A Suitable Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Hi.’ She turned her back on him and began fixing herself a piece of toast and some tea.

  He was dressed for work, apart from the jacket which was draped over the back of one of the chairs. He clearly had a cavalier attitude towards his clothes, but then, she thought, he had enough money to indulge that kind of attitude. If his suits collapsed, then he could afford to replace them instantly and not have to root through a DIY manual on darning and mending.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said in a closed voice, and she could feel his eyes on her back, which made her fumble a bit with the butter.

  ‘Oh?’ She finally had no option but to face him, which she did, though virtually behind her cup of tea and her piece of toast. ‘I’m sorry,’ she lied. ‘I would have come out sooner if I’d known that. I was enjoying having a lie in.’ Another lie. She had been up for hours, thinking and mentally kicking herself.

  ‘I want to apologise for last night,’ he said without a trace of embarrassment, but then, of course, he was a sophisticated man of the world and she was a country bumpkin.

  ‘Oh, that’s quite all right,’ Suzanne said, dying of mortification. ‘No harm done. I guess we were both not ourselves.’ This seemed as good an excuse to stick to as any. ‘I was terribly upset for some reason. I thought that I was beginning to come to terms with Dad’s death, but suddenly it was as if I was back there in time, and I know you were tired. It was late. It just happened. Not—’ she laughed as though she were quite accustomed to dealing with awkward situations like this ‘—that anything happened at all!’

  He looked at her in silence for such a long time that she began to replay what she had said in her head, wondering if she had made some horrendous gaffe somewhere along the line.

  ‘Fine.’ His voice was even cooler than it had been to start with, which she resented. Hadn’t she just saved him an apology by launching herself into an elaborate one of her own, for God’s sake?

  He stood up and said to her, without blinking, ‘One little lesson, though, Suzie. We go back a long way so we can both jot this down to unfortunate experience, but don’t think that another man might not think that you’re leading him on. That really is the way that unfortunate experiences happen.’ He slipped on his jacket while she was still staring at him, open-mouthed and red-faced.

  ‘I can take care of myself, thank you,’ she said tightly. ‘Guardian angel isn’t one of your duties to me!’

  She had more to say on the subject, but he already had his back to her, and before she could mutter another word he had walked out, leaving her with the feeling that somehow the blame for what had happened had landed squarely on her shoulders.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FOR the next few weeks Suzanne made a determined effort to keep out of Dane’s way. She also started looking for somewhere else to live, but that was turning out to be a nightmare. Now that she was in the position of not having to find somewhere, she discovered that she could look at the various bedsits with a critical eye, and what she saw did not appeal. Rent in London was steep and for what she could afford she could just about manage another bedsit, slightly higher up the scale than the last one that she had occupied, but still cramped, forlorn and unappealing.

  After her fifth abortive trek to somewhere desolate in Acton, she returned to the apartment to find him, for once, home before her and sitting in the lounge with his briefcase in front of him, a laptop computer on the table and papers spread everywhere.

  ‘My goodness,’ she said, stepping in between the paperwork and trying not to eye him but very conscious of his eyes on her, ‘it looks as though a hurricane passed through here.’

  ‘Where have you been?’ He had been pouring over documents with a red pen, writing things in the margins, but now he sat back on the sofa and looked at her with his hands behind his head.

  Suzanne wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the chair and wondering how she could reach it without stepping on one of the bits of paper.

  ‘You’ll never make it,’ he informed her drily. ‘Stay where you are. We’re going out for something to eat.’

  ‘We are?’ She glanced at him, disconcerted, and he began gathering up the paper, stopping to read bits along the way.

  ‘We are,’ he said in a distracted voice. ‘I take it you haven’t eaten as yet?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘That’s settled then.’ He stood up, flexed his muscles and looked at her with amusement. She had been standing on one foot, preparing to hop nimbly across the room to the sanctuary of the chair on the other side. ‘You look like a stork,’ he said, smiling that perfectly enchanting smile of his which could make her heart flip over even when she had spent hours steeling herself not to react.

  ‘Your average stork might be irritated at that comparison,’ she said, and he laughed and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  They hadn’t indulged in this sort of light-hearted banter for a while. In fact, she had hardly seen him at all recently. He usually left for work long before her and returned long after she had come back.

  She was also feeling rather light-hearted, despite the useless trek halfway across London to view a bedsit that had looked as though it had stepped straight out of the Victorian era. It had been a brilliant day, and even though it was now after seven-thirty it was still warm and sunny.

  ‘I’m hardly dressed for the occasion,’ she said, glancing down at her jeans and striped shirt which she had rolled up to the elbows.

  ‘Oh, you look all right to me,’ he drawled, and she immediately wished that she hadn’t drawn attention to herself, because he was staring at her now, in the sort of thorough way that made her feel silly and confused. ‘Besides,’ he continued, and his eyes returned to her face, ‘you have no idea where I’m taking you.’

  ‘True. Fast-food joints don’t have a dress code, do they?’ She spun around on her heels and made for the door. ‘Just as well since they’re the only places I can afford to eat and my usual dress code wouldn’t pass muster at most normal establishments.’

  She had half expected him to return an ironic murmur of agreement, but he was silent behind her and she had to resist the temptation to glance around and try and read the expression on his face.

  ‘Not a fast-food joint,’ he said, and he was closer to her than she had realised, because she could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck. ‘Just a quick Italian.’

  ‘Let me take you somewhere,’ she said impulsively, spinning round to face him.

  ‘You just said that you could only afford to eat at burger joints.’

  ‘And wouldn’t you like to share the experience?’ She hardly thought that he would agree. She doubted that he had ever been into a burger joint in his life, or if he had then it had been years ago and probably just in passing. Extravagantly wealthy businessmen didn’t make burger bars their first port of call usually.

  ‘If you like,’ he said with a crooked smile, as though he could read her mind, and she grinned back at him.

  ‘I like,’ she murmured. ‘Although—’ she gave him the critical, assessing look he specialised in ‘—I’m not sure your dress code is quite right for what I have in mind.’

  But he didn’t change, as she’d known he wouldn’t, and they found themselves, less than forty minutes later and after a hasty trip along the underground, sitting in a crowded, fluorescent lit, burger joint, in front of two trays and several containers of the mandatory burgers, chips and colas.

  Because of the fine weather the pavements were still teeming with people, lots of them tourists, and a lot more appeared to have teemed into the fast-food restaurant.

  Suzanne lowered her eyes and tried not to smile at the sexy man sitting opposite her, in his work trousers and expensive white shirt.

  ‘I don’t suppose you come to places like this very often,’ she said in a demure voice, and he raised one eyebrow.

  ‘I don’t suppose I want to,’ he returned. ‘Although...’ his grey eyes strayed to the queues at
the cash tills, behind which dozens of people where hurrying about packing boxes of burgers and filling cups with soft drinks ‘...it certainly seems to be popular.’ He held up his burger and eyed it sceptically. ‘I do wonder whether this can actually be classified as belonging to the food chain, though.’

  Suzanne laughed, amused. ‘What a condescending thing to say,’ she told him gravely, digging into her meal with relish. She hadn’t eaten a burger for a long time and it tasted good, whatever he had to say on the subject.

  ‘So you never answered my question,’ he said to her, halfway through the meal. He had discarded the plastic top of the cup and was drinking his cola without the straw.

  ‘What question?’

  ‘Where did you go after work?’

  ‘Oh.’ She shrugged and picked up a couple of chips, which were quite cold now but nice anyway. ‘I was out flat-hunting.’

  ‘Flat-hunting?’ He frowned. ‘What for?’

  ‘For a flat, of course,’ she said patiently, and his frown deepened.

  ‘I’ve already made it clear to you that you needn’t leave my place.’

  ‘I thought you would be pleased,’ she said, refusing to be alarmed by the dark expression on his face.

  ‘Why the hell should I be pleased at the prospect of having to trudge across London to rescue you from another disgusting tip posing as a flat?’

  ‘As I’ve kept telling you, there was no need to trudge across London to rescue me in the first place. Why did you, anyway?’

  ‘Because,’ he said slowly, ‘after a few passing-through visits I was back in England to stay, and I suppose you were a link with the past-the only link I felt inclined to seek out.’

  ‘Martha being out of the question.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘For reasons which you won’t explain.’

  ‘Not at this moment in time, at any rate.’ He gave her a half-smile in acknowledgement of her tenacity, then continued, ‘Suffice it to say that I always remembered you with great affection, and I was worried when I learned that you had vanished into London after your father died. Hence my appearance on your doorstep. Which brings me to my original point. I don’t relish another rescue mission to another disgusting tip.’

  ‘I wouldn’t rent a tip,’ she told him, sulky because she hated it when he treated her like a child that needed looking after instead of a woman who was quite capable of looking after herself. Always remembered her with affection? He made her sound like a pet dog.

  ‘You made the mistake once before,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I can afford to be more choosy now,’ Suzanne said.

  ‘I’m not desperate and homeless, and I’m earning far more now than I was when I first came to London.’ It seemed like years since she had first arrived, forcing herself to be optimistic when misery was always there, knocking on the door.

  ‘And what have you managed to find?’ he asked, in a cool sort of voice that forestalled a glowing report.

  ‘Nothing very much,’ she admitted. ‘It’s very difficult. ’ She looked at him accusingly. ‘I’ve been spoilt living in your apartment Nothing compares to it At least, nothing that falls within my range.’

  ‘Then why are you bothering to look?’

  ‘Because I can’t stay with you for ever!’ She frowned, not looking at him. ‘I know you might be banking on the fact that the country girl will inevitably go back to where she belongs, but you might end up waiting longer than you bargained for and I can’t stay with you in the meanwhile.’

  The chips looked absolutely disgusting now, as did the remainder of her beefburger, which had gone cold as well, and she shoved both aside and linked her fingers together on the table in front of her.

  ‘It’s time I moved on,’ she said seriously, although the thought of moving on filled her with a kind of numbness which she didn’t want to stop and analyse. ‘I mean—’ she glanced up at him ‘—you can’t tell me that my presence doesn’t put you off...off...you know what...’

  ‘What are you talking about now, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Bringing women back.’ For women, she thought, read Angela Street. ‘I haven’t seen any at all at the apartment since I arrived, though I’m sure there must have been some before I came on the scene.’ Her words tripped over one another, and she found that she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

  ‘You make me sound like a rampant animal,’ he replied mildly, but with a thread of amusement in his voice that irritated her.

  ‘Just a normal man with normal...normal...you know.’ Her face was red.

  ‘Urges?’ he supplied helpfully, and that made her go redder. ‘And what do you know about a man’s urges, Suzie?’

  ‘Stop laughing at me,’ she snapped, glaring at him, and he tried to look suitably chastised, which made her glare harder.

  ‘I was not laughing at you,’ he said with a grin. Then his face sobered and he leant forward and said softly, ‘Not at all.’

  His voice was like a caress, but before she could analyse that he had stood up, terminating the conversation, and she followed suit. They didn’t head back to the apartment, though. They strolled around Leicester Square, which was almost glorious in the mellow evening light. It was only when they were in the taxi, driving back to the apartment, that she said lightly, ‘Anyway, you’re stuck with me for the time being because the places I’ve looked at have been awful.’ She sighed and stared out of the window. ‘How easy it is to become accustomed to the good life.’ It was only recently that she had really understood how difficult it would have been for her father to have left the grounds of the Sutherlands’ mansion. How could a cold, bleak terraced house in the town centre have compared to the idyllic, rose-clad cottage surrounded by the sprawling lawns?

  ‘Isn’t it ironic,’ she said, turning to look at him and seeing only the highlights of his face in the darkened car, ‘how I am now dependent on you for somewhere to live, just as Dad was on your father? I even work for you!’

  ‘The irony is only in your eyes.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘And do you imagine that your fate at my hands will duplicate your father’s fate at the hands of my stepmother?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Suzanne replied uncomfortably, aware that their conversation had drifted into uneasy waters, though there had been no way of preventing that.

  ‘Are you telling me that you equate me with Martha?’ The inflection in his voice when he mentioned his stepmother was odd, drained of expression, and she shook her head.

  ‘Then there’s no problem, is there?’ His eyes glittered like hard jewels in his face.

  ‘No.’ She wouldn’t repeat what Angela had said to her—the frequent, carefully clothed reminders that she must surely be starting to long for a place of her own, somewhere where she could stretch her wings.

  Angela always gave the impression that she and Dane shared the same views. Did they? Suzanne was beginning to doubt it. She was beginning to doubt that they discussed anything but work. What she couldn’t doubt, though, was that Angela intended to have him and that she was as single-minded as she was beautiful—a lethal combination for any man in the firing line.

  The taxi pulled up in front of the block of apartments and she heard the driver give a low whistle under his breath. Security lights gave the building a dramatic orange glow so that it seemed almost ethereal. Was it any wonder, she thought, that everything she had seen so far had lacked a certain something?

  She looked at Dane surreptitiously as they walked towards the building and the parallel between her situation and her father’s sprang to mind once more. Except, and something stirred darkly inside her, her dependence was more complicated. If the plug was pulled and she found herself without a house and without a job, she would also be without him in her life, and she realised that that disturbed her far more than she wanted to think. She looked away quickly, her heart beating like a drum, and she found that she couldn’t look at him as they entered the apartment.
>
  ‘Are you going to carry on working?’ she asked politely, hovering by the kitchen door, and he nodded. ‘Don’t you ever stop working?’

  ‘I thought that I just had.’ He ran himself some water from the tap and took a long mouthful of it before depositing the empty glass into the sink.

  He walked towards her and she felt the heat begin to course through her body.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘thank you for an enjoyable evening.’ He was standing in front of her and he looked at her with a smile.

  ‘Shouldn’t I be thanking you?’ he said wryly. ‘After all, the meal was your treat. I hope I didn’t make too much of a spectacle of myself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her cheeks reddened and it was an effort to keep her voice nice and steady.

  ‘You thought that I might be awkward and uncomfortable in a fast-food place, didn’t you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t!’

  ‘Of course you did. You’re so transparent, Suzie. Actually—and don’t die of shock on the spot—I have eaten in burger joints before. They litter the streets in America.’

  ‘But they’re not your line, are they? You prefer chic, expensive French restaurants with lots of atmosphere and waiters in attendance.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Speculate. You’re usually wrong.’ He laughed but his eyes remained on her face and she was the first to look away. She realised with horror that she didn’t want their evening to end here, at the door of the kitchen. She wanted it to end in a bedroom, on a bed, and she clenched her fists in anger at such an unwanted desire.

  ‘I’ll try and stop the habit,’ she replied, keeping her voice light. ‘But, right now, no more thoughts for me. I’m off to bed.’

  She turned to walk away and he said to her lazily, ‘Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention this but there’s a party here on Saturday evening.’

  ‘And you’d like me to go out?’ was the first thing that sprang to mind.