by Liz Fielding
Carlisle glared after him. ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ he said, irritably, but followed Brodie back into the house.
Emmy’s heart, already beating an adrenalin-charged tattoo as she eased herself down the drainpipe, had gone into overtime at the sudden appearance of her father. But the moment her gaze had collided with the dark-eyed stranger standing with him she had known instinctively that she had an ally. He hadn’t batted an eyelid at the sight she must have made, not given her away by so much as a twitch of an eyebrow. Instead he had quite coolly considered his options.
He could have informed her father that he appeared to have an incompetent cat burglar clinging to his drainpipe.
Or he could have ignored the situation, pretend he hadn’t seen her and hope she didn’t fall into the roses.
What the dark-eyed stranger had done was create a diversion.
That kind of swift thinking was so rare she thought. Poor Kit would have dithered and blushed and quite given the game away. He was sweet and wonderfully talented, but not in the least bit decisive which was why she had to get to him before her father’s henchman. As she searched amongst the lavender and roses for her shoes she felt a moment of regret that she wouldn’t be able to stay and thank Dark-eyes for his chivalry. Were they grey, she wondered. Or brown? Distance and the dusky light had made it impossible to tell.
Unfortunately she didn’t have time for politeness, but she was sure he would understand her need to put the maximum distance between herself and her father before he discovered her escape. If only she could find her other shoe!
She spotted it at last, half buried behind the tall lavender that edged the border, filling the air with sweet scent as she brushed against it. The roses were not so kind, snagging at her bare arms as she reached for her shoe, catching and tangling her hair with their thorns. She didn’t have time to worry about it, or take time to extricate herself carefully, and tugged herself free. The rose retaliated by whipping back and catching at her neck with its thorns. She scarcely noticed. All she knew was that it was taking far too long.
But there was no way she could make her escape barefooted. Her feet would be cut to ribbons on the gravel by the time she had sprinted around to the old coach house where her car had undoubtedly been stowed after her incarceration. She could just hear her father. “Miss Emerald has decided to stay for a few days. Put her car away will you, Saunders?” All perfectly natural. She made a rude noise as she tipped the dirt out of her shoes and slipped her feet into them.
‘Maybe you left your keys in the car, Brodie.’ Her father’s impatient voice carried through the open front door pinning her back against the wall.
‘I might have dropped them in the hall.’
Brodie. The name had a nice, solid ring to it and Brodie, bless the man, was giving her all the time he could, delaying her father, quite` unconcerned at the tetchiness in his voice. Not many men were that brave. Unfortunately his valour would be to little avail. There was no cover within a hundred feet of her exposed position and any second now she was going to be discovered and dragged ignominiously back to the nursery where she would probably be put on a diet of bread and water. Not that she cared about that. But poor Kit…
Of course, she could always throw herself on Brodie’s mercy. In fact the thought of flinging herself into his arms had a definite appeal. She hadn’t been mistaken about the shoulders, or his height. And his character spoke for itself.
But no. He had already done more than enough. To demand he choose between her and her father was more than could be expected of any knight errant. But she was hanged if she was going to give in without a fight. She had mere seconds in which to act before the two men appeared on the steps and she was discovered. She didn’t waste it, flinging herself at the BMW, praying that it wasn’t locked. Her guardian angel must have been listening because the rear door opened to her touch and she dived in, pulling it shut behind her with heartfelt thanks for the superb German engineering that ensured it closed with scarcely a sound.
She didn’t know where her knight errant was going, but at least he was going somewhere. Away from her father, away from Lower Honeybourne. She would throw herself on his mercy and borrow his mobile. It would only take a call to bring some gallant racing to her aid. Meanwhile, she tucked herself down behind the front seats and congratulated herself on her luck.
It might not be the most comfortable way to travel but this way her escape was far more likely to succeed. An attempt to get away in her own car would have been spotted in an instant and by the time she reached the electronic security gates they would have been locked.
She could and would have climbed over them, but then what? She had no phone, no money and would be faced with a very long walk along a deserted country road as night fell. With her father hot on her tail.
Brodie, on the other hand, would drive through unchallenged and, having aided and abetted her escape, he could scarcely turn around and take her back when she popped up on his back seat. In fact, since he was heading for London, he could drop her at her front door.
By morning she would be in France with Kit and then Hollingworth could do his worst.
There was the added bonus that once they were clear of the park she would be able to thank him for helping her. The thought brought a smile to her lips. She was absolutely sure that she and Brodie were going to be friends.
There was a crunch of shoes, the driver’s door was opened and through the gap between the front seats she saw him palm the keys from his pocket.
‘It seems they were on the seat all the time,’ Emmy heard him say as he turned back to her father, almost certainly without a trace of a blush. No one who acted with such swift decisiveness would be fazed by a tiny white lie. ‘I must have dropped them.’
Her father snorted, impatient with such incompetence. ‘I thought you were supposed to be Hollingworth’s bright new man.’ His voice betrayed what he thought of bright new men in general and Brodie in particular. ‘I just hope you’re capable of dealing with this situation efficiently. I don’t want it bungled. I particularly don’t want it all over the newspapers,’ he added.
‘I’ll speak to Kit Fairfax,’ Brodie assured him. ‘If it’s money he’s after it’ll just be a question of haggling.’
‘Haggle all you want. Whatever it costs, it will be cheap if it keeps my daughter out of the hands of some idle layabout who’s only after her money.’
‘And if he’s actually in love with the girl?’
Her father responded with the kind of explosive, disparaging noise she had always assumed to be the colourful invention of nineteenth century novelists. Apparently not.
‘Just use whatever means necessary to ensure they don’t get married, Brodie. I’m holding you personally responsible.’
Emmy froze.
Brodie was being sent to deal with Kit?
Where was Hollingworth? She could deal with that pompous old fool with one hand tied behind her back, but suddenly Brodie’s treasured decisiveness was not so welcome and she gave a little shudder of apprehension.
The beauty of her plan had been in its simplicity. She had been convinced that nothing could possibly go wrong. Which just went to show how dumb one person could be.
Brodie tossed the folder he was carrying onto the passenger seat and climbed behind the wheel while Emmy made herself as small as she could. Popping up the moment they were clear of the estate and introducing herself no longer seemed such as good idea.
Brodie might be terribly kind to girls who flashed their knickers when they climbed down drainpipes, but she was very much afraid that he wouldn’t be anything like as soft-hearted when it came to dealing with fortune hunters. Or as easy to mislead as the unimaginative Hollingworth.
Which made it imperative she get to darling Kit before Brodie could talk to him, or she had a feeling the poor lamb wouldn’t know what had hit him.
CHAPTER TWO
BRODIE leaned forward, started the car, then lowered the window. He paus
ed for a moment taking in the great sweeping parkland of Carlisle’s estate, curling his lip at the privilege it represented, at the man’s absolute certainty that money was the solution to every problem. The truth, he had discovered in the course of his legal career, was that money was the cause of most of them. It was certainly the cause of the problem that confronted him now.
If Emerald Carlisle had been a penniless working girl she could have married whom she pleased and no one would have given a damn, except to wish them happy.
He dwelt momentarily on the arresting sight of the long-limbed girl clinging to the drainpipe and wondered if Kit Fairfax loved her enough to resist the bribe. He discovered that his feelings were oddly mixed.
Then, pulling away from the golden stone frontage of Honeybourne Park, he put the distasteful task ahead of him firmly out of his mind and began to think about a more pressing concern. He hadn’t eaten since his secretary had brought him a sandwich at his desk at lunchtime and he was hungry. He had noticed a promising looking inn in the village, but on reflection decided it might be advisable to put some distance between himself and Carlisle before he stopped. It had been made clear that he was expected to get back to London and deal with Fairfax without delay. He doubted that hunger would be considered an adequate excuse for putting off the evil moment.
Brodie pulled a face. Even if he drove straight back to town it would be too late to do anything useful. The situation was unpleasant enough without the additional farce of hammering on the Fairfax’s door in the middle of the night to remind him of his lowly status and demand he forget all about marrying Emerald Carlisle.
Recalling the girl’s expressive eyes and a warm mouth that formed a natural smile, he knew that if the situation were reversed he would tell any legal busybody who came interfering in their relationship to get lost. Forcefully. Somehow, though, he couldn’t see Kit Fairfax swinging a punch. There was a gentleness about his face and Tom knew that whatever happened he was going to feel like a heel. Which was ridiculous. Kit Fairfax had been cast in that role. Maybe he was.
The one thing he had learned over the years was to keep an open mind.
He shrugged. Whatever. Food was his first priority. Or perhaps not. He appeared to have another, rather more pressing problem and spotting a lay-by ahead, he slowed and pulled into it.
It hadn’t taken Emmy long to realise that travelling undetected all the way to London on the floor of the car was not going to be as easy as she had thought. Within minutes her legs had begun to cramp from the awkwardness of her position and she was losing the feeling in one of her shoulders.
She eased her position slightly and for a moment there was some relief. Then the pain was back, settling itself in her lumbar region like a cat making itself at home in a favoured chair. Nothing was going to shift it while she remained crouched in this awkward position.
She pulled a face, she could stand a little pain in the cause of freedom.
All she had to do was hold on for a little and hope that Brodie would have to stop for petrol or even, she thought as her stomach began to remind her just how hungry she was, something to eat. Then she would be able to make her escape.
Even as she shifted the weight back to her shoulder, the car began to slow. She held her breath, trying to make out where they were but not daring to raise her head. A pub car park maybe? There weren’t enough lights to suggest a garage forecourt.
She crossed her fingers and eased her head slowly around to check the other window. Brodie, half turned in his seat, his face unreadable in the gathering darkness, was watching her cautious manoeuvring and she knew exactly how a mouse felt when cornered by a cat.
Maybe, if she closed her eyes and kept very still, he’d think he had imagined the whole thing. Except that Brodie had a lot more imagination that your average moggie. Far better to brazen it out.
She gave a little shrug. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she said. ‘I won’t cause you any bother.’ Her grin, she knew was disarming. ‘Honest.’
He was not, apparently, disarmed. Maybe it was too dark for him to see her smile, because he wasn’t smiling back. ‘You’ll forgive me if I reserve judgement on that for the moment. In the meantime, since you’re not wearing a seatbelt…’ — his voice didn’t give much away either — ‘…I’m going to have to insist you join me up here. For your own safety.’
There was something about Brodie that suggested she was a lot safer where she was. Nothing overtly threatening. Just an uneasy feeling that she might have done better taking her chances with the unlit country road. Well, not even the most gallant of knights errant appreciated being taken for a ride. Or vice versa.
‘I could sit in the back,’ she offered. ‘You could pretend I wasn’t here. If that would help.’
He didn’t answer. He simply picked up the file occupying the passenger seat, tossed it into the back and waited for her to obey him.
There was something unnerving about that. Her father would have blustered, bullied. Hollingworth would have spoken to her in that maddeningly patronising way of his, treating her like a little girl who had to be cajoled into taking a spoonful of nasty medicine. Brodie was different. A few minutes earlier she had been congratulating herself on that. Maybe she had been too quick in her judgement.
Emmy shrugged. At least he hadn’t turned around and taken her straight back to her father. Yet.
She took a certain comfort from the awkwardness of his position in regard to her father. After all, it was because of him that she had managed to escape in the first place. Which didn’t answer the question uppermost in her mind. What did he propose to do with her? Since Brodie had been engaged to deal with Kit, buy him off, she couldn’t expect him to actively aid and abet her elopement.
It took Emmy a few moments to extricate herself from her cramped quarters.
She didn’t hurry about it, giving herself as much time as possible to decide on a plan of action, slowly stretching each of her cramped limbs in turn even while her mind was whirring into action. By the time she was perched on the rear seat, her elbows propped on the seat in front of her, her chin resting in the palms of her hands, she had decided that there was only one way to handle Brodie. She would have to make him fall just a little bit in love with her. She would feel incredible guilty about that later, but she didn’t have time to worry about the ethics of it right now.
‘Hello, Brodie,’ she said, employing the smile that Celebrity magazine had said made street lighting redundant. ‘I’m Emmy Carlisle. But you already know that.’
She extended her hand and he took it, held it for just a moment.
‘I’m Tom Brodie. How d’you do?’ he replied, with just the barest trace of amusement at such formality.
She’d known he’d have a sense of humour. A promising start. ‘How d’you do, Tom Brodie? Are you by any chance going to London?’
Emerald Carlisle’s smile was luminous. Worse, it was infectious. It was the kind of smile to tempt the unwary, to captivate and charm the jaded sensibilities of a man who had ground his way to the top of his profession with never a moment for simple fun. Innocent of guile and yet oddly seductive, it was the kind of smile that would get a man into all sorts of trouble. It already had, Brodie acknowledged wryly, as with difficulty he resisted the urge to smile right back.
‘And if I’m not?’
‘If you’re not, ‘ she replied him, poised as a duchess at a garden party and apparently not in the least embarrassed at being caught stowing away in his car, ‘You’re on the wrong road. Which would be just the tiddliest bit of a nuisance for both of us.’
‘More for you than me, I suspect.’
‘True, but it’s not a problem. Just stop at the nearest pub and I’ll make a few calls. Someone will come and pick me up.’ Her smile never wavered. ‘If you would loan me your mobile phone?’ When he made no move to hand it over, ‘If that would compromise you, I could use a call box. If you’d loan me the money. How much does a call cost?’
‘I’m sure you
r friends would accept a reverse charge call,’ he said, finding it increasingly difficult to keep a straight face. ‘But since we both know where I’m going, shall we start with the pub and take it from there? Maybe you can suggest somewhere. I’m not familiar with this road and I was looking for somewhere to eat.’
‘Oh, what a good idea. I’m absolutely starving.’ Confident now that he wasn’t going to turn around and take her back, she wriggled through the gap between the seats, settled herself beside him and fastened her seatbelt. ‘Pa locked me in the nursery, you see, so I went on hunger strike.’
‘Since four o’clock?’ It was a guess. Carlisle had summoned him to Lower Honeybourne just after four. Apparently he was near the mark because she pouted. He normally loathed women who pouted. But it was impossible to loathe Emmy Carlisle, especially since she was laughing at herself and inviting him to join her. ‘How fortunate I happened along. You might have expired by morning.’
‘It’s quite possible,’ she told him, her earnest tone belied by a flash of mischief in her eyes. ‘I’ve already missed afternoon tea and I suspect dinner was going to be bread and water. ‘
‘Well deserved, but I missed out on the cucumber sandwiches and my own dinner engagement had to be cancelled at the last moment.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, with feeling. ‘Was she very cross?’
Tom recalled the icy politeness with which his telephone call had been received by the silver-blonde. The lady was not used to being stood up. ‘She wasn’t happy,’ he admitted.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You should be.’
She gave him a thoughtful look. ‘I don’t think we should leave it too long before we find somewhere to eat,’ she said, ‘or our blood sugar levels will be dangerously depleted. In fact, that could be why you’re so irritable.’
