by Anne Weale
'Try it and see what happens to you,' was Nick's mocking reply. 'I think I have more experience in the art of unarmed combat than you have, Rosie. Not that I would dream of hurting you. There are other ways of subduing an aggressive woman.. .if she's as attractive as you are.' His gaze shifted to her mouth. 'The last time you were in my arms, you seemed to like it.'
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR THE first time in her life Rosie experienced an extraordinary split between her mind and her body: her mind raging that he should I wit her about the time he had kissed her— the first male ever to kiss her on the lips; her body melting and quivering with longing for him to do it again.
And he would have kissed her, of that she was certain. Except that just as the glint of mockery in his eyes changed to a different kind of gleam, Anna came round the hedge from the other side.
'Oops . . . sorry. I should have knocked,' she . . . lid, disappearing.
'It's all right, Anna. No need for a discreet exit,' said Nick, following her. 'I'm holding Rosie because she walked here without shoes mid I think it's unwise to patter around barefoot.'
'Oh... I see,' said Anna.
She did not look as if she believed him. Rosie wondered if she had heard the tail-end of what they had been saying and might even have butted in deliberately, disapproving of someone engaged to provide his PR getting sexually involved with a B & P author. She could change her mind and drop me from this assignment, thought Rosie, in sudden panic.
'Nick, stop fooling... put me down,' she said in a low urgent tone, as Anna walked on ahead of them.
'Stop fussing,' he answered firmly. 'If you walk around barefoot overseas you could get a nasty infection from a parasite which burrows into feet. I always wear flip-flops except on clean beaches, and so should you.'
From then until they were back in the pool area she maintained a mutinous silence, furious with him, furious with Anna for intruding on them, whether by accident or intention, furious with herself.
Fortunately Carolyn had gone indoors and did not see them return, although Anna might tell her what had happened.
"Thank you,' Rosie said frigidly, when Nick set her on her feet. 'Your concern was quite unnecessary but no doubt you meant well.' As Anna wasn't watching, she flashed him an arctic look which she hoped masked the fact that her heart was still pumping at twice its normal rate. Without further reference to his invitation of a few minutes earlier, Nick said, 'I have to go out for a short time. When I get back, if you like I'll take you all on a tour of the village. It has one or two interesting features, particularly the ceramic pictures on the Stations of the Cross leading up to the Calvary.'
'Thank you, Nick. We'd like that.' When he had gone, Anna said, 'Do I gather that you and Nick had something going way back when you worked on the same paper? He'd like to rake up the ashes, but you wouldn't: have I got it right?'
'No, you're miles off,' said Rosie. 'There was nothing between us, unless you count a peck under the mistletoe at an editorial staff Christmas party. Nick was the office heartthrob. You heard him call me Roly-Poly Rosie at dinner last night. You might not think it now, but thanks to Mum's cooking I was a walking, talking tub of farm butter.'
'Some men like plenty to cuddle. He remembered your beautiful eyes. It makes no odds to me if you two want to tango,' said Anna. 'I don't think Carolyn will like it. She fancies him herself.'
'And is welcome to him,' said Rosie. 'You've known me some time, Anna. You know my work comes first with me.'
'It has up to now. I don't suppose it will forever. Sooner or later we all come to the point when the most important thing in the world is a man. It may not last long but it happens, even to women who don't need the opposite sex for any reason but the biological one. I doubt if you're immune. I thought I was, but I wasn't once John came on the scene.'
'John works in London. You might not have succumbed to him if it had meant resigning your job and going off to live in some remote spot like this,' said Rosie. 'I wonder If Carolyn has considered that.'
'That wouldn't put her off. Don't be misled by the fact that she's a first-rate editor. She's only dedicated to her career as long as she needs it to pay the rent and the grocery bill. She would pack it in tomorrow if a rich author asked her to confine her skills to his books. Nick is tailor-made for her.'
It was on the tip of Rosie's tongue to tell Anna she had reason to believe that everything Nick needed from the opposite sex was provided by the Frenchwoman who had inspired the sexy, witty character called Laure in his book.
He might not consider himself bound to her. He might have a fling with someone else If he felt like it. But Rosie could not see him starting a long-term relationship with Carolyn or anyone else while the model for Laure was conveniently close at hand. Later when they were setting out to tour the village, she said, 'Where does Font Vella's oilier foreigner live—the Frenchwoman you mentioned this morning? Shall we be passing her house?'
'Yes, it has a particularly attractive shrine to the Virgin in an alcove in the facade.'
Half an hour later, when they came to Madame Clermont's house with its blue-robed, gold-crowned statuette set in a niche with a glass door, he said, 'It's a pity I can't show you the interior of the house. Marie-Laure has left me her key but I can't take you inside without her permission. She has impeccable taste and gave me a lot of advice about furnishing the monastery on a shoestring before I had enough money to give Parlade a free hand.'
'How long has she lived here?' Rosie asked.
'Ten years. Font Vella has never had as many houses for sale as some villages. There are places with as many as twenty foreigners—possibly more—living in them. But this village looks like remaining predominantly Spanish for some time to come. Which is how both she and I like it.'
So their relationship must have lasted for several years, Rosie thought, as they moved on towards the bar where Nick ordered one of the renowned roasts to be prepared for their lunch the following day.
When they returned to the monastery, Carolyn said, 'May we see your study or is it strictly private?'
'Certainly you may see it.' He led the way to a room with a large map of the world on one wall and on another a chart showing what he called the bones of his current book.
'I'd rather you didn't look at that, if you don't mind,' he said pleasantly. 'It may be eccentric of me, but I like to keep my plots and characters under hatches until the book is finished.'
Carolyn looked faintly disapproving, Rosie thought. No doubt she would have liked to be consulted at every stage, although Rosie remembered a woman writer whom she had taken on tour telling her that she never discussed her novels with anyone because, if she did, the compulsion to put it on paper was lost.
'You had this custom-made, I imagine?' said Anna, looking at the desk bearing his computer and printer, a facsimile machine, an answering machine and various other gadgets.
'The village carpintero made it up to my design.'
Remembering what she had been thinking about when he joined her behind the cypress hedge, and, seeing that his computer was the same as her own, Rosie said, 'You haven't got a spare disk you would let me use to knock some ideas into shape, have you? Like most computer addicts I find it quite hard to work with any more primitive system now.'
'I know what you mean,' he said. 'I find the words never flow as well if for some reason I'm forced to use a typewriter. As for writing with pencil and paper... perish the thought! By all means use the machine. I'll program it for you. I take it you know this system?'
When the others had disappeared through the jib-door to the library, Rosie settled herself in his comfortable working chair and tapped out the thoughts she had had in the garden earlier. Then she typed, 'If this person were a tree he would be...? Leaving the end of the line blank, she sat back to ponder how to complete the clue.
She had just typed in 'umbrella pine' when Nick came back with a mug in his hand.
'I can't remember if you take sugar.'
&
nbsp; 'I used to. I don't any more. Thank you.'
Expecting him to rejoin the others, she was disconcerted when he slung a long thigh over the end of the desk which had no equipment on it and stretched out his other leg.
'By the way, in the interests of accuracy, I never went to bed with Di Preston.'
At the end of a long pause, she said, 'You may not have done so, literally. Are you trying to make me believe you never made love to her anywhere?'
'You can only change people's minds if their minds are open. I'm not sure that yours is... as far as I'm concerned, Rosie.'
'That's dodging the question.'
'Then I'll be unchivalrous and tell you that, in spite of being given a great deal of encouragement, I did not respond to Mrs Preston's advances, which were largely motivated by a desire to serve her gander the same sauce he had served her. She convinced him and you and no doubt a lot of other people that she and I were what is crudely called "having it off". We were not.' He rose. 'Believe it or not, as you please. It's the truth.' He began to walk towards the door. He had almost reached it when she said, 'Wait a minute, Nick.'
He paused, turning his head and raising an enquiring eyebrow.
Rosie said, 'I believe it. Why should you bother to lie to me? It's not my business anyway. I'm sorry I misjudged you.'
'I'm sorry someone was sufficiently mean-minded to plant that unpleasant disillusionment in your idealistic head. I may be wrong, but I think you probably had a bit of a schoolgirl crush on me.'
Not for the first time on this trip, Rosie found herself torn by conflicting impulses. She was tempted to deny it and equally tempted to admit, with a nonchalance appropriate to a sophisticated woman of twenty-seven admitting to something which had happened too long ago to be anything but a joke now, that in those far off days she had been crazy about him. Instead she said, 'I think I was exceptionally naive for my age. At the time it was rather upsetting to be told that the first man to kiss me was anything but a parfit gentil knight. My parents married quite young and I'm sure my father has never wanted anyone but Mum or she anyone but him. When you grow up as part of a large self-sufficient country family, you form ideas about love and marriage which are different from most people's. I've changed a lot of my ideas since then, but I'm still not impressed by womanisers.'
'And do you see me in that light?'
'You're thirty-five, heterosexual but not married. You may live in a monastery but I doubt if you live the celibate life of your predecessors here. I should think chastity has as little place in your life as poverty.'
'I haven't lived like a monk,' he agreed. 'Have you lived like a nun? If so, you must have extraordinary will-power to resist all the approaches which must have been made to you.'
'I didn't resist love when it was offered to me... and I thought I could return it.'
'But it didn't last, hm?'
'No, unfortunately not.'
'How long ago did it break up?'
She tapped a light tattoo on the edge of the keyboard. 'I'm here on business, Nick, not to discuss my private life.'
'Hint taken. I'll leave you in peace.' He rose and went out of the room. Not in peace, thought Rosie, as she sipped the tea. Her peace of mind had evaporated the night Anna had rung up about him.
What ought she to do? Keep him firmly at arm's length? Or be friendly, warm, responsive and see what, if anything, developed?
It wasn't like her to vacillate. Up to now, with all the major decisions in her life, she had seen clearly what she should do and done it. The decision to drop her plan to try magazine work and take the PR opportunity had not kept her awake at night. Nor had the beginning and ending of her last long relationship caused her days of uncertainty.
But now, thrown together with her first love, her normal clarity of mind was clouded by emotion and indecision.
Before, 'not knowing which way to turn' had been merely an expression, not a situation she had experienced. Now the phrase described exactly how she felt, and to someone of her even, orderly temperament it was as alien as living in an untidy muddle or having a dusty, cluttered desk. Nick's desk was as workmanlike as her own desks at the office and in her bedroom in Fulham. But although he was using all the latest forms of technology and, she noticed, had even invested in a large commercial-size photocopier, there were some personal touches among all the up-to-date gadgetry.
The mug in which he kept his pens, pencils and highlighters looked as if it might be an example of the Talavera pottery Jose had told her about. His letter opener combined a stiletto-sharp blade with the ornate silver handle seen on antique button-hooks. Perhaps it had been a present from Marie-Laure Clermont. It looked like the kind of practical yet decorative gift a woman of taste might devise for her lover.
The baskets of finely woven grass and cane which were evidently IN and OUT trays had probably been picked up by Nick on his travels in the East, as no doubt had the lapiz shell box in which he kept his stamps. She could see the head of King Juan Carlos through the semi-transparent shell.
She worked on her ideas until Anna put her head round the door. 'Take a break to look at a gorgeous sunset over the mountains. We're watching it from the mi r ad or opposite our bedrooms. Better hurry if you want to see it. It won't last long.'
Rosie closed the document she was working on and removed from the machine the small floppy disk Nick had given her. Replacing its plastic cover, she put it in her pocket. At this stage she did not want Nick to see her incomplete ideas.
Perhaps, as he had sufficient faith in her integrity to leave her with access to all his private files, she should trust him not to sneak a look at her notes. He was going to see what she had written about him sooner or later.
Passing the complicated chart with its jigsaw of coloured labels with notes written on them, she wondered if Carolyn, left alone m his study, would be able to resist looking at it. She found the others sitting on canvas directors' chairs set out in the upper cloister where Nick had found her that morning. Now, the sun having already sunk behind the half-circle of mountains, their rugged crests were in dark silhouette against a "sky blazing wit h every shade of red from crimson to pale pink with, here and there, streaks of apricot and mother-of-pearl. This doesn't happen every night,' said Nick. 'We're drinking vodka and tonic. Is that all right for you, Rosie?'
I'll have tonic by itself, if I may, please?'
'Of course.' When he brought it to where she was sitting, as he put it into her hand, he bent to say quietly, 'You haven't got a headache, have you?'
'No, I'm fine. I'm just giving my liver a short rest,' she said, with a smile. He nodded. 'I asked because sometimes people get headaches, even migraines, when they come here and relax from their usual rat-race.'
He returned to his chair on the far side of the two in which the others were sitting. Anna, who had heard what he said, leaned forward slightly to speak to him across Carolyn.
'I should have thought you might have had a problem getting your house guests to go back to the rat-race after a taste of this idyllic life.'
'It's not always as good as today,' he said drily. 'Today has been Spain at its best. The mountains can look pretty bleak with rain-clouds hanging over them, and eight power-cuts in a day are exasperating to anyone using a computer. But I guess a sunset like this is worth a fair bit of aggro.'
'I think it's sheer heaven here,' said Carolyn. 'To be honest, I'd thought of Spain as completely ruined by hordes of the worst type of tourists... except in the really remote parts, and I'm not keen on camping and hiking. This to me is perfection. I should love to have a place here—not on the grand scale you have, Nick, but a cottage to come to for long weekends when I really needed to unwind. Is there any chance of finding one?'
Anna flicked a swift glance at Rosie, who interpreted it to mean, What did I tell you?
Nick said, 'Not in Font Vella. You might find something in one of the other pueblos. You'd have to go to an estate agent to find out what is available.'
'But your French friend has a house here. Surely, sooner or later, others must come on the market? Not all old people have children to leave their houses to. Young couples move away to get better jobs. If anything did come up, you'd be among the first to hear of it, wouldn't you?'
'Probably. Encarna knows everyone's business and usually relays it to me. But if any houses are going to be sold, I am now thanks to Bury & Poole's substantial advance—in a position to buy them.'
'You already have this great place. Why do you want more houses?'
'To save them from being badly done up. Also, I don't want to live in a village where some of the houses stand empty most of the time.'
He rose to hand round a dish of olives.
'A few years ago,' he went on, 'when the English began buying property in northern France, the French saw a danger of certain picturesque towns being virtually taken over by foreigners, most of them not full-time residents. The danger exists here. There are places where it has happened. I would sell a house to you, Carolyn, only if you wanted to live in the village and speak Spanish to your neighbours. Not if you came here occasionally, bought all your supplies at one of the big supermarkets on the coast, and mixed exclusively with other foreigners.'
Carolyn's full lips formed a reproachful mock pout. 'I should have thought you might make an exception in my case,' she said archly. 'You wouldn't have got such a large advance if I hadn't said I'd resign if I couldn't have carte blanche to outbid everyone else who wanted Crusade.'
'I'm delighted you have such confidence in I he book, but I'm afraid it's not possible to return the compliment by promising you the chance to buy the first house which comes up. You were backing your judgement with company money. I have a more personal stake in the future of this village.'
Rosie, in Carolyn's place, would have smiled, agreed, left it at that. The fiction director had a stronger strain of persistence in her make-up.
She said, 'I'm beginning to think you're as implacable as Jake in Crusade. Not many editors would have laid their jobs on the line for you.'