by Ros Clarke
Jack’s red face deepened to an alarming shade of purple and for an instant she thought he was actually going to combust. No words came out of his mouth, just an incoherent babble of rage. Then his arm pulled back and his hand formed into a fist.
‘Mr Caldecott?’
Fliss felt the loss of his hand at her waist as her rescuer stepped forward. The racecourse official who had spoken was watching them all with undisguised curiosity. Shamefacedly, Jack let his fist drop, though his eyes still shot daggers at Fliss.
‘Yes?’ It was as if she were no longer there, Fliss realised. Her rescuer – Mr Caldecott, she assumed – was wholly focussed on what the steward was saying. He hadn’t even noticed that Jack had slunk away before the racecourse official decided to investigate the scene more closely.
‘Sir, they’re calling for you in the Winners Enclosure.’
He must own one of the horses, Fliss decided. Probably he’d inherited millions and liked to squander the cash on gambling and girls. There had to be a reason he could kiss so well, after all.
‘The Winners Enclosure?’ Mr Caldecott sounded stunned. ‘He took a place?’
The steward was shaking his head. ‘He won, sir. They’re waiting to present the trophy.’
Fliss kicked off her shoes, dangling them from her finger thoughtfully as she watched Mr Caldecott make his way through the crowds. As he passed through the gap in the rails, he turned back briefly. She caught his eye and smiled. He nodded in acknowledgement and then was gone.
Jack’s racecard lay discarded on the ground. Fliss picked it up and turned to the race just gone. She skimmed the details of the owners and trainers until she found the name she was looking for. Chrysanthemum. Owned: Mr Y. Zhao. Trained: Mr L. Caldecott.
A trainer, not an owner. She mentally revised her picture of him from the indolent, independently wealthy aristocrat to the hard-working younger son who was good with animals. And good at kissing.
L. Caldecott. Leo? Laurence? Laszlo? She hoped it wasn’t Lionel.
Next time she saw him, she would make sure to ask. After she’d made sure to thank him.
For saving her life.
Twice.
Chapter Two
‘Oh, it’s you.’
Still tall, still golden-haired. And, oh, those cheekbones were definitely still to die for. But in Fliss’s imagination her Mr L. Caldecott would have sounded a lot happier to see her.
Finding her gallant hero again had turned out to be more difficult than she had expected. Fliss had spent a fruitless afternoon trying to track him down inside the racecourse, but he was always in the Members’ Enclosure or in the Owners and Trainers Bar, or down at the stables, or somewhere else they wouldn’t let her in no matter how many times she batted her eyelashes.
Which meant she’d had been plenty of time to let her imagination run wild before she’d finally come face to face with him again in the car park.
Where he was now glaring at her in a most unpromising way. Fliss put on her most charming smile and held out her hand.
‘Felicity Merrick.’ She turned the smile up to full beam. ‘But you can call me Fliss.’
For an instant it seemed as though his irritation would overcome his natural disposition for politeness, but her instincts were proved right: Luke Caldecott was a gentleman to the core. His face remained as stern as ever, but he slammed the door of his dark green sports car shut and strode around to where Fliss waited.
His palm was warm and strong as he briefly clasped it around hers. ‘Luke Caldecott.’
‘Luke.’ Fliss examined his face as she tried out the name, then nodded. ‘I like it. I was afraid it might have been Lionel. Or Lysander.’
‘Lysander? What on earth are you talking about?’ Luke raked a hand impatiently through his hair, leaving it intriguingly tousled.
‘Your name,’ Fliss explained. ‘It just said L in the programme, you see.’
‘Race card,’ he corrected automatically.
‘Anyway, Luke,’ she continued with a grin. ‘I didn’t get a chance to thank you earlier.’
He made a dismissive gesture with his hands. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
Fliss shook her head and laid a hand on his arm. ‘No, you were really great. Both times. Thank you.’
He nodded. ‘Well, if that’s all…’ He pressed a button on his car remote, so that the soft-top roof began to fold itself backwards.
‘Cute.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ His eyebrows rose.
Fliss grinned and nodded towards the convertible. ‘The car. Though, now you mention it…’ She looked him up and down, deliberately taking her time about it to make sure he got the message. ‘Yup, definitely cute too.’
He folded his arms and leaned casually against the car, giving her a forbidding look. ‘About earlier…’
‘Yes?’ she asked innocently.
‘That kiss…’ Luke sounded as though the words had been dragged out of him.
Fliss tilted her head to one side, as if she were thinking hard. ‘Oh, yes, that. I remember.’
Luke cleared his throat. ‘We’re not doing that again.’
She nodded. ‘No, of course not. I mean, I didn’t enjoy it either. Awful. Sorry.’ Teasing him was the most fun she’d had in a long time.
He gritted his teeth. ‘You know perfectly well that’s not what I meant.’
She laughed. ‘I don’t know anything of the kind. Unless you’d like to show me how much you did enjoy it?’
His mouth twitched but he kept his gaze stern. ‘You are incorrigible, Felicity Merrick.’
‘I know.’ Fliss sighed dramatically. ‘That’s what everybody tells me.’
‘Perhaps you should try doing something about it, then.’ Luke shrugged off his jacket and slung it in the back of the car. He slipped his cufflinks out of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves.
‘Well, goodbye.’ Polite to the last, he nodded at Fliss in farewell. She grinned and waved.
Then, seeing her opportunity, Fliss swiftly kicked off her shoes and nipped around to the passenger seat.
Luke stared at her as she slid in beside him. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
Fliss waved her broken Manolo at him. ‘I didn’t think I’d be welcome in the office minibus after what happened earlier. And I can’t walk to the station on these.’
‘So?’
‘So I was hoping you could give me a lift.’
Luke’s knuckles visibly tightened around the steering wheel. Fliss held her breath.
After a long pause, he reached down to turn the ignition. ‘Put your seatbelt on,’ he ordered.
The traffic leaving the car park was moving at the pace of an elderly snail on crutches. Luke did his best to force a quicker way through but it was clear that he was going to be stuck with Felicity Merrick for a while.
He glanced at her, sitting with those ridiculous shoes on her lap and a deceptively demure expression on her face. Her hair was just as striking as he remembered it – the same colour as shiny conkers in the autumn. The same colour as his first pony, a bright chestnut that was almost more red than brown. On Fliss, it framed a porcelain-pale face, adorably dusted with delicate freckles on her cheeks and nose. And then her eyes met his, and he was transfixed once again by their green-gold warmth.
Luke had spent half his afternoon distracted by Felicity Merrick. Even after he’d left her standing by the track while he’d gone to receive his prize, he hadn’t been able to get the image of her out of his head. The taste of her lingered on his lips long after their kiss had ended. His body couldn’t seem to move on from the way her soft body had curved against his and the way she’d clung to him as if it really mattered.
It had taken all Luke’s self-control not to drag her into his arms for a repeat performance when Fliss had shown up in the car park. But sense had overruled, thankfully.
Luke knew perfectly well that he didn’t need any distractions at the moment. There were less than six weeks unti
l the Derby and there was no time left over for a woman. Especially not a woman who crept under his skin and sent his head spinning as effortlessly as Fliss Merrick had. Nothing and no one was going to take his eye off the ball until Chrysanthemum had raced past the winning post in this year’s Derby.
A horn beeped behind them, jolting him out of his thoughts. Luke lifted a hand in apology and dragged his eyes back to the ten yards of clear space ahead of them. He let out the clutch and eased the car forward.
‘You’re sure you wouldn’t like to walk?’ he suggested to Fliss, with no real hope she’d agree. ‘You’d get out faster and I’m sure you’d have no trouble hitching a lift with someone further down the road.’
‘Trying to get rid of me?’ Fliss teased.
‘I’ve been trying to do that all day. Is it working yet?’ He couldn’t help smiling back at her despite his irritation. There was something infectious about her irrepressible high spirits.
She laughed. ‘Nope. Congratulations, by the way. Your horse won the race.’
‘Thanks.’ Mr and Mrs Zhao had been ecstatic with their win, instantly seizing on the horse’s prospects of even greater glory next time out. Chrysanthemum had exceeded everyone’s expectations and Luke was struggling to get them to rein in their ambitions. The Derby was the most prestigious race in the whole year. It was a huge step up in class and there was a long way to go before June.
‘Are you going to run him in the Derby?’
Luke turned to Fliss, lifting an eyebrow in surprise. ‘You follow racing?’
‘No, I overheard people talking. So, are you?’
‘He’s entered. The owners are very keen. He won’t win.’ There was no way Luke was going to tempt fate by saying anything else.
‘Why not? He won today.’
‘He won’t stay the distance. Today’s race was half a mile shorter,’ he explained briefly.
‘Oh. Can’t you teach him to run further?’
Luke tightened his lips. ‘Funnily enough, that’s what we’ve been doing. But it’s not actually that easy. Imagine training Linford Christie to run the marathon.’
‘Mmmm.’
Luke stared at her. ‘What now?’
‘Nothing. Just Linford Christie in his lycra running shorts.’ She winked at him.
He shook his head in mock despair and turned away, ostentatiously tapping his finger impatiently against the steering wheel. Felicity Merrick was not his type. Irresponsible, irreverent, outrageously flirtatious, she was the very definition of high-maintenance. He’d known that from the moment she had burst into his life with her ridiculous shoes and her breezy assumption that other people would always step in to haul her out of trouble.
A 4x4 in front of him veered to the left and Luke seized the chance to nip past him, gaining at least twenty yards in the press of vehicles heading for the only gate with access to the road. The small victory made him feel more kindly towards his passenger. The chaos in the car park wasn’t her fault, after all.
He could afford to enjoy her company for the next ten minutes. She was, he admitted, a lot of fun to be with. As well as gorgeous, of course. Bound in by her seat belt, surely he was safe from any sudden impulse she might have to throw herself at him again.
Then he could drop her off at the station and never have to see her again.
‘Congratulations, by the way.’ Luke turned his head slightly and gave Fliss a sidelong grin.
‘What for?’ Eyes twinkling, Fliss waited for the punch line.
‘Getting rid of the worst boss ever.’
‘Oh, that. Not actually the worst ever.’
Luke raised an eyebrow. ‘Not the worst?’ The guy had been nine parts drunk and she was obviously afraid of him.
‘Oh no,’ Fliss told him gleefully. ‘The worst was the one who used to follow me into the ladies’ loos to give me dictation. I could never work out what he thought I was taking notes with. And then there was the guy who used my email address to sign up for all his porn sites, leaving me to explain it to IT. Oh, and years ago, I had a boss who was really, really awful. He kept threatening to fire me.’
‘What for?’
She wiggled on her seat and looked down at her hands. ‘Well, I suppose I may have provoked him a little bit.’
Luke rolled his eyes. ‘I should think that’s possible, yes.’
‘But still, there was no reason for him to order a farewell cake with that on it.’
He shot her a questioning glance.
‘Well, he claimed it was supposed to say, “Good luck, Fliss.”’
‘Ah.’ Luke didn’t laugh, but his mouth twitched. ‘Unfortunate.’
‘I had to smile and pretend it was hilarious, while all the men in the office were leering and making dirty jokes about me and Mr Matthews. Ugh.’ She shuddered dramatically at the memory.
‘At least it was your last day,’ Luke pointed out.
‘The temp agency sent me there again a few months later. No one had forgotten. I walked out after half an hour.’
‘Sorry. So what next?’
‘Hmm?’ Fliss shifted in her seat so that she was facing Luke. He kept his eyes firmly on the road, now that the traffic was moving a little faster.
‘You’re out of a job again after this afternoon. What’s next?’
‘I’ll call the agency on Monday morning. They’ll find something soon enough. I’m not fussy.’
‘Clearly.’
‘I can’t afford to be fussy,’ she told him. ‘I have to pay the rent and bills and they keep coming every month, whatever I do.’
‘You could get a proper job. Settle down instead of flitting from one appalling office to the next.’ She was obviously bright and good with people. There was no reason Luke could see why she shouldn’t be in a decent job.
Fliss sighed. ‘You make it sound so easy.’
Luke shrugged. ‘Works for most people.’
‘For you?’
‘It’s different for me. I’ll be training horses for the rest of my life. Can’t get more settled than that.’ And if it wasn’t exactly the fulfilment of his boyhood dreams, it was near enough.
‘Gosh. What does your wife think about that?’ Fliss had twisted round in her seat to look at him directly, with wide, faux-naïve eyes.
Subtlety was nowhere in this woman’s repertoire. Luke slid his eyes round to meet hers. ‘My wife?’
She smiled encouragingly at him. ‘Or your girlfriend?’
He shook his head. ‘No wife. No girlfriend.’
‘Boyfriend?’
Luke’s jaw dropped in disbelief. Hadn’t she been paying attention at all when he’d kissed her earlier?
‘You might want to keep your eyes on the road,’ Fliss murmured, wondering if she was about to push her luck too far.
Luke swore and wrenched the steering wheel sharply to the right, so that the car avoided the overhanging tree on the bend in the lane by mere inches. Fliss let him grind his teeth for a bit and mutter under his breath.
When she decided he’d had long enough to recover, she continued. ‘Me either. No wife, no girlfriend, no boyfriend. Isn’t that a coincidence?’
‘Husband?’ he asked swiftly, and then shut his mouth tight as if he wished he hadn’t said it.
‘None of those, either.’
‘Good,’ he told her savagely. ‘I’d hate to think of some poor guy having to deal with you every day for the rest of his life.’
‘Oh.’ Just because Fliss’s dreams didn’t include settling down into married life didn’t mean she wanted to be rejected quite so bluntly.
Luke’s reached a hand across to take hold of Fliss’s. He squeezed it gently. ‘I’m sorry. That was unpardonably rude of me.’
She pulled her hand away from his. ‘How much further is it to the station?’ They’d left the town behind some minutes ago and were now driving along a leafy country lane.
Luke looked at her in surprise. ‘Oh, damn. Sorry, I must have got distracted. We’re almost at my house.
You’d better come in and I’ll call you a taxi.’
He turned off the road onto a long gravelled drive that curved around bringing them to a halt in front of a large Georgian farm house. Huge pink and blue hydrangeas tumbled over the short flagstone path to the front door.
‘Give me your shoes.’ Luke held out his hand.
‘They won’t fit you,’ she warned, holding onto her precious Manolos.
‘I have superglue.’
Fliss looked at the shoes consideringly. ‘No, still won’t fit.’
‘To mend them.’ He reached over and picked them out of her lap. ‘Are you coming?’
She jumped out of the car without thinking. Her bare feet hit the gravel drive and sent her hopping. ‘Ow!’
Luke grinned at her discomfort. ‘Want me to put you over my shoulder again?’
She scowled back at him. ‘I’ll manage.’
‘I’m sure you will.’
‘Wait there.’ Luke disappeared into the depths of the house, still holding onto her shoes.
Fliss looked around her with unrestrained curiosity. Luke’s home bore all the signs of having been loved and lived in for generations. There were huge, high ceilings and walls which must have been painted a deep red years ago but now had faded patches showing where pictures had been rehung. A richly patterned rug had been chewed at the corners and showed threadbare in the middle. The umbrella stand contained an eclectic assortment of croquet mallets, ancient wooden tennis racquets, hand-carved walking sticks and something Fliss thought might be a jockey’s whip. On the side table sat an old-fashioned telephone and a large pile of unopened post that Fliss automatically began to flick through. A lot of boring circulars and bill. No telltale handwritten pink envelopes.
‘Woof!’
Fliss grinned. If Luke had a dog, he couldn’t be quite as stiff-upper-lipped as he liked to pretend.
‘Woof, woof!’ She followed the noise and lifted the latch on a heavy oak door to let an over-excited spaniel out of the kitchen. The bundle of shiny chocolate and cream curls barked and licked and jumped up with excitement, giving the lie to his dark soulful eyes with faint streaks of false tears. He was adorable. Fliss automatically fell to her knees and started to play.
