Читать книгу: «Promise Of Passion»

CHAPTER ONE

‘THEY are all sold, I’m afraid,’ Caroline told the stranger as she stepped into the gallery.

The door banging shut after him had made her jump and rather impatiently she’d come out from her barn studio beyond the gallery, wiping her hands on her protective overall. Her mother had obviously forgotten to put the latch down on her way out for her afternoon walk with her granddaughter, Martha.

As the man turned towards Caroline her first thought was that she wished she’d leapt out of her filthy overall and into something more suitable for addressing a customer. He was a seriously attractive man, dark and tall with an air of sophistication about him that made her feel miserably shabby and wanting.

Not a local, she surmised as she stepped towards him, smiling now because anyone who crossed the threshold of the gallery door was a potential buyer. He was smoothing his hand down the back of her bronze Red Devon bull displayed on a pedestal. An art lover, Caroline mused, a sensuous man too by the look of the intensity of feeling in his touch. She never objected to people touching her work. Bronzes were for caressing and this man was milking the sensation for all it was worth.

‘The exhibition finished last weekend,’ she volunteered as she stopped in front of him. ‘But you are welcome to browse. It will give you an idea of the sort of work we do.’

He afforded her only half a smile but it was enough to have Caroline’s unaccustomed heart fluttering absurdly. His bone-structure was superb, very masculine with the firmness of arrogance. A nose any Greek god would be proud of. Wonderful mouth set off by a strong jawline beneath. Not conventionally good-looking but so darkly striking that Caroline was already casting the mould in her mind.

‘Do you have to scrutinise me quite so thoroughly?’ he said in a voice so smooth that Caroline was equally taken aback as she would have been if he had bawled at her.

Smiling to cover her embarrassment, she said, ‘I’m sorry. Sculpture’s what I do and studying bone-structure becomes a way of life. Most people don’t notice.’ She wondered if her scrutiny had been obsessively over the top and thought it probably had because he was an exceptional specimen. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you,’ she added as his eyes raked over her facial bone-structure framed by a crowd of tumbling tawny spirals that hung beyond her narrow shoulders. She wondered if he approved of the bane of her life, the hair that had a will of its own and rampaged wildly whatever she did to it. He was certainly taking full stock of it and now slowly letting his eyes descend down her long, slim body, shabbily clad as it was, not embarrassing her but certainly swamping her with awareness. It had certainly been a very long time since a man had looked at her that way.

‘I’m not embarrassed, not at all,’ he murmured at last as he moved on to the next sculpture.

Caroline watched him as he moved around the exhibits, only stopping to examine the bronzes. Her mother had exhibited with her, mingling her own pieces of delicate porcelain with Caroline’s more powerful, robust bronzes. The contrasting combination had worked and the exhibition had sold out on the bank holiday weekend just past.

‘If everything is sold, how come it’s all still here?’ he asked conversationally. He picked up one of her mother’s delicate pinch pots; eggshell-blue, it was as delicate as an eggshell. Caroline held her breath, her eyes transfixed on his fingers, gauging the possible clumsiness of them. Not a manual worker this man. His hands were strong but surprisingly sensitive. To Caroline’s relief he handled the delicate porcelain as if it was very precious, which it was, to her mother. She breathed again when he replaced it on its stand.

‘People don’t collect till an exhibition is over. I shall start packing up and dispatching in the morning,’ she told him.

‘Of course,’ he murmured absently, his eyes skimming over the rest of the exhibits. ‘Is it all your stuff?’

Caroline raised a brow, tensing slightly at his interpretation of her artistic products. ‘My “stuff” is the bronzes,’ she told him stiffly. ‘The other “stuff” is my mother’s.’

Another half-smile. He didn’t give much away, Caroline thought, the idea of a commission sliding away with his lack of enthusiasm for her and her mother’s work.

‘And it’s all sold?’ he echoed, as if not quite believing that possible.

Caroline felt her patience slipping with the declining thought of a commission. Not that she needed it desperately: it had been a successful year so far. But the winter months were drawing ever closer and without tourists it was sometimes a struggle to make ends meet from season to season.

‘Is that so surprising?’ she challenged brittly but not brittly enough to put him off considering a purchase at a later date.

His brows went up in surprise at her tone. ‘Did I give that impression?’ He gave her no space to answer but shrugged and went on. ‘To be frank I’m not au fait with all this…’ A hand came up in a sweeping gesture of the white-walled gallery.

So he wasn’t interested in buying, just whiling away the time, but sometimes a sale came from these time-killing browsers. Still, she couldn’t resist muttering under her breath, ‘And it’s not even raining.’

He heard and got the point and this time she was blessed with a smile that brought a hesitant smile to her own full lips. He turned away from her and left Caroline with a feeling that an introduction should have been made at that point and she wasn’t sure if it was her failure to execute one or his.

‘So what can I help you with, or are you just passing time till the next London train leaves?’ she asked bluntly. She really did have a lot of work on and he wasn’t going to buy, she felt sure.

He was a Londoner, she guessed, surprised at her own curiosity about him because, though her first impression of him had been one of awesome admiration for his dark good looks, she was now beginning to doubt he had anything to back it up. His manner wasn’t exactly warm and hospitable and his clothes—linen suit and mulberry-coloured silk shirt—were a far cry from anything she’d seen in this tiny Cornish coastal town.

‘No, I’m not merely passing time,’ he told her, turning back to face her, the smile gone and a coolness about him now that chilled Caroline. ‘Just weighing up your talent,’ he added smoothly.

Caroline defiantly held his eyes before speaking, wondering what he was getting at and wondering if he practised hard to achieve this haughty air about him.

‘Really? Well, if you’re not au fait with this sort of “stuff” you just might get your calculations wrong.’

‘Ah, but I did my homework before coming,’ he said mysteriously. ‘I asked around, found you were the best bronze sculptress in the south-west. So here I am.’

So he was a customer after all. She allowed her emotions to do an about-turn. She smiled at him encouragingly.

‘You have something in mind?’

She should have added ‘a commission’ to that query because she saw a suggestive remark looming on the horizon. But one didn’t materialise and she realised her assessment of him was punched with holes. Usually she was quite good at gauging people’s characters but this stranger was different. She had nothing definite to go on but he certainly wasn’t the usual run-of-the-mill man. Not a flirt but not a man uninterested in women either. Funny, but she doubted he was married.

His dark eyes locked with hers. ‘I’d like to offer you a couple of commissions,’ he told her.

Caroline pushed for a smile. ‘Two,’ she mused, careful not to sound too over-enthusiastic, careful not to sound sarcastic either. His tone had suggested she might fall at his feet in gratitude. But she found she was wrong again as he went on.

‘I realise that you must be very busy but I would like you to seriously consider the work. It is very important to me.’

Curiosity prompted her next words. Curiosity about what might be important in his obviously successful world. ‘In that case let me offer you a coffee and we can talk about it.’

She gave him another smile and led the way across the gallery, through her vast barn studio, which she had been in the process of tidying, and down a flight of flagstone steps to the main white-washed cottage. The cottage and the bits that had been added on over the decades were tumbled together on three uneven floors, tucked into the cliff-side. The front door was the door of the gallery off a narrow lane and the back door, two floors down in the kitchen, opened on to a patio and a poor excuse for a garden and the cliff-path. An unusual off-beat property that her mother had bought after the death of her husband, not able to face life in the draughty old rectory at Helston on her own. Caroline had moved down to live with her after the second tragedy in their lives, the tragic death of Caroline’s sister, Josie.

Caroline had settled in the seasonal coastal village, surprising herself because as a teenager she couldn’t wait to get away from Cornwall to study in London. And there she had stayed, completing her training and setting up with a group of like-minded friends in a converted warehouse in the Docklands area of London. It had been a wonderful existence, doing exactly as she pleased, gathering inspiration from a busy city and swapping artistic viewpoints with her friends. Then David had happened and her world had been complete and then suddenly with Josie’s death, it had all fallen apart. Her life was vastly different now; it couldn’t help but be with Martha. But all in all she had found a certain contentment and was absorbed with her work and happy that her mother was coping so beautifully at last.

‘Do sit down. I’ll make coffee. I won’t be a minute.’

She left him gazing out of the plate-glass window that stretched almost from wall to wall of the sitting-room. It was a modern window, alien to the rest of the property, one that previous owners had put in to take advantage of the stupendous views. The Atlantic rolled away forever beyond the glass, and below the cliff dropped away to a craggy cove with golden sands. A coastal path that only a few local residents knew about led down to the cove.

‘There used to be a path down to the cove years ago. Is it still there?’ he asked when Caroline came back into the room with a tray of coffee which she placed on a side-table.

She’d slid out of her overalls while the kettle boiled and had picked pieces of plaster out from her wild hair. Now she gazed at him in surprise.

‘Yes, it is,’ she admitted. ‘How did you know about it? Are you local?’

‘I grew up round here,’ was all he said. He took the coffee she offered him and Caroline nodded to the wing-chair by the window.

He sat down, only on the edge of the seat as if he wasn’t planning on staying long.

‘Can you do horses and people?’ he suddenly asked, taking Caroline by surprise again because she had honestly thought he might have settled into reminiscing about his childhood in the area.

‘Depends,’ Caroline said, perching on the win-dowsill, her back to the seascape beyond.

‘Depends on what—money?’ he suggested darkly and then added in a lighter tone, yet laced with cynicism, ‘I can afford you.’

A small rebellious bubble swelled inside Caroline. He had money and liked to show it and he had a contemptuous attitude towards women. She wouldn’t allow the bubble to burst, though; he was a customer, she reminded herself.

‘It depends on whether you want the people mounted on the horses, life-size!’

He smiled thinly and put his coffee-cup down on a side-table. ‘I read about you but I did warn you I’m not very well informed on this type of thing.’

‘So why the commission?’

He shrugged. ‘Personally I find the thought of a bronze bust of someone ostentatious, but I try to suffer my mother’s whims whenever possible.’

Caroline’s full lips parted in surprise. Well, I wouldn’t have put him down as a mother’s boy, she thought, but there you go.

‘She wants it, I jump. Life-size, of course; my mother will hear of nothing less. As for the horse, that’s my whim, my passion. He’s everything I’m not and I want him immortalised in a medium that suits the strength of his character. Can you understand that?’

Caroline wasn’t sure what she was expected to understand so she just nodded.

‘My mother doesn’t travel, neither does my stallion unless it’s to stud, so you will have to come to us, of course.’

Caroline shook her head. ‘I can’t do a full-scale horse,’ she told him. ‘I haven’t the facilities for such a size, but if a scaled version was acceptable I’m sure——’

‘Quite acceptable,’ he said, getting to his feet. He reached in his inside pocket and brought out a card. ‘Ten o’clock in the morning suits me well enough. I’ll pay your travelling expenses, of course——’

‘Just a minute,’ Caroline interrupted, startled now. He was going too fast for her. She stood up and took the card he held out to her but didn’t read it. ‘I can’t just put down everything to suit you and your mother’s whims.’ She saw a flash of impatience in his eyes but wasn’t in the least bit perturbed by it. She lifted her chin. ‘I’ve other commitments——’

‘Do you want this commission or not?’ he snapped.

Caroline’s green eyes widened. ‘Yes, I want your commission but I don’t need it, Mr…’ she lifted the card and read from it’…Mr Frazer.’ Her eyes went back to meet his. ‘This is a family business, not a hobby venture. My mother and I have other work on and——’

‘Name your price.’

‘It’s not a question of money,’ Caroline protested, her skin darkening with anger.

‘It’s aways a question of money,’ he said darkly. He reached in his inside pocket again.

Caroline held up her hands in protest. ‘Just a minute. If you’re reaching for your cheque-book, forget it!’ she almost shouted, then calmed herself. This was obviously something important to him and work was work, though she suspected working for him could never be a labour of love. ‘Look, I’m not refusing the work,’ she said in a placatory tone underpinned with firmness. ‘But I do have other commitments that must be dealt with first——’

‘Forget it, then,’ he said dismissively, his mouth a thin line of displeasure that someone wasn’t snapping at his hand for the work he was offering.

Caroline was just about to protest that he was being thoroughly unfair when she heard the kitchen door slam, followed by her mother’s voice calling. ‘Caroline?’

Caroline went to the door and shouted across the hall to her mother. ‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘Martha’s got something for you. I must dash down to the post. Be back in a minute.’

‘Mummy!’ Martha shouted, bursting through the door and launching herself into Caroline’s waiting arms. Caroline gathered her up, hugging her tightly to her. She smelled of the sea and sand and camomile that grew between the patio stones. Her faded denim beach-dress was powdered with sand and there were tufts of dry grass sticking out from her bare toes in her sandals. In her small, chubby brown hands she clutched a collection of flotsam from the seashore: damp seaweed, several pieces of bleached wood, a red sauce bottle-top and a brittle, sun-dried starfish.

‘Nanny said you’ll make a picture for me.’ She thrust her treasures at Caroline but she had no free hand to catch them and they spilled to the floor, at Mr Frazer’s feet.

Caroline looked across at him and shifted Martha to her hip, the child’s arms tightening around Caroline’s neck as she realised there was a man standing in the room. The man, Frazer, was staring at the child. This didn’t surprise Caroline: everyone stared at Martha when they first met her. She wasn’t a conventionally pretty child but her looks were stunning. Her skin was olive, her eyes huge, dark pools, the pupils only visible in a certain light; her lovely oval face was framed by hair too dark and salon-glossy for such a small, delicate child of three going on four, and it was straight, dead straight to her shoulders with a fringe lapping over her forehead. Not a curl, not a wave, not a kink to soften it against her creamy skin. Yes, she was an unusually lovely-looking child and Frazer obviously thought so too. His eyes hadn’t wavered from her.

‘This is Martha,’ Caroline told him. She turned her face to the child. ‘Say hello to Mr Frazer.’

‘No.’ Martha pouted rebelliously and buried her face in Caroline’s neck.

‘She’s not used to men,’ Caroline told him.

‘You don’t have to apologise——’

‘I wasn’t apologising,’ Caroline told him firmly. ‘I was explaining.’ Frazer frowned in disapproval and Caroline added, ‘It’s not for me to apologise for Martha’s rudeness. She’s quite able to do it herself. Have you something to say, Martha?’

The child lifted her head and grinned wickedly at Frazer. ‘Sorry, Mr Frazer.’ She wriggled to be free and Caroline set her down. Martha rubbed her sticky hands down her dress before offering one to the man who stood as tall as a giant in front of her. She said sweetly, ‘Hello. Are you my father?’

Vibrant colour rose to Frazer’s face and he actually took a step back in astonishment. He was still staring at the small child but his eyes were wild with panic now. It was all Caroline could do to stop herself bursting out laughing.

‘Now it really is for me to apologise for that,’ Caroline said with a grin. ‘And explain. Martha has a friend in the village who has a real father and she doesn’t really understand why she hasn’t got one too. The few men she meets are potential fathers to her. I’m sure when she’s old enough to realise what she is saying she won’t embarrass any more men.’

Martha was still holding her chubby hand up to him and Frazer felt obliged to take it. As he did he spoke for the first time since Martha had burst into the room.

‘Charmed to meet you, Martha.’ He forced a smile to grim white lips, a smile that didn’t fool Caroline for a minute. The child unsettled him—no, more than that, little Martha terrified him! So children were something else he wasn’t au fait with. He was probably an only child himself, one who doted on his mother and certainly hadn’t a wife in his life, Caroline mused as she watched a small muscle pulse at his jawline while Martha held on tightly to his hand, determined not to let him go till he admitted he was her father.

Caroline wasn’t too unduly worried about this phase Martha was going through. It was understandable in an intelligent, inquisitive child such as she was. There were no men in Caroline’s or her mother’s life, and the child was growing up in an all-female household. Martha was beginning to question why.

‘Are you my father?’ Martha persisted, sounding far more mature than her years.

‘N-no, I’m…I’m not…’

Diversionary tactics were needed, Caroline decided. The Frazer man was obviously extremely uncomfortable with Martha’s scrutiny and blatant demands for an answer. But before Caroline could intervene Martha herself saved the day. She pulled her small hand out from his and, looking up at him with eyes wide, she said, ‘You can’t be because my father is a foreign prince and princes wear crowns and you haven’t got one.’

With that, the child immediately lost interest in him, which was a great relief to Frazer and Caroline. She squatted down on the floor and started to gather up the treasure she had brought back from the beach and without another word she went through to the kitchen across the hall and they heard her depositing the collection on the kitchen table and a chair being dragged across the tiled floor.

Caroline realised the man was staring hard at her now. Explanations were on the tip of Caroline’s tongue but she held them back. Martha’s hearing was as sharp as her intellect and besides, their private life was no concern of his.

‘She’s an extraordinary child,’ Frazer murmured at last.

Caroline nodded. ‘Yes, she is,’ was all she said.

‘How…how old?’ he asked, obviously still quite taken aback by the little girl.

‘She’ll be four at Christmas,’ Caroline told him, feeling that she must add something more but not too much. ‘She’s advanced beyond her years but, as you have just seen for yourself, she can switch from reality to fantasy just like a three-year-old.’ She lowered her voice to a soft murmur. ‘Her father isn’t a foreign prince, of course.’

The stranger made a feeble attempt to smile through his discomfort. ‘Of course not,’ he said, also keeping his voice down. ‘I didn’t think for a minute he was .’

Caroline raised a brow in defiance of that. He obviously thought she didn’t swim in royal circles, foreign or otherwise.

‘I suppose that puts a whole new complexion on my commission,’ he went on, recovered now from Martha’s interruption of their negotiation.

Caroline steeled herself for the inevitable rejection, yet her chin came up in defence of all single parents, though her circumstances were not usual. Not for the world would she tell this arrogant stranger the true circumstances.

‘I suppose you want to retract your offer,’ she said bravely. She wasn’t going to fight for it; no way. It had sounded like a very nice commission and it had sounded as if she could name her price, but money wasn’t everything.

He looked at her quizzically as if he hadn’t understood why she had said what she had and then his face cleared as if he had realised what was troubling her.

‘Look, don’t get me wrong,’ he started, and then paused as Caroline’s shoulders squared. He sighed and raked his hand through his immaculate black hair, ruffling it into disarray, then immediately smoothing it back into place again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he went on. ‘The child took me by surprise. What I’m trying to say is that now I know you have a child I will fall in with your arrangements. You obviously have your hands full and it can’t be easy, but it hasn’t changed my offer. I still want you to do the work but in your own good time, though——’

And for God’s sake don’t patronise me, Caroline wanted to blurt, but didn’t. Instead she interrupted coolly and professionally, ‘Ten o’clock in the morning, then, Mr Frazer. We can discuss terms then. I’m sure you’ll find my work satisfactory.’

‘I’m sure I will,’ he agreed, his eyes fixed on hers so hard that she could do little else but glare back to match him. ‘Tomorrow at ten, then. You have my card. Phone if anything crops up——’

‘Nothing will,’ Caroline assured him firmly as she turned to the door to show him out.

At the gallery door, which Caroline had opened for him, he turned and looked at her. It was a while before he spoke, as if he was choosing his words carefully in his mind before speaking them.

‘She mentioned a nanny. You have staff and she will, of course, look after the child when you come tomorrow?’

‘She’, ‘the child’. Did he mean to insult with his choice of words to describe Martha?

‘She has a name—Martha,’ Caroline informed him tightly. ‘And Nanny isn’t the hired help. She’s my mother and the grandmother of my daughter and have no fear that I will impose Martha on you tomorrow. She’s an astute child and will know when she isn’t wanted.’

His eyes darkened. ‘I meant nothing of the sort,’ he told her crisply and Caroline realised she had been hypersensitive in taking it that way.

She let out a small apologetic sigh and lowered her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

To her astonishment he lifted her chin and gazed deep into her green eyes. His touch was far warmer than she would have expected from such a cold man. His dark eyes too were suddenly so unexpectedly soft that she parted her lips in silent surprise and her heart seemed to squeeze for some unearthly reason.

‘I understand your protective feelings for your daughter,’ he said quietly. ‘But please don’t be on the defensive for her all the time. You’re a very lucky lady to have such a beautiful daughter. Some are not so fortunate.’ The words came out leaden and Caroline wondered at what had powered them but had no chance to try and analyse them for the moment. He went on, ‘I was simply trying to establish the facts for tomorrow. My mother is a frail lady and not used to young children. If you wanted to bring the…bring Martha I would have to prepare her in advance. That was the only reason I asked about a nanny.’

Caroline tried to nod but his fingers on her chin wouldn’t allow that. She felt a sudden crushing feeling in her chest as that touch smoothed into a caress and then he took his fingers away and she wondered if she had imagined it all.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ he finalised, and turned away from her and was gone.

Caroline flattened herself against the back of the door, having shut it after him, and took long breaths and closed her eyes. She should have explained to him from the off, told him that Martha wasn’t her daughter but the orphaned daughter of her dear sister who had died so tragically. But how could she tell anyone, least of all that damned arrogant Frazer stranger? Martha believed her to be her real mother because it was Caroline who was bringing her up. That dear, sweet child, conceived by her irresponsible sister, father unknown, and orphaned at the age of four months, would have a lot to contend with in later life and Caroline was going to do everything in her power to smooth the way for her. If she was defensive over Martha she had reason to be.

Later, when she lay on the bed with Martha, reading her favourite bedtime story of the prince from a foreign land searching the world for a princess who had troubled his dreams since childhood, she couldn’t help her thoughts drifting to the stranger who had made such an impact on her that afternoon. Ellis Frazer: she had read the card property after he had left. She didn’t know if she liked him or not but she suspected not. He had an attitude that wasn’t so surprising. It reminded her of David, the man she’d thought was the one for her till baby Martha had come into her life. He had actually insisted on her making a choice—him or Martha. Though her heart had nearly broken she had made that choice and never regretted it. Martha had given her more joy than a thousand Davids could ever have, but with that choice had come a realisation that there wasn’t ever likely to be anyone else for her. A single woman with a child…

Well, she didn’t have to like this Ellis Frazer to do the work for him and he didn’t have to approve of her to commission it, so it wasn’t a problem.

‘Night, Mummy,’ sleepy Martha breathed in her arms as Caroline closed the book, everyone living happily ever after. I love you lots.’

‘I love you too, darling,’ Caroline breathed, holding her tightly and brushing a warm kiss across the child’s soft brow.

Caroline extracted her arm from beneath the now sleeping child and gazed down at her adoringly and yet with her heart dragging painfully. Why now? she wondered as she pulled the duvet up around Martha’s chin. The weight of responsibility for the child sometimes dragged at her but it hadn’t for a long time so why now suddenly? Probably because Martha was growing up and Caroline knew she would have to do something about a legal adoption before Martha went to proper school. She supposed that would raise emotional problems which her and her mother might not find easy to cope with. They both missed Josie so much. And Martha? She called her aunty ‘Mummy’ and one day she would have to know the truth—that she had no real mother and there wasn’t a princely father from foreign lands coming to find her.

With a sigh Caroline closed the bedroom door on the child she adored and turned her thoughts to tomorrow. In a way she was looking forward to it, in a way she wasn’t.