Separate Rooms

‘But not seriously.’

How astute. He seemed to know her a little too well for her liking. She got unhurriedly to her feet, smoothing the silky fabric over her curvaceous hips before reaching for her matching evening bag.

‘No, not seriously. Why should I? I’m happy here, my business is doing well. Why should I let myself be hounded out of town?’ A small, cool smile. ‘It’s been nice talking to you, but I think it’s time I left. Would you make my excuses to Sonia and Colin when you rejoin the party?’ No mention of Graham; he deserved no excuses. He would only see them as a type of apology for the way she had goaded, snarled and snapped at him earlier.

She had perhaps revealed too much to this stranger, this man with the clever, incredible eyes. She had always been too ready to trust people, to confide, rarely keeping her own counsel and never bottling her feelings up inside her where they could fester and do damage. A healthy attitude, maybe, but one that had sometimes led her into difficulties.

But not this time, she recognised as he accepted his dismissal with suave grace, walking with her into the foyer and asking, ‘Can I order you a cab?’

Relief that he had not, as many another might, insisted on seeing her home flooded her with unreasoning warmth. She gave him a generous unguarded smile, telling him, ‘Thanks, but there’s no need. I live over the shop, barely a stone’s throw away.’ She extended a fine-boned hand and felt his own close over it, his fingers warm and hard, the brief contact completely polite, no unnecessary and unwanted lingerings, prompting her to add, ‘I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay with Colin and Sonia,’ and then, not knowing why she wanted to know, why there was this sudden reluctance to end the conversation, ‘Where is your home? I can’t quite place your accent. Canada? America?’

‘No place in particular.’ His shrug was barely noticeable. ‘I was born in England but since I finished my education—in the States—I’ve lived out of suitcases. There’s always been some place else to be.’

He looked and sounded bored. With her? Probably. So what? Time she left. One last small and, this time, controlled smile and then she turned on her spiky heels and walked through the revolving doors on to the Cop and made her way up the hill, breathing in the warm spring night air, pushing Ben Claremont right to the back of her mind as she turned into Stony Shut, her heels tapping on the cobbles, her heart lifting as it always did as her shop came into view, the light from the single street-lamp reflecting in the dozens of tiny glass panes of the frontage.

There were dozens of Shuts, or shoots, in old Shrewsbury town, narrow cobbled alleyways leading from one street to another, enabling the pedestrian who was familiar with the passages that riddled the town to get from one end of it to the other in record time. And Honey considered Stony Shut by far the prettiest, the tall, gabled and half-timbered buildings almost meeting overhead; and, apart from the addition of the street-lamp, it must look now as it had looked in medieval times.

Extracting her key from her bag, she let herself in and checked on the security system before threading her way through the overstocked shop. The amber security light gleamed softly against polished oak and rosewood and drew warm glints from her prized display of early pewter.

As always, she was tempted to linger, to gloat over all her lovely things, the things that were hers for such a short time. She always felt a pang when something was sold, which, she acknowledged with a small, self-deprecating smile, was a stupid attitude for a dealer to have. Or a shopkeeper, as her mother called her in that awful, denigrating tone she had taken to using of late.

Honey stopped smiling, checked the bolts on the door to the workroom at the rear of the premises and mounted the narrow, twisty staircase to her living quarters. Tomorrow was Sunday, the day she invariably spent with her mother. She wasn’t looking forward to it.

* * *

She was woken from a dream which featured a tall, dark man with speedwell-blue sleepy eyes by the insistent shriek of the telephone by her bed. Rolling over, she pushed the long mass of her rumpled hair off her face and fumbled for the receiver, muttering into it, ‘What the hell time do you call this?’ and heard the affected, breathy laugh, Sonia’s gushy voice.

‘Nine-thirty, darling. I thought you were supposed to be an early riser.’

Levering herself up against the satin-covered pillows, Honey grumbled, ‘Weekdays I am. Sundays I ain’t,’ but her grumble was forgiving because she was always wide awake by eight on the one day a week she took off from business, even though she’d promised herself the luxury of a long lie-in. Maybe her dreams had made her restless, for some unknown reason...

‘So where did you and Ben get to last night?’ Sonia wanted to know. ‘Graham was furious when he found out you’d sloped away—I thought I ought to warn you. Mind you,’ she continued at her normal breakneck speed, ‘I don’t blame you. If I were a single woman I’d take off with Ben Claremont, no question. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?’

Was he? Honey’s thoughts strayed, looking back. Yes, she had to admit his looks were fantastic. Not as conventionally good-looking as Graham—but then who would be? she thought sourly—but he had masses more presence, and there was something significantly compelling about those assertive features, those brilliant blue eyes with the thick fringing black, black lashes...

‘And he doesn’t only excel in the looks department, either,’ Sonia was still gushing away. ‘According to Colin, he has a brilliant mind and, of course, he’s fabulously wealthy. I envy the woman who eventually ties him down—’

‘He’s not married?’ Honey got a word in sideways then wondered why she’d bothered. Ben Claremont’s marital status was no concern of hers.

‘No, and hands off! He’s my house guest, not yours!’ Sonia giggled. ‘I wonder if I could persuade Colin to take one of his precious fishing holidays? In Scotland. Or at the North Pole! No, but seriously—I just felt I had to warn you. Ben came back to the party and told me you’d gone home. You’d had a busy day and were developing a headache.’ Tactful, at least, Honey thought, glancing at her watch to discover the fingers marching towards ten o’clock. ‘And when I relayed the message to Graham he was absolutely furious! You’re going to have to come up with a good excuse for disappearing with Ben and making your apologies through him and not through Graham.’

‘Graham doesn’t own me,’ Honey pointed out sharply, not bothering to add that neither would he. It was a waste of breath. Graham made a point of acting as if she were his property. Which didn’t do her love-life much good—always assuming she had the time or inclination to get involved with anyone. She added quickly, before Sonia could dispute that statement, ‘Thanks for phoning but I must dash. If I’m late for Sunday lunch Mother will skin me alive.’

Late or early, Avril Ballantyne would give her a hard time today. Pointing out her foolishness—not to mention selfishness—in refusing to even consider accepting Graham’s persistent proposals, Honey thought despondently as she dressed in a softly gathered cream cashmere skirt, tan leather boots and a Cossack-style tawny over blouse, neatly belted around her small waist.

The minimum of make-up—just a smear of moisturiser and a slick of copper-toned lipstick—and she was ready. Leaving her hair loose—’all over the place’, her mother would call it—she hitched the narrow strap of her leather bag over her shoulder and made for the stairs. She had given up on trying to please her parent long ago because nothing she did ever seemed to be right. Her father, God bless him, had been just the opposite. She had been his ‘Princess’ and his death, when she was fifteen, had been the severest, most traumatic blow she had ever had to suffer. Even now, eleven years on, she still missed him.

The phone began to ring as she was halfway down the stairs and she hurried on down, making for the instrument at the rear of the shop. And if it was Graham, itching to vent his annoyance over what had happened last night she would tell him that she never wanted to set eyes on him again, in any conceivable circumstance, and that she would do as she damned well pleased with the BallanTrent shares her father had left her, sell them to whoever offered to buy if she felt like it! And fell over a gatelegged table in her hurry, scattering her display of Victorian pincushions, which gave her rising temper a rapid push upwards, made her voice growly as she snatched up the receiver and fulminated, ‘Well? What is it?’ to whoever.

‘My, my! Did you fall out of the wrong side of the bed, Honey?’

It was quite amazing how that smooth, drawly voice could soothe her. It was like pouring cool ointment on a sore place, she thought as her mouth twitched upwards towards a smile.

‘No. Over a table.’

‘No harm done?’ He sounded as if he cared. Her smile deepened.

‘Only to my dignity. What can I do for you?’

Too late, she regretted the loaded question then released the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding when he didn’t take the question as an innuendo and told her, ‘It’s about the problem you have, the one we were discussing last night. Sonia filled me in on it over breakfast this morning. She seemed to be under the impression that the pressure put on you by various people was too intense to be resisted forever, that you’d end up marrying Trent for the sake of a quiet life. And before you jump down my throat and tell me—probably with justification—to mind my own business, let me tell you that I’ve come up with a perfect solution to the problem.’

‘You have?’ Her smile deepened. There was no solution that she could think of, except for sticking it out and refusing to do a single thing she didn’t want to do. But she was perfectly willing to listen to what he had to say, even if it meant she was late. She had enjoyed his company last night, the way he’d listened as she’d let off steam, his comments both sensible and objective. It had been years since she’d talked problems over with anyone who hadn’t had some kind of personal axe to grind, a biased viewpoint. Not since her father had been alive. He had always encouraged her to bring her worries to him, to talk them out, showing her how to solve her problems logically, his loving kindness never failing to ease them out of the way, put them in their proper perspective.

‘But of course,’ the dark, velvety voice was assuring her now. ‘I’ll give you dinner tonight and put the solution to you.’

‘That’s not possible,’ Honey said with a regret that surprised her, considering she hardly knew the man and, in any case, knew his ‘solution’, whatever it was, would not be worth a row of beans. ‘I always spend Sunday with Mother.’ If she didn’t there would be hell to pay: constant phone calls complaining about loneliness, vague and unconfirmed illnesses—palpitations were the ‘in’ thing at the moment. ‘Can’t you tell me now? Or is it a state secret?’ she found herself teasing. Most unlike her.

‘Over the phone?’ His voice was a curl of amusement and she supposed he had a point. Sonia probably had her ear glued to a crack in the door at this very moment, straining to hear every word he was saying in case he let slip something gossip-worthy. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven this evening.’

Somehow, the arrogance of that statement didn’t annoy her as much as, on reflection, she felt it should and she merely reminded him, ‘You don’t know where I live.’

‘I’ll find out. And don’t stand me up,’ he warned lightly. ‘Or you’ll be missing out on an offer I might not be inclined to repeat.’

CHAPTER TWO

OFFER? What offer? What had he meant?

‘Sorry?’ Honey had to drag her mind away from that strange conversation with Ben and forcibly concentrate on what her mother was saying. For the second time, obviously.

‘I was asking you, if you can be bothered to show an interest, whether you thought I’d enjoy a Mediterranean cruise more than my usual quiet three weeks in Bournemouth this year.’ Said with barbed patience.

Avril Ballantyne, a well preserved fifty, her expensively tinted pale brown hair worn in the style favoured by the older members of the royal family, clad in a well pedigreed lightweight tweed skirt topped by an oyster silk shirt, looked completely at home in her conventionally furnished luxury bungalow on the outskirts of town, the only jarring notes being the faint frown line between the hazel eyes, the permanently petulant droop of her mouth. Brought on, Honey guessed, by having a daughter who insisted upon being unsatisfactory.

‘Why not try the cruise?’ she suggested, feeling guilty and hating it. The least she could do while she was here was give her mother her undivided attention, forget Ben Claremont and his supposed solution to her problems and the offer that, apparently, was part of it. ‘It would make a change; you’ve been to Bournemouth for the last five years running.’

‘Well—’ the droop of the mouth became more pronounced ‘—it would be nice to have a change. But I’ve grown used to the permanent staff at my hotel in Bournemouth and I know the town like the back of my hand—all the decent shops and so forth. Little things like that are important when one is on one’s own.’

Honey swallowed a sigh and offered brightly, ‘Why don’t you ask Henry to go on the cruise with you? You’ve always got on well together and he hasn’t had a holiday since Moira died—and that was four years ago.’

‘Oh—’ Avril fluttered her beautifully manicured hands ‘—I don’t know whether I feel up to organising such a venture...’ and let her voice tail off into vague confusion.

Honey stared at her, her eyes wide. Her mother had a talent for organising everything and everyone around her that was almost unbelievable. She had turned it into an art form. The only thing she hadn’t been able to organise was the way Honey chose to run her life. And her mother picked herself out of her apparent distressed confusion, saying, ‘I don’t know why you should think Henry, not to mention myself, could begin to think about taking a holiday when your behaviour recently is hurting and worrying us so much,’ and Honey decided cynically that all roads led to Rome, didn’t they just, her mouth tightening as Avril ploughed on, ‘Henry simply can’t understand why you’re treating his son so badly. And frankly, my dear, neither can I. Any normal young woman would jump at the chance of marrying into the Trent family,’ she stated, her voice beginning to rise. ‘Graham has so much to offer. I can’t think what you’ve got against him. He’s exceedingly good-looking and very steady. He’d make a wonderful husband and father, and—’

‘I’m sure he would,’ Honey cut in, sick to death of the topic. ‘Only I don’t want him. Call me abnormal if it makes you feel any better. But I don’t love him.’ She was trying hard not to lose her temper, an exercise that was probably good for her soul, she tried to tell herself, and forced a bland smile as she rose to her feet, offering, ‘I’ll clear away the lunch things while you relax.’ Escaping to the kitchen to do the dishes would be easier to bear than listening to her mother going on and on about Graham, wouldn’t it just? ‘And then how about we go for a drive in the country? We could finish up with a meal out somewhere, my treat.’

Recalling the way Ben had said he’d pick her up at seven, she gave a tiny sigh. He had sounded so definite about it, so sure of her compliance. He’d have a long wait, but that wasn’t her fault. If he chose to disregard the way she’d explained about her regular Sunday visits to her mother then he couldn’t blame her if he had a wasted evening, could he?

Even so, there was an emptiness in her she couldn’t quite define as she tackled her usual Sunday afternoon chore but she plastered a warm smile on her face as she stowed the last of the dishes away and headed back to the lounge.