Authors: Fiona McIntosh
‘Shall I take your coat, Sir?’ she offered as she set the pot down. Stella watched him charm the girl as he handed her his coat and hat. ‘And can I get you something?’ The innuendo was there, Stella noted with dismay. How did he do that to so many women . . . including her?
‘A tea would be perfect. Black with lemon, please.’
The waitress cast her a swift glance that Stella was sure said ‘lucky you’ and moved away.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked.
He lifted a shoulder. ‘I had some early business in London and had a driver bring me down to Brighton.’
‘I don’t believe in coincidence.’
He gave a soft smirk that felt like respect when it landed on her. ‘Neither do I.’
Stella gazed across the table to where Rafe was seated opposite, looking to all intents as comfortable as if they were a couple who had arrived together. There was not a mote of sheepishness in his returning glance.
‘So you came looking for me?’
‘I discovered you were headed for Brighton today when I rang Harp’s End.’
‘Do you know that you never answer a question?’
‘No.’ He laughed. ‘There, I just answered one. Now, one for you; have you read my letter?’
She met his gaze, wishing it didn’t have such a disarming effect on her. ‘Not yet.’ He lifted an eyebrow. ‘You said I had to read it away from the house.’
‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted.
Stella knew she should have left it at that, but he made her feel defensive and that she had let him down or snubbed their special connection by delaying opening the envelope. ‘If it wasn’t Beatrice demanding my time, it was Mrs Boyd, and if not her probably listening at your study door, then Hilly was banging on it just as I began to read it. Then I thought I’d read it on the train but I was surrounded by other people’s noises and conversations. And then,’ she waved a hand in exasperation, ‘I had every intention of reading it over my pot of tea . . .’ She only just stopped from glaring at him for interrupting her plan. ‘It feels as though everything is conspiring to prevent me reading it. No one is cooperating enough to leave me alone!’
‘Not even me,’ he remarked with a broad grin that was meant to charm. Stella showed no amusement. The waitress was back with his drink and perhaps it was Stella’s soft scowl that suggested she didn’t linger. He turned his head slightly to one side. ‘It will explain so much.’
‘Why don’t you explain . . . now?’
‘All right, ask me. Ask me anything and I’ll answer you fully.’
She fixed him with a stare. There were so many questions to hurl at him. She didn’t want to argue or make accusations yet. She would begin with the least important. ‘You speak Arabic.’
‘Is that a question?’
‘Do you speak Arabic?’
‘I do.’ He sipped, sighing with pleasure at the taste.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You didn’t ask and it never came up.’
She kept her tone even but firm. ‘How does someone like you come to speak Arabic?’
He shrugged. ‘Well, Stella, I was born in Tangier and anyone like me who spent an early childhood roaming around the Levant with adventuring parents is going to pick up its language easily.’
She remembered the photographs she had studied and the easy grin of the boy that she sensed still lurked in the man opposite her. Other women glanced around but he appeared oblivious, with his eyes fixed on her, as if she and he were alone in the room.
‘Other languages.’ At his amusement she quickly adjusted her statement to a question and even though Beatrice had confirmed it, she still needed to hear it from him. ‘Do you speak any other languages?’ She was avoiding what she wanted to ask, determined to be calm, fully in control when she did confront his alleged womanising in particular.
‘Yes,’ he answered obediently. ‘German, French, of course, and some Spanish. I can swear in Italian and pray in Hebrew when pressed. I could probably even rustle up some polite words in Russian if my life depended on it – not many, though; a thank you, a please, that sort of thing.’ He managed to look sheepish as he put his cup down and a hand up in submission at her glowering expression. ‘What’s wrong, Stella? Yes, I do speak some languages, but before you ask, I don’t have time to coach the girls in the same way that a tutor employed for that reason can. Besides, my experience tells me that children will always work harder for an outsider than a parent whom they’re too familiar with.’
She blinked. His rationale was more than feasible. ‘And still I feel manipulated.’ There, she’d begun her strategic attack.
‘Well, don’t.’
‘And so your “not exactly” visit to Brighton somehow brings you to Hanningtons, where if you look around is populated almost exclusively by women. How odd of you to choose here.’
His gaze didn’t shift. It only intensified upon her. His tone, however, had a slight note of injury. ‘Georgina told me she would need a lift home from Hanningtons too. I offered because I knew I might have a chance to see you.’
‘I don’t need a lift home. I have a ticket, thank you.’
‘What’s really bothering you? Why so hostile, Stella?’
‘Because Georgina is about to expose us.’
‘Expose us?’
She wanted to beat her fists against him for being deliberately obtuse. ‘We’ve talked intimately in front of Grace in the car, we’ve kissed on the hill —’
‘I kissed a frog once.’ He shrugged and was about to say more but Stella’s short burst of a helpless laugh escaped.
She hadn’t wanted to be amused; maybe it was all the nervous energy swirling inside. ‘You’re not at all worried are you, but I feel helpless!’
‘Why helpless?’
‘Because you’ve made me so,’ she growled. ‘It’s a skill of yours. Women are in your thrall.’ She expected him to grin in his disarming way. He didn’t.
‘Firstly, Stella, Georgina wasn’t there in the car so whatever she thinks she knows, it’s still only supposition. And I assure you, no one saw us on the hillside. As to my supposed skill with women, romantically I’m only interested in one.’
She couldn’t help the spreading warmth of pleasure his statement gave her but she refused to let it show. ‘Yes, the wrong one.’
‘You know about me and Mrs Boyd?’
Her unexpected laughter made her sip of tea go down the wrong way and she was suddenly coughing as well as laughing with an image of the lemon-lipped Mrs Boyd swooning in Rafe’s arms. She could see he was enjoying teasing her and in truth, it was helping her to let go of the early fear about Georgina. She was still worried but his presence had a calming effect. People who had looked over at them especially after her small explosion of coughing and laughter had returned to their conversations. Stella tried again after putting down her cup and clearing her throat. ‘And it’s going to get us both into a lot of trouble if Georgina carries out her threat to expose us. Grace overheard me saying about not wanting to be the other woman, she’s talked about it with Georgina and . . .’ She looked around, concerned that she may have been heard or that people were watching too closely. They were not, but her shoulders slumped in a sense of defeat.
Rafe appeared unaffected by the news that had felt shattering to her just hours earlier. ‘She won’t expose us . . . not even with the little she thinks she knows.’
‘Why?’
He gave a careless shrug and sat back. ‘Georgina is like her mother. She has already grasped the true power of information. She appreciates that it can be used to her advantage. What’s to be gained by her claims, and there’s always a risk we can wriggle out of it. No, I know Georgina well enough to confidently suggest that her plan will be to leverage what she thinks she has on us.’
‘Blackmail?’
He lifted a shoulder. ‘An unpleasant word. I think she’d regard it more as compensation.’
Stella sneered. Nevertheless she considered the fact that she may not be exposed and that Georgina might be bribed to stay quiet. She wrapped her hands around her china cup, warming them distractedly. Rafe must have noticed it was empty and without asking poured her tea. ‘So what does Georgina want?’ she asked.
‘I can’t answer that. I’ve never understood her motivations. Georgina knows a lot of people and a lot of her peers like to be seen with her but I’m sure if I asked her to name a single friend – someone she could trust, someone she can count on – I doubt she could.’
‘That’s dreadful.’
‘She’s made it that way. Georgina doesn’t let people in. I think she feels deeply insecure and I suspect when she finds someone whose love she doesn’t question and who stands up to her, she’ll learn to trust; not find it so necessary to be on the attack all the time.’
‘You don’t feel sorry for her?’
‘Not in the least. I struggle to like her these days although there was a time I freely gave my love to her, but she has grown into someone I find morbidly dull. In fact, I don’t admire anything about her. I’ve watched her grow up and provided for her so that makes me feel responsible for her, but she’s essentially the product of her mother’s over-protective, over-indulgent and cool upbringing.’
‘That’s so harsh, Rafe.’ Stella couldn’t believe she was defending the two women she least liked.
‘Well, Georgina is nearly seventeen. I had lads fighting alongside me in war who were younger, braver, kinder . . .’
‘That’s unfair.’
He drained his tea and sighed. ‘Now who’s being harsh?’
‘She’s not known war, its demands or hardships. She’s been raised in wealth, ruthlessly indulged and it’s pointless you complaining because you were one of the people who let it happen. You could have been the difference in her life.’
‘I’m not her father.’
‘Yes, but as far as Georgina knows, you
are
her father and certainly the only one who has been in her life. Your responsibility in taking her on was to fill that role. Instead you’ve taken a hands-off approach.’
‘Her mother wanted it that way. She kept me at a distance.’
‘I blame you both for how Georgina is. She has everything and yet she has nothing. She’s so empty it’s despicable.’
Rafe stared at her and she felt his admiration hug her. ‘I love you all stirred up like this.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes, it’s refreshing.’
‘Love me, I mean?’ she said, ignoring the compliment. There. The main question. She sounded calm but she wasn’t in control. Her stomach felt as though she was riding the Big Dipper again as she had in her teens at Blackpool, screaming alongside her father’s groaning laughter.
He looked down, clearly taken by surprise. ‘I do.’
‘You don’t know me.’
‘Other way around, I suspect.’
There was no denying that. An awkward pause stretched. She had to tackle his reputation as a rake.
‘John Potter warned me you were a wolf.’
He gusted a bright laugh and then gave a low howl and Stella shooshed him, embarrassed.
‘You sound proud of the label,’ she remarked, her tone huffy.
He reached across to touch her hand but she pulled it away quickly. ‘Stella, John Potter barely knows me.’
‘He knows that you seduce plenty of women.’
‘Does he?’
She nodded, swallowing visibly, feeling small and embarrassed.
His gaze held her until she looked away. ‘What do you think, Stella?’
‘He’s looking out for me?’
‘Do you trust him?’
‘I have no reason to mistrust him,’ she bleated. ‘And he is worried that I am falling in love with you.’
‘And are you?’
‘Yes! Damn you, Rafe. The falling is over. I’m already at the bottom of the chasm!’ She began gathering her things.
His large hand found hers again and this time she didn’t pull away. ‘Stella . . . no, wait, Stella. Please, listen to me. You know I am not what I seem at home . . . agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
‘What I want Potter to think is what Potter thinks. The truth is not necessarily what he imagines it to be, in the same way that bumbling Douglas Ainsworth is not me.’
She felt her gaze narrow. ‘What’s to be gained by lying to Mr Potter?’
‘Well, if you’d read the letter you might understand, but let me assure you that while I am no saint I am no womaniser either. The fact that I’m happy to let people think otherwise suits me. Frankly, the majority of women bore me, Stella. Beautiful and vacant, or brilliant and lacking in femininity – I’ve not been lucky to meet anyone who stirred my emotions into the perfect cocktail until I danced with you.’
Fresh warmth was spreading, lower this time. ‘What are we going to do?’ she whispered, feeling suddenly lost.
‘Do you wish you’d never gone to the dance, Stella?’
‘Yes.’ Then shook her head sadly. ‘No.’
He pulled her towards him and she instantly felt less rudderless. ‘Come on.’ Rafe stood.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Away from here.’
‘What about my wardrobe?’
‘I can fix everything. Meet me downstairs. Go to the East Street corner entrance and head right to the seafront. I’ll catch up with you.’
‘I’ve no idea where I’m going.’
‘Follow the smell of the sea.’
It sounded a welcome idea to leave the stuffy tearooms and the claustrophobic atmosphere of chortling women.
‘I’ll get the bill,’ he said, reaching into his pocket for some coins.
She grabbed her gloves and sped downstairs, barely thanking her waitress, not sure what she was hurrying towards or from. She angled her way to the front of the store via the ground-floor fashion accessories of hosiery, gloves, umbrellas and a crowded perfume counter.
‘Excuse me,’ she asked a lady counting handkerchiefs. ‘I’ve lost my bearings. Could you tell me the way to East Street, please?’
The woman pointed over her shoulder with a smile. ‘Yes, of course, Madam. Just over there is Hanningtons Corner and that fronts onto East Street.’
‘Thank you.’ She moved purposefully in that direction and was dismayed to spot Georgina trying on a straw hat. She knew Hanningtons was the only place a woman of her means would shop in Brighton, so she shouldn’t be surprised to see her. Nevertheless she froze momentarily but then, as if scooped up by invisible angels, she was moving; she could swear she couldn’t feel the carpet beneath her feet. Picking up a huge hat to cover her face, she turned her back to Georgina and moved swiftly behind a pillar. She didn’t pause, knew she hadn’t been spotted and gratefully blended into the slipstream of other hurrying shoppers dipping their heads, pulling up collars and swirling scarves around themselves as they scuttled out of the store with Stella in their midst. With the hat returned, she forced herself to walk at a normal pace until she’d passed through the corner doors and then burst out, scurrying down the street, swallowing cold air, gasping as if choking from the tension of escape. Stella headed right as instructed towards the sea. Still dragging in lungfuls of air she had to lean against a wall because her heart felt as though it was pounding so hard she could sense the throb at her temple.