by James, E L
Maybe it’s temporary. “Is she coming back?” I ask. The lines in the girl’s forehead deepen, but she says nothing, though her eyes flick to my feet. For some unknown reason, this makes me feel self-conscious. Placing both hands on my hips, I step backward as my bewilderment grows. “How long have you been here?”
She responds in a breathless, barely audible voice. “In England?”
“Look at me, please,” I ask. Why is she so reluctant to look up?
Her slim fingers tighten around the broom again, as if she might brandish it as a weapon, then she swallows and raises her head, regarding me with large, liquid brown eyes. Eyes I could drown in. My mouth dries as my body comes to attention again.
Fuck!
“I have been in England since three weeks.” Her voice is clearer and stronger, with an accent I don’t recognize, and as she speaks, she pushes her small chin toward me in defiance. Her lips are now rosy, her bottom lip plumper than her top, and she licks the upper one again.
Hell!
I’m aroused once more. I take another step away from her. “Three weeks?” I mumble, baffled by my reaction to her.
Why is this happening to me?
What is it about her?
She’s fucking exquisite, the still, small voice roars in my head.
Yes. For a woman dressed in a nylon housecoat, she’s hot.
Concentrate. She hasn’t answered my question. “No. I meant how long have you been here in my flat.”
Where does this girl come from? I rack my brain. Mrs. Blake had organized Krystyna through some contact she had. But Krystyna’s replacement remains silent.
“You speak English?” I ask, willing her to speak. “What’s your name?”
She frowns, looking at me like I’m an idiot. “Yes. I speak English. My name is Alessia Demachi. I have been in your apartment since ten o’clock this morning.”
Wow. She really does speak English.
“Right. Well. How do you do, Alessia Demachi. My name is…”
What should I say? Trevethick? Trevelyan?
“Maxim.”
She gives me a brief nod, and for a moment I think she might curtsy, but she stands still, grasping the broom and stripping me naked with her anxious gaze.
Suddenly I feel like the walls of the hallway are closing in and suffocating me. I want to flee from this stranger and her soul-searching eyes. “Well, good to meet you, Alessia. You’d better get on and clean, then.” As an afterthought, I add, “In fact, you can change the sheets on my bed.” I wave in the general direction of my bedroom. “You know where the linen is kept, don’t you?”
She nods again but still doesn’t move.
“I’m going to the gym,” I mutter, though why I’m explaining myself to her I don’t know.
* * *
As he stalks back down the hallway toward his bedroom, Alessia wilts against the broom and takes a deep, relieved breath. She watches the flex and pull of the muscles on his back—right down to the two dimples that show just above the waistband of his jeans. It’s a distracting sight—very distracting. He’s even more distracting upright than when he was lying down. He disappears into his room and she closes her eyes, her heart sinking.
He didn’t ask her to leave, but he may call Magda’s friend Agatha and ask her to find someone else to clean his place. He seemed so cross that she had disturbed him, and then he became angrier still.
Why?
Alessia frowns and tries to quell her rising panic as she glances into the living room at the piano.
No. That cannot happen. She will beg him to let her stay if she must. She doesn’t want to leave. She can’t leave. The piano is her one source of escape. Her only happiness.
And then there’s the Mister himself. His honed stomach, his bare feet, and his intense eyes sear her imagination. He has the face of an angel, the body of…well…She blushes. She should not think of such things.
He’s so handsome.
No. Stop. Concentrate.
With frantic strokes she continues to sweep the wooden floor of nonexistent dirt. She will have to be the best cleaner he’s ever had, so he won’t want to replace her. With her mind resolved, she goes into the living room to sweep, tidy, and polish.
Ten minutes later she hears the front door slam as she finishes plumping the black cushions on the L-shaped couch.
Good. He has gone.
She goes straight to his bedroom to strip the bed. The room is untidy as usual—clothes and strange cuffs on the floor, curtains half open, and the bedding a tangled mess—but she collects all the clothes and strips the bed quickly. She wonders why there’s a wide silk ribbon tied to the headboard but unwinds it and places it on his nightstand next to the cuffs. As she throws a clean white sheet on the bed, she wonders what these items are for. She has no idea and doesn’t want to hazard a guess. She makes the rest of the bed, then ventures into his bathroom to clean.
* * *
I run like I’ve never run before. I complete my five miles on the treadmill in record time, but I can’t stop playing the conversation with the new daily in my mind.
Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
I bend down and place my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I am running from my fucking daily—cleaner, whatever she calls herself—escaping from her big brown eyes.
No. I’m running from my reaction to her.
Those eyes are going to haunt me for the rest of the day. Standing, I wipe the sweat from my brow, and a vision of her in that headscarf on her knees in front of me comes unwelcome to my mind.
My body clenches.
Again.
And this is just at the thought of her.
Fuck.
Angrily, I rub the sweat off my face with a towel and decide to do some weights. Yes. That should get her out of my mind. I pick up two of the heavier dumbbells and start my routine.
Of course, doing weights gives me space to think. In all honesty, I’m confused by my reaction to her. I can’t remember meeting anyone who’s had that kind of effect on me.
Perhaps it’s stress.
Yes. That’s the most logical explanation. I’m grieving Kit’s loss and dealing with the aftermath.
Kit, you’re a bastard for leaving me with all this responsibility.
It’s overwhelming. Fucking overwhelming.
I push all thoughts of Kit and her out of my mind as I concentrate on my workout and count through my biceps curls.
And I’ve got lunch with my mother in two hours.
Shit.
* * *
Alessia is in the laundry room moving wet clothes into the dryer when she hears the front door slam again.
No! He is back.
Glad that she’s hidden away in the smallest room in the apartment, she sets up the ironing board and starts ironing the few garments that are ready. Surely he will not come in here. When she finishes the fifth shirt, she hears the door slam again, and she knows that she’s on her own once more. It irks her that he’s not shouted a good-bye like he did when he thought she was Krystyna, but she shakes off the feeling and finishes the ironing as quickly as she can.
Once done, she goes to check his bedroom to see if he has left it in a mess. Sure enough, his gym clothes are scattered on the floor. Gingerly, she picks up each item. They are all damp with his sweat, but to her surprise she doesn’t find this as repellent as she did before she met him. She places the items in his laundry basket and checks the bathroom. The fresh, clean scent of his soap hangs in the air. Closing her eyes, she inhales, and suddenly she’s transported back to the tall evergreens that surround her parents’ house in Kukës. She savors the fragrance, ignoring her pang of homesickness. London is her home now.
She wipes down the sink and is finished with half an hour to spare. She runs straight to the living roo
m and sits down in front of the piano. As her fingers caress the keys, the strains of Bach’s Prelude in C-sharp Major fill the apartment, the notes dancing in vibrant colors into the corners of the room and soothing her troubled soul.
* * *
I stride into my mother’s favorite restaurant on Aldwych. I’m early, but I don’t give a fuck. I need a drink, not only to forget my brush with the new daily but I need some liquid fortification to face my mother.
“Maxim!” I turn, and behind me is the one woman in the world I adore. Maryanne, my younger sister by a year, is walking through the foyer. Her eyes, the same shade as mine, light up when I turn to face her, and she throws her arms around my neck, her red hair flying into my face because she’s only a few inches shorter than me.
“Hey, M.A., I’ve missed you,” I say as I hug her.
“Maxie.” Her voice catches in her throat.
Shit. Not here.
I hug her harder, willing her not to cry, and I’m surprised by the raw emotion that burns my throat. She sniffs, and her eyes are red-rimmed when I release her. This is not like her. She usually takes after our mother, who keeps her emotions under ruthless control. “I still can’t believe he’s gone,” she says as she clutches a tissue.
“I know, me neither. Let’s sit and get a drink.” I take her elbow, and we follow the hostess into the large wood-paneled restaurant. The place has a classic old-fashioned feel: brass lamps, dark green leather upholstery, crisp white linen, and sparkling crystal glasses. The atmosphere buzzes with the chatter of businessmen and -women and the clatter of cutlery on fine china. I focus on the sight of the hostess’s shapely backside swathed in a tight pencil skirt and the sound of her stiletto heels clicking on the polished tiled floor as she shows us to our table. I hold out Maryanne’s chair, and we sit down.
“Two Bloody Marys,” I say to the hostess as she hands us each a menu and gives me a coy look, which I don’t return. She might have a fine arse and a cute smile, but I’m not in the mood to play. I’m preoccupied by my encounter with my daily and the memory of anxious dark eyes. I frown, dismissing the thought and turn my full attention to my sister as the hostess leaves with a disappointed pout.
“When did you get back from Cornwall?” I ask.
“Yesterday.”
“How’s the Dowager?”
“Maxim! You know she hates that term.”
I give her an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, how’s the Mothership?”
Maryanne glares at me for a moment, but then her face falls.
Shit.
“Sorry,” I mumble, chastened.
“She’s really shaken up, but it’s hard to tell. You know what she’s like.” Maryanne’s eyes cloud, and she looks troubled. “I think there’s something she’s not telling us.”
I nod. I know only too well. My mother rarely reveals a chink in her polished armor. She hadn’t wept at Kit’s funeral; she’d been the epitome of grace under fire. Brittle but gracious, as always. I hadn’t wept either. I’d been too busy nursing one hell of a hangover.
I swallow and change the subject. “When do you go back to work?”
“Monday,” Maryanne answers with a small, sad twist of her mouth.
Of all the Trevelyan children, it’s Maryanne who has excelled academically. From Wycombe Abbey School, she’d gone up to read medicine at Corpus Christi, Oxford, and is now a junior doctor at the Royal Brompton Hospital, specializing in cardiothoracic medicine. She had followed her vocation, a calling that was born the day our father suffered a massive coronary and died from a heart attack. She was fifteen years old—and she wanted to save him. Our father’s death rocked each of us differently, and Kit most of all, given that he’d had to drop out of college and assume the earldom. Me, I lost my only parental ally.
“How’s Caro?” she asks.
“Grieving. Pissed off that Kit didn’t leave her anything in his will, stupid bastard,” I growl.
“Who’s a stupid bastard?” A clipped mid-Atlantic voice demands. Rowena, Dowager Countess of Trevethick, towers above us, auburn-haired, groomed, and composed in her immaculate navy Chanel suit and pearls.
I stand. “Rowena,” I say, and give her a detached peck on her upturned cheek, then hold out her chair for her to sit.
“Is that any way to greet your grieving mother, Maxim?” Rowena scolds as she sits down and places her Birkin handbag on the floor beside her. She reaches across the table and clasps Maryanne’s hand. “Hello, darling, I didn’t hear you go out.”
“I just needed some fresh air, Mother,” Maryanne replies as she returns our mother’s squeeze.
Rowena, Countess of Trevethick, kept her title in spite of her divorce from our father. She spends most of her time between New York, where she lives and likes to play, and London where she edits Dernier Cri, the glossy women’s magazine.
“I’ll have a glass of the Chablis,” she says to the waiter as he delivers two Bloody Marys to the table. She arches a brow in disapproval as we both take long sips.
She is still impossibly slim and impossibly beautiful, especially through a lens. She was the “It Girl” of her generation and had become the muse of many a photographer, including my father, the Eleventh Earl of Trevethick. He was devoted to her; his title and money had seduced her into marriage, but when she left him, he never recovered. Four years after their divorce, he died of a broken heart.
I study her through hooded eyes. Her face is baby smooth—no doubt as a result of her latest chemical peel. The woman is obsessed with maintaining her youth, and she only deviates from her rigorous diet of vegetable juices or whatever her latest food fad is with the odd glass of wine. There is no doubting that my mother is beautiful, but she’s as duplicitous as she is stunning—and my poor father paid the price.
“I understand you’ve met with Rajah,” she says directly to me.
“Yes.”
“And?” She glares at me in her slightly myopic way, because she’s far too vain to wear glasses.
“It’s all in trust to me.”
“And Caroline?”
“Nothing.”
“I see. Well, we can’t let the poor girl starve.”
“We?” I ask.
Rowena flushes. “You,” she says, her voice frigid. “You can’t let the poor girl starve. On the other hand, she has her trust fund, and when her father shuffles off his mortal coil, she’ll inherit a fortune. Kit chose wisely in that regard.”
“Unless her stepmother disinherits her,” I retort, and take another much-needed sip of Bloody Mary.
My mother purses her lips. “Why don’t you set her to work—maybe the Mayfair development? She has a good eye for interior design, and she’ll need the distraction.”
“I think we should let Caroline decide what she wants to do.” I fail to keep the resentment out of my voice. This is my mother’s usual high-handed manner in dealing with the family that she deserted many years ago.
“Are you happy with her staying at Trevelyan House?” she asks, ignoring my tone.
“Rowena, I’m not about to make her homeless.”
“Maximilian, would you mind addressing me as ‘Mother’!”
“When you start behaving like one, I’ll take it into consideration.”
“Maxim,” Maryanne warns, and her eyes flash a fiery green. Feeling like a rebuked child, I clamp my mouth shut and scrutinize the menu before I say something I’ll regret.
Rowena continues, ignoring my rudeness, “We’ll need to finalize all the details for the memorial service. I was thinking we could do this just before Easter. I’ll get one of my lead writers to do Kit’s eulogy, unless—” She pauses as her voice cracks, causing both me and Maryanne to look up from our menus in surprise. Her eyes grow moist, and for the first time since she buried her eldest child, she looks her age. She clutches a monogrammed handkerchief a
nd brings it to her lips as she composes herself.
Bugger.
I feel like a shit. She’s lost her eldest son…her favorite child.
“Unless?” I prompt.
“You or Maryanne could write it,” she whispers with an uncharacteristic, beseeching look at both of us.
“Sure,” Maryanne says. “I’ll do it.”
“No. I should do it. I’ll expand on the eulogy I did for his funeral. Shall we order lunch?” I ask, wanting to change the subject and feeling uncomfortable at my mother’s unusual display of emotion.
* * *
Rowena picks at her salad while Maryanne chases the last of her omelet around her plate with her knife and fork.
“Caroline said she might be pregnant,” I announce as I take another mouthful of chateaubriand.
Rowena’s head comes up quickly, and she narrows her eyes.
“She did say they were trying,” Maryanne adds.
“Well, if she is, it might be the only chance I get to have a grandchild and for this family to secure the earldom for another generation.” Rowena casts an accusing look at both of us.
“That would make you a grandmother,” I say dryly, disregarding the rest of her comment. “How will that go down with your latest cute conquest in New York?”
Rowena’s propensity for young men, sometimes younger than her youngest son, is renowned. She glowers at me as I take another bite of my steak, but I hold her glare, daring her to say anything. Strangely, for the first time ever, I feel as though I have the upper hand with my mother. It’s a novelty; so much of my adolescence was spent striving and failing to gain her approval.
Maryanne scowls at me. I shrug and slice another piece of delicious steak and pop it into my mouth.
“Neither you nor Maryanne shows any sign of settling down, and God forbid that the estates should pass to your father’s brother. Cameron’s a lost cause,” Rowena grumbles, choosing to ignore my insolence. My encounter with Alessia Demachi springs unbidden into my head, and I frown. I glance at Maryanne, and she’s frowning, too, and staring at her uneaten food.
