by Page, Sophie
Bella’s head went back and her toes started to do that curling-for-the-carpet thing again.
‘Is this wise?’ Her voice came out high and breathless.
‘Nope.’ He was laughing, intent, and there was no way he was letting her go.
She was wracked with pleasure. ‘What if someone comes in?’
‘Your problem,’ he said smugly, not raising his head. ‘I don’t care.’
She gave an involuntary gasp of pleasure. ‘Don’t do that.’
He did lift his head then. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Thought so,’ he said with satisfaction, and went back to driving her quietly out of her mind.
Bella stuffed her knuckles in her mouth and concentrated on not screaming the roof off. Then various irritating fastenings began to give and her concentration became even more focused. They toppled sideways, Richard laughing like a maniac. She felt a shoe fall away, then her trousers and suddenly he wasn’t laughing any more and neither was she, as they pulled at each other’s clothes almost desperately.
A bit – a tiny and diminishing bit – of her brain said: I don’t do things like this. And nor does he!
But her body wasn’t having any truck with that. There was that moment of total completion as he slid inside her and then they were off on a crazy ride and she stopped thinking at all.
She floated gently back to earth to find he had collapsed on top of her, his mouth against the naked skin of her armpit. Naked? How did she get naked? She smelled warm skin and freshly laundered cotton and shampoo. Or was it aftershave? And, distantly, the whiff of new paint. She moistened her lips and discovered she was tasting champagne that she had never drunk.
‘Oh, Lord,’ she said, as her brain came tiptoeing timidly back into consciousness.
He stirred. His tumbled hair was soft against her sensitised breast. Bella shivered involuntarily.
‘Whaaa?’
She began to push at him. ‘We need to move. We’ve got clothes to find.’
At once he was alert. He sprang to his feet, only to trip over his own trousers and stagger, hobbled, to the boardroom table. He held on to it like a drunk in a Western saloon.
‘Jesus!’
Bella could not help herself. She started to laugh and couldn’t stop, lying on the carpet convulsed and helpless.
He looked down at her, sprawled and giggling. He ran a hand through his wild hair. A slow smile dawned.
‘You are disgracefully tempting—’
And then the worst imaginable thing happened. A door that neither of them had been aware of opened at the far end of the room.
He dropped like a stone to the carpet and rolled under the table. Bella hauled up her trousers and grabbed her jacket, trying to wriggle deeper into the shadows and join him. She found that she had picked up a carpet burn.
‘Ouch!’
She shut up at once. But was it too late? She could not see anyone for the piles of chairs and the big table. But that door was definitely still open. She held her breath, aware that Richard, too, was hardly breathing. His hand felt for her across the carpet and she realised that he was sitting with his knees up, his back against the table leg. He gathered her against him, comfortingly, and they braced themselves for discovery as Bella buttoned her steward’s jacket.
A hectoring voice said, ‘This looks terrible. If Sir Brian asks, you’ll just have to say that the paint is still wet. We’ll have to keep it locked. We can’t have Royalty coming in here.’
‘Too late,’ muttered Richard into Bella’s hair.
She started to shake again, with agonising, silent laughter.
The bossy person went out and closed the door decisively. Silence and shadows reigned again.
‘Oh – my – God,’ said Bella on a long, shaky breath.
Richard was stuffing his beautiful shirt back into his trousers. ‘Too right,’ he said with feeling.
She thumped back against the piled chairs with a great sigh of relief.
‘I thought we were for it.’
‘Yup. Me too.’
But he didn’t sound as worried at the thought as she would have expected. Instead, he sounded positively tranquil. Even pleased with himself.
‘What happened to that terminal good behaviour syndrome?’
He laughed. ‘I must be getting over it at last.’
He stood up, shaking out his jacket, and held his hand down to help her up. She took it and came lightly to her feet.
Trying for normality, she said, ‘That was unexpected.’ Her voice did not sound like her own.
‘Tell me about it.’
Richard’s hair was all over the place. Her fault, Bella realised. She tried to restore order to it, without much success.
He caught her hand and carried it to his lips, kissing the palm. ‘Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do? Do you know what I felt when I saw you?’
‘Yup. I think that was pretty clear.’
‘You were damned lucky I kept my cool.’
She wriggled a little, appreciatively. ‘Not that cool.’
He shook his head, laughing. ‘Call it a slow burn, then.’ He shot his cuffs. ‘Have you any idea how far outside my comfort zone this is?’
Bella was indignant. ‘And whose fault is that?’
‘Mine. Mine.’
‘If you hadn’t jumped on me …’
‘Stop it,’ he said, not laughing now.
She widened her eyes, innocently.
‘And you can stop looking like that, too. I have three hours of speeches, compliments, and landscape art to get through. I need Zen, not—’
‘Not—?’
‘Not an inner eye full of you looking, well, like that.’
Bella raised an eyebrow.
‘OK. OK.’ He re-buttoned the offending mess jacket and straightened it over her hips. His hands lingered, as if they had a will of their own. But he said, ‘No!’ and put her away from him with resolution. ‘I have places to go, people to be bored by. This has gone far enough. I am leaving now.’
Just before he pressed the button to slide the door open, he turned and said as if it were desperately important, ‘I need to be with you tonight. Will Lottie be OK with that?’
‘I’ll sort it,’ said Bella, dazed.
‘Of course,’ said Lottie, when she called.
She didn’t ask any more and Bella didn’t volunteer any confidences. But they had known each other a long time.
‘I think I’ll stay over at Katy’s. We’re going to a movie and it will be easier.
So they had the flat and the night to themselves. And they didn’t talk about the diary, or the dangers of being found out, or friends, or family, or anything but the moment and what they wanted next.
It was their last night together for nearly two weeks. There were no more evenings in front of Lottie’s fire, not even curtailed ones. They spoke during snatched moments on the phone, several times a day. Although they went on to radio silence, at Bella’s request, when her mother came up to Town for a day of exhibitions, shopping and pampering.
‘I can’t face standing next to her and talking to you on the phone,’ Bella told Richard frankly. ‘She’d be over the moon if she knew. I couldn’t bear it. I know that. But not telling her feels so underhand, somehow.’
‘I can relate to that. OK, silent running on Thursday. We can have a nice long call after midnight to make up for it.’
They did. But in all that time they only met face to face twice: once in a sandwich shop, with Richard disguised in jeans and a Millwall supporter’s scarf; once at a literacy fund-raiser for which Lottie’s company was doing the PR. Richard was guest of honour, of course, very princely in tuxedo and all the trappings, monogrammed cuff links included. He and Bella had a sedate dance. She did her usual trick of falling over her feet. He managed to stay looking regally courteous and kept her at a decent distance, but a muscle worked in his cheek, and she knew it was no easier f
or him than for her.
‘This is torture,’ Bella muttered.
‘I know. I’m sorry. You’ve been very patient. And at least we’ve got dinner next week.’
‘A whole evening! Do you think you can stick to it this time?’
‘Definitely. I’ve told everyone on my staff that nobody, nobody, interferes with my night off. If they try to put anything in my diary that evening, I’ll send them all on an endurance team-building exercise in Sutherland in December.’
Bella laughed up at him. ‘That should scare them.’
His arm tightened. ‘Too right.’ He looked down at her searchingly. ‘How are you doing, my love?
‘Fine. Great. I’m seeing Neill tomorrow. He’s come up to London for some teachers’ bash and we’re having a quick meal before he gets the train home.’
‘Sorry I can’t meet him.’
Bella shifted uncomfortably. She was coming to realise that Richard didn’t understand why she didn’t want to tell her family. He was fine with keeping their relationship secret from the media. But it was increasingly obvious that he minded not telling his own family, especially his brother George. And he’d said more than once that he would like to meet various members of her family. He didn’t press it but it was there, undiscussed, like so much of this relationship.
She said now, ‘Maybe some day.’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’
Bella thought he probably would. God, this thing was going so fast.
She said defiantly, ‘Anyway, you haven’t got a window to meet anyone new for months. Don’t forget I’ve seen the diary.’
He laughed. ‘Have you studied it so closely?’
‘Ian more or less told me to eat it after I’d read it, so I thought I’d better. You know I’ve only got hard copy? He refused to let me have a memory stick. Said I might lose it.’
‘He’s a careful man.’
She harrumphed. ‘He went on as if it were a state secret.’
He laughed aloud. ‘Bits of it probably are state secrets.’
‘Oh, God, I keep forgetting.’
He looked as if he wanted to kiss her. ‘Carry on forgetting. I like it.’
So Bella went to meet her brother next day wearing a big fat smile that she could not get rid of, no matter what she did.
Waiting for her in their favourite Covent Garden wine bar, Neill, not normally the most observant of men, saw it at once. ‘You look cheerful.’
‘I am.’ She hugged him.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Do I need to congratulate you?’
At once she was wary. ‘What? Why? What have you heard?’
‘Francis proposed, has he?’
‘What?’
‘Ma thinks that you’ve left the island so Francis would miss you, see the error of his ways and propose.’
Bella snorted. ‘Ma is delusional,’ she said, settling herself on a tall stool and inspecting the cocktail list. ‘Francis is history. Except for whiny texts when he can’t find something, of course. And even those are tailing off.’
She could feel her brother studying her. ‘And that’s OK?’
She shrugged. ‘I get pissed off when I have to give him a step-by-step guide to find something for the fifth time. Apart from that, no problems.’
Neill looked relieved. ‘I’m glad. I mean, I know he does good work and everything. But he really is a pompous prick.’
Bella agreed cordially.
‘But Ma was so sure you had a thing for him.’
‘I did for a while,’ Bella admitted. ‘I grew out of it.
Have you tried any of these nineteen twenties cocktails?’
He shook his head.
She considered. ‘What do I feel like? A Side Car ? A White Lady? Or what about a Perfect Lady? That sounds like me. And it’s got peach in it.’
He hooted. ‘A Perfect Lady? You?’
Bella was oddly put out. ‘Oh, come on, Neill. I’m not that bad.’
‘You’re not bad at all,’ he said affectionately. ‘You’re great. You’re just not a lady.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Good thing, too. Ladies are a pain in the butt,’ said Neill with unusual bitterness. ‘Always poking and prying, and showing off to each other, and telling you what to do.’
This was serious. Bella put down the cocktail card.
‘What’s wrong, Neill?’
He shifted his shoulders irritably. ‘Don’t you start. Ma has been at me ever since I told her Val and I weren’t coming for Christmas.’
‘Er – yes. She said something about that.’
‘I just bet she did.’
‘She seemed to think you’d been talking to Finn. She said it was all his fault?’
He laughed but it didn’t sound amused. ‘Tell me about it. Val and I want to stay in our own home for Christmas, so it has to be somebody’s fault. What can I say? From Ma’s perspective, Finn’s the usual suspect.’
Bella said cautiously, ‘Doesn’t sound like him.’
‘Too right. When did our father ever notice Christmas?’
There was that new note of bitterness again. Neill rubbed his face and Bella realised how tired he looked, not just tired after a heavy day’s conferencing, but bone tired, as if he’d been carrying something for too long and had just suddenly ground to a halt.
Feeling even more worried, she said, ‘Has something happened?’
He gave her a stricken look and his eyes filled suddenly. Horrified, Bella realised that she had hit paydirt. And that was exactly the moment that the barman came up to take their order.
‘Perfect Lady,’ she said at random. ‘And a Brandy Alexander for my brother.’ Because that was what he had liked years ago, before he was married. ‘We’ll sit over there in that alcove. Can you bring them over?’
‘Sure thing,’ said the barman easily.
Bella grabbed up their coats and Neill’s briefcase and herded her brother towards the secluded table. The wine bar was in an old cellar and its brickwork walls were supported by numberless arches, providing alcoves that gave an illusion of privacy. She dived for one of the smallest. It was clearly designed for lovers, with a little candle flickering in a glass holder and a fresh posy on the polished table, but that couldn’t be helped.
Neill sank down on to the old settle and blew his nose hard.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, plainly embarrassed. ‘Been a long day.’
‘Stuff has obviously been going on while I’ve been away. Come on, give.’
He leaned back and closed his eyes. ‘OK. I s’pose I’ve got to tell someone.’
Bella felt a cold clutch in her stomach. ‘There’s something wrong between you and Val?’ They had always seemed so in love, so good for each other, the successful businesswoman and Bella’s gentle, laid-back brother.
He opened his eyes. ‘You’re not to tell anyone else, right? Particularly not Ma. Promise?’
‘I promise.’
That was when the dam broke. ‘It’s like I can’t do anything right. She’s angry all the time. When she gets home, if I talk to her, I’m insensitive because after a fourteen-hour day she is too exhausted to make conversation, just to amuse me. And if I don’t talk to her, I’m taking her for granted. Or ignoring her. Or being petty and spiteful … I tell you, Bella, I’m lost.’
She was appalled. ‘What started it? Something must have.’
He looked wretched. ‘Val lost a baby,’ he said baldly.
‘Oh, Neill, no. I’m so sorry.’
‘I didn’t realise it would be so bad. I mean, we’d only just found out she was pregnant. It wasn’t planned or anything. In fact, Val wasn’t very keen at first. She said it was the wrong time in her career. But then we both got used to the idea and, well, it’s exciting, isn’t it? So we had about a week of talking through plans and thinking about baby names and, then she had this bad cramp and – well, it happened.’
Bella took his hand. Neill looked surprised. They were not a demonstrative family. But
he seemed to appreciate it and did not draw away.
‘At first, Val was great. Very practical, you know? The doctor said there was nothing wrong with her, it was just one of those things, no reason why we couldn’t have other children. And she said that was good to know and she was glad she hadn’t told anyone. She went back to work at once.’ He looked at Bella wretchedly. ‘That was the only time I did anything. I did say, “Stay at home, take a few days to recover.” But Val was so sure she could handle it. And so I didn’t argue.’
‘It would take a strong man to argue with Val,’ said Bella, who was fond of her sister-in-law but careful around her.
‘I should have been strong,’ said Neill, even more wretched.
‘So what are you going to do? Counselling?’
He shook his head. ‘I suggested that. Val won’t hear of it. She says it’s our business, nobody else’s. She says it’s just because she’s overworked at the moment and we’ll come through this.’
It didn’t sound like it to Bella. ‘But?’ she prompted.
‘Sundays are hell,’ Neill burst out. ‘I can cope most of the week. I have lesson plans and marking and Val leaves early and more often than not it’s nearly midnight when she gets home. So we’re not together that much. But Sundays are a battlefield.’ He gave a short unamused laugh. ‘That’s what I was talking to Finn about, to be honest.’
‘You were asking for advice about marriage from Finn?’
‘Good God, no. I was after advice on weekend adventure activities. Something where I’d have to do lots of training. Something to keep me out of the house all Sunday, basically.’
Bella was silenced.
‘Oh, well, I suppose we’ll sort it out somehow. People do, don’t they?’
Their parents hadn’t, thought Bella. She did not say so but she could see from Neill’s expression that he was thinking the same thing.
They had a subdued meal, and when the time came to part Bella felt so tender of him that she saw him to the mainline station. At the barrier she hugged him hard, as if he were going off on some long and terrible voyage and stood watching him stomp off down the platform until he boarded the train.