by Liz Fielding
‘I believe that’s exactly what we are, Mr McFarlane,’ she replied, cool as the proverbial cucumber. ‘Strangers.’
He nodded, acknowledging the truth of that. The lie of it. ‘Nevertheless,’ he persisted and she glanced up, her look giving the lie to her words as she met his gaze, as if searching for something…‘Just to save time,’ he added.
‘To save time?’
She didn’t quite shrug, didn’t quite smile-or only in self-mockery, as if she’d hoped for something more. What, for heaven’s sake? Hadn’t she got enough?
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Tom it is. On the strict understanding that it’s just to save time. But you are going to have to call me Sylvie. My time may not be as valuable as yours, but it’s in equally short supply.’
‘I think I can manage that. Sylvie.’
Divorced from ‘Duchamp’ and ‘Smith’, the name slipped over his tongue like silk and he wanted to say it again.
Sylvie.
Instead, he cleared his throat and focused on the photograph.
‘Why is this here?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you want it?’ Then, because if this had been a photograph of his family, he would never have let it go, ‘It’s part of your family history.’
Sylvie took the photograph from him. Laid her hand against the cold glass for a moment, her eyes closed, remembering.
‘When the creditors moved in,’ she said after a moment, ‘all I was allowed to take were my clothes and a few personal possessions. The pearls I was given by my grandfather for my eighteenth birthday. And my car, although they insisted on checking the log book to make sure it was in my name before they let me drive away.’
It should have mattered. But by then nothing had mattered…
‘You’ll understand if I save my sympathy for the people who were owed money.’
She looked up at him. So solid. So successful. So scornful.
‘You needn’t be concerned for the little men,’ she said. ‘We always paid our bills. Our problems were caused by two lots of death duties in three years and the fact that my grandfather, after a lifetime of a somewhat relaxed attitude to expenditure, had decided to think of the future, the family and, on the advice of someone he trusted, had become a Lloyds “name” a couple of years before everything went belly-up.’
A fact which, when he realised what it meant, had certainly contributed to the heart attack that had killed him and, indirectly, to the death of her mother.
‘The irony of the situation is that if he’d carried on throwing parties and letting the future take care of itself we’d all have been a lot better off,’ she added.
‘But this photograph doesn’t have any value,’ he protested. ‘Beyond historical interest. Sentimental attachment.’
‘Yes, well, they did say that once a complete inventory had been taken I would be allowed to come back, take away family things that had no intrinsic value. But then a world-famous rock star who’d visited the house as a boy was seized by a mission to conserve the place in aspic as a slice of history.’
Tom McFarlane made a sound that suggested he was less than impressed.
‘I know. More money than sense, but he made an offer that the creditors couldn’t refuse and, since he was prepared to pay a very large premium for his pleasure, he got it all. Family photographs, portraits, all the junk in the attic. Even Mr and Mrs Kennedy, the housekeeper and man of all work, were kept on as caretakers, so it wasn’t all bad news.’
‘Could they do that? Sell everything?’
‘Who was to stop them? I didn’t have any money to fight for the rights to my family history and, even if I did, the only people to benefit would have been the lawyers. This way everything was settled. Was preserved.’
And she’d been able to move on, make another life instead of every day being reminded of things she’d rather forget.
Jeremy putting off the wedding-just until things had settled down. Her mother’s determination to confront the people who were draining everything out of her family home. Her father…No, she refused to waste a single thought on him.
‘I’d moved into a flat share with two other girls by then and had barely enough room to hang my clothes, let alone the family portraits.’ She took the photograph from him and replaced it on the shelf where it had been all her life. All her mother’s life. All her grandfather’s life too. ‘Besides, you’re right. This isn’t just my history. As you said, it was the same for everyone.’
Had he really said that? he wondered as he looked around him.
Longbourne Court was a gracious minor stately home, but from the moment he’d walked through the door Tom had recognised it for what it was. A family home. A place where generations of the same family had lived, cradle to grave, each putting their mark on it.
It wasn’t just the portraits or the trees in the parkland. It was the scuffs and wear, the dips in the floorboards where countless feet had walked, the patina of polish applied by a hundred different hands. Scratches where dogs had pawed at doors, raced across ancient oak floors.
He realised that Sylvie was frowning, as if his question was beyond her. And it was, of course. How could she know what it was like to have no one? No photographs. No keepsakes.
‘Not everyone has memories, a place in history, Sylvie.’
‘No memories?’ He hadn’t mentioned himself and yet she seemed to instantly catch his meaning. ‘No family?’ Then, ‘How dreadful for you, Tom. I’m so sorry.’
She said the words simply, sincerely, his name warm upon her lips. And, for the second time that day, Tom regretted the impulse to speak first and think afterwards. Betraying something within him that he kept hidden, even from himself.
‘I don’t need your pity,’ he said sharply.
‘No?’ Maybe she recognised the danger of pressing it and, no doubt trained from birth in the art of covering conversational faux pas, she quickly moved away and, looking around, said, ‘I was hoping to find Pam. I don’t suppose you know where she is?’
‘Why? What do you want her for? If you’re in a hurry, maybe I can help.’
She hesitated, clearly reluctant to say, which no doubt meant it had something to do with this wretched Wedding Fayre. He thought he was hard-nosed when it came to business, but using her own wedding as a promotional opportunity seemed cold even to him.
But, choosing to demonstrate that he was quite as capable as her when it came to covering the awkward moment-at least when he wasn’t causing them-he said, ‘The truth is I was looking for you in order to apologise for my “sackcloth and ashes” remark. It was inexcusable.’
‘On the contrary. You had every excuse,’ she said quickly. ‘I really should have made more of an effort to stop Geena before she got totally carried away.’
‘You might as well have tried to stop a runaway train.’
‘True, but even so-’
‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘I should have done it myself, preferably without the crash barrier technique. I’m not normally quite so socially inept, but I’m sure you will understand that you were the last person I expected to see at Longbourne Court.’
And, confronted with the growing evidence of her impending motherhood which, two months on from seeing her on the cover of that hideous magazine, was now obvious, he was trying hard not to think about just how pregnant she was.
Trying not to wonder just how soon after that lost moment with him she’d found the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Someone who was a world away from him. Someone she’d known for ever…
‘That makes two of us,’ she said. ‘You were the very last person I expected to see. Candy told me you disliked the country.’
‘I dislike certain aspects of the country. Hunting, shooting,’ he added.
‘Me too. My great-grandfather banned all field sports from the estate. He said there had been too much killing…’ She paused for a heartbeat and then said, ‘You did get my letter?’
He nodded and turned away. He should apologise, expla
in that he hadn’t meant it the way she’d taken it. She’d earned every penny of her fee. But what would be the point?
In truth, six months spent thinking about what had happened, about her-whether he’d wanted to or not-had left him with a very clear understanding of his responsibility for what had happened.
He’d known what he was doing when he’d called her to his office.
Had known what he was doing when he’d kept her there, forcing her to go through that wretched account, when, in truth, it had meant nothing to him.
Convinced that she had somehow sabotaged his future, he’d wanted to punish her. The truth was he’d sabotaged his own plans, had become more and more distant from Candy as the wedding had grown nearer, using the excuse of work when the only thing on his mind had been that moment when he’d walked into Sylvie Smith’s office and she’d looked up and the smile had died on her lips…
And he’d blamed her for that too.
Then, for just a moment, instead of being a man and woman locked in an ongoing argument, they had been fused, as one, and the world had, briefly, made complete sense-until he’d seen the tears spilling down her cheeks and had known, without the need for words, that he’d got it wrong, that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.
What good would it do to say any of that now? She had her life mapped out and to tell her how he felt would only make her feel worse. Better that she should despise him than feel sorry for him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘For everything.’
She turned away, a faint blush of pink staining her cheeks as, no doubt, like him, she was reliving a moment that had fired not just the body, but something deeper-the mindless heat of two people so lost to sense that nothing could have stopped them.
Or maybe he was just hoping it was that. It was, in all likelihood, plain guilt.
The fact that just six months later she was visibly pregnant with another man’s child demonstrated that as nothing else could and he’d done his level best to forget her.
From the first moment he’d set eyes on her he’d done his best to put her out of his mind.
That he’d felt such an immediate, powerful attraction to this woman at their first meeting when Candy, the woman he was about to marry, was standing next to him, had been bad enough and he’d kept his distance, had avoided anything to do with the wedding plans. Had buried himself in work and done his best to avoid thinking about her at all.
He’d made a fair fist of it until she’d waved her presence in front of him with that damned invoice.
If she hadn’t added that handwritten ‘Personal’ to the envelope-no doubt in an attempt to save him embarrassment-his PA would have opened it, dealt with it, would have put through the payment without even troubling him.
Instead, it had been left on his desk to catch him on the raw when he’d opened it. Raw, angry, he had been determined to look her in the eye and challenge her. Challenge himself.
Well, he’d won. And lost.
Twice. Because, face to face with her now, he knew that she was the one. The One.
Then, because that was the last thing he wanted to think about, he said, ‘What did you want Pam for?’
She stared at him for a moment, then raised a hand, swiping at the air as if to clear away something he couldn’t see, then crossed distractedly to the desk as if she might find her.
‘I just wanted to ask her if I could go up into the attics to look for something that belonged to my great-grandmother. To borrow for a little while.’
‘Your great-grandmother?’ he repeated, grateful for the distraction. ‘How long has it been there?’
‘Since I put there. Before I left.’ She turned back to face him. ‘Unless you’ve already started to clear things?’ She made it sound as if he was destroying something beyond price.
Maybe, for her, he was.
‘Apart from instructing Mark Hilliard to put in an application for outline planning, I’ve done nothing,’ he assured her, ‘and, as far as I can tell from my tour of the place with Mark this morning, nothing appears to have been touched.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s hopeful.’
She’d begun to soften as they’d talked about her family and for a moment he’d forgotten the barrier between them as, apparently, had she. It was back in place now and it wasn’t that edgy barrier with which she’d fought the attraction between them but something colder. Angrier.
‘Was this the great-grandmother who married the boy in the photograph?’ he asked, using what he’d learned about her. That people, her family, were more important than possessions. Hoping, against all reality, to draw her back to him.
‘James. Yes. The other lot, the Smiths, were a soldiering clan so they were constantly on the move and by comparison travelled light.’
She said it dismissively, clearly not a big fan of the Smiths. She hadn’t wanted her father at her wedding, at least not walking her down the aisle, he remembered. What was that about?
‘From the clutter upstairs, I’d say that’s probably a good thing,’ he said, making no comment. Then, as if he didn’t have another thing in the world to occupy him, ‘Do you want to take a look up there now?’
‘It is a bit urgent,’ she said and glanced, a touch helplessly, at Pam’s desk. ‘Will Pam be back soon?’
‘Not in time to be of any help to you.’ For a moment he waited, his intention to make her ask for his help, to need him just once, but his curiosity got the better of him and, more interested in her urgent desire to examine the contents of an old trunk than in scoring points, he stood back and, inviting her to lead the way, said, ‘Shall we go?’
Neither of them moved, both remembering the last time he’d said those words.
Then, abruptly, Sylvie said, ‘There’s really no need to bother yourself.’ Which did nothing to allay his curiosity. ‘Honestly. I know the way.’
‘I’m sure you do, Sylvie, but it’s no bother,’ he assured her. ‘I’m going to have to clear the attics very shortly and it will be useful to have someone who can tell me what, exactly, is up there before it gets tossed into a skip.’
‘You wouldn’t!’ she declared, her eyes widening in a flash of anger. So Miss Sylvie Duchamp Smith wasn’t quite as detached about her family’s belongings-even the ones left to rot in the attics-as she would have him believe.
‘I might,’ he said carelessly. ‘One family’s treasures are another man’s junk.’
‘No doubt,’ she said, that quick flash of fire back under control.
‘Unless you can prove me wrong.’
‘It’s your junk. You must do with it as you wish.’
‘True.’ But having her acknowledge that fact gave him rather less pleasure than he’d anticipated which was, perhaps, why he said, ‘I should warn you that it’s pretty dusty up there so you might want to change your shoes. It would be a pity to spoil them.’
‘What?’ She looked down, let slip a word that somehow didn’t sound quite as shocking when spoken in those crisp consonants, perfectly rounded vowels.
‘Is there a problem?’ he enquired.
‘Yes!’ Then she wiggled her toes and, with an unexpected smile that turned the silvery-blue to the colour of a summer sky, she looked up and added, ‘And, then again, no. It just means that, having worn them most of the morning, I’m going to have to buy them.’
‘Is that a problem?’ he asked, recalling Pam’s earlier comments on the subject. ‘I understood shoe-buying was the antidote to all feminine ills.’
‘You shouldn’t believe everything that Candy told you,’ she snapped. ‘And I’m not here for recreational shopping.’
‘No?’ Obviously wedding planning was her livelihood but, even so, he’d have thought she’d have been a little less matter-of-fact about it. ‘I thought that was what weddings were invented for.’
‘If you believe that, Tom, I suggest you familiarise yourself with the words of the marriage service,’ Sylvie said, regarding him with a long cool look that made him wish
he’d kept his mouth shut. Then, with an unexpected blush, she shook her head and said, ‘The truth is that this wedding is more about recreational borrowing. But once you’ve worn the shoes, they’re yours.’
‘You’ll never regret it,’ he said, finding it easier to look at her feet than her face.
‘I will if I don’t change them. Why don’t you go on and I’ll catch you up?’ she suggested, losing the tigerish protectiveness she’d shown when she’d thought he was prepared to throw the contents of all those trunks away. That touch of hauteur when she’d chastised him for his lack of respect for the marriage service. Instead, snapping back into a defensive attitude as she turned and walked quickly away, not waiting for him to answer her.
He did anyway, murmuring, ‘No hurry,’ as, for the second time that morning, he watched her retreat as fast as her pretty purple shoes would carry her. ‘I might get lost.’
Too late. He already was.
CHAPTER SEVEN
S YLVIE took a few moments to splash water on her face. Regain her composure.
She shouldn’t have asked him. She’d promised, but she had to be sure. She didn’t want to believe him so incapable of feeling…
She blew her nose, tucked a wayward strand of hair back into her scarf. Regarded her reflection in the glass. ‘Serves you right, my girl,’ she said, then laid her hand against her waist. ‘Be thankful for what you’ve got.’
And with that she changed into sensible shoes and rejoined Tom McFarlane at the foot of the stairs. Neither of them spoke but she was intensely conscious of him at her side, then at her back as she led the way up the last flight of narrow stairs to the attics.
Why on earth had he waited?
It wasn’t as if he didn’t know the way…
She reached for the light switch but he was a fraction faster and, as their hands connected, her mind was filled with the image of long fingers holding his pen, ticking off invoice after invoice, on that endless afternoon. The memory of their strength as he’d lifted her down from the van, the way they’d felt against her skin.