occasions he’d driven her out of the city. Despite a certain languor he affected, once out of London Jeremy’s aim was always to reach their destination at top speed, and get back to town as soon as possible on the return journey.
A few miles after Ross-on-Wye Adam turned off onto narrower, minor roads that eventually brought them to an inn tucked in a hollow a mile or so down a steep lane.
‘Lunch,’ announced Adam, parking alongside a surprising number of vehicles for such a secluded spot.
‘What a charming place,’ said Gabriel, getting out of the car. ‘But crowded. We’ll be lucky to get a table.’
‘I booked,’ said Adam simply.
‘Of course you did,’ she said, laughing, and met a leap of response in his eyes. ‘What?’
‘You should laugh more often,’ he told her.
She shrugged. ‘I’ve been too worried to laugh much lately, Adam.’
‘Don’t I know it. I just wish I’d heard sooner that Harry was ill. Then I could have come round in a purely social capacity. In which case,’ he added, slanting a glance down at her, ‘I might have found more favour in your eyes when we met again.’
‘I doubt it,’ she said bluntly, as he held the door for her to enter the crowded, noisy bar.
Adam gave her a narrowed, questioning glance as they were directed to a table in a corner with a view of the garden at the back of the building, but it was only when drinks arrived, and they’d both made their choice from an impressive menu chalked up on a large blackboard, that he took her up on her remark.
‘So it wasn’t just my big-headed demands that turned you off me, then?’
‘No.’ Gabriel sipped from her tall glass of fruit juice and soda, surveying him across the small table. Adam looked as though he chose his clothes with care and then forgot about them, she noted with approval. Today he was dressed in nothing more spectacular than a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, his endless legs in khaki linen creased slightly from the journey. But he looked tanned and fit, and undeniably attractive, and Gabriel was undeniably aware of it.
‘I feel like something under one of your magnifying glasses,’ he said dryly. ‘So tell me why I never stood a chance.’
‘I’ve been fed up to the back teeth with you since I was thirteen years old,’ she told him candidly.
He stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘But I was only a kid myself then. What did I do, for Pete’s sake?’
‘The one and only time we met you were utterly horrible to me.’
‘Ah! So that’s it.’ He grinned. ‘I was just shy.’
‘Oh, no, you weren’t. I was fat and spotty, and you were seriously unimpressed.’
‘I was hoping to meet a boy, that’s all. Somehow Harry never mentioned that his Gabriel was a girl!’
She chuckled. ‘So you scarfed down the meal my father put for us, then bolted off on your bike the moment you could get away.’
‘You frightened the life out of me. You never said a word, just sat glowering at me as though you wanted to stab me with the bread knife,’ he retorted. ‘But you weren’t really fat—’
‘Oh, yes, I was,’ Gabriel insisted. ‘I took to comfort food in a big way after the divorce. And when I met you that day I was seething with resentment because you lived in Pennington and I didn’t any more. Afterwards I grew to hate the very sound of your name because Dad talked non-stop about you during every holiday I spent with him from then on.’
‘Your father used to tell me about you, too. But at that age I wasn’t interested in girls, fat, thin or otherwise, so I didn’t take much notice.’ Adam downed some of his beer, then gave her a wry grin. ‘In fact, Gabriel Brett, my interest in you took off when Harry told me you’d inherited his expertise.’
She nodded, resigned. ‘Other men rhapsodise about my eyes, but you’re turned on by my skills with solvents!’
‘I like the eyes too, and various other assets of yours, but you’ve been so prickly I haven’t dared mention them,’ said Adam bluntly, then gave her a very straight look. ‘You don’t seriously imagine Harry thinks more of me than of you, Gabriel?’
‘No. I don’t. At least not now. But when I boiled with teenage angst I did.’ She looked away through the window at the pretty garden. ‘I bitterly resented the time he spent with you, and the endless tales of the Dysart wunderkind’s talent for nosing out a find. Which is why I glowered so much that day.’ She turned her eyes back to his intent face, ‘Like you, I’m not into sharing.’
Adam nodded. ‘I can see your point. Not that I ever saw that much of your father, Gabriel. I used to visit his workshop as often as I could in term time. But except for a cheap package to a foreign beach somewhere with Charlie Hawkins, all my vacations, school and university, were spent working at Dysart’s. Starting at the bottom. Which was no hardship. I enjoyed it all, portering included. But my favourite bits were the trips to antiques fairs with my father, or poking about on my own in every backstreet junk shop in a radius which widened when I exchanged the bike for a battered old banger.’
So much for the spoilt, pampered boy of her imaginings. ‘We have more in common than I thought,’ conceded Gabriel. ‘I spent part of every school holiday in Dad’s workshop—’
‘Learning from the master.’
‘I don’t think Dad sees himself in that light, exactly.’
‘I certainly do,’ said Adam emphatically. ‘So does my father.’
The arrival of lunch put an end to more conversation for a while, other than murmurs of appreciation for the meal, and they were on their way again in the hot afternoon sunshine before Adam informed her that the surprise he’d promised was an invitation.
‘Really?’ said Gabriel, intrigued. ‘Who from? Or are you still keeping me in suspense?’
‘Miss Henrietta Scudamore, of Pembridge Manor, on the banks of the Wye, deep in rural Herefordshire, has asked us to tea. So I hope you haven’t eaten too much lunch.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Gabriel, astonished. ‘Who on earth is Henrietta Scudamore?’
‘She’s a descendant of my mystery lady’s family,’ said Adam triumphantly. ‘The smart auction I went to in London dealt with the more valuable contents of her family home. And with a bit of subtle digging I found out what had happened to the place. Miss Scudamore sold the house to a developer who converted it into a retirement home. But with the proviso that for her lifetime she would retain a suite of rooms rent-free for her own use, plus free medical attention and care from the staff.’
‘Did she now?’ said Gabriel with admiration. ‘Clever cookie.’
‘She’s fast approaching ninety, but with great style,’ said Adam, smiling reminiscently. ‘She’s a bit lame, but still elegant, with all her faculties in good working order. I fell for her in a big way.’
‘So that’s where you were yesterday,’ said Gabriel rashly, then coloured at the look he gave her.
‘Did you miss me?’ Adam said swiftly.
‘No,’ she lied.
‘I would have rung you, but it was late when I got back. I didn’t want to frighten you again.’
‘I’m not a quiverin
g little mouse!’ she said acidly.
‘More like a tigress.’ He cast a suddenly sober glance at her. ‘The other night I cursed myself for startling you, Gabriel.’
‘I thought it was the hospital,’ she admitted.
‘Which only occurred to me too late, fool that I am,’ he said in remorse. ‘I won’t do it again.’
‘I wouldn’t be so worried another time,’ she said casually.
Adam sent her another look. ‘Then I’ll ring every night at ten—so you’ll know it’s me.’
‘Won’t that rather restrict your social life?’
‘Not with the help of that modern miracle the cellphone. I assume you have one?’
‘Oh, yes. I take it to bed with me every night.’
Adam nodded his approval. ‘Good. Ring me for a chat if you can’t sleep.’
Gabriel couldn’t imagine ringing Adam in the night for anything but the direst emergency, and smiled non-committally as they reached a pretty hamlet spanning the River Lugg. Half a mile beyond it they turned down a winding drive which straightened out between close-cut lawns on the approach to an ancient house with the black-timbered white walls typical of the area. At Gabriel’s urgent request Adam stopped the car a short distance away to give her time to admire the architecture of Pembridge Manor, which was crowned with a belfry above a line of small, purely decorative gables which gave the central range of the building a saw-edge skyline.
‘What a fabulously beautiful house,’ she said softly.
‘According to Miss Scudamore the developer had to perform miracles to accomplish the conversion in line with Grade I listing constrictions. The expense involved means that only the wealthiest of the elderly can afford to live here.’
Gabriel’s eyes shadowed at the mention of listing constrictions. She wondered exactly how much money Adam had handed over so that her father could repair the roof of Haywards Farm. ‘Does Miss Scudamore mind sharing her home with other people?’ she asked, shutting the thought away.
Adam shrugged. ‘I got the impression she would have done anything in her power to live out her life in the family home, sharing it included.’
Restless Nights Page 5