The Art of Romance
Page 8
He glanced sheepishly at her.
She let go a long, drawn-out sigh. ‘William.’
‘I’m afraid so.’ He smiled and soon she was smiling, too.
‘I suppose we should thank our lucky stars he was never attached to the secret service.’
* * *
In the kitchen, she washed the mugs and returned them to the cupboard. She leaned on the worktop beneath the kitchen window that looked out over a small yard to the back of Harley Street, and thought back over her life and all that had happened.
The bitterness of her father’s betrayal had eased with his departure and she was comfortable once more in the knowledge that her job was safe and that her life would return to normal.
So why the niggle of discontent? Was Maurice really such a bully?
He was everything a woman could want— tall, good-looking, intelligent, wealthy and strong. It was this last part of his character that sent her nerves jangling.
‘Do you like children?’
The question, coming from directly behind her, startled her.
‘Yes, why?’
‘Animals?’
She nodded, afraid to turn around, lest she found herself up against him. His breath whispered across her ear,
‘They give their trust unstintingly, until something happens to abuse that trust. It takes a lifetime to win that trust back, but if you do it’s worth a million lifetimes. I want you to let me try to prove that not everyone, regardless of their background, is untrustworthy. Will you let me do that?’
Silence lay like the expectation of a storm, thick and heavy. Alison felt the weight of the silence across her shoulders, she was so tired.
Could she trust him, as a friend? Some part of her longed for a friend, and yet …
‘I would like you to come to my studio and see the other side of my work. I would appreciate your opinion. You have good taste.’
She turned away from the window and, passing him, moved into the living-room. As she sat down in a chair before the fire, her hair slipped forward to hide her expression.
‘Please leave. It’s late and I’m tired. Perhaps we could have dinner tomorrow night.’
She wasn’t sure how he would take her brush-off, but after staring down at her for some time, he said, ‘As you wish,’ and went into the bedroom to retrieve his jacket.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dinner the following evening was a success. After much deliberation, Alison had decided to let Maurice’s offer of friendship take its course. As the dinner progressed, they discovered many shared likes and dislikes.
They both enjoyed eating shellfish, though Alison wouldn’t tolerate squid. Neither of them was the sun-worshipping type, though they both were happy holidaying in the sun. Exploring markets, museums, ancient sites and generally being on the go was more their style.
Maurice told her of his home in Greece and the life he’d led there as a boy, how his father had been killed on a business trip to Turkey when Maurice was fourteen and his mother had brought him home to England.
She had agreed to visit his studio that Saturday and so for the second time in her life she found herself searching for the main entrance of Devil’s Rock.
Maurice had given her instructions but with the familiarity of one who knows, meaning that tiny necessities like no signposts had been overlooked.
* * *
Thirty-five minutes late she found herself pulling on the heavy bell and waiting to be announced by the imposing figure of Maurice’s butler. But the door remained closed.
After several unsuccessful pulls on the bell she left the main door and crossed the gravel to the side of the house. Three steps down brought her on to a stone terrace that ran the width of the house past four large windows. No sign of anything that looked remotely like a studio.
Now she was at the back of the house, kitchen, boilerhouse, laundry and a door leading into a passage stood open. Alison peered inside. Barbours, macs, wellington boots, dog leads, all hung and lay along the walls.
A voice called her name and she swung round to see where it came from. She hardly recognised him as he beckoned to her.
He was standing in front of a long, wooden hut whose walls and roof were filled with glass panels.
As she approached him she noted the scruffy jeans and tatty jumper he’d worn when she first met him. His hair had lumps of clay clinging to it and his face was smudged like that of an infant after nursery school.
Alison found herself smiling.
‘You’re late.’
‘I got lost.’
‘What again?’ He took her arm and led her inside.
At first it was just a muddle, large lumps of clay, dust sheets and work benches but then something caught her eye and she moved forward to see more clearly through the dust motes that danced in the sunbeams through the windows and across the floor.
It was a body, not a conventional body but one of movement of such grace and beauty that it took her breath away. Her hand moved as though of its own volition to slide down the silky surface.
Maurice hadn’t left the doorway but was watching her reaction as she turned back to him.
She could feel wonder and surprise flood her whole body. His hands had moulded and guided this fantastic piece of work. Unable to find the words to express her emotion, she waited as Maurice walked towards her.
‘You approve?’ He smiled down at her.
He then took her hand in his and they toured the building, inspecting other items of work, some of which were already sold and awaiting delivery.
‘Now I want you to come and have some lunch with me and I will show you round the house later.’
Alison, still in a daze, followed him from the studio and across the yard and in through the open back door.
A meal of vegetable soup, crusty bread and several cheeses and a bowl of fruit salad lay waiting for them on the kitchen table.
The woman who had answered the farmhouse door on Alison’s first visit was standing over the kitchen sink. She turned and wiped her hands on her apron as Alison came into the kitchen.
‘Well, I’m pleased to see you found your way here all right this time. I’m just off now, Mr Kyle. See you tomorrow.’
‘Why do you do it?’ Alison asked as they sat down to their meal.
He looked up.
‘Why do I do what exactly?’
‘The houses. You have a beautiful home, lots of money and a wonderful craft. Why the designing business?’
‘It there is to be trust between us then there must be truth, so I will be honest with you. I get lonely and bored. The designing as I told you once before is mostly for friends and acquaintances who like the prestige of using my name in social circles. It means I always have numerous invitations to differing venues.
‘I have fingers in many businesses but none that gives me back anything but money. I’m not complaining. My sculpture is the one important thing in my life and I lead an enviable lifestyle. What I really lack is a family to share it with.’
He attempted to erase the crease from his napkin with his forefinger.
Alison broke the crusty bread over her plate.
‘Well, that surely isn’t a problem. I should think you have women queuing up at your door.’
Then she remembered the three broken engagements Sharon had told her about. She had assumed in her ignorance that his dreadful egotism had driven them away.
She felt his eyes watching her. It made her clumsy, and she dropped her knife and pushed her plate aside. Well, perhaps it had been the egotism, for he wasn’t the most comfortable person to be with. She smiled, a little unnerved by her thoughts.
* * *
When they had finished their meal they took their coffee through to a small sitting-room furnished in blue and gold.
‘This was my mother’s room. She died of cancer two years after we arrived back from Greece. My grandfather was still alive at that point. He brought me up, had me educated and promptly died.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, standing alongside him with her coffee in her hand and staring out at a long expanse of lawn that ran down to a river whose opposite bank was covered with rhododendrons of every colour.
There were whites through pinks and reds to deepest purple, creams to gold and mauves to lavenders. Here and there the odd pine or spruce broke the skyline. On the terrace outside the window a low wall with intermittent statuary edged the three steps down to the lawn.
‘How do you see a refurbishment?’ he asked her, turning back into the room. ‘Or better still let me show you over the whole house first.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
There were six bedrooms on the first floor. Four with en suite and dressing-rooms. The two rooms at the end of the corridor Maurice brushed past saying they were nurseries.
She would have liked to see them but he was hustling her down some back stairs that brought them out into the passage beside the kitchen.
‘If we go back along here there is another door that will take you into a new suite I designed from the old dairy.’
He held open the door and Alison moved into an area of marble glass and steel. A large swimming pool lay in the centre, with a gym at the far end. To one side was a Jacuzzi and sauna, shower and changing room to the other.
Alison was speechless at the sheer luxury of the place. She was inspecting the changing area when she slipped and would have crashed through a glass shelf had she not been firmly caught and guided out to a seat by the edge of the pool.
Shaken, she leaned against him feeling the warmth of his arm around her shoulders. When she was ready they made their way back to the small sitting-room.
He sat her gently on the settee and made his way over to a discreetly hidden bar and brought her a small brandy.
‘Should I drink this when I’m driving?’ she asked, more concerned about the tremble in her legs.
‘You don’t have to drive yet.’
They smiled at each other over the glass. He paced back and forth twice then sat down beside her on the settee.
‘Your friends turned their backs on you when you needed them most. I asked three women to marry me only to discover it wasn’t me they wanted but what I represented.
‘What I am going to tell you now is because I have fallen in love with you and want to marry you, but I don’t want you to answer until I have been totally honest with you.
‘When Etienne told me of your relationship with Brewer I had you both investigated.’
Alison gave a gasp and attempted to rise from the settee but Maurice arrested her with a hand on her arm.
‘Please, just listen. There was something in the report that shocked me, not unpleasantly, I might add. I considered telling you which was why I was chasing round after you like an idiot but then I wondered if you were better off not knowing. William and I had a disagreement about it and that was when the misunderstandings arose.’
* * *
Alison was convinced that he was about to bring up some terrible story from the past and closed her eyes. The hand that covered hers was warm and reassuring as he continued.
‘Victor Brewer, or whoever he is or whatever he is, he is not your father.’
Alison was shaking her head.
‘His name is Vernon Witherston, and he has been there all my life.’
‘I know,’ he said, bringing her head forward on to his shoulder. ‘He thinks you are his daughter, too, but you are not.’
Easing her head back and bringing her chin up, he gazed steadily into her eyes. ‘Your mother had a short affair with a man much older than herself. He asked her to marry him but she was already in love with Brewer. It wasn’t until just before she died that William discovered she had been pregnant with his child. She hadn’t known it herself when she married Brewer.’
Stunned, Alison gazed back at him.
‘William,’ she whispered. ‘Not Victor.’ She sat up straight. ‘The threats, the promises, the court case, all unnecessary. None of it was me, then, why …’
He knew her anger would turn on William and that she would regret it later so he reminded her of all William had done for her.
‘He did his best for you. He took you in, cared for you, helped you back on to your feet again. He’d promised your mother he would never tell you, so he did the next best thing, and he was there for you. He gave up his life’s work in an attempt to protect you when he thought I was sacking you. Don’t turn from him now.
Tears rolled down her cheeks and with her emotions in turmoil she moved into his arms.
‘Trust me,’ he murmured.
Her head nodded against his chest.
‘Marry me?’
Her face lifted to his and they shared their first kiss.