Secretary by Day, Mistress by Night

by Maggie Cox

  Hadrian’s Wall was between seventy-six and eighty miles long, she’d learned. For the past two hours Maya and Blaise had negotiated merely four miles of it, with Sheba bounding along in front of them. Built on high ground, it had been a fairly steep climb. But Maya loved walking over the uneven crags alongside the wall, seeing the lichen scattered between the rocks, and clumps of gorse and purple-flowered comfrey wherever they glanced, climbing uphill one minute and then downhill the next, with the wind in her hair and the heady fragrance of genuinely unpolluted, clean fresh air in her lungs.

  Blaise threw her an enquiring look as they moved steadily uphill again, clearly noticing that her breath came a little quicker at the exertion. Below them was a glorious panorama of the most wonderful countryside Maya had ever seen, consisting of clumps of ancient trees, verdant fields and tarns, sparkling rivers glinting in the midday sunlight, and every so often she simply had to stop and take stock of what she was seeing. To drink it in and count her blessings that she was privileged enough to be there, enjoying it.

  ‘How are you holding up? It can be quite a climb in places.’

  ‘I’m doing fine. It’s challenging, because I’m a little bit out of shape at the moment, but I honestly love it,’ Maya replied, emerald eyes shining.

  ‘I would never have called you out of shape, Maya.’ His tone huskily wry, Blaise let his glance deliberately track up and down her body for a moment. Heat invaded her.

  ‘I mean I’m probably quite unfit. Living in London, I just don’t get the exercise that I’d probably be motivated to get out here, where I can breathe in all this wonderful fresh air instead of traffic fumes. You’re so lucky living in such an amazing place.’

  She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, and frantically hunted for a way to keep the conversation neutral.

  ‘You said that the main character in your play is a young Roman soldier responsible for helping guard and patrol some of the sentry posts along the wall?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Where did he come from? Rome?’

  ‘No. The soldiers came mainly from a place in Belgium—known in ancient times as Tungria.’

  ‘Oh? Can you tell me a bit more about what happens to him?’

  He had told her a little of the story, and what he needed her to research, and right from the start Maya had been intrigued by it. It was the heartbreaking tale of a young boy in Roman times—a boy with a head full of dreams of glory, running away from home and his family’s farm to join the Roman army—who, when he got to Britannia, met a local girl from one of the settlements and fell in love. The soldiers then had been forbidden to marry, and their liaison had to be conducted in secret.

  ‘Well…’ Blaise gazed out into the middle distance for a couple of moments, considering Maya’s question. ‘Eventually the soldier is killed, during a night attack on the wall, but before he dies he finds out that his sweetheart is pregnant with his child, and he vows to find a way for them to return to his village so that they can marry. Frankly, he is tired of being a soldier—killing men in skirmishes and attacks to preserve land for a conquering army—and has become increasingly disenchanted with his role. He soberly reflects on the benefits of a simple rural life, raising a family and earning a living from what he can grow on his land.’

  He continued thoughtfully, ‘Yes, we can travel all round the world in pursuit of our dreams, only to realise the treasure we were so avidly in search of is already right here in front of us.’ He jerked his head towards the stunning vista surrounding them. ‘The taking of a life is a dreadful thing, and violence can never be the answer,’ he added, sighing, ‘however much we seek to justify it. First we need to examine the violence in ourselves, I think. Ultimately, that’s what the play is about.’

  As he’d been speaking, a gust of strong wind had torn through the tousled dark gold lock of hair that flopped onto his brow, and Maya stared transfixed at the chiselled beauty of features that were suddenly thrown into stark and breathtaking relief. She was utterly fascinated that to highlight the theme he’d chosen—and he was writing a play about youthful dreams turning into a nightmare—he had used a story about love…

  Before she realised it, she heard herself ask, ‘What were your own dreams as a boy?’

  On the brow of that windblown hill, Blaise studied Maya for what felt like an eternity before replying. When he did eventually answer her question, his voice sounded calm and steady. ‘To express myself creatively in the way that I chose and be good at it…and funnily enough to be happy.’

  ‘And are you happy?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘That’s not fair!’ Maya protested, taken aback at how easily he’d turned the tables on her.

  ‘Then answer me this instead…What were your dreams as a young girl?’

  Knowing that he was definitely issuing her with a challenge, Maya dug her hands into the pockets of her denim jacket and wondered what to tell him. In the end, because the penetrating beam of his gaze left her with no hiding place, she elected to be honest.

  ‘To grow up, find someone I wanted to be with for ever—someone who really loved me—and have a family. I was never ambitious for a big career or wealth or anything like that. But…’ she dipped her head and stared at the ground ‘…it was a childish dream. Now that I’m grown up I’m fully aware just how difficult such a deceptively simple dream is to achieve, and I just take one day at a time and try to enjoy what I have got.’

  ‘What about artistic talent? You didn’t inherit any desire to maybe do what your father did?’

  ‘No…I didn’t. I can’t draw or paint to save my life. Are you disappointed?’

  Feeling a sickening sensation of genuine hurt well up inside her in case he was, Maya turned away from the lancing gaze that so easily took her apart and started walking down the hill again, her heart still hammering as her booted feet carefully negotiated the uneven crags that covered the ground.

  Sensing a flash of something beside her, she glanced down at a panting Sheba, the large noble head held ever so slightly at an angle as she came to a halt, just as if she was asking her what was the matter and could she help? The thought was so preposterous that she found herself smiling. Reaching out, Maya gently stroked her hand over the slate-grey fur that covered the dog’s extensive back without any fear whatsoever.

  ‘It’s all right, Sheba. I’m fine…honest.’

  Asking her if she’d had any desire to follow in her father’s footsteps had obviously been too close to the bone and Blaise should have known better. Especially when he had fielded many similar questions himself over the years, because of his own famous parentage. Yet somehow an increasing desire to get Maya to open up to him, to make a real connection with her, had unexpectedly manifested itself inside him. He’d never experienced such a powerful need around a woman before and, startled, he let the idea wash over him, feeling what it was like. Her confession that her one-time dream had been to be with someone who really loved her and to have a family had also perversely made him want to instantly back away…to maintain the emotional distance that he realised both of them subconsciously fought hard for.

  Contemplating her now as she stroked Sheba, the gusting wind turning her long flowing hair into a riotous cloud of ebony silk, Blaise remembered the upsetting memory she’d revealed about being winded by a similarly powerful dog when she was small, and the fact that she’d taken the courageous step of petting the animal in front of him with such apparent ease filled him with honest admiration for her sheer gutsiness.

  ‘Let’s press on, shall we?’ he called out, lest any more warm feelings of admiration take precedence over the play he was meant to be thinking about. ‘We’ve got a lot to do today.’

  Deftly negotiating the jagged crags that separated them down the hill, Blaise arrived beside the stunning brunette and the Wolfhound in next to no time, and with not even the merest hint of being out of breath added, ‘Lottie will have lunch prepared in another hour. And she’s a
stickler for timekeeping when it comes to meals at Hawk’s Lair.’

  ‘That’s such an evocative name. Where did it come from?’ Maya asked, and he saw the telltale smudges of what he suspected was the residue of tears beneath her emerald eyes.

  For a moment his heart squeezed with regret, and he had to fight the strongest urge to wipe them away.

  ‘My father started out in a local repertory company in the small Scottish town where he came from and once performed in a play that had the title.’ Blaise shrugged. ‘My mother had seen him in it and thought the name so romantic that when they bought the house here, she insisted on calling it Hawk’s Lair.’

  ‘And was it a romantic play?’

  ‘No…it most definitely wasn’t! It was a stinging satire about a corrupt politician.’

  ‘Still,’ Maya said quickly, but not quickly enough to hide her apparent disappointment, ‘it’s a great name.’

  ‘Maya?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It was crass of me to ask if you had any ambition to be like your father.’ He lifted her chin and cupped her small perfect jaw in the cradle of his hand. ‘Do you forgive me?’

  ‘Of course.’ But she moved quickly away as she said it, turning only briefly back to enquire, ‘That sycamore tree you mentioned earlier that’s supposed to be a famous landmark…How far did you say it was from here?’

  Fuelled by her challenging walk to see the famous Roman wall, along with Lottie’s excellent lunch of grilled fresh salmon, new potatoes and a warm salad, Maya was just as eager as Blaise to start work.

  During lunch he had expanded a little bit more on the play, and just what he was looking for research-wise, and as they’d talked she’d become more and more transfixed by the animation she heard in his mellifluous voice. Animation that she also witnessed etched in the sublime contours of his handsome face. It was a master-class in inspiration, and by the end of it Maya fervently wished that she had some up until now undiscovered talent so that she could help him move forward with what she’d learned.

  After lunch they made a brief detour to the extensive library on the floor upstairs, where Blaise informed her she could find just about every history book she’d need, then came back downstairs to his huge study. He showed Maya into the smaller connecting office, where she was set up with a computer, use of the internet, printer, scanner, and a small but extensive bookshelf crammed with books in which to search for information.

  ‘I’ve asked Lottie to make dinner for eight tonight instead of seven…do you mind? I’d like to work on as long as possible before we break again.’ Standing by the door leading back into his study, Blaise briefly checked his watch before settling his arresting gaze once again on Maya.

  She almost had to shake herself out of the trance she’d fallen into. That voice of his was a seductive weapon, bent on the complete capitulation of the listener, she was certain. Along with the sheer sensual heat that radiated from his hard, leanly muscular body, it made her knees almost buckle and every muscle she possessed contract with an answering devastating warmth.

  ‘I—I hope you don’t think this sounds too weird…’ to cover her confusion she started to babble ‘…but when we were out there walking alongside the wall, I could almost hear the marching feet of the Roman soldiers—as though…as though the sound was contained and preserved in the very earth…Do you know what I mean?’

  What she told him was absolutely true, but the way Blaise was studying her made Maya feel as if he’d just moved his body right up next to hers and demanded she kiss him. His pupils had contracted with genuine surprise at what she’d said.

  ‘I do know what you mean. I’ve had the same thought myself many times when I was up there. The place is full of ghosts from the past. You’re obviously very sensitive and receptive to that sort of thing.’

  Ghosts from the past… Maya shuddered softly. She certainly knew about those. ‘Well, I’ll let you get on. I’m fine with dinner at eight.’

  ‘Good.’ Delaying his departure by another couple of disconcerting seconds as his glance lazily drifted across her face, Blaise finally moved away back into his own office and closed the door behind him.

  Maya had returned to her room to change for dinner. Having showered and got ready in double-quick time himself, Blaise sat on the edge of the huge king-sized bed he occupied alone and tried to think over the progress he’d made on the play.

  Trouble was…every time he tried to focus on the day’s work the TV screen of his mind kept switching to the channel where Maya had the starring role. Too restless to patiently sit and wait for her, he got up and went out into a corridor lined with much of the highly covetable art both he and his parents had collected over the years. Maya’s room was about halfway down the corridor from his and, scrubbing his hand round his newly shaven jaw, Blaise rapped smartly on the oak panelling. Half hoping she’d answer the door wrapped in just a towel, or that short little robe she’d had on that morning he’d called on her unexpectedly in Camden, he felt his lips twitch with a wry grin. He was behaving like a schoolboy who had just hit puberty with a vengeance! But then this was one bewitchingly beautiful woman, and when he was around her it just didn’t seem possible for him to behave like anything else.

  She wasn’t just beautiful either…she was intelligent and sensitive too. Not to mention damaged by whatever had gone on in her past. The grin on his lips vanished as he soberly considered if he wouldn’t live to regret inviting her to work for him after all.

  ‘Hi. Am I taking too long? Just let me put my shoes on.’

  Fragrant and bare-footed, Maya greeted him at the door, her long dark hair flowing down over the black silk sleeveless top she wore with matching palazzostyle trousers, dazzling green eyes bright as newly polished crystal. Blaise took one look at her and knew he had never wanted anything in his life more…

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘THERE’S no hurry. I just thought we’d go down to dinner together. Go put your shoes on…take your time. I’ll wait.’

  ‘Why don’t you come in, then?’ Her skin flushed a little as she said this, and Blaise saw with satisfaction that she was equally as affected by seeing him as he was her.

  Accepting her invitation, he entered the room and shut the door behind him. Hurrying across to the wardrobe to retrieve a pair of flat gold sandals, Maya sat back on the bed to put them on, inadvertently giving him a highly arousing glimpse of her scarlet-painted toenails. But then out of the corner of his eye he saw the portrait of her as a child propped up against a striped slipper chair, and a jolt of surprise shot through him.

  ‘You brought the picture.’ Drawn by its beauty, as he had been before, he found himself standing in front of it, all the better to study it more closely.

  ‘I always take it with me on longer trips.’ A rustle of silk, the scent of some sweetly floral perfume, and its owner suddenly stood there beside him.

  ‘Presumably you have it well insured?’

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth Blaise sensed the abrupt shift in Maya’s mood. Crossing her arms over her chest, she turned her head to glare at him.

  ‘I don’t care about its monetary value!’ she exclaimed passionately. ‘Do you think that means anything to me?’

  ‘Then what does it mean to you, Maya?’ he asked gently.

  Moving back towards the bed, she collected the cream pashmina she’d left lying there. ‘It’s a piece of my father. The piece he couldn’t give to me when he was alive.’

  Seeing her wrestle with whatever powerful emotion was flowing through her, Blaise judged it best not to speak right then. Instead he moved across the room to join her…waiting.

  ‘You see…he was always busy working, or—or partying with his celebrity friends, and he didn’t always have much time for me. That day—the day he started work on the portrait—he was more like the father I’d dreamed of him being. And although I was grumpy, because he rarely ever gave me much attention and I barely knew how to handle it when he did, I sec
retly loved him doing that portrait of me. That’s why I wouldn’t sell it…no matter how much it’s worth.’

  ‘And that’s all he left you after he died? His career was amazing. He must have had other assets, surely?’

  ‘What assets? Everything he had was either sold to help pay off his debts or given away to some—some sycophant whilst he was intoxicated! We even lost our house…But he’d died before that happened, and it couldn’t have mattered less to me that everything material had gone.’

  Suddenly understanding why she lived in a poky studio flat, with not much evidence of anything of material value, Blaise took the soft pashmina out of Maya’s hands, threw it back on the bed, then placed his hands either side of her waist. It was slender as a reed—no more than a man’s hand span—and he easily sensed the heat from her body through the silky material of her blouse.

  ‘What was he like as a man…your father? Will you tell me about him?’

  Clearly startled by the question, Maya momentarily withdrew her gaze, as if to regroup her thoughts, but to his satisfaction did not move out of the circle of intimacy he’d instigated.

  ‘Like many artistic people he was very complex…brilliant and driven, but easily led too. His weakness was anything addictive—anything that was ultimately bad for him. When he lost my mother he lost a little of his grip on reality, I think. He tried to take care of me in his own muddled fashion, but he really wasn’t the type of man who could cope with children. He just didn’t have a clue what I needed. Often he left me on my own for long periods. At one time we lived in a house a bit similar to this, and I can remember at nights huddling in a corner of my bedroom terrified of every sound, every creak of a floorboard or tree branch moving in the wind, convinced someone was going to break in and either kill me or…or take me away.’

  The long, tremulous sigh she released feathered over him, and Blaise realised that his heart was pounding like a sledgehammer in his chest at what she’d told him. Now a couple of the disparaging references she’d made to fame started to make sense. What had Devereaux been thinking of, leaving his young daughter to fend for herself? Surely the neglect of a child was one of the most despicable cruelties of all? The man had obviously been too wrapped up in chasing his desires and addictions to tend to his daughter’s welfare, and in Blaise’s book that was pretty damn unforgivable.