Separate Rooms

‘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.

‘Ready? Where would you like to go?’ It was a lovely spring afternoon and anything would be better than sitting here enduring the inevitable disapproving monologues. A pootle round the countryside might take her mother’s mind off the way her only daughter chose to ‘work in a shop’, the way she obstinately refused to ‘settle down decently with Graham and do the right thing by her dear dead father’s company’. As if her father would have scorned her chosen career! He had always advised her to decide what she wanted and then go out and get it. And it was he who had taught her to love and respect the world of antiques, taught her to identify the excellent from the merely good, the acceptable from the dross.

‘I don’t feel like going anywhere.’ Avril laid aside her glossy magazine and put a plump hand on her bosom. ‘As you know, I haven’t been feeling well just lately—all this worry over the business...’ Her voice tailed off pathetically and Honey sighed and sank down on to the end of the over-stuffed settee.

‘The business is fine, as you very well know,’ she pointed out. ‘Henry and Graham see to that. Henry’s brainwashed you into thinking that the only thing that can hold it together is a marriage between your sole offspring. And the only thing that’s worrying you is my refusal to do as I’m told. That, and your desire to have a daughter who sits quietly at home, properly married to her husband’s career, bearing his children and entertaining his business colleagues and golfing cronies and ironing his bloody shirts!’ Her voice had risen and she made an effort to rein in her temper, explaining more quietly, ‘And the only thing that’s worrying Henry is the shares Dad left me. Henry himself holds fifty per cent and you and I the other fifty between us. And, at the moment, you never question any of his decisions and neither do I because I don’t know a component from a carpet sweeper. Your loyalty to his management will never be in any question, he knows that. But mine? Who knows? I might decide to sell my shares, mightn’t I? The premises next to my shop will be going on the market within the next month or so. I would like to expand. I need to expand—’

‘You wouldn’t!’ The powerfully indignant protest gave lie to the earlier excuses of ill health and Honey bit back a smile, shaking her head.

‘Only if I could find the right buyer, someone with BallanTrent’s best interests at heart. And admit it—’ she fixed her parent with a level look ‘—that’s what Henry’s so afraid of, isn’t it? He wants BallanTrent kept entirely under his control, in the family. That’s why he’s been bleating on about marriage for the last twelve months. Don’t forget, he told me himself that when—when, mind you, not if—Graham and I married the shares I own would come under his control because, as he piously pointed out, I had no knowledge of the business. And that,’ she ground out, aware that her volatile temper was threatening to explode, ‘would have been enough to make me dig my heels in and refuse to do any such thing—even if I had been head over heels in love with his dull son!’

The genuine sheen of tears in her mother’s eyes helped Honey back into a state of control and her voice was softer as she queried, ‘Were you and Dad in love when you married?’

‘Of course we were—what a thing to ask!’

‘And you were happy?’ Honey pressed, earning herself a tart,

‘Very. We had our disagreements, what couple doesn’t? But, in the end, they weren’t important.’

‘Because you loved each other,’ Honey made her point. ‘Would you really want to see me tied in a loveless marriage? Would you? And how long do you think it would last? We’d end up hating each other in no time at all.’

‘I’m sure Graham’s very fond of you,’ Avril defended. But there was a cornered look in her eyes that made Honey believe she was at last beginning to win her parent round. But Avril fluttered her hands and grumbled, ‘I simply can’t understand why you’re so against him, that’s all. I can think of half a dozen young women who would be only too happy to be his wife.’

The conversation had gone full circle and Honey was in no mood to endure any more. She knew from experience that when her mother was in this mood she wouldn’t let the subject rest and wondered, fleetingly, if Graham had reported the quarrel they’d had last night back to his father and if Henry had been on the phone to Avril this morning, grumbling about her daughter’s lack of good sense and grace.

She got to her feet and collected her bag. If she stayed any longer she would lose control of her temper and, no matter how much her mother sometimes irritated her, she didn’t want a fight on her hands.

‘As you don’t feel up to doing anything this afternoon, I’ll go back and get on with some paperwork,’ and managed to keep her smile pleasant, her voice light as she countered Avril’s snippy,

‘But you always stay on for supper,’ with,

‘Usually, not always. I do have a business to run. I’ll phone you in the week.’

Guilt and relief waged a battle as she drove back into town but by the time she’d parked her car in the lock-up she rented and walked the few hundred yards back to Stony Shut relief had won. She would not be made to feel guilty because she had walked away from a fight in the making, or because she refused to contemplate marriage to a man she didn’t much like, let alone love.

She threw herself into the backlog of paperwork with a will and only stopped to make herself a pot of tea and carry it down to the desk she used at the rear of the shop, picking up the phone to remind Fred Wilson that she would be gone before he arrived at nine in the morning, on her way to a country house sale in Cheshire.

Giving herself a moment’s grace, she sipped her hot tea and reflected, as she often did, on how lucky she’d been to find Fred. A year ago, almost to the day, he—and his wife, Mary, she was to discover—had walked into the shop carrying a Georgian sofa-table between them. He was a big, blunt-featured man in his fifties, and his first words had been a no-nonsense, ‘How much?’

‘You want to sell?’ Honey was already casting her eyes over the clean, graceful lines, noting that one of the legs was not original. However, the piece had been beautifully restored, the repair difficult to spot unless one knew what to look for, and, if the price was right, she had a customer who was looking for just such a table.

Her pleasure was not even slightly dented by the middle-aged man’s blunt, ‘We wouldn’t have humped it halfway across town if we hadn’t.’

‘The piece is yours?’

It was a question that had to be asked but she instinctively knew the couple were honest and quite forgave the man’s growled, ‘Well, it didn’t fall off the back of a lorry.’

‘Fred—really!’ his faded companion admonished, her worried eyes on Honey’s as she explained, ‘My husband has always collected antiques and, well, as he was made redundant eighteen months ago, we thought we ought to part with some of them.’ Fred gave her a withering glare but she met it without flinching, stating, ‘There’s no point being proud, is there? Anyway, the house is bulging at the seams; we could do with a bit more space.’

And more money in the bank, Honey thought sympathetically. The proud Fred would be unlikely to find employment at his age when so many younger men were desperately seeking work too.

Straightening up from her inspection, she offered a price that was as generous as she could viably make it, telling them, ‘It’s the best I can do. I suppose you know the table’s been restored at some stage of its life? But the quality of the work is such that it doesn’t affect the value too much. I don’t suppose you know who restored it?’ There was always a slim chance that they did, that they—in more affluent days—had commissioned the work. The restorers she used weren’t altogether reliable and, just lately, their prices had begun to soar. So if—

‘Fred did.’ There was real pride in his wife’s voice. ‘It’s been his hobby for years—buying damaged antiques and doing them up. He’s always been good with his hands.’

‘In that case—’ Honey gave the blunt-featured man a huge grin ‘—why don’t I make us all a cup of tea and we can discuss business?’

Which was how the talented Fred Wilson had come to work for her, performing his magic in the workroom at the back of the shop, looking after the customers for her on the days when she attended sales. She didn’t know what she would do without him now...

Returning her cup to her saucer, Honey gave her attention back to her work. Soon deeply engrossed, the tapping on the shop door didn’t impinge at first, but when it did her mouth went dry. Looking beyond the circle of light shed by the desk lamp, over the dark shapes in the dim body of the shop, she could just make out the black silhouette of a threateningly large male outside the small-paned windows.

She should have turned on the interior lights ages ago, activated the alarm system, she thought uselessly, then took herself in hand. Felons didn’t knock to announce their presence, fool! she told herself. She got to her feet, reaching for the light switch, and remembered.

Ben. Of course. Despite what she had told him he had said he would come at seven. And he had. A rapid glance at her watch confirmed the time and she was smiling idiotically as she went to let him in. Relief. She was just pleased she hadn’t a weirdo, or something worse, on her hands. That was all.

‘So you changed your plans, after all. Sensible lady.’

His smile was as smooth as cream as he walked through the door and waited while she shot the bolts home. And in case he got the wrong idea, believed she’d done so for the pleasure of sharing a meal with him, she explained coolly, ‘I wasn’t expecting you, actually, not after what I’d said. I left Mother sooner than I’d intended because if I’d stayed we’d have been at each other’s throats.’

One dark, well defined brow drifted upwards. ‘Your unspeakable silliness regarding the gorgeous Graham, no doubt?’

‘Something like that.’ Honey relaxed enough to offer him a wry smile. He had a calming effect on her and, although he was a virtual stranger, she felt more at ease in his company than with anyone else she knew. And she watched, her brown eyes warm, as he strolled among her things, lingering in front of her collection of early pewter displayed on a sixteenth-century carved oak chest.

‘You have some fine pieces,’ he approved at last. ‘You can tell me how you came to get started over dinner.’

No mention of his promised solution to the problem of Graham, she noted drily. Not that anything he could have dreamed up would have helped, of course, but knowing that it had been an excuse to date her left a nasty taste in her mouth. She had, in the past, been dated by experts, men who had, in various ways, let it be known that they regarded dinner for two as an unobstructed pathway into her bed. This man was smoother than most, though, more devious. But his intentions had to be the same.

The disappointment was so intense that the withering look she gave him took even her by surprise and her voice was frozen acid as she refused.

‘I’m working. I have no plans to go out to dinner.’

His mouth twitched.

‘You still have to eat and we don’t need to go out. In fact, it’s probably better if we stay here, we have so much to talk about.’

‘We have?’ Honey’s mouth curled cynically. The few dates she’d been misguided enough to invite into her home hadn’t been into conversation. But the derisory tone of her voice rolled off him as if it had never been there in the first place and his long, strong fingers were already unfastening the buttons of his obviously tailor-made soft leather jacket.

‘Sure.’ The fingers stilled and, for some unknown reason, she couldn’t tear her eyes from them. He had beautifully crafted hands. They mesmerised her. ‘If it’s any help, I could go out for a takeaway.’

His afterthought was softly considerate and Honey denied throatily, ‘No. There’s no need.’ And watched those fingers deal with the remainder of the buttons and swallowed hard. Somehow, she seemed to have committed herself to spending time with him, cooking for him, inviting him against her better judgement into the sanctuary of her home.

She didn’t quite know how it had happened.

Leaving him to wander around her overstocked showroom, she activated the security system then turned and watched him, her head on one side. Had he really tried to figure out a solution to the problems she was facing from her mother, Graham and Henry? And if he had, why had he bothered? She was simply a woman he had met at a party, he hardly knew her at all, so why should any problems of hers be of the remotest interest to him?

Or had he simply used it as an excuse to get her on her own? And if he had, it shouldn’t worry her. She knew how to signal a pretty formidable ‘hands off’ message. She’d had plenty of practice. Besides, he hadn’t shown the tiniest flicker of sexual interest last night...

‘You need more space.’ Ben eased himself between a jewellery showcase and a mahogany bachelor chest, that unique, relaxed smile of his softening his utterly masculine features and Honey smiled back because with this man she couldn’t help it.

‘Tell me something I don’t already know. Shall we go up?’ And she was still smiling as she led the way up the twisty stairs and he was just as easy to talk to as she remembered from the night before because by the time they had finished the pasta with tomato sauce he had helped her prepare in the tiny kitchen she had told him her life story, such as it was.

Blabbermouth, she sniped at herself, but was too relaxed to be really annoyed with the way her tongue ran away with her. But so far he hadn’t told her a single thing about himself and she leaned back in her chair as he divided the remaining Côtes du Rhone between their two glasses, determined to remedy the situation.

‘So what brings you to this neck of the woods?’ she asked, easing her boots off beneath the table. ‘You tell me Colin’s an old friend—you must have a lot of catching up to do to be staying with them for weeks on end.’ She couldn’t have stood to be Sonia’s house guest for a few days, let alone a few weeks, old friend or not. She was not a peaceful person to be around; she never stopped talking, for one thing.

And Ben must have read her thoughts because the smile he gave her was like a secret shared, then he stretched out his long legs beneath her table and told her, ‘I’m setting up a production unit in the new industrial park on the edge of town. I like to take charge of the whole operation personally. Colin offered me bed and board and I took him up. I’ve spent too much time in hotels.’ He picked up his glass and drained the remaining contents and Honey grabbed her cue.

‘I would have thought you’d have got around to having a home of your own by now. You sound as if you could be described as a person of no fixed abode.’ She was fishing, she knew that. But she was curious. He knew everything there was to know about her, or almost, and she knew next to nothing about him. And she didn’t know why, but she wanted to know everything.

But he appeared not to have heard her comments. Slewing round on his chair, he ran his eyes over the room. Fairly large, heavily beamed, three small casement windows overlooking the Shut, the stone hood of the fireplace finely carved with strange heraldic beasts. And he said, ‘If you moved out of here you could use this room at least as a second showroom. And presumably you have a bedroom? Large enough to act as a third?’

He turned the full and shattering force of his sleepy sapphire-blue eyes on her and Honey’s readily volatile mood swung from relaxed enjoyment to blistering contempt. As a hint it was definitely unsubtle. Did he really think she was about to invite him into her bedroom, invite his opinion on its suitability as an extra showroom? Did he think she was that stupid or that eager to round the evening off in the way most men seemed to take for granted?

‘I don’t think my shortage of space is your problem, do you?’ She gave him a ferocious look, her fingertips drumming on the table. ‘And while we’re on the subject of problems, what was the grand solution you were supposed to have dreamed up?’ Snapping brown eyes challenged lazy blue and she saw his mouth twitch and wanted, quite desperately, to hit him, her ruffled feelings not much soothed by the even tenor of his drawled,

‘Do you always fly off the handle so easily, Honey? Did you really imagine I introduced the subject of your bedroom because I couldn’t wait to leap on you? Nothing, I solemnly assure you, was further from my mind. I was simply making conversation.’

Which should have soothed her but somehow didn’t. Apart from the annoyance of finding he could read her mind he was telling her he didn’t find her remotely attractive, that wild horses wouldn’t drag him into her bed. But that shouldn’t make her feel all turned inside-out, should it? On the contrary, it should be reassuring, making his company nice and safe and comfortable. Ever since she’d turned seventeen her dates hadn’t been able to keep their hands off her, so it was really something to find a man who didn’t find her sexually attractive, who was interested in her chosen career, who preferred to talk rather than cavort between the sheets.

So why did she feel so...piqued?

And her voice was gritty as she came back, beginning to gather the dishes, ‘Let’s forget the polite conversation bit, shall we? Why don’t you toss that solution at me, then leave?’ She made an elaborate display of consulting her wristwatch, almost dropping the plates in the process, saving them by a whisker, adding pointedly, ‘I have to make an early start in the morning.’

‘Marry someone else.’ He took the stack of plates from her, putting them gently back down on the table. Which was astutely self-protective of him, she fumed to herself. The utter stupidity of his so-called solution had sorely tempted her to hurl the china at his head.

But the bubbling beginnings of temper abated to a simmer and then disappeared altogether. It had nothing to do with the mesmeric quality of his glittering, vivid blue eyes, she assured herself. She was at last learning to handle her volatile temper, that was all. And there was almost a smile in her voice as she told him, ‘I can see such an action on my part forcing our Graham to back off for good.’ She flopped down in the chair she had vacated and watched him begin a leisurely pacing of the room. ‘However, as there’s no one around I want to marry the idea’s a bit of a non-starter, wouldn’t you say?’

He had reached the casement windows and his lean, tall, black-clad body was dominantly silhouetted against the cream velvet curtains and he turned slowly on the balls of his feet, his features almost austere in the dim lighting as he trod slowly back to where she sat, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, emphasising the narrow, sexy cut.

Suddenly, Honey’s mouth went dry and her heart tripped over itself. He looked, as he paced towards her, like a dangerous animal intent on its prey. But the brief and unprecedented moment of girlish trepidation was wiped out of existence as he offered quietly, ‘Marry me.’ Then dropped into the chair opposite hers and smiled slowly into her pale-skinned, open-mouthed face, raising one hand in a tacit command to silence as the gradual beginnings of a scornful flush crept up from her neckline. ‘It would be a mere formality, you understand. A piece of paper to get Graham Trent finally off your back. And over just as soon as you deemed it safe to be available again. I’m willing, if you are,’ he added in a cool, flat voice. ‘Think about it. The offer will be open for another twenty-four hours.’

CHAPTER THREE

OH, BUT he was a cool customer... Cool and calculating. Honey slammed the door of the lock-up and huddled deeper into her raincoat, dragging the hood up over her bright head.

Today had been a total waste of time. Too many London dealers had gathered at the country house sale, outbidding her on each and every item she had wanted. And spring had done a U-turn, making the day gloomy with chilling rain. And, more annoying still, she hadn’t been able to drag her mind away from Ben Claremont and his crazy proposal.

Crazy or calculating?

A man would have to be out of his mind to propose a paper marriage to a woman he hadn’t known existed until twenty-four hours ago. Out of his mind or on to a good thing!

But what? What could he gain from such a marriage? Honey simply couldn’t begin to guess. Her shoulders hunched against the rain, the high heels of her boots beating an angry tattoo on the cobbles, she turned into Stony Shut and for once the warm glow of light coming from the windows of her shop failed to take the edge off her aggravation.

If only she could stop thinking about him, about his odd proposal, about the way he’d simply said goodnight, politely thanked her for the meal and walked away leaving a thousand and one questions racing round her brain.