Authors: Fiona McIntosh
‘Not much. I kept tipping the champagne and gins into pot plants, even onto myself.’
She laughed. It was her first genuine sound of delight since she’d walked into her parents’ bedroom and found them in one another’s arms and dead for hours. ‘I could smell you yards away – I fell for it, but only briefly.’
He grinned. ‘Thank you for not saying anything. It makes Fruity feel better if I’m looking as intoxicated as he’s feeling. Listen, have my coat? I can’t bear to see you shivering like that. My suit has to be a whole lot warmer than your dress and coat together.’
She stopped him taking his thick coat off but she felt warmed by the gallant offer. ‘No need. Look, the taxi’s here,’ she said as an Austin High Lot took a wide turn into the hotel’s forecourt. She normally took buses or the underground. Stella had hoped this would be a night she could put behind her and forget, but a ride in the handsome taxi with the moonlight bouncing off its shining black exterior would deny her that. What a treat.
The concierge opened the door and gestured for her to enter a world she had not previously experienced. She could smell the polish on the leather seats as she admired all the gleaming metal of the vehicle. Best of all the heater was turned up and she could detect the remnants of a previous client’s perfume that had been warmed enough to linger. She was aware of Rafe muttering to the concierge with a slight frown.
‘Good evening, Miss,’ the driver said, touching his hat. ‘Cold one.’
‘Good evening.’ She smiled. ‘Deliciously warm in here, though,’ she replied as she clambered onto her higher positioned seat to the cabbie as gracefully as she could.
Rafe leaned in and she could clearly see the flesh bared from undoing his tie and collar earlier. It was only in this moment of seeing his skin, unexpectedly dark in that triangle with pale flesh either side, that she realised his teeth appeared so white because his face was tanned. What a lazy life he must lead, she thought, as she regarded his squarish face. Other men must hate him.
‘Stella, would it be awkward of me to ask if I might ride with you back to Clapham? The concierge tells me there are few taxis available tonight and a high demand. I could be waiting a long time for the next one.’
‘Er, yes, of course.’ She could hardly refuse as he was paying and she was eager to get the door closed. ‘Um, but where are you staying?’
He hopped up easily next to her, thanked the concierge and tapped on the glass separating them. ‘Thank you, driver, we’re heading to Clapham Common and then back to Mayfair, please.’
‘Right you are, Sir.’
They lurched off and the looming golden presence of the Berkeley was left behind as they merged into the careening night traffic of Piccadilly.
‘You’re going to have to cross the river twice,’ she said in a tone suggesting only a madman might.
‘I do odd things on full moon nights,’ he quipped and gave a grin full of mischief. ‘But I promise I shall deliver you safely to your door and then you will never have to put up with my irritating presence again.’
‘You’re not irritating. I’m just not comfortable with insincerity.’
‘Well, you can be sure I am most sincere in my apology.’
‘I misjudged your intentions, so I’m the one who is sorry. You were being a good friend.’
‘Friend? I don’t know about that. Basil is a colleague.’
‘You both looked friendly enough.’
He gave a small shrug.
‘But it doesn’t explain why you protect your name. Not even Basil knows, obviously.’
‘Which if we follow that theory surely makes
you
my friend, Stella, because I have told you.’ His smile was disarming. How many women in his past had fallen for it? How many women continued to fall for it?
‘Why keep it hidden, though?’
‘I go by many names, actually. Don’t you know my type has about three Christian names?’ His tone was self-mocking and she couldn’t help but like him more for the dry observation.
‘Like royalty, you mean.’ She smiled.
‘Exactly. Rafe – well, Rufus, actually – is one of them. It’s the name my mother and sister called me by.’
‘Sister? You said you didn’t have siblings.’
‘They’re dead,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘All my family is. It’s why I say I don’t have a sister because I don’t like explaining. It was a boating tragedy. The only reason I survived is because I was on my way back from school and supposed to meet them on the Isle of Wight.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
He shrugged as though he didn’t allow himself to get upset over it. She was the one caught out now and was glad of the dark interior of the taxi as she reached quickly to lighten the conversation. ‘So what did your father call you by?’
‘My third name!’ he said archly, eyes widening in mock horror. ‘Because it is a family name he wanted me to be known by. It’s the official name that every eldest male is called as a matter of course. Now, the name most people know me by, Montgomery – the one that I was introduced to you by – is my grandfather’s name on my mother’s side and as my first name is a silent family name, Montgomery comes next in the tiresome trio – without brackets,’ he added in a tone loaded with irony, ‘so it’s the one they used at school, on formal paperwork and so on. Complicated, isn’t it?’
She gave a mock expression of dizziness but the gesture had an edge of truth to it for her companion had been leaning closer during his conversation about his various names and at one point their heads almost touched. Stella was sure she could feel the wispiness of a few licks of his mid-brown hair just touching her own. He was also close enough that she could feel his breath caress her cheek and she could smell the rich roast of coffee on it. On her old boyfriend, Harry, nicotine and coffee smelled old. On Rafe it smelled enticing. How could that be?
Stella cleared her throat. ‘Is your home in Mayfair?’
‘No, my club is,’ he said, leaning away as if suddenly uninterested. ‘The family home is south, quietly rural, you could say.’
He was being careful again, she noted.
‘How is it that you are what . . . twenty-four?’
‘Twenty-six,’ she corrected.
‘But your brother and sister are so young.’
She nodded with a sad smile. Maybe she didn’t need to know him better to open up; it suddenly felt easy to explain. ‘My mother had me out of wedlock – and far too early in her life.’ She watched his expression shift. It was slight but it was there, the inevitable judgement of her mother, a lovely, shy, fragile woman. The explanation hurried with the desire to be shared as if someone else was in control of her will in that moment. ‘You see, she was attacked by a group of youths when she was barely into her teens. She was —’ She stopped; the details didn’t matter. ‘I am the mistake, not my brother and sister. I was conceived in shame and horror, birthed in despair, no doubt. My little darlings were made with nothing but love.’ She watched him swallow but he stared back at her unblinking and she was glad to see his expression didn’t reflect pity. ‘My grandparents were brave to send my mother, Dianna – she was known as Didi – to family in Wales; she was even braver to demand that her child be allowed to live. I was not quite two when she met Evan Myles and fell instantly in love with a young, brash, ambitious Welshman who would become the only father I’ve known and someone who cherished me as he did my mother. If they had cross words, I never heard them.’ She shook her head. ‘They made a perfect bond. But they couldn’t make a child for a long time together.’ She lifted a shoulder. ‘My mother was badly hurt in the attack,’ she explained. ‘And then a beautiful pair of gifts arrived. My brother came along when I was sixteen, my sister two years later. I didn’t resent them, I adored them and had already enjoyed so many years as a beloved only child.’ She looked away and out of the window to where they moved through Whitehall, passing the Houses of Parliament in silence as the taxi gained speed heading towards the newly redesigned Lambeth Bridge. She recalled its opening by the King the previous year and how its odd red painted colour scheme was a reflection of the leather on the bench seats in the House of Lords.
He finally spoke. ‘When did you learn the truth?’
‘On my twelfth birthday. We all cried, but I think for them it was tears of relief to unburden the truth.’
‘And for you?’
‘Oh, as you would expect. Shock, grief. We never spoke of it again but from thereon it lived with us, like an extra person we didn’t set a place for at the table.’
‘What do you mean?’
She took a breath and let it out. ‘My real father. Invisible but present, casting a shadow.’ She gave him a cheer-up smile. ‘I learned to live with it. I loved my parents deeply and never felt anything but love in return but I did feel changed from that day.’
‘Changed? In what way?’ He was leaning forward again and she could feel the warmth of his body; moonlight and street light conspired to show her that triangle of skin beneath his throat that she suddenly wanted to touch. Forbidden flesh. She looked away quickly as the taxi passed Lambeth Palace and she saw the familiar crenellated gatehouse that she passed daily on her way home in the bus from work.
‘It wasn’t that I didn’t belong, it’s just that I felt suddenly responsible for her fragility – why she relied on my father for every decision, leaned on him . . . I didn’t want to be like that – I’m not like that . . . I’m independent, even rebellious at times . . . perhaps more like the man whose blood I share.’
She cut a hand through the warm air that had built in the taxi and breathed out. ‘Anyway, enough of all that and the reason for her cowardice. Now you know my other secret, which I suspect I can trust you with, but I note you remain a mystery,’ she said with an accusatory smile to lighten the tension that had also formed itself around them.
‘Listen, Stella. Can I offer some help for your situation?’
‘No,’ she said with bright alarm in her tone. ‘Absolutely not. I do not want charity from —’
‘I’m not talking about charity,’ he insisted, grabbing her arm gently to stop her next outburst. His hand was large and closed around her thin wrist, encompassing it like a manacle. She was surprised by the roughness of the texture of his flesh against hers. Caught unawares by his touch, she did stop talking.
‘I’m suggesting a different line of work – just to tide you over.’
She frowned. ‘I earn a decent wage at the store.’ She sighed. ‘Although I’m suddenly called trainee again, now that I’m learning to be a buyer.’
‘I happen to know you can earn more in the short term.’
Alarm bells sounded in her mind now as dawning occurred. She twitched her wrist out of his grasp. ‘Gosh, what do you think I am?’ she growled in a murmur only for his ears. She glanced at the taxi driver who was making a wide turn and was heedless of his passengers’ conversation.
‘No, you’re getting me wrong again,’ Rafe appealed, as he put his hands up in defence. ‘Just listen to me. There are wealthy families up and down the country who would pay you a very good wage to help them with their children.’
‘A governess?’
‘Yes, I suppose you could describe it that way.’
‘How thoroughly Victorian,’ she remarked.
‘Not really. Wealthy families hire in help for all sorts of reasons. You said your mother was French. Are you fluent?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Music?’
Stella lifted a shoulder. ‘Piano, flute.’
‘You can read it?’
‘Read it and write it. I had a very good education; my parents saw to that but I’ve got my own brother and sister to look out for.’
‘Well, this is how you can do it. I know families who would likely pay twice as much as you probably earn now, plus board and lodging, if you were prepared to teach their children at home beyond the three ‘Rs’, but definitely refining their reading, writing, arithmetic. Most of their daughters may never have to reckon figures if they marry into similar money but society is changing and the war, the Depression too, is putting formerly unheard of pressures on grander homes . . . especially on the women who make a lot of the household decisions. It’s important the next generation of women, now they have their right to vote, can back up their new freedoms with financial know-how. Women need to be independent, capable of not just running a house but understanding all of the financial implications as well as having an admiration of culture. You have the skills to help with that.’
She nodded. ‘I’m impressed. I didn’t expect you to be so liberal,’ and in the close confines of the taxi she tried not to be dazzled by the slightly mocking delight in his grin.
‘By my attitude or by my suggestion? Here, let me write down the name of an agency. The woman who runs it is a friend of Fruity – and she’s very good at placement, from what I hear. I mention her only because I met her recently in passing. You never know – the work, change of scenery and mindset could suit you for a short time until you get clear about . . .’ he shrugged, ‘the way ahead and all that.’
She watched him pull a fountain pen and tiny blank white card from his inside pocket, and with the intuitive balance of a circus performer, he seemed to be able to write effortlessly despite the bounce of their vehicle and the twists and bumps that came without warning.
‘There,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘That’s her agency. I don’t know the exact address but I know it’s almost directly opposite Victoria Station.’
She couldn’t read it in the dark but she placed the card in her handbag. ‘Thank you. I’ll think about it.’
‘Do more than that. I’m urging that you go and see her. At least find out more.’ Half of his face was in shadow now and this image of him seemed appropriately mysterious. She was convinced that Rafe possessed secrets he shared with no one, not even his family.
‘I promise you I will seriously consider your suggestion,’ she replied and felt a sensation of warmth sizzle through her as he squeezed her wrist with a glad smile.
‘Good.’ He bent slightly to stare out of the window and get a fix on where they were. ‘Clapham already,’ he murmured, spying the Common, and she wondered if she were reading far too much into what sounded like disappointment in his tone.