Читать книгу Hot Blood - CHARLOTTE LAMB - Страница 7

LIAM turned and saw Kit a second later. His smile died instantly to be replaced by a frown. She wasn’t surprised—he had been scowling at her for days—but it still saddened her, angered her too—how dared he look at her like that? It wasn’t she who was behaving like a spoilt child, wanting to have everything its own way. But then wasn’t that just like a man?

She looked at him with love and anger, wanting to smack him hard. His well-brushed black hair showed only fine streaks of silver although he was fifty himself now; it wasn’t fair, thought Kit, wishing she didn’t feel that deep surge of emotion just looking at him. Why did men retain their looks long after women’s had begun to fade? Liam didn’t look fifty. He was still lean and vibrant—a tall man with powerful shoulders, long legs and a lot of energy.

Paddy whispered to her, ‘Oops! Someone’s in a bad temper again! Whatever is the matter with him these days?’

Kit didn’t tell her. She couldn’t possibly have confided in Paddy—in anyone. The quarrel between her and Liam was too private to be talked about. It would be humiliating for anyone else to know about it.

Liam said goodbye to the woman he had been talking to and came over to them, his pale grey eyes glittering with ice as he held up his wrist and pointed to his watch.

‘What time do you call this?’

Kit pondered the question, staring at his gold Cartier watch, which she knew had been a twenty-first birthday present to him from his father thirty years ago. It was still as beautiful as it must have been then, but Gerald Keble had been dead for twenty years. Was that part of the power of antiques—that they outlasted those who had created them or owned them? Or was it more that they somehow carried the patina of the times they had lived through, their surfaces polished by love over generations?

‘Are we late?’ she began, pretending not to be sure of it, and Liam’s face tightened. He wasn’t fooled by her wide-open eyes and surprised expression. He knew her too well.

‘You know damned well you are! You should have been here half an hour ago! Every other stall was set up and doing business by half eight. Why weren’t you here? I was; I was here by twenty past eight—where were you?’

She abandoned innocence in favour of defiance. ‘Fred’s van can only do forty miles an hour when it’s loaded down with stuff, you know that! It might break down altogether if he pushed it.’

Fred and Paddy became very busy, not wishing to get drawn into the battle. They didn’t enjoy confrontation or argument; they liked life to be peaceful, and Kit sympathised—she would rather have had a peaceful life too, but Liam was making that impossible for both of them.

‘You should have left earlier!’ he accused.

‘We left early enough—but there was a lot of traffic on the road!’

‘You should have made allowances for that.’

It was never easy to argue with Liam; he had an answer for everything. She looked at him furiously, her green eyes glittering. ‘This is just wasting time! I’ve got better things to do than stand here bickering with you!’

As she turned away Liam tersely demanded, ‘Where were you all last night?’

She froze, staring up at him. ‘What?’

‘Don’t give me that innocent look! I know you weren’t home. I wanted to remind you to get here by half past eight. I kept ringing from six-thirty onwards but just got your answering machine. I left a couple of messages asking you to ring me back, but you never did.’

Fred and Paddy had discreetly deposited their loads on the empty stall and melted away back to the van to get some more of the items they had brought, hoping no doubt that by the time they got back here she and Liam would have stopped snarling at each other. Some hope!

Turning her back on him, Kit began to unpack some of the wrapped pieces in one of the boxes, setting them out carefully on the stall. She felt Liam glaring at her as she unwrapped a piece of art nouveau glass—a twisty candlestick in rainbow colours which had been allowed to run like melting wax.

Casually without looking at him, she said over her shoulder, ‘I went to the cinema club to see Garbo in Camille last night.’

‘Was it a midnight performance?’ he bit out.

‘Midnight performance?’ she repeated, baffled. ‘Of course not!’ She couldn’t actually remember what time she had got back to her flat, but it hadn’t been that late, surely?

She went on unwrapping porcelain, talking without looking at him. ‘I was back home by midnight! I didn’t check my answering machine; I forgot it was on so I didn’t think of switching it off, and this morning I was in such a rush, grabbing some coffee and toast, that I still didn’t remember to check to see if there were any messages. I went straight to bed as soon as I got home last night.’

‘Did you go alone?’ he asked, his tone as cutting as a knife going through silk.

Kit gave him an incredulous, angry stare. ‘To bed?’ She couldn’t believe he had asked her that. Hot colour rushed up her face—the scarlet of rage rather than embarrassment.

‘No, to the cinema!’ he bit out like someone snapping cotton between their teeth.

‘Yes to both, as it happens!’ she snapped back. What was he suggesting—that she had gone out with someone else last night? Was having an affair? He was reacting with possessive jealousy, yet he kept saying that he didn’t want to own her or have her own him. Why didn’t he make up his mind? He was the most contradictory, bewildering man she had ever known.

‘Really?’ His mouth twisted cynically, disbelievingly.

She hated the way he was looking at her. ‘Believe it or not, just as you like! It doesn’t bother me,’ she muttered. ‘Look, are you going to stand there and watch me working? Would it be too much to ask you to help?’

His face tight, he took a set of six French silver dessert spoons out of the box and put them down on the stall in a prominent place, his long fingers automatically caressing even in his temper. Liam loved beautiful things; he and Kit had that in common, which was why their partnership had worked so well until now.

He had inherited the auction rooms from his father, Gerald Keble. He had worked for the firm ever since he’d left university with an art degree two years after Kit had graduated. Kit had been engaged to Hugh by then and hadn’t quite made up her mind what she was going to do for a career. She had worked in her father’s shop until she’d got married and had her son, and even while she was running a home and taking care of Paul she had still managed to work part-time for her father during his lifetime.

It wasn’t until later that she’d begun working with Liam, but she had always known him through the auction rooms which she and her father had frequently visited to buy objects for their shop. His family—on both sides—had lived in Silverburn for centuries; their names, many covered in moss and fading, were carved on rows of graves in the old churchyard behind St Mary’s, the medieval church which stood on the top of the winding high street, as were those of Kit’s ancestors.

Neither of them came from rich or powerful stock. They were descended from shopkeepers and market traders, farm labourers and wagoners—the ordinary working people of this little English town over many generations.

‘I saw Mrs Walton, the vicar’s wife, just now,’ Liam murmured as he set out a Waterford crystal rose bowl on the stall. ‘She told me she saw you last night coming out of the cinema with what she described as a very attractive man, much younger than you!’

Kit swallowed, going a furious shade of fuchsia. She should have known that someone was bound to notice her with Joe. This was a small town-anyone who had lived here for years knew almost everyone else; nothing you did was ever missed and people were always curious, and always talked about anything they saw or heard. You couldn’t hope to keep a secret here.

That was, paradoxically, one of the things she loved about the place for all that it made her cross too; there was no chance of being forgotten or ignored here, of leading a lonely existence. You were part of the community whether you liked it or not and your entire life was an open book. That might have had a down side but it also made you feel good; you knew you belonged.

‘I may have come out with him—I didn’t go in there with him!’ she said irritably, and then her heart suddenly began to beat like an overwound clock.

Was Liam jealous? The idea made her mouth go dry. Jealousy would mean that he cared—really cared. Or would it? He could just resent her showing signs of interest in someone else, even though he made it clear that there was no future for her with him. Men could be very dog-in-themanger.

‘Oh, I see,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘You picked him up inside, did you?

‘“Picked him up”?’ she repeated, very flushed. ‘I did nothing of the kind!’

He looked at her with a curling lip, contempt in his eyes, in his voice.

‘What on earth’s the matter with you? Don’t you realise that a woman of your age is taking a stupid risk talking to a strange man in a cinema—especially if it’s someone much younger than you? Mrs Walton said she was sure he wasn’t even forty yet!’

Indignantly Kit said, ‘Well, Mrs Walton’s as wrong about his age as she is about most things! You’d think a vicar’s wife would have more to do with her time than spread gossip. Joe’s forty-two, as it happens! Not that much younger than me!’ She had told Joe that she was much older than he was, but she didn’t enjoy knowing that other people had thought the same thing.

Liam faced her, his eyes narrowed and hostile. ‘Ten years younger, Kit! If it was the other way around, if you were ten years younger than him, it wouldn’t matter so much but—’

‘Why is it OK for a man to go out with a much younger woman but not the other way around?’ she seethed, remembering the beautiful redhead he had been talking to—apparently it was OK for him to ask her out although she was twenty years younger than he was. ‘If Joe doesn’t mind me being older, what business is it of yours?’

His hard grey eyes glittered. ‘You seem to know a lot about him. He wasn’t a stranger, then? You’d met him before? How long have you known him?’

‘What is this—the Spanish Inquisition?’

Liam coldly demanded, ‘Why don’t you want to talk about him? What have you got to hide?’

‘I just don’t like being grilled as if I were a murder suspect! As it happens, Joe lives in my apartment block.’ She wasn’t telling him the absolute truthnot because she was ashamed of it but because with Liam in his present mood she wasn’t going to admit that she had let Joe pick her up in the cinema. She still couldn’t believe it herself; even as a teenager she had never been one to strike up instant relationships.

But so what? It wasn’t a crime, and Joe had been nice; she had been in no danger from him. She had known that from the minute they had got into conversation.

‘He’s a neighbour of yours?’ Liam repeated, his frown etching heavy lines in his forehead. ‘Have I seen him?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He’s just moved here.’

‘Where from?’

‘Well…London, I suppose.’

‘You suppose? You mean you don’t know where he came from?’

‘He seems to have lived all over the world, but I think he was based in London.’

‘You think? Well, what does he do for a living?’

‘He retired recently—’

‘Been sacked, you mean!’ interrupted Liam roughly. ‘If he’s only forty he can hardly have retired! He’s lost his job—and he’s lying about it. I don’t like the sound of that.’

Kit was getting angrier. ‘Don’t make such snap judgements! You’ve never even set eyes on him. He used to be a photographer on an international magazine, covering wars and revolutions, but he got tired of the life and gave up his job. He wasn’t sacked or made redundant. He wanted to stop travelling, settle down somewhere; he’s writing his autobiography.’

Liam’s brows shot up. ‘He’s what? Writing his autobiography? He has to be kidding. You’re very naïve if you swallowed that! Only famous people write their autobiographies—is he famous?’ His voice was hard with sarcasm. ‘What did you say his name was?’

‘Joe Ingram.’

‘Joe Ingram?’ Liam’s face changed, his eyes surprised. After a moment he said roughly, ‘Well, I’ve heard of him. He got some sort of award last year for a photo of a dying soldier in an African street. It was a damned good picture—black and white. I saw it in an exhibition in London.’ There was a pause, then he reluctantly muttered, ‘I must say I was impressed.’ He looked as if he hated to admit it.

Kit wished that she had seen it; it must have been good if it had impressed Liam; it wasn’t easy to impress him. She wasn’t surprised to hear that Joe had been very successful in his job, though—not only because he had told her that he was writing his autobiography but because there had been something assured and confident about the man himself. Joe was easy in his own skin; he had done a great deal, seen a lot of the world and found out about himself too, she suspected; found out enough to know what he wanted from life.

So many people led blinkered lives, blind to what they were doing or why—lives of fantasy, unaware of themselves or conscious of making the wrong choices. Discovering that you had taken a wrong turning in your life and firmly changing course was the act of an adult in touch with his own inner self.

That was what Hugh had done when he’d met Tina. He had turned his back on his entire existence until that moment and gone off bravely to a new life. Kit admired her ex-husband for that and didn’t blame him. You only had one life. You had to live it for yourself, not other people; it did nobody any good if you wasted your entire life being unhappy. In fact, your unhappiness seeped into the lives of those around you and made them unhappy too.

‘Joe’s publishing a series of photos in his book; maybe that will be one of them,’ she thought aloud.

‘You’ve never mentioned him before,’ Liam said slowly, watching her. ‘How long have you known him?’

She gave him a quick, evasive glance and shrugged. ‘Oh, not long.’

Her mind raced feverishly—what was going on? Why was Liam so angry? Why all these hostile questions? She had known him most of her life, just as she had her husband. Kit’s world was a small one; the people in it rarely altered year by year, day by day, and she liked it like that. She was comfortable with herself and her world.

Yet Liam was still mysterious to her, his re sponses and emotions as indecipherable as some ancient script scratched on a primitive artefact. You could sometimes make out a line here or there, but the meaning of the whole defeated you. In fact she was sure that he did not want her to know too much about him; sometimes she even thought that he was afraid of her getting too close. But why?

Paddy and Fred came back and began setting out the furniture they had just carried into the hall. Paddy set to work, energetically giving a plainly decorated eighteenth-century country linen chest a final polish to make it shine under the strong lights of the hall. Fred checked that each item was marked with the price, to forestall arguments with customers, and made sure that the more expensive pieces were placed well to the back of the stall for safety’s sake. You often got light-fingered customers looking for small, portable objects to walk off with while your attention was distracted by someone else. You had to have your wits about you, working in an antiques market.

‘Paddy, look after the stall; we’re going for a cup of coffee,’ Liam said brusquely, grabbing Kit’s arm as she opened her mouth to argue.

A moment later he was pulling her towards the exit and out into the watery gleam of March sunlight. Across the street from the village school stood the Blue Lion, a solidly built gabled pub from the eighteenth century.

This was where all the antiques dealers and their customers gathered for a traditional English breakfast on these cold mornings. The back room of the pub where the landlady cooked bacon and egg and made crisp golden toast and hot, strong coffee or tea was as crowded as usual. There were no free tables.

‘We’ll take our coffee outside, Mrs Evans,’ Liam told the landlady, who handed him two brimming mugs.

‘Sit in the snug, dear,’ she said, glancing quickly from one to the other of them. ‘Too cold to go outside.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, smiling down at her, and she went pink with pleasure.

Flirt! thought Kit bitterly, watching him turn on the charm that could make her own head spin on her shoulders.

The snug bar was a small, red-plush-upholstered room with a counter shining with highly polished brass. Liam put down the mugs of coffee on a black marble-topped table and sat on one of the red plush seats, stretching out his long legs as Kit sank down next to him.

‘Why have we come over here?’ she asked.

‘To talk without witnesses.’ He turned towards her, his profile hard. ‘Let’s have the truth, shall we? Are you dating Joe Ingram to stick a knife in me?’

She drew a long, shaky breath. ‘What are you talking about?’

His voice was angry. ‘You know damned well what I’m talking about! A few days ago you asked me to marry you and I was honest enough to tell you that I never wanted to get married again. I thought you were adult enough to take the truth, but I guess women never are.’

Face burning, she angrily said, ‘I did not ask you to marry me! All I said was were we going to get married some time or did you intend to go on for ever the way we’ve been for the past year?’

His mouth twisted cynically. ‘Don’t play games with words, Kit. You asked me if I was going to marry you, and I had to tell you no. That was when the wall went up and you suddenly started looking at me as if you hated me.’

Face distant, she said, ‘I was frank with you too, Liam. I’m sick of living alone; I want someone else there, someone to share things with, someone to come home to every day.’

‘Was that the only reason you slept with me—to get me to marry you?’

She bristled, glaring at him. ‘Don’t be so insulting! I thought we had a real relationship; I thought you cared about me.’

‘I do! That has nothing to do with getting married—’ He broke off, staring at nothing, his brow corrugated, then muttered, ‘Look, Kit, I gave you my reasons the other day. I asked you not to take my answer personally—’

Incredulously she interrupted, ‘How else can I take it, for heaven’s sake? You want me to sleep with you but you don’t love me enough to marry me. I take that very personally.’

His voice rough, he said, ‘I never wanted to hurt you, Kit. That’s the last thing I want to do. Please believe that. This isn’t about you, it’s about me. I prefer to live alone; I don’t want to live with anyone, not ever again.’

‘Weren’t you happy with Claudia?’

She had never once asked him about his dead wife or their relationship; she had realised early on that Liam did not want to talk about any of that. She had felt a door close in her face every time she’d mentioned Claudia.

Now there was a long silence, then Liam said tersely, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t discuss her with you of all people.’

She flinched at his tone—it was like a slap in the face. It pushed her away, denied her the right to ask him questions. This was why she felt so uneasy about their relationship. There were areas of his life that he would not talk about, and while he locked her out of his most private thoughts how could she really understand him, or feel she really knew him? What sort of man hid himself from someone he had known most of his life?

‘What do you mean…me of all people?’ she asked in pain.

He sighed, rubbing a hand across his temples as if he had a headache. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Kit—isn’t it obvious?’

‘I’ve talked to you about Hugh; I don’t keep secrets from you.’

‘Hugh’s alive. Claudia is dead. It wouldn’t be fair to her.’