Harlequin® Romance is excited to present this timeless duet from award-winning author Lucy Gordon

Diamonds Are Forever

When true love is eternal…

This month:

A MISTLETOE PROPOSAL

Meet Pippa Jenson. Her grandparents proved to her that true love does exist, so Pippa is unwilling to settle for anything less than the perfect man. Can brooding stockbroker Roscoe Havering be the one for her?

Next month:

HIS DIAMOND BRIDE

Meet Dee and Mark Sellon—their love spans many years, but the course of true love never runs smooth…. This is their heart-wrenching, uplifting and timeless story.

Dear Reader,

I must admit to getting a wistful satisfaction from writing about a heroine whose beauty and allure knock men sideways. No hopeless sighing for her. One quirk of her gorgeous mouth, a look from her sultry eyes, and they fall at her feet, begging for her attention. I guess we’ve all indulged that fantasy at some time.

But the underlying truth is never so simple, as I learned from Pippa, heroine of A Mistletoe Proposal. Beneath the surface of the sultry siren is a woman who has been hurt almost beyond bearing, and who has sheltered behind her desirability and her reputation as a good-time girl, determined not to let the world discover her fears.

Those fears include Christmas and mistletoe—both of which bring back suffering she can’t bear to recall.

But then she meets Roscoe, a man as damaged as she is, and as skilled at hiding it. Each sees through the other’s defenses to the loving heart beneath. Harsh and forbidding on the surface, Roscoe discovers depths of tenderness within himself, and uses them to rescue Pippa. Through him she finds that Christmas can once more be a time of joy.

But they are not alone in their struggle. Pippa’s beloved grandmother Dee has always been a loving presence, offering advice and standing as a symbol of love’s triumph to inspire her to her own happy ending.

Warmest wishes

Lucy Gordon

LUCY GORDON

A Mistletoe Proposal

Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Charlton Heston and Roger Moore. She also camped out with lions in Africa and had many other unusual experiences, which have often provided the background for her books. Several years ago, while staying in Venice, she met a Venetian who proposed in two days. They have been married ever since. Naturally this has affected her writing, where romantic Italian men tend to feature strongly.

Two of her books have won a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award.

You can visit her website at www.lucy-gordon.com.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

AFTER five years the gravestone was still as clean and well-tended as on the first day, a tribute to somebody’s loving care. At the top it read:

MARK ANDREW SELLON,

9th April 1915—7th October 2003

A much loved husband and father

A space had been left below, filled three weeks later by the words:

DEIRDRE SELLON,

18th February 1921—28th October 2003

Beloved wife of the above

Together always

‘I remember how you insisted on leaving that space,’ Pippa murmured as she tidied away a few weeds. ‘Even then you were planning for the day you’d lie beside him. And the pictures too. You had them all ready for your own time.’

A family friend had returned from a trip to Italy and mentioned how Italian gravestones usually contained a picture of the deceased. ‘It really makes a difference to know what people looked like,’ she’d enthused. ‘I’m going to select my picture now.’

‘So am I,’ Dee had said instantly.

And she had, one for herself and one for her husband, taken when they were still in robust middle age. There, framed by the stone, was Dee, cheerful and ready to cope with anything life threw at her, and there was Mark, still bearing traces of the stunning good looks of his youth, when he’d been a daredevil pilot in the war.

Below them was a third photograph, taken at their sixtieth wedding anniversary party. It showed them standing close together, arms entwined, heads slightly leaning against each other, the very picture of two people who were one at heart.

Less than two months later, he had died. Dee had cherished the photograph, and when, three weeks after that, she had been laid beside him Pippa had insisted on adding it to the headstone.

Finishing with the weeds, she took out the flowers she’d brought with her and laid them carefully at the foot of the stone, murmuring, ‘There, just how you like them.’

She rose and moved back, checking that everything looked right, and stood for a moment in the rich glow of the setting sun. A passer-by, happening to glance at her, would have stopped and gazed in wonder.

She was petite, with a slender, elegant figure and an air of confidence that depended on more than mere looks. Nature had given her beauty but also another quality, less easy to define. Her mother called her a saucy little so-and-so. Her father said, ‘Watch it, lass. It’s dangerous to drive fellers too far.’

Men were divided in expressing their opinion. The more refined simply sighed. The less refined murmured, ‘Wow!’ The completely unrefined wavered between, ‘Get a load of that!’ and ‘Phwoar!’ Pippa shrugged, smiled and went on her way, happy with any of them.

Superficially, her attractions were easy to explain. The perfect face and body, the curled, honey-coloured hair, clearly luscious and extravagant, even now while it was pinned back in an unconvincing attempt at severity. But there was something else which no one had ever managed to describe: a knowing, amused look in her eyes; not exactly come-hither, but the teasing hint that come-hither might be lurking around the corner. Something.

A wooden seat had been placed conveniently nearby and Pippa settled onto it with the air of having come to stay.

‘What a day I’ve had!’ she sighed. ‘Clients talking their heads off, paperwork up to here.’ She indicated the top of her head.

‘I blame you,’ she told her grandmother, addressing the photograph. ‘But for you, I’d never have become a lawyer. But you had to go and leave me that legacy on condition that I trained for a profession.’

‘No training, no cash,’ Lilian, Pippa’s mother had pointed out. ‘And she’s named me your trustee to make sure you obey orders. I can almost hear her saying, “So get out of that, my girl.”’

‘That sounds like her,’ Pippa had said wryly. ‘Mum, what am I going to do?’

‘You’re going to do what your Gran says because, mark this, wherever she is, she’ll be watching.’

‘And you were,’ Pippa observed now. ‘You’ve always been there, just out of sight, over my shoulder, letting me know what you thought. Perhaps that was his influence.’

From her bag she produced a small toy bear, much of its fur worn away over time. Long ago he’d been won at a fair by Flight Lieutenant Mark Sellon, who’d solemnly presented him to Deirdre Parsons, the girl who later became his bride and lived with him for sixty years. To the last moment she’d treasured her ‘Mad Bruin’ as she called him.

‘Why mad?’ Pippa had asked her once.

‘After your grandfather.’

‘Was he mad?’

‘Delightfully mad. Wonderfully, gloriously mad. That’s why he was so successful as a fighter pilot. According to other airmen that I spoke to, he just went for everything, hell for leather.’

To the last moment, each had feared to lose the other. In the end Mark had died first, and after that, Dee had treasured the little bear more than ever, finally dying with him pressed against her face, and bequeathing him to Pippa, along with the money.

‘I brought him along,’ Pippa said, holding Bruin up as though Dee could see him. ‘I’m taking good care of him. It’s so nice to have him. It’s almost like having you.

‘I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last visit, but it’s chaos at work. I used to think solicitors’ offices were sedate places, but that was before I joined one. The firm does a certain amount of the “bread and butter stuff”, wills, property, that sort of thing. But it’s the criminal cases that bring everyone alive. Me too, if I’m honest. David, my boss, says I should go in for criminal law because I’ve got just the right kind of wicked mind.’ She gave a brief chuckle. ‘They don’t know how true that is.’

She stood for a moment, holding the little bear and smiling fondly at the photos of people she had loved, and still loved. Then she kissed him and replaced him in her bag.

‘I’ve got to go. ’Bye, darling. And you, Grandpa. Don’t let her bully you too much. Be firm. I know it’s hard after a lifetime of saying, “Yes, dear, no, dear”, but try.’

She planted a kiss on the tips of her fingers and laid them against the photograph of her grandparents. Then she stepped back. The movement brought something into the extreme edge of her vision and she turned quickly to see a man watching her. Or it might be more exact to say staring at her with the disapproval of one who couldn’t understand such wacky behaviour. Wryly, she supposed she must look a little odd, and wondered how long he’d been there.

He was tall with a lean face that was firm almost to the point of grimness. Fortyish, she thought, but perhaps older with that unyielding look.

She gave him a polite smile and moved off. There was something about him that made her want to escape. She made her way to a place where there were other family graves.

It was strangely pleasant in these surroundings. Although part of a London suburb, the cemetery had a country air, with tall trees in which birds and squirrels made their homes. As the winter day faded, the red sun seemed to be sliding down between the tree trunks, accompanied by soft whistles and scampering among the leaves. Pippa had always enjoyed coming here, for its beauty almost as much as because it was now the home of people she had loved.

Just ahead were Dee’s parents, Joe and Helen, their daughter Sylvia and her infant son Joey, and the baby Polly. She had never known any of them, yet she’d been raised in a climate of strong family unity and they were as mysteriously real to her as her living relatives.

She paused for a moment at Sylvia’s grave, remembering her mother’s words about the likeness. It was a physical likeness, Pippa knew, having seen old snapshots of Great-Aunt Sylvia. As a young woman in the nineteen-thirties she’d been a noted beauty, living an adventurous life, skipping from romance to romance. Everyone thought she would marry the dashing Mark Sellon, but she’d left him to run off with a married man just before the war broke out. He died at Dunkirk and she died in the Blitz.

Something of Sylvia’s beauty had reappeared in Pippa. But the real likeness lay elsewhere, in the sparkling eyes and readiness to seek new horizons.

‘In the genes,’ Lilian had judged, perhaps correctly. ‘Born to be a good time girl.’

‘Nothing wrong with having a good time,’ Pippa had often replied chirpily.

‘There is if you don’t think of anything else,’ Lilian pointed out.

Pippa was indignant. ‘I think of plenty else. I work like a slave at my job. It’s just that now and then I like to enjoy myself.’

It sounded a rational answer, but they both knew that it was actually no answer at all. Pippa’s flirtations were many but superficial. And there was a reason for it, one that few people knew.

Gran Dee had known. She’d been a close-up witness of Pippa’s relationship with Jack Sothern, had seen how deeply the young girl was in love with him, how brilliantly happy when they became engaged, how devastated when he’d abandoned her a few weeks before Christmas.

That time still stood out fiercely in Pippa’s mind. Jack had left town for a couple of days, which hadn’t made her suspicious, as she now realised it should have. Wedding preparations, she’d thought; matters to be settled at work before he was free to go on their honeymoon. The idea of another woman had never crossed her mind.

When he returned she paid an unexpected visit to his apartment, heralding her arrival by singing a Christmas carol outside his door.

‘New day, new hope, new life,’ she yodelled merrily.

When he opened the door she flew into his arms, hoping to draw him into a kiss, but he moved stiffly away.

Then he dumped her.

For a while she’d been knocked sideways. Instead of the splendid career that should have been hers, she’d taken a job serving in the local supermarket, justifying this by saying that her grandparents, both in their eighties and frail, needed her. For the last two years of their lives she’d lived with them, watching over them, giving them every moment because, as she declared, she had no use for boyfriends.

It was then that the innocent beauty of her face had begun to be haunted with a look of determination so fierce as to be sometimes alarming. It would vanish quickly, driven away by her natural warmth, but it was still there, half hidden in the shadows, ready to return.

‘Don’t give in to it,’ Dee had begged in her last year of life. ‘I know you were treated cruelly, but don’t become bitter, whatever you do.’

‘Gran, honestly, you’ve got it all wrong. So a man let me down! So what? We rise above that these days!’

Dee had looked unconvinced, so Pippa brightened her smile, hoping to fool her, not very successfully, she knew.

Only after her death had Dee been able to put the situation right with a modest legacy, conditional on Pippa training for a proper career.

Pippa had changed from the quiet girl struggling to recover from heartbreak. Going back out into the world, starting a new life, had brought out a side she hadn’t known she had. Her looks won her many admirers, and she’d gone to meet them, arms open but heart closed. Life was fun if you didn’t expect too much, and she’d brought that down to a fine art.

‘Aunt Sylvia would have been proud of you,’ her mother told her, half critical, half admiring. ‘Not that I knew her, she died before I was born, but the way she carried on was a family legend and you’re heading in the same direction. Look at the way you’re dressed!’

‘I like to dress properly,’ Pippa observed, looking down at the short skirt that revealed her stunning legs, and the closely cut top that emphasised her delicate curves.

‘That’s not properly, that’s improperly,’ Lilian replied.

‘They can be the same thing,’ Pippa teased. ‘Oh, Mum, don’t look so shocked. I’m sure Aunt Sylvia would have said exactly that.’

‘Very likely, from all I’ve heard. But you’re supposed to be a lawyer.’

‘What do you mean, “supposed”? I passed my exams with honours and they were fighting to hire me, so my boss said.’

‘And doesn’t he mind you floating about his office looking like a sexy siren?’ Lilian demanded. Pippa giggled.

‘No, I guess he doesn’t,’ Lilian conceded. ‘Well, I suppose if you’ve got the exam results to back you up you’ll be all right.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Pippa murmured. ‘I’ll be all right.’

One man, speaking from the depths of his injured feelings, had called her a tease, but he did her an injustice. She embarked on a relationship in all honesty, always wondering if this one would be different. But it never was. When she backed off it was from fear, not heartlessness. The memory of her misery over Jack was still there in her heart. The time that had passed since had dimmed that misery, but nothing could ever free her from its shadow, and she was never going to let it happen again.

‘I reckon you’d have understood that,’ she told Sylvia. ‘The things I’ve heard about you—I really wish we could have met. I bet you were fun.’

The thought of that fun made a smile break over her face. Sometimes she seemed to smile as she breathed.

But the smile faded as she turned to leave and saw the man she’d seen before, frowning at her.

Well, I suppose I must look pretty crazy, she thought wryly. His generation probably thinks you should never smile in a graveyard. But why not, if you’re fond of the people you come to see? And I’m very fond of Sylvia, even though we never met. So there!

Her mood of cheerful defiance lasted until she reached her car, parked just outside the gate. Then it faded into exasperation.

‘Oh, no, not again!’ she breathed as the engine made futile noises. ‘I’ll take you to the garage tomorrow, but start just this once, please!’

But, deaf to entreaties, it merely whirred again.

‘Grr!’

Getting out to look under the bonnet was a formality as she had only the vaguest idea what she was hoping to find. Whatever it was, she didn’t find it. ‘Grr!’

‘Are you in trouble?’

It was him, the man who’d interrupted her pleasant reverie in the graveyard and practically driven her out by his grim disapproval. At least, in her present growling exasperation that was how it seemed to her.

Not that he was looking grim now, merely detached and efficient as he headed towards her and surveyed the car.

‘Won’t it start?’

‘No. But this has happened before, and it usually starts after a while if I’m firm with it.’

His lips quirked slightly. ‘How do you get firm with a car? Kick it?’

‘Certainly not,’ she said with dignity. ‘I’m not living in the Dark Ages. I just—tap it a little and it comes right.’

‘I’ve got a better idea. Suppose I tow you to the nearest garage, or have you got a special one where you normally go when this breaks down?’

‘My brothers own a garage in Crimea Street,’ she said with dignity.

‘And do they approve of your “tapping” the car?’

‘They don’t approve of anything, starting with the fact that I bought it without consulting them. I just loved it on sight. It’s got so much personality.’

‘It’s certainly got that. What it hasn’t got is a reliable engine. You say you have brothers in the trade, and they let you buy this thing?’

‘They did not “let” me because I didn’t ask their permission,’ she said indignantly.

‘Nor their advice, it seems. I hope they gave you a piece of their minds.’

‘They did.’

‘So would I if you were my daughter.’

‘But I’m not your daughter, I haven’t asked for your help and I certainly haven’t asked for your interference. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave.’

‘How?’ he asked simply.

In her annoyance she’d forgotten that she was stranded. She glared.

‘It’s three miles to Crimea Street,’ he pointed out. ‘Are you going to walk it? In those heels? Or are you going to call them to rescue you? They’ll love that.’

‘Yes, and I’ll never hear the end of it,’ she sighed. ‘Ah, well, I don’t seem to have any choice.’

‘Unless I give you a tow?’ Seeing her suspicious look, he said, ‘It’s a genuine offer. I can’t just leave you here.’

‘Me being such a poor, helpless damsel in distress, you mean?’

His lips twitched. ‘Well, there must be something of the damsel in distress about you, or you wouldn’t have bought this ridiculous car.’

‘Very funny. Thank you for your offer of help, but I’ll manage without it. Good day to you.’

‘Come off your high horse. Come to think of it, a horse would probably have served you better than this contraption. I’ll fetch my car and connect them.’ Starting to move off, he turned to add, ‘Don’t go away.’

She opened her mouth to reply, had second thoughts and closed it again. It was annoying that she couldn’t help laughing at his jibe, but that was the fact. She was still smiling when he returned in an expensive vehicle that made her eyes open wide.

‘Oh, wow! Are you sure you want that thing seen with my old jalopy?’ she asked.

‘I’ll try to endure it.’ He worked swiftly to connect the cars, then opened his door and indicated for her to get into the passenger seat.

She had to admire the smooth, purring movement of his vehicle, which spoke of expense and loving care, suggesting that this man had an affinity with cars. Since she loved them herself, she could feel some sympathy, even a faint amused appreciation of how she must look to him. He’d implied that she reminded him of a daughter, and she wondered how many daughters he actually had.

‘I’m Roscoe Havering, by the way,’ he said.

‘Pippa Jenson—well, Philippa, actually.’

‘Pippa’s better: more like you.’

‘I’m not even going to ask what is “like me”. You have no idea.’

‘Cheeky. Very young.’

‘I’m not that young.’

‘Twenty—twenty-one—’ he hazarded.

‘Twenty-seven,’ she laughed.

It was as well that traffic lights had forced him to halt because he turned quickly to stare at her in surprise. ‘You’re not serious.’

‘I am.’ She gave him a wicked smile. ‘Sorry!’

‘How can I believe you?’ he said, starting up again. ‘You look more like a student.’

‘No, I’m a solicitor, a staid and serious representative of the law.’ She assumed a deep voice. ‘Strong men quake at my approach. Some of them flee to hide in the hills.’

He laughed. ‘I think I’ll get you home first. I won’t ask who you work for. Obviously, you have your own practice which is driving everyone else into bankruptcy.’

‘No, I’m with Farley & Son.’

She saw his eyebrows rise a little and his mouth twist into a shape that meant, ‘Hmm!’

‘Do you know them?’

‘Quite well. I’ve used them in the past. They’ve got a big reputation. You must be impressive if they’ve taken you on. Aren’t we nearing Crimea Street now?’

‘Next one on the left.’

They saw the garage as soon as they turned into the street. The little business that Pippa’s great-grandfather, Joe Parsons, had set up ninety years earlier had flourished and grown. It was now three times the size, and her brothers, Brian and Frank, had bought houses on the same street so that they could live close to their work.

They were just preparing to shut up shop when the little convoy rolled into view. At once they came out onto the pavement and stood watching with brotherly irony.

‘Again!’ Frank declared. ‘Why aren’t I surprised?’

‘Because you’re an old stick-in-the-mud,’ Pippa informed him, kissing his cheek, then Brian’s. ‘And clearly you didn’t mend it properly. This is Roscoe Havering, who came to my rescue.’

‘Good of you,’ Brian said, shaking Roscoe’s hand. ‘Of course a better idea would have been to dump her in the nearest river, but I dare say that didn’t occur to you.’

‘Actually, it did,’ Roscoe observed. ‘But I resisted the temptation.’

The brothers laughed genially. They were both in their forties, heavily built and cheerful.

A few moments under the bonnet was enough to make Frank say, ‘This’ll take until tomorrow. And look, I’m afraid we can’t invite you in. The family’s away and we’ve sort of planned…well…’

‘A night on the tiles,’ Pippa chuckled. ‘You devils! I’ll bet Crimea Street is going to rock.’

‘You’d better believe it!’

‘OK, I’ll come back tomorrow.’

‘Don’t you live here?’ Roscoe asked.

‘No, I’ve got my own little place a few miles away.’

‘Where exactly?’

She gave him the address in the heart of London.

‘I’ll take you,’ he said. ‘Get in.’

Relieved, she did so, first retrieving two heavy bags from the back of her car.

‘Thanks,’ she said as she clicked the seat belt and slammed the door. ‘I’ve got a heavy night’s work ahead of me and I’ve got to give it everything.’

‘No hungry man wanting his supper cooked?’

‘Nope. I live alone. Free, independent, no distractions.’

‘Except visiting your friends,’ he observed.

‘They’re my brothers—oh, you mean in the graveyard. I suppose you thought I looked very odd.’

‘No, you looked as if you were enjoying the company. It was nice.’

‘I always did enjoy my grandparents’ company. I adored them both. Especially Gran. I loved talking to her, and I guess I just can’t stop.’

‘Why should you want to?’

‘Most people would say because she’s dead.’

‘But she isn’t dead to you, and that’s what matters. Besides, I don’t think you worry too much about what other people say.’

‘Well, I ought to. I’m a lawyer.’

‘Ah, yes. Staid and serious.’

She made a comical face. ‘I do my best.’

Outwardly, he showed nothing, but inside his expression was wry. Twenty-seven. Was he expected to believe that? Twenty-four, tops. And even that was stretching it. If she really worked for Farley she was probably little more than a pupil, but that was fine. She could still be useful to him.

A plan was forming in his mind. The details had to be fine-tuned but meeting her was like the working out of destiny. Somewhere, a kindly fate had planned this meeting and he was going to make the most of it.

‘It’s just there,’ Pippa said, pointing through the window to a tall, expensive-looking apartment block.

‘There doesn’t seem anywhere to park,’ he groaned.

‘No need. Just slow down a little and I’ll hop out. Just here where the lights are red.’

She reached for her bags, flashed him a dazzling smile and got out swiftly.

‘Thank you,’ she called, backing off.

He would have called her to wait but the lights changed and he had to move on.

Pippa hurried into the building and took the elevator to the third floor. Once in her apartment, she tossed the bags away and began to strip off.

‘Shower, shower,’ she muttered. ‘Just let me get under the shower!’

When she was naked she hurried into the bathroom and got under the water, sighing with satisfaction. After relishing the cascade for a few minutes, she got out and dried herself off, thinking of the evening’s work that lay ahead. She felt ready for it now.

But then something caught her eye. One of her bags lay open on its side, the contents spilling out, and she could see at once that one vital object was missing.

‘Oh, heavens!’ she groaned. ‘It must have fallen out in his car and he drove off with it.’

The sound of the doorbell revived her hope. Roscoe Havering. He’s found it, brought it back to me. Thank heavens!

Pulling a large towelling robe around her, she ran to the door. ‘I’m so glad to see you—’

Then she stopped, stunned by the sight of the young man who stood there, his air a mixture of pleading and defiance.

‘Oh, no,’ she breathed. ‘You promised not to do this again.’

CHAPTER TWO

FOR most of the journey Roscoe wore a frown. Things were falling into place nicely. Not that this was a surprise. He was an organised man, skilled at controlling his surroundings and making things happen as he wanted, but even he could hardly have arranged matters as neatly as this.

So his frown didn’t imply problems, simply that there were still details to be sorted before he’d fixed everything to suit himself, and he was giving that desirable outcome the concentration it deserved.

Now he could see the large, comfortable house that had once been his home. These days it housed only his mother and younger brother Charlie, although Roscoe had kept his room and usually slept there a couple of nights a week to keep a protective eye on both of them. His mother was looking anxiously out of the window and came to the door as soon as she saw him. She was approaching sixty, nervously thin but still with the remnants of good looks.

‘Is it all right?’ she asked. ‘Have you sorted it?’

He kissed her. ‘Sorted what?’

‘About Charlie. Have you arranged everything?’

For just the briefest moment he tensed, then smiled.

‘Mother, it’s too soon to arrange everything, but I’m working on it. Don’t worry.’

‘Oh, but I must worry. He’s so frail and vulnerable.’

Luckily she wasn’t looking directly at him, or she’d have seen the cynical twist of his mouth. Roscoe had an unsentimental, clear-eyed view of his younger brother. He knew Charlie’s volatility, his ramshackle behaviour, his headlong craziness and his selfishness. All these he saw through a filter of brotherly affection, but he never fooled himself. Frail and vulnerable? No way!

But he knew his mother’s perception was different and he always avoided hurting her, so he simply said, ‘Leave it to me. You know you can trust me.’

‘But you will make them drop those stupid charges, won’t you? You’ll make those horrid people admit that he’s innocent.’

‘Mother, he’s not exactly innocent. He more or less admitted—’

‘Oh, but he didn’t know what he was saying. He was confused.’

‘He’s not a child. He’s a young man of twenty-four.’

‘He’s a child in his heart, and he needs his big brother to defend him.’

‘I’m doing my best. Just leave it to me.’

‘Oh, yes, you always protect him, don’t you? You’re such a good brother. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘Well, you don’t have to,’ he said gently. ‘So it’s all right.’

‘Now come indoors and have your supper.’

‘Fine, I’ll just get my things.’

But, as he leaned into the car, he froze suddenly.

‘Oh, Lord!’ he groaned, seizing something from the floor at the back. ‘How did that get there?’ He straightened up, holding a large envelope. ‘It must have fallen out of one of her bags and she rushed off without noticing. Perhaps I can call her.’

He pulled out the contents, all papers, and went through them looking for her phone number. He didn’t find it, but he did notice that these were serious papers. She’d spoken of a heavy night’s work ahead, and would probably need them.

‘I’m sorry,’ he sighed. ‘Can you hold supper? I’ll be back in an hour.’

He was gone before his mother could complain.

‘Jimmy, you promised to leave me alone.’ As Pippa spoke she was backing off, one hand clutching the robe across her breast, the other held up defensively. ‘We agreed it was over.’

‘No, you said it was over,’ he protested. ‘I never said it. I couldn’t say it, feeling the way I do. Oh, Pippa, I miss you so much, if you only knew. But you do know in your heart, don’t you? I couldn’t be so crazy about you if you didn’t feel just a little something for me.’

‘I do feel something for you,’ she sighed.

‘There, I knew it!’

‘But it’s not what you want. It’s mostly pity and a sort of guilt that I let things go so far. Honestly, Jimmy, I didn’t mean to. I thought we were just having a good time with no strings. If I’d known you were getting so serious I’d have discouraged you earlier.’

‘But you didn’t,’ the young man pleaded. ‘Doesn’t that prove you feel something for me?’

‘Yes, it means I feel like a kindly aunt, and that’s not what you want.’

His face fell and she knew a pang over her heart. He was a nice boy, and he’d appeared on the scene just in time to discourage the one before him. She’d been grateful, and after that they’d shared many a laugh, some dinner engagements and a few kisses.

Then things had got out of hand. He’d grown serious, wanting to take her away for a weekend. Her refusal had increased his ardour. He’d spoken of his respect, and proposed marriage. Her rejection had cast him into despair.

‘Couldn’t we give it another try?’ he begged now. ‘You tell me what it is about me that annoys you and I’ll be careful never to do that.’

Reluctantly, Pippa decided that only firmness would be any use now.

‘When you talk like that it annoys me,’ she said. ‘When you haunt me, and telephone at all hours, sending me flowers which I don’t want, bombarding me with text messages asking what I’m wearing, then I get very annoyed.

‘You’re a nice boy, Jimmy, but you’re not for me. I’m sorry if I led you to believe otherwise. I didn’t mean to. Now, please go.’

Something in his eyes made her pull the edges of her robe closer, clutching them firmly. His anguish was being replaced by the determination of a man who would no longer accept no for an answer.

‘Please go,’ she said, stepping back.

‘Not without a kiss. You can grant me that, can’t you?’

‘I think not. Goodbye.’

Pippa tried to close the door but he forestalled her. Now his breathing was coming heavily, the arms that closed around her were strong, and she was no longer sure she could deal with him.

‘Let me go, Jimmy.’

‘Not until I’m ready.’

‘Did you hear me? I said let me go and I meant it. Stop that. Jimmy, no!’

On the journey back to Pippa’s apartment Roscoe was frowning again, but this time in confusion. On the one hand there was her appearance—young, dainty, vivacious. On the other hand there were the papers with their plethora of facts and figures that only a skilled, serious mind could understand. He tried to fit the two sides together, and couldn’t.

This time he found a parking space and entered the building, going to study the list of residents by the elevator.

‘Can I help?’ A middle-aged man was passing by.

‘I’m looking for Miss Jenson’s address.’

‘Blimey, another one. They pass through here like an army. Mind you, even she doesn’t usually have two in one evening.’

‘Indeed,’ Roscoe said carefully.

‘I tell you, it’s pathetic. They come here with their flowers and their gifts, begging her, pleading with her, but it’s no use. When she’s bored with them she dumps them. I’ve tried to warn some of them but will they listen? You’d expect a man to have more dignity, wouldn’t you?’

‘You would indeed,’ Roscoe said, still guarding his words.

‘But they say she’s magic and they can’t help themselves.’

‘You spoke of two.’

‘Yes, the other one hasn’t been here long so you’d better go carefully. Good-looking young fellow. Shouldn’t think you’d stand a chance. She’s got a pick of them, you know. Best of luck, though.’

He passed on out of the front door, leaving Roscoe wondering what he’d wandered into. But what he’d just heard was good news in that it made Pippa likely to be more useful to him, and nothing else mattered. He located the apartment and got into the elevator.

As soon as the doors parted he heard the noise coming from just around the corner, out of sight, a male voice crying out, ‘You can’t be so cruel—’

Then Pippa’s voice. ‘Can’t I? Get out now or I’ll show you how cruel I can be. I’m told I have very sharp knees.’

‘But I only—ow!’

‘Now go. And don’t come back.’

Roscoe turned the corner just in time to see the young man stagger back, clutching himself, then collapse to the ground. Through the open door he could see a woman, or perhaps a goddess. She was completely naked, leaving no detail of her glorious figure to the imagination. The hourglass shape, the curved hips, the tiny waist, the breasts slightly too large, although his view of them was partly obscured by her glorious hair, not pinned back now but cascading down in a riot of curls.

After a moment he realised that the vision was Pippa, but not the light-hearted girl he’d met earlier. This was a very angry woman, standing triumphant over her defeated foe who was writhing on the ground. Literally.

The vision vanished at once, not in a puff of smoke but in a hasty movement to make herself decent by pulling on a robe as soon as she saw Roscoe. Only the fury on her face remained.

With the robe safely concealing her, she came to the door and addressed the young man. ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy, but I warned you. Don’t come back here, ever.’

Jimmy’s face was sullen as he hauled himself to his feet, all good nature gone. ‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ he spat. ‘Jezebel!’

Incredibly, a smile flickered over her beautiful features. ‘Oh, come on, you can do better than that. Who was Jezebel, after all? Now, if you’d said Mata Hari I’d have been insulted—or maybe flattered, one of the two.’

‘Mata who?’

‘Oh, go and look it up!’ she said with the exasperation of a schoolmistress. ‘But go!’

Scowling, he dragged himself to his feet and began to limp away, but not before turning to Roscoe. ‘You’ve been warned,’ he spat. ‘She won’t treat you any better.’

Roscoe held up the envelope. ‘I’m just the delivery man,’ he said mildly.

Jimmy flung him a speaking look and limped away. Roscoe waited until he was out of sight before saying, ‘I’m sorry to arrive unexpectedly, but you left this in my car.’

She made as if to take the envelope that he held out, but snatched her hand back as the robe fell open.

‘I’ll take it inside,’ he said, moving past her.

She followed him, slamming the front door, hurrying into the bedroom and slamming that door too. Roscoe wondered at her agitation. After all, she’d been the victor, conquering and subduing her foe. He would have given a good deal to know the history behind that scene.

The apartment was what he would have expected, lush and decorative in a way he thought of as ultra-feminine. The furniture was expensive and tastefully chosen and the shelves bore ornaments that suggested a knowledge of antiques.

In one corner of the room was a desk with a computer and various accessories, all of which were the very latest, he noted with approval. It seemed to tell a different story to the rest of her. Ditzy dolly-bird on the one hand, technology expert on the other.

But probably the computer had been installed by her employers. That explained it.

She came whizzing back into the room, dressed in sweater and jeans. They were sturdy and workaday, unglamorous except that they answered all questions about her figure.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Certainly I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?’ She sounded a tad defiant.

‘Just that he seemed rather overwrought—’

‘And he called me Jezebel, implying that I’m a floozie, that’s what you meant.’

‘That’s not what I meant at all.’

Even to herself, Pippa couldn’t have explained why she was on edge, except that she liked to stay in control, and being discovered as she had been was definitely not being in control.

‘Look, I just came back to return your papers,’ he said hastily. ‘Don’t blame me for finding…well…what I found.’ Too late, he saw the quagmire stretching before him.

‘And just what do you think you found?’ she demanded, folding her arms and looking up into his face. It was hard because he had a good six inches over her but what she lacked in height she made up in fury.

His own temper rose. After all, he’d done her a favour.

‘Well, I found a girl who’d been a bit careless, didn’t I?’

‘Careless?’

‘Careless with her own safety. What on earth possessed you to get undressed if you were going to knock him back?’

‘Oh, I see. You think I’m a vulgar tease?’

‘No, just that you weren’t thinking straight—’

‘Or maybe you’re the one not thinking straight,’ she snapped. ‘You jump to the conclusion that I stripped off to allure him, and the true explanation never occurs to you. Too simple, I suppose. He arrived after I had come out of the shower.’

‘Oh, heavens, I should have thought of that. I’m sorry, I—’

‘I didn’t get undressed for him,’ she raged on, barely hearing him. ‘I’m not interested in him and so I’ve told him again and again, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Just like a man. You’re all the same. You all think you’re so madly attractive that a woman’s no never really means no.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘Conceited, arrogant, bullying, faithless, treacherous—’

‘If you’d only—’

‘Leave, now!’

‘If I could just—’

‘No, you can’t “just”. Leave!’

‘I understand that—’

‘Listen, the last man who came in here wouldn’t go when I told him to, and you saw what happened to him.’

‘All right,’ Roscoe said hastily. ‘I really only came to return your property.’

‘Thank you, sir, for your consideration,’ Pippa responded in a formal voice that was like ice, ‘but if you don’t leave of your free will you’ll do so at my will and that—’

‘I’m going, I’m going.’

He departed quickly. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, this was no time to argue. For some reason, she was ready to do murder. It was unfair, but there was no understanding women.

From Pippa’s window, a curve in the building made the front door visible. She stood there watching until she saw him get into his car. Then she turned and glared at the photograph of her grandparents on the sideboard.

‘All right, all right. I behaved terribly. He came to return my things and I was rude to him. I didn’t even thank him. Why? Why? I don’t know why, but I was suddenly furious with him. How dare he see me naked! Yes, I know it wasn’t his fault; you don’t have to say it. But you should have seen the look on his face when he saw me on display. He didn’t know whether to fancy me or despise me, and I could strangle him for it. Grandpa, stop laughing! It’s not funny. Well, all right. Maybe just a bit. Oh, to blazes with him!’

Down below, Roscoe took a quick glance up, just in time to see her at the window before she backed off. He sat in his car for a moment, pondering.

He’d gained only a brief glimpse inside her bedroom, just enough to see a double bed and observe that it was neatly made and unused. He’d barely registered this but now it came back to him with all its implications.

So she really had refused him, which meant she was a lady of discrimination and taste as well as beauty and glowering temper. Excellent.

Later that night, before going to bed, he went online and looked up Mata Hari:

Dutch, 1876-1917, exotic dancer, artist’s model, circus rider, courtesan, double agent in World War One, executed by firing squad.

Hmm! he thought.

It was a word that occurred to him often in connection with Pippa. With every passing moment he became more convinced that she would fit his plans perfectly.

The two men regarded each other over the desk.

‘Not again!’ David Farley said in exasperation. ‘Didn’t he promise to reform last time?’

‘And the time before,’ Roscoe sighed. ‘Charlie’s not really a criminal, he just gets carried away by youthful high spirits.’

‘That’s your mother talking.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Why can’t she face the truth about Charlie?’

‘Because she doesn’t want to,’ Roscoe said bluntly. ‘He looks exactly like our father, and since Dad died fifteen years ago she’s built everything on Charlie.’

The door opened and Roscoe tensed, but it was only a young woman with a tea tray.

‘Thanks,’ David Farley said gratefully.

He was a burly man in his late forties with a pleasant face and a kindly, slightly dull manner. He cultivated that dullness, knowing how useful it could be to conceal his powerful mind until the last moment. Now he poured tea with the casual skill of a waiter.

‘Has your mother ever come to terms with the fact that your father committed suicide?’ he asked carefully.

Roscoe shook his head. ‘She won’t admit it. The official story was that the car crash was an accident, and we stuck to that to discourage gossip. Now I think she’s convinced herself that it really was an accident. A suicide would have been a rejection of her, you see.’

‘Of all of you,’ David ventured to say. He’d known Roscoe for years, right back to the time he’d been a young man who admired and loved his father. He too had suffered, but David doubted anyone had ever considered this.

Now, much as he’d expected, Roscoe shrugged aside the suggestion that he actually had feelings and hurried to say, ‘If I can pull Charlie through this without a disaster I can get him onto the straight and narrow and stop her being hurt.’

‘Do you know how often I’ve heard you say that?’ David demanded. ‘And it never works because Charlie knows he can always rely on you to rescue him from trouble. Just for once, don’t save him. Then he’ll learn his lesson.’

‘He’ll also end up with a criminal record, and my mother will have a broken heart,’ Roscoe said harshly. ‘Forget it. There has to be a way to deal with this, and I know what it is. It’s important to put the right person on the case.’

‘I shall naturally deal with this myself—’

‘Of course, but you’ll need a good assistant. I suggest Miss Philippa Jenson.’

‘You know her?’

‘I met her yesterday and was much impressed by her qualities,’ Roscoe declared in a carefully colourless voice. ‘I want you to assign her to Charlie with instructions to give him her full attention.’

‘I can give Pippa this case, but I can’t take her off other cases. She’s much in demand. Don’t be fooled by her looks. She’s terrifyingly bright and one of the best in the business. She qualified with some of the highest marks that have ever been seen, and several firms were after her. I got her by playing on her sympathies. She did her pupillage here and I managed to persuade her that she owed me something.’

‘So she really is qualified? She looks so young.’

‘She’s twenty-seven and already becoming well known in the profession. This lady is no mere assistant, but a formidable legal brain.’

The last three words affected Roscoe strangely. The world vanished, leaving only a young, perfect female body, glowing with life and vigour, dainty waist, generous breasts partly hidden by the luscious hair that tumbled about them, beautiful face glaring at him with disdain.

A formidable legal brain!

‘What…what did you say?’ he asked with an effort.

‘Are you all right?’

The vision vanished. He was back in the prosaic offices of Farley & Son, facing David Farley across a prosaic desk, drinking a prosaic cup of tea towards the end of a prosaic afternoon.

‘I’m fine,’ he said quickly. ‘I just need to settle things with Miss Jenson. Can I see her?’

‘She’s in court this afternoon, unless perhaps she’s returned. Hang on.’ He seized the phone, which had rung. ‘Pippa! Speak of the devil! How did it go?… Good…good. So Renton’s pleased. You made his enemies sorry they were born, eh? I knew you would. Look, could you hurry back? I’ve got a new client waiting for you. Apparently you already—’

He checked, alerted by Roscoe’s violent shake of the head. ‘You’re already known to him by repute,’ he amended hastily. ‘See you in a minute.’

Hanging up, he stared, puzzled. ‘Why didn’t you want me to say you’d already met?’

‘Best not. Start from scratch,’ Roscoe said. Inwardly, he was musing about the name Renton, which he’d glimpsed on the papers he delivered last night, plus a mountain of figures.

‘So she has a very satisfied client?’ he mused.

‘One of many. Lee Renton is a big man in the entertainment field, and getting bigger. There were some grim accusations hurled at him by someone who’d hoped to take advantage of him, and failed. Financial stuff, all lies. I knew Pippa would nail it.’

‘So her adversary is sorry he was born?’ Roscoe queried.

‘Nasty character, up to every trick. But then, so is she. Great on detail, reads each paper through thoroughly. Nothing escapes her. She’ll be here in a moment. The court is just around the corner.’

‘Solicitors don’t usually appear in court, do they? I thought that was the role of barristers.’

‘The old division still exists,’ David agreed, nodding, ‘but its lines are getting blurred. These days, solicitors can act as advocates more often than in the past, and when they’re as good as Miss Jenson we encourage it. You’ve made a good choice.’

‘Yes,’ Roscoe murmured. ‘I have.’

‘Luckily for you, she’s a workaholic or she might be reluctant to add to her workload so close to Christmas.’

‘Close to Christmas? It’s only November.’

‘Most people start planning their schedule now so that they can grab some extra days off when the time comes. Pippa does the opposite, comes in earlier, works later. The nearer to Christmas it gets, the more of a workaholic she becomes. I could understand it if she was alone, but she’s got plenty of family. It’s as if she’s trying to avoid Christmas altogether.’

‘You make her sound like Scrooge.’

David grinned. ‘Well, I think I really have detected a touch of “Bah! Humbug!” in her manner.’

His phone rang. He answered it and made a face. ‘Don’t send him in or I’ll never get rid of him. I’ll come out there.’ Rising, he said, ‘Stay there and I’ll be back in a minute.’ He hurried out.

While waiting, Roscoe went to stand by the window, looking down on a part of London that spoke of wealth and manipulation, people in control, sophistication—rather like one aspect of Pippa Jenson. But not all of her, he thought, remembering the unselfconscious way he’d seen her joking with the headstone yesterday.

The door opened. Somebody flew into the room, speaking breathlessly. ‘Oh, my, what a day! But it was worth everything to see the look on Blakely’s face when I had all the figures—’

She stopped as Roscoe turned from the window.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Jenson,’ he said.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR a moment Pippa’s face was full of shock. ‘You,’ she murmured.

Then shock was swiftly replaced by a smile. ‘So prayers do get answered after all,’ she said.

‘I’m the answer to your prayers?’ he queried. ‘Now that I wasn’t expecting.’

‘Meeting you again is the answer to prayer,’ she said. ‘It gives me the chance to say thank you, otherwise I’d have had to search for you all over London. You came to my rescue three times last night—towing me to the garage, taking me home, bringing my papers over—and then I was rotten to you. I can’t forgive myself.’

‘No, that’s my job,’ he agreed. ‘Let’s forget it now.’

‘That’s kinder than I deserve. When I think—’

The door opened. It was David with the man he’d been trying to get rid of, and who was now talking nineteen to the dozen, causing David to make a face of resignation.

‘We’re in the way,’ Roscoe said. ‘Let’s have a bite to eat. Cavelli’s is very good, and it’s nearby.’

‘Great. I’m famished.’

Cavelli’s was a small restaurant over the road, just opening for the early evening. They found a table by the window.

‘I’d toast you in champagne,’ Roscoe said, ‘but I’m driving. What about you?’

‘I’m afraid my car’s still on the sick list. I came in by taxi.’

‘Champagne, then.’

‘Not on my own. What I’m really dying for is a cup of tea.’

He placed the order and sat regarding her for a moment. Her hair was pinned back again, as he’d first seen it, but the rich honey colour still had a luxuriant appearance. She was dressed for business in a dark blue trouser suit of decidedly mannish cut. But if she thought for a moment that it masked her vibrant sexual allure, she was deceiving herself, Roscoe thought.

He pulled himself together. This was a time for business. The ‘other’ Pippa, the one he’d seen last night, must be firmly banished. He did his best to achieve that, but it was hard when all around them people were turning to look at her in admiration.

They toasted each other in hot tea, and Pippa sighed theatrically with relief.

‘You don’t know what I owe you,’ she said. ‘Those papers won the case for me. Without them, it would have been a disaster.’

‘Yes, you couldn’t have made Frank Blakely sorry he was born, which I gather you did.’

She gave a triumphant chuckle. ‘I reported the figures, he disputed them, I produced the papers that proved them, he demanded to know how I came by those papers, I said my lips were sealed—’

‘That sounds a bit dodgy,’ Roscoe said, grinning, pleased.

‘Do you mind?’ she demanded, mock-offended. ‘I am not “a bit dodgy”.’

‘I beg your pardon—’

‘I’m very dodgy—when I have to be. It depends on the client. Some need more dodginess than others. Some don’t need any.’ She added wickedly, ‘They’re the boring ones.’

‘I see you believe in adjusting to their requirements,’ he said appreciatively.

‘That’s right. Ready for anything.’ She chuckled. ‘It makes life interesting.’

‘Miss Jenson—’

‘Please, I think we’ve passed the point where you could call me Pippa.’

She didn’t add, After the way you saw me, but she didn’t need to.

‘Pippa—I’m sorry if I embarrassed you last night. I only wanted to return your property.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. It was just unlucky that you turned up…well…at that moment.’

‘He seemed to feel very strongly about you.’

She sighed. ‘He’s a nice boy but he can’t understand that I don’t feel the same way. We went out for a while, had some fun, but there was nothing in it beyond that.’

‘Not on your side, but surely his feelings were involved?’

For a moment Roscoe fancied a faint withered look came over Pippa’s face.

‘And if it had been the other way around, do you think he’d have cared about my feelings?’ she asked quietly.

‘Perhaps. He seemed to have really strong emotions about you.’

The look vanished so fast he couldn’t be sure he’d seen it. ‘Life’s a merry-go-round.’ She shrugged. ‘You have to look forward to the ups but always be ready for more downs.’

‘So there’s nobody special in your life at the moment? Or are there a dozen like him ready to spring out like last night?’

‘Possibly. I don’t keep count. Look, I just wanted to apologise for the way I flew at you. After what you did for me, you deserved better. Today was a triumph. I had two job offers as I was leaving the court, and without those papers I’d have got nowhere. So I owe you, big time. I meant what I said. I’d have hunted you down through all London to tell you that.’

‘And if I hadn’t known exactly where to find you, I’d have hunted you down too. I have a job that only you can do.’

‘Are you the client David mentioned?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Ah, I begin to see. You want someone good with figures, right?’

‘Among other things,’ he said carefully. ‘The case I want you to take concerns my younger brother, Charlie. He’s not a bad lad, but he’s a bit irresponsible and he’s got into bad company.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Twenty-four, and not very mature. If he was anyone else I’d say he needed to be taught a lesson, but that—’ he hesitated before finishing stiffly ‘—that would cause me a certain amount of difficulty.’

‘You couldn’t afford to be connected with a convict?’ she hazarded.

‘Something like that.’

‘Mr Havering—’

‘Call me Roscoe. After all, what you said about me calling you Pippa—well, it works both ways, doesn’t it?’

For a moment the naked nymph danced between them and was gone, firmly banished on both sides.

‘Roscoe, if I’m to help you I need full information. I can’t work in the dark.’

‘I’m a stockbroker. I have clients who depend on me, who need to be able to trust me. I can’t afford to let anything damage my reputation.’

His voice was harsh, as though he’d retreated behind steel bars. But the next moment the bars collapsed and he said roughly, ‘Hell, no! You’d better know the real reason. If anything happens to Charlie, it would break my mother’s heart. He’s all she lives for, and her health is frail. She’s been in a bad way ever since my father died, fifteen years ago. At all costs I want to save her from more suffering.’

He spoke as though the words were tortured from him, and she could only guess what it cost this stockbroker to allow a chink in his confident facade and reveal his emotions. Now she began to like him.

‘Why is he in trouble?’ she asked gently.

‘He went out with his friends, had too much to drink. Some of them broke into a shop at night and got caught. The shopkeeper thinks he was one of them.’

‘What does Charlie say?’

‘Sometimes he says he wasn’t, sometimes he hints he might have been. It’s almost as though he didn’t know. I don’t think he was entirely sober that night.’

Pippa frowned. This sounded more like a teenager than a young man of twenty-four.

‘Do you have any other brothers or sisters?’ she asked.

‘None.’

‘Aunts, uncles?’

‘None.’

‘Wife? Children? Didn’t you mention having a daughter?’

‘No, I said if you were my daughter I’d give you a piece of my mind.’

‘Ah, yes.’ She smiled. ‘I remember.’

‘That’ll teach me not to judge people on short acquaintance, won’t it? Anyway, I have neither wife nor children.’

‘So, apart from your mother, you’re Charlie’s only relative. You must virtually have been his father.’

He grimaced. ‘Not a very successful one. I’ve always been so afraid of making a mess of it that I…made a mess of it.’

Pippa nodded. ‘The worst mistakes are sometimes made by people who are desperately trying to avoid mistakes,’ she said sympathetically.

Relief settled over him at her understanding.

‘Exactly. Long ago, I promised my mother I’d take care of Charlie, make sure he grew up strong and successful, but I seem to have let her down. I can’t bear to let her down again.’

It felt strange to hear this powerful man blaming himself for failure. Evidently, there was more to him than had first appeared.

‘Does he have a job?’

‘He works in my office. He’s bright. He’s got a terrific memory, and if we can get him safely through this he has a great future.’

‘Has he been in trouble with the police before?’

‘He’s skirted trouble but never actually been charged with anything. This will be his first time in court.’

She wondered what strings he’d had to pull to achieve that, but was too tactful to ask. That could come later.

‘Was anyone injured?’ she asked.

‘Nobody. The shop owner arrived while there were several of them there. They escaped, he gave chase and got close enough to see them just as they reached Charlie. He began yelling at them, which attracted the attention of two policemen coming out of the local station, and they all got arrested.

‘The owner insists Charlie was actually in the shop with the others, although I don’t see how he can be sure. He must have just seen a few figures in the gloom.’

‘What about the others? Haven’t they confirmed that he wasn’t in the shop?’

‘No, but neither do they say he was. They hum and haw and say they can’t remember. They were really drunk, so that might even be true. But the owner insists that he was there and is pressing charges.’

She considered. ‘Any damage?’

‘None. They managed to trick their way in electronically.’

‘So the worst he might face is a fine. But he’d have a criminal record that would make his life difficult in the future.’

‘It’s the future I’m worried about. They’re a bad crowd, and they’re not going to stop. It will get worse and worse and he’ll end up in jail. I’ve got to get him away from that bunch.’

‘Doesn’t he begin to see that they’re bad for him if this is the result?’

‘Charlie?’ Roscoe’s voice was scathing. ‘He doesn’t see the danger. So what if he’s convicted for something he didn’t do? He’ll just pay the fine and laugh his way home. There’s a girl in this crowd who’s gained a lot of influence over him. Her name’s Ginevra. He’s dazzled by her, and I think she gets her fun by seeing what she can provoke him into doing.’

Pippa frowned. ‘You mean he’s infatuated by her. There’s not a lot I can do about that.’

‘But there is. You can break her hold over him. Instead of being dazzled by her, he could be dazzled by you. He’s easily led, and if Ginevra can lead him into danger you could lead him into safety.’

‘And suppose I can’t get that kind of influence over him?’

‘Of course you can. You’re beautiful, you’ve got charm, you can tease him until he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going. If you really set your mind to it you can get him under your thumb and make him safe. I know you can do it. I’ve known you were the perfect person ever since we met and I learned who you worked for.’

So carried away did he become, explaining his plan, that he missed the look of mounting outrage in Pippa’s eyes.

‘I hope I’ve misunderstood you,’ she said at last. ‘You seem to be saying that you want me to be a…well…’

‘A mentor.’

‘A mentor? That’s what you call it?’

‘You point the way to the straight and narrow and he follows you because he’s under your spell.’

‘Ros— Mr Havering, just what kind of a fool do you take me for? I know what you want me to be and it isn’t a mentor.’

‘A nanny?’

The discovery of what he really expected from her was making her temper boil again. ‘Be careful,’ she warned him. ‘Be very, very careful.’

‘I may have explained it badly—’

‘On the contrary; you’ve explained it so perfectly that I can follow your exact thought processes. For instance, when did you decide that you wanted me for this job? I’ll bet it was last night when you arrived at my home. One look at me and you said to yourself, “She’s ideal. Good shape. Handy with her fists and no morals”. Admit it. You don’t want a lawyer, you want a floozie.’

‘No, I want a lawyer, but I can’t deny that your looks play a part.’

‘So you admit I look like a floozie?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ he said sharply. ‘Will you stop interrogating me as if I were a prisoner in the dock?’

‘Just demonstrating my legal skills which, according to you, are what you’re interested in. Tell the court, Mr Havering, exactly when did Miss Jenson first attract your attention? Was it when she was naked, or several hours earlier when you saw her in the graveyard? You saw her swapping jokes with a headstone and decided she was mad. Naked and mad! That’s a really impressive legal qualification.’

He took a long breath and replied in a slightly forced manner. ‘No, I too sometimes talk to the headstone when I visit my fa— Never mind that. I didn’t know we were going to meet. It was pure chance that your—that Miss Jenson’s car broke down, we got talking and she told me where she worked. That firm has handled legal work for me before and I was planning to approach them about Charlie. I saw that she would be the ideal person to take his case.’

‘You decided at that moment, knowing nothing about her legal skills? But of course those weren’t the skills that counted, were they? What mattered was the fact that she was a vulgar little piece—’

‘I never—’

‘A ditzy blonde with curves in the right places, who could be counted on to seduce your brother—’

‘I’m not asking you to—’

‘Oh, please, Mr Havering, credit the court with a little common sense. If you’d managed to set them on the road together, that is where it would have led eventually. At the very least, the question would have come up. You don’t deny that, do you?’

‘No, but—’ He stopped, seeing the pit that had opened at his feet.

‘But perhaps you were counting on this vulgar, unprincipled young woman to deal with him as effectively as you saw her deal with another man. A good right hook, a well-aimed knee—who needs legal training?’

She stopped, slightly breathless as though she’d been fighting. She couldn’t have explained the rising tide of anger that had made her turn on him so fiercely. He wasn’t the first client whose attitude had annoyed her, but with the others she’d always managed to control herself. Not this time. There was something in him that sent her temper into a spin.

‘I think we’ve said all we have to say,’ she informed him, beginning to gather her things. ‘I’m sorry I won’t be able to meet your requirements, but I’m a lawyer, not an escort girl.’

‘Please—’

‘Naturally, I shan’t be charging you for this consultation. Kindly let me pass.’

He had her trapped against the wall and could have barred her exit. Instead, he rose and stood aside. His face was unreadable but for the bleakness in his eyes. Despite her fury, she had a guilty feeling of having kicked someone who was down, but she suppressed it and stormed out.

Just around the corner was a small square with fountains, pigeons and wooden seats. She sat down, breathing out heavily and wondering at herself.

Fool! she told herself. You should just have laughed at him, taken the job, knocked some sense into the lad, then screwed every penny out of Havering. What came over you?

That was the question she couldn’t answer, and it troubled her.

Taking out her cellphone, she called David.

‘Hi, I’ve been hoping to hear from you,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Wait until you’ve heard my news. The phone’s been ringing off the hook with people wanting you and nobody but you. You made a big impression in court today, producing those figures like a magician taking a rabbit from the hat. Working for Roscoe Havering will do you even more good. Everyone knows he employs only the best.’

‘Tell me some more about him,’ Pippa said cautiously.

‘Hasn’t he told you about himself?’

‘Only that he’s a stockbroker. I—want to get him in perspective.’

‘He doesn’t boast about what a major player he is, that’s true. But in the financial world Roscoe Havering is a name that pulls people up short. They jump to do what he wants—well, I expect you’ve found that out already. What he doesn’t readily talk about is how he built that business up from collapse. It was his father’s firm, and when William Havering committed suicide it smashed Roscoe.’

‘Suicide?’

‘He didn’t tell you that?’

‘No, he just said his father had died and his mother never really recovered.’

‘There was a car crash. Officially, it was an accident, but in fact William killed himself because his life’s work was going bust. Roscoe worked for his father. He’d seen the financial mess they were in and tried to help, but there was little he could do. Secretly, I think he blames himself. He thinks if he’d done more he might have prevented the disaster—used his influence to pull William back from the brink. It’s nonsense, of course. He was only twenty-four, little more than a beginner. There was nothing he could have done.

‘After William’s death he managed to save the business and build it into a massive success, but it changed him, not really for the better. His ruthless side took over, but I suppose it had to. You won’t find him easy. What he wants, he wants, and he doesn’t take no for an answer.’

‘But do you realise what it is that he wants?’ Pippa demanded. ‘Am I supposed to seduce this boy, because you know what you can do with that idea.’

‘No, of course not,’ David said hurriedly, ‘but let’s be honest, you’ve had every man here yearning for you. You’ll know how to get this lad’s attention.’

‘I’m not sure—’

‘You haven’t turned him down?’ David sounded alarmed.

‘I’m thinking about it,’ Pippa said cautiously.

What are you talking about? raged her inner voice. Just tell him you’ve already said no.

‘Pippa, please do this, for the firm’s sake. Roscoe brings us a lot of work and, between you and me, he owns our office building. He’s not a man I want to offend.’

David was a good boss and a kind man. He’d taught her well, while keeping his yearning admiration for her beauty behind respectable barriers.

‘I’ll get back to you,’ she said.

She was thoughtful as she walked back to Cavelli’s, trying to reconcile the contradictions that danced in her mind. She’d perceived Roscoe Havering as an older man, certainly in his forties, but if David’s facts were correct he was only thirty-nine.

It was his demeanour that had misled her, she realised. Physically, he was still youngish, with dark brown hair that showed no hint of grey or thinning. His face was lean, not precisely handsome but intelligent and interesting. It might even have been charming but for a mysterious look of heaviness.

Heaviness. That was it. He seemed worn down by dead weights that he’d carried so long they were part of him. They aged him cruelly, but not permanently. Sometimes she’d surprised a gleam of humour in his eyes that hinted at another man, one it might be intriguing to know.

She quickened her steps, suddenly eager to talk to him again, wondering if he would still be there. He might have walked out. Or perhaps he was calling David to complain about her.

But as soon as she went in she saw him sitting where she’d left him, staring into space, seemingly full of silent sadness. Her heart was touched, despite her efforts to prevent it.

Control, warned her inner voice. Stay impartial. His outrageous request must be considered objectively.

How?

She approached quietly and pulled out a chair facing him. He looked up in surprise.

‘I’m sorry I stormed out like that,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I get into a temper. Shocking loss of objectivity, especially in a lawyer. A wise man wouldn’t want to employ me.’

‘There’s such a thing as being too wise,’ Roscoe said gently. ‘I’m sorry, too. I never meant to offend you. I expressed myself badly, and you were naturally upset.’

‘You didn’t express yourself badly. You laid out your requirements for your employee, making yourself plain on all counts, so that I’d understand everything before committing myself. That was very proper.’

He winced. ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.’

‘I’m merely trying to be professional.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘It’s just not very nice to have people thinking I’m a tart. It’s even worse when that’s my chief qualification for a job.’

‘I never said that,’ he disclaimed hurriedly. ‘Nor did I mean it. But you do seem to have the ability to love ’em and leave ’em.’

‘Oh, I believe in leaving ’em. I just manage without the love ’em bit.’

‘That’s what I want. You can cope with Charlie better than a more naive girl would. You could handle him, keep him in order, make him see things your way. What’s funny?’ Her sudden chuckle had disconcerted him.

‘You are,’ she said. ‘You’re making such a mess of this. What you really want is a heartless woman who can take care of herself, and you’re tying yourself in knots trying to say so without actually saying the words. No, no—’ she held up a hand to silence his denial ‘—we’ve covered that ground. Let it go.’

‘Will you help me?’ he asked slowly.

‘If I can, but things may not work out as you plan. You’ve assumed that he’ll take one look at me and collapse with adoration. Suppose he doesn’t?’

‘I think that would be a really new experience for you,’ he said, trying to sound casual.

‘Not at all. The world is full of men who are indifferent to my charms.’

‘You just haven’t met them yet.’

‘I’ve met plenty.’

‘Splendid! Then you’ll know what to do. Just use whatever methods you normally use to overcome their resistance.’

Her lips twitched. ‘I could take that as another insult.’

‘Yes, you could—if you were determined to.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I means that I’ve realised that you can twist everything I say into an insult, and you do it whenever it suits you. So now I’m fighting back.’

‘How?’

‘By refusing to let you bully me,’ he said firmly. ‘I am not going to cower and watch every word in case you misunderstand. You don’t actually misunderstand anything. You know I don’t really mean to insult you, so don’t try to score points off me. I don’t want you to seduce Charlie. I want you to beguile him, make his head spin until he’ll follow your lead. You’ll do a good job and I’ll respect you for it. And if we fight, we fight openly. Agreed?’

There was a definite no-nonsense tone to his voice, making it clear that he meant every word. He was putting his foot down, asserting himself, warning her not to mess with him—all the powerful, dominant things that she had instinctively associated with him.

And yet—and yet—

Far back in his eyes, that look was there again—a gleam that might have been conspiratorial humour.

Or perhaps not.

After a moment Pippa held out her hand to him. ‘Agreed.’

They shook. She took out a notebook and spoke formally. ‘I need to know as much about the gang he’s running around with as you can tell me.’

‘They’re all young people who seem to live on the edge of the law. They don’t even have proper addresses. They squat, which means they move on a lot as they get caught. I don’t know for a fact that they steal, but they don’t have any regular source of income. Charlie definitely gives Ginevra money. They live from hand to mouth, which he finds exciting. Here. That’s the two of them together.’

From an inner pocket he took out a photograph that seemed to have been taken in a crowded room, probably a squat. In the centre, a young couple lay back in each other’s arms.

‘He keeps that as a treasured souvenir,’ Roscoe observed curtly. ‘I wanted you to see it, so I stole it from him.’

‘Good for you,’ Pippa murmured. Studying the picture, she felt a rising tide of excitement. ‘Yes, now I begin to understand. She’s up to her old tricks.’

‘You know her?’ Roscoe demanded, startled.

‘Yes, and her name’s not Ginevra, it’s Biddy Felsom. I suppose she thought the new name sounded more glamorous. Her hobby is teasing the lads to do daft things to win her favour. She’s done a lot of damage in her time. What’s the matter?’

The question was surprised from her by the sight of Roscoe’s face, filled with shock and dismay as he stared over her shoulder. The next moment she heard, above her head, the petulant voice of a young man.

‘So there you are, Roscoe. Hiding from me, I suppose. You must have known I’d be over here as soon as I found out what you were up to.’

‘Charlie—’

‘Well, you can forget it, do you hear? I know exactly the kind of creep you’ll want to hire for me, all settled and respectable. Let’s be respectable, whatever else happens. No way. I’ll find my own lawyer—someone who understands the world and lives in the present. Ow!’

He hopped back, wincing as Pippa’s chair was pushed out hard against his leg.

‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that to happen,’ she said untruthfully.

Gazing up at him, she knew he had a grandstand view of her face and the generous curves of her breasts, with just one button of the sedate blouse undone. Now the smile, soft and warm, dawning slowly, suggesting that she’d been pleasantly amazed at the attractions of the young man looking down at her.

‘Hello,’ she said.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHARLIE drew a long, slow breath, visibly stunned. This was useful, Pippa thought, bringing a professional mind to bear on the situation, because it gave her the chance to study him.

He was certainly handsome. His face was slightly fuller than his brother’s, just enough to give it a vivacious quality that was alluring. His mouth was attractively curved, and she guessed that many a girl had sighed hopelessly for him. He was too boyish to attract her, but he seemed pleasant.

‘Hello,’ he murmured, distracted. Then he recovered his poise and seated himself next to Pippa. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I’m only mad at him.’ He indicated Roscoe.

‘He must be an absolutely terrible person,’ she said sympathetically.

‘He is. Definitely.’

‘And now he wants to force his choice of lawyer on you—someone middle-aged and ignorant of the modern world, who won’t understand you. Oh, yes, and respectable. Shocking!’

She couldn’t meet Roscoe’s eye. He was leaning back, regarding her performance with wry appreciation.

‘By the way, I’m Charlie Havering,’ the young man said, holding out a hand.

‘I’m Pippa Jenson,’ she said, taking it. ‘And I’m your lawyer.’

Charlie grinned. ‘Yeah, right!’

‘Seriously. I’m a solicitor. I work for Farley & Son.’

‘But you can’t be,’ Charlie protested. ‘You don’t look at all respectable.’

‘Watch your manners, Charlie,’ Roscoe said. ‘This is a highly qualified lady you’re talking to.’

‘I can see that,’ Charlie said, taking her hand. ‘Very highly qualified.’

Roscoe caught his breath as he found himself surrounded by double entendres. ‘I only meant,’ he said carefully, ‘that she’s a professional—no, not like that—’

He swore inwardly as he realised what Pippa could make of this, but she surprised him, bursting out laughing. Laughter possessed her utterly, making her rock back and forth while peals of merriment danced up from her and Charlie regarded her with delight. In fact Roscoe realised that everyone in the place was smiling at her, as though just by being there she brightened the day.

She reached across the table and took Roscoe’s hand. ‘Oh, shut up,’ she told him, still laughing, ‘You make it worse with every word.’

‘I don’t mean to. I was considering your feelings,’ he said stiffly, withdrawing his hand.

‘Heavens, we’re way past that. Enough. It’s finished.’

‘As you wish. But Charlie, behave yourself.’

‘Why, when I’m talking to the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever met? Hey!’

One moment he was leaning close in a seductive conspiracy. The next, he was bouncing with agitation at something he’d seen.

‘It’s him,’ he yelped, leaping to his feet. ‘Just let me get to him.’

Across the restaurant, a long-haired young man turned in alarm, then vanished between some curtains, closely followed by Charlie.

‘What was that?’ Pippa said, looking around.

‘A man who owes him money,’ Roscoe observed. ‘One of many.’

‘So that’s your brother. He’ll be an interesting client. Yes, I think I’ll accept his case.’

It was on the tip of Roscoe’s tongue to tell her to forget it because he’d changed his mind. But he controlled the impulse, as he controlled so many impulses in his life, and sat in tense silence, a prey to opposing feelings. On the surface, things were working out exactly as he’d wanted. The smile she’d given Charlie was perfect for the purpose, and it had had the desired effect. His brother had been transfixed, just as Roscoe had meant him to be. So, what more did he want?

He didn’t know. All he knew for certain was that he hated it.

‘Pippa,’ he said edgily, ‘I must be honest, I think you’re going about this the wrong way.’

‘What?’ She stared at him. ‘I’m doing what you said you wanted.’

‘Yes, but I had in mind something a little more—’ He hesitated, made cautious by the look in her eyes.

‘A little more what?’ she asked in a voice that was softly dangerous.

‘More subtle,’ he said desperately.

‘Mr Havering, are you telling me how to do my job?’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

‘Really? I’m not sure of that. Perhaps we should have discussed this before now, so that you could tell me exactly how a woman goes about beguiling a man? After all, I know so little about the subject, don’t I? How stupid of me not to have taken lessons from you! Why don’t you instruct me now so that I’ll know which boxes to tick?’

‘All right,’ he said quickly. ‘Of course you know more than I do about this.’

‘Which I thought was why you hired me. Anyway, I’m not doing well, since his attention was so easily distracted. One hint of an unpaid debt and he’s off. Hmm! Perhaps I should review my strategy.’

‘I feel sure your strategy is quite up to the challenge.’

‘It’s the first time a man has walked away from me when I was trying to mesmerise him. I could feel quite insulted by that.’

‘You’re having a bad day for insults, aren’t you?’

‘Between you and him, yes.’

‘Then I may as well add to my crimes by pointing out that he didn’t walk away from you, he ran away at full speed. Perhaps I’ve hired the wrong person.’

‘You could be right. Desperate measures are called for. I must lure my prey into a net from which he cannot escape.’

‘Always assuming that he returns at all,’ Roscoe pointed out. ‘You may have to go after him.’

‘Please!’ She appeared horrified. ‘I never “go after” a man. They come after me.’

‘Always?’ he asked, eyes narrowed.

‘If I want them to. Sometimes I don’t bother.’ Thoroughly enjoying his discomfiture, she smiled. ‘And never mind condemning me as a hussy, because that’s exactly what you hired me for.’

‘Is there any point in my defending myself?’ he growled.

‘None whatever,’ she assured him.

She was curious to know what he would say next, but Charlie spoiled things by reappearing, cursing because his prey had escaped.

‘Did he owe you very much?’ Pippa asked, turning from Roscoe with reluctance.

‘A few thousand.’

‘Perhaps we can recover it by legal action,’ she suggested.

‘Ah…no,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It’s a bit…well…’

‘All right, let’s leave it,’ she said quickly. ‘The sooner we get down to business, the better.’

‘Yes, we must have a long talk over dinner,’ Charlie said. ‘The Diamond is the best place in town. Come on, let’s go.’

‘First you ask Miss Jenson if she is free,’ Roscoe said firmly. ‘If she is, then you ask if she can endure an evening with us.’

‘Us? Ah, well—I didn’t actually mean that you should come with—’

‘I know exactly what you meant, and you can forget that idea. Miss Jenson, could you put up with the two of us for a few more hours?’

‘I’ll do my best,’ she said solemnly. ‘We have serious matters to discuss.’

‘I agree, so we can forget The Diamond,’ Roscoe said, taking out his cellphone and dialling. ‘Hello, Mother? Yes, it’s me. We’re on our way home and we have a guest. I’ve found a first-rate lawyer for Charlie, so roll out the red carpet for her. Fine. See you soon.’ He ended the call.

Charlie, who had been spluttering fruitlessly, now found his voice. ‘What about how I feel?’ he demanded.

‘The Diamond is no place for a serious discussion.’

‘And doesn’t Pippa get a say?’

‘Miss Jenson has already done us the honour of agreeing to dine with us. Since this is a business meeting, I’m sure she feels that the venue is irrelevant.’

‘Certainly,’ Pippa said in her briskest tone. ‘I have no opinion either way.’

‘You’re going to just let him walk over you?’ Charlie demanded.

Pippa couldn’t resist. Giving Roscoe a cheeky sideways look, she leaned towards Charlie and said, ‘It can’t be helped. In my job you get used to clients who want to rule the roost.’ She added conspiratorially, ‘There are ways of dealing with them.’

The young man choked with laughter, jerking his head towards Roscoe. ‘Think you can get him on the ropes?’

‘Think I can’t?’

She was watching Roscoe for his reaction. There was none. His eyes were on her but his face revealed nothing. Clearly, the notion of tussling with her, whether physically or emotionally, caused him no excitement.

‘Just promise that I can be there to see you crush him beneath your heel,’ Charlie implored.

‘When you two have finished,’ Roscoe said in a bored voice.

‘Just a little innocent fun,’ Charlie protested.

‘Sorry, I don’t do fun.’ Roscoe’s voice was so withering that Pippa threw him another quick glance. For a moment his face was tight, hard, older.

‘That’s right, he doesn’t,’ Charlie said.

‘OK, I’m here,’ said a voice overhead.

Charlie groaned, then bounced up as he recognised the man who owed him money, now holding out an envelope.

‘I only ran to get this,’ he said. ‘I always meant to repay you.’ He dropped the envelope and fled. The reason became obvious a moment later.

‘There’s only half here,’ Charlie yelped. ‘Hey, come back!’ He resumed the pursuit.

Alone again, Roscoe and Pippa eyed each other, suspicion on one side, defiance on the other.

‘How am I doing?’ she asked.

‘You’ve certainly got his attention. I’d give a lot to know what he’s thinking.’

‘He believes what he wants to believe,’ she said with a small flash of anger. ‘Men always do. Didn’t you know that? I know it. And so does any woman who’s ever had a man in her life.’

‘And when a woman knows it she makes use of it?’

‘She does if she has any sense of self-preservation. And may I remind you again, Mr Havering, that I’m doing what you hired me to do? You’re paying for my skills, but you don’t get to dictate what skills I use or how I use them.’

‘Don’t I?’

‘No, because if you try I’ll simply step aside and let Charlie see you pulling my strings.’

He drew a sharp breath. ‘You really know how to fight dirty.’

‘Have you only just realised that?’

He regarded her. ‘I think I have.’

‘Good, then we understand each other. Now he’s coming back. Smile at me so that he’ll know that all is well between us.’

‘I wonder if that day will ever come,’ he said softly.

But the next moment he was smiling as she’d suggested, even talking pleasantly, loud enough for Charlie to hear. ‘My mother’s housekeeper is an expert cook. I promise that you’ll enjoy tonight’s meal, Miss Havering.’

‘Pippa,’ she said. ‘After all, we’re fighting on the same side.’

His eyes warned her not to push her luck, but he only inclined his head before rising and saying, ‘I’ll get the car. Be waiting for me outside and don’t take too long.’

She longed to salute him ironically and say, Yes sir, no sir. I obey, sir. But he was gone before she had the chance.

‘That’s his way,’ Charlie said, correctly interpreting her seething. ‘People give up arguing. You will too.’

‘Will I? I wonder. Did you catch up with that man?’

‘No, he escaped again. But at least I got some of the money. And now we’re alone, can I tell you that you are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever met?’

‘No, you can’t tell me that,’ she said. ‘For one thing, I already know and, for another, your brother wouldn’t approve.’

‘Oh, forget him. What does he have to do with us?’

Pippa frowned. ‘He’s protecting you. Don’t you owe him some kind of consideration?’

‘Why? He’s only thinking of himself. The good name of Havering must be defended at all costs. The truth is, he cares for nobody.’

‘And nobody cares for him?’ she murmured slowly.

Charlie shrugged. ‘Who knows? He doesn’t let anyone inside.’

It sounded so convincing, but suddenly there was the whispered memory of Roscoe saying, ‘If anything happens to Charlie, it would break my mother’s heart… At all costs I want to save her from more suffering.’

This wasn’t a man who cared nothing for anyone. He might care so much that he only admitted it under stress.

Or perhaps Charlie was right. Which of the two was the real man? Impossible to say. Unless…

Suddenly the waiter hurried up to them, almost stuttering in his agitation. ‘He’s in the car…says he told you to be out there waiting for him. He’s good ’n mad.’

They ran outside to where Roscoe’s car was by the kerb, engine running. When they had tumbled into the back seat, Pippa said politely, ‘I’m really sorry,’ but Roscoe only grunted, his eyes on the traffic as he edged his way into the flow. She supposed she couldn’t blame him.

Their destination was an expensive London suburb, full of large detached houses standing in luxurious gardens. A woman was waiting by the gate, smiling and waving at the sight of them. She was thin and frail-looking, and Pippa recalled Roscoe saying that she’d been in a bad way ever since his father’s death, fifteen years earlier.

But her face was brilliant with joy as Charlie got out of the car and she could hug him. He handed Pippa out and she found herself being scrutinised by two bright eyes before Angela Havering thrust out a hand declaring that she was so glad to meet her.

Roscoe drove the car away.

‘He has to park at the back,’ Charlie explained. ‘He’ll join us in a minute.’

‘Come inside,’ Angela said, taking her hand. ‘I want to know all about you, and how you’re going to save my dear boy.’

She drew Pippa into the house, a lavishly elegant establishment, clearly furnished and tended by someone who’d brought housekeeping to a fine art, with the cash to do it.

In the kitchen they found Nora, a cheerful, middle-aged woman in a large apron, presiding over a variety of dishes.

‘I hope I didn’t make your life difficult, coming unexpectedly,’ Pippa said as they were introduced.

‘There’s plenty to eat,’ Angela said. ‘It’s always been one of my husband’s maxims that a successful house has food ready all the time.’

Pippa smiled, but she had a strange, edgy feeling. Angela spoke almost as if her husband were still alive.

Nora poured wine and Angela handed them each a glass and raised hers in salute.

‘Welcome to our home,’ she said to Pippa. ‘I’m sure you’re going to make everything all right.’

It was a charming scene, but it would have been more charming, Pippa thought, if she’d waited for Roscoe to join them. It was a tiny point, but it troubled her.

From the kitchen window, she had a view of the back garden, with a large garage at the far end. As she watched, Roscoe came out of a side door of the garage and began walking to the house.

‘Here he is,’ she said, pointing.

‘Oh, good. I was afraid he’d keep us waiting. Honestly, he can be so inconsiderate.’

Over supper, Angela was on edge, constantly turning an anxious expression on Charlie, then a frowning gaze at Roscoe, as though silently criticising him for something. To Pippa, it seemed as though she’d given all her love to one son and barely registered the existence of the other.

Of course, she argued with herself, Charlie was a vulnerable boy threatened with disaster, while Roscoe was a powerful man, well able to take care of himself. But still…

Charlie’s cellphone rang. He went out into the hall to speak to the caller and, as soon as he’d gone, Angela clasped Pippa’s hand.

‘You see how he is, how he needs to be cared for.’

‘And he’s lucky to have a brother who cares for him,’ Pippa couldn’t resist saying.

‘Oh, yes, of course there’s Roscoe. He does his best, but when I think of what might happen to my darling…maybe prison…’

‘He won’t go to prison,’ Pippa said at once. ‘It’s a first offence, nothing was stolen and nobody was hurt. A fine, and perhaps some community service is the worst that will happen.’

‘But he’ll have a criminal record.’

‘Yes, and that’s why we’re working so hard to defend him.’

‘Oh, if only my husband were here,’ Angela wailed. ‘William would know what to do. He always does.’

Roscoe’s eyes met Pippa’s and a little shake of his head warned her to say nothing. She nodded, feeling all at sea, glad to keep quiet.

‘But you’ve got me to help, Mother,’ Roscoe reminded her.

‘Oh, yes, and you do your best, but it’s not the same, is it?’

‘No, it’s not the same,’ Roscoe said quietly.

‘If only he hadn’t gone away. He should be here now that we need him so much.’

Again, she might have been speaking of a living man, and Pippa wondered uneasily just how much she lived in the real world.

As she spoke, Angela fiddled constantly was a ring on her left hand. It was an engagement ring, with an awesome central diamond, surrounded by smaller diamonds.

‘That’s my engagement ring,’ Angela said, seeing her glance. ‘It was much too expensive and William couldn’t really afford it in those days, but he said that nothing was too much for me. All these years later, I still have it to remind me that his love never died.’ Her voice shook.

Pippa was uncertain where to look. Angela’s determination to thrust her emotion on everyone was difficult to cope with, even without knowing that it was misplaced.

Charlie returned after a moment, bearing a cup of tea which he set before his mother.

‘Why, darling, how kind of you to think of me!’ She turned to Roscoe. ‘Isn’t Charlie a wonderful son?’

‘The best,’ Roscoe agreed kindly. ‘Now, drink up, and have plenty of sugar because that always does you good.’

‘Here,’ Charlie said, spooning sugar madly into the cup. His mother beamed at him.

So the spoilt child got all the credit, Pippa thought, while Roscoe, who was genuinely working hard to ease her troubles, was barely noticed.

Then she reproved herself for being over-emotional. Roscoe was only doing what was sensible, supporting his mother and Charlie so that the family should not disintegrate. The idea that he might be saddened by being relegated to the shadows of Angela’s affection was too sentimental for words. And if there was one thing Roscoe was not, it was sentimental.

And neither was she, she reminded herself.

Nonetheless, she couldn’t help warming to him for his generosity and patience.

A little later Angela went away into the kitchen, and she seized the chance to tell Charlie about Ginevra. He was reluctant to believe the worst, but Pippa was firm, saying, ‘I don’t want you to contact her unless I say so. Give me your word.’

‘All right, maybe I was a bit mad but she made my head spin.’

‘Well, it’s time to stop spinning. Mr Havering, do you have a computer here that I could use?’

‘It’s upstairs,’ Roscoe said. ‘I’ll show you.’

‘Beware,’ Charlie warned. ‘He’s taking you up to his bedroom, a place where no sensible woman goes.’

‘Cut it out,’ Roscoe advised him wearily. ‘Miss Jenson, I hope you know you have absolutely nothing to fear from me.’

‘That’s not very flattering,’ Charlie protested illogically.

‘Unflattering but sensible and businesslike,’ Pippa said. ‘Mr Havering, let me return the compliment by declaring that I too am entirely free from temptation. Now, shall we go?’

‘I’ll come too,’ Charlie declared. ‘To protect you.’

‘I need no protection,’ she declared firmly. ‘Ask your brother how I deal with troublesome men.’

Charlie’s eyes widened. ‘Hey, he didn’t—?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Roscoe said, exasperated. ‘But I witnessed the fate of someone who did. Take it from me, you wouldn’t like it. Stay here and look after Mother.’

Roscoe’s room was much as she would have expected—full of straight lines, plain, unadorned, unrevealing. The bed was narrow and looked hard, the wallpaper was pale grey, without pattern. There was a television, modest, neat, efficient; a set where a man would watch the news. A monk could have lived in this room.

But his real home was an apartment elsewhere, she reminded herself. She wondered if that was any different, and doubted it.

But then she saw something that made her stare and gasp with delight.

‘Wow!’ she breathed. ‘How about that? Let me look at it. Can you just—? Yes, that’s right. Oh, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever—yes—yes—yes—’ Her hands were clasped in sheer ecstasy, her voice full of joy, her eyes glowing with blissful satisfaction.

Roscoe regarded her, fascinated. It wasn’t his first sight of a beautiful woman in transports—in his arms, sometimes in his bed.

But this one was looking at his computer.

A touch of the switch had caused the machine to flower into glorious life, making her watch, riveted, as one state-of-the-art accessory after another leapt into the spotlight.

‘Oh, goodness,’ she breathed. ‘Why haven’t I ever—? I’ve never even heard of some of these.’

‘One of my clients owns a firm that makes software and computer peripherals,’ Roscoe said. ‘He’s at the cutting edge and I get everything ahead of the game. I’ll tell him you’re interested and I’m sure he’ll fix you up.’

‘Oh, yes, please! And look at the size of that screen, the biggest I’ve ever seen.’

‘You should try one,’ Roscoe said. ‘It’s useful for having multiple documents open at once.’

‘Ah, yes,’ she murmured. ‘Useful. How do I go online?’

He touched a switch and in a moment she’d connected with her work computer, entered the password and brought up a list of documents. A few more clicks brought Ginevra’s face to the screen just as Charlie entered the room.

‘Hey, that’s her!’ he exclaimed. Then he stared at the caption. ‘But who’s Biddy Felsom?’

‘She is,’ Pippa said. ‘Known to the police as a small-time offender and pain in the neck. She enjoys getting stupid boys to do things they shouldn’t, pulling their strings, like she pulled yours.’

‘Well, she’s history,’ Charlie said. ‘I know that you’ll save me from her.’

‘Good. Now it’s time I was going home,’ Pippa observed.

‘I’ll drive you,’ Roscoe said.

‘No you won’t, I will,’ Charlie was quick to say.

‘Neither of you will,’ Pippa said. ‘Mr Havering, will you call me a taxi?’

‘I’ll drive you,’ Charlie insisted.

‘Shut up!’ his brother said impatiently. ‘Can’t you see she’s had enough of the pair of us tonight? Miss Jenson, I suggest that the next meeting should be at my office. My secretary will call you to fix a time.’

‘Certainly,’ she said in her most efficient tone.

‘I know you can rescue me,’ Charlie said. ‘We’ll do it together because I’m going to take your advice in everything.’

He said the last word with a breathless sincerity that made her regard him wryly. His eyes twinkled back at her and they laughed together.

Angela came in and demanded to know what was happening. Charlie proclaimed his faith in Pippa, which made his mother embrace her.

Roscoe took no part in this. He was calling the taxi.

Just before it arrived, Charlie came to stand before her. ‘There’s something I’ve just got to know,’ he breathed.

‘I’ll tell you if I can,’ she promised. ‘What is it?’

‘This,’ he said, putting a hand behind her head and whipping out the clip in her hair, letting her glorious locks flow free.

‘I’ve wanted to do that ever since we met,’ he said.

‘Then you should be ashamed of yourself,’ Roscoe growled. ‘That’s no way to treat a lady.’

‘Pippa’s not offended,’ Charlie pleaded. ‘Are you?’

‘No, I’m not offended, but right this minute I feel like your nursemaid. I think you should call me Nanny.’

‘Not in a million years,’ he said fervently.

She gave a crow of laughter. ‘Well, my taxi seems to be here, so I’m leaving now. I’ll see you soon.’

Charlie and Angela came with her to the gate, but Roscoe stayed back, declaring curtly that he had work to do. At the last minute he pushed a scrap of paper into Pippa’s hand and turned away to climb the stairs.

As the taxi drew away she strained to read what was on the paper, mystified by Roscoe. When her hair flowed free she’d caught a glimpse of his face, full of shock as though he’d been stunned. But that made no sense. He’d seen her hair the night before. There was nothing to surprise him. Yet a man who’d been punched in the stomach might have looked like that.

Now he was giving her secret notes, and she wondered if his stern facade had melted long enough for him to send her a personal message. Could he be reacting to her as a man to a woman? She found herself hoping so. There was something about him that made her want to know more. In another moment she would find out…

Then she passed under a street lamp long enough to see what he’d written to her.

It was the address of his client’s computer firm.

CHAPTER FIVE

NEXT morning Roscoe’s secretary called and they set up the appointment at his office for the following day. An hour later Charlie came on the line, wanting to see her that night. Since there was still much she needed to discover she reluctantly agreed to let him take her to The Diamond, although a nightclub wasn’t the place she would have chosen.

She supposed she should notify Roscoe, but she stopped her hand on the way to the phone. He was just a tad too controlling for her taste, and yielding to it would only make him worse. She would make a report afterwards.

That evening she dressed carefully, choosing a fairly sedate black satin gown with a long hem and modest neck. She’d beguiled Charlie enough to secure his attention, but she had no wish to entice him further.

Downstairs, he had a car waiting, complete with chauffeur.

‘I hired it for the evening,’ he said, getting in beside her. ‘I don’t want to drive, I want to concentrate on you, now I have you all to myself.’

‘That’s lovely,’ she said. ‘Just you, me and my notebook.’

‘Notebook?’

‘Well, this is a professional consultation, isn’t it? You’re going to fill me in on any aspects of the case that were overlooked before.’

He grimaced.

At The Diamond she had to admit that he was a skilled host, recommending dishes from the elaborate menu, knowing which wine to order. He seemed in a chirpy mood, but at last she looked up to find his face pervaded by a wry, almost hangdog look.

‘I guess you were right about Ginevra,’ he said. ‘I tried to call her. I know you told me not to, but I had to try.’

‘What happened?’

‘She hung up. I can’t believe I was taken in so easily. But at least now I’ve got you. You’re my friend, aren’t you? Really my friend, not just because Roscoe has hired your legal skills?’

‘Roscoe does a lot for you,’ she reminded him.

‘I know I should be grateful to him. He’s always looked after me, but…but he does too much, so that sometimes I feel I don’t know who I really am. What would I do if I was left to myself? Stupid things, probably.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’

Once Charlie started to talk, it all came tumbling out—the years of growing up in the shadow of tragedy, the crushing awareness that he was all his mother lived for, the feeling that he could never be free.

‘My dad killed himself,’ he said sombrely, ‘but Roscoe won’t allow it to be mentioned, especially to Mum. That’s his way. “Do this, Charlie, don’t do that. Join the firm, Charlie—”’

‘Did he make you join his firm?’

‘He suggested it, and what Roscoe “suggests” tends to happen.’

‘Couldn’t you have held out against him?’

‘I suppose. Actually, I feel a bit guilty about Roscoe. I get mad at him, but I do know the truth.’

‘Which is?’

‘That he’s always had the rough end of the stick. I think Mum blames him for Dad’s death, not openly but she says things like, “If only he hadn’t been so tired that day, he might not have crashed.” And she says other things—so that I just know she thinks Roscoe wasn’t pulling his weight.’

‘Do you believe that?’

‘No, not now I’m in the firm and know a bit about how it works. Roscoe was the same age I am now, still learning the business, and there was only so much he could have done. And I’ve talked to people who were there at that time and they all say there was a big crash coming, and nobody could believe “that kid” could avoid it.’

‘“That kid,”’ she murmured. ‘It’s hard to see him like that.’

‘I know, but that’s how they thought of him back then. And they were all astounded when he got them through. I respect him—you have to—but I can see what it made him. Sometimes I feel guilty. He saved the rest of us but it damaged him terribly, and Mum just blames him because…well…’

‘Maybe she needs someone to blame,’ Pippa suggested gently.

‘Something like that. And it’s so unfair that I feel sorry for him. Hey, don’t tell him I said that. He’d murder me!’

‘And then he’d murder me,’ she agreed. ‘Promise.’ She laid a finger over her lips.

‘The reason I don’t deal with Roscoe very well is that I’m always in two minds about him. I admire him to bits for what he’s achieved in the firm, and the way he puts up with Mum’s behaviour without complaining.’

‘Does he mind about her very much?’

‘Oh, yes. He doesn’t say anything but I see his face sometimes, and it hurts him.’

‘Have you tried talking to him about it?’

‘Yes, and I’ve been slapped down. He shuts it away inside himself, and I resent that. He’s been a good brother to me, but he won’t let me be a good brother to him. That’s what I was saying; one moment I admire him and sympathise with him. The next moment I want to thump him for being a tyrant. I’m afraid his tyrant side outweighs the other one by about ten to one.’

‘If you weren’t a stockbroker, what would you have liked to do?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Something colourful where I didn’t have to wear a formal suit.’ He gave a comical sigh. ‘I guess I’m just a lost cause.’

She smiled, feeling as sympathetic as she would have done with a younger brother. Beneath the frivolous boy, she could detect the makings of a generous, thoughtful man with, strangely, a lot in common with his brother. Charlie wasn’t the weakling she’d first thought. He had much inner strength. It was just a different kind of strength from Roscoe.

‘You’re not a lost cause,’ she said, reaching over the table and laying her hands on his shoulders. ‘I say you’re not, and what I say goes.’

He grinned. ‘Now you sound just like Roscoe.’

‘Well, I am like Roscoe.’ Briefly, she enclosed his face between her hands. ‘He’s not the only one who can give orders, and my orders to you are to cheer up because I’m going to make things all right.’

She dropped her hands but gave him a comforting sisterly smile.

‘D’you know, I really believe you can,’ he mused. ‘I think you could take on even Roscoe and win.’

‘Well, somewhere in this world there has to be someone who can crush him beneath her heels.’

‘His fiancée couldn’t.’

‘His fiancée?’ Pippa echoed, startled. Since learning that Roscoe lived alone, she had somehow never connected him with romantic entanglements.

‘It was a few years back. Her name was Verity and she was terribly “suitable”. She worked in the firm, and Roscoe used to say that she knew as much about finance as he did.’

‘I dare say she’d need to,’ Pippa said, nodding.

‘Right. It makes you wonder what they talked about when they were alone. The latest exchange rate? What the Dow-Jones index was doing?’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Pretty enough, but I think it was chiefly her mental qualities he admired.’

‘Charlie, a man doesn’t ask a woman to marry him because of her mental qualities.’

‘Roscoe isn’t like other men. Beauty passes him by.’

‘Then why did you warn me against going up to his room yesterday?’

‘I was only joking. I knew he had no interest in you that way. Don’t you remember? He said so himself.’

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘He did, didn’t he?’

After that, she relapsed into thought.

Another bottle of wine was served and Charlie drank deeply, making Pippa glad he wasn’t driving.

‘Was he very much in love with her?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Like I said, he doesn’t talk about his feelings. He wanted her in his way. The rest of us look at a beautiful woman and think Wow! Roscoe thinks, Will she do me credit? I don’t think he’s ever thought Wow! in his life.’

Oh, yes, he has, she thought, gazing silently into her glass.

Noticing nothing, Charlie continued, ‘She could be relied on to know what was important—money, propriety, making the world bow down before you. And she’d give him intelligent children who would eventually go into the business. What more could he want?’

‘Surely you’re being unfair?’

‘Well, losing her didn’t seem to break his heart. He didn’t even tell us at the time. One day I mentioned that we hadn’t seen her for a while and then he said they’d broken up weeks ago. Any normal man would drown his sorrows in the pub with his mates, but not him. He just fired her and she ceased to exist.’

‘He actually fired her?’ Pippa was startled.

‘Well, he said she’d left the firm, but I reckon he made her understand that she’d better leave.’

She felt as though someone had struck her over the heart, which was surely absurd? From the start, she’d sensed that Roscoe was a harsh, controlling man, indifferent to the feelings of others as long as his rule was unchallenged. So why should she care if her worst opinion was confirmed?

Because she’d also thought she saw another side to him—warmer, more human. And because Charlie himself had spoken of that softer side. But the moment had passed. Charlie had switched back from the sympathetic brother to the rebellious kid, and in doing so he’d changed the light on Roscoe who was now, once more, the tyrant.

She knew a glimmer of sadness, but suppressed it. Much better to be realistic.

It was time for the cabaret. Dancers skipped across the stage, a crooner crooned, a comedian strutted his stuff. She thought him fairly amusing but Charlie was more critical.

‘His performance was a mess,’ he said as the space was cleared for dancing. ‘Listen.’

To her surprise, he rattled through the last joke, word perfect and superbly timed. Then he went back and repeated an earlier part of the act, also exactly right, as far as she could judge.

‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘I’ve never come across such a memory.’

He shrugged. ‘It convinced Roscoe that I was bright enough to be a stockbroker, so you might say it ruined my life.’

He made a comical face. She smiled back, meaning to console rather than beguile him. But the next moment her face lit up and she cried out in pleasure, ‘Lee Renton, you devious so-and-so! How lovely to see you.’

A large man in his forties was bearing down on them, hands extended. He was attractive, and would have been even more so if he could manage to lose some weight.

‘“Devious so-and-so!”’ he mocked. ‘Is that any way to address your favourite client?’

‘That’s not what I say to my favourite client. To him, I say, “Sir, how generous of you to double the bill!”’

Lee roared with laughter before saying, ‘Actually, I’ll gladly pay twice the bill after what you did for me.’ He seemed to notice Charlie for the first time. ‘I’m Lee Renton. Any friend of Pippa’s is a friend of mine.’ He pumped Charlie’s hand and sat down without waiting to be invited.

‘I did a court appearance for Lee the other day,’ Pippa told Charlie. ‘It went fairly well.’

‘Don’t act modest,’ Lee protested. ‘You’re the tops and you know it.’

‘Meaning that I saved you some money?’

‘What else?’ he asked innocently.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘My firm provided the entertainment here tonight, and I’ll probably buy the place. I’ll call you about that.’ He blew her a kiss. ‘You look ravishing, queen of my heart.’

‘Oh, stop your nonsense!’

‘Do you say that as a woman or as the lawyer who recently handled my divorce?’

‘I say it as the lawyer who’ll probably draw up your next pre-nuptial agreement.’

He bellowed with laughter. A passing waiter caught Charlie’s attention and he turned, giving Renton a chance to lower his voice and say, ‘Quite a performer, your companion—I overheard him retelling those jokes and he was a sight better than the original comedian. Does he do it professionally?’

‘No, he’s a stockbroker.’

‘You’re having a laugh.’

‘Really. He’s actually a client and we were discussing his case.’

‘Yeah, right. This is just the perfect place for it. All right, I’m going. I have work to do. Stockbroker, eh?’ He thumped Charlie on the shoulder and departed.

Charlie frowned, turning back from the waiter. ‘Lee Renton? I’ve heard that name somewhere.’

‘He’s very big in entertainment. He buys things, he promotes, he owns a television studio.’

‘That Lee Renton? Wow! I wish I’d known.’

He looked around, managing to spot Lee in the distance, deep in conversation with a man whom he overwhelmed by flinging an arm around his shoulders and sweeping him off until they both vanished in the crowd.

The waiter brought more wine and he drank it thoughtfully. ‘Do you know him well?’

‘Well enough. I’ll introduce you another time.’

He drained his glass. ‘Come on, let’s dance.’

He was a natural dancer, and together they went enjoyably mad. The other dancers backed off to watch them, and when they finished the crowd applauded.

Charlie’s eyes were brilliant, his cheeks flushed, and Pippa guessed she must look much the same. In a moment of crazy delight, he put his hands on either side of her face, just as she had briefly done to him at the table. But when he tried to kiss her she fended him off.

‘That’s enough,’ she said when she could speak. ‘Bad boy!’

‘Sorry, ma’am!’ He assumed a clowning expression of penitence.

‘We’re going back to the table and you’re going to behave,’ she said firmly.

Then she saw Roscoe.

He was sitting at a table on the edge of the dance floor, regarding her with his head slightly tilted and an unreadable expression on his face. Beside him sat a woman of great beauty in a low-cut evening gown of gold satin, with flaming red hair. Pippa saw her lean towards him, touching his hand gently so that he turned back to her, all attention, as though everyone else had ceased to exist.

‘What’s up?’ Charlie asked, turning. ‘What? Damn him!’

He hurried her to the table, muttering, ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t see us. What’s he doing here?’

‘Who’s that with him?’

‘I don’t know. Never seen her.’

‘Did you tell him you were coming?’

‘No way!’

‘Then perhaps it’s just bad luck.’

‘Not with Roscoe. I’ve heard him say that the man who relies on luck is a fool.’

‘Yes, in stockbroking—’

‘In everything. He never does anything by chance. He’s a control freak.’

Pippa had no answer. She, whose presence here was a result of Roscoe’s commands, knew better than anyone that Charlie was right. She shivered.

Now she could see Roscoe leading the woman into the dance. The band was playing a smoochy tune and they moved slowly, locked in a close embrace. Pippa shifted her seat so that she had her back to them and began to chatter brightly about nothing. Words came out of her mouth but her mind was on the dance floor, picturing the movements that she’d avoided seeing with her eyes.

At last the music ended and Charlie groaned, ‘Oh, no, he’s coming over.’

Roscoe and his partner were bearing down on them. Without waiting to be invited, they sat at the table.

‘Fancy seeing you here!’ Roscoe exclaimed in a voice of such cheerful surprise that Pippa’s suspicions were confirmed. This was no accidental meeting.

He introduced everyone, giving the woman’s name as Teresa Blaketon. Charlie was immediately on his best behaviour in the presence of beauty, Pippa was amused to notice.

‘I think we should dance,’ Roscoe said, rising.

It would have been satisfying to ignore the hand he held out so imperiously, but that was hardly an option now, so she let him draw her to her feet and lead her back to the floor, where a waltz had just begun. She decided that there was nothing for it but to endure his putting an arm about her and drawing her close.

But he didn’t. Taking her right hand in his left, he laid his right hand on the side of her waist and proceeded to dance with nearly a foot of air between them. It was polite, formal and Pippa knew she should have been glad. Yet, remembering how close he’d held his lady friend, she felt that this was practically a snub.

‘I’m glad to see that you’re taking your duties seriously,’ he said. ‘For you to spend an evening with Charlie is more than I’d hoped for.’

‘Don’t worry, it’ll appear on the bill,’ she said cheerfully. ‘And, as it’s my own time, I’ll charge extra. Triple at least.’

‘Don’t I get a discount for the meal he bought you, and the first class champagne?’

‘Certainly not. I drank that champagne out of courtesy.’

‘I see you know how to cost every minute,’ he said softly.

‘Of course. As a man of finance, you should appreciate that.’

‘There are some things outside my experience.’

‘That I simply don’t believe,’ she said defiantly, raising her head to meet his eyes.

He was looking down on her with a fixed gaze that made her suddenly glad her dress was high and unrevealing. Yet she had the disconcerting sense that he could see right through the material. Even Charlie hadn’t looked like that, and for a moment she trembled.

‘You flatter me,’ he said. ‘The truth is, I’m mystified by you. When I think I understand you, you do the opposite to what I was expecting.’

‘Just like the financial markets,’ she observed saucily. ‘You manage well enough with them.’

‘Sooner or later, the financial markets always revert to type. With you, I’m not so sure.’

‘Perhaps that’s because you don’t really know what my type is. Or you think you know, and you’re mistaken.’

‘No—’ he shook his head ‘—I’m not arrogant enough to think I know.’

‘Then let me tell you, I’m devoted to my job and to nothing else. I promised to get to know Charlie and “beguile” him, but I couldn’t have done that in an office. It was necessary to work “above and beyond the call of duty.”’

‘And how is your case going?’

‘Fairly well. He’s seen through Ginevra.’

‘And if you can persuade him to grow up, he’s all set for a serious career.’

‘You mean in the firm with you? Suppose that isn’t what he wants?’

‘He’ll thank me in the end, when he’s a successful man and he realises I helped to guide him that way.’

‘Perhaps you should stop guiding him and let him find his own path.’

‘Into a police cell, you mean?’

That silenced her.

After a moment he said, ‘Why are you frowning?’

‘I’m just wondering about your methods.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You don’t really expect me to believe this is coincidence, do you? You knew Charlie was going to be here.’

‘I see. I’m supposed to have every room bugged, and to bribe half the staff to bring me information. Shame on you, Pippa.’

She blushed, feeling foolish for her wild fantasies.

‘I suppose I might be the evil spy of your imagination, if I needed to be,’ he said in a considering tone, ‘but when my brother conducts every phone call at the top of his voice I simply don’t need to be. I happened to be passing his office when he booked the table.’

‘And you made immediate arrangements to put him under surveillance. Or me.’

‘I made immediate arrangements to have an enjoyable night out.’

‘Teresa must have been surprised to be summoned at the last minute.’

‘Teresa is a lovely woman, and she enjoys nightclubs. It gives her a chance to display her beauty, which, you must admit, is exceptional.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he’d hired his companion as he’d hired her, but her courage failed her. Besides, the memory of how he and Teresa had practically embraced as they danced, was all the answer she needed. It seemed to underline his sedate demeanour with herself.

She wasn’t used to that. Men usually seized the opportunity to make contact with her body. One who behaved like a Victorian clergyman was unusual. Interesting.

Annoying.

The floor was getting crowded. Dancers jostled each other until suddenly one of them stumbled, crashing into Pippa, driving her forward against Roscoe, cancelling the distance he’d kept so determinedly between them. Taken by surprise, she had no time to erect barriers that might have saved her from the sudden intense awareness of his body—lithe, hard, powerful.

It was too late now. Something had made her doubly aware of her own body, singing with new life as it pressed up to his, and the sensation seemed to invade her totally—endless, unforgettable. Shocking.

She tried to summon up the strength to break the embrace, but he did it for her, pushing her away with a resolution that only just avoided being discourteous.

‘We’d better return to the table,’ he said.

Then he was walking off without a backward look, giving her no choice but to follow. Which was discourteous. She might have been irritated if she hadn’t had an inkling of what was troubling him. She too needed time to think about what had just happened; time to deny it.

Charlie had reached the point of talking nonsense and Teresa looked relieved to see them.

‘How did you get here?’ Roscoe said, placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder with a gentleness that contradicted the roughness in his voice.

‘I hired Harry and his car. He’s waiting for us.’

‘Good. He can take you home while I take Pippa.’

‘Hey, Pippa’s with me—’

‘And the less she sees of you in this state the better. Waiter!’

In a few minutes he’d settled everything—Charlie’s bill as well as his own. They escorted Charlie out to the side road where the chauffeur was waiting. Teresa helped to settle him in the back seat, which gave Pippa the chance to mutter to Roscoe, ‘I’ll take a taxi home.’

‘You will not.’

‘But I don’t want to be a gooseberry,’ she said frantically. ‘You and she…I mean…’

‘I know exactly what you mean and kindly allow me to make my own decisions.’

‘Like you make everyone else’s?’ she snapped.

‘I won’t pretend not to understand that, but you can’t have known my brother a whole two days without realising that he’s vulnerable. I don’t want people to see him like this. Do you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Just let me say goodnight to him.’

But Charlie was dead to the world and she stood back while Harry drove off with him. Watching Roscoe get into the driving seat of his car, she realised that she’d seen him drink only tonic water, and after several hours in a nightclub he was stone cold sober and completely in control.

Which was typical of him, she thought crossly.

Teresa didn’t seem annoyed at having Pippa foisted on her when she would no doubt have preferred to be alone with Roscoe. As they sat together in the back she chatted merrily, mostly about Charlie, whose company she had enjoyed, especially as he had entertained her by running through some routines by another more talented comedian he’d recently seen perform.

‘He’s really good,’ she recalled.

‘You shouldn’t encourage him,’ Roscoe said over his shoulder. ‘He’s a sight too fond of playing whatever part he thinks people want.’

‘Which will surely be useful in a stockbroker,’ Pippa observed. ‘He must need various personalities, depending on whether he’s buying shares or selling them, manipulating the market, or manipulating people. With any luck, he’ll be almost as good at that as you.’

Teresa rocked with laughter. The back of Roscoe’s head was stiff and unrevealing.

Outside her apartment block, he got out and held open the door for her, a chivalrous gesture that also gave him the chance to fix her with a cool, appraising stare. She returned it in full measure.

‘I hope your evening was enjoyable, Miss Jenson.’

‘I hope yours was informative, Mr Havering.’

‘More than I could have imagined, thank you.’

‘Then all is well. Goodnight.’

Once in her apartment with the door safely shut behind her, Pippa tossed her bag aside, threw herself into a chair and kicked off her shoes, breathing out hard and long.

‘Phew! What an evening! Get him! More informative than he could have imagined. I’ll bet it was! Hello, Gran! Don’t mind me. I’m good ’n mad.’

She was addressing the photograph that she kept on the sideboard, showing the wedding of Grandmother Dee and Grandfather Mark. Dee had once confided to her that there had been complications about that wedding.

‘I was pregnant,’ she’d said, ‘and that was scandalous in nineteen forty-three. You had to get married to stay respectable, and I wondered if he was only marrying me because he had to.’

‘And was he?’ Pippa had wanted to know.

Dee had smiled mysteriously. ‘Let’s say he had his own reasons, but it was a while before I discovered what they were. On our wedding day I still couldn’t quite believe in his love.’

Yet the young Dee in the picture was beaming happily, and in Pippa’s present mood it all looked delightfully uncomplicated.

‘Fancy having to be married before you could make love,’ she mused.

In her mind she saw Roscoe dancing with Teresa, holding her in an embrace that spoke of passion deferred, but not for long. Right this minute they were on their way to her home, or perhaps to his, where he would sweep her into the bedroom and remove her clothes without wasting a moment.

She knew the kind of lover he would be: no-nonsense, not lingering over preliminaries, but proceeding straight to the purpose, as he did with everything. As well as pleasuring his woman efficiently, he would instruct her as to his own needs, with everything done to the highest standards. Afterwards, Teresa would know she’d received attention from an expert.

For a while Pippa’s annoyance enabled her to indulge these cynical thoughts, but another memory insisted on intruding—his care for his mother, his patience, his kindness to her. All these spoke of a different man, with a gentle heart that he showed rarely. Was that gentleness also present in the lover?

‘And why am I bothering?’ she asked aloud. ‘Honestly, Gran, I think you had it better in your day.’

Dee’s smiling face as she nestled against her new husband seemed to say that she was right.

Pippa sighed and went to bed.

The night that followed was the strangest she’d ever known. Worn out, she had expected to sleep like a log, but the world was fractured. Two men wandered through her dreams—one gentle, protective and kind, the other a harsh authoritarian who gave his orders and assumed instant obedience. Both men were Roscoe Havering.

In this other world he danced with her, holding her close, not briefly but possessively, as though claiming her for ever. Unable to resist, she yielded, resting against him with a joy that felt like coming home. But then she awoke to find her flesh singing but herself alone.

In a fury, she threw something across the room. It was time to face facts. Roscoe had appeared at The Diamond the night before in order to study her and see if she was doing her job as a hired fancy woman. Whatever gloss he tried to put on it, that was the truth. Curse him!

Unable to lie still, she rose and began to pace the room, muttering desperately. ‘All right, so I felt something. Not here—’ she laid a hand quickly over her heart ‘—no, not there, but—’ she looked down at her marvellous body ‘—just about everywhere else. Only for a moment. And he needn’t think I’m giving in to it. I’ve done with that stuff for ever. So that’s settled. Now I need to get some more sleep.’

CHAPTER SIX

WHEN Pippa finally awoke it was to the memory of the appointment at Roscoe’s office that morning.

‘Oh, no,’ she groaned. ‘I’m not going!’

But she knew she was. The professional Miss Jenson didn’t tamely back off. She got out of bed, showered in cold water for maximum alertness and ate a hearty breakfast, calculated to enhance energy and efficiency. The fact that she was inwardly fuming was of no interest to anyone else. Certainly not Roscoe Havering.

Now that the first hint of winter snow was in the air, she chose her attire for warmth: severe suit, long coat, flat shoes. With a face free of make-up and her hair scraped firmly back, she decided that she looked just right: a lawyer, not a fancy piece, whatever a man with no manners might think.

She put in a hard morning’s work at her office, then David looked in for a quick word.

‘Off to see Roscoe? Good. You’ve probably learned all about him by now.’

‘The odd detail,’ she said, assiduously hunting for something inside her desk.

‘Then you’ll have heard that there’s nobody in the business with a higher reputation. His speciality is discretionary dealing.’

Pippa knew that some brokers simply followed their clients’ instructions, but did not give advice. Others would give advice, but not make final decisions. Most demanding of all was discretionary dealing, where the broker ascertained the clients’ long-term objectives, and then had authority to make decisions without further consultation. Only the best and most trusted brokers could do this, and it came as no surprise to know that Roscoe Havering was one of them.

‘A lot of brokers came out of the recession looking bad,’ David told her. ‘Not him. If anything, his trade has doubled because clients have flocked to him, disillusioned with the others. Plus there are rumours of a link-up with the Vanlen Corporation that would make Havering one of the richest and most powerful men in the financial world.’

Pippa mulled this over on the journey to Threadneedle Street, in the financial heart of London. Now the snow had properly started and, as she stepped out of the taxi, she pulled her coat tight, relieved that she would get her car back tomorrow.

Roscoe’s office was located in a historic building, converted to modern day requirements. Dark deeds had occurred there centuries ago. Dead bodies had once been discovered in the cellar, one of which was a man known personally to the reigning monarch of the time. But only the building’s outside reflected the dramatic past. Inside, all was corporate efficiency, bland colours and straight lines.

But I’ll bet there are still plenty of dark deeds, Pippa reflected as she hurried into the elevator. Just a different kind.

She was curious to see how well Roscoe’s establishment reflected the man, and it was no surprise to discover that he was on the top floor, with a view down on the world. As expected, she found the atmosphere subdued, even slightly haughty.

The receptionist showed her to a seat. ‘I’m afraid there’ll be a slight delay,’ she said. ‘Mr Vanlen just walked in without warning. He’s going to Los Angeles for some big international gathering, and he’s annoyed because Mr Havering won’t go too. But Mr Havering says those meetings are all talk and no substance, and he won’t budge. Vanlen did a quick detour on his way to the airport, so at least he can’t stay long.’ She made a wry face. ‘He never seems to think that other people might be busy.’

‘I know the type,’ Pippa said with feeling.

From behind a door she could hear a voice raised in argument. ‘We can’t waste time. This is a big deal for both of us. When everything’s signed we’re going to be the kings, and you want that as much as I do… What’s that? The hell with keeping my voice down! Let them know that they’ve got to be afraid of you, that’s what I say. It’s where half the pleasure lies.’

The secretary groaned. ‘You hear him. That’s how Vanlen thinks. Heaven help us all when that tie-up goes through. Mr Havering’s a tyrant now but when he—’

She stopped as Vanlen’s voice was raised again. ‘I can’t believe you’re really not coming to Los Angeles. Surely that’s—?’

‘I’d better go in,’ the secretary said hastily. ‘Mr Havering is fed up with that subject.’

She hurried over and knocked on Roscoe’s door, opening it just in time for Pippa to hear him saying harshly, ‘I’m not going and that’s final. I don’t have the time. Anyway, the conference starts tomorrow and I’d never change my mind at this late date.’

Too right, she thought. Anyone who tried to divert Roscoe from the course that suited him was in for a nasty surprise.

‘Hey! It’s you!’ The delighted voice came from Charlie who’d just appeared, his eyes shining at the sight of her. ‘Thanks heavens you’re here!’ he exclaimed, coming to sit beside her. ‘This place is doing my head in!’

‘I gather great things are afoot,’ she said.

‘You mean Vanlen? Oh, yes! We’re going to be the greatest. No one will be able to touch us or compete with us, and then Roscoe will have everything he wants.’

‘Nobody has everything they want,’ she protested.

‘That depends what they actually do want,’ Charlie pointed out. ‘If you keep your wants down to very few, it would be quite easy.’

‘And what are his wants?’ she asked curiously.

‘Him up there, you down here saying, “I obey, I obey!”’

He said the last words in a mechanical voice of such fine comical effect that she couldn’t help laughing.

‘You ought to have gone on the stage,’ she said.

‘Yes, I used to think that might be nice, to stand up there in the spotlight, with the audience in the palm of my hand, knowing they were hanging on my every word.’

‘Which means you’ve got a lot in common with Roscoe after all,’ she pointed out.

‘Yes, I suppose I do. But I want to make them laugh and love me. He wants to make them cower and fear him. And, like I said, when he’s teamed up with Vanlen, he’ll have everything he wants in the world.’

She was temped to agree, but illogically her sense of justice came to Roscoe’s defence. ‘Aren’t you being a bit unfair? What about the “other Roscoe” you told me about at The Diamond—the nicer one, with feelings?’

‘You imagined that.’

‘No, I didn’t. I remember every word you said.’

‘All right, that Roscoe exists too, but only rarely. You’ll be dealing with the strong one, so never drop your guard.’

‘Careful, Charlie, I don’t think you know him as well as you think you do.’

He eyed her shrewdly. ‘So he’s still exerting his charm over you, is he? He can do that, if he thinks it’s worth it. But beware the day when you’re no further use to him.’

This was probably good advice, she realised. She was about to ask Charlie to tell her more but he’d already tossed the subject aside to concentrate on something that interested him more.

‘Wow! Get you!’ he said, his eyes caressing her from head to toe. ‘I know what you’re doing with that severe look,’ he went on. ‘But it doesn’t work. You’re still gorgeous. Aren’t you going to take that coat off?’

It was hot in the building and she was glad to let him ease the thick garment from her shoulders. But he took advantage of the situation to slip an arm around her waist, so that she edged away, muttering, ‘Not here!’

‘Here, there and everywhere,’ he persisted. ‘There’s nobody else around.’

He managed to get both arms around her, resisting her attempts to escape. She groaned, exasperated by the silly boy who couldn’t understand that this wasn’t the time or the place.

‘Someone’s coming,’ she said frantically. ‘Charlie, stop that.’

He was reaching up to free her hair, sending it cascading in joyous beauty around her shoulders. He’d done this before, but that time had been in the privacy of his own home, with only his family there. Now it was in front of Roscoe’s door as it opened and a man emerged.

He was thin, with a face that was so pleasant and humorous that at first she couldn’t believe this was the man she’d overheard. But his grinding voice was the same, asking, ‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘Yes,’ Charlie said defensively. ‘You certainly are.’

‘Sorry.’ Vanlen held up his hands and backed off.

His glance at Pippa was appreciative and his look said all too plainly that he was a man of the world in these matters. She had met this attitude before and dealt with it too efficiently to be offended now, but she could cheerfully have throttled Charlie. Vanlen departed just as Roscoe appeared in the doorway, his eyes frosty as he regarded his brother.

‘Is this fellow bothering you, Miss Jenson?’ he demanded. ‘If so, say the word and I’ll defenestrate him.’

‘You will not,’ Charlie said, hastily getting behind a chair.

Pippa tried not to choke with laughter, and failed.

‘It means throw you out of the window,’ she assured Charlie.

‘Oh. Are you sure that’s all?’

‘Quite sure. Stop worrying.’

He returned to her side, addressing Roscoe belligerently. ‘I was just telling Miss Jenson that it’s no use her trying to hide beneath dull clothes. She’s still gorgeous beyond belief. Or perhaps you don’t think so.’

‘I think Miss Jenson looks acceptably professional,’ Roscoe said in an indifferent voice. ‘Which is exactly what I’d expect of her.’

Cheek! she thought.

He seemed strained and she wondered how long he had dallied in Teresa’s bed, and how much had she exhausted him. But he showed her courteously into his office and enquired politely after her car.

‘It took some time for my brothers to find the spare part it needed,’ she said, ‘but they finally managed it, and I’m getting the car back tomorrow.’

She and Charlie sat facing the desk, behind which Roscoe surveyed them from a position of authority, which was how, Pippa guessed, he felt most comfortable.

He pressed a buzzer and spoke to his secretary. ‘We don’t want to be disturbed.’

‘Ah—no!’ Charlie squealed. ‘I’m waiting for a call. I’ve told my secretary to fetch me.’

‘Then we’d better hurry,’ Roscoe said ironically. ‘We mustn’t keep the betting shop waiting.’

‘I got a hot tip,’ Charlie explained. ‘If it comes in, it’ll get me out of trouble on a lot of fronts.’

‘I don’t know why I bother to teach you about stocks and shares,’ Roscoe groaned. ‘You’re only happy making ridiculous bets.’

‘But surely buying stocks and shares is a kind of betting?’ Pippa observed innocently.

Charlie gave a muffled choke of laughter. Roscoe’s glance told her that he didn’t appreciate that remark.

‘All right,’ she said hastily. ‘Let’s get on. I’ve been reviewing the matter and it seems to me—’

The discussion became serious. Pippa put forward her most professional aspect, but all the time she had a strange feeling that it was a mask. There was an uneasy tension in the air, not between herself and Charlie, but between herself and the man who’d held her at a distance last night while burning her with his eyes, a man who eyed her with suppressed hostility, who challenged her every movement.

‘I’ve told the police I wasn’t in that shop,’ Charlie complained. ‘They just say, “Come on, now. Why not just admit it?”’

‘They also keep saying things like, “We know what you lads are like,”’ Roscoe said. ‘As though they were all exactly the same. What’s the matter?’

Charlie had suddenly started coughing, but he recovered in a moment. ‘Nothing, nothing,’ he said with the sudden urgent air of someone who wanted to change the subject. ‘Now, where were we?’

He plunged back into serious discussion, talking so sensibly that Pippa’s suspicions were aroused. Only one thing could make Charlie sensible, and that was the need to divert attention. She became sunk in thought and had to be recalled by Roscoe, who was staring at her in astonishment.

‘Just let me catch up with my notes,’ she said hastily. ‘Ah, yes, here—’

She got no further. The door was flung open with a crash and a wild voice said, ‘I’ve got to talk to you.’

Turning, she saw a man of about forty with a haggard face and dishevelled hair. His eyes were bloodshot and he seemed on the verge of collapse.

‘Mr Franton, I gave orders that you were not to be admitted,’ Roscoe said in a hard voice.

‘I know. I’ve been trying to see you for days, but I can’t get in. If I could just talk to you, make you understand—’

‘But I do understand,’ Roscoe interrupted him coldly. ‘You deceived me and a lot of other people, and you very nearly involved this firm in a scandal from which it might never have recovered. I’ve always made it clear that insider trading is something I wouldn’t tolerate.’

Pippa understood. Insider trading meant making a profit by the use of privileged information. If a business was on the verge of bankruptcy but only a few people knew, those people would be sorely tempted to sell their shares while they were still worth something, saving themselves financially while others were ruined. It could even happen that the sudden surge in sales precipitated a collapse that might otherwise have been avoided.

In a stockbroking firm such inside knowledge was common and often misused. A spy could earn a handsome profit by selling it on.

Yet Franton didn’t look like an evil conspirator. He seemed ordinary, slightly pathetic, and Pippa couldn’t help a surge of unwilling sympathy for him.

‘I never meant it to happen the way it did,’ he pleaded.

‘Understand me once and for all,’ Roscoe replied in a hard voice. ‘I care nothing for what you meant. I care only for what you did. And what you did was this. You ignored my specific instructions. You lied. You spread unsubstantiated rumours and caused a false rise in prices that cost a lot of people a lot of money—’

‘Including you.’ Despite his pathos, Franton couldn’t resist a spiteful sneer.

‘Yes, including me, but it’s not the money that counts. It’s my reputation that you’ve damaged and I don’t want to see you on these premises ever again. You’re out, and that’s final.’

‘But I need a job,’ Franton screamed, collapsing again. ‘I’ve got a family to support, debts—look!’

He ran to the window, pointing out to where the snow could now clearly been seen cascading down.

‘Snow,’ he cried. ‘Christmas is coming. What do I tell my children when they don’t get any presents?’

‘Don’t try playing the pathetic card with me,’ Roscoe said coldly. ‘You nearly caused a disaster throughout the financial world, and you did it by dishonesty. If you’ve brought a tragedy on yourself the responsibility is yours.’

‘You heartless swine!’

Roscoe’s face was as stony as his voice. ‘Get out,’ he said, softly threatening. ‘Get out and stay out. You’re finished.’

His last card played, Franton seemed to collapse. Slowly, he backed out, casting one last beseeching look. Roscoe didn’t even see it.

‘Now, perhaps we can finally get on,’ he said, seating himself. ‘Miss Jenson, I have some papers here—’

‘Wait a minute,’ Charlie said. ‘You’re not just going to let him go like that?’

‘He can think himself lucky I’m not doing worse.’

‘But this is Bill Franton—he’s been here for years and he’s a family friend—’

‘Not any more.’

‘Wait,’ Charlie said, dashing out in pursuit.

‘I’m afraid Charlie is too soft for his own good,’ Roscoe said. ‘One day I hope he’ll learn a sense of reality.’

‘Of course insider trading is dishonest and can’t be defended,’ Pippa agreed, ‘but that poor man—’

‘Why do you call him a “poor man”—because you saw his distress? You didn’t see the distress he caused other people, and the much worse distress that was narrowly averted.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she sighed.

‘But you don’t really think so, do you? I guess I’ll just have to endure the burden of your disapproval.’

‘It certainly doesn’t bother you.’

‘I’ve met it before and it’s based on sentimentality.’

‘Is it sentimental to say you can attach too much importance to money?’ she demanded indignantly.

There was an ironic humour in his eyes, as though he was enjoying a grim joke at her expense.

‘Not money, Miss Jenson,’ he said. ‘Honesty. That’s where I attach importance. Nowhere else.’

And he was right, she thought furiously. He was beyond criticism, totally honest, upright, honourable, incorruptible. And merciless.

‘Ah, Charlie, there you are.’ Roscoe sounded coolly collected at the sight of his brother. The last few minutes might never have been.

‘Roscoe—’

‘Come and sit down.’

‘But Franton—’

‘The subject is closed.’ Roscoe’s voice was final and Pippa shivered.

She made a mental note not to get on his wrong side, but reckoned that was probably easier said than done.

Then she pushed all other thoughts aside to concentrate on the case, but now that was hard because something was causing Charlie to become uncommunicative, as though protecting a secret. When his secretary looked in, saying, ‘That call has come,’ he vanished at once.

‘How do you think it’s going?’ Roscoe asked her.

‘I think there are problems. He’s holding something back.’

‘You amaze me. Last night he didn’t seem to be holding anything back. You’re doing brilliantly, as I expected.’

‘That’s why you came along, to keep watch, is it? To make sure I didn’t lead Charlie along the wrong path?’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘I suppose I might be. I can’t think why.’

She spoke ironically, but there was truth as well. Beneath the polite surface, this meeting seethed with undercurrents of mistrust. The visit to Roscoe’s home had left her feeling more kindly to him, but last night had reversed that. Now she remembered the awkwardness on which their relationship was based and she couldn’t wait to get away from him.

‘Maybe I’m not managing this very successfully,’ he said, ‘but it’s a new situation for me too.’

‘You mean you don’t hire women for romantic relationships every day? You amaze me. I thought you were an old hand.’

‘All right, attack me if you wish. You’re angry about last night, and perhaps you have reason, but I only wanted to…to study the situation.’

‘You wanted to find out if you were getting what you paid for. Or if Charlie was getting what you paid for.’

‘Stop it!’ Roscoe snapped, suddenly finding his nerves fraying. ‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘I’ll talk as I like. It’s been “like that” ever since you hired me. Well, I don’t sleep with the men I date. None of them. Sorry to disappoint you.’

‘How dare you say that?’ he raged.

Far from disappointing him, Pippa’s words gave him a surge of joy so intense it was almost frightening. Until now, he hadn’t known how much it mattered. But the discovery left him more confused, even more angry. He wanted to roar up to the heavens.

‘Don’t ever say anything like that,’ he commanded, breathing hard. ‘It wasn’t our bargain, and you have no right to imply that it was.’

‘Maybe not in words, but it’s what you were thinking.’

‘Don’t dare tell me what I’m thinking. You know nothing. Nothing!’

‘Perhaps I know more than you realise.’

‘Pippa, I’m warning you—’

‘Then don’t. What right do you have to warn me? You’re so arrogant, you think you can give orders left, right and centre, but not to me.’

‘I’m arrogant?’ Roscoe snapped. ‘What about you? You assume all men are slavering for you and you despise them accordingly. I only hope one day you’ll meet a man who’s totally indifferent to your charms. It would teach you a lesson.’

‘But surely,’ she said with poisonous sweetness, ‘I’ve met him already—in you. Haven’t I?’

If she’d been easily scared she might have quailed at the look he threw her.

‘You are indifferent to my charms, aren’t you, Roscoe?’

‘Totally!’ he said in a voice of ice.

‘And, since I’m equally indifferent to yours, neither of us has a problem. Just the same, I think it’s time this arrangement came to an end. Another lawyer will suit you better.’

She rose and made for the door, but he was there before her.

‘Don’t be absurd. You can’t just go like this.’

‘So anyone who disagrees with you is absurd? No, I was absurd the day I let myself get embroiled in this. I should have had more sense of self-preservation. Now, please stand aside.’

‘No,’ he said stubbornly. ‘I’m not letting you leave here.’

‘Roscoe, stand aside. I won’t be treated like this.’

Pippa thought he would defy her again, but then his shoulders sagged.

‘All right, I’ll stand aside,’ he said. ‘But I’m going to say something first.’

‘Then get on with it.’

‘Don’t go. Hate me as much as you like, but don’t abandon Charlie, please.’

‘Roscoe—’

‘I’m begging you, do you understand that? Begging.’

His eyes left no doubt that he meant it. They were brilliant, feverish, amazing her so that she couldn’t speak.

‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Do you want me to go down on one knee?’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, backing away. ‘Suppose someone came in.’

‘Then they’d see me as never before, and they’d think it was a good laugh. Is that your price? You want me to make a fool of myself, and then you’ll do as I ask? Is that it?’

‘Suppose I said yes?’ she asked. ‘Would you pay the price?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘Shall I? Go on, you’ve been wanting to take me down a peg since we met. Now’s your chance.’

‘No!’ she exploded. ‘That’s the last thing I’d want. I’m not that kind of harpy.’

‘Then what is your answer? Will you stay?’

‘Yes! Now get back behind your desk and stop talking nonsense.’

He gave her a wry look, but moved away behind the desk.

Suddenly the door came flying open and Charlie stood there. ‘I won!’ he carolled.

‘You don’t mean that three-legged hack came home?’ Roscoe asked ironically, and only Pippa noticed the strain in his voice.

‘Ten to one!’ Charlie yipped joyfully. ‘I made a packet. Hey, I’ll be able to pay you back the money I owe you—well, some of it, anyway.’ He gave Pippa a bear hug. ‘And it’s all due to you. Since you came into my life, everything has gone well. The sun shines, the world is beautiful. Isn’t that so, Roscoe?’

‘Miss Jenson is certainly having a beneficial effect,’ he replied loftily. ‘In fact I was explaining how pleased we are with her efforts when you came in. Now, if you’ll kindly sit down, Charlie, we can return to work.’

Pippa had to give him ten out of ten for a sense of wicked irony. She tried to meet his eyes, perhaps even encourage him to share the joke. But he wasn’t looking at her. The paperwork seemed to absorb him.

The rest of the meeting was conducted with strict propriety, with as few words as possible. Pippa asked questions, made notes and finally rose briskly, declaring, ‘I’ll be in touch when I’ve investigated some more.’

‘Tonight,’ Charlie said eagerly.

‘Tonight I’ve got some boring reception to go to. Don’t be in a rush. I’ll see myself out.’

She escaped.

CHAPTER SEVEN

PIPPA had spoken the truth about the coming evening. A client was giving a lavish reception to celebrate acquiring sole rights to a piece of valuable computer software and had offered several invitations to Farley & Son, whose work had been crucial in securing the contract in a bidding war. A little group of them were going, including David and herself.

‘Dress up to the nines,’ he told her. ‘Knock their eyes out. It’s good for business.’

She laughed but did as he wished, donning a shimmering white dress that combined beauty with elegance. The reception was held at London’s most costly hotel. They arrived in a fleet of expensive cars and were shown upstairs to the Grand Salon where their hosts were waiting to greet them effusively.

One of the younger wives, friendly with Pippa and new to this kind of function, was in transports. ‘Everybody who’s anybody in finance is here tonight,’ she said. ‘You probably know most of them.’

Pippa did indeed recognise many faces and began working the room, champagne in hand, charm on display, as was expected of her. As her friend had said, the cream of London’s financial establishment was gathered there, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when her eyes fell on Roscoe Havering. Yet it was.

‘Good evening, Miss Jenson.’

‘Good evening, Mr Havering.’

‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here,’ he said, unconsciously echoing her own thought. ‘It’s the sort of gathering in which you shine.’

‘Strictly business,’ she said. ‘I can help to attract new clients here, and that’s what David expects me to do, so, if you’ll excuse me, I must get to work.’

‘Wait.’ His hand on her arm detained her. ‘Are you angry with me?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Then why are you so determined to get away from me?’

‘Because, as I’ve tried to explain, for me this is a business meeting.’

‘Tell me the real reason. That’s not just efficiency I see in your eyes. It’s coldness and hostility. How have I offended you now?’

‘You haven’t.’

‘Little liar. Tell me the truth.’

‘You haven’t offended me, but I can’t pretend that you’re my favourite person.’

‘Because of Charlie?’

‘No, because of…lots of things.’

‘Name one.’

‘Stop interrogating me. I’m not in the dock.’

‘No, your victim is usually in the dock with you pressing home the questions. So, you can dish it out but you can’t take it?’

‘How dare you!’

‘Name something I’ve done to offend you—a new offence, not one you’ve told me about before.’

She ground her teeth, wondering how she could ever have sympathised with him.

‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘Franton.’

‘Who?’

‘You’ve forgotten him already, haven’t you? That poor man who burst into your office this morning.’

‘That “poor man”—’

‘Yes, yes, I know. Insider trading is wrong, but he’s not the only one who’s sailed a bit close to the wind, is he? I know someone else whose activities threaten your firm’s good name, but he doesn’t get chucked out. He gets protected. You hire a lawyer to keep him on the straight and narrow.’

‘He’s my brother—’

‘And Franton is a man with a wife and children. Maybe he doesn’t deserve a position of trust any more, but you threw him onto the scrap heap without a second thought.’

Pippa waited for Roscoe to speak but he was staring as though he’d just seen her for the first time.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’m a soppy, sentimental woman who doesn’t understand harsh reality and sticks her nose into what doesn’t concern her. There, now, I’ve saved you the trouble of saying it.’

‘Soppy and sentimental is the last thing I’d ever call you,’ Roscoe said. He seemed to be talking in a daze.

‘Well, anyway…since you’re employing me I suppose I had no right to fly at you like that.’

His voice was unexpectedly gentle. ‘You can say anything you like to me.’

‘No, really—it’s none of my business.’ Suddenly she was desperate to get away from him.

‘I wish I could explain to you what the pressures are—I think I could make you understand, and I’d like to feel that you did.’

‘As you say, I don’t know what it’s like for you.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘I don’t suppose I could imagine it.’

‘Pippa—’

‘Don’t let me keep you. We both need to drum up new business.’

She gave him a brilliant smile and moved firmly away. She didn’t even look back, but plunged into networking—smiling, laughing, making appointments, promising phone calls. It was an efficient evening and by the end of it she’d made a number of good contacts.

At last she found herself on the edge of a little group surrounding the managing director of the firm celebrating its triumph. He was growing expansive, making jokes.

Roscoe, standing nearby, joined in the polite laughter, while his eyes drifted over the crowd until he saw the person he wanted and watched her unobtrusively.

‘It’s been a good celebration,’ the managing director said. ‘Of course, I really wanted to arrange this evening a couple of weeks later, so that we could make it a Christmas party as well, but everyone’s calendar was crowded already.’

‘Such a shame,’ said a woman close by. ‘I simply adore Christmas.’

There were polite murmurs of agreement from almost everyone.

But not from Pippa, Roscoe realised. Beneath the perfectly applied make-up, her face had grown suddenly pale, almost drawn. She closed her eyes, keeping them shut just a moment too long, as though retreating into herself.

David spoke in Roscoe’s memory. ‘The nearer to Christmas it gets, the more of a workaholic she becomes… It’s as if she’s trying to avoid Christmas altogether.’

He studied Pippa, willing her to open her eyes so that he might read something in them. At last she did so, but when she saw him she turned quickly, as though she resented his gaze.

As she moved away a strange feeling assailed him. She was young, beautiful, the most alluring, magnetic woman in the room. And she was mysteriously alone. No man claimed her, and she claimed none either. For a blinding moment the sense of her isolation was so strong that it was as though everyone else had vanished, leaving her the sole occupant of the vast, echoing room.

Or a vast, echoing world.

He told himself not to indulge fanciful thoughts. But they wouldn’t be banished. He started to go after her but somebody called him, forcing him to smile and go on ‘business alert’. When he managed to escape, Pippa had vanished.

Along the front of the hotel were some elaborate balconies, decorative stonework wreathed in evergreen. Pippa wandered out, thankful to escape the air inside, heavily perfumed with money, seduction and intrigue. But it was too chilly to stay out long and after a few minutes she turned back. Then she stopped at the sight of the man standing there.

‘Good evening,’ he said.

After a moment memory awoke. This was the ‘big noise’ in the financial world, with whom Roscoe would soon merge his firm, becoming, if possible, more powerful and autocratic than he already was.

‘Mr Vanlen. I think we met briefly in Mr Havering’s office.’

‘You could say we “met”. It was more you putting yourself on display. Mind you, there’s plenty to display, I’ll give you that. You knew you were driving me crazy, and you meant to do it. Fine, I fell for it. Let’s talk.’

‘No, I—’

‘Oh, spare me the modest denials. You came out here knowing I’d follow you.’

‘No, I didn’t know you were here.’

‘I’ve been watching you all evening. Don’t pretend you didn’t know. Here’s the deal. You and I, together, for as long as it suits me. And you’ll find me generous.’

‘You’re mistaken,’ she said coldly. ‘I am not interested in you in any way, shape or form. Is that clear?’

But, as his self-satisfied smirk revealed, he interpreted this in his own way.

‘Evidently I didn’t make myself clear,’ he said. ‘Does this say it plainly enough?’

Pulling out a flat black box, he opened it to reveal a diamond pendant of beauty and value.

‘And that’s just the start,’ he added.

She regarded him wearily. ‘I’m supposed to be impressed by this, aren’t I?’ she said. ‘But I’m not interested. Can’t you understand that?’

‘Come, come. You’re a woman of the world. You know the score. You’re used to rich, powerful men and you like them that way, don’t you?’

‘Only if they’re interesting. Not all rich men are interesting. Some of them are plain bores.’

‘Money is never boring,’ he riposted. ‘Nor is power. You see them?’ He flung a hand in the direction of the room behind them. ‘The richest, most powerful men in London, and there isn’t one of them I couldn’t crush. Ask Havering. His investigations about me have shown him a few things that surprised him.’

‘He’s had you investigated? You sound very cool about it.’

Vanlen shrugged. ‘It’s no more that I expect, ahead of our tie-up. I’ve done the same to him, and I found things that surprised me too. It’s par for the course.’

He was right, she realised. This level of sharp-eyed suspicion was normal in the world of high finance where Roscoe inhabited a peak. But it made her shiver.

‘I know a few things about you too,’ Vanlen went on. ‘You like to play the field. No permanent lover to make things awkward. Fine, then we understand each other.’

His hand slid around her shoulder, making her move away quickly.

‘The one thing you don’t seem to understand is the word no,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll say it as often as I have to.’

‘But you don’t mean it,’ he protested. ‘Come on, just one little kiss to seal our bargain.’

Before she could stop him, he’d pulled her close and brushed her lips with his own. Exerting all her strength, she wrenched free.

‘Try that again and I’ll slap you so hard you’ll bounce into next week,’ she said breathlessly.

What he might have done then she never found out, for a cough from the shadows made them both turn. Roscoe was standing there.

‘I came to fetch you, Vanlen,’ he said. ‘There’s a big deal going on and they want you to be part of it.’

‘On my way,’ the man replied and vanished without a backward glance at Pippa. The scene between them might never have happened.

‘Thank you,’ she said coolly. ‘He was becoming a bore.’

He made a wryly humorous face. ‘Don’t tell me I arrived in time to save a damsel in distress?’

‘Certainly not. Another moment and I’d have tossed him off the balcony, so you might say you spoilt my fun.’

‘My apologies.’

The feel of Vanlen’s mouth was still on hers, filling her with disgust and making her rub her mouth hard with tissues.

‘Yuck!’ she said.

‘It’s a pity he affects you like that. You could have been queen of London.’

‘Don’t you start. Did you hear what he said about you?’

‘Investigation? Sure. We each know enough to confront the other. Pippa, are you all right?’

She was still rubbing her mouth, and he caught himself up at once.

‘No, of course you’re not all right. Stupid of me. Don’t go at it so hard, you’ll hurt yourself.’

‘I can’t help it. He’s disgusting.’

‘Here, let me.’ Taking a clean handkerchief from his pocket, he began to rub gently.

‘It’s no use,’ she sighed. ‘I can still feel him. Perhaps another glass of champagne would wipe him away.’

‘I know something better,’ he said softly and laid his mouth against hers.

It was over in a second. His lips touched hers for a brief moment, just long enough to obliterate Vanlen, then they were gone.

Through the dim light, he saw the wild astonishment in her eyes and could just make out her lips shaping his name.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said stiffly. ‘I thought it might help.’

‘I—’

‘Come on.’ Taking her hand firmly, he led her back to where the crowd was beginning to disperse.

David was there, looking around, brightening when he saw her. ‘Ready to go?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘Yes…yes…’

‘I think she’s tired,’ Roscoe said. ‘The sooner she goes home, the better. Excuse me.’

He was gone.

In the car home Pippa pretended to be asleep so that she could avoid talking. But later, when she got into bed, she lay awake all night, staring into the darkness, trying to see what could not be seen and understand what could not be understood.

The following evening she went to have a family dinner at her beloved grandparents’ house on Crimea Street, and where she herself had lived for the last two years of their lives. These days Frank, his wife and children, lived there, with her other brother, Brian, just down the street. Now they returned her car with an air of triumph at having made it usable again.

Pippa hadn’t been back to the old home much recently, and for a while she could enjoy the company of her parents, nephews and nieces, most of whom lived no more than two streets away.

With so many children, it was inevitable that the Christmas decorations should go up early.

‘I keep telling them that it’s still too soon,’ Brian’s wife, Ruth, said in laughing despair. ‘But you might as well talk to the moon. As far as they’re concerned, it’s Christmas already. Hold that paper chain, would you?’

Pippa smiled mechanically. It was true, as David had suggested, that she had her own reasons for shying away from Christmas—for her, it had been a time of heartbreak. But this was no time to inflict her feelings on her family, so she spent a conventional evening climbing a stepladder and hanging up tinsel.

There was a moment of excitement when a box was brought down from the attic. Dust rose as it was unpacked, but the contents were disappointing.

‘A couple of tatty scarves,’ Ruth said disparagingly. ‘Gloves. Some old books. Let’s throw them out.’

‘No, give them to me,’ Pippa said quickly. She’d recognised the gloves as a pair Dee had worn, and it would be nice to keep them as a memento.

She wandered through the house, glancing into the bedroom where they had slept together until the end. Pippa’s mother Lilian crept in behind her and surveyed the double bed, which was still the same one where the old people had embraced each other as they’d drifted contentedly to the end of the road.

‘They were very happy together,’ she sighed. ‘And yet I can never see this room without feeling sad.’

‘I came in one morning to find that Gran had died in the night,’ Pippa remembered, ‘and Grandma was holding him. It wasn’t very long after they took that trip to Brighton, the honeymoon they never had.’

‘And they wouldn’t have had even that if you hadn’t taken them,’ Lilian recalled. ‘They told me it was the last thing that made everything perfect. Afterwards, they just slipped away.’

‘And that was what they both wanted,’ Pippa said. ‘Even missing them terribly, I couldn’t be unhappy for them. All they cared about was being together, and now they always will be.’

‘And one day that’s what you’ll have,’ Lilian said, regarding her tenderly. ‘Just be patient.’

‘Honestly, Mum, I don’t think like that any more. You start off telling yourself, “Never mind, there’s always next time”. But there isn’t really. There won’t be a next time for me, and it’s better if I face that now.’

‘Oh, darling, don’t say that,’ Lilian protested, almost tearful. ‘You can’t live your life without love.’

‘Why not? I have a great time, a successful job, a good social life—’

‘Oh, yes, every man falls at your feet in the first ten minutes,’ Lilian said with motherly disapproval.

‘Not quite every man,’ Pippa murmured.

‘Good. I’m glad some of them make you think.’

‘Mum, please stop. I did my thinking years ago when a certain person did his vanishing act. That’s it. The man who can change my mind hasn’t been born.’

‘You’re only talking like this because you’re always depressed at Christmas, but I just know that one day someone will make your heart beat faster.’

‘You mean like Dad does with you?’ Pippa asked mischievously.

‘I admit your father’s no romantic hero, but he’s a decent man with a sweet temper. If he’d only stop breeding ferrets I’d have no complaints.’

‘Is someone talking about me?’ came a voice from the stairs as Pippa’s plump, balding father appeared.

In the laughter that followed, the subject was allowed to die and she was able to escape.

They all think it’s so easy, she mused. Find a man who makes your heart beat faster and that’s it. But suppose you don’t like him because he’s hard and cynical, and he looks down on you even while he’s looking you over. Suppose he infuriates you because you can’t stop thinking about him when you don’t want to, so that you just get angrier and angrier. Suppose he’s the wrong man in every possible way but that doesn’t seem to help because when he looks at you it makes you think of things you’d rather not think of. And then he does something—the last thing you expected—and it makes you want…it makes you want…oh, to hell with it! And him!

Charlie called her the next day and they arranged to meet for dinner the following evening.

‘And don’t worry about Roscoe turning up because he’s gone to Los Angeles,’ Charlie added.

‘Los Angeles?’ she murmured, recalling the words she’d overheard in his office. ‘But he was so definite about not going, said it was a waste of time.’

‘I know, and then suddenly he changed his mind, which is something he never does.’

‘Everybody does sometimes,’ she said mechanically, trying to ignore certain thoughts that clamoured for entrance to her mind.

They were astounding thoughts. They said he’d gone away to escape her after their two encounters, so confusingly different. He seemed to fight with her and kiss her, just as easily.

No, she corrected herself quickly. It hadn’t been a kiss, just a kindly gesture; almost medical in intent. But it had misfired. Meaning only to obliterate the memory of Vanlen’s lips, he’d replaced it with his own. Which surely hadn’t been his intention.

She remembered how quickly he’d backed off, clearly shocked. By himself, or by her? What had he read in her eyes that had sent him flying to the far side of the world?

The memories and questions raged inside her, warning her that the time was coming when she would have to face the truth. And the truth scared her.

At her insistence, Charlie took her to a sedate, conventional restaurant, where he was on his best behaviour. And, without Roscoe there, Pippa could raise the suspicion that had been nagging at her since the office meeting.

‘Now tell me the truth,’ she said. ‘You never did go into that shop, but Ginevra did, probably dressed in jeans with her hair covered. In the near darkness she looked like a man, so when she escaped and the owner caught up with you—well, it was her, wasn’t it?’

Charlie set his chin stubbornly. ‘You’re just imagining things.’

‘You gave the game away when Roscoe said people thought all lads were the same and you had that coughing fit. I suddenly saw what had happened. You were mistaken for her, and she just ran off and left you to suffer.’

‘Look—we were good together once and I can’t just drop her in it.’

Nothing would budge him from this position. Pippa seethed with frustration and ended the evening early.

Before going to bed, she sent an email to Roscoe. For some reason it wouldn’t come right and she had to reword it three times, eventually settling on:

Mr Havering,

I’ve just had a worrying talk with your brother. He didn’t break into the shop. It was Ginevra and three others. Mr Fletcher caught them but they ran off and by the time he caught up she’d vanished, and he assumed Charlie was the fourth.

Charlie’s having an attack of daft chivalry. I’ve tried to make him see sense, but he’s deaf to reason.

I’m afraid the ‘charms’ for which you hired me are drawing a blank, and it seemed only right to inform you of my failure.

I await your further instructions.

Yours sincerely,
Philippa Jenson

She read it through repeatedly, finally losing patience with herself for shilly-shallying and hitting the ‘send’ button violently. Then she threw herself into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Next morning, she checked for a reply. But there was nothing.

Too soon. Think of the time difference. He must be asleep.

At work she accessed her home computer every hour, sure that this time there would be a response. Nothing.

Her email would have gone to his London office, she reasoned, and perhaps he wouldn’t see it until he returned. No way! An efficient man like Roscoe would link up from Los Angeles. He was ignoring her.

Her disappointment was severe—and irrational, she knew. This didn’t fit with her mental picture of him as a better man inside than he was on the outside. She felt personally let down.

She worked late that night, finally reaching home with relief.

Then she stopped, astounded, at the incredible sight that met her eyes. Roscoe was in the hall, seated on an ornate wooden bench. His head leaned back against the wall, his eyes were closed and his breathing suggested that he was asleep. He looked almost at the point of collapse.

CHAPTER EIGHT

PIPPA touched him gently on the shoulder and his eyes opened slowly.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Roscoe, what on earth—? Come upstairs.’

He retrieved the two suitcases near his feet and followed her into the elevator, where he closed his eyes again until they arrived and she led him out, along the corridor and into her apartment.

‘Sit down,’ she said, pointing to a comfortable sofa.

‘You must be thinking—’

‘Tea first, explanations later,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

She was smiling to herself as she filled the kettle. Her email had brought him home. The world was good again.

He drank the tea thankfully, but didn’t seem much more awake.

‘When did you last sleep?’ she asked.

‘I can’t remember. I was unlucky in catching a flight. I reached the airport just in time to miss one plane and I had to grab the next one. Only it went to Paris, so I had to get a connecting flight to London.’

‘You walked out on your conference?’ she breathed.

He shrugged. ‘After your email, what did you expect me to do?’

‘Email me. Text me. Call me.’

‘No, I had to talk to you properly.’

And for that he’d walked out on business.

Of course he’d done it for Charlie and his mother, Pippa reminded herself.

But common sense spoke with a feeble voice, defeated by the surge of awareness of Roscoe as a man. A man who’d tried to escape her and been defeated.

What was happening between them alarmed him because it threatened the life he’d achieved with such a struggle. But he’d seized an excuse to come back to her and now he was here, laying his gesture at her feet, waiting to know what she would do with it.

She was silenced for a moment. She’d misjudged him so badly.

‘The flight to Los Angeles is eleven hours,’ she said at last, ‘and then you came straight back—’

‘And I don’t even like flying,’ he ground out. ‘In fact, I hate it.’

‘I hate it too,’ she admitted. ‘It’s boring, you’re trapped, and I’m always sure we’re going to crash at any moment.’

He gave her a faint grin of understanding.

‘No wonder you’re exhausted,’ she said. ‘But why did you wait downstairs? There’s a sofa in the hall outside my front door where you could have been more comfortable.’

‘Yes, but I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming home alone, and if your companion had seen me lolling by your door…well…’

‘Am I understanding you properly?’ she asked, regarding him with her head on one side.

‘I just didn’t want to embarrass you.’

‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she breathed, feeling a return of the annoyance he could inflame so easily in her.

‘I’m only suggesting that you might have company tonight. What’s wrong with that?’

Pippa drew a deep breath, but instantly checked herself.

‘No—no!’ She held up her hands with the air of someone backing off. ‘Let’s leave it for now. I’ll say it later, when you’re back in the land of the living.’

‘Thank you for that mercy,’ he said. ‘So when “later” comes I can expect to be knocked sideways, beaten to a pulp—’

‘Walked over with hobnailed boots,’ she agreed. ‘But first I’ll make you some supper.’

‘Just a little, thank you. I’ll probably fall asleep over it.’

‘Then I shall wake you and make you eat something anyway.’

Roscoe gave her a look of appreciation. Then he followed her into the kitchen and tried to help, but finished up sitting on a stool, watching her out of bleary eyes.

‘It’s not just tiredness,’ he said. ‘It’s jet lag, which always hits me like a rock. I don’t know why I get it worse than most people. Everyone else seems to brush it off, but not me. And it’s not just the flight home. I’m still lagged from the flight out there, so I’m—’ he made a helpless gesture ‘—not at my best.’

‘That’s what comes of dashing off to conferences at the last minute,’ she suggested gently.

‘Yes, well…things happen. You can’t always plan for…’ again the gesture ‘…well, anyway…’

‘Did you hear anything useful while you were there?’ she asked in a neutral voice.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he said with a humorous sigh. ‘I can’t remember a thing.’

‘Is this Roscoe Havering talking?’ she asked lightly. ‘The man who makes the financial world tremble, whose tough decisions can shake the market—?’

‘Oh, shut up!’ he begged.

She laughed. ‘Sorry.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Hey, you’re right. I’m not.’

She made a light meal of scrambled eggs on toast, and he pleased her by eating every last crumb.

‘That was delicious. Do you want some help with the washing up?’

‘No, thank you,’ she said with more haste than politeness. ‘But you’ve made your offer so you can go and sit on the sofa with a clear conscience.’

‘That’s what I like. A woman who understands.’

He wandered away with the air of a man who had arrived in heaven.

When she joined him a few minutes later he said, ‘Do you really think Charlie’s protecting Ginevra?’

‘Oh, yes. But I can’t prove it without his help. I guess I’m just not doing my job properly. I haven’t beguiled him very well if he’s defending her against me.’

‘Charlie’s loyal. If he had feelings for her once, he wouldn’t drop her in it now.’

‘That’s nice of him but don’t you see what it means?’

‘It means my brother’s an idiot, but we knew that.’

‘It means I’ve failed. He was supposed to be so much under my spell that he’d do anything I said. Hah! Some spell! I’m useless.’

‘That’s enough. You’re not useless. It’s only been a few days.’

‘But you thought he’d take one look at me and become my willing slave,’ she said wryly. ‘Or something like that. This isn’t what you expected when you hired me. Perhaps you should get someone else.’

‘Someone else?’ he echoed. ‘Someone else with your eyes, your laughter, your charm? Is there anyone else? Pippa, you knocked Charlie sideways in the first moment.’

‘You’re just being kind.’

‘I’m not known for my kindness,’ he said drily. ‘And once you’d have been the first to say so. I knew from the start that you were exactly what I wanted—for Charlie, I mean. And you’re doing well. Look how you found out about this. I had no idea.’

‘But I’m failing.’

‘Why are you so hard on yourself? It’s not like you.’

Now she was all at sea, taken by surprise by his understanding.

‘You don’t know what’s like me,’ she muttered.

‘Don’t I? Well, perhaps I’m learning, and perhaps the things I’m learning are surprising me.’

She tried to be sensible, but it was hard with Roscoe’s gentle eyes on her.

‘Obviously I don’t have the hold on him that you wanted,’ she murmured.

‘I think you do. The other night, when you were dancing together and he tried to kiss you at the end—’

‘That didn’t mean anything,’ she said quickly. ‘He just saw it as part of the dance.’

‘But earlier that evening, when you were at the table and you—’

‘I didn’t kiss him.’

‘No, but you did this.’ Roscoe leaned forward, putting his hands on either side of her face and looking into her eyes. ‘You did this,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you remember?’

‘Yes,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I remember now.’

She waited for him to release her, but for some reason he didn’t. She had the strangest impression that he was imprisoned in himself, wanting to move but unable to. Then she knew that the feeling was there inside her also. His hands were warm and firm against her cheeks, his eyes uncertain and questioning as she’d never seen them before. How dark and mysterious they were, inviting her to explore depths that enticed her. His lips, so often set in a firm line, were slightly parted, the sound of his breathing reaching her softly.

He’d been watching her all the time in the nightclub, she realised; not just dancing but when she was sitting at the table with Charlie, laughing with him, smiling at him. He’d noted every gesture, every moment of warmth.

She felt a tremor go through her and realised that it came from him. He was shaking. She drew in a sharp breath and in the same moment he dropped his hands, as though the touch of her burned him.

And she saw fear in his eyes.

His alarm had an instant effect on her, reminding her of her own caution about getting too close.

‘You misunderstood what you saw,’ she said quickly. ‘It was just friendly. That’s all I can ever manage. Just friendly. That’s why you didn’t have to worry about me bringing anyone home tonight. I know what I look like, but it’s not real. People would be amazed to know how virtuously I live.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ he murmured, but she didn’t hear him.

‘It’s all front, all presentation,’ she hurried on, gabbling slightly. ‘So I suppose that makes me a tease. I meet a man, we go out, have a good time, exchange a few kisses—oh, yes, I don’t deny that—and he thinks that sooner or later he’s going to have a night of pleasure. I don’t intentionally deceive them, but pretty soon I realise that I can’t go through with it. He isn’t “the one” and the kindest thing to do is tell him.’

‘Yes, I saw that the first night,’ he reminded her. ‘But why, Pippa? You could have any man you wanted.’

‘No, I couldn’t,’ she said. Pippa turned sharply away and walked to the window, filled with shrieking alarm at the way the distance between them was closing by the minute. It was safer to pull apart now.

But perhaps Roscoe’s courage was greater than hers because he followed and stood just behind her, not touching but barely an inch apart.

‘What happened?’ he asked softly.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does. It matters because you’ve made it your whole life. If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t scare you as much as it does.’

‘I’m not scared,’ she said brightly. ‘What is there to be scared of?’

‘You tell me—if you can put it into words.’

‘You’re making something out of nothing. I had a bad experience, but so does everyone.’

‘Yes, but yours went deep enough to damn near destroy you,’ he said in a voice that was mysteriously fierce and gentle at the same time.

That almost shattered her control. Out of sight, she clenched her hands and forced herself to shrug.

‘Look, I lost the man I wanted and it cured me of silly fantasies.’

Hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. He was frowning slightly. ‘And what do you define as “silly fantasies”?’

‘Love lasting for ever. Moon rhyming with June. It’s all a con trick. Have fun, but don’t start believing in it, that’s my motto.’

‘Do you really not believe in people truly loving each other, wanting to give to each other, make sacrifices for each other?’

She gave a little laugh. ‘I believed in it once. Not any more. Let’s leave it.’

‘What happened?’

She shrugged. ‘It turned out that he didn’t believe in it, that’s all. Unfortunately, he discovered that rather late in the day. The wedding was planned, everything booked—the church, the honeymoon. So we had to cancel the arrangements. Very boring, but a useful lesson in reality.’

She finished with a tinkling laugh that made him look at her shrewdly.

‘I see,’ he said, nodding.

‘Do you? I wonder. I don’t suppose you know much about being jilted.’

He didn’t reply for a moment. Then he said simply, ‘Don’t jump to conclusions.’

Suddenly, as though he too had heard the sounding of an alarm, he stepped back, asking, ‘Is there any more tea?’ in a voice whose brittleness matched her own.

‘Yes, I’ll make a fresh cup. Sit down and wait for me.’

He’d revealed more than he’d meant to and was hastily blocking a door he’d half opened. Pippa understood the feeling, having done the same. Now she was glad to escape to the kitchen and have a few moments alone to calm her riotous feelings.

When she felt she’d returned to some sort of normality, she took in the tea and found him studying Dee and Mark’s wedding picture.

‘They were my grandparents,’ she said. ‘They married during the war.’

‘You’re very like her,’ he said.

‘Really? Nobody’s ever said that to me before.’

‘Not in features, but she’s got a cheeky look in her eyes that I’ve seen in yours. It says, “Go on, I dare you!”’

‘Hey, that was her exactly.’

‘Did you know her well?’

‘I lived with the two of them near the end of their lives. When she died, she left me some money on condition I used it to train for a career. It’s funny, I love both my parents, and my brothers, but I was closer to Gran than anyone else. She didn’t stand for any nonsense.’

‘You see; I said you were like her.’

‘Well, she taught me a lot, especially how to get the better of a man.’ She gave a merry chuckle. Now that the dangerous moment had passed, she was slipping back into the persona of Pippa the cheeky urchin. ‘“Let him think he’s winning”, that was her motto. “Make sure he doesn’t find out the truth until it’s too late”.’ She glanced at the picture on the sideboard. ‘And I was a good pupil, wasn’t I, Gran? Top of the class.’

‘You want to be careful having that kind of conversation with your grandmother,’ Roscoe said, grinning. ‘Your grandfather might eavesdrop and discover your secrets.’

‘If he doesn’t know them by now—’ She stopped suddenly, aghast as she heard herself talking as though they were living people. She must sound really mad. ‘That is…’ she resumed hastily ‘…what I mean is…’

‘Pippa—’ he interrupted her gently ‘—you don’t have to tell me what you mean. You really don’t.’

And she didn’t, she realised with a surge of thankfulness. Roscoe understood perfectly.

‘How long were they married?’ he asked.

‘Sixty years. We had a big celebration of their anniversary, and neither of them lived very long after that. He died first, and then Gran was just waiting to join him. She used to say he appeared in her dreams and told her to hurry up because he could never find anything without her. In the end, she only kept him waiting three weeks.

‘I remember her saying that she wanted to outlive him, but only by a little. She wanted to be there to look after him as long as he needed her, but then she wanted to follow quickly. And she got her wish.’

Roscoe gave her a strange look. ‘So love does sometimes last for ever?’

‘For their generation, yes. In those days it was expected.’

‘And that’s why they stayed together for sixty years? Because of convention?’

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘That’s not why. They loved each other totally, but just because they could manage it doesn’t mean that everyone… Drink your tea before it gets cold.’

‘Then I must call a taxi and go home. Perhaps you’d have lunch with me tomorrow, when I’m more awake. We’ll discuss the most sensible way to proceed.’

He took out his cellphone but, instead of making the call, he stared at it, then put it down suddenly as though reeling from a blow.

‘If I can just rest for a moment,’ he murmured.

‘Not just for a moment,’ she said. ‘All night.’

‘What was that?’

‘You’re not leaving while you’re in this state. You’d forget where you were going and end up heaven knows where. Come on.’

She reached for him to help him to his feet. Dazed, he let her support him into the bedroom, where a gentle push sent him tumbling onto the bed. She went to recover his suitcases and when she returned he was sprawled out, dead to the world. Quietly, she drew the curtains and turned out the light.

‘Goodnight,’ she whispered, closing the door.

She washed up quietly so that no noise should intrude on him even through the door. As she worked, she tried to believe that this was really happening. Her email had brought Roscoe flying home, despite his problems with jet lag, despite his work, despite his intense need to stay ahead of the game. Despite everything, he’d come speeding back to her.

Before retiring for the night, she opened the door of the bedroom just a crack. Roscoe was lying as she’d left him, his breath coming evenly. She backed out and went to curl up on the sofa.

Who would have imagined that he had an unsuspected frailty? she thought. More—who would have imagined that he would allow her to see it?

Just before she fell asleep, she wondered if Teresa had ever been allowed to know.

She awoke in darkness, feeling slightly chilly. The weather was growing cold as autumn advanced, so she turned the heating up, then recalled that the bedroom radiator was sometimes temperamental.

Quietly, she slipped into the room, realising that she’d been right. The temperature was low and it took some fiddling before the radiator performed properly. In the darkness she could just make out Roscoe, lying still, then turning and muttering.

He must be cold, she thought, taking a blanket from the cupboard and creeping to the bed, hoping to lay it down without waking him. But his eyes opened as she leaned over.

‘Hello,’ he whispered.

‘I just brought you this so that you don’t catch cold,’ she said.

She wasn’t sure if he heard her. His eyes had closed again while his hands found her, drawing her down against him. There was nothing lover-like in the embrace. She wasn’t even sure he knew what he was doing. But his arms were about her and her head was on his chest, and he seemed to have fallen asleep again.

It would have been easy to slide free, but she found she had no desire to do so. The feeling of Roscoe’s chest rising and falling beneath her head and the soft rhythm of his heart against her ear were pleasant and peaceful. That was missing in her life, she realised. Peace. Tranquillity. This was the last man with whom she would have expected to find those elusive treasures, yet somehow it seemed natural to be held against him, drifting on a pleasant sea in a world where there was nothing to fear.

Which just went to show.

Show what?

Something or other.

She slept.

She was awoken by a sudden movement from Roscoe. His hands tightened on her and he looked into her face, his own eyes filled with shock.

‘What…how did you…?’

‘You pulled me down while I was putting a blanket over you,’ she said sleepily. ‘It was like being held in an iron cage, and I was too tired to argue so I just drifted.’

He groaned. ‘Sorry if I made you a prisoner. You should have socked me on the jaw.’

‘Didn’t have the energy.’ She yawned, letting him draw her back against his chest. ‘Besides, you weren’t doing anything to deserve getting socked.’

And what would I have done if you had? The words ran through her mind before she could stop them.

‘Are you sure? Pippa, tell me at once—did I…I didn’t…?’

‘No, you didn’t. I promise. You were right out of it. You wouldn’t have had the energy to do anything, any more than I’d have had the energy to sock you.’

She was laughing contentedly as she spoke and he relaxed, also laughing.

Suddenly he said, ‘What on earth is that?’

He’d noticed the shabby toy on her bedside table. Now he reached out and took it.

‘That belonged to my Gran—the one in that photo,’ she said. ‘She called him her Mad Bruin, and I think he represented Grandpa to her. After he died she cuddled Bruin and talked to him all the time.’

Roscoe surveyed Bruin, not with the scorn she would once have expected from him, but with fascination.

‘I’ll bet you could tell a secret or two,’ he said.

Pippa choked with laughter and he drew her close, laying the little bear aside as carefully as though he had feelings.

‘Will you believe me if I say I never meant this to happen?’ he murmured against her hair.

‘Of course. If you’d had anything else in mind you would have gone to Teresa.’

‘Teresa isn’t you,’ he said, as though that explained everything.

‘Ah, yes, you couldn’t have talked stern practicalities with her.’

‘As a matter of fact, I could. She’s my oldest friend.’

‘She’s a great beauty,’ Pippa mused. ‘Useful kind of “friend”.’

‘The best. She’s helped me out of several awkward situations. Her husband was also my friend. In fact I introduced them. He died a few years ago but she’s never looked at anyone else, and I don’t think she ever will. She’s still in love with his memory.’

Roscoe wondered why he was telling her all this. Why should he care what she thought? Then he remembered her with Charlie the other night, holding his face tenderly between her hands. And he knew why.

He waited for her to say something, and was disappointed when she didn’t. He couldn’t see that she was smiling to herself.

CHAPTER NINE

AFTER a moment Pippa summoned up her courage and said, as casually as she could manage, ‘So you went on being friends with her husband? He didn’t steal her from you?’

‘Goodness, no! Teresa and I had just about reached the end of the line by then. She was a lovely person—still is—but that connection wasn’t there. I don’t know how else to put it. I enjoyed our outings, but I wasn’t agog with eagerness for them.’

‘Now that’s something I can’t imagine; you, agog with eagerness—not over a woman. A new client, yes. A leap in the exchange rates, yes. But a mere female? Don’t make me laugh.’

He was silent and she feared she’d offended him, but then he said quietly, ‘It might really make you laugh if you knew how wrong you were.’

The proper response to this was, You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t mean to pry.

But she couldn’t say it. She wanted him to go on. If this lonely, isolated man was about to invite her into his secret world then, with all her heart, she wanted to follow him inside. If he would stretch out his hand and trust her with his privacy it would be like a light dawning in her life.

‘Well, I’ve been wrong in the past,’ she mused, going carefully, not to alarm him. ‘If you knew the things I was thinking about you that first day, and even worse on the second day.’

‘But I do know,’ he said, and even from over her head she could hear the grin in his voice. ‘You didn’t bother to hide your terrible opinion of me—grim, gruff, objectionable. And that was when you were thanking me for helping you over those lost papers. When I landed you the job from hell with Charlie your face had to be seen to be believed.’

‘But I soon realised that you were right,’ she said. ‘I’m the ideal person to do it because I can enjoy the game. A woman with a heart would be in danger.’

‘And you don’t have a heart?’

‘I told you, my fiancé finished all that.’

‘I’ve begun to understand you,’ Roscoe said slowly. ‘You come on like a seductive siren but it’s all a mask. Behind it—’

‘Behind it there’s nothing,’ she said lightly. ‘No feeling, no hopes, no regrets. Nothing. Just a heartless piece, me.’

‘No!’ he said fiercely. ‘Don’t say that about yourself. It’s not true. Once I thought it was but now I know you better.’

‘You don’t know me at all,’ she said, fighting the alarm caused by his insight. ‘You know nothing about me.’

‘You’re wrong; I do know. I know you’re kind and sweet, gentle and generous, loving and vulnerable—all the things you’ve tried to prevent me discovering, prevent any man discovering.’

‘Nonsense!’ she said desperately. ‘You’re creating a sentimental fantasy but the truth is what’s on the surface. I have no heart because I’ve no use for one. Who needs it?’

‘That’s your defence, is it?’ he asked slowly. ‘Who needs a heart? I think you do, Pippa.’

‘Mr Havering, I am a lawyer; you are my client. My private life does not concern you.’

Her voice was soft but he heard something in it that was almost a threat, and he backed off, worried more for her than for himself. There seemed no end to the things he was discovering about her, but he feared to put a foot wrong, lest he harm her.

‘All right, I’m sorry,’ he said in a soothing voice. ‘It’s none of my business, after all. Don’t cry.’ He could feel her shaking against him.

‘I’m not crying,’ she said. ‘I’m laughing. Me, saying I’m a lawyer and you’re a client, when we’re lying here—’

‘Yes, we’ve got a bit beyond that point, haven’t we?’ he said. ‘We’ve both experienced things to make us bitter. Like the way when someone has promised to marry you, they become the person above all others you have to beware of.’

‘That’s true,’ she said in a voice of discovery. ‘Once you start twining your life with theirs, they have a whole sheaf of weapons in their hands—the house you chose together, the secrets you tell each other—all the things they know about you that you desperately wish they didn’t. Ouch!’

She gasped for Roscoe’s hands had suddenly tightened.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘Did that last one—?’

‘Struck right home,’ he agreed, drawing her head down against his chest once more. ‘You brood about it, which is nonsense because she and her new love have other things to talk about apart from you. But you picture them laughing, and wonder how you could ever have trusted her so much.’

‘And then you don’t want to trust anyone again,’ she whispered. ‘So you promise yourself that you won’t.’

‘But it isn’t so easy. If you go through life drawing away from people, at last you turn into a monster. I don’t want to turn into a monster, although several people would probably tell you that’s what I am.’

‘Sometimes it feels safer,’ she agreed.

‘I won’t believe anyone’s ever said it of you.’

‘Why? Because I’ve got a pretty face? Haven’t you ever heard of a pretty monster? It’s all part of the performance, you see. The lad who was here the first night, the one I half crippled, don’t you think he sees me as a monster?’

‘That doesn’t mean you are one,’ he said with a touch of anger in his voice. ‘Stop this.’

‘I led him on, didn’t I? You’d think I’d know better by now, but a girl must have some fun in her life. You knew that, even then. That’s why you hired me.’

He groaned and raised his hands to cover his eyes. ‘And this is what he did to you? Your fiancé?’

‘Or maybe I was always like that. It’s hard-wired into me and it took him to bring it out.’

‘You don’t really believe any of that stuff.’

‘Don’t tell me what I believe.’

‘I will because someone’s got to show you how to see yourself straight. You’re as beautiful inside as you are out.’

She pulled herself up on the bed so that she could see him better in the dim light and pull his hands down.

‘We’ve known each other only a few days,’ she reminded him.

‘I’ve known you a lot longer than that. I knew it when I saw you in the graveyard, swapping jokes with a headstone. It was the kind of mad, daft—’

‘Mutton-headed,’ she supplied.

‘Glorious, wonderful—I knew then that you had some secret that was hidden from me, that you could teach it to me and then I’d know something that would make life possible.’

He lay looking up at her, defenceless, all armour gone, nothing left but the painful honesty with which he reached out to her.

Pippa felt dizzy, knowing that she’d come to one of those moments when everything in her life might depend on what she did now. Roscoe’s eyes told her that this was her decision, and she was stunned by how quickly it had come to pass. Just a few days.

He was reasonably attractive without being handsome. Yet the experience he’d given her tonight—of peace, joy and safety—had astounded her by outshining all other experiences in her life, and now the desire to kiss him was the strongest she had ever known. The tantalising half kiss he’d once given her had lived with her ever since, taunting and teasing her onwards to discover everything about him.

His eyes asked a silent question. Would she kiss him? The decision was hers.

And yes! Yes! The answer was yes!

As she adjusted her position he saw her intention and opened his arms. A little smile curved her lips, one she hoped he would understand. He did understand. The same smile was there on his own lips as she leaned forward, closer—closer—

The doorbell shrieked.

In an instant the spell died. They froze in dismay.

‘At this hour of night?’ Pippa whispered, aghast.

Stiffly, she moved off the bed and made her way to the front door, calling, ‘Who is it?’

The voice that answered appalled her.

‘Pippa? It’s Charlie. Let me in.’

She turned to see Roscoe standing in the bedroom doorway. Horrified, they stared at each other. Nothing more terrible could have happened.

‘Let me in,’ Charlie cried.

‘No, I can’t,’ Pippa called back. ‘Charlie, go home; it’s late. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

‘Oh, please, Pippa. I’ve got something to say that you’ll be glad to hear. Open up!’ He rapped on the door.

‘Stop making so much noise,’ she cried. ‘You’ll wake my neighbours. Just give me a minute.’

She was talking for the sake of it while her gaze frantically went around the apartment, seeking evidence of Roscoe’s presence. He was doing the same, seizing his baggage, hurrying with it into the bedroom. When he was safely out of sight, Pippa opened her front door.

Charlie immediately came flying through and seized her in his arms.

‘What…what do you think you’re doing?’ she spluttered.

‘Telling you that I’ve given in. I’ll do it your way. I’ll tell the police about Ginevra. I’ve been thinking for hours, and I know I have to do what you think is right.’ He searched her face. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’

‘Pleased?’ she snapped. ‘Of all the selfish schoolboy pranks—waking me at this hour to tell me something you could have sent in a text message. How old are you? Ten?’

She was consumed by rage. At this moment she could almost have hated the silly self-centred boy.

‘Oh, sorry!’ he said. ‘Yes, I suppose it is a bit late.’

‘Get out, now!’

Reading dire retribution in her eyes, he backed out hastily, gabbling, ‘All right, all right. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

He was gone.

She listened as the footsteps faded, followed by the sound of the elevator going down. Roscoe emerged from the bedroom, walking slowly, not coming too close to her.

The memory of what had so nearly happened was burning within her. Another moment and she would have been in his arms, kissing him and receiving his kiss in return. She had wanted that so much and come so close—so close—and it had been cruelly snatched away.

What she saw when she looked at him made a cold hand clutch her heart. His face was calm and untroubled. Whatever had happened to her, no earthquake had shaken him.

‘I’d better leave now,’ he said.

‘No!’ she said urgently. ‘That’s what you can’t do. He might linger downstairs, and then he’d see you.’

Going to the window, she drew the curtain an inch and looked into the street below.

‘There’s his new car,’ she murmured. ‘But there’s no sign of him. I reckon he’s still in the hall, planning to come back up here.’

‘You’re right,’ Roscoe groaned. ‘I’ll have to stay for a while. Sorry.’

A few minutes earlier she’d felt him tremble in her arms and known that he would gladly remain all night. Now he spoke as though staying with her was a duty that he dreaded.

‘I’ll stay out here,’ he said, settling on the sofa. ‘You take the bedroom.’

The spell was broken. And that was good, she tried to tell herself. She’d had enough of spells.

She lay awake for the rest of the night, and finally went out to find Roscoe on the phone to Angela.

‘Charlie’s arrived home,’ he said as he hung up.

‘Don’t mention Charlie to me,’ she said crossly. ‘Turning up like that in the middle of the night! Does he think nobody has a life apart from him? I feel really sorry for your mother, pinning so many of her hopes on that overgrown infant.’

She was still full of nerves or she would have been careful not to say the next words.

‘She’s had so much to bear in her life already. Losing your father, knowing he killed himself—’

Too late, she saw the strange look on Roscoe’s face.

‘How did you know that?’ he asked. ‘Charlie, I suppose?’

‘I already knew. David said something.’

‘So you’ve known from the start. You never mentioned it to me.’

‘I knew you wouldn’t like it, and it was none of my business.’

‘That’s right,’ he said lightly. ‘Well, I’d better be going.’

She could have kicked herself. Roscoe’s cool tension told her more than any words that he resented her for what she’d just revealed. In time, he might have told her, but he disliked her knowing without his being aware.

‘I’ll make you some breakfast,’ she offered.

‘No, I’d better be off. I’ll be in touch.’

She doubted it. He couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

There was nothing to do but stand back while he collected his things. Suddenly a chill wind was blowing. He gave her a polite smile, thanked her for everything, just as he should, but something was mysteriously over. Worst of all was the fact that she couldn’t be sure what had ended, because she didn’t know what had begun. She only knew that the sense of aching loss was unbearable.

Then a strange thing happened. Charlie became elusive. He didn’t call, wasn’t in his office and his cellphone was switched off. Without him, the trip to the police had to be postponed.

After two days, Roscoe texted: Is Charlie with you?

She texted back: I was about to ask you the same thing.

The next time Pippa’s work phone rang it was the last person in the world she’d expected to hear from.

‘Biddy—or should I call you Ginevra? Where are you?’

‘Abroad; that’s all you need to know. Charlie’s a real gent, I’ll say that for him. I’m not coming back but I’ve written to the police and told them it was me in the shop, not him. I wasn’t going to, but then I got to thinking I owed him something, so I sent the letter from…the country I was in. I’m in a different place now, so the postmark won’t help them. But I wanted you to know about something else, so listen.’

Pippa did so, growing wide-eyed as Ginevra’s information grew clear.

‘Thank you,’ she said at last. ‘That’ll be very useful. Where can I get hold of you?’

‘I’m moving around, but you can call this mobile number. I’ve sent you a copy of the letter so that you’ll know exactly what I told the police. ’Bye.’

She hung up.

Pippa sat, deep in thought. Then she made a call.

‘Gus Donelly? Good, I need your help, fast. Listen carefully.’ After a terse conversation she swept out, announcing, ‘I won’t be back today.’

David, who’d been shamelessly eavesdropping, exclaimed, ‘Donelly? I seem to recall that he’s a private detective, and a very shady one. I hope you’re careful.’

Pippa was not only careful but successful. Returning, triumphant, she knew she had all she needed to achieve a victory—thanks, ironically, to Ginevra.

Charlie presented himself at her office with a shamefaced smile that was clearly meant to win her over. She dealt with him briskly.

‘So much for telling everything to the police! You offered a grand gesture that meant nothing. Now there’s no need. I’ll see you at the trial tomorrow. Now, go before I lose my temper.’

He fled.

The next day, they were all present in the courtroom— Angela clinging to Charlie’s arm, Charlie trying to read Pippa’s expression without success, Roscoe, aloof and isolated.

The court assembled, the magistrates seated themselves, the accused were produced. Mr Fletcher entered the witness box and Pippa confronted him. There was nothing in her manner to suggest tension. On the contrary, she seemed at ease, cheerful and smiling. So that the sarcastic words that poured from her came as a greater shock.

‘Tell the truth, Mr Fletcher. You haven’t the faintest idea what actually happened that night, have you?’

‘I certainly have,’ he declared indignantly. ‘I gave a full statement to the police.’

‘Your statement is an invention. You should take up fiction writing, you do it so well.’

‘Here—’

‘You don’t know what really happened because you’d spent the evening in the pub. I gather you put away quite an impressive amount, far too much for you to be a reliable witness. Isn’t that so?’

‘No, it ain’t so. Nobody said I was drunk. The police never said so.’

‘True, but then you’re a past master at seeming more sober than you are, aren’t you? As the police have found out to their cost before.’

‘I dunno what you mean.’

‘Then let me refresh your memory. About five years ago, there was a case that had to be dropped because you turned up in court the worse for wear.’

‘That’s not true,’ Fletcher squeaked.

‘Perjury is a crime, Mr Fletcher, and you’ve just committed that crime. I have the papers here.’ She waved them. ‘The case had seemed to be watertight, but then you ruined everything, as the constable in question will tell us.’

After that, it was over quickly. The policeman from the previous case, still furious at having his hard work undone by an unreliable witness, gave evidence that totally undermined Fletcher. The magistrate declared Charlie not guilty, then asserted that the case against the other three was also unsafe and should be dropped.

The court erupted.

Angela bounced around, throwing her arms about Charlie, then Roscoe, then Charlie again, squeaking and weeping with joy.

Pippa was surrounded by people congratulating her. She smiled but concentrated on gathering up her papers, the very picture of an efficient lawyer who cared only about her case. She resisted the temptation to look around for Roscoe. Secretly, she was afraid he wouldn’t be there.

The lawyers for the other three defendants regarded her in astonished admiration.

‘How did you do that?’ one of them demanded.

Another one merely touched her arm, saying, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘You can call all you like,’ David said, appearing behind her. He’d taken the precaution of coming to watch. ‘Just remember she’s signed up to my firm for the foreseeable future.’

‘I can offer a very good fee,’ said yet another.

‘Forget it, she belongs to Farley & Son,’ David declared firmly.

Angela embraced her wildly, declaring, ‘You’re a magician. You just waved a magic wand.’

‘No, it was really Ginevra who waved the wand,’ Pippa said. ‘She’s still got a soft spot for you, Charlie, especially after you helped her escape. Fancy telling me you were going to shop her to the police! You didn’t mean a word of it.’

He had the grace to blush. ‘I sort of meant it,’ he said awkwardly. ‘But then it seemed such a terrible thing to do that I got her away fast.’

‘So I gathered. She wrote to the police telling them what had really happened, but that wouldn’t have been enough on its own. Anyone can take the blame for anything from a safe distance. That’s probably why she gave me all the other information about Fletcher’s past.’

‘But how did she know all that stuff?’ Charlie asked.

‘She has friends in the police,’ Pippa said cautiously.

‘Ah, yes, I see.’ He grimaced.

‘She told me what I needed, I hired a very good private detective and he did the rest.’

She was talking mechanically. Something was missing. Where was Roscoe? What would he say?

Then he seemed to appear from nowhere, standing before her.

‘You were wonderful,’ he said. ‘Past my wildest hopes. When you wouldn’t look at me just now I was afraid you were going to snub me. I guess I deserve it.’

‘No, of course not. I’m just glad things worked out for you.’

‘For me?’ he queried. He added quietly, ‘Or for us?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said huskily.

‘No, that’s what we still have to find out, isn’t it?’

He took her hand, holding it between both of his. She met his eyes and saw in them—what? Everything she wanted? No, because she didn’t know what that was. But something that pointed the way.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘We still have to find out.’

‘Will you come to my home tonight? I don’t want to come to your place in case Charlie turns up.’

‘I’ll be there,’ she promised.

Neither of them noticed Charlie standing a few feet away, his head on one side, a little smile of cheeky understanding on his lips.

Back at the office that afternoon, she had a long talk with David, who made it clear that her value had dramatically increased. The word ‘partnership’ was mentioned.

‘Not right now, because it’s a bit soon,’ he said, ‘but we’ve got our eyes on you and will take drastic steps to stop you being poached by any other firm. In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with a raise.’

Her career was heading for the heights. She wondered when Roscoe would call her.

The phone rang. She snatched it up. But it wasn’t Roscoe. It was Lee Renton, the impresario she’d last seen in The Diamond.

‘You were right,’ he boomed. ‘I do need a pre-nuptial agreement.’

‘I’ll get to work—’ Suddenly Pippa sat up straight in her chair as inspiration came to her. ‘Lee, could you do me a big favour?’

‘Name it.’

She explained what she wanted.

He listened with the occasional grunt, ending with, ‘Consider it done. I’ll be in touch.’ He hung up.

The next call was the one she longed for.

‘I’m going home now,’ came Roscoe’s voice.

‘I’m on my way.’

CHAPTER TEN

ROSCOE’S apartment was high up in a tall, plain block, which once she would have said was typical of the man. But that was before she’d discovered the hidden, complex depths that meant there was no such thing as ‘typical’ of him.

Who would ever have thought that this man would be waiting at his open door, would pull her inside and crush her in his arms as though he’d waited all his life for this moment? Or hear him say in a shaking voice, ‘I was so afraid you wouldn’t come.’

‘Never fear that. I’ll always come if you want me.’

‘And I’ll always want you.’

He had even started to cook a meal for her. He wasn’t a great cook, but he could manage a microwave and between the two of them they managed to get something onto the table. There was much more to deal with this evening, but, as if by a silent signal, they were each taking it slowly.

‘So where do we go from here?’ he asked, filling her wine glass. ‘I leave the decision to you because it’s clear you’re several steps ahead of me. All those rabbits you produced out of the hat at the trial. You don’t need me or anyone. You’re queen of all you survey.’

‘Hey, stop buttering me up.’

‘Just trying to find the way forward, or hoping you can find it for us. There are so many things yet to be decided.’

‘Like what?’

‘Charlie. His feelings for you. I contrived the situation and, now that he’s fallen for you, how can I just tell him everything has changed and he must forget you?’

She stroked his face, taking care that he should feel her warmth and tenderness towards him because her words would be a shock.

‘You know something?’ she said. ‘Anyone hearing you say that would think you came straight out of the nineteenth century. You’re a real male chauvinist pig.’

‘Am I?’ he asked, startled. ‘How?’

‘You talk about what you can do, but what about me? Don’t I get a say? You fixed it so that Charlie should come under my influence, like I didn’t have anything to do with it. But maybe I fixed it, oh, powerful one!’

‘I guess I deserved that,’ he said gruffly.

‘Don’t get me started on what you deserve. And there’s one thing you have to understand. Charlie isn’t in love with me. When we met, he took one look at me and thought Wow!, just as we both meant him to. But it was purely physical. He’s up for new experiences and he pursued me when he thought he might get one. But there was no emotion in it. He’s closer to Ginevra than he is to me. About an hour after the trial she texted me saying, We did it!’

‘How did she know?’

‘Exactly. Charlie must have called her.’

‘Oh, no,’ Roscoe said at once. ‘I won’t have this.’

‘But it’s not up to you. You’ve got to let Charlie be himself, not some creature you’ve created.’

‘I only want to keep him out of danger. Is that wrong?’

She thought it might be impossible if, as she was beginning to suspect, danger was Charlie’s natural medium. But this wasn’t the time to say so. They had more urgent matters to attend to.

‘The point is that Charlie’s not in love with me,’ she repeated, ‘and his heart can’t be broken by us. So we’re free.’

‘Free,’ he echoed slowly. ‘Free to—?’

‘Free to do anything we want. Be anything we want.’

‘Do you have any ideas about that?’

‘Plenty. Don’t ask me to list them because that would take all night.’

He became hesitant, almost as though nervous of saying the words.

‘About…all night. Does it seem to you…?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘It does.’

Like everything else in this new relationship, their love-making was tentative, cautious, watching and learning from each other. He was a patient lover, fervent, but with the control to take everything slowly. How softly his fingers caressed her breasts, and how mysterious was his smile as he did so.

She smiled back, feeling more and deeper mysteries unfold within her. The sweetness at being one with him was greater than anything she had ever known. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to be him. And she wanted it for ever.

Afterwards, he murmured, ‘Are you really mine?’

‘Can you doubt it?’ she whispered.

‘Yes. Nobody has ever been mine before.’

Before she could reply, he enfolded her in his arms again and in the passion that followed she forgot all else. But after passion came safety and contentment, both as precious as desire.

‘Nobody was ever yours before?’ she murmured. ‘Surely that can’t be true?’

‘You’d think not, wouldn’t you?’ he agreed. ‘I don’t usually go around telling people that I need them. It’s too dangerous, for one thing.’

‘Oh, yes, I know. They have to discover it for themselves.’

‘Yes. And they don’t. Except you. But before you…’ His voice died away into silence.

‘What about your fiancée?’ she asked. ‘You must have been in love with her.’

‘Yes, desperately. I thought I’d found the answer—a woman I could love and who’d love me—but it wasn’t right between us. I couldn’t be the man she wanted, giving her all my attention. She resented my other responsibilities.’

‘Did she force you to choose between her and them?’

‘In a way, yes. I can’t blame her. I put them first, but how could I not? Charlie was still basically a kid and Mother was still stuck in a state of bewilderment. They needed me. In the end, Verity and I agreed to call it a day.’

But to outsiders it had looked like a cold-hearted parting, she thought. Perhaps Roscoe bore some of the blame for that, hiding his feelings and turning a blank face to the world, but it had left him in terrifying isolation. He’d said that nobody had ever been his before, and it was true. Pippa clasped him more closely, seeking to offer him a warmth and love that would make up for the aching loneliness in which he’d lived, a loneliness that left him always prepared for betrayal, ready to expect it as natural and inevitable.

Now she recalled the words with which he’d greeted her, a few hours and a lifetime ago.

‘Why did you think I wouldn’t come? Surely we’d agreed?’

‘Yes, but I thought you’d remember that you were angry with me, and with reason. I behaved badly.’

‘When? I don’t remember.’

‘When I discovered that you knew something I hadn’t told you, about my father. You’ll despise me, but I couldn’t bear that. It made me feel spied on.’

‘You like to control how much people know about you,’ she mused. ‘It’s safer, isn’t it?’

‘Much safer. No—’ he checked himself instantly ‘—it feels safer but, if you give into it, it’s actually the way to go mad. Once I knew what you’d discovered, I had to head in the other direction, even though leaving you was the last thing I really wanted. But it was like being driven by demons.’

‘Mmm, I know about those demons,’ she murmured. ‘They scream, This way lies safety. So you take that path, but you find that it leads to a howling wilderness, then to a cage. And you know you must escape it soon or there’ll never be a way out.’

‘You have to decide whether you want to live in that cage for ever, or venture out and take the risks of being human,’ he agreed. ‘But if you don’t take those risks—’ his arms tightened about her ‘—then you stop being human. And perhaps you need to find the one person who can make you want to take them.’

‘Then maybe it’s time I took a risk,’ she said.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Asking you about your father. You’ve already told me to back off—’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘But I’m not going to do that. I’m going ahead, even if it makes you angry. Perhaps you need to be angry, so tell me what happened when he died. Were you very close to him?’

‘Close?’ He seemed to consider the word. ‘I hero-wor-shipped him. I thought he was a great man, starting from nothing and building up a huge business. He had power and that was wonderful. Which just goes to show how naive I was. I was as immature in those days as Charlie is now.

‘I was so proud when he took me into the business, told me I had the brains for it. We were a team, working together to conquer the world, so I thought. It was only after he died that I discovered the mountain of debt, the rip-offs, the deceit. He’d lied to everyone; my mother, who never knew he had a succession of mistresses bleeding him dry; virtually everyone he ever worked with, and me, who trusted him totally, was so proud at being close to him, and then discovered that we weren’t close at all.

‘I’d been so smug, so self-satisfied, sure of my place inside the loop, and all the time I’d been kept on the outside, like the fool I was.’

Pippa pulled herself up, turning so that she could look down at his head on the pillow. ‘Don’t put yourself down,’ she said.

‘Why not? A fool is the kindest thing I can call myself. If you knew how ashamed and humiliated I felt at how easily he took me for a ride. He knew he could deceive me more than anyone else.’

‘Because you were his son and you loved him,’ she urged. ‘He made use of that. Shame on him, not you.’

In the dim light she could just make out his wry smile.

‘That’s the sensible point of view. Back in those days it didn’t help a distraught boy who’d been conned by a father he damn near worshipped and only found out when it was too late to ask any questions. He was dead. I went to see him lying on a slab—cold, indifferent, safely gone beyond the world, beyond me. I wanted to scream at him—why hadn’t he trusted me? We could have fought for the business together. But he’d chosen to walk away, leaving me behind.’

‘He rejected you,’ she said softly, ‘left you stranded without warning. No wonder you’re sensitive about what other people know about you.’

‘Stranded without warning,’ he murmured. ‘Yes, that was it. Suddenly I was standing on the edge of a cliff that I hadn’t even known was there. No way forward, no way back, nobody I could talk to.’

Nobody I could talk to. The words were like an epitaph for his entire life. His bond with his father had been an illusion, his mother took everything and gave little, Charlie took everything and gave nothing. He was like a castaway stranded on a desert island.

‘Was anyone with you when you went to see him on the slab? Your mother?’

‘No, she couldn’t bear very much. There were so many things she mustn’t be allowed to know.’

‘The other women?’

‘Yes. She’d heard rumours, I denied them, swore that I’d never heard of his being untrue to her. I was afraid she’d kill herself as well if she knew. It’s ironic. I blame Charlie for telling stupid lies, but I’ve lost count of the really black lies I’ve told, the deceptions I’ve arranged, the people I’ve bribed to stay out of my mother’s way in case they let something slip.’

‘That’s different. Sometimes you have to lie to protect people you love. That’s not the same as self-serving lies. I don’t suppose you told her the state the firm was in either.’

‘Not completely. I hinted that we weren’t as prosperous as we might be, but I spared her the worst. Sometimes I think stocks and shares are the only part of my life where I’m actually honest.’

‘Deception doesn’t make you dishonest,’ she said seriously. ‘It’s the kind of deception that counts. You’re the most honest man I’ve ever met. I know that Roscoe, because I know you.’

After what he’d told her about how he resisted anyone’s eyes, it was a daring thing to say. Perhaps it was too soon for him to relax under a knowing gaze, even hers. But then she saw his face transfigured by joy and relief.

‘You know me,’ he echoed softly. ‘That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Now I’ll never let you go.’

Heaven must be like this, she thought, nestling against him. If only they could be undisturbed for ever.

Pippa was to remember that feeling because, looking back, she could see that it was the moment everything began to fall apart. She wondered if it was the Christmas carol that triggered the catastrophe or if it would have happened anyway, for she awoke next morning to find herself in a dark wilderness.

She tried to shake it off, wondering how she could feel this way after the wonderful events of the night before. But the darkness seemed to be rooted in those very events and her confusion grew.

Roscoe was still clasping her with loving possessiveness, which should have touched her heart but suddenly seemed like a threat. She began to ease away.

‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘Stay here a little longer.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got work to go to. So have you.’

He grinned. ‘To hell with work. To hell with the markets.’

Another time she would have teased him fondly for such an attitude, but now she needed to get away from his warmth and gentleness, far, far away from everything that made him lovable. She must think, calm her howling demons, refuse to let them ruin her life.

She slipped out of bed and went to the window, pushing it open a little way. It was a bright, fresh morning with a little snow in the air and she stood taking deep breaths, trying to make the darkness lift.

She could do it—just a few minutes more.

But then Roscoe did the thing that made her efforts collapse. He turned on the radio and the sound of a Christmas carol floated out. As Pippa heard the words she stiffened.

‘On this happy morning,

All is well with all the world.’

All is well. Once before she’d heard those words, just before the betrayal that had devastated her.

‘Don’t catch cold,’ he said, coming up behind her and putting his arms about her. ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ she said hastily. ‘Nothing.’

‘You’re shaking.’ He shut the window and drew her back. ‘Come back into the warm.’

But she tensed against his embrace, resisting him silently, unable to meet his eyes.

‘Now the sun will always shine,

Joy is here for ever.’

But joy hadn’t been there for ever. Joy had ended in the next few moments, leaving her unable to hear that carol again without reliving terrible memories.

Roscoe tightened his embrace, tried to draw her closer, felt her fight against it.

‘Pippa, for pity’s sake, what’s the matter? It’s not the cold, is it? There’s something else.’

‘No, I…I just have to be getting to work. And so do you.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘We still have to be sensible.’

‘Sensible? You dare say that to me after the way we were together last night? Was the woman who lay in my arms and cried out to me to love her being sensible? Was I being sensible when I gave her everything I was and received back everything she had in her soul?’

Pippa didn’t reply. She couldn’t. There were no words for the terror she was feeling. Roscoe’s face darkened.

‘Or didn’t I?’ he said. ‘Was I fooling myself about that, because the woman in my bed would never have wanted to be sensible?’

‘Well,’ she said brightly, ‘perhaps that wasn’t me, just someone who looked like me.’

‘What’s got into you? If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.’

The music swelled. Now the carol was being played louder, sung by joyful voices, and her nerves were being torn. She had to get out of this or go mad.

‘It’s not a joke,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It’s just that things look different in the morning.’

‘Yes, they can look different,’ he said slowly. ‘Better or worse, depending on what you want to believe.’

‘But that’s the problem,’ she said quickly. ‘Wanting to believe is dangerous—talking yourself into things because it would be so nice if…if…’

Roscoe was still holding her, trying to understand the violent shaking he could feel throughout her body.

‘What is it?’ he asked urgently. ‘Tell me. Don’t bear it alone.’

She slumped against him in despair. How could she make him understand what she didn’t understand herself? She only knew that she’d been brought to the edge of a deep pit, a place that many people found joyous but where she’d vowed not to venture. Now she stared down into the depths, appalled at herself for backing away but unable to do anything else.

Last night they’d talked happily about the risks they would take for their love. Now she knew she hadn’t the courage and nothing mattered but to get away.

The words of the carol were still pouring from the radio.

‘New day, new hope, new life.’

That was how it should have been and how it never would be again. It was all folly, all illusion, and she must put right the damage now.

‘Pippa, my darling—’

‘Don’t—it’s better not to call me that. We had a wonderful time last night, didn’t we?’

‘I thought so,’ he said quietly.

‘But now it’s time to wake up and return to reality.’

‘And what do you call reality?’

‘We both know what we mean by it.’ She gave another brittle laugh. ‘I’m sure we’ll see each other again, but nobody can live too long in that fantasy world.’

At last Roscoe released her. It was what she’d wanted but the feeling of his hands leaving her was achingly wretched because, deep inside, she knew he would never hold her again.

‘I see,’ he said. And now his voice was ominous. ‘So that’s how it is. We had a good time, now it’s over and it had nothing to do with the real world. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

Pippa summoned a carefree smile. ‘Why, that’s just it. A good time. And it was great fun, wasn’t it? But now…well, you knew from the start that I was a good time girl. I think you even called me a few worse things in your head.’

‘Before I thought I knew you,’ he corrected harshly.

‘Well, maybe first impressions are the most reliable. Floozie, tart, heartless piece—’

‘Stop it!’ he shouted, seizing her again. ‘I won’t listen to this. I never thought that of you—or if I ever wondered for a moment you showed me how wrong I was—’

‘Did I? Or did I show you what you wanted to see? You were a real challenge, you know. Anyone can lure a man into her bed, but luring his heart—that’s another matter.’

Pippa felt dizzy as she said these terrible words. In her desperation to escape she had gone much further than she’d meant to and for a moment she hesitated on the edge of recalling them, hurling herself into Roscoe’s arms and swearing she meant none of it.

‘Do you mean that?’ he whispered.

She had one last chance to deny her words, reclaim all the joy life could offer her.

‘Do you mean it?’ he repeated. ‘Is that all there’s been between us? You trying to bring me down, to punish me for my attitude in the first few days? Is that the truth?’

One last chance.

‘Now the sun will always shine,

Joy is here for ever.’

Frantically, she switched the radio off.

‘You know the saying,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You win some, you lose some. I like to win them all.’

Now it was too late. The last trace of feeling had gone from him. His eyes were those of a dead man.

‘I suppose I should be glad you came clean so soon,’ he said. ‘You might have taken it much further before you…but it’s always wise to face the truth.’

A sneering look came into his eyes.

‘So all the worst I thought of you was right after all. I should have more faith in my own judgement. Are you pleased? Does it give you a nasty little thrill to have brought me down?’

She managed a cynical laugh. ‘I came to your bed and gave you a good time. That’s hardly bringing you down.’

His eyes as they raked her were brutal.

‘Oh, but you did much more than that,’ he breathed. ‘You put on the sweet, generous mask and it fooled me so thoroughly that I told you things that never before…’ He drew a shuddering breath. ‘Well, I hope it gave you a good laugh.’

She was about to protest wildly that he was terribly wrong, but she controlled the impulse in time and offered him a smile precisely calculated to infuriate him. It would break his heart, but if it drove him away from her it would be better for him in the long run. And for his sake she would hide her own broken heart and endure.

‘I see that it did,’ he grated. ‘Well, don’t let me keep you.’

‘You’re right,’ she said brightly. ‘We’ve said all we have to say, haven’t we?’

He made no attempt to follow her into the bedroom as she gathered her things and when she came out he was waiting by the front door, as though determined to make sure that she left.

‘Good day to you,’ he said politely.

‘Goodbye,’ she told him, and fled.

A robot might have functioned as Pippa did for the rest of the day. Her efficiency was beyond reproach, her smile fixed, her work done to the highest standard.

‘What the devil is the matter with her?’ muttered David, her employer and friend.

‘Why not ask her?’ his secretary suggested.

‘I daren’t. She terrifies the life out of me.’

At last it was time to escape back to the apartment that would now be her cage. As if by a signal, Pippa began to tidy the place, although it was already tidy. From now on order and good management would be her watch words. She would concentrate on her career, be the best lawyer in the business and never again try to break out of the prison created by her nightmares. Life would be safe.

At last, when she’d put everything else away, she came to the box rescued from the attic in Crimea Street. Taking out the gloves and scarves, she discovered some handwritten books at the bottom.

‘That’s Gran’s handwriting,’ she breathed. ‘But surely she didn’t keep a diary? She wouldn’t have had time.’

Yet the diaries went back to Dee’s early life, when she had been a nurse, and had still sometimes found the time to jot down her thoughts about the life around her. Sometimes amusing, sometimes caustic, sometimes full of emotion, always revealing an ebullient personality that Pippa recognised.

There were the long, anguished months when she’d loved Mark Sellon hopelessly, becoming engaged to him, then breaking it off because she couldn’t believe he loved her. But he’d been returned to her in the hospital, shot down by enemy planes, and she’d sat by his unconscious form, speaking more freely than she could have done if he’d been awake. Dee had written:

I told him that I must believe that somewhere, deep in his heart, he could hear me. Wherever he was, he must surely feel my love reaching out to him, and know that it was always his.

Pippa read far into the night, until she came to the passage that, in her heart, she had always known she’d find, written just after her grandfather’s death.

I saw you laid in the ground today and had to come away, leaving you there. And yet I haven’t really left you behind because you’re still with me, and you always will be; just as I’ll always be with you in your heart, until we really are together again. It doesn’t matter how long that is. Time doesn’t really exist. It’s just an illusion.

Pippa dropped her head into her hands. That was how love should be, how it never would be for her. She knew that now.

She laid everything away tidily, turned out all the lights and went to bed. A faint gleam from the window showed her the toy bear on her dressing table. In this poor light his shabbiness was concealed and his glass eyes seemed to glimmer softly.

‘No,’ she told him. ‘I’m not listening to you. You want me to believe one thing, and I know it’s different. I believed you once. I believed Gran. She used to talk to me about her and Grandpa, saying that one day it would happen to me. And I thought it had when I met Jack. He made me feel so safe and loved, and sure of the future. And now I don’t want to feel safe and loved. Ever. Do you understand?’

But he had no reply for her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHARLIE called the next day, his voice full of excitement over the line.

‘Bless you for what you’ve done for me,’ he said. ‘And I’m not talking about the trial.’

‘You’ve seen Lee?’

‘Yes, I’ve just had a long talk and it’s looking good for a couple of weeks’ time. Oh, boy, wait until Roscoe hears about this!’

‘Don’t be in a rush to tell him, Charlie, and don’t do anything rash. Wait until you’re a little more certain.’

‘All right, Miss Wise and Wonderful. I’ll do it your way. And thank you again.’

She wondered if she would hear from Roscoe but days passed in silence. Just as well, she told herself. If she saw him she might weaken, and that must not happen. Much better this way.

But the ache persisted.

Days passed, nights passed. She told herself that it was getting easier, except that every knock at the door was him. Until it wasn’t.

But then, one evening, it was.

One look was enough to tell her that if anything had changed it wasn’t for the better. Now his face wasn’t just cold but furious.

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

She stood back and he walked in, turning on her as soon as the door closed.

‘My God, I never thought you’d stoop to this,’ he raged.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, please, you wreck his life and then you don’t know what I mean?’

‘If you’re talking about what I think you are—’

‘I’m talking about Charlie walking out of the firm, blowing his life chances to chase a chimera. I’m talking about you persuading him to do it. How could you sink so low? Were you really that desperate for revenge?’

‘Revenge?’ she echoed, astounded. ‘I didn’t want revenge. Why should I? You did me no harm. If anything, it was me who… What did you mean about Charlie leaving the firm? That wasn’t in the plan.’

‘But there was a plan? You admit that?’

‘Yes,’ she said, her temper flaring, ‘there was a plan—an innocent plan to help Charlie follow his own path in life. He’s a natural entertainer and I have a friend, Lee Renton, who’s in the business. He sets up those television programmes where amateurs perform and viewers vote. I recommended Charlie to him after that evening we spent at The Diamond. He did an impromptu performance for me at the table and he was so good that I thought he should take it further.

‘Lee has auditioned him and because he’s the big boss he’s been able to pull strings and include Charlie in a show in two weeks’ time. If he’s no good, OK, but the top two performers go through to the next round, and I’d back Charlie to be one of them.’

‘And then what?’ Roscoe demanded scathingly. ‘An existence spent on the grubby fringes of show business?’

‘Or as a star, however it turns out.’

‘However—? That’s how you see life, is it? Leave it to chance?’

‘What do you suggest instead? Opt for safety every time? Choosing safety doesn’t always lead to safety. We know that, don’t we? But it can, if it’s your own free choice. But being a stockbroker isn’t Charlie’s choice. It was your choice for him, and it won’t work.’

He turned away from her, walking about the room like a man who no longer knew where he was going.

‘You said Charlie walked out,’ Pippa reminded him. ‘Did he? Or did you force him out because you were so determined to make him do it your way?’

He turned a haggard gaze on her. ‘I wanted him to go on a course to learn some more about the business,’ he said. ‘He’d have acquired an extra qualification, boosted his prospects. He refused to go because it would have meant missing the television show. I told him he had to make a choice.’

Pippa groaned and clutched her forehead. ‘Tell me I’m not hearing this,’ she muttered. ‘You forced him to choose and you’re surprised that he chose his freedom?’

‘Freedom? You call that kind of life freedom?’

‘To him, yes. Freedom isn’t just not being in prison. You could keep Charlie out of trouble with the law but you’d do it by trapping him behind the bolts and bars of finance. For him, that would be a life sentence. He’s made his choice.’

‘Or you made it for him.’

‘No, I helped him do what he wants to do.’

‘Behind my back. You did encourage him to deceive me, didn’t you?’

‘I advised him not to tell you too much too soon, in case you tried to interfere.’

‘Interfere? I’m his brother.’

‘Yes, his brother, not his keeper. And you did interfere with that damn fool choice you forced on him. “Do it my way or get out.” The clever thing to do would be to leave the door open for him to come back if his new career failed. But you slammed that door shut so you’re not really a clever man at all, are you?’

The next moment she was sorry she’d said it because his face changed. The anger died out of it, replaced by a weary sadness that broke her heart.

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I guess the truth is that I’m a fool. I’ve always been a fool. I’ve trusted people who couldn’t be trusted, and I never learned from my mistakes.’ He gave a soft, mirthless laugh. ‘How big a fool is that? The biggest in the world.’

They weren’t talking about Charlie any more. He was saying that he’d trusted her, and he felt betrayed by her. Nor could she blame him when she remembered how he’d confided in her that night, talking about his father, his fiancée, his desolation at the way he’d been abandoned. He’d confided in her as to nobody else in his life, and just a few hours later she’d rejected him, her rejection coming out of the blue, with no real explanation.

And it had to stay that way. She didn’t dare tell him the whole story of her inner destruction in case he opened his arms to her in sympathy and understanding. Then she would weaken, seeking his love where once she’d found the strength to reject it. And she would destroy him.

Whatever happened, she would protect him from that. Protect him from herself.

‘I see you don’t deny that you made a fool of me,’ he said. ‘And that’s all I was—just one more fool among many. I fell for you totally, nothing held back. Boy, that must really have given you a laugh.’

‘No, I’m not laughing,’ she said quietly. ‘But I do know that I’m no good for you. I’m poison, and you’re better off without me.’

‘Oh, please!’ He warded her off again, this time actually backing away. ‘Spare me the pathos. You’ve done so well up to now. I was a scalp you had to add to your collection. You as good as admitted it.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘As close as, damn it. You had your victory and then I was no more use. I congratulate you. Cutting out the dead wood is good business practice, although even a heartless robot like myself hesitates before using it on people.’

‘Don’t call yourself a heartless robot,’ she cried. ‘I’ve never said that—’

‘Can you swear you’ve never thought it?’

‘No…never…’ she said jerkily.

‘You’re lying. The truth is there in your face. You’ve thought that and worse. Charlie told you I’m a control freak, didn’t he? And perhaps I am. But I’m not the only one, Pippa. Maybe I have pulled the strings of Charlie’s life, but so have you. The difference is that I pull strings in the open, not behind anyone’s back.’

Seeing that she was too stunned to speak, he turned with an air of finality and went to the door.

‘Be sure to send me your bill,’ he said, and walked out.

She could hear his retreating footsteps, followed by the sound of the elevator going down. She felt cold—deeply cold, too cold to move—with a coldness that would last for the rest of her life, freezing her heart, turning her to something inhuman.

But Roscoe already saw her as inhuman. His contempt left no doubt about that.

And that was good, she told herself resolutely. He was safer that way. As long as he was safe, she could bear anything.

Charlie called her, full of excitement about his approaching big night.

‘Mum’s giving a big party that night,’ he bubbled, ‘and she wants you as the guest of honour because you made it all happen. She’s thrilled about my new career. Roscoe can’t understand it.’

‘Obviously he isn’t thrilled.’

‘He wouldn’t be, would he? I don’t see him any more now I’m out of the firm, and he won’t be at home on the night. OK, so I’ll tell Mum you’re coming.’

‘Charlie—’

But he’d hung up, leaving her reflecting that Roscoe wasn’t the only member of his family who liked to call the shots.

The day of Charlie’s show started badly, with another car breakdown. This time Pippa faced the inevitable and dumped the vehicle. She took a taxi to the Havering house, arriving to find all the lights on and Angela waiting for her on the front step, flanked by neighbours who clapped and cheered as her taxi drew up.

‘Roscoe’s not here,’ Angela confided. ‘He’s so annoyed about the programme that he’s not coming.’

‘How do you feel about it?’ Pippa asked.

‘It’s what Charlie wants. And besides,’ Angela added in a low, confiding voice, ‘he can be a bit of a naughty boy, and if he gets into a little trouble now and then, well—it won’t matter so much, will it?’

So, despite appearances, there was a realistic brain beneath that fluffy head of hair, Pippa thought. More realistic than Roscoe about some things.

Dinner was a banquet, and then everyone crowded around the huge television screen on the wall. There was the opening music and the announcer came on.

‘Hello, folks! It’s time for Pick a Star, the programme where you, the viewer, vote the star in and the dunces off. And tonight’s contestants are—’

As soon as Charlie began his comedy act, everyone knew this was the winner. None of the other seven contestants could hold a candle to him. Even Pippa, who knew how rigorously Lee had had him trained as a favour to her, was impressed by his quality.

‘Now it’s voting time, folks—the moment when you choose the winner. Here are the phone numbers.’

When he got to Charlie’s number everyone scribbled frantically and hauled out their cellphones to ring and cast their votes. Angela dived for the house phone and put her call through.

‘How long do we wait?’ Angela asked.

‘Half an hour,’ Pippa told her, ‘but Lee said there wouldn’t be any question. He’s sure Charlie will win and go on into the next round but, even if he doesn’t, Lee’s got an agent already interested in him.’

The minutes crawled past and at last it was time to gather around the set to learn the winner. When Charlie’s name was announced, the room erupted.

There he was on screen, triumphantly repeating his act, his face full of delight, and more than delight: fulfilment. The applause grew, the credits rolled. It was over.

One by one, the guests departed. A beseeching look from Angela made Pippa stay behind the others and she understood that Angela didn’t want to be alone. Her house was going to be very empty now.

She led the way into the conservatory and poured Pippa a glass of champagne.

‘It’s so kind of you to stay a while, my dear. I know everything’s going to change now, and I’m ready for it as long as Charlie is doing what will make him happy.’ She added in a confiding tone, ‘I must admit that I hoped you and Charlie…but there, he says you’re like a friendly big sister.’

‘I hope I am.’

‘Oh, dear, how sad.’

‘Sad?’

‘I would have loved to welcome you into the family as Charlie’s wife.’ An idea seemed to strike her. ‘You don’t think you could make do with Roscoe, do you?’

‘What?’

‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but you never know, you might make him human.’

‘Angela, please don’t go thinking like that. There’s no way Roscoe and I could ever…please don’t.’

‘No, I suppose you’re right. I’m being selfish, I suppose. I’ve always wanted a daughter because you can’t talk to a man as you can to a woman, and I’ve had nobody to talk to since my husband died. Charlie was just a child and Roscoe…well, he’s only interested in making money. To be fair, he gives it too, but he seems to think that’s all that’s needed.’

‘Gives it?’ Pippa echoed cautiously.

‘He’s got charities he gives to, hospitals in the Third World, that sort of thing, but signing cheques is easy. It’s affection he finds difficult.’

‘But maybe it’s just a different way of showing affection,’ Pippa said urgently. ‘Putting your arms around a sick child is fine and beautiful, but if that child is dying for lack of the right medicine, then surely it’s the man who signs the cheque that buys the medicine who’s shown the real feeling? At any rate, I’ll bet that’s what the child’s mother would say.’

Angela stared at her. ‘You sound like Roscoe.’

‘And he’s right,’ Pippa said robustly. There was a curious kind of satisfaction in defending Roscoe when he wasn’t there. It was when he was there that the trouble started.

‘Have you ever tried to talk to him?’ she asked gently. ‘You might find more sympathy in Roscoe than you thought.’

‘Do you think so? Have those wonderful all-seeing eyes of yours bored into him and found something the rest of the world missed?’

This was so close to the truth that Pippa was momentarily lost for words. She recovered enough to say, ‘Who knows? He works so hard at not letting people see what he’s really like, almost as though part of him was afraid.’

‘Afraid? Him?’

‘Sometimes the man with the strongest armour is the one who needs it most for…whatever reason.’

‘You may be right,’ Angela sighed. ‘It’s just that I’ve always found it hard to forgive Roscoe for William’s death. If he’d taken on a bigger share of the work—’

‘But he was just a boy,’ Pippa protested. ‘About the same age Charlie is now. Would you blame Charlie in the same way?’

‘No, of course not, but—’ Angela checked herself as though the realisation had startled her. ‘Roscoe has always seemed different.’

‘Seemed is the word,’ Pippa said. ‘He was young, learning the business and probably completely confused. Then his father died. Maybe he blamed himself, then he discovered that you blamed him—’

‘I never said so,’ Angela hurried to say. ‘Oh, but I wouldn’t need to say so, would I?’

‘No. But he wouldn’t say anything either, and so you lost each other all these years ago.’

Angela was silent, looking sad, and after a moment Pippa ventured to ask, ‘Was your husband at all like that?’

‘Oh, no. William was talkative and open-hearted. He told me everything—absolutely everything. Our marriage was blissfully happy.’

She held up the hand with the glittering diamond ring. ‘At least I’ve always had this as a symbol of his love. I kiss it goodnight every evening when I go to bed, and for a moment I can imagine he’s still there. We loved each other so much until he…until he…’ She was suddenly shivering. ‘He died in a car crash. Taken from me suddenly, with no goodbye. Oh, if he’d had the chance to say goodbye he would have been so kind—’

With a feeling of sick dread, Pippa realised that Angela knew the truth, despite her frantic denials. Beneath her smiling facade, she was hiding another self, permanently tormented. It was a self that the outside world must never be allowed to see, and in that she was just like her elder son.

Now Pippa knew what she must do. Going to sit beside Angela, she put her arms gently about her and held her close.

‘You remember him as a kind man who loved you,’ she said. ‘And that’s what really matters—all the good years you shared—loving each other—’

‘Yes, yes—no!’ Angela’s voice suddenly rose to a shriek and sobs shook her. ‘No, he left me,’ she wept. ‘He took his own life, although he knew I loved him. He went away from me because he wanted to, and it destroyed me and he didn’t care. He didn’t care.’

‘That’s not true,’ Pippa said, tightening her arms. ‘He didn’t stop loving you. He was just full of despair. His mind was so dark that he wasn’t his real self. It was another man who took his own life, not the one you knew. He didn’t reject you. That was someone else who only looked like him.’

She wondered if she had any right to say this when she didn’t really believe it. William Havering’s suicide had indeed been a betrayal of those who loved and needed him, and she’d said as much to Roscoe. But this desperate woman could not have endured it.

She knew she’d made the right decision when Angela raised her head, her eyes frantically searching Pippa’s face.

‘Do you mean that?’ she whispered.

‘Yes, I do. He must have been terribly ill, and it was the illness that made him act, not his own heart. He never rejected you, and I know that wherever he is now he wants you to understand that. He can’t have peace until you have it first. You still love him, don’t you?’

‘Oh, yes—yes—’

‘Then do this for him. Speak to him in your heart and tell him you forgive him because you know he didn’t mean it. Tell him—’

She stopped for the air was singing. Suddenly, Dee was there with her, pointing to the words in her diary—words she’d spoken to the man she loved, not knowing if he could hear them, if he would ever hear them.

‘Tell him…tell him…’

‘What is it?’ Angela asked in wonder. ‘You look as if you’d seen a ghost.’

‘No,’ Pippa whispered. ‘You don’t need to see a ghost to feel it.’

‘What should I tell him?’

‘That he’s still with you,’ Pippa said slowly, ‘and he always will be, just as you’ll always be with him in your heart, until one day you really will be together again.’

‘And he won’t reject me?’ Angela whispered longingly. ‘After so long?’

‘It isn’t long. Time doesn’t really exist. It’s just an illusion.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Angela said eagerly. ‘I didn’t understand before, but I do now. You’re so kind and understanding.’

She buried her face against Pippa, still trembling, but no longer in agony.

A sound from the door made Pippa look up, and what she saw made her stiffen with shock.

Roscoe stood there. He was staring, seemingly dazed by the sight that met his eyes—his mother, in transports of joy and relief, in Pippa’s arms.

This was what he was trying to do for her, but never managed it, she thought. Perhaps he’ll hate me.

She recalled his chilly hostility when he’d discovered she knew about his father’s suicide. To him, this would seem even more of an intrusion.

She patted Angela’s shoulder. ‘Roscoe’s here.’

Angela raised her head. To Pippa’s pleasure, she smiled at the sight of Roscoe and reached out a hand.

‘Mother, what is it?’

‘It’s all right. Dear, dear Pippa has made me understand so much—she said such wonderful things—’

‘I heard what she said,’ Roscoe told her quietly. He took out a handkerchief and dabbed Angela’s face. ‘Don’t cry, Mother. There’s nothing to be sad about.’

‘I know. It was wonderful. Charlie won and he’ll be in the next round and, before we know it, he’ll be rich and famous.’

The phone rang and she snatched it up. ‘Charlie, darling, we were just talking about you—’

Pippa took a step away from Roscoe. Everything—her mind, her heart, her flesh—all were in turmoil at his appearance and the uncertainty over what he’d heard. Only one thing was sure. She must get away from him.

But she felt her hand taken between his in a grip she couldn’t resist, and he drew her away, out of Angela’s sight.

‘How can I ever thank you?’ he asked in a low, passionate voice. ‘I never dreamed I could see her so at peace again, and you did it.’

He raised her hands to his lips, kissing them, while she felt a happiness she’d feared never to know again. She tried to fight it, but it wouldn’t be fought.

‘You don’t mind that it was me?’ she asked.

‘If you mean would I rather have been the one who brought my mother peace again, then yes, I would. But as long as somebody can make her such a priceless gift, that’s the only thing that matters.’

‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘It hurt so much when we quarrelled, but at least we can part friends.’

‘Part? Are we going to part?’

‘We’ve already parted, Roscoe. You know that.’

‘But I don’t. Just because we said some terrible things—you pretended to be a floozie and I pretended to believe you. We can get past that if we want to.’

The turmoil of feeling that went through her was part joy at his love, part misery at the parting that she knew was inevitable, although he could not see it, and part terror that her own nerve might fail. She must leave him, but the knowledge filled her with anguish.

‘Surely you’re ready to try again,’ he said in a pleading voice. ‘The fact that you’re here—’

‘Charlie told me you wouldn’t be here tonight.’

‘He said that? Surely not? He knew I was coming.’

‘Maybe I misunderstood,’ she said huskily. ‘But it’s too late for us.’

‘It’ll never be too late while we love each other.’

She didn’t answer that. She didn’t dare.

Hearing Angela hanging up, Pippa said quickly, ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘I didn’t see your car outside.’

‘It’s finally had it.’

‘Then I’ll drive you. Don’t argue.’

Angela kissed her goodbye and watched them depart with a smile that said she was crossing her fingers for her hopes to come true.

‘Wrap up warmly; it’s snowing again,’ Roscoe said as he helped her on with her coat, drawing the edges together. ‘Your trouble is that you haven’t got anyone to look after you. Never mind, you’ll have me in future.’

She didn’t protest. It wasn’t true but she didn’t have the strength to dispel the beautiful dream right now. There would be time enough for heartbreak later.

CHAPTER TWELVE

AS THEY headed for Roscoe’s car they realised that there was a ghostly figure standing beside it, half obscured by the driving snow. Pippa gasped with horror when she realised who it was.

‘That’s Franton,’ she said urgently. ‘The man you fired for insider trading. He’s probably damaged your car.’

But there was nothing threatening about Franton’s appearance as he stood waiting for them by the road.

‘What are you doing out here in this weather?’ Roscoe asked him, sounding irritated. ‘Do you want to catch your death?’

Franton loomed at them through the flakes.

‘I’m not staying long. I only came to thank you. I found out who got me the job.’

‘I told them you’d do it well and I know you will,’ Roscoe said gruffly.

‘And the paper you signed…about my debts…’

‘It’s only a guarantee. You still have to pay them.’

‘But, thanks to you, I have time now. I had to come and thank you.’

‘Fine, but clear off now before you get pneumonia,’ Roscoe snapped, sounding annoyed. ‘Where’s your car?’

‘I sold it.’

‘Get in; I’ll drive you home.’

Franton tumbled thankfully into the back seat. Pippa, sitting in the front, tried to sort out her tangled thoughts but without success.

Why, she thought fretfully, couldn’t Roscoe stay the same person for five minutes at a time?

Franton’s wife and three children were waiting at the window, looking anxious. They streamed out to embrace him and Roscoe sat watching the family scene, before firing the engine and driving off.

‘I don’t believe what I’m seeing,’ she breathed. ‘You got him another job? After what happened?’

‘What else could I do?’ he demanded. ‘You saw his family. It’s not much of a job, handling the finances of a little group of shops.’

‘But didn’t you have to tell the owners why you fired him?’

‘I’m a partner in the business.’

‘So you pulled strings for him?’

He grunted.

‘And you’ve guaranteed his debts?’

‘Guaranteed them. Not paid them. Now, can we drop this?’

‘I just can’t get my head around it. Nobody would guess the truth about you.’

‘But you think you know the truth?’ he asked savagely. ‘After the way you attacked me about him, what did you expect me to do?’

‘I didn’t expect you to take any notice of anything I said. And I’m not even sure you did. I have a suspicion that you’d have done it anyway. Scrooge outside and Santa inside.’

‘How dare you?’

‘I don’t know,’ she mused. ‘But I dare.’

After a while she said, ‘This isn’t the way to my home.’

‘I’m taking a detour. The traffic’s heavy because we’re close to Trafalgar Square.’

‘Ah, yes. That’s where they set up the huge tree that the Norwegians give us every year.’

‘Let’s go and see it,’ he said, turning into a side road and stopping.

Taking her hand, he drew her forward to where the crowds were gathered. There was the great tree rearing up into the night, covered in lights. More lights set the fountains aglow and the huge buildings around the edge of the square. All around, carol singers gathered, their voices rising into the chilly air.

‘Beautiful,’ Roscoe murmured.

Receiving no reply, he turned to see Pippa standing with her eyes closed, her face wet from snow, or maybe tears. Her head was uncovered and now her glorious hair was drenched and hanging drably.

‘Pippa,’ he said urgently. ‘Pippa, what is it? Tell me, for pity’s sake.’

He shook her shoulders gently and, when she didn’t react, he drew her close, kissing her with the fierceness of a man trying to reawaken life.

‘Pippa,’ he whispered. ‘Where are you?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said helplessly. ‘But I can’t escape. I’m trapped there and I always will be.’

‘You can. Let me help you.’

He kissed her again and again and she gave herself up to the feeling, trying to find in it a way out of the fears that tormented her. But she knew there was no way out and she must try to make him understand.

‘Let me go,’ she said desperately. ‘I have to get out of here.’

She wrenched herself free and darted away, vanishing into the crowd so that for a moment Roscoe lost her and looked around desperately. She had vanished into thin air, gone for ever, and for a moment the demons that pursued him seemed to be mocking him.

Then he saw her at the end of the street, fleeing him without looking back. He gave chase and managed to catch up before she vanished again.

‘No,’ he said fiercely. ‘We can’t leave it like this. It’s too important. Let’s go back.’

‘Not to that place,’ she said, pointing to Trafalgar Square, whose lights could just be seen in the distance. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’

‘But why?’

‘Christmas,’ she said simply. ‘I just can’t cope.’

‘Let’s go home.’

He led her back to the car, saw her tucked in and headed back to her home. She sat in silence, her arms crossed over her chest for the whole of the journey, then let him shepherd her upstairs. She knew this moment had to come. They must have a long talk, and she must make him understand why this path was closed off to her. Then, and only then, would she be ready to face the bleakness of life without him.

When they reached her apartment he fetched a towel and began to dry her hair, which was sodden from the snow, pulling it down so that he could work on it properly. The movement reminded him of that first day, when he’d seen her hair and her young, voluptuous body in their full glory.

Now there was nothing young or glorious about her. With her hair bedraggled, her face pale and strained, he had a sudden blinding glimpse of how she would look as a weary old woman.

He had never loved her so much.

At last he tossed the towel away, but still kept hold of her.

‘I can’t believe the way things went wrong with us without warning,’ he said.

‘There may have been no warning to you,’ she said. ‘For me, there was.’

‘But everything was beautiful between us. We made love and found that our hearts and minds were open. We could talk and trust each other. I thought it was wonderful. Was I wrong?’

‘No,’ she cried passionately. ‘It was wonderful. But that was what scared me. It was wonderful once before. All that trust and hope for the future. I know how little it means because I had those feelings with Jack, and they ended in a smash-up. I loved him so much. I was ready to give him everything I had, everything I was, everything I might be, and I thought it was the same with him.’

She began to pace the room.

‘After that night you and I spent together, I woke up full of fear. It made no sense when things were so good between us, but I had this terrible sense of darkness. I tried to force it away, and I might have managed it, but then that Christmas carol came on the radio. And suddenly I was back there with Jack.

‘Christmas was coming and our wedding was set for the New Year. The church was booked, the reception, the presents had started to arrive. I went to see him at his flat, and I was so stupid that I never realised anything was wrong. I could see he had something on his mind but I thought he was planning a special surprise for me.

‘There were carol singers in the street below. They were singing that carol; how joy was here for ever and there would be “New day, new hope, new life”. And it seemed to fit us so exactly that I began to sing the words. Jack looked a bit embarrassed. I’ll never forget that look on his face, but of course it was because he was about to tell me that it was all over.

‘I had some mistletoe that I’d been keeping hidden, waiting for the right moment to produce it. I thought it was the perfect moment. I brought out the mistletoe and held it up, saying “This is where you’re supposed to kiss me.”

‘But he just looked more embarrassed, and suddenly blurted out that he would never kiss me again. It was over. He was marrying someone else. I just stood there, trying to take it in, and all the time those words were floating up from the street. Since then, I’ve never been able to hear them without a shudder, but until that day I didn’t know how deep it went.’

‘But one song—’

‘That’s what I’ve tried to tell myself, but it’s more. That one carol seems to sum it all up. The very fact that we were so happy seems like a threat. I’m afraid of happiness. I daren’t let myself feel it because I can’t face what happens when it ends.’

‘And you think it will end with us? You don’t trust me to be true to you? How can I prove it?’

‘You can’t. It’s my fault, not yours. After Jack, I shut out love, hid myself away from it. That’s why I live as I do, because it keeps love away. Let people think of me as a floozie who doesn’t need real feeling! It makes me angry sometimes, but it also keeps me safe, and safe is what I want to be more than anything in the world.’

‘More than anything in the world?’ Roscoe echoed slowly. ‘More than everything we could have together? More than the love we would share over the years, more than our children, our grandchildren?’

‘Stop it,’ Pippa whispered. ‘Please, please stop it.’

He moved closer, not holding her, but letting her feel the warmth of his breath on her face.

‘No, I won’t stop it,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t stop because I’m going to make sure that you remember me. I won’t let you just shut me out as though our love didn’t count. Do you think I’m going to let you off so easily? I’m not. I’m going to make sure you remember me every moment.’

Now he touched her, laying his mouth against hers, caressing her with his lips, then whispering, ‘Feel me, and remember me. I’ll always be here. You’ll never be rid of me, do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t want to be rid of you, but I can’t be with you. I’d make you wretched and destroy you, and I won’t do that.’

‘Tell me that you love me.’

‘I love you—I love you—’

‘And you belong to me.’

‘Yes, I belong to you, and I always will. But please go away, Roscoe—please forget me—’

‘Never in life. When I leave this room I’ll be with you. When you wake up tomorrow morning I’ll be with you. When you go to bed I’ll be with you. When you dream of love and feel hands touching and caressing you, they’ll be my hands, although I may be far away. As the years pass I’ll be with you. I won’t set you free—ever.’

His kiss intensified. She felt his mouth crushing hers for one fierce moment, before it softened again, leaving only tenderness behind. Then she was alone and he was backing away to the door, not taking his eyes from her.

‘Forgive me,’ she cried. ‘Forgive me!’

‘Perhaps,’ he said quietly. ‘One day.’

He walked out.

An unexpected knock on her door turned out to be Charlie, dressed in a heavy overcoat, swathed in a scarf.

‘It’s freezing out there,’ he said, coming in. ‘I came because I wanted to tell you myself. Even if I don’t win the show, my agent has fixed me up with a load of dates and I’m on my way.’

He finished with a yell of triumph and they embraced eagerly.

‘Is Ginevra pleased for you?’ she asked.

‘Probably. We’re not in touch. Last I heard from her was a text wishing me luck and saying not to contact her any more.’

‘Do you mind?’

‘Nope. There’s a girl…well, anyway…’

‘Have fun,’ Pippa chuckled. ‘You’ve been taking things too seriously for too long.’

‘Well, that’s over and I’m glad. I swear I’ll never take anything seriously again.’

‘How’s Roscoe coping with the change in you?’

‘Resigned, I think. I hardly see him now. Since the tie-up with Vanlen came to nothing, he’s in the office all the time.’

‘There’s not going to be a merger?’

‘No. I’m not sure what happened but I’ve heard there was a big row. Vanlen wanted to go ahead and merge; Roscoe didn’t. Vanlen made threats; Roscoe told him to do his worst. Vanlen stormed off.’ Charlie suddenly became awkward. ‘Actually, I thought you might have seen Roscoe more recently.’

‘The last time I saw him was at your mother’s house on the night of the show, and I only went because you assured me he wouldn’t be there.’

He was wide-eyed. ‘Did I say that? I don’t remember.’

‘Stop telling porkies. You promised I wouldn’t bump into him. But he said you knew he’d be there. How did you get that so wrong, Charlie?’

‘Ah—well—’

She surveyed him suspiciously. ‘You set us up to meet, didn’t you?’

‘Who, me?’ His air of innocence was perfectly contrived, and she would have believed it if she hadn’t known him so well by now.

‘Yes, you.’

‘How can you think that I—? Oh hell, yes of course I did. I was hoping the two of you would see sense if I helped things along.’

‘You’ve got an almighty nerve, playing Cupid.’

‘Why shouldn’t I? I need a big sister, and I’ve chosen you. Besides which, it’s always handy having a lawyer in the family. There are bound to be times in the future when—well, you know.’

Her lips twitched. ‘Yes, I do know.’

Charlie became briefly serious. ‘But that’s not really the reason, Pippa. Both Mother and I want you in the family because you make Roscoe human. Without you he’ll go to the dogs.’ He resumed his clowning manner. ‘So get on with it, OK? Right, now I’ve got to go. I just wanted to see you again and say thanks for everything.’

He gave her a brotherly kiss and was gone, taking with him her last connection with Roscoe.

At their parting she’d said a final goodbye, but still she clung to the hope that he would refuse to accept her rejection. But he neither called her nor turned up on her doorstep. In the next few days their only contact was a letter:

I had a long talk with Mother last night. I think we were both equally surprised that it was possible, but once we started it grew easier. She told me how she’d felt, things that I hadn’t known, and actually asked my forgiveness if she’d failed me. I told her there was nothing to forgive. Without you, it would never have happened. For the rest of my life you can ask anything of me that you wish and it will be yours. As I am yours.

It was signed simply, Roscoe.

He had said that she would never be alone and she found that, mysteriously, it was true. The apartment echoed with emptiness, yet he was always present, along with her other silent companions. There was Dee, accusing her of cowardice, and Mad Bruin, echoing Dee’s thoughts, as he always had.

Cowardice? Am I really a coward?

If you had any real nerve, Dee told her, you’d go back to Trafalgar Square and face that Christmas tree and those carols.

That’s what you’d have done, isn’t it? But I’m not brave enough. I’d always be watching Roscoe, wondering if his love was failing, and I won’t do that to him.

It’s nearly Christmas. Soon the lights will go out and it’ll be too late for another year. It’s now or never.

Then let it be never. Better for him. I’d only break his heart.

Yet she began wandering past Trafalgar Square every night on her way home, standing there, apart from the crowd, trying to listen to the carols without hearing them. But it was no use. The darkness did not lift and after standing in the cold for an hour she would turn and make her way drearily to the nearest underground station, trying to find relief in the thought that this self-inflicted punishment would soon be over, and she could be strong for another year.

‘I won’t go back in the future,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t.’ Just one last visit, she thought. Then never again.

‘And you’ll come with me,’ she said, taking up Mad Bruin from his place by her bed. ‘We’ll say goodbye together, then maybe you’ll understand and stop nagging me. And tell her to stop nagging me. Not that she ever does stop. Look at that.’

The exclamation was drawn from her by one of Dee’s diaries, on which Bruin had been sitting, and which fell to the floor when he was moved. Picking it up, Pippa found it falling open at a page in the centre. Dee had written:

I suppose I’m a bit mad. I swore I’d never marry him. I even ended our engagement. That broke my heart. I thought I was doing the best thing, but who gave me the right to decide for both of us? When he came back to me, injured, vulnerable, I knew that my place was by his side, no matter what.

We’re marrying now because I’m pregnant, so I don’t know if he really loves me. But IT DOESN’T MATTER. I love him, and that’s what matters. Nobody knows the future. You can only love and do your best. Perhaps it won’t work. Perhaps he’ll leave me.

Here some words were scribbled in the margin. Pippa just managed to make out her grandfather’s writing: Daft woman! As though I could.

Dee went on:

I’ll take that risk and, at the end, whenever and whatever the end will be, I’ll be able to say that I was true to my love.

‘You were so strong,’ Pippa murmured. ‘If only I could be like you. But I can’t.’

She put the diary carefully into a drawer, then tucked Bruin into her bag and hurried out.

She could hear the carol singers from a distance and ran the last few yards, suddenly eager to see the beautiful tree, its lights streaming up into the darkness, promising hope. That hope would never be hers, but she would carry the memory of this night all her life.

A vendor was wandering through the Square, holding up sprigs of mistletoe and doing a roaring trade as couples converged on him, paying exorbitantly for tiny sprigs, then immediately putting them to good use. Tears sprang into Pippa’s eyes as she watched them.

All around her people were singing. Someone was yelling, ‘Come on, everyone. Join in.’

But she couldn’t join in. That was the one final step that was still beyond her courage. Sadly, she pressed Bruin against her cheek before turning away.

But then someone crashed into her from behind and made her fall to the ground, sending him flying.

‘No,’ she cried. ‘Where are you—where—?’

‘It’s all right; I’ve got him,’ said a familiar voice, and she found herself looking into Roscoe’s eyes.

He helped her to her feet and pressed Bruin back into her hands. ‘Take care of him.’

‘How long have you been there?’ she stammered.

‘Since you arrived. And last night, and the time before. I know why you’ve come here and I’ve followed, hoping that what you found here would make you believe in me again.’

‘But I do believe in you. It’s myself I don’t believe in. I’m afraid.’

‘You? Never. You’re not afraid of anything.’ He made a wry, gentle face. ‘Many people are afraid of me. Not you. That was the first thing I liked about you.’ He went on, almost casually, ‘I could do with you around just now. Vanlen’s turning nasty and your moral support would mean a lot to me.’ He gave a small grin. ‘Plus, of course, your legal expertise.’

‘I heard the merger was abandoned and he didn’t like it.’

‘Since a certain night, I want nothing further to do with him. He blames me for you knocking him back.’ He gave a grunt of laughter. ‘If only I could believe that. I could hardly tell him that you have no more use for me than for him.’

‘That’s not true; you know it’s not,’ she whispered. ‘It’s because you matter so much that I—’

‘If I could have spoken freely I’d have told him that you’re a woman so special that I’d take every threat he could throw at me, make any sacrifice asked and call it cheap at the price. Except that there is no price. There never was and there never could be. What isn’t given freely has no value.’

Pippa clutched her head, almost weeping. ‘You make it sound so wonderful, but I have nothing to give.’

‘That’s not true. You’ve already given me things that matter a million times more than anything else in my life. If you choose to be more generous it will be the most precious gift of all. If not, I’ll always live in the knowledge that I knew the most glorious woman in the world, and my life was better for knowing her.

‘If you won’t marry me, Pippa, I’ll never marry anyone else. I’ll live alone, dreaming of you. It’ll be a sad life when I think of what could have been mine instead. Will you abandon me to that loneliness? Do you love me so little that you’ll do that to me?’

‘No,’ she cried. ‘I love you with all my heart; it’s just that…the fearful part of me is still fighting it. If only I could…if only…’

Everything in her yearned towards him. If only she could find the inspiration that would take her that last step into the unknown.

But it wasn’t unknown. It was filled with problems, fears, difficulties, but also with love. That much she knew. As for whether the love would be enough, that was up to her, wasn’t it?

Nobody knows the future. You can only love and do your best.

Dee’s words seemed to echo so resoundingly that she gasped and looked up, almost expecting to see the mysterious presence.

‘Where are you?’ she whispered.

Here, the presence replied. Here, there and everywhere. In your heart.

‘What is it?’ Roscoe asked.

‘Nobody knows the future,’ Pippa repeated slowly. ‘You can only love and do your best. She knew that. She tried to tell me.’

Roscoe had laid all that he was, all he had and all he ever could be at her feet. He could do no more. Now the future lay in her hands.

‘Roscoe,’ she said, reaching out to him, ‘if only I could—’

‘But you can,’ he said. ‘You can if you believe. We can do it together because now I know the way.’

The choirmaster was just waiting to start the next carol. Roscoe tugged at his arm, spoke a few words and the man nodded. The next moment the first notes of ‘A New Day Dawns’ floated out on the air.

‘Not that one,’ she said quickly.

‘Yes, that one,’ he said. ‘That’s the one that haunts you, and once we’ve defeated it together, the way is clear for us. Don’t you see?’

‘Yes, I do, but—’ Still the fear lurked.

He took her face between his hands.

‘No buts. From now on we face everything together, including this. Especially this. So now you’re going to sing this with me. Understand?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Then do it. Do it now, I order you. Yes, I’m a control freak and a manipulator, but so are you. When we’re married I’ll give my orders and expect you to do as I say. But be honest, my darling. You’ll give your orders and expect me to do as you say. And I will. In the end we’ll know each other so well that nobody will have to give orders. We’ll each know how to please the other.

‘And, since you’re a bigger control freak than I am, it’ll be me doing most of the obeying. But this time it’s me giving the orders. Sing with me, for this hope is ours and it’s time to claim it.’

Around them the voices rose, seeming to shimmer with the lights that glowed up high, to the star at the top of the tree, blazing against the darkness.

‘A new day dawns, a child is born.

Behold the shining star,’

‘Sing,’ he said. ‘Sing with me. Sing.’

And suddenly she could do so, clinging to him for the strength only he could give her. Now and only now the words would come.

‘It leads us on to hope revived,

New day, new hope, new life’

It was there, the miracle she’d thought could never happen, rolling back the fear, setting her free, but only free as long as he was there.

She saw the question in his eyes and nodded as their voices rang out together.

‘For darkness flees the coming light,

And we are all reborn.’

‘Reborn,’ she whispered.

‘Does that mean you’ll marry me?’

‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’

From his pocket he took a small box containing a diamond ring, which he slipped onto her finger. She gasped. ‘That’s your mother’s.’

‘She gave it to me. She said her time for wearing it was over, but yours had just begun. It’s her way of welcoming you into the family, but also—I don’t know how to put it—’

‘She gave it to you, not Charlie. That’s her way of opening her heart to you again, saying you’re her son?’

‘Yes. It’s taken so long. I thought I was resigned, but I wasn’t. After all these years it has brought me more joy than I can say, and that’s another thing I owe to you. You brought us together and helped us understand each other. I could never give this ring to anyone but you, and you must promise me to wear it all your life.’

‘I’ll wear it as long as you want me to wear it.’

‘All your life,’ he repeated.

A vendor glided past them, waving a sprig of mistletoe. ‘Go on, buy it,’ he begged. ‘Then I can go home.’

Roscoe grabbed the first note he came to and proffered it without looking to see how large it was. The vendor’s eyes opened wide and he vanished quickly.

Slowly, Roscoe raised the mistletoe over her head.

‘Do you remember what you said to that fool who let you slip through his fingers?’ he asked.

‘“This is where you’re supposed to kiss me”,’ she recalled.

‘Very willingly,’ he said, lowering his mouth to hers for the first kiss of their engagement.

She kissed him back fervently, trying to tell him that she was entirely his, despite her fears. With his help she would conquer them and be everything he wanted. Nothing else mattered in her life.

Afterwards they hugged each other. Later there would be passion, but just now what mattered was the warmth and comfort they could bring each other. As her spirit soared she even managed a tiny laugh.

‘What is it?’ he asked, lifting her chin and gazing searchingly into her face.

‘That was a twenty pound note you gave him.’

‘If it had been a million pounds it wouldn’t have begun to be enough for what I’ve won tonight.’

As they finally walked away, arms entwined, she murmured, ‘New day, new hope, new life. All the best things to wish for.’

‘I don’t have to wish for them,’ Roscoe said. ‘You have given them to me already, and they will last for ever.’

They set the wedding date for soon after Christmas. It would take place in the church belonging to the graveyard where they had first met, where Pippa’s family lay in the grounds. The day before, they paid a visit together and went to look at the graves of Mark and Dee. Roscoe brushed the snow away, revealing the faces beneath, not just happy, but with a contentment that spoke of many years of successful marriage.

‘I’m glad they’ll be at our wedding,’ she said.

‘They’ll always be part of our lives,’ he agreed. ‘Because without them we’d never have met. Do you think your grandmother likes me?’

‘Oh, yes, I can tell from the way she’s looking at you.’

‘So can I.’

When she went to visit the other family graves he stayed behind to talk to Dee.

‘You’ve been such an influence in her life—and mine—that I want to know you better. Without you, she wouldn’t be who she is, and I wouldn’t be the happy man that I am. Thank you with all my heart.’

He stepped back.

‘I’ll see you both at the wedding tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it.’

He walked away to find the woman he adored more than life, and even now he had the sense that two pairs of eyes were following him. He smiled, happy in the knowledge, and resolved to tell Pippa all about it.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-7612-7

A MISTLETOE PROPOSAL

First North American Publication 2010

Copyright © 2010 by Lucy Gordon

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