Читать книгу The Marriage Miracle - Liz Fielding - Страница 8

‘FOREST FAIRIES?’

Sebastian closed his eyes. Maybe this was all a bad dream, he thought. Maybe, if he concentrated very hard, he’d wake up in the pastel-free zone of his loft apartment…

Nothing doing.

When he opened them, the display of neon-bright, fairy-bedecked birthday cards was still there.

A week ago he’d been sitting in his Wall Street office, the fate of major corporations in his hands. All it had taken was one phone call to change his life from the American dream to a British farce. He just wished Matty Lang were here to see what the ‘big-shot New York banker’ had come to.

She, he was certain, would have enjoyed the joke. With her there he might have been able to see it for himself.

‘They were our most profitable line…’

Blanche Appleby, Uncle George’s secretary since time immemorial, hesitated, unsure exactly how to address Sebastian now that he was a head taller than her and, in his real life, the vice-president of an international bank.

He let the image of Matty’s smile fade. ‘It’s still Sebastian, Blanche.’

She relaxed a little. ‘It’s been a good many years since I called you that.’

‘I know, but you don’t have to go all formal on me just because I’ve grown a few feet. I’m still going to need you to hold my hand on this one. I know nothing about the greeting card business.’ Knew nothing and cared less. But he was stuck with it.

‘What about the staff?’

‘I’ll talk to them all later, when I have a better idea what’s—’

‘No. What do you want them to call you?’

He stifled a groan. Life was so much simpler in the US. There he was simply Sebastian Wolseley, a man defined by what he did and how well he did it rather than by the fact that one of his ancestors had been the mistress of Britain’s merriest monarch.

As Viscount Grafton, his title was a courtesy one, one of his father’s spares, passed on at birth to keep him going until he inherited the big one. He’d made damn sure that no one in New York knew about it. And perhaps that was a small upside.

Baiting minor aristocracy was a blood sport in the British media; any coverage of his involvement in Coronet Cards was likely to be of the mocking variety. Since it would be the Viscount they were mocking, he might just get away with it.

It would be worth any amount of mockery if it meant no one in New York discovered that he’d put his career at the bank temporarily on hold to rescue Forest Fairies from fiscal disaster.

‘What did the staff call George?’ he asked.

‘Everyone but the senior staff just called him Mr George.’

Paternal respect for the Honourable George, what else?

‘Maybe in another twenty years,’ he said. ‘For now I’d prefer it if everyone just called me Sebastian.’

‘Everyone?’ She sounded slightly shocked.

‘If you’d pass that on.’

‘Well, if that’s what you want.’

‘I do.’ Then, since there was no point in putting off the inevitable, he indicated the display of birthday cards, paper plates, napkins and balloons strewn across the conference table that took up one end of the office. ‘You say these were Coronet’s bestselling lines?’

Maybe he should have made more effort to hide his disbelief.

‘You’ve never seen the television programme?’ she asked, surprised.

‘I don’t believe so.’

‘No, well, I don’t suppose they’re on American television.’ Her tone suggested that their transatlantic cousins didn’t know what they were missing. ‘They were very popular here, which is why George bought a twenty-five-year licence to use the characters on a range of cards and party products.’

That got his attention. ‘Did you say twenty-five?’

‘Forest Fairies parties have been very popular with three-to six-year-old girls.’

‘George bought the rights to produce this stuff for twenty-five years?’ he persisted. ‘How much did it cost the company?’

‘It was a very good deal,’ she said, instantly protective. ‘The line was the mainstay of the business for several years.’

The fact that she appeared to be referring to all this success in the past tense finally got through. ‘Was?’

‘Sales have declined somewhat since the TV programme was dropped from the schedules,’ she admitted.

Sebastian was torn between relief that there would be fewer Forest Fairies in the world and despair that the one item keeping the company afloat was in decline.

It was a close call.

Distracted by a howl of frustration, Matty gave up any pretence of working. All morning she’d been stopping her mind from wandering off to think about Sebastian Wolseley. The sexy way his eyes had creased as his face had relaxed into a smile. The way his eyes changed colour.

Back in New York, he’d still be asleep, and that was a tantalising thought, too. It was so easy to imagine him lying with his face in a pillow, his long limbs spread-eagled across a wide bed.

She saw him in one of those vast loft apartments, with light flooding in from floor-to-ceiling windows across acres of floor space, ‘An Englishman in New York’ playing on an expensive stereo.

And she smiled. So few people were able to handle the wheelchair without embarrassment, but he’d passed every test with flying colours.

The journalist who’d been so anxious to interview her about her work hadn’t been able to get away fast enough. Promising to phone. And maybe she would. ‘Plucky wheelchair-bound woman illustrates cute book…’ had to be a bigger story than one about just any ordinary, able-bodied woman illustrating a cute book.

Or maybe it had been her fault. Maybe the woman’s carefully phrased questions had been in such sharp contrast to Sebastian’s matter-of-fact attitude that she’d been unusually difficult. Prickly, even.

But for a few minutes he’d talked to her as if she was whole. Saying things that no one else would have dreamed of saying. Asking her if she tap-danced…

And even when he’d realised that tap-dancing was not, never would be, part of her repertoire he hadn’t changed—hadn’t started talking to her as if she was witless. Dinner with him would have been a rare pleasure. Sitting at a candlelit table, she could have pretended for a few dizzy hours that on the outside she was like any other woman. The way she was deep inside. With the same longings. The same desire to be loved, to have a man hold her, make love to her.

She closed her eyes for a moment, shutting out the reminders that she was not, would never be, like other women. How dared he joke with her, talk as if she could get up and dance as soon as she made the effort?

Then, with a deep breath, she opened them again. It was unfair to blame him. She’d seen him staring into his glass as if into an abyss and just hadn’t been able to keep her mouth shut. She’d only got herself to blame for her disturbed nights.

Because it wasn’t just this morning that she’d been thinking about him. He’d been there, in her head, since the moment he’d taken her hand, held it a touch too long. Been there the minute she’d stopped concentrating on something else.

But Monday was a working day. She couldn’t afford to allow her mind to wander when she had a tight deadline, and she picked out a fresh pastel and concentrated on the illustration in front of her.

‘Go on, Toby, you can do it!’

She looked up again just in time to catch Toby’s attempt at scaling the brightly coloured climbing frame set up in the garden. It was a bit of a stretch, and he was finding it frustratingly hard to reach the top. She leaned forward in her chair, physically encouraging him with her body, yearning to be out there, giving him the boost he needed. Her frustration, unable to find any other outlet, vented itself on the paper in front of her, and with a few swift strokes of the colour in her hand Hattie Hot Wheels, her cartoon alter ego, was lunging from her wheelchair, arms outstretched, as she flew to Toby’s side, scooping him up and lifting him up.

Another triumph for her superheroine, whose special powers allowed her to convert frustrated helplessness into action…

Then Fran placed a steadying hand at Toby’s back, in case he should falter, smiling encouragement, and, putting in a big effort, he finally made it. Of course he did. Why would Toby need a fantasy superheroine when he had a mother with two good arms and legs?

‘Matty!’ Toby, spotting her from his vantage point, wobbled as he gave her an ecstatic two-armed wave from the top, and her heart rose to her throat. ‘Look at me!’

‘Oh, bravo, Toby!’ she called, waving back. ‘How did you get all the way up there?’

‘I climbed. All by myself.’

‘No!’ she said, doing the whole amazed thing. ‘But it’s so high! How did you do it?’

‘Do you want to see?’ he asked.

‘You betcha I want to see.’

And by the time he’d done it for a third time, just to prove to his apparently sceptical godmother that it wasn’t just a fluke, he could indeed manage it ‘all by himself’.

Her smile faded as she saw the half-finished picture she’d just ruined with her cartoon. Deliberate vandalism? Or was that just a load of psychological mumbo-jumbo?

She’d illustrated dozens of romantic stories for women’s magazines, and while she’d known from the beginning that this one—a wide, deserted beach with the distant lovers silhouetted against the setting sun—was going to be tough, she was a professional. This was her living, and she couldn’t afford to turn down commissions just because they tugged at painful memories.

‘Come and join us, Matty,’ Fran called, encouraging her to play truant. ‘It’s going to rain tomorrow.’

It was hard to resist such siren calls, but every minute spent with Toby was a wrenching reminder of how much she’d lost in the split-second lapse that had robbed her of that future. And Fran’s new baby, joy that she was, just made things worse.

Matty was beginning to feel as if she was trapped on the wrong side of the glass, a spectator to a life she was denied. If only she could afford to move away, get out of London and make a new kind of life. One that wasn’t just a fantasy.

When the phone began to ring, it was almost a relief to call back, ‘Maybe later,’ before turning to pick up the receiver.

‘Matty Lang.’

‘Hello, Matty Lang.’

For a moment her heart seemed to stop beating. It was as if her mind, conjuring up the image of the sleeping man, had somehow woken him.

When it started again, very slowly, she said, ‘Hello, Sebastian Wolseley.’ Then, ‘You’re an early riser. Isn’t it some unearthly hour of the morning in New York?’

‘That is true. But here in London it’s just coming up to eleven o’clock.’

No, well, she hadn’t really thought he was calling from the other side of the Atlantic just to say hello. That would have been totally ridiculous.

‘You said you’d have dinner with me when I came back, but I wondered if you might be able to make lunch? I’ve booked a table at Giovanni’s.’

Giovanni’s? A restaurant so famous that it didn’t have to bother with anything as functional as an address. The kind of restaurant where the rich and famous went to be seen. And it was nearly eleven now.

She had two hours to shower, change, find a parking space. Her hair! She…

She was living in cloud-cuckoo land. Getting carried away.

She never went anywhere without checking it out first. Calling the restaurant to make sure it was wheelchair accessible. That the cloakroom wasn’t upstairs. That, even if it was on the ground floor, she wouldn’t get stuck in the loo door.

Okay, she could still do that.

But she wouldn’t.

‘I said perhaps,’ she reminded him. ‘When you came back. You haven’t been anywhere.’

‘On the contrary, I went to Sussex yesterday,’ he said, and she could see the teasing spark that would be lighting his eyes, the tiny lift at the corner of his mouth that presaged a smile. ‘Command invitation to lunch with the family.’

‘Why is it that I find it hard to believe that you’d respond to anyone’s command?’

‘Well, I did want to borrow a car.’

‘Your family has spare cars lying around?’

‘It’s old. Just taking up space in the garage. I wish I’d taken you with me.’

‘I’m jolly glad you didn’t.’

‘You’re right. Dead boring. Utterly selfish to even consider it. So, anyway, I’ve been somewhere, and now I’m back.’

‘You know I didn’t mean that.’

‘I don’t recall you stipulating a destination. Doesn’t Sussex count?’

It counted. That was the problem. She wanted to have lunch with him.

It would be so easy, sitting opposite him, surrounded by luxury, pretending that they were just two people having lunch together. But then he’d get up and walk away.

She’d already had that dream, but then she’d woken up.

‘I’m really sorry, Sebastian, but I’ve got a deadline that’s getting tighter by the minute. I’m afraid lunch today will have to be a sandwich. But thank you for asking.’

And then, before he could say anything else, she gently replaced the receiver on the cradle.

Sebastian sat back and acknowledged that he could have handled that better.

Giovanni’s, it occurred to him, had been his first mistake.

He’d really wanted to see her, talk to her, but instead of saying so he’d thrown out an invitation to lunch with him at a moment’s notice at the fanciest restaurant he could think of. Few women of his acquaintance could have resisted.

But she wasn’t like other women, and he hadn’t given a single thought as to what she might prefer. Or even that she might have a full and busy life without a moment to spare for him.

Nothing new there. He’d been treating women in that casual, take it or leave it manner for years.

The decent women had left it, the minute they realised he wasn’t offering more. Only the users had hung around: the ones who’d wanted to be seen in smart restaurants, mixing with high-stake players. And that had been just fine. Everyone had got what they wanted without the bother of pretending that they were engaging in anything but the most superficial of relationships.

Nothing messy to interfere with the only thing that really mattered to him. His career.

‘Sebastian, is your phone off the hook?’ Blanche asked, then, seeing him sitting with the receiver in his hand, ‘Oh, you’re making a call.’

He looked up. ‘It’s finished,’ he said, replacing the receiver. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Our biggest buyer wants to set up a meeting with you. George always used to take him out to lunch, make a fuss of him.’

‘That sounds like fun. What do we talk about?’

‘Next year’s range.’

‘Have we got one? Why haven’t I seen it?’

The way she lifted her shoulders spoke volumes. ‘George let things go a bit towards the end.’ She sat down rather suddenly in the chair facing his desk. ‘I still can’t get used to not seeing him…’ She waved in his direction as she groped for a handkerchief in her pocket.

‘I’m sorry, Blanche, you worked for George for a long time. This must be hard for you.’

‘I was very fond of him. He was a gentleman.’

He wondered if she’d be quite so warm towards him if she knew about the gaping hole in the pension fund. He fervently hoped she’d never have to find out.

‘You can’t know how grateful we all are that the family has decided to keep the company going. They were never actually enthusiastic about it—the company—were they?’

‘Not exactly,’ he agreed. ‘But then they were never exactly enthusiastic about George, either.’

George hadn’t had to work, but he’d never been content to play the role he’d been born to. Had had no taste for hunting, shooting or fishing.

They’d had that—along with so much else—in common.

‘We all thought the company would be wound up,’ she went on, ‘and obviously we’d have understood. Business hasn’t exactly been booming in the last couple of years. But it would have meant early retirement for most of us. I know some people can’t wait, but not me. What on earth would I do with myself?’

There were worse things than early retirement, Sebastian thought. But if he could get the business back to the point where he could find a buyer and use to the money to fund annuities for the staff, she and the rest of George’s loyal staff would never have to face that prospect.

‘You can imagine how pleased we all were when we heard you were going to step into the breach, so to speak.’

‘Yes, well, there won’t be any business unless we do something about next year’s range. Where do we start?’

‘It’s a bit late. The lead time for orders—’

‘Blanche, if I’m going to buy this man an expensive lunch, I’d like to have something to sell him while he’s feeling replete and satisfied.’ She didn’t exactly leap in with suggestions. ‘Where do new designs come from?’ he asked. ‘Did George ever commission an artist to come up with a high-concept design that could be developed into a range of products? Or did he rely on them to come to him?’

‘He hasn’t commissioned anything in a while, but George had a lot of contacts. He always managed to come up with something.’

‘That isn’t a lot of help to me.’

‘No. I’m sorry.’ She gave herself a little shake. ‘You could look in George’s ideas cabinet.’ She gestured in the direction of a plan chest, tucked away in the corner of the office. ‘He sometimes bought things he thought would be useful and tucked them away. For a rainy day, he used to say. I guess it’s here.’ And this time her tears overflowed.

‘Why don’t you go and have a cup of tea, or something, while I check it out?’ he suggested, helping her to her feet and moving her towards the door, utterly helpless in the face of her grief.

‘I’m so sorry…’

‘It’s okay. I understand. Really.’ Unfortunately he understood only too well. ‘Why don’t you take an early lunch?’

He leaned back against the door for a moment. He hadn’t realised until now that Blanche had been in love with George, too. But he’d bet any amount of money that the old rogue had been well aware of her feelings and had taken full advantage of them. Yet more pressure to come up with the goods.

He turned to the plan chest—not that he had any desire to examine its contents. He didn’t even want to be in this country, but there was no point in putting off the inevitable.

The first drawer contained some old botanical drawings. Foxed, and a bit tattered at the edges, the only thing in their favour, as far as he could see, was that they were out of copyright by a century or two.

But what did he know?

The second drawer offered a series of brightly coloured nursery rhyme characters.

As he continued through the drawers he realised that he was doing no more than going through the motions.

He could look at a set of books and have a pretty fair idea of whether they belonged to a company on the way up or on the way out. Coronet Cards had been doing little more than ticking over for the last three years. If he’d been asked for an unbiased opinion, he’d have suggested either finding a buyer—a company who might be prepared to take over the company in order to add the Coronet trademark to their list—or winding it up before it began to make serious losses.

Since, for the moment, neither of those options was open to him, he had no choice but to try and turn it around. But it hadn’t taken more than one morning in the office to realise that he needed help.

And, once again, it was Matty Lang’s face that swam into view.

‘Are you okay?’

Matty looked up from her second attempt at the beach scene. Fran was standing in the open doorway, her baby on her shoulder, her forehead wrinkled in a look of concern.

‘I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘Or I would be if I could remember what a beach looked like.’

‘We could open up the sandbox,’ she offered. ‘I’m sure Toby would be more than willing to refresh your memory.’

‘Thanks, but I think I’ll pass on that one. Where is he?’

‘Baking with Connie. Brownies, I think.’

‘Thanks for the warning.’

‘Her cooking has improved a lot,’ Fran chided, but with a grin.

‘So why are you hiding out down here, interrupting me?’

The grin widened into laughter. ‘Okay, I can take a hint. But don’t work too hard.’

‘Work?’ With a broad gesture, Matty took in her drawing board and computer bench. ‘You call this work? I sit here in the warm and dry, turning out pretty pictures for a living. What’s so hard about that?’

‘Even doing the things we love can get hard if we don’t have a break, Matty.’ Then, ‘Why don’t we all go down to the coast tomorrow so that you can refresh your memory?’

No…

‘I thought you said it was going to rain tomorrow.’

‘That was when I was trying to get you outside today. You look a bit pale. You did so much to make the blessing special for us. I can’t help feeling that you overdid it.’

‘What tosh. You should be away somewhere on a honeymoon, Mrs Dymoke, indulging in love’s young dream with the gorgeous Guy instead of worrying about me.’

‘Oh, please. We’d been married nearly a year before we managed the blessing and reception. At this rate we’ll be love’s pensioners before we get around to a honeymoon.’

‘You should make some time for yourselves, Fran.’

‘Just kidding. But it’s a bad time to go away. Besides, why waste this lovely weather when we have the perfect excuse to escape to the sun in January?’ She dropped a kiss on her sleeping babe’s brow. ‘And this little one will be more manageable by then, too.’

‘It’s going to be a family honeymoon?’

‘Absolutely. But we’re staying in a house belonging to someone Guy knows. It has a full complement of staff, apparently, and I’ve been assured that I shall not be called upon to change as much as a single nappy.’

‘The best of all possible worlds, then. It sounds bliss.’

‘It will be, but I wish—’

‘You’ve got everything you could ever wish for, Fran,’ Matty intervened, before her cousin could voice her guilt at leaving her behind. ‘And for once I’ll be able to get on with some work without having to put up with a constant stream of interruptions.’ As if to mock her, her doorbell rang. ‘Now what?’

She lifted the entryphone. ‘Yes?’

‘Meals on Wheels, ma’am. Since you wouldn’t come to lunch with me, I’ve brought lunch to you.’

Fran’s eyes widened. ‘Is that Sebastian Wolseley?’ she whispered.

‘It must be,’ Matty replied, with remarkable composure considering her insides had clenched into a nervous fist at the sound of his voice. ‘He’s the only man I’ve turned down lunch with today.’

‘You did what?’

‘Treat them mean, keep them keen,’ she said, with a fair attempt at a laugh. Not that she imagined Fran was fooled for a minute by her apparent carelessness.

She shouldn’t care, but it was a long time since she’d thought about a man—thought about a man in connection with herself, that was—for more than five minutes. She’d wasted a lot more than five minutes on Sebastian Wolseley, which suggested that she did. Care.

‘It seems to be working,’ her cousin replied, apparently amused. ‘Is leaving him standing on the doorstep part of the plan?’

She was tempted. She’d said she was busy and he’d taken no notice. That was bad, wasn’t it? He hadn’t listened to what she was saying and that showed a lack of respect…or something.

The warmth spreading upwards towards her cheeks suggested that respect was the last thing she wanted from him.

That his unwillingness to take no for an answer was much more appealing.

Dangerous, but appealing, and she buzzed him in. Then, as Fran headed for the French windows, Matty said, ‘Excuse me, just where do you think you’re going?’

‘You think I’m going to hang around and play gooseberry?’ Fran asked, as Sebastian appeared from the hall and joined them. Then she gracefully extended a hand, accepting a kiss on her cheek, and said, ‘Hello, Sebastian. How’re you settling into the flat? Is there anything you need?’

‘Everything’s fine, thank you, Francesca. I’m very grateful to you. Even the most comfortable hotel loses its charm after a week.’ He looked at the baby in her arms. ‘This is Toby’s sister, I take it?’ He held out a finger for the baby to clutch.

Matty watched as Fran said, ‘Say hello, Stephanie.’ The baby blew a bubble and earned herself a full-throttle smile. ‘Say goodbye, Stephanie.’ Then, ‘Guy will give you call later in the week to organise supper one evening soon.’

‘I look forward to it.’

‘And if you change your mind about tomorrow, Matty, give me a call,’ she said, before stepping out in the garden, leaving her alone with Sebastian.

‘Tomorrow?’ he asked, finally dragging his gaze from the lovely Madonna-like image of mother and child and turning to look directly at Matty.

She shrugged, reminding herself that it wasn’t at all attractive to begrudge a baby one of his smiles. ‘Fran suggested a day at the coast. I told her I was too busy. She listened.’

‘I listened. You said you were planning a sandwich.’ He offered her the kind of brown recycled paper carrier bag used by expensive organic bakers. ‘I thought I’d save you the trouble of making it.’

She had two alternatives: keep looking at him, or take the carrier and look inside that. She took the carrier. And kept on looking at him.

‘Is it my imagination,’ she asked, after a silence that stretched seconds too long, ‘or are sandwiches heavier than they used to be?’

‘Not noticeably. But since I had no idea what you’d prefer—you might, for instance, be a vegetarian, or allergic to shellfish, or hate cheese—I thought I’d better bring a selection.’

‘That was thoughtful.’

‘I’m a thoughtful man. Ask anyone.’

She peeked into the carrier, because continuing to stare at him was not smart. It would give him the wrong idea—or possibly the right one; whichever it was, it wouldn’t be good. Besides, looking at him was making her feel dizzy…

‘I seem to be spoilt for choice,’ she said, taking her time over her selection. Gathering her composure, the strength to dismiss him. The feelings he provoked in her pathetic body were too powerful to be ignored, laughed away. She had to protect herself. Send him away. Now.

She stared in the bag. There were more sandwiches than one person could eat in a week—even supposing that person ever wanted to eat again—but for some reason she couldn’t read the labels clearly, so she picked out the first one that came to hand. She blinked and saw that it was smoked salmon with cream cheese on dark rye bread. The man had taste; she’d give him that.

‘For future reference, Sebastian,’ she said, as she placed it on the workbench beside her. ‘In the unlikely event that you should ever be tempted to do this again. I’m not a vegetarian, I love shellfish, and I believe cheese to be the food of the gods.’ Then, handing the carrier back to him, she dug deep for a smile and said, ‘Thank you. Thoughtful indeed. I shall enjoy it later. When I’ve finished work.’

Then she quickly turned back to her drawing board in what she hoped he would understand was a gesture of dismissal. Brushed away a spot of something wet that landed on her drawing board. Waited for him to walk out of her life.

When he didn’t take the hint—she hadn’t really expected him to; if she were honest hadn’t really wanted him to—she tried just a bit harder with, ‘Can you find your own way out?’