Their voices dropped to a more discreet level until Lady Geraldine turned her attention back to her scone, but her expression was thoughtful.
Their voices became generally audible again. ‘We might be able to help things along,’ she suggested.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The dinner seating is very strict, I hear.’
Winsome knew that for a fact. ‘It certainly is. I’ve tried to change tables at the last minute on some of my previous journeys and it almost never happens.’
‘It’s not the last minute yet,’ Lady Geraldine said firmly. ‘And if we both had a little chat to the maître d’, I’m sure we could persuade him to juggle things a little.’
‘In what way?’
‘By making an extra table available. We’ve still got a lot of catching up to do, haven’t we? We haven’t even started talking about that terrible business with Deirdre Wilkins defrauding the charity so that she could run off to the Maldives with that “personal” trainer of hers.’
Lady Geraldine’s smile revealed how much she enjoyed an occasional bit of juicy gossip. ‘If we asked to be seated together, that would mean leaving both your Connor and this Kelsie and my Charlotte and the lovely Nico alone at their tables.’
Winsome had to admire her friend’s ingenuity. ‘Yes… if we made sure they gave them a table for two or didn’t put another couple to join them at one of the bigger tables.’
‘It would be so romantic, wouldn’t it? Everybody dressed up and the lighting all soft and lots of delicious champagne to add to the atmosphere?’
Winsome smiled. ‘Why don’t we ask our nice steward to go and see if the maître d’ might be able to spare us a minute or two?’
‘Afternoon tea was delightful,’ Winsome assured Connor. Unfortunately he was already back in her compartment when she’d gone to freshen her make-up. ‘Though Geraldine did look unwell.’ Her own stomach felt a little queasy too but that was probably because it was nearly time.
Nerves. She was damnably nervous and she shouldn’t be. It was ridiculous because she was eighty years old. But inside she didn’t feel eighty.
She felt like a young girl on a first date. With a new boyfriend.
Thumping heart—Lord, she hoped it wasn’t angina—and sweaty palms. At least menopause was long gone. She smiled grimly, but in fact she had nothing concrete to go on to assume the man she’d pushed to the back of her mind still felt the same as he had twenty years ago. Even then she’d been sixty, for goodness’ sake. But their eyes had met and something had passed between them.
Her heart gave another flutter and she almost giggled like a little twit. She shouldn’t have had so much wine at lunch but she’d needed the courage to face him.
It had been so many years of nods and handshakes, for goodness’ sake, and they’d both been married at the time. It should never have happened but that lightning bolt of ridiculous magnetism had never truly been dispelled in her mind. And every year she did still think there was a special glow just for her in his dark chocolate eyes.
Max.
Ten years her junior, so gallant, so gentlemanly, so loyal to his invalid wife, as she had been loyal and loving to Robert. It had been the only thing to do.
But his wife was gone now. And so was her darling Robert. And she didn’t want to spend her last years alone.
Maybe she was mad to even consider being so forward, but she knew she’d be madder not to try. She just hoped Max felt the same.
After that first year when they’d been not all that much younger and very silly, they’d indulged in one solemn stolen embrace, one magic kiss that had accepted the vagaries of cupid shooting his arrow when neither had the freedom to fly. After a long angst-filled conversation that had acknowledged the truth in their reality, they’d never physically strayed again.
The whole thing could be her overactive, aging imagination but she didn’t think so. For twenty years she’d wondered and today she’d finally find out.
She’d go now. Before she lost her nerve. He might take some persuading. ‘I think I’ll go and have a look at the boutique.’
To her dismay, Connor put his magazine down and stood up. ‘I’ll come with you, Gran. Perhaps I could buy you a gift for Christmas. It’s your last trip.’
Impossible. ‘No. No. You stay here. I don’t need anything.’
He remained standing. ‘Please allow me to do that.’
She looked at him. Swallowed the disappointment and accepted the reprieve from being brave. ‘Of course. That’s very sweet of you. Thank you.’
Winsome’s eyes went to Max’s as soon as she entered the boutique and she hoped it wasn’t her imagination but suddenly it did seem as if they were alone.
Still gorgeously dark and straight-backed, Max was not as tall as Connor but a lovely height to look up to. He did look older. No doubt she did too. But he still looked wonderful. She could feel her smile, the warmth in her stomach. Such a lovely man. It shone from his eyes, and every year, when she came again, without even touching her, he made her smile. Soften. Warm.
‘Mrs Black. Welcome back on the Orient Express. How lovely to see you again.’ Max bowed low over her hand, like he’d done so many times over the last twenty years. ‘And my sincere condolences on the loss of your husband. Mr Robert was truly a gentleman.’
‘Thank you, Max.’ Reluctantly she drew her hand away and glanced at Connor, who stood behind her, assessing the fine glassware, sparkling jewellery, even the bound copies of Agatha Christie’s novel.
‘Max, I’d like to present my grandson, Connor. He was kind enough to join me on my last trip. He’s come to buy me a present.’
‘For your belated birthday or for Christmas?’ Max held out his hand and the men shook.
Connor looked surprised and Winsome thought ironically there was a lot more he could have been surprised about. ‘She did miss her birthday.’
Max smiled at Connor. ‘For women as deserving as your grandmother, birthdays are sacrosanct.’ Then he looked back at Winsome. ‘Your last trip?’
She met his eyes and her voice lowered. ‘I’m getting too old for jaunting around.’ She saw his eyes soften and felt her knees tremble.
‘Nonsense. Women half your age are too old. You will never reach that state.’
Winsome smiled, felt the heat in her cheeks, and turned to her grandson, hoping it didn’t show. ‘You see why I come here?’
‘Absolutely.’ His attention wandered and she relaxed. Saw him skim the contents of the jewellery case assessingly. ‘Will you make a choice?’
About what? Then she remembered. ‘Connor has promised me something from your boutique for Christmas.’ Her voice sounded overbright to her own ears. She’d already said that, for pity’s sake, and she tried to tone the squeak down as an idea formed and she touched her grandson’s arm.
‘Why don’t you go away and have a drink in the bar car? I can have a proper look without you glowering at me to hurry up, then I’ll meet you there and Max can wrap it for you to collect and pay for.’ She laughed and smiled sweetly at him and he shook his head.
‘You are incorrigible. But… ’ He grinned at Max. ‘I don’t need telling twice. Enjoy.’
Kelsie’s walk up the long snake of the train was like something out of the movies. She clattered in and out of doorways between carriages, passed people sideways in the corridors, bumping into walls when the track jolted a carriage unexpectedly, and always, outside, the countryside rushed past the windows.
The scenery was dotted with soaring cliffs and turreted castles and huge suspended motorways that curved like ribbons on stilts around the mountains.
She passed through three carriages of compartments, the bar car, two dining cars and another three carriages before she reached the end, and not once did she see a dark-haired Connor or his vivacious grandmother.
Congratulating herself on her good luck prematurely, she froze when she heard the deep timbre of his voice as she approached the boutique—and his
grandmother’s laugh.
Kelsie spun back the way she’d come, she really didn’t need to gatecrash their party again, but before she could slip from the carriage Connor’s voice halted her.
‘Is that you, Kelsie? Don’t change your mind on my account.’
The hairs on the back of her neck rose and prickled. Just the way he’d said her name made the last years flash past. She hadn’t expected such a visceral response.
Kelsie turned but to her disappointment there was still a neutral mask on the face she’d once known like her own. She’d be dreaming to think anything would have changed. ‘Are you sure? I thought you’d be sick of the sight of me.’
Was he that bad? Connor took note of the wariness in her eyes and the challenge of unravelling the mystery of the real Kelsie Summers beckoned irresistibly—as long as he was careful.
He closed the gap between them and the expression on her face was hard to fathom. Not warm. Not cold. More assessing. But still she struck deep into his psyche in a way he remembered from all those years ago. Intriguing to imagine he did the same to her. He couldn’t tell but he would like to know very much.
‘It’s my turn to apologise,’ he said, seeking to find a way past the barriers he could feel between them. Barriers he probably deserved after their lunchtime conversation and the awkwardness he had been responsible for.
She raised those darkly arched brows and her eyes narrowed. ‘For what?’ It seemed she didn’t trust him. Well, that was fine by him because he didn’t trust her one inch. He doubted he ever would but he was damned if he could ignore her.
So she wasn’t going to make this easy. Well, he was almost glad. He wasn’t sure of his plan but he did know that for the first time since he’d stood up after lunch he wasn’t tired. In fact, he could feel the air crackle with sudden tension between them and again wondered just how much chemistry was left from the long-distant past—on both sides.
She shrugged those slim shoulders and time seemed to stop. She’d always done that. He’d have recognised the movement as hers anywhere. His eyes were drawn to the gentle slope of her shoulders, centred on the swell of her breasts, followed the crease upwards to her throat, where a small pulse beat under the translucent skin, and her neck rose enticingly swan-like from the cream of her silk shirt.
He wanted to slide that blue silk scarf slowly from her shoulders so he could watch it caress her neck.
‘Hello? I said, for what?’ Kelsie was looking at him strangely and he blinked. As well she might. He felt like slapping his forehead to wake himself up. Talk about ditherdream and dumbo. She could still scatter his thoughts.
Question? What had the question been? Ah, yes, what he needed to apologise for. ‘Not making you as welcome as I should have.’
Connor considered his options. he should have added he was sorry for cutting her off in the dining car when she’d tried to apologise for the past, but he still had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction over that one. Wasn’t happy with the idea she could dismiss destroying his youthful dreams with a quick apology in a public place.
But they couldn’t stay here. No potential. Though why he was looking for potential in her case was a worry.
‘Will you join me for a drink in the bar? My grandmother is choosing her birthday present… ’ he inclined his head, indicating the boutique ‘… in there, and I have permission to leave her in peace so she doesn’t feel rushed.’
He watched her absorb the words, and realised that watching Kelsie was actually an interesting pastime—he’d have to beware of that—and as she nodded he let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.
‘If you’re sure you want to,’ she said, and turned around again and led the way. And Connor decided walking behind Kelsie was also a spectacularly pleasant experience.
He could smell some faint unfamiliar floral scent drifting back from her and he wasn’t sure if it was perfume or something she washed her hair in. Either way, he decided it was his new favourite scent.
The Christmas fairy lights made her thick bob of auburn hair shine with flashes of brilliant red and a sudden memory of playing with long strands in the sunlight when she’d worn it past her waist as a younger woman rushed into his memory as if the train had rushed through an unexpected tunnel.
‘You cut your hair.’
She paused and looked back over her shoulder. ‘Ten years ago.’ And once again the past shimmered between them as they both remembered.
She started off again her with neat little bottom swaying gently in front of him and unwillingly his lips curved. She’d been a funny little old-fashioned girl one minute and the next a gamine seductress, and he’d loved that about her. It had always turned him on and that was another place he’d learnt his restraint.
They’d never actually gone all the way, although plenty of times he’d been sure he’d die if he didn’t. They had been saving the experience for their wedding night. Well, he’d blown that chance badly.
To be fair, maybe some of that had come from his father, who’d threatened him with castration if he got a woman pregnant out of wedlock.
And look where that restraint had got him. Someone else wouldn’t have been so slow to bed her—and it was incredible how bitter, even now when it shouldn’t matter a jot, that thought was.
They reached the bar car without further words but it was as if they were having a conversation he couldn’t quite hear. He saw her tension in the tell-tale stiffness in her neck and rigidity in her shoulders, and wondered if it was just him she was reacting to, or if she was normally a little uptight.
Or if, like him, she felt as though they were walking towards danger—becoming more delicious by the second, perhaps—but definitely danger.
Kelsie wasn’t so sure this was entirely smart. It seemed to take for ever to get there and the whole time she could feel his eyes on her back. She was thinking about the dilemma of seating when they got to the bar and how to keep her distance until she’d figured out her body’s responses.
The worst thing would be to knock knees on the opposing window seats where they faced each other—nowhere to hide there—and second worst would be the risk of brushing up against the full length of him if they sat together on the side lounges. She tried to remember if the fellow standing earlier had had a bar stool beside him at the bar. Yes, she thought he had. She’d head for that and see what happened.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘HOW ABOUT HERE?’ Connor’s voice stopped her headlong dash for the bar stools. So close.
She closed her eyes then opened them before she turned with a bright smile pinned on her face. ‘Sure.’
Window seat! Bummer. ‘You sure your legs will fit under that table?’
‘I’ll manage.’ He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘I’d like to see your face.’
Oh, goody. She’d been afraid of that. She slid in past the tiny table and rested her elbow on the window ledge while she jammed her knees together and pointed them at the wall.
He slid in and propped his arm on the window ledge as well. She wondered what they looked like to an observer. Probably a pair of wary dogs sniffing around each other, though a quick glance at his face showed him quite relaxed. Amused even, and she wasn’t sure she liked the idea that he could be amused at her expense.
The waiter arrived promptly and Connor inclined his head towards her in mute query.
What did she want? Something that took time to drink and that she could play with when she needed to look away. ‘I’ll have a long gin and tonic, please. With lime.’
‘Certainly, madam.’ The waiter wrote her order down and she wondered why when there were so few people in the car. ‘And the gentleman?’
Connor ordered a Mexican beer and slid his credit card into the man’s hand before he sat back. Darn. She would have paid for her own drink this time.
‘It looks cold outside,’ she said finally, and glanced up at him.
This was the first time she’d really examined Connor’s face up close, dared
herself to really look, and the tiny signs of maturity were there if she let herself see. His bones were clearly defined still, his jaw solid, with an even more determined tilt than she remembered, but there were a few tiny lines around his gorgeous grey eyes as if from long periods of intense concentration.
His sensual lips curved as he waited and for a moment she was that star-struck young sixteen-year-old gazing in admiration at this young god who had incredibly chosen her.
For those few brief seconds he seemed to pull at the core of her until she blinked and returned to the real world. The world where she needed to get it over with and apologise and get out of here with her dignity intact—but she had to wait for the drinks.
The waiter returned and Connor raised his glass to her with a glint in his eyes. ‘What shall we toast?’
She drew a breath as the man walked away. ‘To apologies. I’d like to apologise for what happened fifteen years ago.’
He shrugged. Took a sip and put his glass down. ‘Feel free.’
Kelsie ignored that. ‘I am sorry I was a coward, Connor. But I had second thoughts about getting married to you.’
He laughed with a tiny bitter twist of his lips. ‘Obviously.’
He wasn’t being helpful and she could feel her temper slip a little. This wasn’t easy but it had been a long time ago and he didn’t need to be sarcastic.
‘It didn’t help that you were so sure about it that I knew if I expressed any doubts you’d just sweep them away.’
He nodded judiciously. ‘Ah. So it’s my fault.’
She frowned. ‘No. I said I’d come and I didn’t. That was my fault and I apologise for hurting you. I was a coward for not telling you my reasons on the day but I was very young. I really should have told you why.’
He leaned back in his chair and studied her face and she refused to look away. Let him look his fill. She was no shrinking violet now.
‘So why did you leave me standing on the steps of the registry office fifteen years ago?’
Christmas With Her Ex Page 5
