Valtieri's Bride & A Bride Worth Waiting For: Valtieri's BrideA Bride Worth Waiting For

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘I don’t suppose you want to come back down and have that chat?’ she said, meeting his eyes with a certain hesitation.

  The smile wouldn’t be held back. ‘What—rather than sit here on a cold, dusty floor and stare at this lot? I think I could be talked into it.’ He held a hand out towards the door. ‘After you.’

  She turned away from him with a smile, and he saw the back of her trousers.

  ‘Oops. Dust,’ he told her, jerking his head slightly in the direction of her delectable bottom. She peered over her shoulder, brushed ineffectually at her seat and then looked up at him.

  ‘That better?’

  ‘Marginally. Here, let me.’ And, without allowing himself to think about it, he took his hand and swiped it firmly over her taut, trim backside. ‘That’s got it,’ he said, swallowing hard, and ramming his hand in his pocket where it couldn’t get into any more mischief, he followed her downstairs.

  * * *

  ‘So—tea and a scone, was it?’ she asked, and he gave a slightly distracted smile and nodded.

  ‘Please.’ He tilted his head slightly towards Jude. ‘So—who did you say that was?’

  ‘Judy—my assistant. She helps me out on Wednesdays so I can go and cook, but we’ve been so busy today I was going to stay and help her clear up.’

  ‘So you don’t really have time to talk?’

  She looked at her watch, feeling the pressure of all the things she still had to do before Stephen finished school. ‘I could later more easily—after I shut? About five-thirty? That would be better.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll come back then. What about Stephen?’

  ‘He comes here from school. He’ll be here about a quarter to four. He’s OK, he sits at the table and does his homework if I’m not at home. He’ll be fine.’

  ‘Right. I’ll see you later.’

  She watched him go, her bottom still tingling from the touch of his hand, and she lifted her hand and traced her lips, still dazed.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’m fine, Jude.’ She looked around, seeing the place suddenly almost empty. Typical, just when she’d sent him off. ‘Look, I tell you what, why don’t I go home and throw together some more pasta bakes? And we’ll need scones for tomorrow. Anything else you’ve noticed?’

  ‘We’re low on apple cake. I’ve just sold the last two bits that were out, and there’s only a couple in the tin.’

  ‘OK. I’ll do some of that if I’ve got time. Can you send Stephen over when he arrives, and I’ll come and lock up at five-thirty. If Michael comes back before I do, can you give him a coffee and ask him to hang on?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She ignored the curiosity in her assistant’s eyes, grabbed what she needed to take home and headed out of the door before something else cropped up. It always did.

  She was up to her arms in flour when Stephen wandered in, munching an apricot slice. ‘Judy gave it to me,’ he said by way of explanation, and she nodded and dropped a fleeting kiss on his head.

  Fleeting because he ducked the moment he sensed her coming, and shot under her arm and out of the room. ‘I’m going to the loo,’ he said, vanishing up the stairs.

  ‘Don’t be long, you’ve got homework to do,’ she called after him. She knew quite well what he’d be doing—sitting in there with his nose in a book, hiding from his homework behind the locked door. She sighed. Oh, well, at least it kept him out of her hair while she was cooking, and he could always do his homework while Michael was here.

  In fact, that would be better, she decided, and left Stephen to it.

  * * *

  ‘So how’s it going?’

  Michael raked up a smile from somewhere. ‘Oh, up and down. We had a bit of a fight today.’

  Ruth raised an eyebrow and settled herself more comfortably on his sofa. ‘About?’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing, really. She has this bunch of freeloaders—’

  ‘Her support group. Yeah, I know. Grace and Jackie and Chris.’

  ‘Amongst others.’

  ‘So don’t tell me—you called them freeloaders?’

  He shrugged again. ‘And if I did?’

  Ruth rolled her eyes. ‘They’re her friends, Michael. She loves them to bits, and they love her. She needs them.’

  ‘But they could still pay—’

  ‘They do pay. They just pay less. They don’t really cost her anything, they just don’t make her a profit. That’s allowed, isn’t it? Not to make a profit from your friends?’

  Suddenly he started to see it from Annie’s side, and with a groan he dropped back against the sofa and rolled his head towards her. ‘Do you have to be right about everything?’ he said wryly.

  ‘Only if you insist on being wrong.’

  He laughed. ‘So how’s life with Tim?’

  ‘Wonderful.’ She turned, wriggling round so she was facing him, and gave him a searching look. ‘So—I take it she still doesn’t know who you are?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Not yet. But I’m getting there.’

  ‘And does she like you?’

  He thought of the kiss, and the startled, pleased expression on her face, and felt himself colour slightly. ‘I think so. I hope so. It’s not as easy this time.’

  ‘That’s because you’re being you, and you’re a miserable, grumpy old sod most of the time.’

  ‘Well, cheers,’ he grunted. ‘With friends like you—’

  ‘Someone needs to keep you aware of reality,’ she said drily. ‘So when are you going to tell her?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Not yet. It’s so complicated.’

  She worried her lip with her teeth. ‘Be careful, Michael. Don’t leave it too long. I know your reasons, and I respect them, but you have to see it from her side.’

  He nodded. ‘I know. I won’t muck about. Just as soon as I feel we’ve got a chance, I’ll tell her.’

  ‘You mind you do. What about Stephen?’

  He felt his face soften, and looked away. ‘He’s a great kid. I met him last night.’

  ‘He’s lovely, isn’t he? Bit of a handful.’

  ‘Is he? Odd, he didn’t seem it.’

  ‘She’s brought him up very well. They always insisted on manners, so you would have seen the good side of him, but there’s a stubborn streak in there a mile wide.’

  ‘I wonder which one of us he gets that from?’ he murmured with a grin.

  ‘Either,’ Ruth said bluntly. ‘There’s nothing to choose between you. So when are you seeing them again?’

  ‘This evening—five-thirty. And I’m going to give him chess lessons.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Nice one. He’ll like that. Roger started teaching him just before he died.’

  ‘I gather.’

  ‘Just don’t leave it too long,’ she said again, and with a little wave of her hand, she left him there, thinking about what she’d said about seeing it from Annie’s side.

  She’d understand—wouldn’t she? After all, what choice did he have? If he just walked right up to her and said, Hi, remember me, you used to call me Etienne and for the last nine years you’ve thought I was dead, but now I’m back, looking mangled and unrecognisable and nothing like that warm, charismatic guy you fell for, and I want you to marry me and let me share my life with you and your son, he could just see how well that would go down!

  And because of the Mother Teresa/Mrs Beeton thing, she’d take him straight back into her life, regardless of her personal feelings, and he’d never know if she’d married him for Stephen’s sake or because she loved him.

  And there was no way he was letting her throw away her chances of happiness on a loveless marriage.

  Even if it was with him. />
  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘ANNIE not here?’

  Judy looked up and shook her head at him. ‘She’s gone home to bake. She’ll be back at five-thirty to close.’

  He nodded. ‘OK. I’ll go over there. Thanks.’

  He crossed the corner of the square, walked up to her front door and rang the bell. He heard a yell and the thunder of feet on stairs, then the door was yanked back on its hinges and Stephen stood there grinning at him.

  ‘Hi. Have you come to teach me chess?’ he asked without preamble, and Michael felt his lips twitch.

  ‘Maybe. Depends what your mother says. Do you have homework?’

  He picked up the sound of her footsteps approaching, then she appeared through a doorway, a welcoming smile on her face.

  ‘Hi. I wondered if you’d come over. Come on through. I’m up to my eyes.’

  Up to her elbows, certainly. He followed her to the kitchen, taking in all the little period details of the house as he went—the pictures on the walls, the antique furniture, the lovely tiles on the hall floor, the smooth curl on the end of the banister rail—it was elegant and welcoming, yet somehow—stifling. Steeped in the nineteenth century and up to its neck in tradition. Not her at all.

  Unlike the kitchen, which was all Annie. Clutter was strewn from end to end—wire cooling trays and pots and pans and the air rich with the scent of cinnamon and apples, coming from a huge shallow pan of what looked like her Dutch apple cake.

  It was fast becoming one of his favourites and, without asking him, she cut a slice out of the corner of the tray and slid the plate towards him on the table.

  ‘Here. It’s still warm. I’ll make tea—do you want cream with that, by the way?’

  ‘No, thanks, it’s fine like this, and tea will be lovely. What about Stephen?’

  ‘Yuck, I hate apple cake,’ he said with feeling. ‘Can I have a scone?’

  ‘No, you’ve already had an apricot slice since you got home. You won’t want your supper.’

  ‘But I’m starving!’ he said with all the pathos of the young, and Michael had to look away to hide the smile.

  ‘Have you done your homework?’ she asked, and he sighed heavily.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Is it finished?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘That would be a no, then. Go and do it now, please, before supper.’

  ‘But Michael was going to teach me to play chess!’

  ‘No, Michael was going to ask your mother if and when it would be all right,’ Michael corrected, and earned himself a Brownie point.

  ‘Homework first,’ she said firmly, and he flounced out with a sigh and banged the door just the teeniest bit behind him.

  ‘Little monster,’ she muttered.

  ‘He’s just checking me out and testing you.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me about it. I think bringing him up’s going to be a handful. He can be a nightmare.’ She set a pot of tea down on the table, looked at him thoughtfully and said, ‘So what was it you wanted to talk about?’

  He shrugged and smiled. Another wry, awry effort because he could see how busy she was and all he’d really wanted was her company.

  So he lied. Again.

  ‘It was about the chess, really,’ he said, and she looked at him in puzzlement.

  ‘Oh. I’d wondered—’

  She broke off, looking confused, and suddenly he didn’t want to lie. He wanted her to know the truth—and he wanted to know what she wondered. So he asked her.

  And she sighed. ‘I don’t know. Nothing. It’s silly.’

  ‘What?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing. I’m being ridiculous.’

  She turned back to the stove, and he stood up and went over to her, cupping her shoulders lightly in his hands and making her jump.

  ‘Oh! You startled me. I didn’t hear you—’

  ‘What did you think?’ he asked softly. ‘That I wanted to spend time with you?’

  She turned in his hands, looking up at him with wide, puzzled eyes. ‘Is that true?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. The chess was just an excuse. I promised him I’d teach him, and I will. I’d like to. But that’s not why I wanted to see you. Why I want to see you.’

  He could see a pulse beating in her throat, deep in the warm, soft hollow at its base. He had an urge to touch it, to lower his head and stroke his tongue lightly over it, to feel it beat against his flesh—

  ‘All finished!’

  She sucked in a huge breath and stepped back, colliding with the stove, her eyes wide and shocked, her pupils flared. And he hadn’t even touched her, except the lightest touch of his hands on her shoulders.

  God alone knows what would happen when he did. It would be like a match to tinder. He stepped back, dropping his hands and sucking in a deep, steadying breath of his own before he turned to his son.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for you messing up at school because we’re playing chess when you should be working.’

  ‘I have done it, I promise,’ he said, meeting Michael’s eyes squarely without a trace of evasion.

  Either he was as good a liar as his father or he was telling the truth.

  Michael gave him the benefit of the doubt. ‘OK. Have you got a chess set?’

  He nodded and ran out, then ran back. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘In your dad’s study, on the bottom shelf on the left, I think,’ Annie said. ‘The red box.’

  He reappeared a minute later with a faded red box, opened the lid and started to extract the pieces and set them up on the board.

  ‘Well, you’re doing that right, so you must know something,’ Michael said with a smile, and Stephen grinned back.

  ‘I’m not that useless!’ he said, and over his head Michael saw Annie roll her eyes and smile.

  ‘I have to go and shut up the tearoom. Are you OK if I leave you two together for a moment?’

  He met her eyes. ‘Of course. Take as long as you need. We’ll be fine, won’t we, Sport?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re fine.’

  They exchanged grins, and something inside Michael’s chest tightened up and squeezed, so that he could hardly breathe or swallow.

  ‘Right,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘You’re the youngest, you start.’

  * * *

  By the time Annie came back, they were halfway through the game, and even she could see that Stephen was struggling. Oh, dear. She’d rather hoped Michael would give him a chance, but maybe next time—

  ‘You can’t do that, you’ll put yourself in check.’

  ‘How—oh. OK.’

  Oh, dear, he sounded so crestfallen.

  ‘I’m not going to win, am I?’ he said soulfully, and Michael shook his head.

  ‘Sorry, son. Not this time.’

  Son. Oh, God, if only. Stephen so badly needed a father—and not an invalid as Roger had become, but a vital, healthy, active man who could keep up with his antics and stay one step ahead of that busy and inquisitive little mind—

  And she was getting ahead of herself, talking of staying one step ahead. Try ten. Three days, Annie, and you’ve got him playing father to your son.

  ‘Checkmate.’

  ‘What? Oh, no! I didn’t see that coming!’

  Stephen folded his arms and threw himself back in the chair, a pout on his lips his sisters would have been proud of.

  ‘You’ll get there. You just need time. Set them up again. I’ll teach you some moves, help you think it through, now I know how your mind works.’

  Annie stifled a laugh at that, and Michael lifted his head and met her eyes. His lips twitched, and sh
e had to turn away, biting her own lip to stop the chuckle from escaping.

  ‘What do you fancy for supper, guys?’ she asked, and Stephen promptly told her lasagne. No surprises there, then.

  ‘What about you, Michael?’

  ‘Am I staying?’ he asked, and she turned back and met his eyes.

  ‘If you like,’ she said, not wanting to seem too pushy, too—well, too needy, really. ‘I mean, I expect you’re busy, but if you’re not, there’s plenty—’

  ‘I’m not busy,’ he said, and she ground to a halt and smiled.

  ‘Good. Lasagne all right with you?’

  ‘Whatever. I’m not fussy. You know me, I’ll eat anything so long as I don’t have to cook it.’

  So she sliced a good three portions from the fresh pan of lasagne she’d made earlier, put them into the oven to heat and turned her attention to the salad.

  ‘Do I have to have salad?’ Stephen said in his best long-suffering voice, as if he was force-fed it three times a day.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she replied. ‘It’s good for you.’

  ‘Don’t care. Hate it.’

  ‘You don’t hate it—and don’t be rude, please, or you’ll be putting that chess set away instantly.’

  He stifled a sigh and turned his attention back to the game. ‘OK,’ he said heavily. ‘I’ll eat salad. Michael, could you show me how to win?’

  Michael’s lips twitched again.

  ‘I think we need to start a little further back. How about some opening moves?’

  She watched them as she prepared their supper and cleared up the chaos from the afternoon’s cooking fest. He was good with Stephen, she realised. Very good. Patient, explaining things carefully without patronising him, but pitching it just right to stretch him a little and not so much that he gave up.

  And then he called a halt, just when she was about to, and she realised he’d been keeping an eye on her, too, and checking her progress so he could be the one to stop the lesson.

  So she wasn’t always the nag, the scold, the one wielding the big stick.