Disappointingly, he saw as they drew nearer that Tish wasn’t naked. At least not quite. Beneath her sooty disguise she was barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of knickers and a skinny-ribbed vest.
Definitely not a glamazon
, thought Viorel, remembering Dorian’s arbitrary description of his ‘type’.
Terrific legs though. My goodness.
‘I was … we were … having a bit of trouble,’ Tish babbled nervously, suddenly aware of how ridiculous she must look. ‘The chimney sweep’s coming this morning, you see, and there’s a family of swallows nesting …’
She stopped talking. From behind Dorian’s familiar, bear-like form, the most divine-looking man Tish had ever seen in her life suddenly emerged like an apparition. A vision in blue, his floppy black hair gleaming like a raven’s feathers, he stood there, staring at her. Of course, no one could ever hope to compare with Michel, not in terms of the overall package. But it could not be denied that on looks alone – when it came to regularity of features, proportionality of limbs, or any other objective standard of male beauty one might care to put forward – this toffee-tanned, blue-eyed Adonis took some beating.
The Adonis smiled at her wolfishly.
‘I’m Viorel Hudson. You must be Tish Crewe.’
‘Hmmm?’ Tish seemed to have temporarily lost the power of speech.
‘A pleasure to meet you,’ said Viorel, delighted by the effect he seemed to be having on her. ‘You won’t mind if I don’t shake your hand.’
‘Hmmm?’ said Tish again. She seemed to have developed late-onset autism. ‘The soot,’ Vio explained.
‘Oh!’ Tish looked down at her ape-black hands. ‘Of course. Sorry.’
It was only at that moment that it occurred to her that she was, to all intents and purposes, naked. She blushed so violently she was surprised Viorel wasn’t scorched by the heat coming off her cheeks.
‘Here.’ Dorian stepped forward, wrapping his Barbour around her. ‘You must be freezing.’
‘Spoilsport,’ said Viorel. Dorian glared at him.
‘Thank you,’ said Tish gratefully. ‘My clothes are inside. Everything got so caked with coal dust, you see. I could hardly move, so I … I assumed … I didn’t think there’d be anyone up here so early.’
‘Please, don’t apologize on our account,’ said Viorel, who was starting to enjoy himself. It was hard to get a good look at the girl’s face through all the grime, but the combination of her gloriously displayed figure and all-too-evident embarrassment was seriously endearing. As was the fact that she’d got up at seven to pull a bird’s nest out of a chimney.
Who did that?
After a few more stammered apologies, Tish bolted down the hill to the manor, pulling Dorian’s oversized jacket around her tiny frame like a shield as she ran. Still grinning like the Cheshire Cat, Vio opened his mouth to speak, but Dorian cut him off.
‘No,’ he said firmly.
‘What do you mean “no”? I never said anything.’
‘I mean “no”. Not with her.’
‘All right,’ said Vio, amused. ‘But, just out of curiosity … why not?’
‘Because she’s our hostess.’
‘So?’
‘So it will cause tension on my set,’ said Dorian. ‘And because she’s a nice girl who doesn’t need your bullshit. And because I say so,’ he added stubbornly. ‘There’s a village full of eager young women on the other side of those gates. If you have to get your rocks off, go do it with one of them.’
‘OK, boss,’ said Vio, still smiling. ‘Whatever you say.’
The next time Viorel saw Tish was at lunch. Mrs Drummond had laid on a welcome spread for the actors. Walking into Loxley’s impressive, wood-panelled dining room in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, her newly washed, still-damp hair tied back in a ponytail, Tish blushed scarlet when she saw Viorel standing there.
‘My, my,’ he teased, enjoying her discomfiture. ‘Don’t you scrub up well?’
‘Ignore him,’ said Dorian, introducing Tish to the rest of her temporary house guests. ‘Lunch looks spectacular, by the way. You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.’
The long mahogany refectory table had been set with white bone china and silverware, and a variety of estate-grown food laid out on large platters in the middle. There was a side of venison, fresh tomato and basil salad, a whole poached salmon and various vegetable dishes, including a mouthwatering stack of asparagus dripping in butter, which Mrs Drummond proudly informed everyone had been churned at Home Farm from Loxley cows.
‘The fish is out of this world.’ Rhys Evans, a stocky, curly haired Welshman with a reputation as a practical joker, tucked into the salmon with unconcealed delight.
‘It’s all delicious. Very generous of you, Miss Crewe,’ said Jamie Duggan, wiping a yellow stream of liquid butter off his chin. Jamie was better looking than Rhys, blond and regular featured, but Tish found herself thinking how utterly devoid he was of sex appeal. She tried to picture him as Edgar Linton, making love to Sabrina Leon’s Catherine Earnshaw. It wasn’t easy.
‘Please, call me Tish,’ she said. ‘And I’m afraid I can’t take credit for lunch. It’s entirely Mrs Drummond’s hard work.’
Viorel watched Tish as she chatted to everyone in the room, playing the interested hostess like the well-brought-up lady of the manor that she was. She swapped Scottish reeling stories with Duggan, a dreadful, pompous bore in Vio’s opinion, smiling at all his weak jokes, and tried valiantly to engage Lizzie Bayer in conversation, not easy given that the girl had the attention span of a concussed goldfish. Vio had tried to chat Lizzie up himself in LA after the read-through. Classically pretty in a large-breasted, Scandinavian,
FHM
sort of way, she’d looked as if she’d be worth having a crack at. But looks could be deceiving. In fact, Lizzie Bayer had about as much spark as a decomposing kipper. All she wanted to talk about was her deathly dull TV show and its ratings.
‘
Variety
named me as one of NBC’s “faces to watch” this year,’ she had told Vio for the third time, preening vacantly in the Veyron’s rearview mirror.
Really?
thought Vio.
I’d have named you one of their ‘faces to slap’
.
Talk about self-obsessed.
In the movie, Lizzie was to play Isabella, the trophy wife who Heathcliff relentlessly abuses and humiliates. Viorel was looking forward to it already.
Looking round the room at his cast-mates, Vio swiftly decided that Rhys was by far the best of the bunch – funny in a cheeky-chappie, naughty-glint-in-his-eye sort of way that gave Vio hope that he might become a mate. He was flirting with Tish outrageously but quite hopelessly, each elaborate compliment flying over the girl’s head like so much wasted shrapnel.
Aware of Viorel’s eyes boring into her, Tish was starting to feel unpleasantly hot. The effort of not returning his stare was giving her a headache and making it hard to concentrate on what Rhys Evans was saying. It was relief when the phone in the hallway rang and she was summoned away to take the call.
Two minutes later she returned to the table looking white.
‘Is everything all right?’ asked Dorian.
‘It’s my son,’ said Tish, her voice a monotone. ‘He’s had an accident at school. They’ve called the local GP. Apparently, he’s concussed.’
‘Oh my God. What happened?’
‘He fell out of a tree. He and another boy were playing
Alvin and the Chipmunks
or something … the doctor says he’s fine, but he’s been asking for me. I have to get down there right away.’
‘Of course,’ said Dorian. ‘Do you want me to drive you?’
Tish looked at him blankly for a moment, lost in her own anxiety. She was sure she’d read somewhere that people often seemed fine after a head injury but then haemorrhaged and died hours later.
‘Tish?’
‘Hmm? Oh, no, thank you. I’m fine to drive.’
‘Are you sure?’ Dorian looked concerned.
‘Positive. Excuse me,’ she said to the room at large, running out at a jog.
Tish was already in the car and starting the engine by the time Viorel caught up with her. He opened the driver’s door. ‘Scooch over.’
‘What?’ Tish looked flustered.
‘I’m driving.’
‘But—’
‘It wasn’t a question,’ said Vio firmly, nudging her over to the passenger side. ‘I’m driving. You need to focus on your son.’
By the time they got to St Agnes’s primary school, Abel had got over his teary, ‘I want my mum’ stage and was thoroughly enjoying being the centre of attention.
‘I nearly died,’ he told Tish cheerfully, pointing proudly to the cold compress strapped to his forehead with Dennis the Menace bandages. ‘If I’d died, Michael would have had to go to prison until he was a hundred years old.’
‘No I wouldn’t,’ said Michael, without glancing up from his colouring-in. ‘It was a accident, wasn’t it, Miss Bayham? No one goes to prison for a accident.’
Miss Bayham assured Tish that it had indeed been an accident, and that Dr Rogers had said there was no need to get Abel’s head X-rayed.
‘I’ll drive you to A and E, just in case,’ said Vio. He couldn’t take his eyes off Abel.
The kid looks exactly like me.
‘Who’s he?’ asked Abel, noticing the dark-haired man staring at him as Tish carried him across the playground. ‘Is he a taxi driver?’
Tish looked embarrassed but Viorel laughed. Dorian was right: the kid was seriously cute.
‘I’m Viorel,’ he said, offering Abel his hand to shake. ‘I’m a friend of your mother’s.’
‘Viorel who? I’ve never seen you before.’
Vio grinned. ‘Viorel Hudson. Why, how many Viorels do you know?’
‘Two,’ said Abel, ‘at my old school.’
Vio’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Really? Where was your old school?’
‘Romania,’ said Abel.
Vio felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.
No wonder he looks so like me. And nothing like his mother. I wonder if he’s adopted?
‘My long name is Abel Henry Gunning Crewe,’ said Abel, abruptly changing the subject. ‘What’s your favourite dinosaur?’
‘Therizinosaurus,’ said Vio, not missing a beat. ‘What’s yours?’
Abel looked at Tish, wide-eyed with admiration. Most grown-ups were embarrassingly ignorant on the giant reptiles of the Mesozoic Era. Mummy’s new friend was cool.
‘Mine’s Ceratosaurus, but in a tie with Fukuisaurus. My mum likes T-Rex, but that’s just because it’s the only one she knows.’ He rolled his eyes.
Vio nodded in sympathy. ‘That’s girls for you.’
‘Tell me about it.’
In the car on the way to the hospital, Tish told Vio, ‘You’re good with children.’
He smiled. ‘You sound surprised.’
She shrugged. ‘I suppose I am, a little.’
‘Why? Because I’m an actor?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe, yes.’
Lifting his hand off the gear stick, Vio rested it casually on Tish’s leg. ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover, Miss Crewe. I’m actually good with all sorts of things.’ Slowly, infinitesimally slowly, he began stroking the ball of his thumb up and down the fabric of her jeans.
It was a definite come-on. Tish felt a rush of blood to her groin that she hadn’t experienced since Michel.
Oh Lord
, she thought.
He’s incredibly sexy. But he’s a film star. Do I really want to be another notch on his bedpost?
‘I’m sure you are.’ Gently she removed his hand.
‘But …? I’m sensing there’s a “but”.’
‘But I’m afraid I’m off romance at the moment,’ said Tish. ‘Sorry.’
‘Ah, yes. The frog doctor,’ said Vio dismissively. ‘Dorian mentioned it.’
Tish looked mortified. When she’d spoken to Dorian about Michel, she’d assumed it was in confidence.
‘Oh come on, lighten up,’ said Vio, seeing her face fall. ‘For one thing he’s French. You can’t possibly want to date a Frenchman.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes, really. And for another he’s an idiot. Any man who let you slip through his fingers is, by definition, an idiot.’
Tish softened slightly. ‘You’ve got all the chat, haven’t you, Mr Hudson?’
‘I try,’ Vio grinned.
The hospital trip took forever. As predicted, Abel was fine, as evidenced by his ceaseless chatter in the waiting room and quizzing of each doctor who examined him on the minutiae of
Ben 10: Alien Force
. By the time they left, Viorel’s jet lag was starting to kick in, so Tish offered to drive them back to Loxley.
Abel talked for fifteen more minutes in the back seat before finally running out of steam and falling asleep, his little dark head slumped against the window. Tish thought Vio was asleep too, when he suddenly yawned loudly beside her.
‘So what happened?’ he asked her. ‘With your French doctor?’
Tish sighed. She might as well tell him. Perhaps saying it out loud would help? ‘He met someone else.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Vio.
He sounded sincere. Tish thought,
He’s a nice man. A flirt and a player and everything I don’t need in my life. But a nice man, nonetheless.
‘Is that why you left Romania? Abel mentioned he used to go to school there.’
‘No, no,’ said Tish. ‘It was nothing like that.’ She filled him in briefly on her life in Oradea. Her work with the orphans, how she’d come to adopt Abel and the PG-rated, synopsis version of her doomed affair with Dr Michel Henri. Finally, she told him about Jago and the squatters who had forced her home to Loxley.
Viorel thought,
This is quite a woman.
It was a lot of life and responsibility to have packed into twenty-seven years.
‘So you’re really off men then, are you?’ he asked her. ‘You’re sure about that? No dating at all?’
‘For now I am,’ said Tish. ‘But it’s nice to be asked. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘And thank you, for today. With Abel I mean.’
‘He’s terrific,’ enthused Vio, then suddenly shouted, ‘
Jesus H. Christ!’
Tish jumped out of her skin. Out of nowhere a recklessly speeding limousine flew around the corner and came within a hair’s-breadth of hitting them. Only thanks to Tish’s quick reactions were they able to swerve onto the grass verge and avoid a smash.
‘What the fuck was that?’ asked Vio as she slammed on the brakes. ‘Are you OK?’