by Liz Fielding
A tiny flutter of apprehension battered against her midriff, even though common sense assured her that he would pick somewhere far less hectic to claim his kiss. Somewhere that would involve maximum embarrassment. Amongst this noisy crush of air kisses and da—arlings, one more kiss, no matter how passionate, would pass totally unnoticed.
His tie was crooked again, she noticed, and since she didn’t want him to think she was avoiding him, that she was afraid, she turned towards him and reached up to straighten it.
‘Maybe you should give this up and go for something ready-tied,’ she suggested as she twitched it into place. ‘I’ll get the menswear department to send you some to try.’ Only when she was quite satisfied did she allow herself to look up and meet his eyes.
His expression was impossible to read, but it was nothing that she had done or said. He wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was riveted on something behind her. ‘Niall? Are you okay?’ she asked. When he didn’t answer, she turned to see what he was looking at. A raven-haired model was being fastened into a classic white bridal gown, laughing at something her ‘groom’ was saying. For a split-second the scene looked real. Bride. Groom. Happy ever after.
‘Look, you can’t stay out here. The girls will object,’ she said, seizing the first excuse that came into her head. And, turning him away from the scene, she took him by the arm and directed him very firmly towards the door. ‘Molly’s out there somewhere. She’ll look after you, find you a seat.’
‘No.’ He found a smile from somewhere. Somewhere bleak. ‘I believe you were right, Romana. I’ve had all the “fun” I can take for one day. If you’ll excuse me from our supper date?’
‘Gladly,’ she said, feeling oddly bleak herself. ‘To be honest I was hoping you’d forgotten.’
That raised the temperature of his smile to wry. ‘I’ll bet.’
She nodded. ‘Look, I have to get back there.’ She waved a hand towards the rising hysteria behind her. Then, because she was in danger of spilling a tear, she turned and walked quickly away from him. Damn, damn, damn!
What was it about a man wearing his broken heart on his sleeve that was so…heartbreaking?
She should just be glad he was out of her hair for the evening. That he was one less thing to worry about.
But the thought of him going back to that huge empty house with the image of a young bride in his head made her want to weep.
Instead, she blinked hard and set about restoring order to chaos.
‘Romana?’ One of the models was looking at her as if expecting some response. ‘I said we’re all going through to have supper, then on to a club maybe. Do you want to join us?’
‘Thanks, but it’s been a long day. I think I’ll just go home and fall into bed.’
‘If it’s with the dishy bloke who was in here earlier, I don’t blame you.’
She didn’t bother to correct the girl, but found her jacket and walked through to the main entrance of the hotel. ‘Taxi, Miss Claibourne?’
‘Please.’
The commissionaire summoned a black cab, opened the door for her and she climbed in. ‘Where to, miss?’ the driver asked as he headed up the ramp to the main road.
Where to? She thought about her comfortable flat, the lavender-scented linen on her bed waiting to enfold her, lull her to sleep. And she turned her back on them. ‘Take me to Spitalfields.’
The man turned round in his seat. ‘Spitalfields, miss?’ he repeated, to confirm he’d heard right.
She wasn’t sure either, but she had to go anyway. All evening she’d been co-ordinating the fashion show, coping with minor crises, being the totally efficient Miss Romana Claibourne, Public Relations Director of Claibourne & Farraday, her mind apparently focused on the job.
But on a different level she’d been somewhere else. In a large lonely kitchen with a man she should be kicking while he was down. Instead, she’d been haunted by the thought of Niall alone with his memories.
And she had known she’d never be able to sleep until she reassured herself that he was all right.
‘This is it, miss.’
She glanced up at the house. The front windows were dark, but a faint glow of light filtered through from somewhere at the back and she got out. The quiet was illusory, she discovered. From beyond the old market she could hear the sound of music coming from the many restaurants that had sprung up in the area. ‘Will you wait, please? I won’t be long.’
The driver left the meter running while she crossed the narrow pavement and walked up the steps to the front door. She lifted the knocker and held it for a moment, hesitating between the cast-iron certainty that she was about to make a fool of herself and the knowledge that she could do nothing else. Then she let it fall with a sound that seemed to echo throughout the house.
She waited. Nothing happened.
She glanced at the cab driver. He was talking into his radio while keeping an eye on her, taking care that his expensive fare didn’t make a run for it and disappear up some back street. She didn’t blame him.
She turned back to the door and lifted the knocker again. Before she could bring it down the door opened, wrenching the thing from her hand so that she nearly overbalanced and fell into the hall.
‘What is it?’ Niall, still in his dress shirt but with his tie pulled loose, the top button undone, sounded thoroughly irritable. Then, as she recovered her balance and the light from the street fell on her, he said, ‘Romana? What on earth are you doing here?’
There were any number of answers to that question.
I was just passing and I thought I’d take you up on your offer of the grand tour…
There’s been a change of plans for tomorrow…
I’ve mislaid my doorkey and I need a bed for the night…
But only the truth would do. ‘I was concerned about you, Niall. When you left the Savoy you looked…bleak.’
‘You mean you thought you’d find me drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Scotch? That would make excellent ammunition in the war between the Claibournes and the Farradays, wouldn’t it? India would undoubtedly award you an A for effort.’
‘Are you?’ she asked, ignoring his sarcasm. ‘Drowning your sorrows?’ He was somewhat dishevelled, with what looked like a cobweb caught in his hair, but he didn’t look as if he were drowning in Scotch or anything else.
‘Oh, hell. Look, you’d better come in,’ he said, holding the door wide for her.
‘I’ve got a taxi waiting.’
He glanced at the black cab, waiting at the kerb. ‘Let it go. I’ll take you home.’ He instantly picked up on her doubtful look. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t found a problem yet that looked better through the bottom of a bottle.’ And he crossed to the cab, glanced at the meter and offered the driver a banknote.
The driver took it, but he didn’t move. ‘Is that all right with you, miss?’
Niall turned to her but said nothing, leaving the decision to her. What decision? She was there, wasn’t she? Of course she was going to stay. ‘Yes, thank you. I’ll be fine,’ she said, reassuring the man.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Quite sure.’ The man made a move to get change, but Niall waved it away.
‘Come on through,’ he said as, with his arm at her back, he ushered her inside. ‘I’m in the kitchen.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m always in the kitchen. The rest of the house is somewhat…unfinished.’
‘Show me,’ she said. ‘I want to see it all.’
CHAPTER NINE
NIALL looked down at her uncertainly. ‘Now?’ he said.
‘Why not? You promised me the grand tour.’ She shrugged and added, ‘Unless you’ve got something better to do? Or if the bottle is a more attractive proposition?’ He deserved that, she told herself, for suggesting her sole motive in checking up on him was to discover if he was in the habit of drowning his sorrows. It spoke volumes for the man that she hadn’t even considered it. ‘I can always ring for a minicab.’
After a moment he shru
gged, then turned and flicked on a switch, flooding the hall and stairs with light. She began to unfasten her jacket, but he stopped her. ‘You might want to hang onto that. The heating system on the upper floors is a bit basic. The kind that involves newspaper, kindling and coal.’ He stood back, offering her the stairs. ‘We’ll start at the top.’
The house was on four floors. The top floor consisted of a series of small attic rooms in which the possessions accumulated over many years were stored, no longer needed, but too full of precious memories to be thrown away.
In one of them there was a woman’s bicycle. One of those old-fashioned sit-up-and-beg jobs with a basket in front and a big chrome bell. Perfect for whizzing through City traffic. ‘I have one of these,’ she said, wiping her finger along the handlebars. ‘I used it when I was at college.’
‘These days you prefer taxis?’
‘Not always.’
Niall closed the door without comment and led the way down to the next floor. ‘This was Louise’s office,’ he said, opening the door to a room that overlooked the rear of the house. The dust lay thick and white over everything, as if nothing had been disturbed since she’d died. Romana, on the point of recommending a good cleaning firm, for once held her tongue. When he was ready to let go he was quite capable of checking out the Yellow Pages himself. ‘There’s nothing much to look at up here, unless you’re thrilled by eighteenth-century building techniques,’ he said, after a moment. He took her silence for a negative. ‘This was domestic territory. Children and servants. In those days they saved the really expensive stuff for the public rooms.’
‘You said you’d uncovered some of the original decoration?’
‘In the drawing room.’
‘Show me.’
They descended to the next floor where Niall opened a pair of panelled doors and switched on an overhead light. Romana wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find, but the dreary faded paint and barely visible floral decorations left her distinctly underwhelmed.
‘Louise researched the history of the house and discovered that this room was painted in 1783 on the occasion of the marriage of the silk merchant who owned it to his second wife. It would have been the very best that money could buy.’ He ran his hand over the walls. ‘The floral frieze was hand-painted by a local artist who produced designs for the silk weavers.’
‘Really? And it was all so expensive that no one has been able to afford to redo it since?’
‘Louise thought she’d just repair the damage in the corner and keep it the way it is,’ he said, missing the sarcasm. Or maybe just ignoring it.
She looked around. The drawing room was beautifully proportioned, with high ceilings and three long sash-cord windows that looked out over the street, a floor below them. Maybe she was a phillistine, but she thought what the walls needed was a couple of coats of good emulsion in a cheerful colour, with the doors and windows picked out in white.
‘Is it all like this?’
He made a ‘help yourself’ gesture, standing back while she toured the landing, opening the doors, glancing in at the rooms opening off the main landing. The only room that was truly habitable was the master bedroom. Even a man so lost in love he would put up with this mess would expect somewhere comfortable to sleep. And a well-fitted bathroom.
Not that she noticed the decoration particularly. The only thing that caught her eye was the silver frame containing the portrait of a lovely young woman with glossy raven hair, dark sparkling eyes. She could see why the sight of the model at the fashion show had drained the colour from his face, driven him home. The likeness was superficial, but in a wedding dress, wearing a veil…
‘What do you think?’ he said, from the doorway.
She closed the bedroom door behind her. ‘You don’t want to know what I think,’ she said, shivering a little. And not just with the cold.
‘Come on, Romana, don’t be shy. It doesn’t suit you.’
‘It’s foot in the mouth time again, is it? Time to tell you what your best friends are too kind to say?’ He didn’t answer, knowing full well that she was simply playing for time and hoping he’d let her off the hook. But why would he? Her stuck on a hook, out of his way, would suit him very nicely. ‘Very well,’ she said, when she could delay no longer, ‘I think you should move.’
‘What?’
Well, that had certainly got his attention. ‘Historically I’m sure all this is totally fascinating. A restoration project might even make good television. But only a historian would consider living with the result.’
‘But Louise was—’
‘I know. She was an architectural historian. But you’re not. You’re a man of your time. You understand that when your silk merchant decorated this room in 1783 he was showing off. Big time. Using the latest style, the most expensive decorative techniques to tell the world that he was a man of substance. If Louise had learned anything from her history books she’d have encouraged you to do the same. Life moves on, Niall. You can’t live in a museum.’
‘That’s your considered opinion, is it? Get in a firm of decorators and leave them to it?’
‘No.’ Oh, she could see the possibilities. It was a house made for a big family, to be lived in from attic to basement. A wonderful home. But even with the dust swept away and the walls repainted it wouldn’t be the home for a brooding widower who was stuck in a rut that was getting deeper with every passing year. ‘My considered opinion is that you should buy yourself a light, airy loft-apartment overlooking the river and move on.’ His expression suggested she didn’t know what she was talking about. He was wrong. ‘You bought this house for Louise because you loved her and because it was in your power to make her dream come true. But you were way off track when you said she’d give you hell for not finishing what she’d started.’
‘Is that it?’ His jaw tightened as he held back the things he wanted to say to her. Mostly, Romana suspected, along the lines that she didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. ‘Have you quite finished?’
‘No, I haven’t.’ Not by a country mile. ‘You’re a businessman, Niall, not a historian. What Louise would give you hell for is staying here and ignoring your own natural instincts to capitalise on your assets. This is an upwardly mobile area—you’d make a good return on your investment.’
‘Well, thanks for reminding me that I’m a banker, with a profit margin where my heart should be—’
But nothing was going to stop her now. ‘You said it,’ she reminded him. Then, ‘What is worse, Niall, what would make Louise really unhappy, is that you’re doing nothing. You’re not living in this house; you’re not restoring it. You’re just letting it grow cold around you while you grieve.’ Then she drew in a shaky breath. ‘Now I’m finished.’ And she moved her shoulders in what might have been a shrug. ‘You did ask.’
‘So I did.’
‘And?’
‘And I think now might be a good time to try that drink.’
Romana followed Niall into the kitchen. There were papers and envelopes scattered over the table, and he quickly swept them up into a box which he dumped on the floor by the dresser. She put a lid on her curiosity and crossed to the sink, where she filled the kettle.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Making a drink. That’s what you wanted. Tea or coffee?’ she enquired. ‘Since you’ve offered to drive me home.’
‘I said I’d take you home, not that I’d drive you.’ And he took a bottle of brandy and a couple of glasses from the dresser. ‘So, now you’ve dissected my character and put my life to rights, why don’t you take your coat off, draw up a chair and tell me what makes Romana Claibourne run. Why she does things that scare her rigid. Why she’s not tucked up in bed right now with some man who adores her.’
He’d bared his soul to her and now it was her turn? She responded by opening the fridge door. ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.
‘Isn’t that my line?’
‘Not exclusively. And I’d rath
er have a glass of wine than brandy. If there’s a choice. If not, I’ll stick with tea.’ She checked the sell-by date on a box of eggs that had been bought in the food hall at C&F. ‘At least you’re not above shopping for food,’ she remarked, adding a block of cheese and a bag of ready-washed salad to her food cache and putting them on the kitchen table.
‘I have a standing order delivered weekly.’
Romana slipped off her jacket and hung it over a chair. ‘You have your groceries delivered?’
‘I work long hours,’ he said, returning the brandy to the dresser and opened the door to a pantry lined with wine racks. ‘Especially when I’m running a bank and shadowing you. Red or white?’
‘White, please.’ Romana worked her way around the kitchen, opening cupboard doors until she found a basin and an omelette pan, while he peeled the foil from the neck of the bottle. ‘Have you got a grater?’ she asked.
‘Probably.’
When he didn’t elaborate, she said, ‘Can you give me a clue as to its likely whereabouts? And I could do with a whisk.’
‘I’ve no idea where the grater is, but the whisk is in the toolshed. I used it to stir some paint.’
‘Paint?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Paint?’ she repeated. ‘When?’
‘Not recently,’ he admitted, pulling the cork. ‘But you don’t need a whisk to make an omelette. A fork will do the job more than adequately. You’ll find one in that drawer over there.’
About to tell him what he could do with his fork and his omelette, she belatedly caught the glint of challenge in his grey eyes. Wind her up and watch her go. Her sisters had used to do that all the time, until she’d realised it was no fun for them if she didn’t erupt on cue. But something about Niall Macaulay had got beneath her carefully established guard.
‘Thank you,’ she said, refusing to perform.
‘Tell me,’ he continued, pouring the wine as she cracked the eggs with more force than was absolutely necessary, ‘what is it like to be the youngest of three, each with a different mother? How did you get on as children?’