Haunted Dreams
CHARLOTTE LAMB
SinsWas the grass really greener for Ambrose Kerr? "I've never told a living soul any of that before… ." Emilie stared up at Ambrose, as what he had told her reverberated in her mind. She hadn't really taken it all in - where on earth could he have come from to have lived like that… ?He ran his hand through his thick black hair in an angry gesture. "God knows why I blurted it out to you. I wonder if you realize… I've given you a weapon that could destroy me… ." Love can conquer the deadliest of Sins.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#uc513a1ac-f78e-56e3-a534-e79b0b8261ea)
Excerpt (#u41ff5a30-1c48-5cc2-8239-246164d78689)
Dear Reader (#u1877d91e-3807-50de-b822-56a0b5fbd37d)
Title Page (#u22f90f6b-6e9f-5a4b-bf9a-6f1274e3fab0)
Chapter One (#ucce25449-fc2f-57f3-8a50-3588a569b7bc)
Chapter Two (#u2f7fa180-7f24-524b-8cc2-c70adb6a65f2)
Chapter Three (#u55aae29e-c3d1-580c-8009-4dfd156489f1)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
He had achieved success others could only dream about, and they envied him.
Was that why Ambrose Kerr held people at arm’s length? Emilie had assumed that he would never want her, because she was so young and naive.
But then she discovered the reason Ambrose was so wary—he hid an incredible secret. The truth only made Emilie want Ambrose more, but it was also dynamite!
If others got to know the real story, the newfound happiness of Emilie and Ambrose would explode…
Dear Reader,
The Seven Deadly Sins are those sins that most of us are in danger of committing every day: very ordinary failings, very human weaknesses, which can sometimes cause pain to both ourselves and others. Over the ages they have been defined as Anger, Covetousness, Envy, Greed, Pride, Lust and Sloth.
In this book I deal with the sin of Envy. We all dream about having lots of money, or being beautiful, or blissfully happy with a man we love, and it is natural to envy someone else who seems to have what we only dream about. Envy can poison life, though, if it isn’t kept under control. It could even lead to tragedy.
Charlotte Lamb
This is the third story in Charlotte Lamb’s gripping seven-part series, SINS. Watch out from now until December for another SINS story every month.
Coming next month: Wild Hunger…the sin of Greed. Have you ever had too much of a good thing?
Haunted Dreams
Charlotte Lamb
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_9b0876de-ab4e-5461-af04-d7b692d69175)
‘LET’S get married, Em!’
‘Sholto!’
The soft gasp was incredulous, more horrified than delighted. The man eavesdropping couldn’t help smiling, although he had been irritated when he heard the other two walk in here. They had no idea he was there, of course. The room was shadowy, just one lamp lit on a small low table behind him. He had a headache threatening; light made it worse, as did the constant babble of voices, the throb of music, in the party going on outside. That was why he had retreated into this room, which was his study. As the host he ought to be out there, talking to people.
Moving warily a fraction, he could see the intruders in a mirror on the wall above him.
They still hadn’t noticed him; he had his back to them and was hidden by the deep leather armchair he sat in, for one thing, and, for another, they were far too absorbed in themselves.
He could only see the boy in profile, but the girl was facing him; he saw the dim light glimmering on sleek brown hair, on a string of pearls around a pale, slender throat, on wide, startled blue eyes.
‘I’m serious! I’m crazy about you, you know I am—oh, come on, Em, say yes!’ The boy was excited, a little drunk, his voice furry, thickened. ‘We can get engaged tonight…Announce it here, tell everyone…That would make them all sit up!’
He had shifted, coming full-face. Their audience realised then that this was no boy. He recognised him—he should have picked up on the name at once; it was hardly a common one. Sholto Cory must be in his twenties, surely? Much older than the girl with him, anyway. Blond hair, blue eyes, a fresh complexion, he was attractive and lively, and led a busy social life. The youngest son of a Scottish family with land, but not much money, he was lucky enough to have brains. He had gone into banking and was doing well, but there was a question mark against him in the mind of the man watching him. Was Sholto tough enough to claw his way to the top?
The watcher’s narrowed grey eyes moved to assess the girl again. He was sure he had never seen her before. Small, slender, with a fall of straight dark brown hair, well-brushed and shining, a cool oval face, and big, blue, dreamy-looking eyes with incredibly long dark lashes, she wasn’t pretty, certainly not beautiful, and wore very little make-up, compared with some of the other female guests tonight. From the look of her, she had only just left school. Pale pink lipstick on her mouth, a dusting of powder on her small nose…Those lashes were real, and she wore no eyeshadow.
It surprised him that Sholto Cory should have fallen for a girl like this—he would have expected Sholto to go for something more obvious, a glitzy type. Sholto must have better taste than he had ever suspected.
But the girl had a sort of radiance; her nature shone in her face, in her gentle blue eyes, the sweet curve of her mouth. Her party dress was a pansy-blue silk, demure, almost old-fashioned, but it suited her perfectly, and the cut made him suspect it had been designed for her by someone very clever and very expensive. He even thought he could name the designer—her clients tended to be conservative and very rich—which meant that this girl must come from a wealthy family. Did that explain Sholto’s interest?
His mouth twisted wryly. Or am I just too cynical? he wondered.
‘You’re not serious, Sholto!’ the girl was saying.
‘Of course I am!’ Sholto retorted, sounding impatient, then dived at her and began trying to kiss her.
‘Oh, don’t!’ She wriggled away, shaking her head. ‘Sholto, I can’t…I’m sorry, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I really can’t…I do like you, you know I do, but marriage…No, I’m not ready to get married yet.’
‘We don’t have to get married for ages! We could just get engaged.’
‘If we get engaged they’ll all start planning the wedding, and before we know where we are they’ll fix a date and…Oh, I can’t, Sholto!’
‘I thought you loved me!’
Sholto sounded as if he might start crying, and the girl heard it, looking up at him, her lower lip caught between two rows of small white teeth.
‘I’m sorry…Oh, poor Sholto,’ she said unhappily.
The man eavesdropping couldn’t help smiling again, but Sholto was not amused. She had hurt him—and now she was making it worse by sounding sorry for him!
He went red and grabbed her by the shoulders, pushed her backwards until she met the wall, held her there with his strong, slim body and began to kiss her angrily, bruising her mouth.
She tried to fight him off, but Sholto was stronger; his hands tightened on her, his fingers digging into her soft skin.
‘Don’t, Sholto! You’re hurting me…’ she cried in a smothered voice, a sob in her throat.
The man in the armchair hadn’t meant to intervene. In fact, he was surprised to find himself on his feet, but he didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. He was across the room before they heard him coming. A tall, hard man, he took Sholto by the neck as easily as if he were a puppy and flung him aside.
Sholto fell against the door with a loud crash. ‘What the hell…?’ he spluttered, recovering almost at once and leaping back towards the other man.
At that instant the older man flicked down a switch on the wall and the chandelier in the centre of the room flooded them all with blinding light.
Sholto stopped dead, his indrawn breath very audible. ‘Sir!’ He turned white.
The other man ignored him; he was looking at the girl, who was silently crying, tears rolling down her face.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked her gently.
She didn’t answer, just put her hands over her face, trembling so much she had to lean on the wall to stay upright.
Sholto stammered, ‘I h-had no idea you were in here, sir. I’m s-sorry if we intruded, we thought the room was empty.’
‘Clearly.’ The voice was clipped, curt, the man’s lips barely parted to let the word out. ‘Go back to the party, Cory,’ he added.
Sholto looked relieved and gabbled, ‘Yes, sir, of course. Come on, Em!’
The other man’s voice cracked like a whip. ‘Leave her here—she can’t go back to the party in that state!’
Sholto hesitated, reddening, met the hard stare of grey eyes and almost ran out of the room, the heavy mahogany door closing behind him with a solid sound.
Pulling a clean white handkerchief out of a pocket, the other man put it into the girl’s hand.
She whispered, ‘Thank you,’ and dried her face, blew her nose, gave him a fleeting glance through those long, long damp lashes, her eyes dark blue with distress and embarrassment.
‘I’m sorry we disturbed you.’ She began to move sideways towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’
He put a hand out to stop her, not touching her but barring her way. ‘I shouldn’t go back just yet. Give yourself a minute to calm down before you have to face the others.’
‘I am really perfectly well now, but thank you for being so thoughtful.’ The grave courtesy was touching; a child playing at being grown-up. How old was she? he wondered. And who was she?
‘We ought to introduce ourselves,’ he said. ‘My name is Kerr.’ He watched her, wondering how she would react when she realised who he was. ‘Ambrose Kerr.’
The girl’s head jerked up, the blue eyes wider than ever, and he noticed how clear the whites were around the sky-colour of the iris; he was reminded of the blue and white sheen of early Chinese porcelain. She stared at him and this time really took in what he looked like, her gaze searching his face. ‘Oh,’ she said huskily, then, thinking aloud, ‘This is your house, then!’ Her fine dark brows met. ‘It’s your party,’ she worked out, looking shocked. ‘Oh. That’s why Sholto looked so horrified.’
Ambrose Kerr’s mouth twisted in sardonic amusement, remembering Sholto’s face. ‘Yes, I don’t imagine he was pleased to see me.’
She looked up at him, frowning. ‘You should have let us know you were in here as soon as we came in!’ she reproached, and he gave her a wry look.
‘I apologise, but it all happened so quickly—you came in without warning, and before I could announce my presence Sholto proposed, and I didn’t like to interrupt and ruin what could have been a magic moment.’
The dry tone made her turn bright pink. ‘Oh…you heard that?’
His grey eyes were amused. ‘I’m afraid so. Very reluctantly, I assure you.’
She gave a long groan. ‘Sholto will want to die when he realises! Oh, poor Sholto. And he was so thrilled to get the invitation to your Christmas party; he said it was a tremendous compliment to get one.’
He held a party for his staff every Christmas, at his impressive, Nash-designed home in Regent’s Park, within a mile of the city headquarters of the bank he ran. He didn’t draw up the list of guests himself—the invitations went out on the advice of the senior staff, so that the chairman could meet promising newcomers and assess them in a social situation, and meet again older members of the staff he did not normally come in contact with. Ambrose Kerr knew that they all hoped the party would give them a chance to catch his eye and impress him, and he could imagine how Sholto Cory’s heart must have sunk when he recognised him a few moments ago.
‘Oh, dear,’ the girl said, frowning at nothing, talking in a low, worried voice, as if to herself more than him. ‘I feel worse now, but how was I to guess he would propose? Out of the blue, like that?’
Ambrose Kerr watched her, fascinated by the changing expressions on that oval face. She showed everything, didn’t she? Colour swept over her face all the time—now pearly white, now carnation-pink…and those big eyes were revealing too, giving away all her thoughts and feelings. He had never met anyone so transparent, so unprotected, so vulnerable. She shouldn’t be let out on her own, he thought; this was not a safe world for innocents, she could get hurt, and he felt a strange pang at that idea. He wasn’t usually so protective in his reactions; it startled him to feel that way about this girl. Why had she got under his skin? he wondered, staring at her.
‘How long have you been seeing Sholto?’ he asked.
She didn’t need to think about it. ‘Since September the third,’ she said at once, and she was smiling suddenly, her eyes bright with memory, making him wonder exactly how she did feel about Sholto Cory. Maybe she liked him more than she realised?
‘We met on a river-boat,’ she said. ‘Going down the Thames to Greenwich on a rainy Saturday; it poured, all day. Everyone else was terribly cross; they were soaked to the skin and some of them had come dressed up in such pretty clothes. They huddled in the bar, drinking, and looking really fed-up. But Sholto was such fun, he made me laugh all the time. We got the giggles and that made everyone else get even crosser.’
It sounded very uncomfortable and far from fun. Ambrose gave her a dry look. ‘What on earth were you doing on a river-boat on a rainy day, anyway?’
‘Oh, didn’t I say? It was a birthday party for Sholto’s cousin Julia. I went to school with her, that’s why I was invited. It was the first time I’d met Sholto, though. He asked me to go riding with him the next morning; it was a Sunday and he wasn’t going to work. He said he would book us a couple of horses from a stable in Epping Forest, and he’d pick me up and drive us out there—it was only a half-hour drive from where I live. He said it was bound to be fine next morning, after all that rain, by the law of averages, and he was right. It was a glorious autumn morning, all the trees in the forest were turning yellow, and we had a wonderful ride. The leaves kept falling all around us, like golden confetti.’
‘It sounds very romantic,’ he said drily. In fact, it sounded as if she did like Sholto rather more than she realised. Sholto might have been a little too precipitate but perhaps she intended to marry him in the end? It wasn’t his business, he knew nothing about her—it didn’t matter to him whether or not she married Sholto Cory.
But his frown deepened, carving heavy lines in his brows, lines which had a permanent look, as if he frowned a good deal, thought the girl, watching him. Not because he was bad-tempered, she decided, her eye wandering over the rest of his strong, controlled face. There was a faintly sardonic humour about his eyes, a warmth to his mouth—no, he didn’t look bad-tempered. He must have a lot on his mind all the time, though.
She knew from Sholto how important he was, how much power he had; she had been curious about him for ages, and now she was impressed—who wouldn’t be?
‘And you’ve been seeing Sholto ever since?’
‘Well, we’re in the same crowd, we see each other at the same parties and so on…yes…’
‘But you weren’t expecting him to propose?’
‘It never entered my head. We barely——’ She broke off, a vivid red. ‘Well, I mean…I’m not…We aren’t… We never…’
He was filling in the blank spaces, his dark brows raised. ‘You aren’t in love with him?’
Just as obviously, they had never made love either; apart from the odd kiss, he suspected. That was what she couldn’t bring herself to say. She’s a virgin, he thought, looking into those blue eyes, startled. As rare as a unicorn these days. I don’t believe it.
‘How old are you?’
She gave him a stricken look, obviously understanding why he asked the question.
‘Twenty,’ she said half-defiantly. ‘Twenty-one in a few months. On the second of April, actually—I just missed April Fool’s Day.’ She laughed, but Ambrose didn’t.
He felt a strange stirring inside his chest, as if he had swallowed a bird that was trying to escape, wings fluttering against his ribs.
I must be sickening for something, he thought—maybe that headache is a symptom of something worse on the way? The last thing I need is to go down with the flu, especially of the virulent kind.
The silence that had fallen had made the girl look nervous. Noticing this, Ambrose said idly, ‘Has Sholto been your only boyfriend?’ and then wondered what on earth he was doing, asking this total stranger such a question. Serve him right if she slapped his face or walked off in a huff.
She gave him an even more startled look, very flushed, and opened her mouth to answer.
Ambrose quickly said, ‘Sorry, not my business, of course.’
‘Well, no, it isn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘And I shouldn’t have talked about Sholto behind his back, especially to you—he wouldn’t like it.’
‘No, of course, you’re quite right. I’m sorry,’ he said gravely.
Sholto must be worried stiff in case he had bitterly offended the very man he most wanted to impress. Ambrose Kerr felt a twinge of pity for him. This wasn’t Sholto’s night, was it? And he must have hoped it would be! He had probably planned that proposal, had wanted to do it here, so that he could announce it tonight, in front of the most important people at the bank!
He was probably hanging around outside, watching the door to this room, waiting on tenterhooks for her to come out so that he could pounce and find out what had been said about him in here.
‘Please…’
Ambrose looked down at the girl, who gave him a pleading look.
‘Yes?’
‘Please, could you forget you saw us? That it ever happened, I mean? You won’t let it influence you? Against Sholto, I mean…That would be so unfair.’
Still speaking gravely, he promised, ‘His career won’t suffer. Don’t worry.’
Looking at him uncertainly, she asked, ‘You promise?’
‘I promise,’ he said, and smiled at her suddenly, making her blink with surprise at the charm in that smile.
Charm wasn’t the first thing you thought about when you looked at Ambrose Kerr. He had an air of authority, calm self-assurance. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, tall, his body fit and powerful. His grey eyes made her shiver a little when they weren’t smiling. For all that charm, she didn’t think it would be wise to make him really angry. No wonder poor Sholto had looked witless when he recognised him.
Sholto was always talking about him—he admired him from a distance, because of course he didn’t know him, had never met him before tonight. Mind you, nobody seemed to know much about Ambrose Kerr, Sholto said.
He had come out of nowhere, shooting across the sky of the business world like a comet over the past decade. He had no family connections, no history he talked about, and people were far too nervous of him to go on asking questions he made it plain he didn’t want to answer.
He had an American background, but he didn’t have an American accent. He looked Mediterranean, if anything, with olive skin, close-shaven tonight along that tough jaw; his hair was dark too, smooth, a glossy blueblack in this light, brushed back from a widow’s peak, but with a silver streak at the temples.
She could see why he impressed Sholto so deeply. He impressed her. Her nerves rippled; no, it was more than that—he…She frowned, searching for the right word. Disturbed, she thought; that was it. He disturbed her. In fact, being with him was like standing on the very edge of a volcano. You were always aware of depths you couldn’t see but which you sensed were explosive and potentially deadly.
‘I really must go,’ she said uneasilv.
‘You haven’t told me your name yet’
‘Emilie,’ she said, and spelt it out. ‘Emilie Madelin.’
The name meant nothing to him. He repeated it, to memorise it, and at that instant the telephone on the library table began to ring. Ambrose frowned; he had been expecting the call tonight, another reason why he had come into this room—to wait for it.
‘I’ll have to take that—excuse me for a moment…’
He had meant her to wait, but as he picked up the phone the girl took the opportunity to slip away before he could stop her, murmuring politely, ‘Thank you again…’
The heavy mahogany door closed behind her.
Staring at it, Ambrose spoke into the phone curtly. ‘Yes?’
‘Ambrose?’
‘Hello, Gavin. How did it go?’
‘Like a dream. We’ve got him; everything’s in place for the kill. You can close in at the board-meeting on Thursday.’
Gavin Wheeler’s voice was excited, a little thick, as if he had been drinking, and no doubt he had. Gavin drank far too much, especially when he was coming to the end of a particular project.
Ambrose never drank with him, which, he knew, Gavin resented. From the occasional curious remark, Ambrose knew Gavin suspected him of being a reformed alcoholic, which was ironic. Ambrose’s childhood had been made miserable by an alcoholic father who was violent when he was drunk and morose when he was sober. That was why Ambrose himself only drank the occasional glass of wine, on social occasions, and no spirits at all, and never drank when he was alone. But he had never talked to Gavin about his fatherAmbrose wasn’t giving Gavin any power over him, if he could help it. He did not entirely trust Gavin; in fact, Ambrose did not trust anyone unreservedly.
Coolly, Ambrose said, ‘Good work, Gavin. Sure Rendell doesn’t have a clue what we’re doing?’
‘Not unless someone has told him since this morning,’ Gavin said, laughing. ‘I’ve personally talked to all the shareholders; their shares will change hands on Thursday, too late for George Rendell to guess what’s going on. Our friends on the board all agree that he’s too old for the job now. He should have retired long ago.’
‘If he’d had a son he would have done, no doubt,’ Ambrose said. ‘It must have been a terrible blow to him to have no heir.’
‘Don’t waste any pity on the old man; he has plenty of money to make his retirement comfortable,’ Gavin retorted.
‘It is still going to hit him hard; his life is invested in that company.’ Ambrose rather liked the old man, and was sorry for him, but the company was going downhill when it should be doing well in the current climate, and, with the bank’s money invested, it was his duty to make sure their money was safe.
‘He’d have to retire soon, anyway,’ said Gavin indifferently. He didn’t care two pins about George Rendell—he barely knew him. Gavin didn’t work at the bank; he was directly responsible to Ambrose, who kept him moving between the bank’s clients, doing deals, arranging take-overs, finding out information and researching possible mergers. Gavin was a clever accountant; he had a cold heart and a cool head and the temperament to enjoy following a difficult trail to track down a target.
‘He isn’t a friend of yours, is he?’
‘Not a personal friend, but he has been a client of the bank for a long time.’ Ambrose was irritated by the question. Personal feelings couldn’t come into the way he dealt with clients. The bank’s money had to be safeguarded, that was his job, and they had invested quite a sum in George Rendell’s company.
George Rendell’s family had been making paper for over a century and had several mills in Kent and Sussex. Two years ago George had asked if he could borrow money with which to update machinery, and Ambrose had agreed, but although George had kept up the monthly repayments, a large amount of the money was still outstanding and the company’s audit last year had revealed that, far from an improvement in sales, there had been a falling-off since the new machinery was introduced. Ambrose had come to the conclusion that the management was set in a rut, starting at the top, with George Rendell himself. He was nearing seventy and had no son to take over, allowing him to retire. The company was ripe for take-over. It was in the bank’s interest to arrange one with a client firm, safeguarding the bank’s investment.
‘The company should be making twice the amount of product; the whole place needs a good shake-up,’ Ambrose said. ‘OK. So when do you fly back?’
‘Ten tomorrow.’ Gavin had been up to Scotland to see a big shareholder in Rendell and Son who was prepared to sell to their prospective buyer for the firm.
‘You’ve got your secretary with you?’
‘She’s here right now,’ Gavin said, laughing in a way that told Ambrose that the two of them were in bed together.
Gavin always had affairs with his secretaries; he chose them for their looks as much as their brains, although the girls always had both. Gavin expected his secretary to work hard, to be ultra-efficient, as well as good in bed. They never lasted long; about a year was the usual time one stayed with him. Ambrose wasn’t sure whether he sacked them or they left, but they kept changing.
Well, he’s good at his job, I don’t have to like him, thought Ambrose. The way he lives is none of my business.
‘Well, work on your report with her during the flight back,’ he said coolly. ‘Get her to type it up as soon as you arrive, and have it on my desk before five tomorrow.’
‘OK. Will you be around when I arrive?’
‘No, I have meetings all afternoon, but I’ll be back by five. I’ll see you then. Goodnight, Gavin, and thank you.’
Ambrose hung up and looked at his watch. The party would soon be over, his guests would start drifting away in half an hour; he had better get out there and circulate for the last few moments.
As soon as he opened the door he was engulfed by people eager for a chance to talk to him. He was just working out how to escape again, when he was rescued by Sophie Grant, one of his senior stock-market experts. She joined the circle surrounding him, waited her moment, and then asked him to show her his latest prize orchid in the heated greenhouse behind the house.
Several others clamoured to see it, but Ambrose explained politely that there should never be more than two people in the orchid-house at a time.
‘It uses up too much oxygen,’ he assured them.
As he and Sophie walked off she laughed softly. ‘What a smooth liar you are!’
Ambrose gave her an amused look. ‘An essential tool in the banker’s weaponry. And it’s true—it isn’t a good idea to have too many people in the orchid-house at one time. Thanks for rescuing me, anyway. Do you really want to see the orchids?’
‘Of course I do! They fascinate me; there’s something luscious and terrible about them. They’re so beautiful, yet they look as if they might eat people.’
Ambrose gave her another sideways glance; there was something orchidaceous about Sophie: she was beautiful and looked as if she might eat people—men, anyway! She had thick, white, perfect skin, dark, gleaming eyes and a ripe, full red mouth. Her body was just as extravagant: ultra-female, rounded, sensual, almost defiantly flaunted in the clinging black satin backless dress with the neckline plunging between her full breasts.
They had had an affair briefly, two years ago. Ambrose had been attracted, even fascinated, for a brief time but had soon realised that he didn’t like what he found under the come-hither smile and the desirable body. Sophie was ambitious and hard-edged; there was no emotion in their lovemaking, apart from lust, and Ambrose wanted far more than that from the woman in his life.
He had discreetly backed off, gradually stopped ringing her, asking her out, and Sophie had accepted it without a word. He was grateful to her for that. He’d been afraid she might make a scene, try to hold on to him. He was convinced she cared no more for him than he did for her, but he also suspected she had been hoping to marry him. He had money and social cachet, and Sophie wanted both. But she hadn’t fought for him. She had behaved impeccably. He had promoted her a few months later, not a reward for good behaviour, simply that her tact and discretion had proved to him how valuable she could be to the bank.
‘How’s Gavin doing on the Rendell project?’ she asked, when they were in the hot greenhouse looking at the massed orchids. He had been collecting them for some years, but lately he no longer found them exciting, and was considering selling them to the friend who had talked him into having his own orchid-house.
‘Everything’s set for the board-meeting on Thursday.’
‘Good,’ Sophie said, her eyes gleaming. ‘I know I don’t usually sit in on board-meetings, but could I come along on Thursday?’
Ambrose frowned. Sophie was the executive responsible for dealing with the Rendell account, admittedly. In fact, looking back, he seemed to recall it had been Sophie who first suggested that they should get someone else in to run the company.
‘I don’t think that would be appropriate, do you? Aren’t you related to the Rendell family, Sophie?’
She gave him another of her cat-like smiles. ‘My mother is old George’s cousin, but our side of the family have no money. We see very little of the mill people; we aren’t good enough for them.’ She gazed at the rich patina on a purple orchid. ‘Gorgeous thing,’ she said in a soft, creamy voice. ‘What a pity they don’t have any scent.’
What was she thinking about? Not the orchid, Ambrose decided, watching her. Whatever it was, that smile made him uneasy. It made no difference to him whether or not she liked her Rendell relatives—his decision had been based purely on financial grounds—but maybe he shouldn’t have given that account to her to manage. He hadn’t realised at the time that she had any connection with the Rendells; George himself had mentioned that to Ambrose some months back.
The heat in the greenhouse was beginning to make his shirt stick to his back and sweat was trickling down his neck.
‘We had better go back to the party,’ he said, making for the door into the house.
People started leaving once he reappeared. Ambrose stood by the front door, shaking hands with departing guests; when Sophie said goodnight he lightly kissed her cheek, and she gave him a tilted, cat-like smile.
‘Lovely party, Ambrose. You made us all feel so welcome—you’re good at that.’
He heard the sting under the sweetness; he smiled back at her without warmth.
‘Thank you. Goodnight, Sophie.’
Sholto had left much earlier; he had said goodnight without meeting his host’s eyes and rushed off, alone. Presumably the girl had gone home already, Ambrose had decided, but a few minutes later Emilie Madelin came along the panelled hall towards him, her hand threaded through someone’s arm in an intimate, confiding way.
Who was she with now? Ambrose glanced at the man quickly, and did a double-take, stiffening as he saw the grizzled hair, the lined face and pale blue eyes of George Rendell.
George Rendell? Why was the girl with him?
The old man smiled cheerfully at him. ‘A very enjoyable evening, Ambrose, as usual. Good of you to invite me. I’m sorry not to have had a chance to talk to you, but with so many people here it was hard to get anywhere near you! Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves, didn’t we, Emilie?’ He paused as Ambrose stared at the girl. ‘Of course, you weren’t around when we arrived. I haven’t had a chance to introduce her—this is my granddaughter, Emilie.’
Granddaughter. Ambrose turned his stare to Emilie Madelin’s gentle face, feeling a strange sickness inside his stomach. There’s something wrong with me, he thought. I’ve been feeling weird all evening. Have I picked up some bug? There was a viral infection going through the staff at the bank at the moment. Maybe that’s it, he thought irritably. I haven’t got time to be ill!
The girl gave him her grave smile, her blue eyes serious.
Automatically, Ambrose held out his hand. ‘I hope you enjoyed the party, Emilie.’
Her hand was small and cool; his swallowed it.
‘Very much, thank you, Mr Kerr,’ she said in that soft, grave voice. ‘You have a beautiful home.’
‘You must have dinner with us soon, Ambrose,’ George Rendell said.
Ambrose detached his stare from her face. He smiled at the old man. ‘I’d like that, thank you,’ he said, but his mind was in confusion. She was George Rendell’s granddaughter?
Why hadn’t he picked up on the name when she spelt it out for him? It was unusual enough, God knew.
He must have the name on file somewhere. He knew that her mother, Rendell’s only child, had married a Frenchman and gone to live in France, had had, in her turn, only one daughter, and had then died of cancer at a tragically early age.
The father had been a flamboyant journalist in Paris; he had remarried rather soon afterwards, his new wife had had other children, and this girl had been sent to a French boarding-school. Ambrose hadn’t realised that she was now living in England with her grandfather; he had assumed she still lived in France. Why hadn’t Gavin found that out? Or had he? But if he had, why wouldn’t he have mentioned the fact?
Ambrose knew all about her, on paper; he had even seen a photo of her, he suddenly realised, but it must have been taken some years ago. She had been a schoolgirl in a very neat green and gold uniform. Her large-brimmed hat had half hidden her face, but he had a feeling she had been rather plump and had worn her hair in two long braids tied with green ribbon and hanging right down to her waist.
She looked very different now.
‘We’re having a dinner party next Tuesday—just a few friends, you’ll know most of them, I expect. Short notice, I know. I don’t suppose you’re free, but if you are…’ George Rendell paused expectantly, smiling, clearly expecting a polite refusal.
‘I think I am,’ said Ambrose. He thought he had another dinner engagement, with visiting clients, but that was easy to rearrange; someone else could stand in for him.
But why am I accepting? he asked himself silently. This is crazy. Aloud, though, he said, ‘I’d be delighted to have dinner, George, thank you.’
‘Well, that’s wonderful. Look forward to seeing you then—I don’t think we’ve had you at the house before, have we? Should have thought of it a long time ago, but I haven’t entertained much in recent years. Gave all that up after my wife died; been a bit of a recluse, I suppose. All that’s changed since Emilie came to live with me.’ George looked down at his granddaughter, smiling. ‘She’s given me a new lease of life. I’ve started giving dinner parties again, filling the house with young people.’
Ambrose smiled back at him, faintly touched by the old man’s fond gaze at the girl.
He was very well-preserved for a man of seventy; upright, active, with a healthy colour in his face. Ambrose knew he went to work each weekday morning at eight, as he always had, and was at his desk until after six. He still had plenty of energy, obviously, but perhaps he no longer cared whether or not the mills were working at maximum efficiency? Perhaps all his attention now was given to this girl?
‘We have a town house in Chelsea,’ George Rendell said. ‘Your secretary will give you the address, I’m sure. You must have it on file. I know how efficient your office is! Off the Embankment, not far from Carlyle’s house. Easy to find…Shall we say seven-thirty?’
Ambrose nodded. ‘Seven-thirty.’
‘Goodnight, then.’
George shepherded the girl in front of him; she gave Ambrose a fleeting smile and he watched them disappear into the winter night, his face pale and his eyes grim.
I shouldn’t have accepted that invitation, he thought. This time next week that old man is going to hate my guts; the girl will too. I have no business eating their food, sitting at their table, when I am about to pull the roof down on top of them both.
An hour later Ambrose was in bed, the lights off, the room dark and quiet, the only noises the wind rattling the bare branches of trees in Regent’s Park, which he could see from his bedroom, and the unearthly sounds of animals in the zoo on the further side of the park. He normally went to sleep the minute his head hit the pillow. Tonight, though, sleep evaded him until the early hours of the morning. He couldn’t remember the last time his conscience had given him that much trouble.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_2a72bae2-4908-5cd1-ad9c-f1139c87e91a)
EMILIE woke up early on Tuesday to a calm, quiet winter morning, the sun hidden behind cloud, a pale lavender light drifting over the walls of her bedroom.
She yawned, thought drowsily, Something special is happening today, and then she remembered. Ambrose Kerr was coming to dinner.
Somewhere there was a rapid noise, a drumming beat. For a second she couldn’t think what it was, then she realised that it was her heart, beating faster than the speed of light.
She jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom to have a shower. In the mirror on the wall she saw her reflection: over-bright eyes, flushed face, a pink, parted mouth breathing fast.
What’s the matter with you? she accused herself, then looked away, hurriedly pulled her nightie over her head, the movement tightening her slender body, making her breasts lift, their pink nipples harden and darken against the creamy flesh surrounding them. My breasts are too small! she thought, staring at them. I wish I had a better figure. I wish I had blonde hair—or jet-black? Anything but brown. I wish my hair was naturally curly, too, instead of straight. And oh! I wish I had bigger breasts…
She stepped under the warm jets of water, closing her eyes, and began washing, smoothly lathering her body. Her truant mind kept conjuring up disturbing images. How would it feel to have a man touching her like this? Male hands stroking her shoulders, her throat, her breasts. No, not just any man…Ambrose Kerr. Ever since Saturday night she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Her nipples ached, her mouth was dry.
Are you crazy? she asked herself, even pinker now, and breathing twice as fast. He’s almost twice your age, sophisticated, very experienced…he wouldn’t even look at you!
‘How old is he?’ she had asked her grandfather as they drove back from Ambrose’s home on Saturday, and Grandpa had shrugged indifferently.
‘Must be getting on for forty now, I suppose.’
She had realised he must be much older than she was, but…forty? She had sighed. Her father wasn’t much older than that!
‘Late thirties, anyway,’ Grandpa had said, and that sounded much better. Her spirits had lifted.
She had let a minute pass before asking, in what she hoped was an idle, offhand way, ‘Has he got children? I suppose there is a Mrs Kerr?’
‘I’ve never heard of one. Plenty of women in his life, though, if you believe the gossips. Sophie was one of them, I gather.’
Emilie had felt a stab of shock. ‘Sophie?’
Sophie? Sophie and him? she had thought, shaken and dismayed. She had had no idea. Sophie had never said a word to her about him, but then Sophie never said much about her private life to Emilie.
‘They were seen around together for a few months,’ George Rendell had said. ‘Then it fizzled out, and I would put money on it that it wasn’t Sophie who backed off.’
Emilie had stared out of the window, biting her lip. ‘Do you think she’s in love with him?’
Grandpa’s voice had been dry. ‘I think she fancied being Mrs Kerr.’ He could be quite cynical at times, and Emilie had frowned. Grandpa had continued, ‘Sophie takes after her mother, my cousin Rosa. They use their heads, not their hearts, those two women. So sharp they could cut themselves, both of them.’
‘I like them both,’ Emilie had said quietly, and her grandfather had given her a very different look, his face softening. She’d smiled at him and said, ‘Sophie and her mother have been very kind to me.’
She would always be grateful to them for their friendliness when she had first arrived in England.
Her father’s family had never been very interested in her and, now that he had sons, neither was her father. A hardbitten journalist, he had never spent much time at home even before her mother died. He had remarried shockingly soon after that.
Emilie suspected that he had been having an affair with Marie-Claude while her mother was alive. Had her mother known about it? She flinched at the thought.
Maman had never said a word to her, if she had known—but when she hadn’t known you were looking, the sadness in her face could have wrung your heart. Her mother had had so much to bear: a long, painful illness, which she knew would end in death, made harder by loneliness because her husband was never at home. Emilie hated to think that she might have been hiding the anguish of knowing that her husband was betraying her too.
Maman had wanted to send Emilie away to England in those last months, when she could no longer hide what was happening to her, but Emilie had clung to her, refusing to leave. They had been close; in those last two years even closer than mother and daughter usually were, just because they had both known their time together was going to be short. Emilie still missed her.
Her father’s remarriage had been a shock of a different sort. Marie-Claude had worked on his newspaper; they had known each other for years, Emilie realised. Marie-Claude was in her early thirties, very French, sophisticated, elegant in that French way, understated and witty. Marie-Claude’s clothes reflected Marie-Claude’s mind. It would have been easier if she had been openly hostile—but Marie-Claude was far too clever for that.
She was very polite and gracious whenever she saw Emilie. She bought her new clothes, she suggested a change of hairstyle—as if they were going to be friends. But there was no warmth in her. As soon as she was pregnant with her first child she sent Emilie off to boarding-school. Her visits to her father’s new home were always brief; after a week or so she would be sent off on some activity holiday—skiing in winter, horseriding in summer. After leaving school she was despatched to a residential college in England, to take business studies. When she completed her two-year course Emilie began working for her grandfather at the paper-mill in Kent. She knew she would never live with her father again.
She had accepted it, yet there was always a sadness at the back of her mind. She tried to bury it by concentrating on her new life, on her grandfather and her job.
Emilie was learning the business by moving around the departments; she had spent some months on the most important process—production—moved on to a brief spell in packing and despatch, and was now working in sales.
She was at a very low level, of course. All she did was sit at a desk doing paperwork. Her grandfather didn’t employ any women on the actual sales team; he didn’t think it was a woman’s job, travelling the roads across the country alone by car, staying at cheap hotels. He certainly wasn’t prepared to let Emilie do it. She had to learn all about sales from processing orders as they came in from the salesmen and answering the phone, coping with enquiries.
She enjoyed dealing with people, she liked the other girls she worked with, and she was beginning to be very interested in their product, in the history of the paper-mill, in her mother’s family. After a rather lonely period of her life she felt she had come home, she belonged here, and Sophie Grant and her mother were family too, as well as being the first people she had got to know here, except her grandfather. She would never want to hurt either of them, especially Sophie.
She frowned. Why was Grandpa so cynical about Aunt Rosa and Sophie? They seemed so fond of him.
Emilie hadn’t seen Sophie since Saturday, since that party, in fact. When she did, she could hardly ask her if she was in love with Ambrose!
I’d better not mention him, in fact, she thought, getting dressed. It would be tactless to say much to Sophie about him. She might have been badly hurt when they broke up.
Why had they broken up, anyway? Had Ambrose ever been in love with Sophie?
She stopped brushing her hair, bit her lip, then glared at herself in the mirror. What’s it got to do with you what happened? Stop thinking about him—he’s twice your age, he probably has another woman now, a man like him isn’t going to be alone for long—I bet he’s forgotten he ever met you!
She ran downstairs to breakfast at a quarter to eight, and found her grandfather already at the table, in his faintly old-fashioned dark suit, with a stiff red-striped white shirt and maroon silk tie, eating toast and marmalade and drinking coffee, his normal weekday breakfast.
He looked up and smiled, his eyes approving of her crisp cream cotton blouse and dark grey pleated skirt, of the way her sleek brown hair swirled around her face, the brightness of her eyes and smile.
George Rendell had lived alone for years; loneliness had been engrained in his mind, had got under his skin. He had almost forgotten how it felt to live with someone else, to have someone running up and down the stairs, talking on the phone, watching television. He had forgotten what it was like to look across the breakfast-table each morning and see another face, meet a warm smile.
Emilie had changed his life. He had wondered at first if it would work for her to live with him, if he would be irritated and bored having a young girl around all day, but within a week it was as if she had always been there.
More than that, he felt a strange new happiness welling up inside him. He wasn’t the type to show his feelings, but the sun came out whenever he saw her come into a room. She called out all his protective instincts—she was young and small and helpless, and George would have killed anyone who hurt her.
Emilie kissed him on the top of his head. ‘Isn’t it a nice day?’
He looked at the window, saw the leafless trees in his garden, the chilly sky. Almost Christmas—he hated winter more each year. ‘At least it isn’t raining.’ He watched her slide bread into the toaster, pour herself orange juice and coffee and sit down to eat opposite him.
‘Everything OK for tonight?’ he asked, and she nodded, spreading thick, chunky marmalade on her toast.
‘We’re having broccoli soup—at this time of year a hot soup is a good starter—then poached salmon in hollandaise sauce, which is light and simple, followed by a sweet omelette…I thought I’d fill it with hot purée of fruit, probably redcurrants or raspberries.’
She had learnt to cook from her mother, first, and one of the activity holidays forced upon her by her stepmother had been a summer at a cordon bleu cooking school on the Loire. Her grandfather had been astonished and delighted by this unexpected skill; he was used to eating dull food plainly cooked by his housekeepers, and he had eagerly begun giving dinner parties to show off Emilie’s talent.
‘Sounds delicious, mouth-watering,’ he said fondly. ‘Is Mary coming in to help you?’
‘Oh, that’s all arranged—there’s no problem, Grandpa, don’t worry. I’ll make the soup in advance. The salmon is easy, it will only take me a quarter of an hour to cook it and make the sauce. The omelettes will take longer, but they aren’t difficult. I shall cook them at the table on a spirit-stove—people always enjoy watching!’
‘Watching other people work is always fun,’ George grunted, smiling. He loved to watch her do anything; she endlessly fascinated him. ‘I’ve never heard of omelettes filled with fruit.’
‘It’s really easy. I’ll have prepared the fruit beforehand, it will be reheated in the microwave and brought to the table in a jug, so that I can pour it into the omelette just before I fold and serve it.’
‘You’re a marvel!’ George Rendell said, and Emilie gave him a glowing look. Knowing he loved her made her feel she could do anything.
They drove to work at the paper-mill in Kent together, and that evening they drove home again, leaving on the dot of five o’clock. Her grandfather no longer worked the long hours he once had, she gathered. He had been a workaholic; now he preferred to be home with her.
It took them an hour to reach the house in Chelsea, and Emilie went straight into the kitchen. Their guests were not due for an hour and a half, which gave her just enough time to prepare most of the food before she went upstairs to dress for dinner.
The woman who came in every day to clean the house always helped with dinner parties. Emilie had left her instructions and Mary had already done some of the work—the vegetables were all prepared, the table laid, the ingredients ready.
Emilie rapidly made the broccoli soup and then puréed, separately, the raspberries and oranges she had decided on for the omelette-filling, then she went upstairs to shower and change. She couldn’t make up her mind what to wear and wasted time putting on first one dress then another, hating herself in all of them. She wanted to look different. Older, more sophisticated. In the end she despairingly settled on a simple black dress her stepmother had bought her. Marie-Claude’s taste was always perfect.
She did her hair and make-up and looked at herself in the mirror, and was startled by her reflection. The black dress certainly made her look different.
She dithered—should she wear it? Would it make Ambrose notice her, realise she wasn’t the little girl he had seemed to think she was?
She looked again, making a face. Notice me? Not a chance. He was kind to me the other night because I was crying, but a man like him isn’t interested in girls my age!
Should she change again, into something familiar? She looked at her watch and gave a cry of panic—there was no time! She had to hurry downstairs. Her grandfather met her at the foot of the stairs, his jaw dropping at the sight of her.
‘Where did that dress come from? Bit old for you, isn’t it?’ His voice was dubious.
Her colour rose. ‘Marie-Claude gave it to me,’ she whispered.
‘Who? Oh, your stepmother. Ah. French, is it?’ Again that doubtful glance. ‘Yes. Looks it.’
He hates it, she thought. If I rush I might have time to change; we can have dinner a few minutes late. But just then the doorbell went and the first of the guests arrived, and after that she had no chance to go and change.
They were all middle-aged or older, George Rendell’s friends, kind to Emilie but way out of her age-group. She took their coats, with Mary hovering to take them away, poured them drinks, handed round plates of horsd’oeuvres: sausages or prunes wrapped in crisp bacon, her own home-made cheese straws dipped in paprika, triangles of toast on which she had arranged caviare.
Ambrose was the last to arrive. At Emilie’s first glimpse of him, her heart gave such a heavy thud that she felt almost sick.
‘I’m sorry, I got caught in a traffic jam in Trafalgar Square,’ he said as she opened the door to him, and then his eyes moved down over her and he frowned.
Shaken by that look, Emilie huskily asked, ‘May I take your coat?’ He hates my dress too, she thought, her heart sinking. Grandpa didn’t like it, neither does Ambrose! Oh, why did I put it on?
Still staring, he shouldered out of the black cashmere, which was lined with dark red silk. Emilie reverently took it over her arm, unable to resist stroking it with one hand, thinking how soft and smooth it was—it must have cost a bomb!—and yet absorbing at the same time the fact that under the coat he was wearing a dark grey suit which was equally elegant and expensive. Made by the same tailor, no doubt; his clothes had an exclusive gloss. Her grandfather said that a man was judged by other men from how he dressed; Ambrose Kerr probably bought his clothes to impress his bank’s clients. Did he always dress so formally? she wondered.
Tonight there was a gold watch-chain gleaming across his waistcoat, gold cufflinks in the cuffs of his white shirt, and he wore a dove-grey silk tie.
On any other man she would have thought the clothes stuffy and boring, but he made them sexy and exciting.
As if aware of her staring, he said, ‘I came straight from work.’ Then, abruptly, he said, ‘You look different tonight—older, somehow. It’s that dress.’
Tears prickled stupidly in her eyes, and she lowered them, gesturing to the open door nearby, from which came the sound of talking, laughter. ‘Do go in,’ she muttered. ‘I must hang up your coat.’
As she turned stumblingly away Ambrose caught her shoulder to stop her, put a hand under her chin and lifted her face towards him, his grey eyes searching hers.
‘You aren’t upset, are you? The dress is very chic, and you’re lovely in it. It’s just that I had this idea of you from the other night—you were wearing a blue dress that made you look like Alice in Wonderland. Black makes you look much older, that’s all.’
He hated her dress, he thought she was a little girl… Alice in Wonderland! She broke away without a word and fled, taking his coat with her, and heard her grandfather greeting him behind her.
‘Come and meet some people…What will you have to drink, Ambrose?’
It was a relief to have work to do, an excuse for not returning to the others yet. She went to the kitchen to reheat the broccoli soup, poured it into a tureen, and got Mary to take it to the dining-room.
Emilie put the vegetables on to cook, made the sauce to accompany the poached salmon, and slid the fish into the water, then she hurried through into the dining-room after setting the timer so that Mary would have a warning when the salmon was ready.
Mary had served the soup by the time Emilie took her seat; Ambrose was sitting opposite her.
‘Your grandfather tells me you cooked the entire meal,’ he said, his spoon poised.
Faces turned to smile at her. ‘She’s a wonderful cook,’ one of the other guests, a frequent visitor, assured him.
‘I’ve asked her to come and cook for me when I have dinner parties; she’s wasted working at the mill,’ another woman said. ‘But she refuses to turn professional, says she’s just an amateur. But I can’t get any so-called professionals who can cook as well as Emilie.’
‘It’s just a hobby,’ Emilie said, shyly pink.
Ambrose tasted the soup; everyone watched him, smiling.
He lowered his spoon. ‘Delicious. They’re right, you are good.’
Her blush deepened. Everyone laughed and began to eat, the tide of conversation rising along the table.
‘If I invited you to cook for me, would you turn me down too?’ he murmured, and she laughed but didn’t answer.
Her grandfather spoke to him and Emilie was able to concentrate on her soup, her head lowered. She listened to everything they said, though, absorbing the sound of Ambrose’s voice through every pore, memorising every intonation, the warm sound of his laughter when Grandpa told him a joke.
When she began cooking the omelettes at the table he insisted on helping her, adjusting the spirit-stove, holding the jug of fruit she would pour into the omelettes before serving.
Feeling his stare riveted on her made her very nervous, which was silly. She had cooked at the table beforemade crepes Suzette with Grand Marnier—but this time she was shaking a little and breathless, because Ambrose Kerr was standing beside her, watching her.
Somehow, though, she got through without making a mistake. Ambrose held out a warmed plate on to which she slid the finished omelette.
When he tasted the golden semicircle he sat with eyes half closed for a moment while the other guests all watched him, then said, ‘Magnificent!’ and everyone laughed.
‘You are an amazing cook,’ he told her over coffee. ‘Your grandfather tells me you’re working in the paper-mill. It seems a waste for someone who can cook as well as you can!’
Seriously, she said, ‘Cooking is fun, but I love working in the mill far more. Our family have owned it for a century, you know, and it is a fascinating process, making paper.’ She paused. ‘Sorry, I mustn’t bore you.’
‘If you bored me I wouldn’t be here,’ he said, and Emilie drew a sharp, shaken breath. What did he mean by that?
Their eyes met across the table; her skin was burning, she was trembling. Was he flirting with her? If only she understood more about men!
‘How is paper made?’ Ambrose said, after a pause that seemed to last forever.
‘I’m sure you already know!’ Was he patronising her now? She prickled at the idea and he shot her an amused look, his mouth curling at one side.
‘I have a hazy idea, but I’ve never studied the process in detail. I realise it comes from wood, of course.’
Emilie decided to take him at his word; if that bored him it would be his own fault! She told him how paper was made today, how it had been made in the past and how slight was the difference, merely a matter of more efficient machinery rather than a change in the actual process. Once she was over her intense awareness of him her eyes began to glow with the light of an enthusiasm close to passion.
That is how she would look in love, Ambrose thought, his eyes moving from her warm, softly full little mouth to her wide, bright blue eyes, roaming over her high cheekbones, her delicate temples, the fall of silky brown hair framing her face, and then going back to that mouth. It had passion and sweetness and sensitivity, only waiting for the right man to set fire to it.
After dinner George Rendell persuaded Emilie to play the piano for them; the guests all sat at one end of a long, panelled room, the lights dimmed as if in an auditorium, and Emilie sat at the piano at the other end.
‘What are you going to play?’ Ambrose asked, and then insisted on glancing through the music-books she produced. He picked a piece of Chopin she said she knew and sat beside her while she played, turning the music for her, leaning forward every so often to flip the page over. Emilie was deeply conscious of him there, his strong fingers moving just at the periphery of her sight, his gold cufflinks glittering.
‘You’re good,’ he said later, when she had finished playing and everyone was talking again. ‘Did you ever think of doing that professionally?’
She shook her head, bright-eyed from his praise.
‘Another hobby?’ he teased.
‘I’m not serious enough about either cooking or playing the piano to do either of them professionally. You need to be totally committed for that. I suppose I’m too lazy.’ Under her offhand tone Emilie felt guilty about not having the sort of ambition and drive she knew she ought to have. She had been given talents she wasn’t using; she could make a career with either cooking or the piano, no doubt, if she worked at them, but at the time when she should have been giving all of herself to studying she had been too intent on her dying mother to have the energy to spare, and after her mother finally died Emilie had not felt she wanted to do anything at all.
But she couldn’t explain that to him; it was too personal, involved telling him too much, so she changed the subject, asking him, ‘What about you? Don’t you have any hobbies?’
He made a wry face. ‘I paint, with a knife or my hands—just splash oil-paints on in thick blobs. It helps with aggressive feelings, I’m told. I’m not very good. It’s more therapy than art.’
‘It sounds fun to me. I haven’t painted since I left school, and then we just did water-colours, very neat, pale water-colours. I’d like to try oil-painting, especially the way you just described.’ She laughed, and said lightly, ‘Maybe I need therapy!’
He didn’t take her seriously. She couldn’t need help of that kind, this wide-eyed girl barely out of childhood and spoiled by a doting grandfather! What problems could she have?
His voice very casual, he said, ‘I usually paint at my place in the country. I have a house in the Cotswolds, with great views of the Malvern Hills—why don’t you and your grandfather come for the weekend, and I’ll show you what I laughingly call my technique? If you enjoy painting that way, you could start having professional lessons.’
Emilie hadn’t expected that. Her breath caught, there was a beat of time before she could talk, then she huskily said, ‘That would be wonderful, thank you.’
‘Shall we check with your grandfather and see if he is free?’ asked Ambrose, steering her over to where George Rendell was talking to some departing guests.
George was taken aback by the invitation. He had never been invited to Ambrose’s country home before—their relationship was strictly a business one in London—but he accepted.
‘Lovely part of the country, the Cotswolds,’ he added. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing it again. I shan’t be joining your painting class, though, Ambrose, not one for splashing paint around. I’ll just relax by the fire and read the Sunday papers, I expect!’
Ambrose gravely said, ‘You’re coming for the weekend to relax, George. Do just whatever you like.’ To Emilie he said, ‘If it’s cold, in winter, I paint in a conservatory—it gives all the light you need but it is warmer than being outside!’
‘I don’t mind cold weather,’ she said.
‘She doesn’t feel the cold, lucky child,’ said her grandfather, and Ambrose’s eyes darkened.
He looked at her with sombre intensity. Child, he thought; she is a child, he’s right. I’m out of my mind. What the hell do I think I’m going to do with her? I couldn’t marry her, she’s far too young. And if I seduce her, George will take a gun to me. Then his gaze drifted down to that soft, inviting pink mouth again. Come off it, you know what you’d like to do with her! he derisively told himself.
When Ambrose got home that evening he rang Gavin, who was in bed, but was immediately alert at the sound of the familiar voice.
‘Ambrose? Anything wrong?’
‘About the Rendell project,’ Ambrose said curtly. Tve decided to deal with that myself from now on. You can leave it entirely to me.’
Gavin’s voice held suspicion, wariness. ‘Why? Has something happened that I don’t know about? A problem come up?’
Ambrose ignored the questions. ‘You can draw up a new analysis of our manufacturing clients and their current positions.’
‘Anyone could do that for you!’ Gavin muttered. ‘You had an analysis done only six months ago.’
‘And now I want a new one, OK? Just drop the Rendell project, forget all about it.’
‘You can’t——’ began Gavin, anger in his voice.
‘Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do!’
Gavin audibly drew breath, shaken by the crack of Ambrose’s voice. ‘No, of course not, I wouldn’t…didn’t mean…Ambrose, I’ve run myself ragged to get them all to agree to your plans. Some of that board are old friends of his and needed a hell of a lot of persuading. Why are you taking me off the case?’
‘That’s my business. Just do what you’re told, will you?’
Ambrose slammed the phone down, got into bed and sat up against his banked pillows staring at nothing, his face tense and pale.
A child, he reminded himself again. She was just a child. It was crazy. He couldn’t. Shouldn’t. She still had so much to learn about life, about herself, about men—especially men like him. She was gentle, sweet, innocent…He had no right to go anywhere near her.
He had years of experience behind him, in every sense of the word. Other women had taught him what he knew about her sex, not all of them very nice women, some of them not women he would even want her to meet.
She was a sheet of pure white paper on which life had not yet written a word. Heat burned deep inside him, though, at the thought of teaching her, being the first. There was something about that purity, that innocence, that he found exciting.
She might be sexually unawakened, but all his male instincts told him there was passion waiting inside her to be kindled. That full, soft mouth invited exploration.
By someone her own age, he told himself scathingly, not someone like me!
There were parts of his life he hated to remember, a darkness he sometimes met in his nightmares and which made him wake up in sweating misery. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what his life had been like; did he have any right to let that darkness touch her, even remotely?
Her grandfather would certainly object; he didn’t know Ambrose very well. Ambrose had made sure that nobody knew anything about his origins. His life had begun when he arrived in London, when he was twenty, much the age of this girl.
He had suppressed his background, buried the darkness where nobody could ever find it, but George Rendell was no fool. He would have no more luck in tracing Ambrose to his roots than anyone else had done during the past fifteen years, that distant past was too well hidden, but he would still have a good idea that Ambrose wasn’t a suitable man to be in his granddaughter’s life.
He’s right, too, thought Ambrose. I should stop this now. Before someone gets hurt. I’d hate to hurt her. I’d hate myself if I did. If I seduce her, sooner or later she’ll get hurt, when it’s all over.
His love affairs had never lasted long. There was no room for a full-time commitment in his life; he was too busy, his sex drive had to fit in with his over-busy schedule and women always wanted more than he could give them. They wanted stability, marriage, children.
He had always just wanted sex.
No, he couldn’t do it; an innocent like that needed someone of her own generation, a boy whose experience matched her own.
Sholto Cory? mocked a cold, inner voice—and, at the very idea of them together, jealousy hit him like an arrow in the dark. He shuddered. No, he’s too young; he wouldn’t appreciate her mixture of unaware sensuality and shining innocence the way an older man would. He would rush at her greedily and bruise that sweetness.
A girl like her needed gentler handling: patience, a slow introduction to the pleasure of sex, not to be grabbed and…
He groaned, flinging an arm across his face. Who was he kidding? The truth was, he couldn’t bear the idea of Sholto laying a hand on her. He wanted her for himself.
He called a florist next morning and sent Emilie roses; he wanted white ones but the girl ruefully assured him she could only manage either red or pale pink.
‘Pink, then,’ Ambrose said. ‘Two dozen.’
They arrived while Emilie was at work, and Mary put them into green glass vases for her and arranged them in the sitting-room.
‘That’s nice of him,’ her grandfather said, staring at them. ‘He certainly knows how to make a gesture.’
‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ Emilie said dreamily, touching a rose with gentle fingers. The petals were like cool velvet, their colour the delicate pale pink of mother-of-pearl.
The doorbell rang, Mary went to answer it; they heard her talking and then a male voice replying.
‘Sholto!’ Emilie said, and George Rendell grimaced.
‘That young man…What is he doing here at this hour? Have you asked him to dinner?’
‘No, I wouldn’t, without asking you first. You know that!’
‘If he stays long, we shall have to ask him, I suppose!’ George muttered, and stamped off to get himself a drink. He liked Sholto well enough, but the dinner party had used up all his hospitable feelings; he had been looking forward to an evening spent quietly at home with just Emilie for company.
Sholto came in, bringing a rush of cold air with him, and gave her a hopeful look. ‘Hi, I thought you might like to come and see a film—there’s a terrific thriller on at the moment.’
She sighed, wishing he hadn’t come. She was trying to avoid him at the moment; she still hadn’t got over that proposal during Ambrose Kerr’s Christmas party. Sholto had been far too insistent; he had scared her off.
‘I’m sorry, Sholto, I’m too tired tonight. I had a lot to do at work today.’
‘Oh, come on, Em,’ he said, his mouth sulky.
She had given in before when he looked like that, because she had felt guilty about refusing, but not this time. She firmly shook her head.
‘I want to get an early night; I have another busy day tomorrow.’
As she turned away her sleeve caught a small card which had been resting against one of the vases of roses; it fluttered to the ground and Sholto bent to pick it up.
Before she could stop him he had read it. He looked at the roses, scowling. ‘He sent you those? How many are there? There must be a couple of dozen…Pink roses in December? They must have cost an arm and a leg! Why did he send them? What the hell is going on, Emilie?’
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_c26f38ee-a17d-52c5-b556-ba1d2f3db3c4)
EMILIE knew Ambrose was going to be at the board-meeting on Thursday morning at ten-thirty. She kept her eye on her watch and at about ten-twenty began her weekly job of first pruning and tidying up, then watering the plants on the windowsill in the office, while she threw an occasional casual glance out of the window at the car-park below. Other directors arrived, parked, went into the office block to make their way up to the board-room, but Ambrose was late.
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