by Liz Fielding
‘Quite possibly.’
‘You’re angry with me for stowing away in your car.’
‘No. With myself. I should have locked it.’
‘Why would you do that? It was perfectly safe.’
‘No doubt. From thieves.’
Definitely angry. She was going to have to try harder. ‘How did you know I was there?’ she asked, as they pulled away from the lay-by. ‘What gave me away?’ He glanced at her. ‘I wouldn’t want to make the same mistake again.’
‘You do this often?’ He shook his head, not wanting to hear her answer. ‘It was your scent.’
Chanel.
He’d saved every penny he had earned on his paper round to buy his mother a bottle for her birthday and still remembered her face as she had opened the wrapping, seen the tiny white box with its black edging.
He’d never been quite sure whether the tear she had blinked back had betrayed pleasure, or frustration that he had spent so much money on something so utterly frivolous. Perhaps it had been a little of both. But she had unstoppered the bottle and dabbed a little of the precious liquid behind her ears so that the room had been filled with that distilled essence of femininity. And then she had smiled and he had known it was all right.
Emerald’s scent had been masked initially by the sun-warmed roses of Honeybourne Park, lavender, no doubt stirred up as she jumped into the thick hedge of it beneath the drainpipe and the leather interior of the car but, when he had finally caught a breath of it, it had been unmistakable, the memory of it imprinted on his memory.
‘My scent? Oh, lord, I didn’t think of that. I wouldn’t be any use as a spy would I?’
She didn’t wait for him to answer, but casually retrieving her stockings from her bra she kicked off her shoes and stretching out one long leg began to slowly draw the fine nylon up to her thigh, apparently oblivious of the effect this performance was having on Brodie. Or perhaps she wasn’t. He glanced briefly across at her, then kept his eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead.
Emmy, smoothing the stockings into place, continued, ‘Actually, I am rather pleased you noticed me, Brodie. I wasn’t going to embarrass you by declaring my presence, but I did want to thank you for not saying anything back there.’ She looked up and gave him another of those incandescent smiles. ‘When I was hanging from the drainpipe,’ she added, in case he wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
‘I should have,’ he said, rather hoarsely.
‘Oh, no. You were an absolute brick. It’s so rare one meets a real knight errant these days.’
‘I’m no knight errant,’ he warned.
‘Don’t underestimate yourself. But it’s a pity Pa asked you to sort out Kit. I was sure he’d get Hollingworth to do the dirty deed.’
‘I wasn’t his first choice,’ he assured her. ‘Unfortunately Hollingworth is in Scotland decimating the grouse population, along with choices two, three and four.’
‘Bother.’
‘I said much the same thing,’ he said, dryly.
‘I’d forgotten the Glorious Twelfth.’
He glanced at her. ‘It won’t work, you know.’
‘Work?’
Innocence personified. ‘I may have turned my back when you shinned down the drainpipe, Miss Carlisle, and you’ve managed to hijack a lift to London, but first thing in the morning I shall carry out your father’s instructions.’
‘Not first thing in the morning.’
‘I can assure you, I’m an early riser.’ And this was one job he wanted over and done with.
‘Maybe, but if you want to talk to Kit first thing in the morning you’re going to have to drive all night. He’s in France.’
He threw her a startled glance. ‘France?’
‘He left last week.’
‘Where in France?’ Brodie demanded.
‘Why don’t we pull in here and we can talk about it over dinner.’
He glanced at the cheerful, twenty-four café, scarcely crediting that she was serious. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘No. This place serves breakfast all day and that’s my favourite meal.’ Then she grinned at him. ‘We’re not in London, Brodie. It’s rather late for the more conventional restaurants in this part of the world. Anyone who arrives much after nine is likely to get seriously scowled at.’
Brodie doubted that anyone had scowled at Emerald Carlisle in a very long time, if ever. Except perhaps her father. He was beginning to have a guilty twinge of sympathy for the man. If he had locked her up it was quite possible that he had good cause. Clearly, she was capable of behaving in an entirely irresponsible manner and if he was not exactly conspiring with her, he was certainly an accessory to her bolt for freedom.
Determined to put a stop to any impression that he was prepared to help her any further, he forced his face into its sternest expression and turned to her.
He was confronted by Emmy Carlisle, her eyes pleading beneath the most fetchingly arched brows, her mouth suddenly uncertain, her curls tousled about her cheeks…
What colour was her hair? When he had seen her hanging from that wretched drainpipe the twilight had leached away the colour. Suddenly he had to know. He reached up and switched on the light. Red. Not auburn. Not chestnut. Nothing muted or understated, but brilliant coppery curls that glowed around her head like a halo against her shadowy face.
‘Red. Of course—’ What else?
‘Grey—’ Emmy said. ‘I knew they would be.’
There was a long moment of silence.
‘You’ve scratched your neck,’ Brodie said, finally.
‘It must have been the rose. When I was looking for my shoes,’ she said, lifting her fingers to feel for the damage as Brodie released his seat belt to reach for the glove compartment and his first aid kit.
There was a moment of confusion as they became entangled and the smooth skin of her arm, ripened to a delicate apricot by the long hot summer, momentarily entwined with his, a bewitching contrast to the dark grey of his jacket. And as he turned to extricate himself, her face was just below his, her eyes shaded by long silky lashes, her lips softly parted over small, very white teeth. There was a split second, an immeasurably brief moment when every cell in his body urged him to kiss her. When he knew she was waiting for him to kiss her.
Somehow he managed to resist the temptation.
He hadn’t come this far, travelling light-years from his working class roots in the Midlands, to throw everything away on a moment of madness. Besides, the idea that she wanted him to kiss her was ridiculous. She was on the way to her wedding. It might be his job to stop it…
‘What was grey?’ he asked, his voice catching slightly.
‘Your eyes.’ She opened hers wide. They were hazel, a bewitching green flecked with tiny strands of amber and gold. ‘I wondered.’
He turned away quickly, retrieved the first-aid kit from the glove compartment with fingers that were not quite as steady as they might have been and flipped it open. ‘Here,’ he said, tearing open a small pouch containing an antiseptic wipe and handing it to her. ‘You’d better clean that scratch.’
Emmy let her head fall back, exposing her neck. ‘Will you do it for me? Please, Brodie? I won’t be able to see what I’m doing.’
Idiot. He should have given her the pouch and pointed her in the direction of the café’s cloakroom. Instead he turned her chin slightly, aware of the soft warmth of her skin beneath his fingers as he dabbed at the scratch that jagged vividly across her long neck, grateful for the sharp tang of antiseptic blotting out her scent, clearing his head. Roses smelt sweet and their petals were like velvet, but they had thorns, too, he reminded himself. She might be an English rose, but Emerald Carlisle was trouble. With a capital T.
As he dabbed at her neck she drew in a sharp breath, flinched slightly. ‘Did that hurt?’ he asked.
Emmy had the fleeting impression that he hoped it was hurting like hell. Well it was, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Besides, it proved that he wasn’
t quite as immune to her charms as his straight face would have her believe.
‘It was cold. It took my breath away for a moment, that’s all.’ If she was honest with herself, she had been feeling decidedly breathless ever since Brodie had turned on the light and looked at her with those slate-dark eyes. And a moment ago, when she had been sure that he was going to kiss her, her entire heart had momentarily stopped in its tracks. Now it was trying to make up for lost time.
She wondered what had stopped him. Then she blinked. Was she quite mad? Had she quite forgotten about Kit? Having Brodie fall in love with her was one thing. Encouraging him to make love to her was something else entirely.
‘That’s fine now,’ she said, with determined briskness, raking her fingers through her hair in an attempt to make it look tidy.
Brodie considered offering her his comb, but decided he rather liked her hair the way it was. But he couldn’t resist the smallest dig. ‘Don’t you have a comb secreted somewhere about your person?’ he asked, his gaze lingering momentarily on the point where the scooped neck of her dress dipped down over her breasts. ‘How disappointing.’
This veiled reference to the way she had stored her stockings, the display she had made of herself putting them on, a suggestion that he knew exactly what she had been up to, brought colour flooding to Emmy’s cheeks. She could hardly believe it. A blush. It was impossible. She hadn’t blushed since she was six years old. ‘I have,’ she fibbed. ‘But I’m too modest to retrieve it.’
‘Liar.’
‘Are you suggesting that I’m not modest, or that I haven’t got a comb, Brodie?’
‘Both.’
Emmy regarded Tom Brodie thoughtfully. A minute earlier he had been eating out of her hand and she had been sure that everything was going to be all right. Suddenly she wasn’t so certain. It would be a mistake to underestimate him.
‘Come on,’ she said, opening the car door. ‘I’m starving.’
The cheerful comfort food was quickly produced by a motherly waitress wearing a badge inviting them to call her Betty and promising that she would do everything she could to make their day a happy one.
Emmy tucked into a pile of bacon and scrambled eggs. Brodie, feeling overdressed in the informal atmosphere of the café took off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair, loosened his tie, then attacked his own more conventional lamb cutlet with equal enthusiasm.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve caused you a lot of bother, Brodie,’ Emmy said when she had finished. She propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands so that her long slender fingers formed a frame for her face. Her nose, he decided, had just the right number of tiny pale freckles. As if it had been lightly dusted with gold. ‘But I really couldn’t allow Pa to get away with locking me up in the nursery like a naughty child, could I?’
Freckles? Gold dust?
Brodie made a serious effort to pull himself together. ‘He does appear to have left it rather late. Maybe if he had put you over his knee when you were little you wouldn’t be such a pain in the backside now.’
She pulled a face. ‘I’m twenty-three next month. That’s old enough to make decisions for myself wouldn’t you say?’
‘Under normal circumstances,’ he said, carefully. ‘Unfortunately your money makes things anything but normal.’
‘My money,’ she said, with disgust. ‘Everything comes back to that. It’s positively indecent that any one person should have so much. I wanted give it away the minute I reached twenty-one, but Hollingworth wouldn’t hear of it.’
Brodie might agree with the sentiment but he knew better than to say so. Gerald Carlisle’s anxiety about his daughter appeared to be well founded. ‘Maybe Mr Hollingworth thinks you’d regret it,’ he offered, non-committally. ‘Later.’
‘Hollingworth.’ She said the name with disgust. ‘He treats me like a two-year old. He actually lectures me if I spend more than my allowance.’
‘Does he?’
‘It’s my money,’ she declared. ‘You’d think I could do what I wanted with it.’
Brodie, refusing to be drawn into a discussion, poured a second cup of coffee. Anything rather than meet those eyes — all flashing indignation he had no doubt. Anything rather than dwell on the thought of James Hollingworth reading Emmy Carlisle the riot act over a spending spree. He was having enough trouble keeping his face straight as it was.
‘He’s just doing his job.’
‘Will you do yours with the same dedication?’
He finally gathered himself sufficiently to meet her gaze. ‘If you mean will I try and persuade Kit Fairfax that marrying you is not in his best interests, I’m afraid the answer is yes.’
‘There isn’t anything I can do to dissuade you?’
‘Why would you want to? If he loves you nothing I say will have the power to change his mind.’
Emmy didn’t bother to answer. Why on earth had Hollingworth had to go away this week? The man might be an old stick-in-the-mud, but he was two-dimensional in his thinking and absolutely predictable. It would never occur to him to doubt her sincerity, but after only a few minutes in Brodie’s company she sensed that he was quite different. She simply had to get to Kit before he did.
‘Tell me about Fairfax,’ he invited.
Emmy regarded him suspiciously. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘He came into Astons for a valuation.’
‘The auction house?’
‘Mmmm. I work there.’
It hadn’t occurred to Brodie that Emerald Carlisle might actually have a job. ‘Was he buying, or selling?’ he asked.
‘The lease on his studio runs out soon and he needed…’ Too late she saw the trap he’d laid. ‘It’s not easy getting a loan when you’re an artist,’ she said, defensively.
‘That depends on how successful you are.’
‘He’s very talented. He will be successful. But for the moment …’ She shrugged.
‘I can see that it might be difficult.’ He could also see why he might be keen to latch onto a gullible heiress. ‘And was it love at first sight?’
There was the merest hesitation before she said, ‘What else?’
Brodie glanced at the modest engagement ring she was wearing. It was oddly touching. ‘And now he’s in France waiting for you to join him. Are you going to tell me where?’
She gave a little sigh. ‘I’ve already told you far too much.’
He wasn’t convinced by the sigh, but he didn’t press her for an answer. Instead he finished his coffee and excused himself. He didn’t want Emmy to know he was making a call.
He punched in the number. ‘Mark Reed Investigations.’ The response was laconic.
‘Mark, Tom Brodie. I understand you’ve been investigating Kit Fairfax for Gerald Carlisle.’
‘What if I have?’
‘I’ve been told he’s in France. Would you have any idea where?’
‘Not a clue. I was just asked to look into his finances when Miss Carlisle started to take an interest in him.’
‘You didn’t turn up any French connection? Has he got friends there for instance, someone he might be staying with for a while? Somewhere he might be waiting for her to join him?’
‘I wasn’t looking, but I can you that he hasn’t got the money to keep a place of his own.’ There was a momentary pause. ‘You could try looking at it from the opposite direction. I imagine Miss Carlisle has any number of friends with converted farmhouses in the Dordogne, or Provence where they might get together?’
Brodie stifled a groan. ‘Just see what you can dig up will you? Maybe he left a number with a neighbour in case of emergencies.’
‘Maybe, although I wouldn’t have put him down as the kind of man to worry much about emergencies. He’s a bit laid back.’
‘Do what you can.’ He momentarily considered calling Gerald Carlisle. It didn’t take much imagination to guess the state the man was in. He decided against it. Eme
rald Carlisle, he had been told, was not his problem. Well, once he had dropped her off at her apartment, she wouldn’t be.
When he returned to their table Emmy had gone to powder her nose. He settled the bill, glanced at his watch, calculating the length of time it would take them to get to London, mentally rescheduling his appointments for the next couple of days while he tracked down Kit Fairfax.
‘Everything all right, sir?’ Betty was clearing their table.
‘Yes, fine, thank you. At least…’ He glanced at his watch again. Emmy was taking an awfully long time to powder her nose — considering she didn’t have any powder to start with. He felt a sudden lurch of alarm. ‘Would you mind checking the ladies’ cloakroom for me Betty, I’m just a little concerned about my companion.’
‘No problem.’ She was back in thirty seconds, her calm exterior seriously ruffled. ‘The young lady isn’t in the cloakroom, sir. But she left you a message. You’d better come and see for yourself.’
Emmy had written on the long mirror, using green liquid soap. “Thanks, Galahad. I’ll send you an invitation to the wedding.” She’d signed her name with a flourish and added a kiss for good measure.
The window was open, swinging slightly in the warm breeze and he didn’t need to look out at the car park to know what she’d done. A quick check of his jacket confirmed that while he was on the telephone she’d helped herself to his car keys and climbed out of the toilet window.
If she drove with the same dash that she did everything else, she was probably miles away by now. His only hope was that she would be stopped for speeding. He considered calling the local police to report his car had been stolen. A night in jail would certainly slow Miss Carlisle down, he thought grimly.
A nice thought, but he discarded it immediately. It was his responsibility to keep Emerald out of the papers, not hand them a story. Gerald Carlisle would, quite rightly, have a fit if his daughter was hauled before the local magistrate for stealing his solicitor’s car and the press would have a field day. And when Carlisle had finished having a fit about that, he’d want to know exactly what his daughter was doing in Brodie’s car in the first place.