Jessica Steele
Her Hand in Marriage

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

ROMILLIE opened her eyes to a bright sunshiny morning and knew it was going to be a good day. Wrong! Well, perhaps not totally. Her mother, a poor sleeper, was already up and about when Romillie went down the stairs.

‘Any plans for today?’ Romillie asked gently. Eleanor Fairfax had suffered for some years with general low spirits and feelings of inadequacy, but of late there were more good days than bad.

‘If this weather holds I thought I might do a spot of weeding or…’ she hesitated ‘…I might take a sketchpad outside.’

Romillie’s spirits soared. Her mother was a professional artist—portraits mainly. She was truly gifted but had not so much as picked up a sketching pencil in an absolute age.

‘The forecast is good,’ Romillie answered lightly, taking a quick glance at her watch and getting up and taking her cereal bowl over to the kitchen sink. ‘Better be off. Don’t want to be late.’

It was not far to the dental practice where she worked. But because she liked to return home in her lunch hour, and since her mother had given up driving, Romillie made the journey in her mother’s car.

They lived in the village of Tarnleigh on the Oxfordshire and Berkshire borders. Her receptionist-telephonist job with Yardley, East, and—now—Davidson, was well within her capabilities. It was not a job she would have chosen to do, but it was convenient.

Five years ago she had intended to go to university. But everything had suddenly gone catastrophic at home. She had been coming up to eighteen, her place at university assured, when her grandfather Mannion, her mother’s father and a man who had never had a day’s illness in his life, had suddenly died.

She had been upset, her mother distraught. It had not ended there. They had always lived with Grandfather Mannion. Romillie’s father, despite his frequent absences, had lived with them, too.

Her mother had adored Archer Fairfax and had put up with his womanising, his idleness, his spendthrift ways, making excuses for him whenever Grandfather Mannion would frown in his direction.

Romillie had known her father had other women. She had seen him driving along one time with a pretty blonde by his side. And another time, when he was supposed to be in Northampton for a job interview, and she had been in the school coach some miles from home after playing in an away game hockey match, she had seen him arm in arm, with a brunette this time.

He had returned home the next day, having not got the job but related that, after a very detailed and extensive interview, it had been felt that he was too well qualified for the job. Her mother had swallowed it all and Romillie just hadn’t had the heart to tell her that he had been nowhere near a job interview.

But it became plain that Grandfather Mannion had been wise to his son-in-law in that when Archer Fairfax was of the opinion that he would now rule the roost, he discovered that his well-to-do father-in-law had left him not one penny. The bulk of his estate had gone to his daughter, Eleanor, with money left in trust for his granddaughter until she attained the age of twenty-five. The house, the large rambling house, had been left to Eleanor during her lifetime, or until she no longer required it, when it was then to be handed down to her daughter.

There had been shouting matches before, mainly Romillie’s father roaring away when Grandfather Mannion was not around. But then, with no one there to keep him in check, Archer Fairfax had given his temper free rein. The consequence being that Eleanor, highly sensitive to begin with, shrank deeper and deeper into her shell. She lost heart, and gave up painting altogether.

Romillie had tried to intervene, only to discover that instead of helping she had made things worse. As a child she had suffered bouts of sleepwalking—but that had not happened in a long, long while. The last time had been on the night before she had been due to leave for university. There had been another tremendous row that night, her father yelling, drowning out her mother’s cries of protest. Stressed and worried about leaving her mother with her bullying father, Romillie had gone to bed, only to awake the next morning to find that in her sleep she had got up and taken everything out from her suitcase. She knew then what she supposed she had known for some while—university, for the moment, was out.

One year passed, and then two, and things in the Fairfax household did not get any better. Her mother became more and more reclusive and leant more and more on Romillie. University seemed as far away as ever. Romillie thought about getting a job but did not know how she could leave her.

Grandfather Mannion’s money kept them afloat for three years, but, what with Eleanor giving in to her husband’s constant demands for money, at the end of those three years the money had gone.

When the money went, so too did Archer Fairfax. Guiltily, Romillie had been glad to see him go, but it was he who had brought her mother to the state she was in. For the next year they struggled on, Archer Fairfax appearing frequently, to make sure he was not missing out on anything.

And then out of the blue, one morning when Romillie and her mother were doing nothing in particular, Romillie had felt her mother’s eyes on her and had the feeling that something momentous was taking place.

‘What is it?’ she remembered asking, certain as she was that she was picking up some pretty gigantic vibes.

Eleanor Fairfax had continued to look at her for some seconds more, and had then calmly enquired, ‘I wondered, Rom, would you mind very much if I divorced your father?’

Wow! That was momentous! ‘I’ll get the car out and drive you to the lawyers, shall I?’ she’d volunteered.

Oddly, once that decision had been made, Eleanor had seemed to gain some confidence. Archer Fairfax hadn’t liked it, did not like losing control, but Eleanor had remained firm. She’d still had her ‘off’ days, but she was no longer at rock bottom.

She had not been able to resume her painting, though, and by then the need of an income had become a pressing need. Romillie knew then that university was definitely out. Instead she found herself a job.

She could probably have found a more interesting job, one that paid better, but that would have meant working further afield. And the chief bonus of working so close to home was that because of her mother’s occasional ‘off’ days, she could return home at lunchtime.

There was another bonus, too. Jeffrey Davidson—her boyfriend. He was the new junior partner at the dental practice, a replacement for the soon to be retired senior partner. Jeff had been with the firm only three months, and she had been going out with him for two of them, which was a long time for her. She liked him, and believed she might even be a little in love with him. He was a good dentist, considerate to his patients and staff, and understanding when, because of her dislike of leaving her mother on her own for too long, Romillie seldom stayed out late. Her mother, Romillie realised, seemed relieved and happy that she was ‘seeing someone’.

So it was on that bright sunny April morning that Romillie parked her car and went swinging into the large old Victorian house that had been converted into a dental practice.

She stowed her bag behind the receptionist’s desk and was taking her first call before she’d had chance to turn on her computer.

It was eleven o’clock before she knew it. Cindy Wilson, one of the dental nurses, came and took over while she went and made herself a cup of coffee. It was there that Jeff Davidson sought her out.

‘I thought I might find you here round about now,’ he said, his eyes admiring on her shining raven hair, now drawn back neatly, and looking deeply into her wide brown eyes.

‘Sorry I couldn’t make it last night,’ she apologised, having cancelled their arrangement, though without explaining that her mother had seemed a bit down when she had gone home at lunchtime.

‘No problem,’ he replied good-humouredly. ‘How are you fixed for tonight? We could go and see that new film.’

Romillie, recalling that her mother was so sensationally ‘up’ that morning as to actually consider picking up her sketching pad, smiled a warm smile. ‘I’d love to,’ she accepted.

Carrying her coffee back to her desk, she thanked Cindy for covering for her. But when Cindy did not go but fidgeted, moving things around on the desk, Romillie realised she had something on her mind. When she heard what it was, however, something in Romillie iced over.

‘Are you and Jeff Davidson an item?’ Cindy blurted out suddenly.

The dental nurse seemed wound up. Romillie, from experience, tried to help. ‘Is it important?’ she asked quietly.

‘I went out with him last night,’ Cindy said in another rush, and, while a sick feeling invaded Romillie’s insides, ‘I—um—wouldn’t want to—um—you know, if…’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Romillie answered, somehow managing to maintain her quiet air. ‘I have been out with him. But that’s finished now.’

Cindy beamed at her. ‘You didn’t mind me asking?’

‘Not at all,’ Romillie replied, and even found a smile.

She carried on with her work, but all the while thoughts of the fickleness of men bombarded her. Her father was a prime example, and now the man she had been out with enough times to have begun to think of him as her boyfriend was another.

But, as she had told Cindy Wilson, that was now finished. If he thought she was going to the cinema with him that night did he have another think coming! All that remained was for her to tell him that.

Romillie went home at lunchtime, hid from her mother that she had received a pretty nasty jolt that morning, and ate the sandwiches her mother had prepared. She returned to work with a certainty that nothing would alter, that while she and Jeff Davidson might have been an item yesterday, they most assuredly were not an item today. Nor would they ever be.

She did not get the chance to tell him so until she went to make a cup of tea and he came to find her. ‘What time tonight?’ he began.

While the fear silently haunted her that she might have inherited some of her father’s weaknesses, Romillie, with her years of experience of his dishonesty in his relationship with her mother, just knew without having to think about it that there would be no such dishonesty or underhandedness in any relationship she had.

‘You went out with Cindy Wilson last night,’ she said bluntly.

That caught him off-guard, but after a second or two he recovered. ‘I didn’t know I was yours exclusively,’ he replied.

Romillie stared at him, her brown eyes wide and serious. Then suddenly she smiled. It was a phoney smile. She might be hurting but he would never know it. ‘You’re not,’ she said. And, in case he had not yet got the message, ‘Enjoy the film,’ she bade him, picked up her tea, and walked away.

Romillie was still feeling churned up inside about Jeff Davidson when she drove home that night, and she blamed herself—when her father was a fine example of a two-timing man; in her father’s case more than two timing—that she had believed that she and Jeff Davidson were exclusive to each other.

It made her angry that she had been such a fool. Once bitten twice shy, she vowed. And with her knowledge of her father’s faithlessness, and now her supposed boyfriend proving to be little better, Romillie knew it would be a very long time before she trusted any man again.

She hid her hurt and disenchantment when she arrived home, and went in search of her mother. She found her in the kitchen.

‘I saw you coming. I’ve got the kettle on,’ Eleanor Fairfax announced, and seemed equally bright as she had at the start of the day, so that Romillie felt able to bring up the subject of her taking her sketchpad outside.

‘Did you manage…?’ It was as far as she got. For, guessing the question, her mother picked up the sketchpad from behind her.

‘What do you think?’ she asked, showing a small sketch of a corner of the garden.

‘Mum, it’s wonderful!’ Romillie enthused, meaning it on both fronts. It was wonderful that her parent was showing an interest again, and her talent as an artist was truly wonderful too. Her attention to detail never ceased to amaze Romillie.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,’ Eleanor protested. ‘I might try painting it later, but I’m so rusty. I…’ She left the rest unsaid, but was smiling happily as she revealed, ‘I had a blast from the past this afternoon.’ And when Romillie looked at her quickly, fearing the worst, ‘No, not your father. Though no doubt Archer Fairfax will show his face again as soon as he wants something. No, I was absorbed in what I was doing when I suddenly felt someone’s eyes on me. I looked up, and there in next-door’s garden was Lewis Selby.’

‘Lewis Selby?’

‘You won’t know him. I wouldn’t have known him myself—I hadn’t seen him in over forty years. He’s a cousin of Sarah Daniels.’ Sarah Daniels lived next door, but had closed the house up some months previously to go on an extended stay in Australia. ‘Lewis and his family used to visit quite often when he was a boy—he’d have been about twelve the last time I saw him. I must have been five or six,’ Eleanor broke off to explain, ‘and I heard them having such fun in the garden next door that it seems I toddled off round there to join in. Lewis was delegated to take hold of my hand and bring me back.’

‘You remember the incident?’

‘Oh, I do. He was such a kind boy. Apparently I would look out of the window every day for him, but I didn’t see him again.’

‘Until today?’

‘Until today,’ her mother agreed with a smile. ‘He knew from Sarah that I’d become an artist—was an artist,’ she corrected. ‘He didn’t recognise me either, but came to the hedge when he saw me to make himself known.’

Romillie laughed. It was a joy to see her mother so ‘up’. ‘What a pity he didn’t know that Mrs Daniels was away. Had he come far?’

‘He lives in London and he knew Sarah was out of the country. She has been in touch, it seems, and guess what?’ Romillie had no idea. ‘Apparently Sarah, horse-mad Sarah, has met a man in the Outback—and won’t be coming home.’

Romillie’s eyes went wide in surprise. ‘She’s getting married?’ she asked. Sarah Daniels, closer to sixty than fifty had, when widowed young, moved back to her family home.

Eleanor nodded. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ she exclaimed, seeming oblivious to the fact that marriage, as in her own case, was very often a disaster.

‘Er—yes,’ Romillie agreed, holding back from saying that now, and probably even before Jeff Davidson’s careless treatment of what she had started to think was a little more than a casual association between them, she viewed the prospect of men and marriage through much less rose-tinted glasses. ‘Um—so why did this—er—Lewis Selby visit if he knew she wouldn’t be here?’

‘Apparently Lewis is thinking of semi-retirement and Sarah contacted him with the idea of putting his semi-retirement to good use.’

‘She’s selling the house?’ Romillie guessed.

‘Not straight away,’ her mother corrected. ‘It seems that she and her Australian are mutually besotted and he’s afraid that if she comes home she won’t go back again. So to prove her love she has said that she will stay.’

‘This Lewis Selby told you all about it over the hedge?’ Romillie enquired.

‘He started to,’ Eleanor replied. ‘But then I realised that all the services in Sarah’s house must be disconnected. So, as I already knew him, albeit from around forty-four or so years ago, I asked him if he’d like to come round for a cup of tea.’

Romillie was little short of amazed—yet at the same time delighted. Her mother had not shown an interest in anything remotely social for at least five years! However, since the last thing she wanted was for her to retreat back into her shell, she hid her amazement and asked instead, ‘So, the house isn’t being sold just yet?’

‘Sarah has a few very special pieces. Some she wants sold, others she wants shipped out. Lewis has a list, and was here today checking through and sorting out prior to contacting the valuers. Now, how about you? Are you going out with Jeff tonight and do you need an early dinner?’

It was good to hear her mother think about cooking a meal when for so long she had not been remotely interested in food. ‘We can eat late if you like,’ Romillie answered, pondering whether to say more but, with her mother so ‘up’, risking it. ‘Other than work, I won’t be seeing Jeff again.’

‘You’ve split up!’ Eleanor exclaimed, searching her daughter’s face for signs of hurt, her own expression troubled.

‘It was a mutual kind of thing,’ Romillie answered lightly. ‘I don’t—um—fancy him any more,’ she added, and knew as she said it that it was true.

She knew as lay in bed that night that it was probably because of her father chasing anything the slightest feminine that she had grown up being a little cautious where men were concerned. She had certainly been very circumspect with whom she went out with—which made Jeff Davidson so special that she’d gone out with him more than a few times. But, having dated him often enough to believe that they were sole boyfriend and girlfriend to each other, today’s revelations had struck at the heart of her—and had killed stone-dead any feeling she might have thought she had for him.

Which, from his point of view the next morning, was rather unfortunate. Because no sooner had she arrived at her place of work than he was there, meeting her in the firm’s parking area.

‘Romillie.’ He waylaid her. ‘I was a fool. I’m sorry.’

She stared at him. Then she smiled—her phoney smile. ‘Why, what have you done?’

‘You’ve forgiven me?’

‘Of course,’ she said, still smiling, and would have walked on. But he caught hold of her arm, halting her.

‘Prove it. Come out with me tonight. Let me show…’

Romillie looked pointedly down at his hand on her arm, and pulled out of his grasp. ‘I think you must be confusing me with someone else,’ she informed him coolly—and left him standing there.

The trouble was, she discovered over the next few days, that men were all casual and careless of your feelings when they thought you were interested, but once you had shown them that you were not remotely interested they just wouldn’t leave you alone. Tough! She was not there to be picked up and put down again at the whim of Jeff Davidson, or anyone else for that matter.

He continued to frequently ask her out. She as frequently told him no. Her mind was on very different matters. Her mother was continuing to make progress. Slow progress, it was true, but after so many years in her private dark place, it was a joy to Romillie to see her picking up the threads of living again.

‘I was wondering,’ Eleanor mused as they sat drinking coffee after dinner one night, ‘how you’d feel about sitting for me?’

Romillie could not believe it, but was more than ready to give her every encouragement. ‘No problem,’ she answered cheerfully.

As soon as his gifted daughter’s artistic talent had shown through, Grandfather Mannion had had a studio made for her. And so it was that after her stint at the dental practice, where it seemed Jeff Davidson still had not taken on board that no thanks meant exactly that, Romillie would spend some part of every evening in her mother’s studio while her mother re-acquainted herself with that which had once been her life.

It was during these sittings that Romillie learnt that Lewis Selby had been down, and had again been invited in for a cup of tea.

Indeed, as the weeks went by, it appeared that he came down once or twice every week and, out of courtesy, always knocked on the door to let her mother know that he was about. Out of that same courtesy, her mother would always invite him in for a cup of tea.

He was divorced, Romillie learned at one of their sittings. ‘A rather acrimonious divorce too, I think,’ her mother revealed. ‘Though, because he’s such a nice person, he never says a word against his ex-wife.’ And, going on to another topic, ‘How do you feel about doing a nude sitting? You needn’t if you don’t want to, but I’d like to try…’

‘Happy to oblige,’ Romillie answered. If her mother went on making progress like this she might soon be saying a permanent goodbye to her ‘down’ days.

At a further sitting Romillie learned that Lewis Selby had paid another visit, and had again been invited in. But when she privately wondered if he was perhaps interested in her mother, she discovered that he was seemingly still too bruised from his divorce to consider leaving himself open to anything like that again.

‘It’s nice that he can pop in from time to time,’ Romillie commented lightly. ‘Er—when does he retire?’

‘Not yet. Not officially for another three years. He works for the telecommunications company Tritel Incorporated. But with him being chairman of such a vast company, it’s not a job he can leave in an instant.’ Eleanor broke off to concentrate on what she was doing for a while, and then resumed. ‘Though from what Lewis was saying he has a very able deputy in Naylor Cardell, a man who, it seems, while dealing with his own work, is already taking on some of Lewis’s duties. Keep your head still for a moment, there’s a love.’

Romillie was in the kitchenette of the dental surgery a few days later when Jeff Davidson came in and tried a new tack. ‘If I promise to keep solely to you while we’re going out, would you bend just a little and come out with me again?’ he asked. And as she just stared at him, because he still hadn’t got the message, ‘Did I hurt you so much, Romillie?’ he went on. ‘Did I? That you no longer trust me?’

Trust, in her book, was one very big word—and he had proved himself undeserving. She looked at him, tall, good-looking and with everything going for him—and yet he suddenly seemed totally without substance.

But her pride reared up at his question of whether his fickleness had hurt her, and there was no way she was going to let him know that hurt she had been, nor how betrayed she had felt. And she who abhorred lies found in that proud instance that it was no effort to have a lie tripping off her tongue.

‘I’ve moved on, Jeff,’ she replied.

He cocked his head to one side. ‘How?’

‘Pastures new,’ she told him without blinking.

‘You’re dating someone else?’ he asked, seeming astounded.

‘You seem surprised?’

‘No, no.’ He back-pedalled. ‘You’re very attractive…You know that you are. It’s—um—just…’

It annoyed her that he should so conceitedly think she stayed home nights, hurting because of him. ‘You blew it, Jeff,’ she informed him coolly. ‘Get over it.’

Her pride was fully intact when she drove home that night. But, when she went in it was to discover that her mother, who had recently been so up, looked tense, and had taken a step backwards.

‘Had a good day?’ Romillie asked cheerfully, starting to become convinced that her father had called and been up to his old trick of shattering her mother’s confidence.

But it was not her father who was the culprit this time, but, surprisingly, Lewis Selby. And he was not so much shattering her confidence as wanting her to take a peep outside the safe little world she had made for herself.

‘Lewis—called,’ she answered jerkily as Romillie put the kettle on to make a pot of tea.

Lewis Selby had been there yesterday. Twice in two days! ‘He must be nearly finished with his business next door,’ Romillie remarked lightly.

‘He asked me to have dinner with him!’ Eleanor burst out in a sudden rush.

Oh, heavens! Romillie kept her expression impassive, but knew the answer even before she asked the question. ‘Are you going?’

‘No, of course not!’ Sharp, unequivocal. And she saw that her mother, like herself, was a long way from trusting again.

Romillie had never met Lewis Selby, but in her conversations with her parent had gleaned enough to know that the man seven years her mother’s senior sounded a very nice and kind man. He must be nice or her mother would never have allowed him over the doorstep.

‘What did you tell him?’ she asked, believing her mother needed to talk her present agitated feelings out of her system. She looked at her parent and thought, as she always had, how beautiful her mother was. She had raven hair, too, but the trauma of her life with Archer Fairfax had added a wing of pure white to one side.

Her mother was suddenly looking self-conscious, and all at once confessed, ‘I feel a bit of a fool now, but he caught me so unawares at the time that I told him that I never went anywhere without my daughter.’

‘You didn’t!’ Romillie gasped. And, when her mother nodded, ‘What did he say to that?’ she asked.

‘He didn’t bat an eye, but straight away suggested that he take the two of us to dinner.’

Heavens! He sounded keen! ‘So where are we going?’ Romillie teased gently, knowing in advance that her parent had put the kibosh on that notion.

‘We aren’t. I told Lewis I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Eleanor replied, as Romillie knew she would. ‘I feel dreadful now. I didn’t even make him a cup of tea. He just—sort of left.’

All went quiet on the Lewis Selby front after that. Her mother seemed to spend long moments staring into space—though pensively, and not as she had formerly, when her whole world seemed to have imploded.

But a week later Romillie arrived home from work to discover that Lewis had popped in again and had been given a cup of tea. In return he had left her mother with a couple of complimentary tickets he could not use himself and which he thought, since it was for an exhibition of paintings at the opening of an art gallery in London on Friday evening, she might be interested in.

‘Wasn’t that thoughtful?’ Eleanor said, more back to the way she had been prior to Lewis’s dinner invitation. ‘We won’t be able to use them, of course, but it was very kind of Lewis to think of us.’

‘Why won’t we be able to use them?’ Romillie asked, not missing that her mother had seemed a touch animated when speaking of the exhibition of paintings.

‘Do you think we could—should?’ Eleanor asked hesitantly.

‘I don’t see why not. It would be a shame to waste the tickets if Mr Selby can’t use then. And we can easily drive up there when I finish work.’

Eleanor was thoughtful for a minute or so. But suddenly agreed, ‘We’ll have a cooked meal at lunchtime,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll only need a sandwich before we go.’

Romillie hurried home after on Friday and noticed that her mother was dressed in a pale blue suit, making her look as smart as a new coat of paint. It pleased her—her mother was usually dressed in trousers and an overblouse.

‘I can’t remember the last time I was in London,’ she commented when Romillie, having quickly showered and changed into a smart two-piece, too, headed the car down the drive.

It was ages since her mother had been anywhere, for that matter, and Romillie could only hope she was not too churned up. She would keep an eye on her anyway, and if she looked to be feeling stressed in any way she would get her out of there.

Romillie found that she need not have worried. ‘Eleanor! Eleanor Mannion!’ someone greeted her the moment they walked into the gallery. She had always painted under her maiden name. And, for all she had not picked up a paintbrush or sold any of her work in years, as several other arty types came up and beamed at her, it was a name that had not been forgotten.

The next half-hour passed quickly as they paused to look, paused to study, prior to moving on. Romillie did not know when she had last seen her mother so animated.

There were a good many people there whom Eleanor did not know, but a good few whom she did. More people came over and expressed warmth and delight at seeing her there so unexpectedly, and Romillie stood back. This was her mother’s world, or used to be. And she looked so cheered Romillie could only be glad that they had come.

Then it was just the two of them again, but as her mother turned to point out the merits of one particular picture, Romillie saw her glance to someone else who was making his way over to them. He was a man of average height, smartly suited, and had white hair and looked to be approaching sixty.

‘Lewis!’ Eleanor exclaimed, a hint of pink creeping up under her skin—and Romillie knew then that there was something more serious going on here than her parent was willing to acknowledge.

‘Eleanor! I’m so glad you could make it!’

‘I’ve used your tickets!’ she exclaimed apologetically.

‘When I knew I would be able to make it after all, I was easily able to get another,’ he said with a smile. And, turning to Romillie, ‘You must be Eleanor’s daughter.’

Romillie studied him for a moment before deciding that she liked the look of him. She had a feeling he would not deliberately harm her mother—and held out her hand. ‘Glad to know you, Mr Selby,’ she said, for he could be none other.

‘Lewis, please,’ he suggested, and they shook hands.

And while he and her mother discussed the picture in front of them, and commented on other works to be seen, Romillie for the moment kept to the sidelines while she wondered—had Lewis Selby really been unable to use the tickets he had given her mother? Or, in the face of her refusing to go out with him, had he intended to be there all along, this merely a ploy to have some time with her away from her home? At any rate, he was not moving on, but appeared to have latched on to them.

She was still pondering that matter when she noticed a tall man who must have just come in, because she had not spotted him previously. What especially caught her notice was that the tall, good-looking man, somewhere in his mid-thirties, was standing stock still and just staring at her.

Romillie tilted her chin a trifle—and looked through him. She had seen tall, good-looking men before—tall, good-looking and untrustworthy. She turned back to tune in to what Lewis Selby and her mother were saying. But suddenly they were interrupted when the good-looking man she had been ready to ignore was there, proving that he was not so easy to ignore.

‘Naylor!’ Lewis exclaimed. ‘I thought you were still at the office!’

‘I’m taking time off for good behaviour,’ Naylor replied, his voice even and well modulated.

‘Let me introduce you,’ Lewis said pleasantly. ‘Naylor is my deputy and will take over when I retire. Naylor, Mrs Eleanor Fairfax.’ And, as they shook hands, ‘And this is Romillie, Eleanor’s daughter.’

‘Romillie,’ Naylor acknowledged, and shook her hand too, but did not, she thought, seem overly impressed, because he turned from her and straight away asked her mother if she was enjoying the exhibits, and if she had far to come or lived in London.

And while Eleanor explained briefly where they lived, and that they had journeyed up by car, Romillie realised she must have gained the wrong impression when she had thought Naylor Cardell had been standing stock still when he had seen her. If he had, he must have seen all he wanted to, because he was not looking at her now—and in fact had barely given her another glance.

She felt slightly miffed for no reason, because she was sure she did not want the next chairman of Tritel Incorporated to be interested in her—which clearly he was not. So, after first checking that her mother appeared to be all right and in no way anxious, Romillie moved a step or two away to look at a different painting.

From the corner of her eye she saw her mother and Lewis Selby move on. She had thought Naylor Cardell had moved on with them. But—wrong—he was all at once there in front of her.

Romillie looked up and observed that he had short dark blondish hair and quite striking blue eyes—eyes that were looking no more interested now than they had. And—more—were definitely unfriendly. Abruptly, she glanced from him to see that her mother, although now out of earshot, was otherwise chatting happily to Lewis.

Romillie flicked her glance back to Naylor Cardell. She had a feeling she did not like him. Had a feeling he did not like her. Fine. She did not have to like him—if he was standing there waiting for her to say something he’d have a long wait.

But he wasn’t waiting. His tone curt, ‘You know that Lewis has asked your mother out?’ he gritted.

Romillie was so taken aback she wasn’t sure that her jaw did not drop. She took another glance to where her mother and Lewis appeared to be getting on famously.

‘He told you?’ she questioned sharply, not at all sure how she felt about that, but her protective instincts on the upsurge.

‘We’re friends as well as colleagues,’ Naylor Cardell stated. ‘Lewis Selby is a fine man,’ he went curtly. ‘I admire him tremendously.’

Romillie did not care to be spoken to curtly. Who the blazes did he think he was? ‘You’re suggesting I should join his fan club?’ she asked acidly.

Naylor’s eyes narrowed at her impudence—Romillie had a feeling that he was more used to women falling at his feet than giving him a load of lip. He swallowed down his ire, however, to inform her, ‘Lewis is an honourable man. I can guarantee that should Eleanor take up his invitation she will come to no harm.’

Romillie had had enough of this before it started. He had known her mother for five minutes—she had spent this last five years trying to help her through what had been a very dreadful time for her.

‘I’ll bear that in mind!’ she retorted, and went to walk away—the nerve of the man!

‘Hear me out.’ Naylor insisted.

Romillie could think of not one single, solitary reason why she should. But, glancing at her mother again, she saw her laugh at something Lewis had just said. And just then she was struck by the change in her mother since that day she had first invited Lewis Selby in for a cup of tea. She seemed, in fact, from that day onwards, to have made great strides in surfacing from the despair that had held her in its grip for so long, and moving on towards regaining her full confidence. So maybe, just maybe, she owed this man—who clearly held Lewis Selby in high regard—some small hearing.

‘So?’ she invited.

‘So I’ll tell you,’ Naylor Cardell took up, without waiting for her to change her mind, ‘because it’s for certain that Lewis won’t. He went through one horrendous divorce a couple of years ago, where he was too much of a gentleman to fight back. She, the ex, did everything she could to destroy him. She almost succeeded.’

That had such a familiar ring to it—had not her own father tried to undermine her mother at every turn, done everything he could to make her crumple?

‘She hated it like hell when he proved too much of a man for her,’ Naylor went on. ‘But that doesn’t mean he didn’t suffer just the same.’

Romillie could feel herself warming to Lewis Selby. Oh, the poor man. If…She checked the thought. She mustn’t go soft here. Her mother was still her prime consideration.

‘So?’ she tossed at him, chin jutting.

Naylor Cardell’s eyes glinted steel. ‘So,’ he said heavily, ‘from the little Lewis has told me of your mother—and I swear to you he has not broken any confidences,’ he added, when she started to bridle, ‘I’d say that both your mother and Lewis could do with a break.’

‘A break for what?’ Romillie questioned hostilely, as ever her mother’s guardian.

‘A break to get to know each other, wouldn’t you say?’

Romillie was not sure that she would. She looked into those striking blue eyes and could feel herself giving in while not sure what she was giving in to. Time to toughen up! ‘Who elected you cupid?’ she challenged curtly—and discovered that he didn’t like being spoken to that way either.

‘Look here, Fairfax,’ he rapped. ‘It’s an initial dinner that’s in the offing, not a trip to see the vicar. And if you could forget to be thoroughly selfish for two minutes, and after all your mother does for you do something for her for a change, it might improve your disposition.’

Romillie’s jaw did drop. That was so unfair! How dared he? She felt like hitting him. But she was used to dampening down her feelings, and so swallowed down the urge to hit him or to tell him just how wrong he had got it. No way was she going to tell him anything of how downcast her mother had been.

So, she stared up at him. Then suddenly she smiled, the phoney smile she had up to then reserved for Jeff Davidson, and with no intention whatsoever of doing anything Naylor Cardell might suggest, ‘What would you like me to do?’ she invited sweetly.

Whether he saw straight through her or not, Romillie had no idea, but Naylor Cardell seemed to be giving the matter every consideration before, after several moments, he suggested, ‘Why not urge Eleanor to take up his dinner invitation? To accept—’

‘She won’t.’ Romillie cut him off. Oh, my, he wasn’t used to being interrupted. That was plain as she weathered the exasperated look he sent her.

‘Lewis tells me there’s a chance if you go too,’ he grated.

Oh, help us, this Naylor Cardell really did dislike her, didn’t he? She should worry! ‘My mother would never agree to that,’ Romillie told him forthrightly. But then, out of positively nowhere—though perhaps since he had been trying to back her into a corner where she, it seemed, was selfish and uncaring—Romillie thought it about time she challenged him for a change. ‘My mother wouldn’t agree to that,’ she reiterated, but added, bringing out her phoney smile again, and looking up at him all wide-eyed and innocent, ‘But she might agree if we went out in a foursome.’

Naylor Cardell stared at her as if he just could not believe his hearing. As if his normal powers of rapid comprehension had just deserted him.

‘Foursome?’ he queried slowly. ‘We?’ he questioned, scandalised.

Suddenly Romillie was having a lovely time. It was all right, wasn’t it, when he was doing the challenging, he urging she persuade her mother to accept Lewis’s invitation, but different again when that challenge was bounced back at him. ‘It’s time to put your money where your mouth is,’ she told him. And just had to release a light laugh that bubbled up and would not stay down when she added, ‘Be brave, Cardell—you’ve been elected.’

He stared down into her wide brown eyes, looked down at her laughing lovely mouth, and appeared to be very much taken aback—even a little stunned. She was still smiling, not a phoney smile this time, but a genuine smile that came from the fact that in putting him on the spot for a change her good humour was restored. It was not, however, to last.

Because suddenly her own previous phoney smile was being lobbed back at her, and she just did not believe it when, ‘Very well,’ Naylor Cardell conceded. And, while that wiped the smile from her face, ‘I’ll make up a foursome,’ he agreed, bestowing on her a superior kind of look that had soon put paid to her smile. And, in case she was in any doubt, ‘But if your mother still says no,’ he added, ‘it’s off.’

The nerve of the man! Open-mouthed, she stared at him. ‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ she retorted heatedly, having no need of the reminder that he had no personal interest in her but, when he would not normally dream of going out with her, would if it would help out a friend and colleague who had been through very bad times. ‘You’re not married?’ she thought to question, committed, by the look of it, but already searching for a way out.

The trouble was, he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. It was all there in his silkily drawled, ‘You don’t get out of it that easily. I’m completely unattached—and like it that way.’

Romillie breathed out heavily. ‘Good for you!’ she erupted, niggled, and was more annoyed when he took out his business card and handed it to her.

‘Call me,’ he said.

She did not want his wretched card, but without another word took it from him. Fuming, she turned from him and went in search of her mother. ‘You don’t get out of it that easily’ he had said. She did not like the sound of that. Somehow, those words had sounded ominously like a threat!

CHAPTER TWO

ROMILLIE awoke early on Saturday morning, hardly able to believe the happenings of the previous evening. Naylor Cardell had thought her selfish and with little thought for anyone but herself. As if she cared what he thought! And he expected her to give him a call! He’d had that! She had no intention of ringing him ever!

She had not seen him again after she had walked away, so presumably he had viewed all he wanted in the art gallery. When she and her mother had been ready to leave Lewis Selby had enquired if they would care to join him somewhere for a bite of supper. Romillie had waited for her mother to reply, but hadn’t been surprised when she declined the invitation.

‘I think we’ll be on our way.’

‘You’ve enjoyed the evening?’ Lewis had asked, escorting them to where they had parked the car.

‘Much more than I thought I would,’ Eleanor had replied, and had given him such a sweet smile.

Romillie and her mother had discussed various paintings on the way home. But Romillie had been hard put to know how to reply when her mother got round to mentioning some of the people they had met, in particular one Naylor Cardell.

‘What did you think of him?’ she had asked.

Arrogant, curt, bossy, wanted taking down a peg or five, sprang to mind. ‘I should imagine he’ll make a very good successor to Lewis,’ was what she did say, which in fairness—given that she knew little about the business—she thought he probably would.

‘You seemed to be getting on well with him,’ Eleanor commented. ‘I glanced over to you a couple of times and you seemed to be chatting well away there—he was making you smile and laugh a lot, I noticed.’

Somehow, with her mother having had such a happy evening, it had not seemed fair to put a blight on it by confessing that, while her laugh had been genuine, her smiles—as well as his—had been bogus.

It warmed her though, that while she had kept her eye on her mother from time to time, to check she was coping all right on her first outing in a long, long while, her mother, it seemed, had likewise been keeping a motherly and protective eye on her daughter.

Over the next few days Romillie was able to observe that there was a growing dramatic change in her parent of late. She was generally much, much brighter than she had been. And on Wednesday when Romillie went in from work, she actually heard her singing as she pottered about the kitchen.

The reason for that, Romillie began to see, was because Lewis Selby had called that afternoon. ‘Is that an extra cup and saucer I see?’ Romillie asked lightly of the two cups and saucers on the draining board.

‘Lewis popped in,’ her mother replied.

Romillie had done nothing about phoning Naylor Cardell, but all at once she began to wonder if she should. She had an idea that Lewis Selby was in no hurry to complete closing up the house next door and putting it on the market. But his business there must surely finish soon.

From her own observations she had seen how knowing Lewis had done her mother nothing but good. Since knowing him she had come on in leaps and bounds.

She guessed he had an understanding of her mother that only someone who had been through the pulverising divorce he had been through could have. Instinctively Romillie knew that he would guard her mother. Which made her wonder how her mother would feel when Lewis did not come around any more.

But—Naylor Cardell…? Oh, for crying out loud, it was only dinner, for goodness’ sake! But he would be there too—now, that was the maggot in the apple.

Frustratedly, irritatedly, she chewed over having to meet the wretched man again. Could she, in the interests of getting her parent into the swing of socialising again, put up with him for a few hours?

With a heartfelt sigh Romillie reluctantly came to the conclusion that in an attempt to wean her mother away from her reclusive existence—whether Lewis Selby featured in her future or not—she had better make that phone call.

Though first she had to get her mother to agree to the foursome—it just did not bear thinking about, Romillie considered, that she should dine à deux, just her and Naylor Cardell there. Though from what she could remember of his obvious dislike of her that was never going to happen anyway.

She was still seeking a way to broach the subject when they were having their meal that night and she became aware that her mother was looking solemnly at her. ‘Have I gravy on my chin?’ Romillie asked puzzled.

‘You’re not—man-wary, are you, darling?’ Eleanor questioned in a rush.

‘No, of course not.’ Romillie protested.

But could see she was not believed when her mother pressed on worriedly, ‘You haven’t let the way your father is, the way he behaved in our marriage, put you off men in any way?’ she persisted.

If it had, and while she might privately be concerned in case she developed some of her father’s lax traits, there was no way Romillie was going to give her mother something else to worry about.

‘What brought this on?’ she asked with a laugh.

‘You,’ Eleanor replied, not laughing. ‘You never go out with a man more than a few times. And just when I was beginning to think you were going steady with Jeff Davidson you broke up with him.’

‘I’m perfectly happy as I am!’ Romillie protested.

But Eleanor was suddenly far more determined than she had been for a very long while. ‘I know you’ve had to spend a lot of time with me, and I regret that more than you know. But I’m okay again now, and I want to stand on my own feet. So I want you to promise me that instead of being negative the next time some agreeable man asks you out, you’ll say yes.’

This was quite a speech from her mother. ‘If it will stop you worrying—yes, yes, yes,’ Romillie cheerfully agreed, happily aware that she never went anywhere where she might meet one such.

‘Good,’ her mother responded. ‘Lewis told me this afternoon that Naylor Cardell had mentioned having dinner with you.’

‘That’s unfair!’ Romillie cried, trying to look outraged, but delighted to see a sudden gleam of wickedness in her mother’s eyes. Agreeable? Naylor Cardell!

‘You’ve just promised.’ She refused to let her back down.

And at that moment Romillie knew she had the opening she had been looking for—forget the ‘agreeable’ bit. But she tried to keep it very casual as she brought out, ‘I will if you will.’

‘I’m not with you?’

‘Lewis Selby asked you to have dinner with him,’ Romillie reminded her.

‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ her mother straight away exclaimed.

‘You could if we went in a foursome.’

Eleanor looked at her in amazement. ‘A foursome!’ She thought about it, and then decided, ‘You don’t want me with you. And what on earth would Naylor say?’

Romillie already had the answer to that—either your mother comes or I don’t. ‘That’s the deal,’ she said, and refused to budge.

‘But that will mean asking Lewis,’ she protested.

‘I’ll get Naylor to ask him.’

‘How did this all get so complicated?’ her mother prevaricated.

‘It’s not complicated. Lewis and Naylor, you and me, or nothing.’

‘But Lewis hasn’t asked me out again,’ Eleanor stated. Though, as if the idea was starting to sound not quite so unthinkable as it had, she suddenly looked as though she quite liked the idea. Even if she did insist, ‘I’ll come, but only if Lewis rings and asks me.’ With that she began to clear their dinner plates seeming a shade foxed all at once as she commented, ‘All I thought to do was to find out if you have a hang up about men—and suddenly it looks as if I’m to get my best dress out of mothballs.’

Romillie did not look forward to making that phone call, and got up the next morning with the fact that she was going to have to hanging over her like a dark cloud. But, since she did not want to make the call from her workstation, she went out to her car mid-morning and from there rang the number on Naylor Cardell’s business card.

‘May I speak with Mr Cardell?’ she asked the female who answered, and realised that the number gave her access straight through to his PA. She half hoped the PA would block the call or say he was not in.

But no such luck. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’ she enquired pleasantly.

‘Romillie Fairfax,’ she replied, and waited, wanting to terminate the call before she started.

‘Yes?’ clipped Naylor Cardell, not very enamoured to have his work interrupted.

‘We can make Saturday,’ she told him briefly, her tones not enamoured of him either.

‘Right,’ he said, and that was all.

But, fearing he was about to bang down his phone, Romillie hurriedly burst into speech. ‘But my mother will only agree if Lewis contacts her and asks her personally.’

‘I’ll see to it!’ Naylor clipped, without so much as a pause—and that was an end to the time he wasted on her.

That urge she had felt before, to set about him, was there again. She did not know what it was about him but Romillie experienced a quite dreadful desire to punch Naylor Cardell’s head. She half wished he had changed his mind and said that he wasn’t free on Saturday, and that dinner was off.

But, on leaving her car and going back to work, Romillie realised that to wish that would only make her as selfish as the dratted man thought she was. Not that she was concerned about his opinion. It was her mother that mattered.

But Naylor Cardell had ‘seen to it’, as he had said he would, and when Romillie went home at lunchtime it was to discover that Lewis had already been in telephone contact with her mother.

‘I said we would meet them in town to save them driving down here, but Lewis wouldn’t hear of it,’ Eleanor revealed. ‘He and Naylor will pick us up around seven—but I expect you already know that from Naylor.’

By half past six on Saturday evening, Romillie was starting to have grave doubts about the venture. Her mother was looking more and more uptight by the minute.

Which only went to make Romillie wonder if she should have left things well alone and let her mother come to a decision in her own time about whether or not she wanted to go out in male company.

At five to seven, with her parent growing more and more fidgety, Romillie was feeling very much that she had been wrong to collude with Naylor Cardell the way that she had. In fact, she was of a mind to go out and apologise to Lewis—and Naylor if she had to—and to tell them they would not be coming to dine with them after all.

Impossibly, however, when her mother had been pacing about for the last ten minutes, no sooner had Lewis arrived and said a quiet, ‘Hello, Eleanor,’ than her mother’s nerves about the evening seem to instantly fall away.

Looking completely relaxed with each other, they were already engaged in pleasantries when Naylor unfolded his long length from behind the steering wheel of the car and came to join them.

‘Romillie,’ he said.

‘Naylor,’ she replied.

And that would have been it as far as she was concerned—except that both her mother and Lewis seemed to be of the opinion that Naylor was her date, and insisted that she sit up front with him.

‘Had a good week?’ she enquired, after racking her brains for something to talk to him about as they drove along.

‘Can’t complain,’ he replied briefly. A minute ticked by, and then two. ‘You?’ he enquired.

Grief, this was like trying to harvest a field of wheat with a pair of blunt scissors! ‘Average,’ she managed, and began to be sure that the evening was going to be a complete disaster.

Strangely, it wasn’t. Not totally. Whoever had chosen the restaurant Naylor and Lewis took them to they had, Romillie saw, chosen well. There was plush carpeting, crisp linen, and room between the well-spaced tables for private conversation. If, that was, they could find anything to talk about.

But she had to give Naylor Cardell credit that, the idea of the four of them dining together being hers and not his, he did not leave it to her to keep the conversational ball rolling. As they started on their meal, he did away with desultory conversation and appeared to show an interest in her. She knew that it was purely for her mother’s benefit, but felt the oddest sensation inside when he looked across at her for long moments and seemed quite taken with her. She saw his glance flick over her just below shoulder-length long dark hair, stray over her unblemished complexion, before his striking blue eyes connected with her velvety brown ones.

‘Eleanor, I know, is a well-known artist of exceptional talent,’ he began engagingly. ‘Tell me, Romillie, have you inherited your mother’s gift?’

‘Er—I’ve tried, but I’m quite, quite hopeless,’ she stated honestly, endeavouring to hide the fact that his charm offensive had taken her unawares.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, darling.’ Her mother joined in the conversation, amazingly, after the way she had been prior to seeing Lewis that evening, now thoroughly relaxed.

‘I think you must be seeing my poor efforts through a mother’s indulgent eyes,’ Romillie laughed, and, feeling unexpectedly relaxed herself all at once, fell silent for a while as Lewis joined in and the discussion centred around art, including talk of the exhibition all four of them had attended.

They were on to the next course when there was a lull in the conversation and Naylor again seemed to remember that, in the interests of furthering the budding friendship of Lewis and Eleanor, he should be showing more of an interest in Eleanor’s daughter.

‘What sort of work do you do, Romillie?’ he asked. ‘You never said.’

‘I work in a dental practice,’ she replied, realising she was honour-bound to play along.

‘You’re a dental surgeon?’

‘Nothing so grand,’ she answered, finding a smile. ‘I’m just a receptionist.’

‘As long as you enjoy it,’ he responded, and asked, ‘Have you been there long?’

‘About a year,’ she replied, and realised he was playing his interested man-friend part well when he did not leave it there.

‘What did you do before that?’ he enquired pleasantly.

Nothing, actually. But for no known reason, while she was sure she was not the smallest bit bothered about his opinion of her, Romillie discovered that—when he must work very hard—she didn’t wish that he should add lazy to his belief that she was selfish.

‘I—er…’ she stumbled—and was astonished that when she had spent the last five years doing what she could to protect her mother, her mother, plainly knowing her well enough to read her discomfiture, suddenly took on the role of protecting her!

‘Romillie was about to start university in the hope of one day being a forensic scientist, but she gave up her university place to stay at home and—keep me company when I became unwell,’ Eleanor butted in.

‘Mum…’ Romillie murmured. ‘You don’t have to…’

But Eleanor, her protective instinct dormant for so long, had woken up with a vengeance, clearly not wanting her daughter’s ‘escort’ to think her offspring had spent years in total idleness. ‘I was—very—down, and would have been lost without Rom,’ she went on to explain.

Romillie had never heard her mother talk like this, and, aware that Naylor’s glance had switched from her mother and on to her, started to feel a little embarrassed. ‘Mum, please,’ she protested.

‘It’s true, darling,’ Eleanor said affectionately. ‘You’ve had to be strong for both of us.’

Thankfully Lewis entered the conversation just then, to gently enquire, ‘How are you progressing now, Eleanor?’

‘Getting there,’ she replied, favouring him with a warm smile. ‘With my daughter’s help, I’m getting there. Romillie has taken this job well below her capabilities because it’s near enough to home that she can return in her lunch hour—or be with me inside fifteen minutes if I start to get a little bit panicky.’

Romillie by that time was feeling dreadfully torn—as well as embarrassed. On the one hand it was so good to hear her mother—if a little hesitantly—opening up. But on the other, recalling how only last Wednesday her parent had wondered if she had been put off men, Romillie could not help but think was she now trying to show Naylor, lest Romillie show him her ‘negative’ side, that her daughter really did have a caring, positive side. Oh, grief!

But she did not believe for a moment that Naylor was aware of her embarrassment, or was endeavouring to take the attention off her when, quite pleasantly he glanced over to her mother and enquired, ‘And how about your own work, Eleanor?’

‘I hadn’t picked up my brushes in I don’t know how long, but I’ve recently done a few small pieces, nothing major,’ she responded, and Romillie drew a relieved breath to have the limelight taken off her. ‘But I do believe I’m getting the itch to get back to it again,’ her mother, to Romillie’s delight, stated.

‘You wouldn’t like to make a portrait of me your first assignment, I suppose?’ Lewis asked. And, when Eleanor turned to him as if ready to refuse, ‘Mind, you’d have to make me look good,’ he added, and laughed with Eleanor when she laughed. And Lewis explained, ‘Apparently all past chairmen have to be hanged in the boardroom. Many say not before time,’ he joked.

All in all, given that she had been overwhelmingly embarrassed by her mother singing her praises, Romillie thought the evening had been most successful. Her mother had smiled and laughed with Lewis, and in fact, as Romillie sat beside Naylor Cardell on the journey home, she could not remember the last time she had seen her mother so buoyant.

Naylor pulled his car up on the drive of her home, and out of courtesy both men got out of the car. The evening, in Romillie’s view, should have ended there. So she did not thank Naylor Cardell when he chose to extend it. Though it was plain that his interest was not in her—not that she wanted it to be, for heaven’s sake—because it was to her mother that he addressed his question.

‘I wonder, Eleanor,’ he said as the four of them stood on the drive, ‘if you would be kind enough to show me some of your work?’

She looked about to politely turn down the request. Then she looked from him to her daughter, and Romillie had to endure that feeling of embarrassment again. For it seemed to her that while it might appear obvious to anyone else that since—if she accepted—her mother had been commissioned to paint a portrait of his company’s chairman, it was likely someone on the board would want to see something of her work, Romillie saw it differently. From her mother’s point of view one very agreeable man was taking an interest in her man-wary daughter. It was time for a mother to wake up and do something about it. In this small case—since Naylor obviously wanted to prolong the evening—agree.

‘I haven’t got very much I can show you in the way of work I used to do, but there are a few paintings scattered about in my studio—as well as several I didn’t want to sell. Come in,’ she invited. ‘My studio’s on the south-west facing side of the house.’

As they went along the hall, pausing to study one rather lovely landscape Eleanor had painted many years previously, Romillie, very much needing to be on her own, decided she was not needed on this part of the tour.

‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she mumbled to anyone interested to hear, and headed for the kitchen.

Had she hoped to have some peace from this situation that was more or less of her own making, she soon discovered it was not to be. She had not so much as lifted down the coffee jar when she heard a sound nearby, and turned her head to find that Naylor Cardell had joined her.

‘Want any help?’ he enquired, his good-looking face giving away nothing of what he was thinking or feeling.

Romillie shook her head. ‘No thanks.’ She turned to face him, and releasing a pent-up breath, ‘We should never have done it,’ she stated flatly.

‘Oh, come on!’ Naylor argued. Though he conceded, ‘We probably wouldn’t have, had I not provoked you by calling you selfish. And for that I do apologise—’

‘Oh, grief, don’t!’ Romillie butted in to protest, remembering again the way her mother had been singing her praises. ‘I know we meant well by trying to get my mother and Lewis to get to know each other more outside the home—’ that, after all, had been what this ‘foursome’ had been about ‘—but now my mother thinks you and I are—um—interested in each other.’

‘A natural assumption, surely?’

‘She probably thinks you’ve sloped away specifically to see me.’

‘Given that our aim is to have Lewis and Eleanor break down a few walls, is that such a bad impression to give?’ he enquired urbanely.

Romillie sighed. ‘It will be when I don’t see you again.’

‘Sorry to be obtuse,’ Naylor commented, seeming to fill their not so small kitchen, ‘but I can’t see what you’re getting at.’

She thought him anything but obtuse. Indeed, to be in the position he was at Tritel Incorporated in his mid-thirties, showed he must be as sharp as a tack.

Then she suddenly saw something else. ‘You knew I was embarrassed, didn’t you? At dinner, when my mother was busy setting you right about my selfish streak?’

‘It occurred to me you weren’t feeling too comfortable,’ he admitted.

Romillie stared at him. Somehow she had never thought of him as sensitive. But he had to be to have picked up how she was feeling. Not only that, but in that sensitivity he had taken the conversation away from her and given her chance to recover by asking her mother about her work.

‘You’re nicer than I first thought,’ Romillie admitted slowly.

‘Steady,’ he warned. Theirs was not the sort of relationship where either had been complimentary to the other. But then he smiled, a most wonderful smile, and all of a sudden Romillie’s heart seemed to quicken up its beat.

It was a totally new experience for her, and she looked away from him, feeling oddly tongue-tied. ‘I know my mother was only thinking of me,’ she said hurriedly when she found her voice. ‘But that’s purely because—’ Romillie came to an abrupt halt. Good heavens, Naylor Cardell might have shown himself to be nicer than she had thought, but there was no need to go overboard and tell him…

‘Because?’ Naylor pressed when she did not go on.

‘Nothing,’ she said. And then realised that the next chairman of Tritel Incorporated did not believe in ‘nothing’ answers.

‘So tell me,’ he insisted.

‘I’d better make a start on this coffee.’

‘Eleanor was only thinking of you when she was telling me how special you are because…?’

Romillie looked at him, unsmiling. To hold out any longer seemed to her to be making a far bigger issue of it than it was. And anyway, she would not be seeing him again. Just another half an hour or so more of his company and that would be it.

‘My mother seems to think I’m a bit anti-men,’ she said in a rush.

His lips twitched. ‘It shows,’ he drawled, and she knew he was thinking of their first unfriendly encounter.

‘Oh, shut up!’ she exclaimed, but her lips twitched too.

‘Don’t leave it there,’ he commanded.

‘You’re confusing me!’

‘Your mother thinks you’re anti-men, so she impressed on me how lovely you are because…’

‘I’m getting embarrassed again,’ Romillie erupted. But probably because of that, suddenly wanting it all said, she went rushing on, ‘I don’t know—perhaps she believes you are the new man in my life—’

‘What happened to the old one?’ he cut in, in her opinion too sharp by half.

She went on as if he had not spoken. ‘My mother wants you to know more about the real me before the hang-up she worries I might have about men kicks in, and…’

‘You have a hang-up about men?’ Naylor queried, those striking blue eyes holding her fast, his expression serious.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You’re—how old?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ she wanted to know.

‘Ever been engaged?’

‘Grief—I’m not interested in marriage!’ she exclaimed indignantly. Hadn’t she seen enough of marriage in this very house to know she would rather die an old maid than take the marriage route?

‘Your parents are divorced, I believe?’ he queried.

But if he had any more questions lined up—tough.

‘Sorry, Naylor. Would you mind if I got up from the analyst’s couch?’ And, not waiting for an answer, ‘It was no problem for me to tell you what I have, because I know that after tonight I’m never going to see you again. But that’s it! One “date” does not entitle you to an in-depth personal history.’

‘And your mother wonders what it is about you that so puts men off, so she decided to let your “latest beau” know how lovely you really are?’

Latest beau! She’d like to bury a hatchet in his head! Romillie’s dislike of him was back in full force. ‘I’ve never been dumped yet!’ she flared hostilely.

‘That’s usually your prerogative?’

‘Clear off, Cardell!’ she fumed.

Naylor looked back at her, those keen blue eyes taking in her hostility. Then, giving her a hard, thoughtful stare, ‘Black, no sugar,’ he ordered, and left her.

Romillie set about making coffee, never more glad that he had gone. He could find his own way to the studio; she’d had it with him.

She had expected them back well before the coffee was ready, but when they were not she went in search of them. Perhaps her mother meant her to take a tray into the studio? She hadn’t thought so, but…

Romillie entered the studio, thinking she could easily collect a tray, but was immediately struck by the fact that, while Naylor was up one end of the studio, her mother and Lewis were down at the other. And, what was more, they were standing close, and were so engrossed in the picture they were studying, and looked so much ‘a couple’ somehow, that it just did not seem right to break in.

She took a few silent steps nearer to the man she was now certain she had no liking for and noticed he had been looking at her mother’s more recent work, in particular a painting of one section of the rear garden.

Then suddenly, as Naylor put that picture down and picked up another, so Romillie recalled what other recent pictures were up that end. In a rush, she went quickly to him. But she was already too late!

She’d opened her mouth to protest when, reaching Naylor, she saw him standing gazing fascinated at the nude sketch her mother had made of her. It was a three-quarter side-on sketch, showing the lovely curve of her back as she bent slightly over, her behind, and the long length of leg from hip, thigh, calf and toe. The sketch showed her tiny waist and moved up to the full globe of her right breast and part of her left breast. Above her unadorned shoulder and the long length of neck her mother had captured in her face a most becoming honest and true smile, a smile that seemed to shine out through her eyes too.

‘That picture’s not for sale!’ Romillie found her voice to tell him huskily, while at the same time wanting to snatch it from his hands.

Naylor studied the sketch for a moment to two longer, taking in the complete beauty Eleanor Mannion-Fairfax had captured. Unhurriedly, then he turned to Romillie. If he had observed that her cheeks had a hint of warm pink about them he gave no sign, but, his eyes telling her nothing, ‘Strangely enough,’ he drawled, ‘I wasn’t thinking of buying.’

How she kept civil to him after that, Romillie never knew. But as Naylor put the picture down, and Eleanor and Lewis suddenly seemed to notice they had company and came over, Romillie somehow retained enough good manners to not let anyone else feel uncomfortable.

But she was glad to see Naylor go. As anticipated, he did not ask to see her again. She would have been astonished—and pleased to turn him down—had he done so.

But the man disturbed her. She acknowledged that. He was in her head again when she awoke on Sunday morning. She half regretted that she had suggested the foursome at all. But then, recalling the way her mother and Lewis were with each other, nothing showy, but quiet and sort of—together, she could only know that at whatever cost to her personally it had been the right thing to do.

Not that she could say it had cost her that much. Just more intimate than she would have wanted tête-à-tête in the kitchen with Naylor Cardell, that was all. They had soon established that they weren’t going to see each other again—and he was as pleased about that as she was.

It was a mystery to her why Naylor should still be in her head when she went into work on Monday. She ousted him when the first person she saw was Jeff Davidson. ‘You’re still coming with me to Alex Yardley’s retirement dinner on Saturday, I hope?’ he asked, laying on the charm.

Romillie had in part forgotten that Friday would be Mr Yardley’s last day in the practice, and had forgotten totally that, although the invitation was for ‘and guest’, she and Jeff had been going to go together.

‘Sorry,’ she apologised. And, knowing it would be discourteous not to attend, ‘I’m bringing someone else.’

He did not like that. ‘The new boyfriend, I suppose?’ he questioned, not very pleasantly.

Actually, she had been thinking of asking her mother if she would like to come. ‘If he’s free,’ she replied.

‘If he’s free?’ Jeff queried, and with a calculating look in his eyes, ‘There isn’t anybody else, is there? You’ve made him up!’ he accused.

‘He seemed real enough to me over the weekend,’ she replied, and had Naylor back in her head again. She had to smile to herself, though—he’d be delighted to know he was her new boyfriend.

Romillie asked her mother how she felt about going to the dinner on Saturday. But as she had expected, although Eleanor had made a start on socialising again, she was not keen on mixing with a load of strangers whom she had never met before.

‘Why not ask Naylor?’ she suggested. ‘I’m sure he’d be only too pleased to be your date.’

Oh, heavens. Romillie did so hope her mother was not worrying that she had such a ‘thing’ about men that she was going to push her in the male direction at every chance.

‘I’ll give it some thought,’ she replied, a little fib permissible in the circumstances, she felt. ‘Talking of thoughts, have you thought any more about painting Lewis’s portrait?’

Eleanor smiled at her, and confessed, ‘I have to say I have.’

‘And?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Rom. I’m pulled to do it a lot of the time. Sometimes I feel really keen to have a shot at it. But at others I feel sure I’ll make a complete hash of it.’

It was plain from that that her mother’s former confidence in her ability had not fully returned. ‘How about accepting the commission on the basis that if you mess it up, or Lewis does not like it, you reserve the right not to sell it to him?’

Eleanor considered the idea. ‘But what about the time he’ll waste coming here? I shall need at least two or three sittings!’

Romillie had to smile. ‘Mother, dear,’ she teased gently, ‘I’ve an idea Lewis won’t consider it time wasted whether there’s a portrait for him to hang in the boardroom at the end of it or not.’

Her mother went a delicate shade of pink. ‘Oh, you,’ she said, but did allow herself a quiet smile.

Romillie had supposed her mother would discuss the portrait with Lewis when he came down again, but when on Thursday evening he had not been down to Tarnleigh at all, her mother revealed that he’d got a lot going on in his office that week.

‘I wonder,’ Eleanor began, stopped, and then started off again. ‘Do you fancy acting as my agent, Rom?’

Romillie had no idea what an artist’s agent did, but, ‘What would you like me to do?’ she asked.

‘Would you like to get in touch with Lewis and—um—arrange for his first sitting? That is,’ she added hurriedly, ‘if he still wants me to do it.’

By the sound of it, her mother was nervous of broaching the subject to Lewis, and, aware as Romillie was of her mother’s quite exceptional ability at her artist’s easel, she could feel herself getting quite uptight. She knew they had Archer Fairfax to thank that her mother’s confidence had been so badly fractured.

Talk at the surgery the next morning was all about the retirement dinner the following evening. Jeff Davidson, clearly not believing she had found anyone to replace him in her life, had halted her to quiz her every day since Monday as to whom she was bringing as her guest. But it was not until Brenda, Mr Yardley’s dental nurse, who was organising the event, asked her for her guest’s name for a place card that Romillie realised she had been a bit tardy.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.