FLASH POINT
Jane Donnelly
He was actually trying to bribe her!
Liam Sherrard really believed that Carly was after his aunt's money. She was incensed when he even offered to recompense her if she'd refuse the old lady's invitation to visit their chateau in Brittany!
"Why?" Carly taunted him. "Are you afraid she might change her will? Name me instead of you?"
Carly was no gold digger. But if Liam Sherrard chose to see her as one--she'd certainly give him a run for his money!
CHAPTER ONE
'Oh, my gosh!' murmured Carly Brown. She was on her knees in the window of the small boutique where she worked, arranging a dress so that it showed to best advantage, when she looked up and saw the old lady looking in with a tear trickling down her cheek. Then a shaking , hand went up to cover her eyes and she seemed to Carly to be swaying.
Carly was out of the window and out of the shop in a flash, asking anxiously, 'Are you all right?'
The old lady must have been strikingly beautiful once. She was still beautiful, but now her pale skin looked paper-thin, and her voice sounded very old and very tired as she whispered, 'I'm sorry, I was just being rather silly.'
'Join the club,' said Carly. 'So am I, most of the time.' She smiled as she spoke, a light hand under the old lady's elbow, and the support of her strong young fingers, or the warmth of her concern, got a faint answering smile. 'Do come in and sit down for a few minutes,' she urged, 'and I'll get you a cup of tea.'
'Oh, I couldn't trouble you. I really am perfectly all right.' The old lady's voice had the crystal clear enunciation of a bygone age and a faint, faint trace of an accent Carly couldn't identify, and she was really smiling now, a composed and sweet smile. But Carly could ' feel her trembling, and said firmly, .'No bother at all. It's this beastly wind, it cuts through you.' There was a sharp east wind today, although it was still summer, and the old lady looked as though her blood was thin.
The shop was empty except for Ruth Clarkson, who owned it and who had been putting the Reductions rail back into size order when Carly shot past her. Carly was a girl who moved fast, given to acting at speed, but that dash had made Ruth jump and stare. She had seen Carly reach the old lady, speak to her, and now she was ushering her into the shop.
She didn't look like a customer, most of their clothes were young styles, and she didn't look well. Ruth got the message from Carly's expression and came to meet them.
'A cup of tea will be no trouble, will it?' said Carly, guiding her companion towards a bamboo armchair with a patchwork cushion, into which she sank down gratefully, murmuring,
'Oh, I am being a nuisance!'
'Not at all,' said Ruth.
'Honestly,' said Carly, 'we were going to have a cup of tea.' She went through to the little office and switched on the electric kettle, and the old lady sat very quiet and still, her hands in kid gloves folded on her lap. 'I thought she was going to faint,' Carly whispered to Ruth, and Ruth whispered back,
'You go and talk to her, I'll see to the tea.'
'What's your name?' the old lady asked.
'Caroline,' said Carly. 'But most people call me Carly.'
'I'm Amy Corby.' She was wearing a navy-blue coat, beautifully cut. Her shoes, gloves and handbag were expensive, and her silver hair was tucked under a navy velour hat. She was probably quite well off, although she could be in reduced circumstances and taking care of her clothes, but Carly felt sorry for her. Not just because she was old. and had felt ill just now, but because she looked so lonely.
Suddenly Carly was convinced that she needed somebody to fuss over her, notice her, talk to her. She could imagine the kind of home she came from. Somewhere that had seen better days, although there would still be good pieces of furniture in it. Perhaps an apartment, or a bedsitter, where Amy Corby lived with her memories.
Carly was usually a fair judge of character. Usually she could sum up people pretty well, and the living-with-memories bit seemed confirmed when the old lady said, 'It was seeing that blouse in the window. Do you know, it's exactly like one I had in my trousseau over sixty years ago.'
She must be talking about the white blouse. It was pretty, square-necked with tiny tucks down the bodice, a classically simple style, but the fine lace-edged cuffs gave it a romantic air. They were floating, four-cornered, not practical hut super for a dinner date so long as you managed to keep them out of the soup.
'We used to call them handkerchief sleeves,' Mrs Corby reminisced with shining eyes, and Carly smiled.
'But that's what they are—two Victorian handkerchiefs. And I thought I'd invented the idea of, turning them into cuffs!'
'Did you make it?'
'Yes, I did—would you like to see it?'
Carly unhitched the blouse from the bamboo screen backing the window display and brought it across, and Mrs Corby gave a little cry of delight. 'Oh, it's exquisite! Beautifully made. Unfortunately it needs a young woman to wear it.' Her voice was wistful. 'But for a moment when I saw it I saw myself again when my throat and my hands were as smooth as yours.'
'I bet you were a smasher,' said Carly, and was rewarded with a gurgle of laughter.
'In my day that meant something rather different, but I was considered passably attractive.'
Carly could imagine her, fine-boned, and fragile, cherished and protected. There weren't many like that in the world today. Carly herself was a girl of the times, tall, slim and strong, with wide-spaced slightly tilted eyes, full soft sensuous mouth and a firm clean jawline. Her hair, caramel-coloured, swung smooth and heavy as she turned to help Ruth, who was bringing in a tray and three tea-filled red enamel mugs.
Warmed by tea and company, Mrs Corby seemed in no hurry to leave. A few customers drifted in. A few bought, others were 'just looking'.
The boutique was making a living but a long way from making a fortune, and unless something fairly miraculous happened soon it would no longer be making anything, not for Ruth nor Carly. The lease was due for renewal and the asking figure could put them out of business.
That would be bad for Carly. She liked working here and living in a house just found the corner where she made her dresses, blouses, skirts, the way she enjoyed making them, with great care.
She was a practical girl, but the garments she fashioned were sheer romance. She designed around old lace, old fabrics, even old buttons or trimmings, and made each piece an individual. Some were elegant, some deliciously pretty, and they sold well. But there was a limit to the number she could turn out, prices had to be kept down to be competitive, and a lot of boutiques were going to the wall. Small shops were having hard times, and Ruth's was no exception.
Closing could be bad for Carly but not catastrophic. She had only herself to support. With health and energy she was pretty sure she would make out, but Ruth was different. Ruth was delicate, kind and sweet with brown velvet eyes, worrying over things that Carly shrugged at and coped with. But with a real worry looming now because if she lost her shop there wasn't much else she could do. Especially with William to consider.
William had just started school. He, had been three years old when his father, Ruth's Jim, was killed on a motorbike; and Ruth had still been in a state of shock when she had first met Carly, sorting through some pieces of crochet in Stratford-on-Avon Oxfam.
The girls chatted. At that time Carly was working on a small collection of clothes that she planned to take around the local boutiques hoping for orders, and when Ruth expressed interest, explaining that she had a shop, Carly promised to be round in the morning with a easeful.
By next morning she had used some of the crochet-work as inserts in a linen wrapover skirt, and Ruth had been impressed.
The first customer had come in while they were putt
ing one of the dresses in the window and Carly had found herself handling the sale. Ruth was a good salesgirl, considerate and anxious to help, but in those days her sadness was unbounded. She had to keep the business going and her small son clothed, washed and fed, when all she really wanted to do was lock herself away and grieve. Her eyes had filled with tears when she had told Carly she was a widow, and it was obvious that the bereavement was recent.
Carly stayed in the shop all day. At that time she was working in the evenings as a waitress in one of the town's hotels, a temporary job, and when Ruth said, 'I suppose you wouldn't consider coming here, would you? I need somebody around, I really do,' Carly agreed.
Afterwards Ruth insisted that bumping into Carly like that, in Oxfam, and turning to say, 'Sorry', had been the saving of her, because she had been drifting on a dark cloud for the previous two months. Relations and friends hadn't been able to give her lasting support, but Carly could handle the customers, and lighten the atmosphere of the little boutique which could easily have gone into a decline with Ruth.
William loved her. He had been a bewildered child in those days, not understanding what had changed his mother's smiling face out of recognition and taken his father away. But Carly came with arms that could lift him high, cuddling him and coaxing smiles from him.
It had been a good friendship. The girls had worked together compatibly for just over two years. For nearly as long as that Carly had shared Ruth's small terraced house, and William had grown into a merry small boy off to a real school, not play-school any more, and feeling very grown-up.
Ruth still missed Jim, but she had started going out on the occasional date, and if it hadn't been for the problem of the lease the future should have been promising.
Ruth might remarry, Carly thought. She would make any man a good wife, and Carly expected her to settle into marriage again some day.
'Never mind about me getting married,' Ruth would say. 'What about you? What's wrong with this one?'
'Not a lot,' Carly often had to admit, because some of the men who were attracted to her were all right--eligible, fanciable. Carly had no difficulty in filling her spare time. She had sex appeal, and something more. Ruth had sex appeal. Ruth was warm and womanly, but in Carly the attraction carried a challenge. There was a glint in her eyes, a style about her that made her stand out from the crowd.
But at nearly twenty-two she was still single and in no hurry at all to change her status . . .
Mrs Corby left, thanking them for the tea, and Carly watched her walking down the street, then turned to Ruth, who was just off to meet William out of school and take him home for his tea. Carly usually finished the afternoon in the shop on her own. 'I hope she'll be all right,' Carly murmured, and Ruth said reassuringly,
'I'm sure she will. She was fine after she'd had a little rest.'
Carly hadn't meant that Mrs Corby was likely to feel dizzy again, she had walked off straight and spry, but where was she going? Carly was convinced she had a lonely room somewhere, a lonely life, and although that was the fate of millions she found herself sighing. Life wasn't fair. There was poor Mrs Corby, and poor Ruth worrying herself sick about the lease.
'See you later,' said Ruth.
'Much later,' said Carly. 'Barney's picking me up from here.'
Barney was in insurance. He ran a Jaguar and enjoyed going around with Carly because she had the same dash and elegance. He lived in some style, to the very limits of his income, and was seriously considering asking her to move in with him.
Carly found him good company. His flat was very modern with a great deal of chrome and black glass, so that sometimes Carly felt she was moving through the showroom of a trendy furniture store. She knew that Barney had had other girl-friends staying there, but he was living alone now and she could read his mind that she looked well with the decor.
He arrived on the dot of six. He always did arrive on the dot, he was a predictable young man. She had had from half-past-five to tidy the, shop, lock up the till, freshen her make-up and change into a matching silk shirt and skirt, crushed raspberry colour. 'Very sexy,' said Barney, and Carly grinned, 'Why, it's just a little thing I ran up out of an old nightie.'
They were eating out tonight, the current in-place where they would meet clients and friends. The wine-lodge had been a boathouse until a few months ago and under the black beams lamps hung low, and outside the river glowed rose pink in the sunset, then cool grey and finally night-dark as the stars came out.
'Why do you keep staring out there?' Barney asked her. He had a nice smile, he was quite good-looking, and most of the time Carly had been looking at him, talking to him and friends. Now she shrugged.
'I don't know. Thinking, of sailing away maybe, paddling off down the river.'
'Don't do that.' He put a hand over her hand on the table and pressed it gently, and she looked at his well-manicured fingers and thought how smooth his hands were. 'Why don't you move into my place?' he said softly. 'I get lonely for you.'
He almost whispered it, his lips so close to her ear that his breath fanned her cheek; and she said,
'I'll need to think about that.'
Barney wasn't flattered. He had hoped she would take up the offer, because it was a poky little house she lived in. They got on well together, he and Carly, so what did she need to think about? He said, 'All right, I suppose.' She knew he was considering whether he should give her a time limit, and told him the truth.
'It wouldn't be fair on you if I moved in, because I don't get lonely for anybody.'
Carly, had never woken in the night and wished she could stretch out and touch him, or for that matter sat down on the sofa in front of the television and thought how much cosier it would be if Barney were there. And now she had hurt his pride and tried to make amends with a smile. 'I think yours is a lovely apartment and thanks for offering me a share of it, but I like to pay my own rent.'
'And you don't get lonely for anybody?' He picked up his brandy glass and looked at her over it. 'Aren't you the liberated lady?'
'Just lucky,' said Carly.
But when he kissed her goodnight in the car, outside Ruth's, he said, 'Think about what I said, about moving in with me.'
'Goodnight.' She slipped out of his arms and the car. 'And thanks again.' She would go out with him again, because she liked him, but she would never go home with him, to stay the night and the nights after.
She had turned her key and was opening the front door when he called through his wound-down window. 'You're a witch.' It was said admiringly, it was a compliment because she did bewitch him, and she laughed and walked into the hall and Ruth asked, with a spurt of laughter, 'What did he just call you?'
Ruth was wearing a nightdress and carrying a mug of hot milk. It was later than her usual bedtime, so she probably hadn't been able to sleep, worrying about the lease, probably. 'A witch,' said Carly. 'At least I think that's what it was.'
'That's all right, then,' said Ruth. 'Have a good time?'
'I ate too much.'
'You'll burn it off,' said Ruth, wistfully because she was plump and put on weight easily while Carly stayed slim. 'He's nice, isn't he?'
'Oh, he is. He's just asked me to move in with him.'
Ruth waited, holding her mug of hot milk with both hands. 'You really like him then?'
'Not enough to want him facing me over the breakfast table every morning.'
Ruth giggled. She was glad Carly wasn't going, the relief made her giggle, 'You don't eat breakfast.'
A cup of black coffee and a piece of toast while Carly dashed around was all there ever seemed time for, and she grimaced, 'No, but I'll bet he does. Eggs and bacon and probably fried bread. Besides, I'm still looking for that millionaire.'
That was one of their jokes, that Carly should find a millionaire to back the business and buy the lease. Sometimes Ruth half believed it might happen—not a millionaire exactly, but Carly discovering some way out. Ruth couldn't imagine Carly defeated, whereas f
ear of failure had always been part of her own makeup. She smiled, shaking her head, 'Well, please hurry up about it. Do you want a drink?'
'Just bed,' said Carly, and yawned, then followed Ruth upstairs to her own small room.
She wasn't tired. She would sleep, but not if she started thinking about Ruth and William and their future. Or her own future. After, midnight was no time to activate the mind. She got into bed and lay thinking drowsy thoughts, like Barney's offer tonight, which needed no consideration because it was a non-starter. She could never live with Barney, she would never want him so constantly close, but of course it wasn't true that she was never lonely. Everybody was lonely. She looked at the patch of starry sky-between the pale drifting curtains and thought of Mrs Corby, and wondered if she slept peacefully and dreamed of happier days, and wished she had asked for her address. Tomorrow she would check local phone numbers and if she could track Mrs Corby she would invite her 'round here one evening, or perhaps to Sunday tea . . .
Ruth said why not, when Carly mentioned her plan next morning. 'You really took to that old lady, didn't you?'
'Yes, I did.' The shop was empty, Carly was sitting at the big desk in the little office sketching waistcoats and shirts that could incorporate some attractive braid motifs. 'Maybe I always wanted a grandmother.'
Ruth could remember her own grandparents and mother, although only her father was living now, but Carly was orphanage reared with no family at all. It hadn't seemed to bother her. She made friends easily, and Ruth and William were as close as a family. She had never shown any urge to 'adopt' a grandmother before, but something about Mrs Corby—spirit? courage?—had struck a chord of sympathy in her, and she really wanted to see the old lady again.
As it turned out she didn't need to do any detective work, because Mrs Corby came back. They had just opened after lunch when she strolled into the shop, and Carly greeted her with a wide smile, 'Hello!'
'I haven't come for more tea,' her smile was mischievous, 'but I lost a glove yesterday and I wondered if perhaps --'
Flash Point Page 1