‘You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?’
Philip shook his head. ‘Not for a minute. But I know something special when I see it.’ He paused before adding softly, ‘And I think you do too.’
Kit’s mouth dried.
‘Stop it,’ she said loudly. ‘Stop—stop purring at me like that. I told you—’
Philip’s arms tightened. ‘You told me never to use the word love to you again,’ he said quietly. ‘So how else do you want me to put it?’
Kit felt hot all over. She looked round, acutely self-conscious. But no one was listening to their conversation. No one was even looking at them.
She still said, ‘You’re embarrassing me.’
‘Fine,’ said Philip obligingly.
Before she knew what he was doing he had loosed his arms, seized her unready hand, and tugged her off the dance floor.
‘What are you doing?’ said Kit, stumbling after him.
‘Finding somewhere we can talk. Without embarrassing you.’
He pulled her out into the lobby. There was an elevator with its doors open. Philip pulled her inside and punched the button for the basement.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘No audience, unless you count the security cameras.’
The elevator hit the basement. The doors opened soundlessly. Philip pressed a button to keep them locked that way.
‘Another skill I learned from my father’s troop,’ he said, pleased with himself. ‘Now, where was I?’
‘Purring,’ said Kit involuntarily. She caught herself. ‘Now, look. You can’t just highjack my life here. Come to that, you can’t drag me away from my friends—’
Philip ignored that. ‘There was something between us,’ he said intensely. ‘It was the worst possible timing. And I probably didn’t handle it all that well. But there was something. At least admit it.’
There was a small pause. Kit’s heart started to pound so loudly he must surely hear it. She could not bear it. She turned her shoulder, as if she was impatient to be gone.
‘That’s nonsense. You can’t seriously stand there and say that you’re in love with me. Not—’
‘I’m not saying that.’
Kit was disconcerted and rather put out. ‘Well, then—’
She reached for the elevator control panel. There had to be a button to press to release those doors.
Philip caught her hand and swung her round to face him. He said flatly, ‘I don’t know what love means.’
That brought Kit’s head up with a vengeance.
‘Oh, great! Just great! So I’m signed up to give you a crash course, I suppose?’
Philip looked startled. Then, from nowhere, deeply amused.
‘I hadn’t thought of that. But it’s certainly an idea.’
Kit was so angry she could barely speak. ‘Forget it.’
She tugged at her hand. He would not release it. He was a lot stronger than she expected. Than she remembered. Though, now she thought about it—
‘Let me go,’ yelled Kit, suddenly hot.
He didn’t.
He said, ‘What I mean is—this is new to me. I haven’t felt like this before.’
She was still glaring at him. He tried his best smile, the warm one that started slowly. It worked on despots and delinquents alike. Only of course, now he remembered, on Kit it had no effect whatsoever.
‘You jerked me around on Coral Cove,’ she said in a voice that shook with suppressed rage. At least she hoped it was rage. ‘And now you’re trying to do it again. Well, not to me, you don’t, buster.’
She dragged her hand out of his grasp at last and dived for freedom across the basement. It was a car park. Her footsteps rang on the concrete as if she were wearing tap shoes.
He caught her as she was hauling open the door to the emergency stairs. He had stopped smiling and his hair—his immaculate raven hair—was dishevelled. Even his bow tie seemed to be off true centre at last.
‘Kit, listen to me, please.’ His voice was urgent. More than urgent. Frantic. ‘I’m going down to the country tomorrow. Come with me. Talk to me. We can’t just—’
She spun round, too furious to be rational.
‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!’
The shutter slammed down on his left eye without warning. Philip staggered, shocked.
‘And I’ve talked to you. You were the one who wasn’t talking, if you remember? Sir Philip! Mr Peace! Big cheese pretending to be little cheese so he could—’ She stopped. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said in quite a different voice.
Philip put his hand against the wall to steady himself. Kit flinched at the sudden movement. He did not notice.
He shook his head, as if he was trying to clear it. ‘I—’
She stepped back to him. He seemed unaware of that too, she thought. He put a hand up to his forehead.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. It’s nothing.’ He was trying to pull himself together. She could see that something had shaken him badly.
She put a hand on his left arm. ‘Look, I didn’t mean—’
He swung round to face her. He didn’t just turn his head, he turned his whole body. It was a clumsy movement. Philip Hardesty, who was even graceful when he was confronting hostile guerrillas, made a clumsy movement. She had only seen him make an uncontrolled movement like that once before. When he had nearly dropped that glass at the reception. And looked round to see if anyone had noticed.
She put up a hand and turned his face towards her gently. When she saw his expression, his face was naked.
Kit said on a long note of discovery, ‘You can’t see!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
PHILIP gave a crack of laughter. ‘Do you know you’re the first person to say that? It’s been happening for months and nobody’s noticed. I live surrounded by people and not one of them saw that very often I couldn’t make one eye work.’
Kit was silent for a minute. ‘How bad is it?’
He shrugged.
She took a decision. ‘All right. We’ll talk. Just talk. But not in a car park. We’ll go upstairs and find some coffee and you can tell me about it.’
It was not, thought Philip, the sweeping off her feet that he had planned. But at least it was better than her running for cover and swearing never to see him again. Besides, he was feeling shaky. The shutter had never come down with such savage suddenness before.
It cleared as they went back upstairs. With the returning sight, an idea occurred to Philip.
She had been sympathetic. Well, relatively. It was not ideal. But his training taught him to use whatever came to hand. Maybe his loss of eyesight was the tool to get Kit to give him a hearing.
He pulled a face. He did not like it. Not his style at all. Normally he ignored all signs of physical weakness in himself. The idea of making a big production of this one was distasteful.
But she was so adamant, even now. And you had to roll with the punches. He wasn’t going to tell any lies, he promised himself. But maybe he might exaggerate a little the extent to which he was no longer in control of his body.
Salutary, thought Philip with wry self-mockery. He had been in control of everything for longer than he cared to remember. Now his unicorn girl was forcing him back into a position of uncertainty again. It was going to be an interesting learning experience!
They avoided the ballroom and went instead to the hotel bar. It was all shining mahogany and muted music. People came and went all the time. Businessmen waited for clients. Hotel guests returned from an evening out. Families reunited. Lone travellers sat sipping at a nightcap before they turned in.
It could not have been more anonymous. Not a soul took any notice of them, once the barman had brought them coffee.
‘Tell,’ Kit commanded.
Philip hesitated for a minute. Then he shrugged and gave her a severely truncated run-down of the specialist’s opinion.
‘Not very interesting,’ he concluded dismissively. ‘Nothing to be done.’
>
He had not told her about the ophthalmologist’s advice to live for today.
She looked at him narrowly. ‘Is that true?’
Philip bit back a smile. ‘No one else in my life would have asked me that.’
‘Why? Have you negotiated them all into submission?’ said Kit sourly.
‘I suppose I have,’ he said without rancour.
He sat back in the leather armchair, watching the play of expression over her face. He had never seen her with makeup on before. With her mouth voluptuously red, she suddenly seemed less youthful, more determined. Or maybe her character had changed since Coral Cove. She must have had the fright of her life when Rafek swaggered out of the night to challenge him. Perhaps it had changed her.
‘So you’re not going to take anybody’s advice,’ she diagnosed.
‘Nobody has offered me any,’ he said mildly.
Kit snorted. ‘Have you asked for any?’
He was fascinated by the way her eyes changed colour, now jade, now emerald, now sea-grey. He leaned forward.
‘I don’t think you understand what my life is like. I work. I travel eighty per cent of the time. I see my friends twice a year if I’m lucky. I live alone. Who do I ask for advice? My assistant? The janitor in my building?’
Kit was appalled by the bleak picture he conjured up. She almost softened.
Then she remembered that article. And her internet researches on Soralaya Khan, daughter of oil magnates, supporter of fashionable charities. Philip Hardesty was doing what he did best—manipulating her sympathies.
So she said drily, ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve forgotten someone. There must be the odd girlfriend in there somewhere.’
‘Oh, girlfriends,’ said Philip in the tone in which he might have said, ‘Oh, chocolate truffles!’
They were nice but not important, Kit deduced. And in plentiful supply.
She stood up, the lapis-lazuli dress glinting like underwater treasures.
Ever the gentleman, Philip got to his feet.
How tall he was. How handsome in his dinner jacket, with his midnight hair and sculpted profile. And that air of contained intensity.
Kit avoided his eyes.
‘Talk to one of those girlfriends of yours,’ she suggested crisply. ‘You might even try treating her with respect. And then take her advice.’
She swept off without a backward look.
Philip looked after her with dudgeon. That was not supposed to happen. He had played the noble, suffering card rather well, he thought. And she had positively refused to be moved by it. It left him feeling bruised and rather a fool.
What did she mean, try treating a girlfriend with respect? He always treated women with respect. He prided himself on it. He—
Philip stopped his thoughts dead, almost with astonishment. She had really got under his skin, hadn’t she? He had never sat fulminating like this after other women left him. She had weapons, his unicorn girl, and she knew where to aim them.
This was interesting. This was more than interesting, this was unique. Of course, he had known that before. But this was a new aspect of Kit Romaine. It would need careful consideration. And even more careful handling.
Thoughtfully, he went back to the ballroom.
Well, it had happened, thought Kit. She had said goodnight to Alan, given Tatiana an edited account of her evening and now she was alone in her flat. She did not turn on the light. She stood in front of her Dracula mirror, looking at her shadowed reflection in the sodium light that filtered in from the street.
She almost did not recognise herself. The light drained all the colour from dress and hair. She was all graceful draperies and pale limbs, like the water nymph he had once called her. In the darkness she saw with a little shock that her mouth was richly, sensuously curved. Why had she never realised that before? And her eyes glittered.
Alive. That was what she looked. Alive.
He had found her at last. She had waited for it, dreaded it, dreaded it not happening, ached for him, ashamed of the ache. And now it was done and he was here and she had sent him away. Sent him away, when just the thought of him made her eyes glitter like diamonds and her lips part in anticipation.
‘I must be out of my mind,’ groaned Kit.
She would have to find him. She could not leave it like that, she knew. No matter what it cost her. He was right. There was something between them. The girl in the lapislazuli dress acknowledged it with every shimmering pulse.
There was a question. It had been asked that night under the stars. He might not have made love to her. But she had offered him her heart on a pin. She knew that now. There was nothing she could do to call it back. She had to go on to the end of the road—or stay in the limbo of ‘what if?’ for the rest of her life.
‘All right,’ she told her reflection. ‘You win. Heaven help me.’
Philip had gone to work with all the care of his professional training. If any one of his fellow guests had been asked the next day, they would have said with complete conviction that he had not asked about Kit Romaine. More, that he had not shown any interest in her.
But he worked the tables, bringing the conversation round time and again towards the girl in the bluebird dress. Kit would have been surprised at how much people knew about her. Philip, committing every chance remark to memory, was not. Kit Romaine was memorable at all times. But last night she had been stunning, like quicksilver incarnate.
He ended up with a fair picture of her life, her friends and her habits. There was only one thing he did not get. Her address.
He rang the land agent at Ashbarrow and told him that he was postponing his visit indefinitely.
‘But there are some serious decisions we have to talk about,’ said Geoffrey Bass, alarmed.
‘Have to wait,’ said Philip, kind but immoveable. ‘I’ve got to stay in London to do something important.’
Geoffrey regarded Philip’s job with respect bordering on awe. He accepted the excuse immediately. ‘Important talks?’
‘Crucial,’ said Philip with feeling.
As soon as he rang off he went straight back to the arduous task of finding where Kit Romaine lived.
Kit felt more and more uncertain as she sat in the rattling underground train. The Sunday-morning crowd was full of cheerful tourists. Parents were taking children to museums. Families were going shopping. Lovers were on their way to family visits when they would rather still be in bed together.
It was all so normal. She felt like the only freak. Though maybe that was because she was shaking inside the whole time.
She felt even more of a freak when she walked into Philip’s hotel. She had thought that the venue for last night’s ball was grand. But it was nothing compared to this place. Half-hidden in an elegant mews, the front door looked like a private house, albeit a grand one. Once inside, she found herself surrounded by leather and chintz and oak-panelled walls hung with sporting prints and Victorian portraits. It was hard to work out which of the polished tables constituted the reception desk.
Kit hovered in the entrance. Her cotton trousers and chain-store jacket had felt smart enough when she left home. But here they looked what they were—clumsily tailored and poor quality. She felt hopelessly outclassed. Her shaking increased.
One of the hotel staff took pity on her.
‘Can I help you, miss?’
Kit swallowed. ‘I want to see Philip Hardesty,’ she announced in a high, tight voice.
Alan had found his hotel for her. She did not know how. Rather contrary to her expectations, the desk clerk or whatever he was did not glare at her suspiciously.
‘Sir Philip?’
Sir! Of course! She’d forgotten that. No wonder she was feeling outclassed.
‘Let me just check whether he is staying with us,’ said the desk clerk discreetly. ‘Your name, miss?’
She told him. He went, presumably to sound out the honoured guest about whether he wanted to acknowledge the downmarket article asking for him
in the lobby. Kit walked to the log fire and spread her fingers to the blaze. It made no difference. It did not seem that anything could warm her.
And then a voice behind her said incredulously, ‘Kit?’
And she was fiery hot.
He took her hand. She did not resist. He looked round the cosy lobby, so like a private house, and said in a harassed voice, ‘We can’t talk here. I won’t ask you up to my room. But what about a walk?’
‘Fine,’ said Kit. She felt numb but at least the blush was subsiding.
He walked her through streets of overpoweringly tall buildings, past a palace or two and through the gates of St James’s Park. Kit drew a steadying breath.
The trees were coming into bright green leaf. A thin sunshine drizzled their tops with honey. From the bridge over the lake, the offices of Whitehall looked like a sultan’s palace of turrets between the willows.
‘This is so beautiful,’ she said involuntarily.
‘I’ve always liked it,’ agreed Philip. ‘Now tell me.’
Kit did not pretend to misunderstand him. She said with difficulty, ‘I wish I’d not said those things last night.’
‘Ah.’
‘Not that they were wrong,’ she said quickly. ‘I stand by every word. But there were other things to say, you were right about that. I should have stuck around and talked.’
Philip nodded.
‘Say something,’ said Kit, goaded.
‘I was thinking.’
‘Oh, hell.’
That startled him. ‘What?’
‘Whenever you start to think you end up trying to pull my strings,’ said Kit frankly. ‘I hate it.’
He thought about his cynical ploy to engage her sympathy using his erratic eyesight. Philip was suddenly burningly ashamed of himself.
‘Ah.’
Kit did a little tap dance of frustration. ‘There you go again. Why don’t you just say what you mean? I can’t take all this calculation and weighing and phony diplomacy. It’s not human.’
Philip was taken aback. ‘Live for today?’ he said, struggling to find it amusing. But he was shaken by her vehemence.
‘You could do worse.’
Englishman's Bride (9781460366332) Page 14