A Mistletoe Proposal (9 page)

‘Pippa—' he interrupted her gently ‘—you don't have to tell me what you mean. You really don't.'

And she didn't, she realised with a surge of thankfulness. Roscoe understood perfectly.

‘How long were they married?' he asked.

‘Sixty years. We had a big celebration of their anniversary, and neither of them lived very long after that. He died first, and then Gran was just waiting to join him. She used to say he appeared in her dreams and told her to hurry up because he could never find anything without her. In the end, she only kept him waiting three weeks.

‘I remember her saying that she wanted to outlive him, but only by a little. She wanted to be there to look after him as long as he needed her, but then she wanted to follow quickly. And she got her wish.'

Roscoe gave her a strange look. ‘So love does sometimes last for ever?'

‘For their generation, yes. In those days it was expected.'

‘And that's why they stayed together for sixty years? Because of convention?'

‘No,' she sighed. ‘That's not why. They loved each other totally, but just because they could manage it doesn't mean that everyone… Drink your tea before it gets cold.'

‘Then I must call a taxi and go home. Perhaps you'd have lunch with me tomorrow, when I'm more awake. We'll discuss the most sensible way to proceed.'

He took out his cellphone but, instead of making the call, he stared at it, then put it down suddenly as though reeling from a blow.

‘If I can just rest for a moment,' he murmured.

‘Not just for a moment,' she said. ‘All night.'

‘What was that?'

‘You're not leaving while you're in this state. You'd forget where you were going and end up heaven knows where. Come on.'

She reached for him to help him to his feet. Dazed, he let her support him into the bedroom, where a gentle push sent him tumbling onto the bed. She went to recover his suitcases and when she returned he was sprawled out, dead to the world. Quietly, she drew the curtains and turned out the light.

‘Goodnight,' she whispered, closing the door.

She washed up quietly so that no noise should intrude on him even through the door. As she worked, she tried to believe that this was really happening. Her email had brought Roscoe flying home, despite his problems with jet lag, despite his work, despite his intense need to stay ahead of the game. Despite everything, he'd come speeding back to her.

Before retiring for the night, she opened the door of the bedroom just a crack. Roscoe was lying as she'd left him, his breath coming evenly. She backed out and went to curl up on the sofa.

Who would have imagined that he had an unsuspected
frailty? she thought. More—who would have imagined that he would allow her to see it?

Just before she fell asleep, she wondered if Teresa had ever been allowed to know.

She awoke in darkness, feeling slightly chilly. The weather was growing cold as autumn advanced, so she turned the heating up, then recalled that the bedroom radiator was sometimes temperamental.

Quietly, she slipped into the room, realising that she'd been right. The temperature was low and it took some fiddling before the radiator performed properly. In the darkness she could just make out Roscoe, lying still, then turning and muttering.

He must be cold, she thought, taking a blanket from the cupboard and creeping to the bed, hoping to lay it down without waking him. But his eyes opened as she leaned over.

‘Hello,' he whispered.

‘I just brought you this so that you don't catch cold,' she said.

She wasn't sure if he heard her. His eyes had closed again while his hands found her, drawing her down against him. There was nothing lover-like in the embrace. She wasn't even sure he knew what he was doing. But his arms were about her and her head was on his chest, and he seemed to have fallen asleep again.

It would have been easy to slide free, but she found she had no desire to do so. The feeling of Roscoe's chest rising and falling beneath her head and the soft rhythm of his heart against her ear were pleasant and peaceful. That was missing in her life, she realised. Peace. Tranquillity. This was the last man with whom she would have expected to find those elusive treasures, yet somehow it seemed natural to be held against him, drifting on a pleasant sea in a world where there was nothing to fear.

Which just went to show.

Show what?

Something or other.

She slept.

She was awoken by a sudden movement from Roscoe. His hands tightened on her and he looked into her face, his own eyes filled with shock.

‘What…how did you…?'

‘You pulled me down while I was putting a blanket over you,' she said sleepily. ‘It was like being held in an iron cage, and I was too tired to argue so I just drifted.'

He groaned. ‘Sorry if I made you a prisoner. You should have socked me on the jaw.'

‘Didn't have the energy.' She yawned, letting him draw her back against his chest. ‘Besides, you weren't doing anything to deserve getting socked.'

And what would I have done if you had?
The words ran through her mind before she could stop them.

‘Are you sure? Pippa, tell me at once—did I…I didn't…?'

‘No, you didn't. I promise. You were right out of it. You wouldn't have had the energy to do anything, any more than I'd have had the energy to sock you.'

She was laughing contentedly as she spoke and he relaxed, also laughing.

Suddenly he said, ‘What on earth is that?'

He'd noticed the shabby toy on her bedside table. Now he reached out and took it.

‘That belonged to my Gran—the one in that photo,' she said. ‘She called him her Mad Bruin, and I think he represented Grandpa to her. After he died she cuddled Bruin and talked to him all the time.'

Roscoe surveyed Bruin, not with the scorn she would once have expected from him, but with fascination.

‘I'll bet you could tell a secret or two,' he said.

Pippa choked with laughter and he drew her close, laying the little bear aside as carefully as though he had feelings.

‘Will you believe me if I say I never meant this to happen?' he murmured against her hair.

‘Of course. If you'd had anything else in mind you would have gone to Teresa.'

‘Teresa isn't you,' he said, as though that explained everything.

‘Ah, yes, you couldn't have talked stern practicalities with her.'

‘As a matter of fact, I could. She's my oldest friend.'

‘She's a great beauty,' Pippa mused. ‘Useful kind of “friend”.'

‘The best. She's helped me out of several awkward situations. Her husband was also my friend. In fact I introduced them. He died a few years ago but she's never looked at anyone else, and I don't think she ever will. She's still in love with his memory.'

Roscoe wondered why he was telling her all this. Why should he care what she thought? Then he remembered her with Charlie the other night, holding his face tenderly between her hands. And he knew why.

He waited for her to say something, and was disappointed when she didn't. He couldn't see that she was smiling to herself.

A
FTER
a moment Pippa summoned up her courage and said, as casually as she could manage, ‘So you went on being friends with her husband? He didn't steal her from you?'

‘Goodness, no! Teresa and I had just about reached the end of the line by then. She was a lovely person—still is—but that connection wasn't there. I don't know how else to put it. I enjoyed our outings, but I wasn't agog with eagerness for them.'

‘Now that's something I can't imagine; you, agog with eagerness—not over a woman. A new client, yes. A leap in the exchange rates, yes. But a mere female? Don't make me laugh.'

He was silent and she feared she'd offended him, but then he said quietly, ‘It might really make you laugh if you knew how wrong you were.'

The proper response to this was,
You don't have to tell me. I didn't mean to pry.

But she couldn't say it. She wanted him to go on. If this lonely, isolated man was about to invite her into his secret world then, with all her heart, she wanted to follow him inside. If he would stretch out his hand and trust her with his privacy it would be like a light dawning in her life.

‘Well, I've been wrong in the past,' she mused, going care
fully, not to alarm him. ‘If you knew the things I was thinking about you that first day, and even worse on the second day.'

‘But I do know,' he said, and even from over her head she could hear the grin in his voice. ‘You didn't bother to hide your terrible opinion of me—grim, gruff, objectionable. And that was when you were thanking me for helping you over those lost papers. When I landed you the job from hell with Charlie your face had to be seen to be believed.'

‘But I soon realised that you were right,' she said. ‘I'm the ideal person to do it because I can enjoy the game. A woman with a heart would be in danger.'

‘And you don't have a heart?'

‘I told you, my fiancé finished all that.'

‘I've begun to understand you,' Roscoe said slowly. ‘You come on like a seductive siren but it's all a mask. Behind it—'

‘Behind it there's nothing,' she said lightly. ‘No feeling, no hopes, no regrets. Nothing. Just a heartless piece, me.'

‘No!' he said fiercely. ‘Don't say that about yourself. It's not true. Once I thought it was but now I know you better.'

‘You don't know me at all,' she said, fighting the alarm caused by his insight. ‘You know nothing about me.'

‘You're wrong; I do know. I know you're kind and sweet, gentle and generous, loving and vulnerable—all the things you've tried to prevent me discovering, prevent
any
man discovering.'

‘Nonsense!' she said desperately. ‘You're creating a sentimental fantasy but the truth is what's on the surface. I have no heart because I've no use for one. Who needs it?'

‘That's your defence, is it?' he asked slowly. ‘Who needs a heart? I think you do, Pippa.'

‘Mr Havering, I am a lawyer; you are my client. My private life does not concern you.'

Her voice was soft but he heard something in it that was
almost a threat, and he backed off, worried more for her than for himself. There seemed no end to the things he was discovering about her, but he feared to put a foot wrong, lest he harm her.

‘All right, I'm sorry,' he said in a soothing voice. ‘It's none of my business, after all. Don't cry.' He could feel her shaking against him.

‘I'm not crying,' she said. ‘I'm laughing. Me, saying I'm a lawyer and you're a client, when we're lying here—'

‘Yes, we've got a bit beyond that point, haven't we?' he said. ‘We've both experienced things to make us bitter. Like the way when someone has promised to marry you, they become the person above all others you have to beware of.'

‘That's true,' she said in a voice of discovery. ‘Once you start twining your life with theirs, they have a whole sheaf of weapons in their hands—the house you chose together, the secrets you tell each other—all the things they know about you that you desperately wish they didn't. Ouch!'

She gasped for Roscoe's hands had suddenly tightened.

‘Sorry,' he said.

‘Did that last one—?'

‘Struck right home,' he agreed, drawing her head down against his chest once more. ‘You brood about it, which is nonsense because she and her new love have other things to talk about apart from you. But you picture them laughing, and wonder how you could ever have trusted her so much.'

‘And then you don't want to trust anyone again,' she whispered. ‘So you promise yourself that you won't.'

‘But it isn't so easy. If you go through life drawing away from people, at last you turn into a monster. I don't want to turn into a monster, although several people would probably tell you that's what I am.'

‘Sometimes it feels safer,' she agreed.

‘I won't believe anyone's ever said it of you.'

‘Why? Because I've got a pretty face? Haven't you ever heard of a pretty monster? It's all part of the performance, you see. The lad who was here the first night, the one I half crippled, don't you think he sees me as a monster?'

‘That doesn't mean you are one,' he said with a touch of anger in his voice. ‘Stop this.'

‘I led him on, didn't I? You'd think I'd know better by now, but a girl must have some fun in her life. You knew that, even then. That's why you hired me.'

He groaned and raised his hands to cover his eyes. ‘And this is what he did to you? Your fiancé?'

‘Or maybe I was always like that. It's hard-wired into me and it took him to bring it out.'

‘You don't really believe any of that stuff.'

‘Don't tell me what I believe.'

‘I will because someone's got to show you how to see yourself straight. You're as beautiful inside as you are out.'

She pulled herself up on the bed so that she could see him better in the dim light and pull his hands down.

‘We've known each other only a few days,' she reminded him.

‘I've known you a lot longer than that. I knew it when I saw you in the graveyard, swapping jokes with a headstone. It was the kind of mad, daft—'

‘Mutton-headed,' she supplied.

‘Glorious, wonderful—I knew then that you had some secret that was hidden from me, that you could teach it to me and then I'd know something that would make life possible.'

He lay looking up at her, defenceless, all armour gone, nothing left but the painful honesty with which he reached out to her.

Pippa felt dizzy, knowing that she'd come to one of those moments when everything in her life might depend on what
she did now. Roscoe's eyes told her that this was her decision, and she was stunned by how quickly it had come to pass. Just a few days.

He was reasonably attractive without being handsome. Yet the experience he'd given her tonight—of peace, joy and safety—had astounded her by outshining all other experiences in her life, and now the desire to kiss him was the strongest she had ever known. The tantalising half kiss he'd once given her had lived with her ever since, taunting and teasing her onwards to discover everything about him.

His eyes asked a silent question. Would she kiss him? The decision was hers.

And yes! Yes! The answer was yes!

As she adjusted her position he saw her intention and opened his arms. A little smile curved her lips, one she hoped he would understand. He did understand. The same smile was there on his own lips as she leaned forward, closer—closer—

The doorbell shrieked.

In an instant the spell died. They froze in dismay.

‘At this hour of night?' Pippa whispered, aghast.

Stiffly, she moved off the bed and made her way to the front door, calling, ‘Who is it?'

The voice that answered appalled her.

‘Pippa? It's Charlie. Let me in.'

She turned to see Roscoe standing in the bedroom doorway. Horrified, they stared at each other. Nothing more terrible could have happened.

‘Let me in,' Charlie cried.

‘No, I can't,' Pippa called back. ‘Charlie, go home; it's late. We'll talk tomorrow.'

‘Oh, please, Pippa. I've got something to say that you'll be glad to hear. Open up!' He rapped on the door.

‘Stop making so much noise,' she cried. ‘You'll wake my neighbours. Just give me a minute.'

She was talking for the sake of it while her gaze frantically went around the apartment, seeking evidence of Roscoe's presence. He was doing the same, seizing his baggage, hurrying with it into the bedroom. When he was safely out of sight, Pippa opened her front door.

Charlie immediately came flying through and seized her in his arms.

‘What…what do you think you're doing?' she spluttered.

‘Telling you that I've given in. I'll do it your way. I'll tell the police about Ginevra. I've been thinking for hours, and I know I have to do what you think is right.' He searched her face. ‘Aren't you pleased?'

‘Pleased?' she snapped. ‘Of all the selfish schoolboy pranks—waking me at this hour to tell me something you could have sent in a text message. How old are you? Ten?'

She was consumed by rage. At this moment she could almost have hated the silly self-centred boy.

‘Oh, sorry!' he said. ‘Yes, I suppose it is a bit late.'

‘Get out,
now
!'

Reading dire retribution in her eyes, he backed out hastily, gabbling, ‘All right, all right. We'll talk tomorrow.'

He was gone.

She listened as the footsteps faded, followed by the sound of the elevator going down. Roscoe emerged from the bedroom, walking slowly, not coming too close to her.

The memory of what had so nearly happened was burning within her. Another moment and she would have been in his arms, kissing him and receiving his kiss in return. She had wanted that so much and come so close—so close—and it had been cruelly snatched away.

What she saw when she looked at him made a cold hand
clutch her heart. His face was calm and untroubled. Whatever had happened to her, no earthquake had shaken him.

‘I'd better leave now,' he said.

‘No!' she said urgently. ‘That's what you can't do. He might linger downstairs, and then he'd see you.'

Going to the window, she drew the curtain an inch and looked into the street below.

‘There's his new car,' she murmured. ‘But there's no sign of him. I reckon he's still in the hall, planning to come back up here.'

‘You're right,' Roscoe groaned. ‘I'll have to stay for a while. Sorry.'

A few minutes earlier she'd felt him tremble in her arms and known that he would gladly remain all night. Now he spoke as though staying with her was a duty that he dreaded.

‘I'll stay out here,' he said, settling on the sofa. ‘You take the bedroom.'

The spell was broken. And that was good, she tried to tell herself. She'd had enough of spells.

She lay awake for the rest of the night, and finally went out to find Roscoe on the phone to Angela.

‘Charlie's arrived home,' he said as he hung up.

‘Don't mention Charlie to me,' she said crossly. ‘Turning up like that in the middle of the night! Does he think nobody has a life apart from him? I feel really sorry for your mother, pinning so many of her hopes on that overgrown infant.'

She was still full of nerves or she would have been careful not to say the next words.

‘She's had so much to bear in her life already. Losing your father, knowing he killed himself—'

Too late, she saw the strange look on Roscoe's face.

‘How did you know that?' he asked. ‘Charlie, I suppose?'

‘I already knew. David said something.'

‘So you've known from the start. You never mentioned it to me.'

‘I knew you wouldn't like it, and it was none of my business.'

‘That's right,' he said lightly. ‘Well, I'd better be going.'

She could have kicked herself. Roscoe's cool tension told her more than any words that he resented her for what she'd just revealed. In time, he might have told her, but he disliked her knowing without his being aware.

‘I'll make you some breakfast,' she offered.

‘No, I'd better be off. I'll be in touch.'

She doubted it. He couldn't get away from her fast enough.

There was nothing to do but stand back while he collected his things. Suddenly a chill wind was blowing. He gave her a polite smile, thanked her for everything, just as he should, but something was mysteriously over. Worst of all was the fact that she couldn't be sure what had ended, because she didn't know what had begun. She only knew that the sense of aching loss was unbearable.

 

Then a strange thing happened. Charlie became elusive. He didn't call, wasn't in his office and his cellphone was switched off. Without him, the trip to the police had to be postponed.

After two days, Roscoe texted:
Is Charlie with you?

She texted back:
I was about to ask you the same thing.

The next time Pippa's work phone rang it was the last person in the world she'd expected to hear from.

‘
Biddy—or should I call you Ginevra?
Where are you?'

‘Abroad; that's all you need to know. Charlie's a real gent, I'll say that for him. I'm not coming back but I've written to the police and told them it was me in the shop, not him. I wasn't going to, but then I got to thinking I owed him
something, so I sent the letter from…the country I was in. I'm in a different place now, so the postmark won't help them. But I wanted you to know about something else, so listen.'

Pippa did so, growing wide-eyed as Ginevra's information grew clear.

‘Thank you,' she said at last. ‘That'll be very useful. Where can I get hold of you?'