Swept Off Her Stilettos

by Fiona Harper

  I ran after him. ‘Adam? Adam!’

  He stopped as I almost caught up with him and stood with his back to me, just breathing. No discreet floodlights here. Just Adam and me in the dark. I could only just see his outline against the blackness of the country night.

  Slowly, he turned and faced me. ‘What?’ he asked, his voice low and weary.

  My heart was thumping hard as I stepped towards him. I didn’t have a plan, and I always had a plan when it came to men. It’s impossible to train or manipulate or manage them without one. I was going on instinct again—something I wasn’t entirely comfortable with when it came to the opposite sex—but my instincts seemed to be primed and ready, as I didn’t even have to think before I lifted my hand to his face, mirroring his earlier gesture.

  This was all new and I needed to explore him, to discover him.

  I couldn’t see his face, but I think he closed his eyes, and he made a noise as if he might be in pain. A few moments later his hand shot up and stilled my roving fingers.

  ‘Coreen? Please … don’t.’

  I shushed him and turned his face fully towards mine, using my hand against his cheek as leverage. Then I pinned him up against the rough brick wall and kissed him back. There was no one else to impress. There never had been.

  I lay in the dark in my peach silk pyjamas trimmed with lace. Yes, they weren’t very Constance, but I’d reasoned if I couldn’t be my glamorous self during the day I might as well make up for it in the privacy of my room at night.

  I was alone, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be. Now, that was a scary thought.

  Adam and me? Taking our relationship to that level? The thought made me shiver—in a good way and in a bad way.

  He was my best friend. My Best Bud. Could that translate into something else? And what if it couldn’t? Would we lose everything we’d built up over the years? If Adam’s reaction when he thought I’d kissed him for Nicholas’s benefit was anything to go by, I’d guess we just might. I wasn’t sure I was prepared to take that risk.

  But after this evening I also wasn’t sure I could bear not to.

  If I’d known Adam could kiss like that I might have done something about it years ago.

  I rolled over and punched my pillow—more because my thoughts weren’t letting me keep still rather than because the bed was uncomfortable. Far from it.

  But you did know….

  A memory hit me hard. Sharon Everidge’s eighteenth birthday party. Her parents had hired a hall. I’d set my sights on Tom Morrison, the coolest boy in school, but he’d pretended not to notice me. I’d made him pay for that later, of course. But at the time I’d grabbed the one prop I had to hand—Adam. I’d kissed him. Kissed him the way I’d been wanting to kiss Tom, hoping it would show the other boy just what he was missing out on. But before long I’d forgotten all about Tom, and Sharon, and every other hormone-laced teenager at the party, because I’d been too busy kissing Adam.

  It had worked. Tom had sidled up and asked me to dance with him not long after Adam had stormed out. I blushed with shame as I remembered that I’d gone, telling myself Adam would understand, that he was my friend and would want me to be happy. And, after all … it was only a kiss.

  I’d been such a coward.

  I had known.

  I had known that Adam could make my ears tingle just by looking at me, that our friendship had the potential to blossom into much, much more. But I’d ignored that fact. Put my little polka-dot blinkers on and pretended nothing had changed, that nothing ever would or could change. And I’d been so convincing I’d even believed it myself. How stupid could a girl get?

  That moment when I’d sashayed away with spotty old Tom Morrison had been a defining point in my relationship with Adam. I could see that now. Whatever might have been … or should have been … I’d put the brakes on it—too cowardly to admit what had been right under my nose all along.

  In some subconscious area of my brain I’d thought walking that path would be far too dangerous, so I’d clouded all of those warm feelings with friendship, insulated them, kept them safely at bay, and then I’d walked away from that idea. Heaven help me, I’d walked away.

  And Adam had let me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Body and Soul

  Coreen’s Confessions

  No.9—Nan says there’s none so blind as them that don’t want to see. Why she keeps harping on about it to me, I’ll never know.

  QUESTIONS were still churning in my mind when I woke, bleary-eyed and grumpy, the next morning. I reached over and bashed my travel alarm clock so hard it bounced off the bedside table and landed on the floor. The battery popped out of the back and rolled under the bed.

  Back then, had Adam realised what a mistake it would be for us to get involved with each other? Had he walked away from the idea too? And if that had been his decision then would he make the same one again today? Was history about to repeat itself, with the shoe on the other foot? His foot instead of mine?

  The breakfast gong sounded and I realised I didn’t have time to stress about that now. I needed to get dressed, to make myself presentable. I launched myself out of bed and dived for the shapeless beige floral dress and baggy cardigan that were Constance’s ‘back-up’ attire. I didn’t even mourn the lack of four-inch heels, or—heaven help me—any kind of dart or tuck in the dress’s bodice. I just forgot. And I didn’t even remember to put on lipgloss before I headed downstairs to see what the fresh summer morning—and fate—had brought me.

  I’ve never been good with delayed gratification, so breakfast almost killed me. I’d shot myself in the foot by delivering that lecture the evening before on embracing the fun of the weekend and staying in character. Adam was supposed to be my brother, and the minute I laid eyes on him I had decidedly unsisterly feelings for him.

  From the look in his eyes I could see he was struggling too, but, Adam being Adam, he managed to talk and smile and eat his way through it. Me? I just pouted and crossed my arms. When Marcus leaned over and told me my attitude that morning was somewhat unchristian, I was tempted to ram a sausage up his nose.

  Bizarrely enough, my glowing mood only seemed to make Adam smile harder—the mongrel. I swear he was actually enjoying my discomfort.

  The next hour or so was torture. Izzi decreed we were to scout Inglewood Manor for any remaining clues, as a few still hadn’t been uncovered. In the process, we managed to rule poor Ruby and the gold-digging fiancée out as suspects, but had added an over-protective mother who might have killed her philandering husband before he changed his will, leaving her two boys with nothing, and a college graduate who was in love with his best friend’s fiancée and might just have stabbed the wrong back when the lights went out.

  I hardly got to see Adam at all, with Izzi marching around giving us all orders and sending us to different parts of the house. Whenever I was within thirty feet of him he drew my gaze like a magnet, and without fail he was already looking at me by the time I locked on to him. When we did get the chance to converse we had to do so as Constance and Harry, which meant keeping on topic, but hands off each other—which was all very trying.

  ‘Come on!’ shouted Izzi, rather like a general marshalling her troops. ‘The will we found was a fake and the real one is hidden in the house somewhere. I suggest we look in the conservatory.’

  Jos, who was standing beside me, sighed. ‘Yes, because that’s the obvious place to keep important paperwork,’ she muttered, and trailed off after a striding Izzi.

  I straightened my shoulders and followed her. After all, the quicker we solved this case, the quicker I’d have a chance to talk to Adam, or even have a few seconds to think about whether talking it over with Adam was a good idea.

  The whole group trailed along behind its hostess as she led us through the entrance hall, through the library, and down a passageway past the kitchen that led to the football-field-sized conservatory. I would have followed her all the way, but a strong hand closed around my wrist
, tugged me backwards, and suddenly everything went dark.

  No, I hadn’t fainted. Really, do I come across as the fainting kind?

  There were a series of little storerooms along the passageway and I was inside one of them, a narrow shelf digging into my behind and my foot held captive by what I thought might be a string bag. No lights. Hardly any space. Pressed up against someone who was warm and breathing.

  ‘Adam?’ I whispered. ‘Is that you?’

  Dear Lord, I hoped it was Adam.

  Mercifully, the pair of lips that found their way to my neck and worked their way upwards to my chin were heart-stoppingly familiar. I grabbed hold of his lapels, threw myself at him, and unleashed the whole force of the fantasies that had been running round my head since we’d parted the night before.

  It was quite some time before I recovered enough to think as well as kiss. The first wave of desire retreated, readying itself for a second surge, and I took advantage of the moment of lucidity to pull apart from him, breathing unevenly, and rest my forehead on his shoulder.

  I kept on whispering, even though the rest of our party was long gone. ‘What are we doing, Adam?’ I needed to know. Were we risking our friendship just to mess around and have a fling?

  He laughed softly into my ear and I went hot and cold all over.

  ‘I was under the impression you knew exactly what you were doing, but if you want me to walk you through it step by step …’ He pressed his lips to the hollow between my collarbones and I gasped. ‘I believe it started … like. this …’ he muttered in between kisses, and I had to delve my hands into his hair, grab on and pull his head back to stop him. By the vibrations of his ribcage I could tell he was laughing silently, playing with me. I didn’t know if I loved it or hated it.

  ‘No, I mean …’

  Another thing I discovered about Adam: he liked to play dirty. Obviously I hadn’t been holding his head firmly enough, because he escaped and nipped gently at my left earlobe.

  Oh, what the heck?

  I let my head fall back, leaving him room to do what he wanted, and indulged myself at the same time, skimming my hands across his back and shoulders, exploring the delicious dips where one muscle met the next with my fingertips. Adam’s mouth found mine and I forgot to think about where my hands were or what my fingertips were up to.

  ‘Constance? Harry?’

  We both froze. That was Izzi’s voice, and those were Izzi’s hard-soled black boots on the flagstone passage. She walked right past us, calling our characters’ names again, and then on towards the entrance hall.

  I giggled against Adam’s lips and felt him smile back. We’d been in this cupboard or pantry or whatever it was long enough now for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. A silver rectangle of light round the edges of the door gave just enough illumination for me to make out his features.

  He pulled me to him, bunching my dress up near my hips as he made fists, and kissed me again. Slowly this time, with the earlier frantic pace giving way to something more languorous and sensual. I don’t think I’ve ever been kissed with so much … feeling … It rocked me from the bottom of my stockinged feet to the tips of my unadorned eyelashes. I couldn’t even speak when Adam had finished with me. One last, feather-soft teasing touch of his lips and then he rested his forehead against mine. I could feel his chest heaving beneath my fingers, hear him dragging in the still, dark air.

  ‘You want to know what this is?’ he said quietly. ‘Where this is going?’

  I nodded, keeping our foreheads in contact with each other.

  ‘You were right,’ he said, in his rumpled Sunday morning voice. ‘I have a secret. One I’ve run from for years. And I’ve never told anyone. I’ve even hidden it from myself at times. But now it’s time to open Pandora’s Box and see what comes flying out.’

  Oh, my. Adam wasn’t secretly married, was he? Or suffering from a serious illness? I couldn’t stand it if—

  ‘Wh—what secret?’ I stammered.

  He kissed me again. I lost my balance and kicked a bag of what might have been potatoes.

  ‘You.’

  I wrinkled my brow. ‘Huh?’

  He stopped smiling then. I could feel it in the way his shoulders tensed, in the way his lips felt against my cheek as he whispered, ‘You’re my secret, Coreen.’

  My mouth opened but no words came out. To my utter horror, Adam’s confession had filled me with more cold dread than if he’d said we were just fooling around, and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t know what to say, how to respond, but luckily I didn’t have to.

  All of a sudden light pounded behind my eyes. I blinked and sheltered them with my hand. When I managed to make sense of what my forgotten retinas were telling me I saw Robert standing in the doorway, a jar of chutney in his hand, his mobile eyebrows hitched as high as I’d ever seen them at finding Adam and me wound around each other in what was clearly the pantry.

  ‘Excuse me, miss,’ Robert said in a level tone, and reached behind me to return the chutney to its home. He stepped back, but stopped with one hand on the door. ‘I would close the door and tell myself I’d gone momentarily blind, miss, but I think I’d better warn you that Miss Isabella has been looking for you, and the likelihood of you remaining undiscovered is slim.’

  I nodded and tried to straighten my wrinkled dress, still within the confines of Adam’s arms.

  ‘Thank you, Robert,’ I said, in the most dignified voice I could muster.

  ‘No problem, miss,’ he said. ‘I’ll just push the door and give you a chance to … um … refresh your appearance.’ He swung the door half closed, leaving a few inches of light for us, but I swear as he walked away I saw a naughty little smile on his face.

  Another voice—a new one—echoed down the corridor. ‘Talking to the jams and pickles again, Robert? I’ve told you before about the dangers of nipping at the cooking sherry.’ The snorting laughter that followed identified its owner as Marcus.

  Adam lifted his finger to his lips. I nodded and tried to silently smooth my hair back into a bun that was now only half there.

  Sunshine filled the pantry once more. This time, however, Adam and I were ready. We were standing as far apart as we could in the confined space. My hands were clasped firmly in front of me, and Adam’s were in his pockets. Didn’t do us much good, though. I reckon Marcus rumbled us from the guilty expressions on our faces. Something had to have given us away.

  If being caught alone together in a darkened panty wasn’t enough, of course.

  ‘Well, well, well …’ Marcus said, taking every last detail in. I tried not to squirm, but to hold my head high and mimic that supercilious thing Robert did with his eyebrows. ‘I thought you two were supposed to be brother and sister? How delightfully naughty.’

  Adam grabbed my hand and pushed past Marcus into the passage. ‘No,’ he replied, giving the other man a stern look. ‘Not brother and sister. Not in a million years.’

  And then we escaped down the passageway into the unyielding brightness of the football pitch-slash-conservatory, where it seemed the sunny Sunday morning had been trapped and held to ransom.

  The ancient woods on the fringes of the Chatterton-Joneses’ estate were full of twisting oaks, fresh green glades, dappled sunshine and the kind of quiet that normally got on my nerves. The earth was springy underfoot, carpeted with a layer of old dried leaves and fallen pine cones. Adam and I walked slowly through it, side by side.

  These were the same woods Izzi had marched us through only yesterday, but I’d been so focussed on Nicholas up ahead of me that I hadn’t noticed how beautiful it all was, how perfect the stillness and quiet could be. I was starting to realise this wasn’t the only thing I’d failed to see as I bulldozed my way through life.

  Izzi’s iron-clad timetable said we should all have some time to wander off on our own and meditate on the identity of Lord Southerby’s killer before we met back in the drawing room for the big finale. Adam and I hadn’t done much of that. We hadn’t don
e much talking, full stop.

  Breathless kissing? Hand-wandering? Yep. There’d been plenty of that going on.

  It was so easy to be with him. To be like this with him. And that astounded me. I couldn’t quite get my head around how our relationship seemed to have morphed seamlessly from one thing into another, and I had a horrible feeling it was all a shimmering mirage.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Adam. While everything about him was comfortable and familiar, at the same time everything was new too. I’d never noticed the grace in his easy stride before, had never found myself staring at his sexy little dimples and marvelling at their perfection. That twinkle in his eye I’d always loved? Now I realised it was only for me. When it glittered at me I felt conspicuously giddy.

  Why had I never seen any of this before? Why hadn’t I let myself see any of this before? Each time this question wriggled through my thoughts and snuck its way to the front of the queue I sent it packing to the back of the line again. I didn’t think I’d like any answer I could come up with.

  I must have been frowning, because Adam stopped walking and turned to face me. ‘What’s up?’ he said, his voice soft and low.

  ‘I’m a little. freaked out by all of this.’ I pressed my lips together and shook my head gently. ‘I don’t know. It’s all so …’

  His expression became serious and he reached for my hand and squeezed it. ‘I know you, Coreen Fraser.’ The warmth in his eyes made my nose do that stinging thing again. ‘I know just how much heartache you’ve had in your life—down to the very last ounce.’

  I looked away, unable to look at the truth of what he’d said in his face. He waited while I sucked in air through my nostrils and attempted to quell the stinging. I didn’t cry in front of people. Ever. Not the real kind of gluey, soggy tears that puffed my face up and ruined my eyeliner. I’m not proud to admit it, but I have squeezed a few perfect beads of moisture from the corner of my eye when the occasion demanded it, when it would help me get my own way. But I measured out my tears. I decided how many fell and when. I stayed in control always.