Persuade Me

by Juliet Archer

  She slipped off her jacket and hung it on the back of the chair opposite him.

  ‘It would look odd if I sat somewhere else,’ she said, in that low, husky voice. ‘Odd to Mona and Charles, I mean – although somehow I don’t think they’ll be down for a while.’ A pause. ‘Is anything the matter?’

  With an effort, he switched his stare from her to the window beside him; in the distance, sea and sky were one, a soft blur as grey as her eyes …

  He made an attempt at normal conversation. ‘Didn’t you get wet out there?’

  ‘The rain’s only just started.’ Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the graceful turn of her neck as she followed his gaze. She went on, ‘No view now. An hour ago, it was spectacular.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘They should change the name of this place, then. How about the Occasional Cobb View Hotel?’

  She grinned. ‘Or the Cobb View If You’re Lucky?’

  He laughed, and their eyes met. In a sudden slip of time, he was back on the boat with her, off the coast of France. A rush of tenderness, the words on the tip of his tongue – Remember that view, the morning after our first night together? He took a deep breath, readied himself to speak–

  But then his full English arrived and, sensing the need for self-preservation, he launched himself into a flurry of activity. Straightened his cutlery, removed the newspaper, almost sent the orchids flying. The waitress fussed over him, bringing extra marmalade that he didn’t want, before taking Anna’s order.

  By the time they were alone again, the moment for intimate reminiscences had passed.

  Instead, he asked another question – one of several that had been playing on his mind for the past six days. ‘I heard you went out with Charles at university – when exactly was that?’

  She gave him a wary look. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  He could hardly say, ‘I’m trying to piece together the sequence of events ten years ago – Charles, your email, my letter.’ Especially if he couldn’t face the answer …

  Dark feelings tightened their grip. Having breakfast with this woman was never meant to be like this, as stiff and soulless as an early-morning business meeting. It was meant to be as it had been on the boat: food as foreplay, an interlude between the fevered intensity of their nights and the slow burn of their afternoons on the sun-drenched deck …

  He twisted his mouth into a smile and answered her question. ‘Just look at the poor sod. He must have been your ex for almost as long as I have, but he still can’t handle it. Do you think I should give him lessons?’

  Silence, taut as a wire between them, while the waitress returned with Anna’s tea and toast. When she’d gone, Anna poured her tea and sipped it, eyes cool and reproachful over the rim of her cup. Even without that, he felt a complete bastard; hardly the thoughtful, kind man she’d said she was looking for last night – but why the hell should he care?

  Except he did care; he just wasn’t sure how much.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he heard himself mutter, ‘I don’t know what got into me.’

  She avoided his gaze and concentrated on cutting her toast into neat halves. ‘What’s important is – it’s been over between Charles and me for years, and he accepts where his responsibilities lie.’

  ‘I believe you,’ he said quietly, ‘although I have to admit …’

  He was about to apologise for his previous suspicions and tell her how fiercely Lou had defended her, when a man came in and sat at the next table. Rick cursed him under his breath and managed to refrain from pointing out that there were twenty other sodding tables to choose from. But then this man looked as if he always did just as he pleased; well-heeled, judging from his clothes, with a face like an impossibly youthful Sir Walter Elliot, smug and smooth and goading you to wipe the smirk off it. Most of all, Rick didn’t care for the way the stranger edged his chair nearer to Anna, at an angle which gave him a better view of her, and stared at her face as if in divine contemplation.

  Anna hadn’t even noticed him. She clattered her cup down on her saucer and glared across the table – eyes dark now, like a storm at sea. One false move and you’d be swept overboard …

  ‘You can “have to admit” whatever you like, but it’s really none of your business, is it?’ Her icy tone made him flinch; but that was nothing compared to what happened next.

  The stranger leaned over, laid his hand reverently on her arm and said, ‘Is this man bothering you, Anna? Just say the word and I’ll have him removed.’

  Anna looked across into concerned blue eyes and felt the colour drain from her face. It was the man from the Cobb – and how on earth did he know her name?

  Forget breakfast – after that little exchange with Rick, she had to get some time to herself and calm down. With a tight-lipped smile, she jumped to her feet and moved out of touching distance. ‘Thanks, it’s fine. I’ve finished here anyway.’ She snatched up her jacket and headed for the door.

  ‘Men!’ she hissed as she crossed Reception, avoiding the beady gaze of Mr Pargeter at the desk. Idiots, most of them. Especially Rick Wentworth – laughing with her one minute, condemning her the next.

  ‘Anna – wait!’

  The stranger again, close behind her.

  She whirled round, made her voice cold and imperious. ‘Do I know you?’ Then groaned inwardly as she realised how like Lisa she sounded.

  Undaunted, the man went on, ‘Don’t you recognise me?’

  His face lit up in a boyish grin and she let out a gasp. It was William, Stephanie’s son! Not surprisingly, he’d changed – grown tall, filled out – since their holiday here in Lyme Regis. She cast her mind back to the boy she’d got to know as the days dawdled by. At first he’d hardly said a word; later, he’d broken his silence to confide in her – about his mother, his detested soon-to-be-stepfather, Jeremy Dunne, and their plans to send him to boarding school. In this confident, almost brash man, she could see no trace of that vulnerable fourteen-year-old, anxious to please the girl who listened and smiled and shared a little of her boundless optimism.

  And she couldn’t forget that this was also the man who’d left her sister high and dry a few years ago. They’d met through work – investment banking – and moved in together within a week. Anna, up against her PhD deadline and still smarting from a spectacular falling-out with Lisa, had never visited the happy couple in their ludicrously expensive Kensington apartment. Walter, on the other hand, had gone to London for frequent fawning sessions combined with mysterious appointments at a Harley Street clinic; while Mona – complaining bitterly about being trapped at Uppercross Manor with an unruly toddler – waited for an invitation that never came.

  Around the same time, Cousin Archie dropped dead and Walter’s joy knew no bounds. He wasted no time in consulting Burke’s Peerage & Baronetage and announced triumphantly to anyone who would listen that William was now his nearest living male relative. Barring the inconceivable – Walter having a son and passing the title on through his direct male line – William would become the 9th Baronet; which meant that the future mistress of Kellynch would be none other than his favourite daughter, Lisa.

  But William ruined all his plans by running off with a rich Texan divorcee. Lawyers were called in – at great expense – but could find no grounds for any charges. A stony-faced, stony-broke Lisa returned to Kellynch and Walter vowed he would stop William inheriting the title if it killed him. Anna had felt obliged to remind him that dying would simply hand William the baronetcy on a plate.

  So it was very strange that William Elliot-Dunne should turn up again, apparently eager to renew a distant summer friendship with another member of the Elliot family. Anna didn’t know whether to smile back at him – or slap his face because of how he’d treated Lisa, however much she might have deserved it.

  In the end she did neither, just gave him an appraising look. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Last I heard, you had a better offer and went to Texas.’

  Under his tan she dete
cted a faint flush, but his voice was calm and composed. ‘As you can see, I’ve come back to England – only last week, in fact. Spent a few days up on the Isle of Skye with my mother, until her bastard of a husband returned unexpectedly early from his business trip. Then I drove down here.’ He smiled – a smile of such brilliance that she blinked, momentarily dazzled. ‘I’ve been reliving that holiday we had, visiting old haunts, but I certainly didn’t expect to find you here, looking the very image of your beautiful mother.’

  Her face grew warm under his gaze, and warmer still as she registered the compliment. But she wasn’t in the mood for flirtatious banter, however gratifying she might find the comparison with her mother.

  She was edging away, anxious to get back to her room, when she heard Mr Pargeter call out in his unctuous way, ‘Good morning once again, Sir William. Anything else I can do for you?’

  Sir William? She turned swiftly to William and raised her eyebrows; but he simply grinned and tucked her arm through his.

  ‘Breakfast for two in my suite, Pargeter,’ he drawled. ‘Miss Elliot will be joining me.’ And he steered Anna firmly up the stairs.

  She let her irritation show in her voice. ‘No thank you, I’ve had all the breakfast I want.’

  But he just laughed. ‘Nonsense, all that sea air earlier must have made you ravenous. And we’ve got lots of catching up to do.’

  ‘Including how you’ve suddenly become a Sir.’

  He put his finger to his lips. ‘Shh, don’t blow my cover, it works like a dream on people like Pargeter, every time.’

  She couldn’t think what to say. She was struggling to make sense of this transformation from stuttering schoolboy to smooth operator. When they reached her landing she stopped, still undecided about breakfast. ‘Did you know who I was, when we met on the Cobb?’

  He fixed those eyes on her and a shiver ran down her back. It really was as if her father was looking at her, with a degree of warmth that she hadn’t seen since her mother died. Then he shook his head. ‘I was struck by your likeness to Irina, but I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure – I’m not the sort that rushes into things. When I got back just now, I had Pargeter check the guest register. And there you were, the one and only Anna Elliot.’ He gave her arm a gentle tug. ‘Come on, let’s see who remembers the most about that holiday.’

  She allowed him to guide her up a further staircase, past a sign saying ‘Presidential Suite Only’. To another landing, smaller but more opulent than the previous one; gold leaf in the wallpaper, crystal in the light fittings. Into a sitting room three times the size of her bedroom, with several doors off it, and tall windows looking out over the Jurassic Coast where they’d once hunted for fossils …

  She was only sharing memories over breakfast, wasn’t she? And afterwards she’d probably never see him again.

  So she shrugged off her doubts along with her jacket. Sank into the squashy embrace of a white leather sofa. And defied Walter’s lifetime ban on any further communication with William Elliot-Dunne.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Back in his room Rick fielded a call from Lou, aware that he was only half-listening to her non-stop chatter, his head still full of something else … How many more of Anna Elliot’s male friends would turn up in Lyme Regis, for God’s sake? Maybe there was a reunion of her ex-lovers that he was the last to know about?

  When he caught the words ‘all afternoon’ and ‘getting to know each other’, however, he pulled himself together. ‘Sorry, Lou, run that by me again?’

  ‘Henrietta and I are leaving now, we should be with you by eleven. I’d have set off at the crack of dawn, but she wanted to see Kyle – all of a sudden, she can’t bear to be away from him!’ An exasperated sigh. ‘Anyway, you and I are going out for lunch – then spending all afternoon getting to know each other.’ She giggled. ‘Your room or mine?’

  He fabricated a sigh of disappointment. ‘I can’t, I’m in Dorchester, remember? But we could do dinner instead.’

  ‘Just the two of us?’ Her voice sharpened.

  ‘Why not? I’ll ring you when I’m on my way back to Lyme.’

  She made a loud kissing noise down the phone, making him wince at the thought of what she might do to him in person. After the call was over, he slumped in the armchair with his laptop. Was he taking the right approach with Lou? She was unlikely to give him enough space to analyse his last relationship, or however Sophie had put it. Not that he knew where to start with that particular activity; maybe he should stick to analysing sea dragon specimens.

  He prodded the keyboard, hunting for information about Dorchester – something he always did before an event. It focused his mind, gave him a feel for the people he might meet. As he sifted through the search results, he felt even more dispirited. Small market town, scene of the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ trial – hadn’t they been transported to Australia? Right now he almost envied them, leg irons and all … Population little more than 16,000 – what was that publicist of his thinking, getting him an event in a place that size? On second thoughts, knowing Guy, the local bookshop owner was probably some old public school pal who’d called in a favour … Supposedly the inspiration for Thomas Hardy’s Casterbridge – huh, that was the sort of trivia James used to come in handy for, in those Bangor pub quizzes …

  Which reminded him, in his pocket from last night was James’s card with his website details. May as well give him some feedback – as positive as he could make it. He took out the card and typed in the address.

  The first thing he saw on James’s gloomy-looking home page was the heading ‘Move On You’ in large red letters. Underneath was a brief explanation: ‘My latest poem, written in Lyme Regis after a sleepless night. Let me know what you think, especially if you’re the person who inspired it!’ Rick followed the link, wondering idly where James had got his inspiration. And then it hit him, like a runaway train …

  Up came a stark white page with a few lines of heavy black Gothic script framed in red roses. How convenient, how clinical – romance at the click of a sodding mouse; flowers you could neither touch nor smell.

  In contrast, he’d once made a considerable investment in a grand romantic gesture of his own – with Anna. He’d been a lovesick fool, borrowing the sailing club’s forty-four-foot Jeanneau Sun Magic and preparing the skipper’s cabin as if it was his bloody wedding night: scented candles, champagne, and the petals of six dozen red roses strewn across the bed. He’d been on tenterhooks in case Stefan, the boat’s owner, paid a surprise visit and took the piss. But at the time, he had to admit, it had been worth all the hassle. He could still remember the look on her face when he’d opened the cabin door …

  And now he suspected that James had fallen under her spell, poor sod.

  He forced himself to read the almost indecipherable Gothic script – not once but twice, just to make sure of the sentiments behind the words:

  Too much emotion,

  You said about poetry,

  Without any moving on.

  I could move on, I thought,

  To your dove-grey eyes.

  I could move on

  To your soft red lips.

  Oh yes, I could make a

  Move on you.

  Rick felt his throat constrict – and it was nothing to do with James’s crap poetry. He shut down the laptop and sat staring at the blank screen. At last he roused himself, and checked his watch; Dave would be knocking on the door at any moment.

  Time for him to move on, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Rick phoned Guy from the car on the way to Dorchester and went straight on the offensive. ‘I’ve got a little bet with myself – the only reason I’m doing this signing is because you owe someone a favour. Am I right?’

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ came the guarded reply. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘Not yet. But there will be if hardly anyone turns up.’

  ‘If you recall the events brief you gave me months ago,’ Guy said dryly
, ‘you said you didn’t want too many big venues. Something like “I get enough of that on the conference circuit in my day job.” That’s why I’ve gone for some small ones, like Dorchester – and Bath, where the bookshop only holds about thirty people. As long as the media are interested, it’ll all be worthwhile. So chill out, and be nice to the journalists, won’t you?’

  It was the reality check Rick needed; he felt some of the tension ease from his neck and shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to take my bad mood out on you. How about a drink on me when we next meet up?’

  And, in the end, his fears about the Dorchester event proved unfounded. Judging by the way they streamed through the doors of Brett’s Books, the locals had an avid – and genuine – interest in Sex in the Sea. He enjoyed four hours of stimulating conversation and even made a couple of good academic contacts at the University of Southampton.

  At quarter-past four, as Dave was driving him back to Lyme Regis, he rang Lou. ‘Hi, where are you?’

  ‘Rick!’ An ear-splitting squeal. ‘We’re just leaving the hotel, Ben’s organised a walk along the Cobb. Then it’s off to the pub, although I’ve told everyone that you and I are going somewhere else for dinner.’ Her voice dropped to a caressing murmur. ‘On second thoughts, scrap all that. I’ll stay here and wait for you instead – your room or mine?’

  It was an echo of their earlier conversation, and he admired her determination. But he also felt slightly insulted – how could he convince her that he wasn’t desperate to go to bed on their first date? He said firmly, ‘No, I’ll meet you at the Cobb – I could do with stretching my legs and I need a word with Ben.’ Then, in a gentler tone, ‘Let’s give the pub a miss, though. We’ll get changed back at the hotel and find a nice little restaurant.’

  An evening away from the others would do him good. That way he could focus on getting to know Lou without any distractions whatsoever.

  In the reception area of the Cobb View Hotel, Lou pocketed her mobile and did a celebratory twirl in front of Anna and Henrietta.