‘Protect me yourself then, if you’re so worried,’ I said crossly, wondering why he hadn’t suggested it himself.
He gave me a sideways look. ‘I wouldn’t want to tread on the heels of Dracula’s assistant.’
‘Er, he’s busy.’ The last thing I was going to do was let James know of my farcical discovery of last night. I couldn’t bear the thought of his mockery.
If James noticed I didn’t leap instantly to Daniel’s defence he didn’t say, but murmured that it wasn’t a bad idea to come around in a way that made me think he had been waiting for me to suggest it. Why? I’d never before known him be backwards in coming forwards about something he wanted to do. Perhaps he was being unusually tactful.
‘Good, that’s settled,’ I said briskly, moving towards my car and shelter from the wind. ‘And if you’re a good bodyguard I’ll even make you some dinner.’
He looked exaggeratedly apprehensive. ‘Can you cook? Your chilli powder casserole is etched indelibly in my memory.’
‘That was years ago. And I didn’t realise the top had fallen off the chilli powder until it was too late.’
‘You still served it.’
‘If you’re worried your indigestion pills won’t be strong enough to cope, we can get a takeaway.’
He laughed. ‘I’ll take your word for it I won’t need them. Joking apart, you look tired and I’m not surprised with all you’ve been up to recently. The last thing you must feel like is racing around a kitchen.’ His finger traced a line under my eye, presumably the outline of a bag. I was torn three ways, feeling soggy inside at his unexpected consideration, suspicious that he was trying to weasel out of having to try my cooking, though with more diplomacy than usual, and complete despair at the implication that I looked like a hag. The Stayput range of make up that I’d nicked from the Rainbow Cosmetics samples at work obviously didn’t stay put as much as was claimed. ‘Why don’t we go to that little Italian place around the corner from your flat?’
Part of me would have liked to demonstrate to James just how much my cooking had improved in the last ten years. I don’t want to blow my own trumpet - well, actually I do - but it’s generally admitted that my chocolate soufflés are wicked. Isn’t it extraordinary how after decades of feminist teaching the average woman still has an instinct to retreat straight back into the kitchen the moment she wants to impress a man? But cooking makes me flushed - and frequently bad-tempered - and Alfredo’s garlic bread is something to die for, so we arranged that James would come around in an hour or so once I’d had time to have a bath and change (and make up, scent myself, go through the entire contents of my wardrobe, throw same on the floor in despair, etc).
If I hadn’t known better I’d have sworn James had been doing much the same. His hair was still damp from the shower and he’d changed into a soft blue shirt and cord trousers with a dark jacket on top, but I doubted he’d had as much trouble as me in finding something that didn’t make his waist look as if the measurement had got mixed up with his hips. He also smelled very nice, I realised, sniffing appreciatively as he kissed me on coming in. He never used to kiss me this much. I couldn’t say that I objected.
‘You look good enough to eat and I’m starving so we’d better go out soon,’ he said, smiling at me in a way that made my stomach do cartwheels. He looked over my shoulder. ‘What have you done with the faun? Is it somewhere safe?’
Trust him to concentrate on the important things. ‘I put it with Cressida’s suitcase, and shoved the whole lot under my bed.’ Considering that half my clothes and most of my shoes were also under the bed it wasn’t likely any intruder would ever be able to disinter the case even if he was brave enough to risk the monster dustballs that lurked there. ‘And Horatio’s asleep on top of the bed.’
‘Horatio’s breath at twenty paces is enough to stun even the most determined burglar,’ James agreed with the voice of experience.
‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him,’ I said. ‘I thought you were just getting the wind up before, but you don’t really think someone is likely to break in, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t. I just wanted an excuse to spend the evening with you.’
I looked at him for a moment, trying to work out if he was being serious or not. I still didn’t know at the end of it. ‘A simple request would have done,’ I said lightly, fetching my coat.
‘But I don’t like being simple, it’s boring.’ Now I knew he hadn’t been serious, and felt a distinct twinge of disappointment.
Alfredo’s was as ever hot, steamy, noisy and full of cooking smells. I took a deep appreciative breath as we went in, my mouth already watering from the pungent scent of tomatoes and garlic rising from a plate of spaghetti puttanesca being carried past us. We were placed at a rickety corner table romantically lit by a candle in a bulbous Chianti bottle that had been almost completely obscured by the multi-coloured drips from dozens of previous candles. Another two straw-covered bottles were suspended from the ceiling above our heads and a large, brightly coloured fresco of Santa Lucia covered the wall behind James’s back. Alfredo doesn’t believe in letting a good cliché go to waste. You should see the things he gets up to with the giant pepper grinder.
There was a lovely end-of-term feeling as we nibbled the famous garlic bread and began a bottle of Lambrusco. The end was in sight but I didn’t yet have to get down to the mundane things in life like doing a week’s backlog of washing and worrying over how I was going to explain myself to Darian on Monday morning. Naturally enough, I suppose, the conversation over the antipasti and the spaghetti drifted towards Stefano, Cressida and what I’d done while I was toting her around France. I was decent enough to emphasise the more sensible things Cressida had done, like blandly assuring the vegetarians that of course the pommes frites had been cooked in vegetable oil and it was their imagination that they’d just heard Alexandre declare he did all his frying in goose fat. I slid over the inference that it showed what an excellent liar she was. I did have a brief battle with my conscience about some of the things I said about her, but it was only a brief tussle. James found the story about how she’d driven my credit card up to near implosion point much funnier than I did. And it wasn’t as if I was portraying her as being bad, just rather feather-brained at times and always ready to leap into something without any regard for the consequences to anybody else, but I think he had already realised that.
‘What a silly girl she is,’ he said, shaking his head. The indulgent note in his voice scraped my nerves like a saw, and it was only with difficulty that I stopped myself from saying that perhaps at twenty-eight Cressida should start growing up a little. I didn’t want to sound like a complete and utter bitch.
I was rewarded when he added thoughtfully, ‘She runs poor old Stefano ragged, I don’t envy him.’ And smiled maliciously. ‘He’s going to have a wonderful time refereeing the fights between Cressy and his mother about who has the care of the baby. I’d put my money on Cressy. I don’t reckon he’ll risk her running away again - or trashing another of his treasures.’
It would be a long time before James forgave her that. All to the good, I thought, as I absently forked my spaghetti around my plate. Despite my previous hunger I didn’t seem to have much appetite. The tension I’d felt in the car was mounting again and it didn’t go well with Alfredo’s clam sauce. Frankly I was getting a bit fed up of talking about Cressida and Stefano all the time. I wouldn’t have minded talking about something else, such as myself or James - or James and me. But all he wanted to do was discuss her, it seemed.
And it would have been nice if he’d looked at me a bit too. I didn’t know why I’d bothered to raid Liv’s wardrobe after all of mine hit the floor, rejected, to pinch her mauve angora off the shoulder sweater which kept sliding off to one side in the most alluring way. Even if I say so myself, I’ve got nice shoulders. From the way James kept his eyes firmly on his plate and not on how one of my better features kept revealing itself, you’d hav
e thought I was sharing a table with a newly ordained monk who feared damnation if he so much as caught a glimpse of a naked collarbone.
James’s normal ready conversation seemed to have run out, perhaps there was a limit to how much even he wanted to say about Cressida, and we finished the meal in near silence. ‘Coffee?’ he asked as Alfredo cleared our plates and gave a disapproving sniff that mine hadn’t been completely licked clean.
‘Why don’t you come back and have coffee at my place? I promise it won’t have chilli powder in it.’
James smiled in a perfunctory manner and shook his head. ‘You should have an early night. I’d better not.’
I didn’t want an early night. At least not the type I was sure he meant.
We walked slowly back to the flat. I stopped outside, looking up at our darkened windows while James fidgeted beside me as if he couldn’t wait to get going. ‘I wish you hadn’t put the wind up me about intruders. I get bad enough heebie-jeebies about being alone in the flat these days as it is,’ I said with a reasonable amount of truth. I actually had the wind up far more about the probability that I was about to say goodbye to James and he was going to walk out of my life again for God knows how long.
‘But Liv’ll be back soon from work and then you’ll have company.’
‘It’s Saturday. She’ll already be on her way to Wiltshire and true love among the pigs for the weekend.’ I laid my hand on his arm and looked up appealingly. ‘Won’t you come up and check there aren’t any bogeymen up there?’
To my chagrin he hesitated perceptibly for a moment then said, ‘All right.’ What had happened to the chivalrous male who had been worrying about all the risks to me earlier on in the evening? I thought in irritation as we walked the two floors up to our door in silence. He looked briefly around, which didn’t take long in a flat of this size, and came to find me in the kitchen as I was ladling coffee grounds into the filter. ‘It’s fine, no one’s here,’ he said curtly, standing in the doorway as if poised for flight. ‘Nor any spooks, boggarts or snoopers.’
‘You’re going to have a cup of coffee at least, aren’t you?’ He could hardly refuse now I was actually in the middle of making it, could he?
One of his quick smiles lit his face. ‘You sound just like Aunt Jane. “James, you must have just one more piece of cake before you go,” ’ he said in a quavering falsetto that took her off perfectly.
‘Well, I certainly won’t be offering you anything to eat, not after you finished my plateful as well as yours.’
‘Shame to let it go to waste, and I was hungry.’
‘You’re always hungry. How you don’t get fat with the amount you eat, I’ll never know!’ I said with a burning sense of injustice as I eyed his flat stomach. A fat-burning metabolism and obscenely long eyelashes as well. It wasn’t fair. And not particularly good for my blood pressure to consider either of those attributes. ‘And don’t tell me it’s all in the genes. It makes it even worse that I don’t have them.’
James leaned against the doorframe, his arms folded. ‘The difference between you and me, Laura, apart from the obvious, is that I wouldn’t be improved by soft bits whereas you,’ he looked me up and down very slowly, making a quiver start from the top of my spine and go all the way down into my legs, ‘look just fantastic with every one of them.’
If any other man had said that to me and looked at me in that way I would have known exactly what he was on about, but just as I was about to give James a real come hither from under my eyelashes and wait for what happened next, the coffee machine, with immaculate timing, gave its customary burping to indicate it was finished with the job. James flicked his eyes away casually and stood up straight as if we hadn’t just been in a smouldering scenario worthy of three fire engines.
‘Shall I carry those for you?’
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, sure that if I did it I’d spill coffee everywhere, probably over James’s head as I threw the cup at him in sheer frustration. By the time I was halfway through drinking it depression had replaced frustration. Flirting with every female under fifty and most of those over it was as natural as breathing to James. I knew that. He’d shown often enough what his type was: blonde, slim, beautiful, delicate Dresden-like figures. I couldn’t claim a passing acquaintance with even one of those attributes. So what a fool I was to imagine even for a minute that his attitude to me was anything more than brotherly. Except brothers don’t normally enfold their sisters in X-rated clinches on doorsteps. Well, not the ones I know anyway. If I were a truly modem woman, the one I profess myself to be after several glasses of wine with my girlfriends, I’d put my hand invitingly on his knee with my most seductive smile and see where we went from there. But the very thought of the cool look of surprise he might, and probably would, cast at me knocked that notion on its head and turned me back into a truly modern wimp. It’s a good thing I’m not a man. The fear of rejection would stop me from ever getting a kiss, let alone laid. Besides it was glaringly obvious he had no interest in me. He wasn’t even trying to sit near me on the sofa; he was at the other end, coffee untouched while he concentrated on talking to Horatio. He preferred the attractions of an overweight cat with half an ear and villainous personal habits to me. That showed me.
About five minutes later, without having addressed a single word to me, he stood up and announced he’d better get going and let me have some sleep. Sleep was the last thing I wanted, I thought rebelliously. ‘Do you have to? I’m still a bit nervous about possible intruders.’ I dropped my eyes a little and shuddered theatrically.
He stared at me suspiciously, as well he might. He was probably remembering how singularly unmoved I’d been earlier in the evening. He sighed deeply and ran his hand through his hair.
I wriggled back against the sofa cushions so the neck of the jumper slipped off one shoulder again. James’s eyes seemed to be fixed on Horatio as he waddled towards his cat flap. He was probably worried his chaperone was leaving. But did his glance flicker sideways? ‘Or are you afraid that now it’s the witching hour your diabolical charms will begin to have their customary effect on all unattached females near you?’
James didn’t smile. ‘You aren’t unattached,’ he said shortly. ‘You’ve got Daniel.’
I shook my head. ‘Not any longer.’ James turned his head towards me sharply. ‘Serena failed with Daniel because he’d already shacked up with a literary agent with a large posterior.’ At least he was looking at me now. There was a distinct question in his newly attentive eyes. ‘I found her there last night. Her jumper was on inside out.’
He laughed. ‘You seem to make a habit of bursting in on men at the most inappropriate times.’
‘It seems so, doesn’t it?’ I agreed. ‘And before you ask, I’ve been trying hard to feel depressed about it all day and I haven’t succeeded.’
He laughed again, looking quite pleased about the news. I hoped it wasn’t just fraternal pleasure. Well, the way his eyes were fixed on my legs as I stretched them out in front of me didn’t seem very fraternal to me. The stockings had obviously been a good move.
‘Even so, boyfriendless as I am, I do know how to behave. You needn’t worry that I’m going to pounce on you and rip all your clothes off,’ I said, moving around a bit more so that the neck of the jumper fell to near indecency level.
At that he strode over and stood over me, one leg on either side of my outstretched ones, his hands on the sofa above my shoulders. I felt pleasurably trapped. He bent his head towards me. ‘Listen, you idiot woman,’ he said tersely. ‘I’m not in the least worried about that! What worries me is that I won’t be able to resist doing what I’ve been wanting to do all evening - rip yours off.’
There was silence as our eyes met. I took in a shaky breath. He smelled faintly of wine, food, a lingering waft of aftershave. Intoxicating.
‘Well, why don’t you?’ I asked. ‘And let’s see what happens.’
CHAPTER 20
Rather late the next morning I was w
andering around the flat in the sort of happy daze that comes from an active night with not much sleep in it, still bemused by the revelation that James wanted to do more than cheat at cards with me. And very nice it was too, I thought with a smug smile, as I picked an elderly newspaper off the floor. The inevitable pangs of hunger had driven him out to forage for ingredients for a proper breakfast and the Sunday papers, saying that if he left it to me I’d probably come back with a small loaf and a low-fat yoghurt. I was trying to make the sitting room look reasonably respectable before he came back. Three thousand years ago I would doubtless have been picking mammoth bones up off the floor of the cave before he came back with a nice wild boar for me to roast. So much for the liberation of womankind. But a burst of my rarely encountered housewifely energy is not to be ignored so I waved a duster in the direction of the table and retrieved various miscellaneous items from behind the sofa cushions before plumping them up. I stood back and looked at them sadly; I didn’t mind that they lacked the military precision of Sam’s sofa but it would have been nice if there had been enough stuffing for them to do anything other than sag.
Dreamily I laid the table, choosing the best pieces out of Liv’s and my mismatched china, i.e. the stuff without cracks in it and not the faded Bunnikins plates from Liv’s nursery days. Horatio made a dash for the table and I caught him in mid-leap just as the bell went. It’s not for nothing that my last birthday present from Emma was a butter dish with ‘Don’t Let The Cat Get The Butter’ written around the sides. I went to answer the door, thinking that James must have forgotten to take the key I gave him, my attention on the wriggling, indignant cat under my arm. ‘Look, if you don’t behave I’m going to throw you out!’ I said sternly as I opened it.
‘Che?’ asked a startled voice. I looked up and dropped Horatio in shock. Instead of James, laden with bags and papers, there was Stefano, looking with his heavily shadowed chin and belted camelhair coat more like an Italian gangster than I’d ever seen him before. All he needed was a black shirt and a white tie.
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