Gentlemen Prefer...Brunettes

by Fielding, Liz

  She’d made a big point about making it a room where a man would feel at home. Apparently that meant black units, black marble countertops and a hell of a lot of stainless steel. The only colour was provided by a few dark red ‘keynotes’. It was about as homely and inviting as the chilled food cabinet at the local supermarket.

  Still, he had to admit that it was functional, equipped with every gadget available, all in stainless steel, of course, although he’d never had any reason to use them. Precious little reason to use the kitchen, come to that. It occurred to him that if the room had been just a little more inviting he might have spent more time in it.

  But it was a workspace, not a place to linger. There was nowhere to sit, unlike Cassie’s kitchen with its comfortable old sofa, except for a couple of Bauhaus-inspired stools by the centre island.

  He’d liked the way Cassie’s kitchen had opened out onto the tiny courtyard garden, too. He bet she took her breakfast out there on sunny days. The idea was very appealing. Not that he lingered much over breakfast. Still, at the weekends, with someone like Cassie to chat to, it was a habit he could cultivate.

  He looked around. Maybe he should have the whole thing torn out and redone. This time by a decorator chosen for her skill rather than her sex appeal.

  The kitchen smelled all wrong, too, he decided, remembering the wonderful fusion of scents that had welcomed him into Cassie’s kitchen. This one just smelled of the stuff his cleaner used to keep the surfaces gleaming, a sort of synthetic lemon smell that had about as much in common with citrus fruit as his kitchen had with home cooking. Well, that was all about to change.

  He opened Cassie’s book and consulted the recipe. First of all he needed a large frying-pan. That was all? He smiled with satisfaction. He knew how to handle a frying-pan.

  They’d had a photo shoot when they’d produced the catalogue for the new camping equipment. Rather than hire models who wouldn’t look as if they knew what they were doing, the entire family had got involved. They’d rented a field and camped for the weekend, inviting some of the sportsmen and women Jefferson Sports sponsored to join in the fun.

  He was the one in front of the improved one-man tent, sitting on the tried-and-tested camp stool, prodding sausages being cooked over the latest in camping stoves in the frying-pan that was part of the new range of cooking utensils. They’d eaten them too, despite the fact that by the time he’d finished with them they had borne more resemblance to charcoal than meat. It had been freezing.

  So, a frying-pan held no terrors for him. And the recipe was described as simple, something that looked pretty, but could be cooked in about thirty minutes. No problems, then.

  He found a stack of stainless-steel frying-pans that looked as if they had never been used, chose the largest and sloshed in some oil and a dollop of butter and turned on the burner. How high? All the recipe said was, ‘Heat the butter and oil in a large frying-pan.’ He turned up the heat and then looked to see what he had to do next.

  The dark red ‘keynote’ telephone rang and, still reading the book, he unhooked it from the wall.

  ‘Nick Jefferson.’

  ‘Nick, it’s Graham. We’ve hit a snag over the Paris trip.’

  ‘What kind of snag? Has Helen found out?’

  ‘No, it’s not a Helen snag. It’s a grandmother snag. Your mother is too busy to look after the kids—’ he didn’t add ‘as usual’ because they both knew that Lizzie Jefferson’s charity work absorbed time the way a natural sponge soaked up water ‘—and mine is going to Bournemouth for the week with some friends. She offered to cancel but—’

  But she was the one who always had to find time for the grandchildren, while his mother spent her time on more deserving causes. ‘No, she mustn’t give up her trip. I’ll talk to Mum. I’m sure if I explain she’ll find a few days to give her daughter a birthday treat—charity begins at home after all—’

  ‘But Nick, you don’t understand—’

  The smell of burning suddenly impinged on Nick’s consciousness and he spun round to see the pan he’d left on the stove smoking hotly. He stared at it for a moment in disbelief before saying something short and extremely rude. ‘Leave it with me, Graham,’ he said, dropping the phone and Cassie’s cookbook as he rushed to push the pan off the heat.

  The pristine pan was now black and pungent with burnt oil. All at once the scent of synthetic lemons seemed very appealing.

  Nick returned the telephone receiver to the cradle, picked up Cassie’s book and switched on the extractor fan. He filled the sink with hot water and submerged the pan, leaving it for his cleaner to deal with when she came in in the morning. Then he took the next, slightly smaller pan from the stack and with grim determination began again.

  This time he carefully watched the butter melt into the oil before slipping the chicken breasts into the hot fat. There was a satisfactory sizzling noise and the meat began to brown. What next? He turned back to consult the oracle.

  ‘Add the finely grated rind of one lemon, plus the juice and 5 ml of chopped fresh rosemary.’

  It took him a while to find a grater and as he began to rub the lemon over the finest cutters it occurred to him that it would have been advisable to have done this before he started to cook the chicken. Why on earth didn’t the book suggest that?

  He lifted the grater to check his progress. The amount of rind produced was practically invisible and the chicken was beginning to brown rapidly. He switched to a bigger cutter and the skin began to come off in much more satisfying chunks. He dumped it in the pan.

  Juice. There was a squeezer somewhere, but he didn’t have time to look for it. Instead, he grabbed the nearest knife and hacked the denuded lemon in half, then held it over the pan and squeezed it, hard. Several pips joined the juice but he didn’t have time to worry about that either.

  Chop the rosemary. How much was 5 ml? He banged the knife over a sprig of rosemary—should he have washed it first?—and flung the roughly chopped result in with the chicken. Okay. What else?

  ‘Add 150 ml of good chicken stock.’

  Chicken stock? Nick Jefferson regarded the items on his kitchen table. There was a carton of soured cream and a bunch of white grapes. No chicken stock. Good, bad or indifferent.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CASSIE was standing on a chair washing out her cupboards when the telephone began to ring. Since she’d had to get up there to sort them out, it had seemed as good a moment as any to give them a good scrub. Cleaning cupboards had always been a good way of taking her mind off things she would really rather not think about.

  There were, she realised, quite a few things she would rather not be thinking about right now. Nick Jefferson was one of them. Jonathan was another. The trouble was that ever since her encounter with Nick Jefferson Jonathan had been pushing himself to the forefront of her mind.

  It wasn’t really surprising. He hadn’t looked like Nick, but he had had the same warm smile, the same flirtatious charm. And he had been quite as impossible to resist.

  At twenty-two, with no one to please but herself, she hadn’t seen any need to resist. She had fallen head over heels in love. It was what life was about. You grew up, you fell in love, you married and lived happily ever after. At least that was the way it was supposed to happen. In her case the ‘happily ever after’ part had been painfully brief.

  Cassie didn’t bother to climb down from the chair and answer the phone, but continued wiping the shelf with total concentration, leaving the answering machine to deal with her caller.

  The ringing stopped as the machine cut in. She heard her own voice explaining that she was unable to come to the phone right now, asking the caller to leave a message after the tone. Then there was the long beep of the tone.

  ‘What the hell is chicken stock, Cassie?’ Cassie jumped as Nick Jefferson’s angry voice rang out across the kitchen, knocking against the bowl of soapy water so that it slopped over the edge and onto the floor. ‘I’m halfway through this damned recipe and
suddenly you throw chicken stock at me…’ Cassie would have liked to throw a lot more. ‘No, no, wait, not chicken stock. Good chicken stock. Tell me,’ he asked nastily, ‘do people ever deliberately use a bad one?’

  ‘It doesn’t mean—machine was scarcely a sign of an ordered mind.

  ‘And why don’t you warn people to do all the fiddly bits first?’ he added.

  ‘Because anyone with half a brain would know that,she replied. Then she frowned. Wouldn’t they? Her books were written for experienced cooks, but still…maybe she should make stuff like that clearer. Or write a special book for beginners; not everyone learned to cook at their mother’s knee.

  There was a long moment of silence from the answering machine, presumably while he waited for her to pick up the receiver obediently and answer him. Cassie ignored it, deep in thought as she considered what a simple, learn-as-you-go cookery book would entail, how her television company would feel about running a series on basic cookery …

  ‘Damn it, I know you’re there, Cassie, so you’d better pick up the phone and answer me, or I’ll write to that woman on the television and expose you and your cookery books as frauds…’

  ‘Drat the man,’ she muttered irritably. How long was he going to go on complaining? He’d use up the entire tape at this rate. Why didn’t he phone his sister and ask her how to make a stock? And how had he got her number anyway? It wasn’t listed. Had he memorised it from the phone when he was looking around her kitchen? Or had Beth, still fantasising about being her matchmaking fairy godmother, given it to him? Well, it didn’t matter.

  Just because he’d bought a copy of her book, or even two copies, and just because he’d kissed her—at least that had only been once—he didn’t have the right to call her up whenever he felt like it, especially when all he wanted from her was help to impress some blonde bimbo with his phoney cooking skills. And he had the nerve to accuse her of being a fraud!

  It was definitely time she put Nick Jefferson right about one or two things and now was as good a time as any.

  She spun round, planning to jump down and give him a piece of her mind, but the chair, unsteady on the old stone-flagged floor, wobbled as she moved, throwing her off balance. And as she lurched forward in an attempt to save herself it went away from her, falling backwards.

  Cassie let out a yell that sent Dem nervously scooting beneath the sofa and grabbed for the cupboard door with both hands.

  For a moment she hung there as waves of relief at her narrow escape swept over her. Then the old hinges, deciding they had had quite enough of that kind of treatment, thank you very much, parted company with the wood and Cassie was deposited without ceremony in an untidy heap on the floor.

  Nick hung on, certain that Cassie was home. He’d left her less than an hour before and she hadn’t looked in any hurry to get somewhere. Just get rid of him. Which was hardly surprising. She seemed to bring out the worst in him. And yelling at her down the phone was not the way to win her sympathy, or her help. He dragged his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath.

  ‘Cassie…look, I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have shouted but you’ve no idea of the mess I’m in here… Please pick up the telephone and talk to me. I’m desperate.’

  Nothing. Well, what did he expect? Yelling at her like that had hardly been out of the How to Win Friends and Influence People manual. In fact it hadn’t been like him at all; he couldn’t think what had come over him. He’d send some flowers by way of apology and then…

  And then he’d forget it. Cassie Cornwell was absorbing altogether too much of his time. He lifted one of his shoulders in the smallest of shrugs and was just about to hang up when he heard something. Something that sounded remarkably like the receiver at the other end crashing to the stone floor of her kitchen.

  ‘Cassie?’

  ‘Buy a packet of stock cubes, Nick, and follow the instructions…’ Her voice was tight, as if talking was an enormous effort, and when she stopped there was a little catch… Was there someone with her? A man? Was that why she had been so eager to get rid of him? She’d been expecting someone?

  Something in his gut tightened at the thought of a man holding her, kissing her, perhaps undressing her right now. It made him feel…helpless, a little desperate, even angry. He knew he should just hang up, but he couldn’t. ‘That’s not what you’d do, though?’ he persisted, his ears straining for some clue.

  ‘Nick, believe me, you don’t want to know how to make a stock from scratch.’

  ‘It’s difficult?’

  ‘No, but… Trust me. Take the short cut. Everybody does.’

  ‘I’m not everybody.’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth. Go away, Nick, please; I can’t handle this right now.’ That didn’t sound much like a girl in the throes of sexual excitement. It sounded…

  ‘Cassie? Is something wrong?’

  Cassie laughed. Sort of. She’d fallen beside her desk and was sitting on her kitchen floor propped against the wall, her ankle screaming in agony where she had twisted it beneath her, while some man demanded a cookery master class over the telephone. No, not just some man, she corrected herself. Mr Nick slay-’em-in-the-aisles Jefferson.

  Well, he wasn’t slaying her, in the aisles or anywhere else. Not if she could help it. Certainly not right now.

  ‘Wrong, Nick? What could possibly be…?’ Cassie attempted to bite back a yell as Dem emerged from beneath the sofa and rubbed anxiously against her foot; she didn’t entirely succeed. ‘Wrong?’ came out as a long, strangulated cry.

  The tiny hairs on Nick’s neck rose as he realised that it wasn’t passion that was causing her to catch her breath, but pain. He didn’t bother to ask what was wrong again. ‘Hold on, Cassie,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right there.’

  ‘No! There’s no need—’ But it was too late. He had already hung up.

  Cassie allowed herself the luxury of a small groan. She’d pulled the phone down from its cradle because, having nearly killed herself in her attempt to answer it, it bad seemed rather stupid not to bother simply because she was in agony.

  Now she let it drop on the floor beside her while she mentally gathered herself for the crawl across the kitchen to the first-aid box containing witch hazel and a crêpe bandage. Dem crept up beside her and began to tread anxiously against her thigh, little needle claws digging in as he butted his head against her hand.

  She hauled the cat onto her stomach and fondled his ears. She’d make the effort to move soon, she promised herself, but another few minutes wouldn’t hurt.

  She wasn’t worried about the imminent arrival of Nick Jefferson. He couldn’t get in unless she climbed the stairs to the front door and opened it for him. And since there was no way she could do that he would just have to go away again.

  And a very good thing, too, she told herself. Men like Nick Jefferson were nothing but trouble. At twenty-two she hadn’t known that. At twenty-seven she didn’t have the same excuse.

  Nick stopped only to turn off the hob, eyeing the two dried-up, overcooked chicken breasts with resignation. They didn’t look remotely edible. They certainly bore no resemblance to the photograph in Cassie’s book. Maybe his sister was right. Maybe it would be a good idea to confess all to Veronica and take her out somewhere unbelievably expensive for a meal.

  She might even be flattered that he had gone to so much trouble in an attempt to impress her, especially if he turned the whole thing into a joke against himself. Beneath that reserved, oh-so-cool exterior, Miss Veronica Grant must have a sense of humour, surely?

  The only danger with such a plan was that Veronica might find the situation so funny that she would be compelled to share the joke with Lucy, her secretary… knowing full well that five minutes after that the entire staff of Jefferson Sports would be having a good laugh at his expense. He scraped his fingers back through his hair once more. How on earth had he ever got himself into this mess?

  It scarcely mattered. But he wasn’t about to be defeated by a piece of chi
cken. Before he beat the chicken into submission, however, he had to go and find out what had happened to Cassie, find out what had made her cry out like that. No matter how loudly she’d shouted, ‘No!’ down the telephone.

  It was a little less than ten minutes before he’d tucked the black wedge of his Porsche behind her sleek little Alfa. It was only then that he thought about how he’d get in. If she was down in the basement, hurt, she wouldn’t be able to get to the door.

  He knocked and waited impatiently, leaning over the iron balustrade to peer down into the basement area, hoping to be able to see into the kitchen, but the window was high and narrow and the angle was all wrong. He retreated to the pavement, but even bending right down he still couldn’t see more than a few feet. But she hadn’t come to the door, so she must be down there. Hurting. The word squeezed at his gut. He had to do something.

  He glanced up and down the street. There must be some way into the courtyard at the back. He hadn’t noticed a gate, but then he hadn’t actually gone beyond the French doors.

  He walked to the end of the street, turned a corner. There was a door set into an eight-foot wall that linked with the street backing onto Cassie’s house. It was locked, but it had to be the rear way in.

  He jumped, grabbed the top of the wall and hauled himself up. As he suspected, behind the door was an alleyway running between the houses, each with a gate leading into a courtyard garden. Since it was quite possible that those gates were locked too he didn’t bother to jump down into the alley and test his theory but walked quickly along the top of the wall.

  Someone shouted at him, demanding to know what he was up to, but he took no notice as he counted the houses until he came to Cassie’s. Not that he could have mistaken it. Her yard was filled with terracotta pots overflowing with geraniums and nasturtiums and pansies, and as if that wasn’t enough of a clue the evening was full of the unmistakable scents of thyme and rosemary.