She applied fresh makeup. Her eyes still looked less clear than usual, and her cheeks were flushed, but there was no helping it. Maybe the cool air outside would restore some of her serenity. Unfortunately there wouldn’t be much of it, since Luke’s house was only a stone’s throw away, and she shrugged resignedly. When she returned to the lounge, Luke was gazing out of the window. For a moment Robin felt her heartbeat quicken. His face was in profile and his expression unguarded, the frequently taut muscles in his face relaxed. Crazily, Robin had the fleeting sensation that he was a lonely man, for all his wealth and business success, a man still lacking the one element vital to his happiness — the perfect partner with whom to share his life.
Foolishly she pushed the feeling aside as Luke turned to her, and she decided she must have imagined the odd little lost look on his face. He inspected her with a professional eye and nodded.
“You’ll do,” he said briskly. “You’d better bring a jacket. It’s quite cool, and I thought we’d take a walk over the Downs after dinner to let you get the feel of the place.”
As if she wasn’t entirely exhausted, Robin thought grimly! Emotion was as tiring as a ten-mile hike, and she seemed to be getting her share of it lately, whether it was tearful or explosive. But a walk after dinner might be preferable to any late-night tête-à-tête, and she agreed at once. Luke was still smiling as they left the flat and walked the short distance to his house, just as if he could read her mind — and if he could, she just didn’t care.
Luke’s house was an agreeable surprise, not ultra-modern or furnished extravagantly, but a comfortable home. The fittings were naturally expensive, as was to be expected, but unobtrusively so. The carpets were thick and plain, the walls liberally hung with paintings and grouped family photographs, which was oddly endearing, especially when he told her that none of his family was living. It contrasted with the way Robin had expected a property magnate’s home to be, though she couldn’t really have said why she’d formed such an impression of the breed.
She immediately liked Mrs. Somerton, a woman in her sixties, who obviously thought the world of him. One point in his favour, Robin conceded. There was a Mr. Somerton, too, who attended to the outside of the house and saw that things ran smoothly while Luke was away. Old family retainers, in effect. She hadn’t considered his home life at all, and it was one more surprising facet of Luke’s character. If she had considered it, she might have thought he lived in hotels or had a team of whiz-kids surrounding him. It was just as she had thought before: She didn’t know him at all.
“What are you looking so quizzical about?” His voice came softly to her over the candlelit dinner table, and she realised that she had been staring at his strong-boned face — staring without really seeing — and now she felt her cheeks flush.
“I was just envying you such a super lady as Mrs. Somerton,” she lied. “That was a delicious meal, and the most wonderful chocolate meringue —”
“It was, and I agree, but you were thinking no such thing,” he cut across her words. “Your thoughts were far more personal, I suspect. A penny for them, Robin.”
“Oh —”
“What is it?” Luke asked quickly, his blue eyes demanding the truth. Robin felt her composure slipping away and fought to regain it.
“I’m being so stupid tonight. It must be the long drive and the strangeness of everything. I’m not normally like this, Luke. It was just that phrase, ‘A penny for your thoughts.’ I must have heard it a thousand times in my life. It’s just that Mrs. Fowler always used to say it when she thought I was getting worried about something, and it — it took me by surprise, that’s all. You must think me feeble. You’ll be regretting you ever took me on.” She fumbled for the tissue she’d tucked up her sleeve, missing the tender look that crossed his face.
“No I won’t. And I don’t think you feeble at all. I think you’re a perfectly normal young woman. What makes you think you have the right to be superior to anyone else?”
Robin looked at him in astonishment, his calm reply checking the new rush of emotion.
“I don’t follow you. I don’t think I’m superior to anyone.”
“Yes you do. You think it’s somehow shameful to allow yourself to grieve for someone you loved. Why should Robin Pollard be such a superior being that she can’t do what ordinary mortals do and break down and weep now and then? It’s perfectly natural that remembering a particularly poignant moment, hearing someone’s favourite remark, or listening to their music, should move us to tears. Grief needs time, just like any other human emotion. When you love someone deeply, it’s an insult to their memory to gloss over your private pain at losing them.”
Robin felt her mouth drop open at his little speech. It pulsated with suppressed passion, yet it was delivered in a wholly detached way. Intuitively, Robin guessed that Luke, too, had lost someone very dear to him. She ran her tongue over her dry lips, knowing she couldn’t ask.
“That was quite a lecture,” she said shakily. “I hadn’t expected you to be quite so — so perceptive.”
He laughed, but there was little mirth in the sound.
“Oh, I assure you that even we hardheaded business tycoons can be capable of some finer feelings. Now, if you’ve finished your coffee, how about that walk? Do you feel up to it?”
“Yes, please — and thank you, Luke.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll pass your thanks on to Mrs. Somerton. She’s the one who deserves them.”
She hadn’t been thanking him for dinner, and he knew it, but the evening had become too highly charged to pursue it. Luke fetched her jacket and held it out for her, his hands lingering on her shoulders for a moment as she slipped her arms into it. She felt his warm breath against her hair. She thought he intended to kiss her, to twist her into his arms and capitalise on the moment, and the thought was suddenly unbearable. She felt as brittle as glass and moved swiftly away from him.
“Let’s make it a short walk, though, shall we? I’m desperately tired, and I wouldn’t want to be late on my first morning at work.”
“That’s fine by me. I have a pile of correspondence to go through tonight anyway.” He was instantly remote. “I’d better vet it all before I hand it over to you at the office. Some letters can be quite abusive.”
He was steering her towards the door now, and she felt a stab of irritation as they went out into the cooler night air and the soft blanket of darkness.
“Good Lord, do you think me incapable of handling a few abusive letters? I’m not some fragile plant, Luke, and I won’t faint at the sight of a few expletives!”
“Good. I never expected that you would,” he said.
Later she remembered the note of satisfaction in his voice and wondered if he’d goaded her a little into a stinging reply in order to discharge some of the tension between them. It was odd to think of Luke as a bit of a psychologist, but whether he had intended to or not, he had taken the heat out of the situation.
The walk across the springy turf of the Downs was exhilarating, and the view of the silvery river Avon far below in the gorge was breathtaking and unreal. The suspension bridge was a tracery of fairy lights, adding to the illusion of unreality. They walked for half an hour, by which time Robin was more than ready for bed, and Luke left her at the entrance of her new home with no attempt to prolong the moment.
“I’ll call for you at nine-fifteen in the morning,” he said. “There’s no point in trying to fight the city traffic any earlier. Good night, Robin. Sleep well.”
“Good night.” He was already striding towards the stretch of green that separated their two establishments, a tall, dark, shadowy figure, soon swallowed up in the night. Again Robin felt that Luke was a very solitary person, which was probably ludicrous.
Her tiredness was making her see things that weren’t there and blurring the edges of reality. She forcibly reminded herself that Luke was the enemy invading her territory, her special place in Cornwall. But as she gave her face a token cleansi
ng and brushed her teeth before tumbling into bed, her final drifting thoughts were that even the concrete jungle of a city could be beautiful when seen with someone special. She forgot that so far she had only seen the green and verdant areas and the points of historical interest. She was too tired to think any more, sinking pleasurably into a welcoming cocoon of sleep, able to disregard completely the unfamiliarity of her surroundings.
*
When Luke arrived for her next morning, she was downstairs, in the foyer of the building. He expressed mocking surprise at her promptness, remarking that she was a vast improvement on Maggie in one respect at least.
“Thank you,” she replied. She swung her legs inside the car, refusing to let him irk her. It was a sparkling morning, and after a good night’s sleep Robin felt refreshed and ready to face the day with a keenness she hadn’t felt in some weeks. The prospect of being in the business world again, whether it was Luke Burgess’s business or not, was more reviving than she had realised. As Luke’s car gathered speed and skirted the lush green of the Downs, she saw that they were in the highest part of the city, and as she looked down she saw spread out before her a mass of buildings that were a bewildering mixture of old and new. To someone like Luke the cloisterlike aspect of the older parts of the city must grate, and she commented as much. He nodded, never taking his eyes from the road as they moved even nearer to the business district some distance away.
“Bristol was badly blitzed during the war,” he told her. “Town planning isn’t always what the purists would like, and necessity comes before aesthetics when people are homeless. People must be given shelter, whether it’s hastily built, prefabricated homes or great impersonal blocks of flats.”
“I gather neither is to your liking.” She was in total agreement with him there.
“Hardly, but I wasn’t in the business of house-building at that time.”
“I never thought I’d hear you call yourself a house-builder,” she said, amazed to realise that she was almost teasing. Luke shrugged.
“When you bring my profession down to basics, that’s all it is, Robin. It doesn’t do to get too impressed with yourself in this life.”
She bit back the retort that Luke could have fooled her. There were times when he could be startlingly introspective, and that intrigued her. It sometimes seemed that the brash tycoon wasn’t really him at all, not the real Luke Burgess. He had said something similar about her. Maybe everyone played a part in front of other people ... maybe with a hundred different parts. It was a thought that had never struck Robin before. Who would he be today? she wondered. It would be interesting to see him with his office staff. It had been quite revealing to see him with Mrs. Somerton the night before, she recalled. There had been a real affection between them, and the older woman had treated Luke as someone between an employer and a well-loved nephew. There was certainly more to Luke than she had originally thought if he could produce such strong feelings in whoever knew him, feelings of loyalty or aggression ...
The car was drawing up in the parking space marked STAFF outside a huge glass and concrete building, and Luke grinned at her as he switched off the engine.
“Does this match your idea of a tycoon’s office?” he asked. “Slick enough for you, is it?”
“It’s what I expected.” Robin was noncommittal, not wanting him to guess how much he was filling her thoughts. And he did dominate her thoughts, she admitted uneasily. It was probably natural, since she didn’t as yet know anyone else there except Bill Withers, but it would be good to meet some more people and dismiss the unwanted notion that Luke Burgess could soon become an obsession.
The offices of Burgess Developments were on the fourth floor. They were plush, light and airy. There was a junior secretary, who spent most of her time filing her nails or making tea for visitors, and there was a receptionist whom Robin liked at once. Her name was Maureen, and once Luke had introduced her, he glanced at his watch and said he’d be back later that afternoon.
“Maureen will show you the ropes, Robin. Most of your work this morning will be dealing with the correspondence I looked over last night. I’ve put notes at the margins for replies, and I’m sure you can see to it. Leave it all out for my signature when I get back, and if there are any queries, we’ll sort them out then. Look after her, Maureen. She’s special.”
“Aren’t they all!” Maureen said darkly, as Luke blew them both a kiss and disappeared out of the door. The clean tang of his aftershave went with him, and Robin felt lost for a moment. She had expected him to be showing her around personally and was a little piqued that he hadn’t done so. She didn’t intend to let Maureen see that, though, but she noted Maureen’s remark with a little tightening of her stomach. Wasn’t it just as she had thought from the minute she saw Luke gazing down at her on her beach, with the sunlight framing his head? The typical male chauvinist ...
She realised that Maureen was smiling at her with something like relief and forced herself to pay attention.
“I was so glad when Luke phoned to say we had a new secretary on the way,” she said chattily. “Things have been pretty chaotic since Maggie left, and Sonia’s worse than useless. Where did he find you so quickly?”
Robin felt her cheeks colour. Put into words, it sounded very different from the usual method of finding employment.
“My father is James Pollard. You may have heard of him.”
“The guy Luke’s doing business with in Cornwall?”
“That’s right.” Robin kept the smile fixed on her face. “I happened to be without a job at the moment, so when Luke offered me this post, I decided to take it.”
It sounded awful. Even as she spoke Robin knew she gave the impression of someone who didn’t really need a job, flitting in and out of whatever position took her fancy. Fortunately, Maureen didn’t seem to see it that way.
“Lucky you. It must have been a red-letter day when you saw Luke. Dishy, isn’t he? Though I don’t suppose you’ve ever had any trouble finding a boyfriend.” Her look was filled with cheerful envy.
“I don’t think of Luke as my boyfriend. He’s my employer!”
“Well, I know, but stranger things have happened, and it was easy to see he fancied you. I saw that right away. Of course, I know the signs by now ...”
Robin felt hot all over. “Hadn’t you better tell me what I’m supposed to be doing this morning, Maureen?” she asked pointedly. She certainly didn’t want to stand there and discuss Luke Burgess, especially when Maureen was confirming all she had first thought about the man. If Maureen knew him well enough to read all the signs, there must have been plenty of women in his life. And Robin Pollard had no intention of being added to his list of conquests. It was bad enough that he was taking up her space at home; she must not allow him to invade her heart as well.
“Do you want coffee or tea?” Sonia asked Robin in a bored voice as the latter sat behind the desk in her office, before what seemed a mountain of paperwork. Sonia looked as if she’d be more at home in a disco than a property developer’s office. Robin glanced at her watch. She’d been there all of ten minutes.
“Already?”
“I have to go out for Mr. Burgess in half an hour. It’s the way I’ve always done things around here.”
“That’s fine,” Robin said hastily. She didn’t want to be the one to make waves. She didn’t intend working there forever anyway. It was just an interim arrangement. It suited her on two counts: She could keep an eagle eye on what exactly Luke was doing with her father’s property, and it eased her over the sense of loss after Elaine Fowler’s death.
She gave Sonia a bright smile. “I’ll have coffee, please, and perhaps you’d have time to show me the filing system before you go, Sonia.”
“All right.” The appeal to the girl’s superior knowledge of office routine obviously worked, and she was noticeably less prickly by the time she went out on Luke’s errands.
By then Robin had got the desk in some sort of order. It had needed onl
y a methodical approach and a bit of time and organisation. She had an In tray and an Out tray, and knew exactly what was pending and what needed urgent attention.
Several clients came and went during the morning. Bill Withers looked in to collect some papers and was clearly pleased to see Robin installed. Farther along the corridor, in another office, Roy Hutchings, the chief architect, introduced himself to Robin about mid-morning; he was a middle-aged, rather intense man whom she liked at once.
Maureen perched on the edge of Robin’s desk and suggested that they both go to a nearby cafe for lunch.
“Unless you’ve any other plans, of course.”
“No, I haven’t.” Robin was grateful to her, her thoughts not having progressed that far. Maureen locked the office once they were all ready to leave, and she and Robin went out together. The cafe was just along the road, in the middle of a small row of shops, and Maureen said they made delicious pizza. They both settled on that, and Robin spoke casually while they waited.
“How long have you worked for Luke, Maureen?”
“Oh, about two years now. He’s a great boss. He doesn’t worry you as long as the work gets done, and he’s lavish with presents at Christmas and birthdays. Everybody falls for him, of course.” Her plump face went a little dreamy and then she grinned. “Fat chance I’d have of a romantic interlude with Luke, when he could have his pick of the Miss World contestants!”
“I suppose he has plenty of girl friends.” She was fishing, and she knew it.
Maureen laughed. “Dozens, love. Well, with his looks, and his money —” She suddenly realised that Robin was genuinely curious, and she put a warning note into her voice. “I’d say it won’t be long before he gets amorous with you, Robin. You’re just the type to intrigue our Luke: cool and classy, yet you’ve still got an outdoor look about you. And those green eyes! They’re really beautiful. But don’t let him fool you, Robin. He always says that love ’em and leave ’em is his motto, so Lord help the girl who’s looking for wedding bells!”
Partners in Love Page 6
