by Rhoda Baxter
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a mini camera.’ He showed it to them. ‘I think there’s an unusual species of beetle arrived in there recently. It’s quite possibly invasive. I’m trying to get some pictures to make sure I’ve got the right one.’ He looked up, his eyes bright. ‘Have you heard of Acillus blackwoodii?’
Both women shook their heads.
‘Oh.’ He looked disappointed. ‘I discovered it. Never mind.’
‘We’ll look it up when we get back to the lab,’ said Beth.
‘Dan, what’s your specialism?’ Anna was scribbling notes.
‘Beetles,’ he said. He went on to explain about his projects and once he started talking Anna quite easily got him to answer her questions.
‘Thank you so much, Dan,’ Anna said. ‘It was great to meet you.’
‘Let us know what your wife says,’ said Beth. She handed him a piece of paper with her and Anna’s e-mail addresses on. ‘I’m sure she won’t mind telling the world that she’s got a husband with looks as well as brains.’
Dan smiled. ‘When you put it that way, I suppose she won’t.’ He looked back at his tree. ‘I’d better get back up there and install this thing. I’ll let you know what she says.’
‘Do you need a leg up or something?’ said Beth, even though she wasn’t sure how you went about giving one.
‘No need,’ said Dan. ‘I managed before.’ He looked at them. ‘Although you guys are making me a little self-conscious.’
‘Sorry. We’ll be off.’ Beth started walking and Anna came after her. A few paces on, they turned to see Dan jump, grab a branch, walk his legs up the trunk and then haul himself up into the leaves.
‘He was nice,’ said Beth.
‘Shame he’s married,’ said Anna. ‘I wonder if he has a brother.’
Anna followed Beth into the tea room. Hibs, who was reading the newspaper while eating his baguette, nodded at Anna and smiled at Beth. ‘So, how did you get on?’
‘Pretty good, actually,’ said Anna, sliding into a chair opposite Hibs.
Beth grinned. ‘It’s not every day a handsome man just falls out of a tree.’
Hibs looked from one woman to the other. ‘Dare I ask?’
‘We were walking along and this guy literally came down from a tree,’ said Anna. ‘Beth’s got photos to prove it.’
Beth passed the camera over and Anna scooted round and stood by Hibs’s shoulder. As Anna leaned over, pressing the buttons on the camera, Beth felt a wave of annoyance. Anna had placed herself so that her breasts were right in Hibs’s eyeline. There was no need to help – Hibs was perfectly capable of handling the camera himself.
She tried to concentrate on making tea, but the knowledge that Anna was flirting with Hibs made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. She fought the urge to turn around. The lab was the only place where Hibs didn’t turn on the charm – she and Vik were the only ones who got to see Hibs as he really was. It was, somehow, special. She didn’t mind sharing her home with Anna, but she didn’t want to have to share her work space and all her friends as well.
She turned with Anna’s tea just in time to see Hibs’s gaze dart to Anna’s chest and back again. He caught Beth’s eye and had the decency to look embarrassed; then he turned back to the photos. ‘Hey, I know him. That’s the beetle guy from zoology.’
‘That’s right.’ Beth thumped Anna’s tea down and held her hand out for the camera. Anna finally moved her breasts away from Hibs’s face.
‘Did you just accost him in the park?’ Hibs asked as he picked up his baguette and bit into it.
‘Yes,’ said Beth. She looked at the photo – there was a particularly good shot of him just dropping down from the tree. ‘He’s going to ask his wife if she minds him being in it.’
‘I thought you only wanted single blokes.’
‘What gave you that idea?’ said Anna.
‘Well, you did.’ He looked at her.
‘I personally prefer single men.’ Anna winked at him. ‘But for the calendar, any man will do, so long as he’s drop-dead gorgeous.’
Hibs was staring at her, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. ‘Really? Did you find many?’
‘There are some who just refuse to have their photo taken,’ said Anna. ‘Like you, for example.’
‘Me?’
‘Beth tells me you were … reluctant.’
‘Did she now?’
Beth was starting to feel left out of the conversation. If they were going to continue flirting, she might have to excuse herself and go upstairs to the lab. ‘I did ask you,’ she said, trying not to sound peevish. ‘You said no.’
‘I wonder why?’ said Anna. ‘Are you afraid you photograph badly?’
‘No.’ Hibs finished his sandwich and balled up the cling film. ‘I just don’t want to be in the calendar.’
‘That’s not very nice.’ Anna pouted.
Hibs gave her a wicked smile. ‘Bite me.’
‘Only if you ask, really, really nicely.’
Beth looked from one to the other.
Anna fancied Hibs. Hibs fancied Anna. They would end up together, briefly. Then they’d split up. Anna would be cross; Hibs would be unrepentant. Everything would be awkward. Beth sighed at the inevitability of it all.
Chapter Six
Hibs put on the suit his parents had bought him for graduation and was pleased to find it still fit. He paced round his living room, wondering what to do between now and noon. Unable to think of anything, he decided to go into the lab.
‘Morning.’ He threw his coat on his chair, went to his bench, pulled open his notepad and started transferring notes into his lab book. After a few minutes, he felt he was being watched. Looking up he found Beth and Vik standing at the entrance to the bay, staring at him.
‘What?’ he said.
‘You’re wearing a suit,’ said Beth, not quite looking him in the eye. ‘Why are you wearing a suit?’
‘I’ve got a lunch date.’
‘A lunch date that requires a suit?’ said Vik.
‘Sort of.’ Hibs was enjoying himself. It wasn’t often he got admiring attention from Beth. He pressed his advantage. ‘I’m going to Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. That requires a suit.’
‘Le Manoir, wow.’ Beth’s eyes were wide.
She looked so impressed that Hibs decided that he would take her there one day. If he could find a decent excuse to take her out for a posh lunch. If she accepted. He looked away, the happy daydream punctured. She considered him a friend and nothing more. Most of the time she probably even forgot that he was male.
‘So, who’s taking you for lunch in the most expensive restaurant in the area?’ said Beth. ‘It’s too pricey for normal people.’
‘Winifred Tait. She’s a friend of the family.’ Hibs paused. ‘Well, sort of. She plays bridge with my mum.’
The other two were both silent for a minute. ‘So, a little old lady is taking you to lunch at Le Manoir?’ said Vik, sounding puzzled.
Hibs laughed. ‘Winifred Tait is no little old lady,’ he said. ‘She’d probably brain you with a stiletto heel if you called her that.’
Beth narrowed her eyes and wandered off without saying anything.
‘Why?’ said Vik.
‘She likes me.’ Hibs grinned.
‘Do you think she wants to get you drunk and have her wicked way with you?’ Vik leaned on his elbows – he always seemed to find Hibs’s relationships with woman fascinating.
Hibs smiled. She didn’t bother to get him drunk when she wanted to have her wicked way with him. ‘No. She promised she wouldn’t.’ At the other end of the lab he could hear a clatter of computer keys. He guessed that was Beth Googling Winn. ‘Tait’s spelt T-A-I-T,’ he shouted down the lab.
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br /> ‘What do you mean, she promised she wouldn’t? You mean she tried it on once?’ Vik was still looking for gossip.
Hibs grinned. ‘Taught me everything I know.’
Vik gaped. ‘You shagged a little old lady?’
‘I told you, she’s not a little old lady. She’s only about ten years older than me. And it was all a long time ago. I was eighteen.’
There was a gasp from Beth. Hibs peered between the racks and could just make out the back of her head in front of the computer screen. ‘Did you find her?’
‘Vik, come here,’ said Beth.
Hibs put his lab book away and went to stand behind her. There was a picture of Winn in her heyday, all long legs and sexy curves. ‘Yeah, that’s her,’ he said. ‘She used to be a model. She did some work for old Mr Tait and he married her.’
‘Wow,’ said Beth. ‘Does she still look like that?’
Hibs put his head to one side. ‘More or less,’ he said. ‘A bit older, obviously. But yeah. Pretty much. Still stunning.’
‘What are you lot doing? Not more nonsense about calendars I hope.’ Roger stomped in. ‘If you put half as much work into your PhD as you do on your side projects, Beth, you’d have finished by now.’
‘I am putting that much work into my PhD—’ Beth began.
‘Are you diversifying and putting women in your calendar?’ said Roger. ‘Who’s she? I’d buy that.’ He caught sight of Hibs. ‘Why are you in a suit? Have you got a court appearance?’
Hibs rolled his eyes.
‘Hibs has got a lunch date with that lady,’ said Vik.
Roger took a closer look at the screen. ‘Scroll down,’ he ordered Beth.
Beth did so.
‘She now runs the Tait textile empire …’ Roger read. He looked at Hibs. ‘Is she loaded then?’
Hibs thought of the house and the enormous lawn and the scandal when old man Tait left everything to his young widow. ‘I guess.’
‘And you’re having lunch with her because …?’
‘She’s a friend. Of the family.’
‘You could try persuading her that she wants to contribute to the advancement of science.’
‘She’s in textiles, Roger. Why would she want to work with a microbiology unit?’
‘I don’t know, maybe pictures of bacteria …’
‘I can’t anyway,’ said Hibs. ‘This is purely personal.’ He wondered why Roger was there. ‘Is there anything we can help you with, Roger?’
Roger seemed to be captivated by the pictures of Winn. ‘Oh. Yes. I was after Vik, actually. Can you step into my office for a minute? I’ve got some paperwork I need you to sign.’
After Vik and Roger departed, Hibs watched over Beth’s shoulder as she clicked through picture after picture. When she finally turned away from the screen, she shot him a curious look.
Hibs looked at his watch. ‘I’d better go,’ he said as he grabbed his coat. ‘I’ll be back to take over for the evening shift, okay?’
Beth nodded, her attention back on the screen, but as he reached the door she called him. He turned and she looked at him as though seeing him properly for the first time. ‘You look good,’ she said.
Hibs felt a little kick of happiness in his stomach.
After Hibs had left, Beth turned back to the photos of Winifred Tait. Vik returned and stood behind her. ‘Wow. He’s right. She’s no little old lady. Look, she’s got her own Wikipedia entry.’ He pointed to the link.
Beth clicked through, curious to know more, and Vik read over her shoulder.
‘Says here she married a guy who was forty years older than her and he died of a heart attack within a couple of years,’ she said.
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Vik. ‘She probably wore him out.’
‘Gosh, her husband died nearly fifteen years ago. She must be nearly forty now.’ She scrolled through and read the rest of the entry. ‘Sounds like she’s quite a businesswoman though.’
‘Brains as well as beauty. No wonder Hibs went for her.’
Beth turned to look at him. ‘What do you mean “went for her”?’
‘They had a thing a while back. I guess you were over here when he was talking about it. He said he was only eighteen and she taught him everything he knew.’
Beth ran another search, this time with the year in it. It pulled up a recent press release showing Winifred Tait shaking hands with a businessman. She looked older, but still incredibly attractive. ‘Wow.’
‘He’s a dark horse, our Hibs,’ Vik said with admiration in his voice.
‘Being seduced by an older woman isn’t an achievement,’ said Beth far more sharply than she’d intended.
‘Being seduced by that woman is,’ said Vik.
The thought suddenly struck her. ‘I wonder if that’s the same woman he said he had a relationship with. He said it lasted a summer and then he went to uni.’ She looked back through the images. Hibs’s girlfriends usually flitted through his life so fast that they were irrelevant. This woman was the last person to have connected with Hibs in any meaningful fashion. And she was beautiful, rich and sophisticated.
Beth felt a twinge of irritation and killed the browser. ‘I’d better get back to work.’ As she went back to her bench, she rationalised that she was merely annoyed because Hibs had kept something so important hidden from her. She’d assumed she knew everything about him. Clearly, she didn’t. She flipped open her own lab book. She hadn’t, for instance, seen him in a suit before. He looked different. Hot.
She filed that information away to think about later.
Hibs wasn’t usually impressed with overpriced food, but he couldn’t help but appreciate the cuisine at Le Manoir. Everything was prepared to perfection and, although the portions looked small, they were just enough.
As they ate, Winn brought him up to speed on gossip from home, told him about her new William Morris-inspired collection and asked him about his work. He told her about Beth and Anna and their calendar and she laughed, causing a ripple of interest among the other diners. He looked round to see people return to their own conversations. This often happened when he was out with Winn – wherever she went, people turned to look at her. She was just that sort of woman. He glanced at her, and she winked at him and leaned forward.
‘It does my reputation good to be seen in public with a handsome young man,’ she whispered. She laid a hand on his arm. Hibs looked down at the slim manicured fingers and suddenly he was eighteen again and the impossibly glamorous Mrs Tait, the woman all the men in the village, including his father, fancied, had stopped discussing the rhododendrons and put her hand on his thigh.
Her hand lingered on his arm and Hibs looked up at her. Over the years he’d recognised that there was more to her than the legs, the curves and the beautiful face. There was power, intelligence, determination. All the things that made her fit to run the empire her husband left to her. Mrs Tait was a wonderful, sophisticated woman and she wanted him. Just that alone was a powerful turn-on that never failed.
But this time felt different. He thought of Beth, with her jeans and T-shirt and flyaway hair. Next to Winn she was small and vulnerable and messy … and so effortlessly sexy.
As he made eye contact, Winn raised an eyebrow at him, just a tiny bit. This was his cue, but he knew he wouldn’t take it. He gently moved her hand off his arm.
If he’d needed confirmation that he was in love with Beth, he had it. He’d never thought he’d see a day when he didn’t fancy Mrs Tait.
Clearly Winn hadn’t either: her eyebrow rose a fraction higher. ‘I see,’ she said.
Hibs focused on his plate and felt awful. He genuinely liked Winn’s company. He had turned her down before, for various reasons, but there had always been the understanding that next time things could be different. This t
ime, he knew it was permanent. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ She drank the last of her wine. A waitress appeared as if by magic and refilled her glass.
‘So,’ she said. ‘Which of the two young ladies has taken your heart?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Oh, come on, James. How long have I known you? One of those two ladies you just mentioned means something to you. I can tell from your face and your voice. Now tell me.’
‘Well … Anna fancies me,’ Hibs said.
‘Naturally.’ Winn waved her wine glass as though to say that was a given. ‘And the other one?’
‘Beth. She … is a friend.’
‘This would be the same Beth who was your friend last year? And the year before that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you would like her to be more than a friend, I take it.’
He sighed. ‘Yes. I would.’
‘But?’
‘But she’s my friend.’ He looked up at Winn, who had put down her glass and was watching him carefully. What was he doing, talking to Winifred about Beth? ‘I’m sorry, Winn, I feel really weird talking to you about this.’
She laughed and leaned forward. ‘What? You think I didn’t know this day would come, James? No strings. That was the deal. This is lunch now. That’s all.’ She smiled, a genuine smile that reached her eyes. ‘Oh relax, darling. You don’t owe me anything.’ She gave his hand a quick pat and leaned back in her seat. ‘Now. Tell me. You want this girl, but you can’t have her. Why not?’
Hibs stared at his hands for a moment. He had to tell someone or his head would explode with thinking about it. ‘She used to have this boyfriend, Gordon. He was a real shit to her. He had to know exactly where she was at all times, that sort of thing. He was horrible, but she didn’t see it.’
Winn held up a finger. ‘You said “used to have”. Is she no longer with him?’
‘No, they split up a few months ago when he went to the US. He dumped her, just like that. She was devastated.’
‘Okay. Why is he relevant now?’
‘She’s not over him. She was waiting for him to send her a birthday card which, obviously, he didn’t. Then she was all cut up about it.’
