Melting Ice (Roundwell Farm Trilogy)

by Rosalie Ash

  At this distance, it wasn't possible to see his face properly. Running her fingers through the unfamiliar silkiness of her hair, Victoria allowed small butterflies of alarm and dread to flap, unchecked, in her stomach, and she put her cup back on its saucer with a rather inaccurate clatter.

  Jessica followed her eyes, and suddenly sat forward on her chair, her lovely face transformed into a picture of delighted surprise.

  'Oh, look…isn't that…? I'm sure that's Matt!'

  Without risking a glance at Victoria's frozen face, doubtless because she knew exactly how she would be reacting, Victoria thought numbly, Jessica stood up and waved madly.

  'Jessica!' Victoria managed to exclaim, her voice low and outraged, but the tall man she had seen in the foyer was already heading their way, and she schooled her features into a blank, polite mask as he approached their table.

  Victoria decided later that she now knew why people in severe shock could actually cope with all manner of traumatic experiences with no outward sign of distress. It was rather like switching into emotional overdrive. All you had to do was make the right, polite noises, say the things that were expected, and you could probably confront most crises with a degree of equanimity.

  Faintly surprised at her own controlled poise, she found herself gazing up at Matt Larson's lean, achingly familiar frame, and while speech was temporarily impossible she felt her face arranging itself into a acceptable, if cool, smile of acknowledgement.

  'Come and sit down,' Jessica encouraged, obviously determined to keep the social etiquette buoyant to ease the tension already pervading the meeting. 'Tell us all about New York!'

  Victoria watched calmly as Matt sat down in a chair opposite her, and, summoning her wits, she waved to a waiter and requested more Earl Grey tea.

  'I assume you'd like a cup of tea,' she said, afterwards, with a polite raise of her eyebrows. Matt's eyes revealed nothing of his feelings as he nodded, smiling briefly.

  'Yes. Tea is fine. Hello, Victoria.'

  Startled by the quiet challenge in the last two words, she put her cup back on its saucer with another tell-tale clatter, and kept her eyes level on his face.

  'Hello, Matt.'

  'Have you finished over in the States now?' Jessica said, helping herself to one of the dainty little cakes with a slightly guilty expression.

  'Yes. In fact I've finished with De Lember and Greysteils, mostly.'

  Jessica gave a knowledgeable nod. 'I heard a rumour. So it's really true then? You've resigned from the board?'

  'It's true.'

  'Oh, Matt, I am sorry!'

  'Don't be.' He accepted a cup of tea, and leaned back in his chair, outwardly relaxed. Only the fine lines around his eyes revealed tension, and these softened as he smiled at Jessica. 'I've no regrets. And I'm not actually on the dole. I’m still a major shareholder. I’m just not hands-on any more.'

  'So now you're free to indulge your artistic creativity, or whatever!' Jessica enthused.

  'Or whatever,' agreed Matt, drily.

  He looked as if he’d relaxed into his weekend style of dress, Victoria was thinking, listening to the conversation with a feeling of exclusion, along with a strong suspicion that this conversation was false, that Jessica’s pretence of surprise and her questions about Matt’s current situation were being staged for her benefit.

  Matt looked expensively casual in chinos, polo shirt and a soft black leather jacket. She noted with detached interest that his hair was slightly longer, and fell across his forehead a little more. His skin, if possible, looked even darker, the pale, heavy-lidded eyes just as coldly hypnotic. Except when he turned on that charming, devastating smile, as he was doing now for Jessica's benefit.

  The butterflies had subsided, leaving a tight, cold knot inside her, a frozen centre deep within her. Gradually the anger, the panic, the urge to hurl the elegant china teapot and cups and saucers to the floor and stalk out of the hotel faded away, and instead she poured herself a fresh cup with a commendably steady hand, and listened to Jessica and Matt talking together with numb detachment.

  Jessica was explaining to Matt how she had come up for a thorough private check-up with her Harley Street gynaecologist, following the recent birth of her second baby, and was combining it with a most enjoyable shopping-trip. Smiling blandly at Victoria, she nodded at her elegant outfit.

  'We've been buying new clothes at the same time,' she laughed, ignoring the mute anger in her younger sister's eyes. 'You heard how we took over the farm when Father died? I honestly don't think I've seen Vic in a skirt since!'

  Matt turned to look at her. 'I'm sorry about your father, Victoria.'

  'Thank you.’ She felt like saying ‘you hardly knew him’, but recognised this would be ungracious. Jessica cleared her throat, making a great show of checking the time on her watch.

  'Oh, lord, I've got precisely five minutes to hail a taxi over to Harley Street.' She glanced from Matt to Victoria, apparently impervious to the tension, and smiled pleadingly, 'You two don't mind if I dash off, do you? It's ages since you saw each other, you'll probably have loads to discuss.'

  'Oh, I don't think so,' said Victoria quickly, feeling the blood rushing up to pound in her ears as Matt's heavy-lidded gaze turned thoughtfully in her direction. 'I might as well come with you, Jessica.'

  'There was something I wanted to discuss with you, Victoria,' Matt interrupted smoothly, standing up with Jessica. 'Perhaps if you've had enough tea, we could drive to my house in Knightsbridge. It's not far away. Jessica could meet us there.'

  'No, really, I…' Victoria's strangled protest was smothered in Jessica's enthusiastic approval of the suggestion, and with as much civility as she could muster she let the arrangements be agreed on, watching her sister retreating towards the hotel's doors with the growing conviction that this was all part of an unforgivable conspiracy. Jessica must have planned this 'accidental' meeting all along. And the insistence on the elegant clothes and hairstyle were presumably Jessica's rather unsubtle way of ensuring that her younger sister was presented in the best possible light for the occasion. Jessica had left for her Harley Street appointment clutching all the designer shopping bags, possibly because she feared Victoria might hurl them under a passing bus in her fury.

  She was so angry, she could feel her hands starting to tremble. She clenched them round the shoulder strap of her outrageously expensive new leather bag as she followed Matt out to a sleek grey top of the range Mercedes in the car park. She wondered what had happened to the black Aston. Presumably sold to make way for another flamboyant sign of material success, she decided with a stab of cynicism. But the Mercedes was very beautiful. She leaned back on the fragrant leather seat, and allowed just a brief whiff of the seductive world of power and wealth to surround her before cold reality forced her down to earth with a jolt.

  She had to keep reminding herself that she was hardly a penniless waif herself. She and her sisters might be up to their eyes in overdrafts and loan repayments at the moment, but the Urquhart trust money meant they would probably never go hungry. She was the privileged one, Matt had what he had through his own relentless ambition.

  The silence in the car as they drove through the London traffic was so reminiscent of that first afternoon when Matt had driven her the short distance from the farm to Jessica's cottage in the village that she suppressed a small shudder of emotion. She was trembling inside. What a lot of water had passed under the proverbial bridge since that fantasy-filled afternoon. And how differently she felt about this man at her side, with that long, two year silence between them.

  Chapter Ten

  Matt flicked an enigmatic glance at her, and reaching forward he switched on some music.

  'Bach, harpsichord music, do you like that? I seem to recall you had an aversion to silences,' he said.

  'I also have an aversion to conspiracies!' she said, ignoring his facetious question about the music. She did indeed quite like Bach's harpsichord music, but in the present situati
on she felt that was irrelevant.

  'Conspiracies?' Matt's lidded gaze was thoughtful as he negotiated the busy Knightsbridge roads.

  'Yes, conspiracies! Or are you really expecting me to believe this meeting was accidental?'

  Matt raised an eyebrow.

  'Jessica didn't tell you? I wonder why not.'

  Victoria finally managed to steady her breathing and turn to stare at him levelly.

  'You thought I was expecting to meet you this afternoon?'

  He shrugged, swinging the Mercedes down a series of side roads, then into a peaceful square, with trees still clinging to the last of their autumn leaves, halting in front of a tall, white-stucco Regency house with black wrought-iron balconies. Two large half-barrels, each containing a glossy bay tree, stood either side of the dark blue front door. In one of them, an enormous grey cat was busily digging in the soil, scattering half its contents onto the pavement. The cat jumped clear as they climbed out of the car and sat with his back to them, tail swishing disdainfully, on the sunny doorstep.

  'That's Sansom,' Matt explained, on a grim note tinged with amusement. 'He hasn't forgiven me for abandoning him for so long, he's having nothing to do with me, and vandalising my planters for vengeance!'

  Victoria suppressed a smile. Maybe she and Sansom had a lot in common, she thought fleetingly, eyeing the sleepy square with its highly desirable properties with some surprise. Was this Matt's house? She somehow hadn't imagined him living anywhere quite so established, traditional. A coldly functional modern flat had seemed a far more accurate mental dwelling place.

  'It's handy for the museums on wet afternoons,' Matt said with a sardonic twist of a smile, as if reading her mind. 'Shall we go in?'

  She followed him past a small brass plate inscribed 'Campion House, Mathias J Larson'. She wanted to ask what the ‘J’ stood for, but pride kept her silent. The room Matt ushered her into was square, high-ceilinged, ornately corniced, and with a tall, classical Minster fireplace. She assimilated the muted creams, greys and greens, the combination of antique furniture and latest high-tech equipment. There was a worn-looking leather chesterfield at right angles to the fireplace, and a number of other padded leather wing chairs arranged in a semi-circle, around a low, glossy antique coffee-table. There were tall polished bureaus, free-standing glass-fronted bookcases full of books. The heavy floor-length curtains were a subdued stripe of olive and stone. One huge oil-painting hung between the two long sash windows. It looked like an original Cezanne, a cold, hard impressionist landscape.

  Realising Matt was watching her, she turned to him, the surprise in her eyes obviously readable, because he raised sardonic eyebrows.

  'Don't look so amazed. What did you expect, a slum?'

  She blinked, feeling her cheeks redden slightly.

  'No, of course not.' How could she tell him she had had in mind something much more impersonal, futuristic, the kind of setting where someone who acted like a robot could live in harmony with his surroundings!

  Matt’s mobile phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out, checked the screen, then gestured towards the chesterfield.

  'Sit down, Victoria. I'll only be a moment.'

  He went out and presumably into another room, because although she could hear his deep, clipped tones, his voice was muffled, not clear enough to make out what he was saying.

  The relief at being alone, even only temporarily, was enormous. She found she had almost been holding her breath, and expelled it in a long sigh. But the underlying turmoil wouldn't go away. How could Jessica have tricked her into meeting Matt like this, knowing how she felt?

  She didn't sit down, she was much too tense. She peered through the crack of the open door. Most of the doors off the hall were closed, but she could just see into a kitchen which looked like some coldly functional hotel kitchen, tiled in shiny white, with stainless steel everywhere. She could just glimpse an enormous supermarket-style refrigerator with clear glass doors, with salads and fruit visible inside, with the miniature palm-tree top of a fresh pineapple.

  On edge, she turned to inspect the sitting room more closely. Unable to resist it, she went to browse along the book titles in the cabinets. They were an obscure mixture. A large section was allocated to maps and guides. She pulled a few out, curiously. Bartholomew's Guide to Bird Watching in the Lake District, Rock Climbing in Scotland. Ordnance Survey maps of Northumberland, Dartmoor and Bodmin moor. She put them back quickly, and moved along. Lots of books about skiing, lots of biographies, weighty tomes on the history of art, surprisingly little fiction. A few psychological thrillers. A set of John le Carre.

  There was a small sound behind her, and she turned guiltily, but it was only Sansom pushing the door open wider, entering the room inquisitively and warily approaching her. She smiled, bending down to stroke him. He was lovely, big and solid, with sleepy yellow eyes and an air of rakish independence. He seemed to approve of her, because after a moment or two he lay flat on the floor, and submitted to some under-chin stroking, setting up a fierce-sounding purr. His smoke-coloured fur was velvety soft and dense.

  'You're a beautiful cat, you really are,' she was murmuring softly, then looked up to find Matt standing just inside the doorway, watching her. He’d taken off his jacket. The chinos and black polo shirt managed to look expensively tailored and casually laid back at the same time.

  She straightened up quickly as he came over to her, dragging her eyes away from the hard lines of his body, and the memories that came with it.

  'Sorry to be so long. Come and sit down, Victoria. Those shoes don't look comfortable, even if they do look very sophisticated.' He smiled suddenly, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. She managed to keep a cool smile on her face and walked over to sit down on one of the padded leather chairs. To make his taunt even more irritating, the shoes, even though they’d claimed ultra-comfort technology, were pinching her toe joints agonisingly; she longed to kick them off, and only pride, plus a reluctance to relax, prevented her from doing so.

  'You said there was something you wanted to discuss with me,' she said, keeping her voice light. 'Or did you go to such lengths to arrange this meeting just to amuse yourself at my expense again?'

  Matt frowned slightly. 'Again? I don't recall ever amusing myself at your expense.'

  'Really? Well, it has been a long time, hasn't it. I could hardly expect you to remember such trivial matters after all this time.'

  He sat down on the chesterfield, leaning back with one arm along the sofa back, his heavy-lidded gaze expressionless.

  Victoria felt a pulse racing away in her throat, and wished she could bite off her tongue. She had absolutely no desire to recap for Matt's benefit that last, humiliating episode between them, his mocking taunts about her virginity, about her ingenuous confusion over the possible difference between 'making love' and 'having sex'.

  She looked away, and sought to change the subject, waving her hand to encompass the room. 'This is a nice room,' she said, politely. 'Though I'm surprised you haven't collected more ornaments, objets d'art. In your profession you must see the pick of the selection.'

  'Normally there are more ornaments,' Matt explained, sounding as if he was humouring her, 'But this house has been let to some acquaintances while I've been away. Anything of value is still in a trunk down in the cellars.'

  'Oh. When did you get back from New York?'

  'Two weeks ago.'

  'Did you have a good time over there?'

  'That depends what you mean by a good time,' Matt said, sounding as if he was searching for an honest answer. 'Initially, America is very seductive, very fast and exciting, but my reason for being there was not pleasant. I was investigating fraud, in our New York branch.'

  'So why did you resign?' she couldn't help asking, even though she was determined not to show any real interest.

  Matt stood up abruptly, and walked over to stare out of the window.

  'Complicated reasons,' he said, after a long pause. 'There just
comes a time, when you realise enough is enough.'

  Victoria waited, but he didn't expand any further.

  'So,' she said, forcing herself to sound cool and disinterested, deciding that sometimes the best form of defence was attack, 'You got back from the States two weeks ago. And you plotted with my sister to accidentally meet me in London this afternoon. Why?'

  He looked suddenly coldly angry. 'Why do you think I wanted to meet you, Victoria?’

  There was a silence. But now she could feel the tension mounting, she could see it in his face.

  She was sure now. There was a prickling sensation in her scalp, spreading down the length of her spine. She felt trapped, threatened, poised for flight. Before, his attitude had seemed so mocking, but so neutral, she had been almost convinced Jessica hadn't given her away.