The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella

by Liz Fielding

  Okay, not anything…

  Although, actually, if he smiled…

  ‘Can you get out of those jeans without help?’he asked.

  What?

  ‘Or would you prefer me to cut up the leg?’ He held up a small pair of scissors and snipped graphically at the air with them.

  ‘Your choice,’ he prompted.

  ‘No!’It wasn’t just the fact that they were her favourite jeans that made her capitulate. Annoying as it was to have to admit it, she knew he was right. She’d never last five minutes in the scrum of a Chamber of Commerce reception without some kind of strapping on her knee. She wouldn’t be doing it at all if Sue hadn’t been desperate. It was her Writers’ Circle night, and she was going to miss the first half of the meeting.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ she said, snapping open the button at the waist, pausing for him to turn around, give her a little privacy in which to wriggle them over her bottom.

  He just waited for her to get on with it, and maybe she was being unnecessarily coy. Once they were off, they were off…Her legs would be bare and, since she was wearing a crop top, her knickers were going to be on show.

  She wasn’t sure whether she was relieved that she’d opted for comfortable, sensible white knickers, or sorry that she wasn’t wearing her barely there special occasion scarlet thong that might just have brought a blush to his cheeks and made him regret being quite so bossy.

  She let her jeans crumple in a heap around her feet, but she didn’t dare kick them away and risk doing any more damage.

  Apparently unmoved by the sight of her naked limbs, he eased them over her feet, tossed them over a nearby chair, and then lifted her injured leg, propping her foot against his leg while he prodded her knee, all the time watching her face to see if she flinched. But, given sufficient time to compose herself, she could keep a straight face, too. She needed it when, apparently satisfied that there was no serious damage, he used the icy bandage to bind her knee with deft efficiency.

  It seemed that the shoulders weren’t just for show; he strapped up her leg with the skill of a man who knew all the moves.

  ‘How does it feel?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s numb with cold.’

  ‘An hour from now you’ll be wishing it was still that way. Can you walk on it?’

  She gripped his hand, hauled herself up, took a stiff-legged step. ‘It would seem so. Good job, Doc.’

  The look he gave her suggested that he did not appreciate the ‘Doc’, but he let it go. ‘It’ll help, although you’ll probably find “wafting” rather difficult.’ He picked up her jeans, offered them to her. ‘I’ll bring the car to the door while you struggle back into these.’

  Ellie abandoned the jeans; since she wasn’t cycling, she might as well save time by changing now. She stripped off the little crop top to reveal her favourite white lace push-’em-up bra. Such a pity it was her knee she’d strained; she’d have liked to see how straight a face Dr Faulkner could have kept with her ‘wench’ boobs in his face as he’d strapped her shoulder…

  Grinning idiotically at the thought, she hauled her black waitressing trousers and shirt from her backpack. It was only when she was all buttoned up and ready to go that she turned-very carefully-and saw Benedict Faulkner standing in the doorway. She’d assumed he’d wait in the car for her.

  Just how long had he been standing there?

  ‘You were lying about the stockings and suspenders, then?’ he said, his face straighter than a ruler.

  ‘I charge extra for them,’ she said, walking stiff-leggedly to the door, ‘and the Chamber of Commerce is cheap…’ She stifled a gasp. ‘I was expecting Adele’s Morris Minor,’ she said. It had been tucked up during her absence, in her brother’s garage. Unlike this stunningly beautiful vintage sports car. ‘Where did this come from?’

  ‘I left it with a colleague while I was away.’

  ‘Someone you trust, obviously?’ she said as, unable to bend one leg, she was reduced to flopping backwards into the low seat, then lifting her stiff leg into the car.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘The fact that you took the time to reclaim it suggests you’re going to be around for a while.’

  ‘I stayed with her for a couple of days while I caught up on sleep,’he said. ‘But you’re right. I won’t be going anywhere in the next week or two.’

  Her.

  She had oddly mixed feelings about that. She concentrated on the ‘oh bother’ variety, and spent the regrettably short ride into the city dwelling miserably on the horrors of flat-hunting.

  ‘What time shall I pick you up?’ he asked, as he pulled up in front of the Assembly Rooms.

  ‘What? Oh, there’s no need for that,’ she said, opening the door, then belatedly realising that, while flopping backwards had worked to get into the car, she was going to need rather more help getting out. ‘I’m going on to a meeting next door,’ she said, as he climbed out, walked around the car. ‘At the library. I’m sure someone will give me a lift home.’

  Having offered her a hand, he made no immediate move to help her out. Instead he said, ‘How sure?’

  Actually, very sure, but with his hand wrapped around hers she seemed to have trouble in breathing.

  Taking her hesitation as not-very-sure-at-all, he repeated the question. ‘What time shall I pick you up from the library?’

  ‘We, um, usually go down the pub afterwards,’ she managed.

  ‘Your life is one social whirl, Ellie.’

  ‘What can I say?’

  ‘If you’re ever going to get out of this car, I’d suggest you tell me what time I should pick you up at the library.’

  She was torn between fury at his dictatorial manner and a certain undeniable pleasure at the idea of being collected from the meeting by a dishy man in a seriously good-looking car.

  Besides, he was right. She was entirely at his mercy. If he didn’t help her out of the car she’d be stuck there with him all evening. Or, more accurately, he’d be stuck with her.

  Oh, the temptation…

  Dismissing the idea as unworthy-and because she was already late-she said, ‘Okay, Doc, you win.’

  ‘Ben,’ he said. ‘Just…Ben.’

  ‘Ben. Nine, then. At the library.’

  Satisfied, he eased her from the car and saw her safely up the steps and inside the Assembly Rooms. It was only then that she allowed herself a self-satisfied little grin. First objective achieved. He’d asked her to call him Ben.

  Her next target was a smile. Entirely for his own good, naturally…

  CHAPTER THREE

  ELLIE’S pleasure was short-lived. The reception was noisy, crowded, and went on well beyond eight. By the time she’d helped clear up and got to the library it was nearly nine, and most of the members had already decamped to the pub.

  Diana Sutton, the group’s secretary, who was already locking up, was sympathetic. ‘Bad luck. Never mind, come and have a drink. We’re celebrating. Gary’s sold a short story and Lucy’s sold an article to Women’s World. The one she wrote when we did that magazine exercise.’

  ‘Really? That’s brilliant news!’

  ‘Did you ever do anything for Milady?’

  Ellie, who’d had to force her excitement through an unexpectedly large lump in her throat, found herself floundering. She’d written her journal to prove to everyone that she could do anything she set her mind to, but, having succeeded with it beyond her wildest dreams, it was the one thing she couldn’t brag about.

  What, she wondered, was the point of belonging to a support group, with people who sympathised with your rejections, cheered at your successes, if you weren’t totally engaged? Honest.

  These were her friends…

  ‘No? Well, it was a bit of a joke,’ Diana said, taking her silence as a no and rescuing her from having to admit that she was a failure.

  Sean’s friends.

  He was the one who’d written poetry. This had been his scene. She’d gone alo
ng because that was what they did. Sean-and-Ellie. Ellie-and-Sean. Started writing her historical romance because-well, she’d had to do something. No one, least of all Sean, had ever taken it seriously…

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Diana said, to someone who’d followed her in. ‘The library is closed. Late night is tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve just come to pick up Ellie.’

  Ellie half turned, happier to see Ben Faulkner than she would have believed possible a couple of hours ago. There was no way she could sit in the pub with these people tonight and not feel a complete fraud.

  ‘Good timing, Doc,’ she said. Then, ‘I’ll have to give the pub a miss tonight, Diana. Tell Lucy and Gary that I’m green with envy, will you?’

  ‘I will,’ she said, her look speculative, as if trying to work out how someone with so little to offer in the way of looks, style and career prospects had managed to pull someone so fanciable. Clocking all the details so that she could tell the rest of the group. ‘See you next month, then?’

  ‘Work permitting,’ she said, knowing that she wouldn’t go. Couldn’t go. She hadn’t actually lied, but by not telling the truth she’d cut herself off from them. Cut herself off from her past.

  Too miserable to think, she allowed Ben to help her down the steps, across the pavement. He must have remembered the inelegant way she’d flopped into the seat, and this time he supported her, lowering her in gently-no doubt thinking of his springs or suspension or whatever it was that men worried about when it came to their precious cars.

  She tugged on the seat belt, glancing back as it refused to budge.

  ‘Gently,’ Ben said, sliding behind the wheel and then, when ‘gently’ wouldn’t do it, ‘Leave it to me!’ And he reached across to pull it smoothly over her body, giving Ellie a dizzying close-up of his profile, a whiff of undiluted masculinity, before he fitted it into the clip.

  ‘It’s a bit temperamental,’he said, catching her look, misunderstanding it.

  ‘It’s old; it’s entitled to be cranky,’ she said.

  ‘True. So what’s your excuse?’

  ‘None of your damn business.’ She was tired, irritable, and at that moment she didn’t like herself very much. Which apparently made two of them. ‘I did tell you I’d get a lift.’

  ‘Next time,’ he replied coldly, ‘I’ll listen.’

  ‘Believe me,’ she snapped back, ‘I don’t plan to do this again any time soon.’ And it wasn’t the knee she was referring to.

  ‘No?’ He did not appear to be convinced.

  ‘No.’ Then, ‘Oh, look, I’m sorry. I’ve had the kind of evening I’ll be glad to forget, but that’s no reason to take it out on you.’He didn’t answer. ‘Or your car,’ she added.

  He turned to her, his face creased not with irritation but concern. ‘Is the leg painful? We could go straight to A &E if you think it needs professional treatment?’

  ‘No. It held up better than I deserved for mistreating it so badly. I hardly felt a twinge. You did a good job, Doc. Ben,’ she corrected hurriedly, and, because she’d been at best tetchy, at worst downright rude, ‘I’m grateful for the lift, truly. I’ll be glad to get home.’ Realising that was probably not what he wanted to hear, ‘How about you? Any long-term damage?’

  ‘I’ll live.’ He glanced across at her. ‘Why do you do this, Ellie? Waitress, clean, caretake? You’re obviously an intelligent woman-’

  ‘Despite my deplorable taste in fiction?’

  ‘We all have our weaknesses.’

  Ellie didn’t consider her love of nineteenth-century literature a weakness, but since there was no likelihood of changing Ben Faulkner’s mind she said, ‘True. So what’s yours?’

  He glanced at her. ‘Do you always say the first thing that comes into your head?’

  ‘Usually,’ she admitted.

  ‘And you’ve managed to live how long? Twenty-four, twenty-five years without coming to serious harm?’

  ‘It’s very rude to ask a woman her age.’ Then, ‘Twenty-six years, actually.’

  ‘Twenty-six? Amazing.’

  ‘I know. I’m very well preserved.’ No wonder Mrs Cochrane thought she’d been married before the ink on her A-level certificates was dry. ‘All that beeswax in the furniture polish, no doubt.’

  ‘I meant it’s amazing that you’ve survived unscathed.’

  She lifted one shoulder a fraction. ‘No one reaches my age unscathed,’ she said. The wounds might not show, but they went deep.

  Fortunately, he thought she was talking about her knee, and said, ‘Can’t you find a less painful way of keeping body and soul together?’

  ‘If you think teaching a class of thirteen-year-olds to appreciate the Classics is not painful, you should try it some time.’

  ‘You’re a teacher?’

  ‘Not any more. Now I’m a writer.’ Then, because he didn’t seem unduly impressed-and why should he be?-she added, ‘That was the local Writers’ Circle meeting I missed tonight.’

  ‘And you missed it for the pleasure of carrying heavy trays of drinks because you couldn’t let your friend down?’He glanced across at her. ‘What does she do for you?’

  ‘She employs me. Even writers have to eat.’

  ‘Actually, until you’re earning a living from writing, I’d suggest that you’re a waitress.’

  ‘That’s like saying Vincent van Gogh wasn’t a painter because he didn’t make a living from his work. Not that I’m comparing myself with him,’ she added quickly. Then, because it was clear he was not convinced, ‘Besides, I’m not unpublished. Far from it. I’ve had articles published. Short stories. I’ll have you know…’

  Just in time she caught her runaway mouth.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He glanced across at her. She shrugged. ‘If you must know, I’ve written a novel.’

  Well, she had to say something.

  ‘Would I have read it?’

  ‘It’s being considered by an agent…’ that would be agent number eleven ‘…at this very moment.’

  ‘Then the answer is no. I imagine it’s a romance?’ he said. And she could have sworn she saw him finally crack a smile.

  ‘What’s wrong with romance?’ she demanded. That was definitely not the smile she was looking for. ‘Jane Austen wrote romance.’

  ‘So she did. And your beloved Emily Brontë. Brooding, arrogant men, brought to their knees by strong-minded young women.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘But unlikely.’

  ‘Not that unlikely.’ Ben Faulkner had a pretty good line in disdain himself. ‘I felled you without even trying.’

  ‘I had always assumed, in romantic terms, the felling to be metaphorical,’ he said.

  ‘It is. Pity. The other way is so much quicker.’ Then, hurriedly, ‘Not that it was intentional.’ She was quite happy to see him on his feet if he’d only let her stay on in his house. There was tons of room, after all, and she earned her keep. Besides, he was bound to be going away again soon…

  ‘Can’t you write and teach?’ he asked, clearly no more anxious than her to prolong that line of thought.

  ‘You’ve been talking to my father, haven’t you?’

  ‘Is that what he thinks?’

  ‘Pretty much. Of course he helped finance me through four years of university, and has every right to expect me to put my education to the purpose for which it was intended. Teaching, as he never tires of telling me, is the perfect job for a woman.’

  ‘A career that fits around family ties? That’s a touch patronising.’

  ‘He’d say he was being realistic. The hours, nine to three-thirty, and the long holidays would, according to him, give me plenty of time to write in my spare time.’

  And he thought she lived in a fantasy world.

  ‘Fathers, patronising or not, tend to have the best interests of their offspring at heart.’ He glanced at her. ‘He can’t be very happy with what you’re doing.’

  ‘No.’ More gui
lt that his aspirations for her had been so cruelly dashed. But she couldn’t help it. ‘The thing is, Ben, that while cleaning, waitressing, helping out people who need a spare pair of hands occasionally, may not be an intellectually rewarding career, not something that Dad wants to boast about to his buddies at the golf club, it does have its good points.’

  ‘It does?’

  ‘Absolutely. For instance, apart from the occasional bag of ironing, I never have to take work home with me. I don’t have to spend my weekends marking. There are no lesson plans to prepare, and the paperwork is practically zero.’

  She started early, and even while she polished, ironed and vacuumed her mind was her own, free to take imaginary journeys, live a different life in her head.

  ‘I start at seven, I’m usually finished by two. Then I have a clear run through until bedtime to write,’ she explained.

  ‘Even so…’

  ‘Life is too short, too uncertain to put dreams on hold, Ben.’ She glanced at him. ‘Losing Sean, my husband, taught me that. I don’t want to look back and say “I wish…”. I’m taking the balloon ride.’

  She felt rather than saw his look as he absorbed the information that she was a widow rather than just another girl who’d married in haste and lived to repent it, as so many of her friends had done.

  ‘The balloon ride?’ he repeated, after a moment.

  She couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud. Maybe it was the fall, or the painful realisation of just how cut off she’d become from her family, her friends, that had brought the words bubbling to the surface now.

  ‘We used to watch them, the hot air balloons, drifting along the valley on summer evenings. Sean wanted to book a champagne ride for our first anniversary, but the electricity bill had arrived and I said…’

  She shook her head, not wanting to think about what she’d said.

  ‘I’d spent my entire life doing the sensible thing, choosing the solid degree in English over some airy-fairy notion of taking Art. Waiting to get married until I finished university, had my teaching qualification.’ Putting babies on hold until they could afford them…