by Penny Jordan
'You look about sixteen when you do that,' he told her.
Immediately she flushed. She knew she looked young for her age, that she did not possess the sophisticated gloss of a woman like Rosamund. Howard had often urged her to buy clothes that made her look older, and she had always stoutly defended her right to wear what she felt comfortable in, but all at once she felt very vulnerable and immature.
'I was thinking,' Drew told her as he turned the Range Rover into the farmyard, 'it isn't just my home that could do with revamping, with a woman's touch. It's me, as well.'
Holly stared at him, and saw a thin tinge of red darken his skin. He was embarrassed about asking for her help. Immediately her heart went out to him.
'You look fine in what you're wearing tonight,' she assured him.
'Yes, but if it hadn't been for you I'd have gone out in green socks,' he pointed out to her humorously. 'Do you think you could take me in hand a little, Holly? Turn me into the sort of man who would appeal to a woman?'
Holly didn't know what to say. She wanted to reassure him that he already had all the qualities any woman of sense could want, but to do so would be to insult Rosamund, and it was her that he loved.
The Rosamunds of this world liked men as strikingly socially confident as they were themselves. Men like Howard, who spent a fortune on their clothes and enjoyed dressing the part they had cast for themselves. Not men like Drew, who cheerfully wore ancient jeans and old shirts.
'You mean, help you choose new clothes?' she asked hesitantly.
'Yes, that sort of thing. Give me a few tips on the kind of things women like in a man.'
'It will be expensive,' she told him shyly, nibbling on her bottom lip, and adding, 'I know that things haven't been easy for you, Drew. Moneywise, I mean.'
To her amusement, he laughed. 'Times change, Holly. I think I can afford to buy a few new clothes. When shall we start? I've got a free afternoon on Monday. We could go to Chester.'
'That sounds fine. I'll have to check with Jan, though, first, and make sure I can have the time off. Drew, do you mind that people will think…well, that we're lovers?' she asked hesitantly.
'Do you?' he countered abruptly.
She shook her head, surprised to discover that it was true.
'It could get back to your parents' ears,' he warned her.
'They'll understand when I explain to them.' She stifled another yawn.
'Come on,' Drew told her. 'It's time you were in bed.'
'You must be tired too…'
'Yes,' he agreed bleakly, and, watching the expression darken his eyes, Holly felt her heart contract with pity for him. This must be so much worse for him than it was for her. Men had their pride, after all; and he would have to go on living here in the same vicinity as Howard and Rosamund, while she could escape back to London and her job.
She caught herself up. What was she thinking? The whole purpose of her staying here, of their plan, was to make sure that Howard and Rosamund didn't marry.
Holly woke up on Sunday morning with a horrid feeling of foreboding. And then she remembered the engagement party!
She sat up bolt upright in bed. She must have been mad to suggest to Drew that they pretend to have fallen in love in order to make Rosamund and Howard jealous. And Howard hadn't even believed her!
It said a great deal for how desperately in love with Rosamund Drew must be to even have considered going along with her suggestion, never mind carrying it out with such aplomb. Far more aplomb, in fact, than she had ever visualised.
Rosamund had been jealous. There had been no doubt about that. Well, she had never liked Holly, even when they were at school together. She had come from the wealthiest family in the village, and yet Holly could vividly remember one Christmas being given a much-coveted set of oil paints. Only six of them, because they were very expensive, but within a week Rosamund, who barely knew one end of a paintbrush from another, had arrived at school with twice as many paints as Holly and she had lost no time in showing them off to her small coterie of friends. As a girl she had never been able to endure someone having something she did not, and it seemed that she hadn't changed—right down to resenting someone being with her cast-off boyfriend. But would her jealousy be sufficient to make her turn from Howard back to Drew?
He must want her back desperately indeed if he was prepared to solicit her own help in revamping his image, Holly reflected.
The thought made her feel unaccountably depressed, and she was still sitting up in bed dwelling on it when Drew knocked on her door and called out cheerily, 'I hope you're awake now, sleepyhead.'
He had walked in before Holly could ask him not to, and as she dived for the protection of the bedclothes she saw him looking very amused.
'What's wrong?' he demanded, his grin widening as he studied her indignant expression. 'Don't tell me you sleep in the nude?'
She didn't, and common sense told her that there was nothing remotely revealing about her serviceable cotton nightshirt, and that her modesty was both unnecessary and idiotic, but for some reason it touched a tiny sore place within her that Drew should find it unlikely that she was the kind of sensuously aware woman who enjoyed the eroticism of sleeping with her body bare.
'I've brought you a cup of coffee,' he added, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge of it, putting the mug on the bedside-table. 'Sleep all right?' he queried. 'You were certainly dead to the world when I looked in on you earlier.'
'Earlier!' Holly looked at her watch and protested, 'It's only just gone nine now. What time did you get up?'
'Six,' Drew told her wryly. 'Sunday is the cowman's day off, and I do the milking. Not that we keep a large dairy herd these days. Fortunately I could see where things were heading with the milk quotas, and I switched over to beef and breeding at the right time.'
Forgetting her undressed state, Holly sat up, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging her arms round them, asking eagerly, 'What made you do that? Cheshire has always been a milk-producing county…'
'Oh, this and that. A bit of listening and a lot of reading, and a small helping of intuition.'
'And that's why you have the bull. For stock breeding.'
'Yes. I'll show you some of his offspring later. That is… if you're going to stay.'
'Well, I'll have to check with Jan.' She bent her head, so that her hair swung forward, concealing her voice, her voice slightly muffled as she said hesitantly, 'Drew, what I said last night about making Rosamund and Howard jealous… do you really think it can work?'
He was quiet for so long that she thought he wasn't going to reply, so the sudden shock of his fingers, brushing her hair back off her face and tilting her chin so that he could look at her, caught her off guard.
She wasn't used to being touched, she recognised, as her heart started to thud and her nerve-endings relayed to her brain the pleasurable sensation of having Drew's work-roughened fingers lightly touching the softness of her skin. Howard had never touched her unless it was a prelude to kissing her, and over these last months there hadn't even been that… just a very few brief, dry kisses, given on his arrival and departure. She, fool that she was, had never even had the wit to recognise his dying sexual interest in her for what it was.
Not, now that she came to think of it, that he had ever evinced much desire for her at all. Her throat suddenly dry, she asked impulsively, 'Drew, if you loved someone, and they didn't want to make love, what would you do?'
It had suddenly struck her that there was something very ominous about the fact that Howard had never once suggested a more intimate physical relationship.
Even with her lashes lowered, she could feel the penetrating heat of Drew's gaze.
'Well,' he said evenly, 'that would depend. First I'd want to know why she was reluctant to make love. If it was because she didn't desire me, then I think I'd admit defeat and the relationship would end. However, if I thought it was because she was inexperienced, or uncertain—why, then I think I'd
probably try to show her that there was nothing to fear.'
'You wouldn't just… not do anything, then?' Holly asked him.
'I shouldn't think so. Do you still want me to answer your first question?'
A strange tension seemed to have filled the room, but his prosaic words banished it. Holly drew a faintly shaky breath. Why was it that every word Drew said only seemed to confirm her own growing fear that Howard had never really loved her at all?
He must have read something of what she was thinking in her face because he released her abruptly and said tersely, 'Neston must be mad. Don't give up, Holly.'
'No. No, I won't,' she agreed. 'After all, they aren't married yet, are they? Oh, Drew, you're encouraging me to be selfish,' she exclaimed remorsefully when he went quiet. 'Here I am moaning on about my feelings, and it's just as bad for you. You must have hated seeing them together last night.'
'It's always painful loving someone who loves someone else,' he agreed. He got up off the bed. 'I've got a few things to do. Why don't you get up, make that phone call to your boss, and then I'll take you out somewhere for lunch?'
'I thought farmers were far too busy to go out for lunch.'
'Normally we are, but we managed to get the harvest in early, and the autumn ploughing is well under way. Where do you fancy going? They've done up a couple of the local pubs and they serve pretty good lunches, or we could go into Chester and try for the Grosvenor. I'd take you to Rookery Hall, but we'd need to book well in advance.'
'A pub sounds just fine,' Holly told him. 'Or if you like we could stay here. You don't have to entertain me, Drew. After all, I have rather inflicted myself on you.'
To her astonishment he leaned down and kissed her lightly on her mouth.
'What was that for?' she asked him.
'Just for being you,' he told her, tugging gently on her hair.
He had kissed her as he might have done a favourite young cousin, she reflected after he had gone, and she couldn't quite help wondering how he kissed Rosamund. She suspected that well-shaped mouth could do devastating things to a woman's self-control, and then wondered a little sadly why it was that no man ever seemed remotely tempted to kiss her with the passion she had once naïvely assumed she would share with Howard, once they were married.
CHAPTER FOUR
« ^ »
Holly rang Jan from Drew's office, a comfortable, shabby room which was down a passage that led into the yard.
'Hang on a minute,' Jan demanded, when she had given her a breathless account of all that had happened. 'I've only been up for half an hour, Holly, and I'm not quite capable of grasping all that lot in one go. Explain properly.'
And so she did, hesitating a little as she got to the point where she had suggested to Drew that they pretend to be lovers.
'And he agreed?' Jan said doubtfully.
'Well, he's desperately in love with Rosamund,' Holly told her quickly. 'He wants me to stay on, Jan. And I'd like to. I've got plenty of holidays due to me. He's even got a commission for me.'
She went on to explain to Jan about the kitchen.
'Well, I must admit all this rather ties in with something Luke and I were discussing the other night. I'm thinking—only thinking, mind—of starting up an outlet in the north, Holly, and what I have in mind is for you to take charge of it for me. It would involve a lot of work. You'd have to canvass around to find the right spot, and then there'd be discussions with the bank and our accountants. If you like, while you are going to spend some time up there, you could start looking around, get a feel for the market. Of course, we'd make you a partner in the business, and we'd talk about splitting the profits of the new outlet, but first I need to know if you're interested.'
'Interested? Jan, I'm stunned! I'm not a designer.'
'Maybe not, but you're very good with people, Holly, and the clients like you, which is important. They find you simpatico and they're not afraid to tell you what they want, which makes them come back, rather than simply smiling and saying it's wonderful, when in truth they hate what we've done. Look, don't make any decision right now. Have a think about it while you're up there. I can easily spare you for a month.' She hesitated and then warned doubtfully, 'Don't set too much store on this plan of yours, will you, love?'
'You mean, you don't think I'll get Howard back,' Holly interrupted her in a quiet voice.
'Oh, Holly, I know you think you love him, but believe me, you're better off without him. Tell me more about this Drew,' Jan pressed her curiously.
Holly did, and at such length that when Jan came off the telephone she was grinning to herself.
'What was that all about?' Luke demanded, coming into the room in time to catch the tail-end of the phone call and his wife's expression.
'Nothing much. Holly wants to take up her holiday allocation. I've had a word with her about the new outlet and asked her to have a canvass round.'
'And that makes you grin like a Cheshire cat?'
'No,' Jan told him, but refused to be drawn any further.
'Did you manage to get through to your boss?' Drew asked half an hour later, walking into the kitchen and bending to remove his muddy Wellingtons.
'Yes. She's quite happy for me to stay. And guess what?'
Quickly she explained to him Jan's proposition, wondering why it was that she found it so much easier to talk to Drew than she ever had to Howard. Howard had found her job boring and had made no attempt to pretend otherwise, cutting her off when she talked about it so that he could instead talk about his own business life. Sometimes she had felt almost resentful because she enjoyed her work, and Howard's lack of interest in it detracted from her own sense of self-satisfaction in what she did.
Drew, on the other hand, seemed gratifyingly interested, even coming up with one or two suggestions as to where a good outlet might be.
'Chester is the obvious choice, but it's very pricey. There's Knutsford, of course—and then Nantwich.'
'Nantwich?'
'Mmm. I'll have to see if I can arrange some time off, and I'll drive you round, if you like.'
'Oh, Drew, would you?'
'Why not? After all, it will all help to reinforce the image, won't it?'
'The image?'
'Of the pair of us as inseparable lovers.'
'Oh, yes.' Holly was mortified to discover that in her excitement she had almost forgotten about that.
They were still talking about Jan's proposed new venture and Holly's role in it when they set out for lunch an hour later.
Holly was wearing a new skirt of tartan, with a toning sweater in the same dark blues and greens of the skirt, and over it an acid-yellow jacket which picked out the acid yellow line of the tartan.
It suited her, and had been an expensive buy, at least as far as she was concerned, and bought on impulse, even though she had known that Howard wouldn't like it.
Drew did, though, his complimentary praise bringing a happy glow to her cheeks.
Like her, he was casually dressed, but in a way that made her all too well aware of what he meant when he said that he needed a woman's advice and help.
There was nothing specially wrong with the beige cords, other than the fact that they didn't do justice to his physique; mainly, Holly suspected, because they had been designed for someone far more generously proportioned around the hips than Drew, and she wondered rather wistfully what he would look like in a pair of well-cut, stone-washed jeans,
As though the cords weren't bad enough, he had chosen to wear with them a garish checked shirt in red and green, and over it a blue sweater.
She thought of Howard's carefully chosen separates and immaculately tailored suits and made herself vow that, in appearance at least, Drew would be able to rival Howard before she was finished with him.
She would need more clothes herself in view of the length of her stay. Jan had a spare key for her flat and had promised to send some things on to her, but in the meantime it might be as well if she bought a new pair of jean
s. She could wear them while she was working on Drew's kitchen.
She hadn't checked with him yet what kind of colour scheme he had in mind, and when she mentioned this he shrugged his shoulders and said indifferently, 'I'll leave that up to you.'
'But, Drew, presumably you designed the kitchen for Rosamund. Does she have a favourite colour?'
He took his attention off the road and looked at her. 'Baby pink,' he told her flatly, 'and if you dare to paint my kitchen that colour, I shall wring your neck.'
Holly could only agree with him, but she was surprised at his attitude. She had rather gained the impression that if Rosamund had wanted the kitchen painted all the colours of the rainbow, he would have been delighted to oblige her.
'Yellow would be pretty and fresh—with just a hint of blue…perhaps in the stencilling. Or I could simply lime the oak and leave it as it is. That would be more austere, but very effective.'
'Do something that you would like if it was your own kitchen,' Drew told her.
'But you might not like it,' she protested.
He turned his head and smiled at her. 'Just as long as it isn't baby pink, I'll like it,' he assured her.
The pub was obviously a popular venue for people to gather for either lunch or a drink. Jane and Guy were standing in the bar when Drew ushered her in. She liked the way he kept her close to his side, she reflected as she fell back, slightly awed by the busy press of people. It made her feel safe and protected. Jane waved to her, and called them over.
'Everyone's all agog over the news about you and Drew,' she told Holly cheerfully while Drew went to the bar. 'You've caused quite a bombshell. Oh, heavens, here's Rosamund and Howard. That's odd. Rosy doesn't normally come slumming here. Rookery Hall or the Grosvenor is more her scene. Are you two lunching?'