A Pretend Engagement (15 page)

Varnie felt close to tears when she discovered that with mountains all around by no chance was she going to get a signal for her phone. Angry with her phone, the mountains, the weather, her car tyre,her own ineptitude-the list was endless-Varnie started walking, trying out her phone every fifty yards. It was a long walk.

When she did at last get a signal she was closer to tears than ever. With shaking fingers she stabbed out the phone number, hoping with all she had that he had not gone to bed, and that if he had he was not the sort who slept as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He wasn't. Almost as if he was waiting for the phone to ring, it was picked up. She did not wait for him to speak. `Leon, I've got a puncture,' she cried tremulously, `and I can't get the wheel off no matter how hard I try.'

To her relief he did not go in for a lecture, tell her to get lost, or demand to know what the deuce she thought she was doing, ringing to tell him about it. But, just as if he had picked up just how distressed she was, `Where are you?' he asked calmly. As best she could, her voice fracturing every now and then, she told him where she thought she was. `I...' It was as far as she got.

'I'm on my way,' he cut in, and delayed only long enough to instruct, `Lockyourself in. I'll find you.'

`You're coming...?' she gulped, but he was not there.

Varnie had no idea how long it would take Leon to get to her, but she felt cheered that she hadn't even had to ask him to come. Leon had not even suggested he would ring a garage to see if anyone would come out to her. Just `I'm on my way' and that was it.

It was a long walk back to her car, and by the time she neared it she was feeling distressed that she'd had to bother Leon. And still the rain pelted down. Her shoes were so squelchy she was tempted to take them off. Sock clad feet could hardly be more uncomfortable.

And then, in the quiet of the night, she heard the sound of a car. She was uncertain if she wanted to be seen, and as the car rounded a bend in the road, she flattened herself against the rocks. Only to be caught in the glare of the car's headlights.

Her heart started to pound when the car driver applied the brakes urgently.Only for mammoth relief to swamp her when, nothing else on the road, the driver stepped from the car.

`L-Leon!' she gasped tearfully.

`You appear a touch damp,' he remarked levelly of her drowned rat appearance. And, reaching her, he put up a hand and gently brushed some of her sodden hair back from her face. `Let's get you home,' he suggested mildly, and opened up the passenger door of his car and ushered her in.

'Th-thank you for coming,' she said politely, her teeth chattering. When he had nothing to say, but started the car going forward, Varnie imagined he was angry with her. `I couldn't stay in the car. I couldn't get a signal on my mobile.'

`You're safe, that's all that matters,' he said, turning the heater up full blast. Seconds later they reached her vehicle and a place where, since they appeared to be the only traffic on the road, he could turn his car around. `Do you need anything from your car?' he asked. `My b-bag,' she told him through still chattering teeth.

She went to leave his car to retrieve it, but, `Sit tight,' Leon ordered. 'I'll get it.'

Varnie sat tight, only then realising just how shivery and icy cold she was. She was hardly aware of what Leon was doing until he came back and wrapped a blanket around her.

`Every car sh-should have one,' she commented, with an attempt at humour.

`An aunt's idea of what every man should want for Christmas,' he replied, and Varnie thought she must be slightly delirious, because the words `I love you' popped into her head and very nearly out through her mouth. She decided there and then that she had better not utter another word until she had her head back together again.

In a surprisingly short space of time Leon was pulling up on the drive of Aldwyn House. He did not waste time closing the gates or putting his car away in the garage, but came round to the passenger door and helped Varnie out. She wanted to be in control, but did not feel in control. `I tried to change the wheel,' she said as, with the blanket still around her, Leon propelled her through the door. She knew she had already told him that, but she wanted to impress on him that she really had tried. She did not want him to think she was feeble, as she was sure that he must. She shivered involuntarily.

`Tell me about it later. Meantime, go up and have a hot shower. Use my shower,' he instructed. `The water pressure in yours in nonexistent.'

It passed her by completely that he had obviously checked out her statement that first Saturday that there was hardly any pressure in her shower. `It's all right. I can...' She shivered again, and all too plainly Leon did not intend to waste any time in arguing.

`Shower!Now!' he commanded, and when she just looked at him and didn't move he did no more than pick her up in his arms. For several seconds she couldn't comprehend what he was about,then he strode to the stairs with her and carried her up to his room.

Varnie was staring at him blankly when he put her down in his bathroom. `I'll give you one minute to dump your dripping clothes and get in that shower,' he enlightened her.

Shock stopped her shivering for two seconds. 'Otherwise-you'll do it for me?' she gasped.

`Count on it!' he rapped, and put himself on the other side of the door.

Varnie wasted all of five precious seconds just staring at the closed door. A moment after that, though, and she was speedily divesting herself of her clothing.

The shower was blissful. She didn't want to leave it. Hot water cascaded down over her head and over her chilled body. Slowly she began to thaw out.

`How are you doing?'

She had company!

With no idea how much of her nakedness Leon could see through the steamed-up glass, or even if he was looking her way, she called back, `Fine,' hoping she sounded as if it was an everyday occurrence for her to stand stark naked with just a glass partition separating her from a man she hardly knew but whom she was very much afraid she was in love with.

`Feeling warmer?'

Heavens! Love him she might, but this was embarrassing. `Yes, thank you,' she answered primly.

'You'd better come out now.'

In a minute.`Yes, all right,' she replied, turning the water off but waiting to hear the door into the bedroom close before she moved.

She didn't hear it close. What she did hear, and see, was the shower cubicle door slide open andan arm appear , extending a large fluffy towel. She wanted to be angry, but all at once she felt very tired, drained of energy and totally used up.

She took the towel from him and managed to wrap it round her, then stepped from the shower to find Leon, armed with a selection of towels, waiting for her. `Wrap this one around your head,' he instructed.

In a way, for all she had never anticipated being in this sort of a situation, she was glad to have Leon in charge. She raised her arms to wrap the towel around her head, though gave a wobbly cry of, `O-ooh,' when the towel around her started to slip.

Leon saved the day by taking a hold of the loosened end and tucking it in, his fingers warm against the swell of her breast but his manner exceedingly matter of fact. He handed her another towel and led her into his bedroom, moving her to sit on his bed. And while she sat there and dried her arms and shoulders, Leon stooped down and rubbed her feet and up to her knees dry.

By the time the rest of her was patted dry, and he had towelled her hair as dry as made no difference, Varnie was beginning to feel more than a little on another solar system. `Who would have thought you'd have such skills?' she murmured dreamily.

`You ain't seen nothing yet,' he replied, with such a wonderful grin her heart took a flyer.

'I'll-um...' She took a shaky breath. `I'll be all right now,' she told him. `Wrap your hair in a dry towel,' he said, and while she was doing that he collected a towelling robe he must have found in the airing cupboard, which was now hotting up on a radiator. `Put this on,' he instructed.

By then she was getting the picture that this was Leon's show. Quiet and authoritative, he had decided what needed to be done to prevent her from getting pneumonia and she'd better comply-or things were going to get tough.

`I bet you're a stinker at board meetings,' she complained, but when he held the robe up for her to put her arms in she stood and complied without further argument. The robe was around her when he whipped the towel beneath away. `Goodnight,' she said." Er -thank you for everything.'

Leon didn't answer, but walked with her to her bedroom. `Where do you keep your nightshirts?' he asked, on going into her room with her.

She started to feel shy, and shook her head. `I'll sleep in this,' she decided.

He did not argue, but pulled back the bedcovers. `Get in,' he said. She was mesmerised and quite beyond resisting. Varnie got into bed and lay down totally exhausted. Leon brought the covers up over her shoulders. `Goodnight,' she said again.

`Have a lie-in in the morning,' he suggested. Her eyelids were already drooping when he bent down and gently kissed her. `Goodnight,' he added softly.

Varnie's eyelids fluttered brieflyopen, then closed again. She did not wonder why she loved him. She just knew that love him she did.

VARNIE slept soundly, but she slowly began to surface when some inner alarm clock nudged her at six the next morning. She did not yet feel ready to start her day, and lay there recalling Leon's instructions last night to have a lie-in in the morning. Then she recalled he had kissed her, and a smile tugged at her mouth.

She opened her eyes, but before she could focus on anything she heard a voice enquire politely, `Do you always wake up smiling?' She jerked awake. She knew she must be dreaming, but Leon's voice had sounded so real. And no wonder! He was standing, fully dressed, right there in her room! `I thought you might like a cup of tea,' he said, and as he came to sit on the side of her bed so Varnie struggled to sit up.

'I'll get up,' she said.

`I thought you might. But you don't have to.' Her brains felt all over the place. Her heart was fluttering away just from seeing him. She tried hard for coherent thought. `I had a day off yesterday,' she said, as a safe non-committal anything.

`There's no reason why you can't have today off as well,' Leon replied.

`You spoil me.' She tried for mockery.

He laughed, and floored her when he said, `While I'm appreciative of your- luscious-um-charms, I wouldn't advise sitting up any straighter.'

Her eyes followed his-and she went scarlet. Most of the tophalf of her breasts were out from the covers. Another inch and her pink tipped `charms' would be fully exposed. Hastily she pulled the covers up. `Where did that robe go?' she wailed.

`It wasn't me-honest,' he teased, and suggested, `You must have felt hot in your sleep and taken it off in the night.'

`Oh,' she mumbled, but had no memory of doing so. Br-thank you for turning out on such a foul night and coming to look for me,' she said. `I'd nothing else planned,' he answered easily.

"And thank you for helping me afterwards.'

`It seemed important to get you out of those sodden clothes. You were shaking with cold by the time we got here. No after-effects?' he asked. `You're feeling all right this morning?'

`Given that I'm unused to sitting up in bed chatting away with a male of the species at six in the morning,' she began, then remembered, and smiled as she recalled, `Though I did it to you yesterday, didn't I?"

'And without thought to bring me a cup of' tea,' he complained nicely, and with a wry look,

`Nor is it the first time you've done it.' His eyes were on her face, and she blushed on recalling how she had barged into his room stark naked. Her blush must have been what he had been looking for, because he gave her a wicked kind of a grin and stood up. `Drink your tea,' he instructed, and strolled out from her room. Varnie watched him go, and it seemed impossible to her just then that she had ever hated him for his brutishness. Or indeed that he had ever been brutish. He was just-totally charming. Was it any wonder she was head over heels in love with him?

She sipped her tea, recalling how Johnny had said that all the women fell for Leon. But she did not want to be one of a long line of women in love with him. Though it appeared that in these matters there was very little she could do about it other, of course, than make jolly sure Leon never saw or suspected how she felt about him.

She did not want to love him; she knew that. Soon they would go their separate ways. He would go back to London, and she would go back home to her parents. But love him she did, and had for days and days now-even though she had tried to believe she felt every other emotion for him but love. How could she be falling for him? Only two weeks ago she had thought she loved Martin.

Perhaps that was why she had tried to deny the emotion that had been waking in her for Leon. She had been ready to go away with Martin, for goodness' sake. Would have gone, had it not been for that fateful telephone call to his office.

And yet she did not love Martin.And never had. She knew that now.Knew it as she should have known it when she had not been as devastated as she would have expected to be that the man could be such a deceiver. What she did know now was that the way she had felt about Martin was totally nothing like the way she felt for Leon.

She might have imagined that she loved Martin, but there was nothing imagined about this powerful emotion that consumed her with regard to Leon. Not only did she love Leon, she was heart and soul in love with him. And what was she going to do about that?

There was, she knew, absolutely nothing that she could do about it. Nor was she going to sit here all day fretting about it. Varnie left her bed, made use of her temperamental shower, and got herself ready to go downstairs to see the man who yesterday she had tried to pretend meant nothing to her but who today she had to face meant everything to her.

The smell of bacon being grilled greeted her as she went down the stairs. `You shouldn't be doing that!' she protested. `That's my job.'

`You're having the day off,' Leon reminded her.

`You were serious?" 'Would I joke about such matters?'

She loved him in this teasing mood. `Your holiday's done yougood ,' she commented-that or obey the sudden impulse to throw her arms around him and hold him close for a few moments.

`You're hinting I was like the proverbial bear with a sore head when we were first introduced?'

Shegrinned her answer. `Not that from what I've seen you've had much of a break,' she said, serious as she recalled the hours he'd spent in the study. Then all at once she had the most appalling thought. `You want me to leave?' she asked abruptly.

Leon looked at her sharply. `What brought that on?' he demanded.

`I thought...' Her voice tailed off-she was learning that love made you sensitive, vulnerable. `I just thought, with you cooking and everything, that you might not need me around any more,' she mumbled. `Oh, I need you around, Varnie Sutton,' Leon replied, his expression bland. `One egg or two?' he asked, and her momentarily dull and empty world righted itself and she burst out laughing. Hadn't she used the same `one egg or two' question once instead of answering? Looking at him, Varnie saw his eyes were on her laughing mouth and she knew then that she was going to have to be careful that Leon did not guess how things were with her-how easily, without eventrying, he could make her world bright.

`I-um-don't usually have a full breakfast,' she mumbled, in case he had not noticed.

`Today is different,' he decreed, and asked, `What shall we do with it?'

She just loved that `we', even if he did mean nothing by it. She glanced out of the window. It was still pouring with rain. `How can it still be raining?' she asked. And, to answer his question, `At a guess, I'd say gardening's out.'

Over breakfast they got down to practicalities. `We'd better see about getting your car back,' Leon stated. `I honestly did try to change that wheel, but the nut things just wouldn't budge.'

`You can't be good at everything,' Leon commented pleasantly.

And Varnie glowed-he must mean that she was not too bad a housekeeper. `My clothes!' she suddenly remembered. `I left them on your bathroom floor.'

`I dropped them in the washing machine,' Leon answered matter-of-factly. `They were a touch wet.'

`Saturated, I'd have said,' Varnie remembered. `You got rained on too,' she recalled apologetically.And, because she only ever wanted him to think of her as beautiful, as he had once remarked, `Whatever must I have looked like?'

Leon leaned back and solemnly studied her for endless seconds, before he as solemnly declared, `Not unlike one of my drowned ferrets, actually.'

She laughed. She had to. Oh, stop it, Varnie. He'll guess. But, oh, she did so love him. `I asked for that,' she admitted, and seemed totally unable to do anything to prevent her lips from curving upwards.

Leon seemed to enjoy seeing her smile, but after a moment abruptly transferred his gaze to the grey and miserable day outside. He turned back to enquire, `How did things go with your parents yesterday?'

This time Varnie felt she could smile freely without it being personally about him. `They were most understanding,' she replied.

`Your mother was all right about your grandfather?'

Her mother's censure about that had been rather lost under her concern that Varnie could have put Johnny's job in danger. `I was about to have my wrist slapped, but then something elsecame up,' Varnie answered, glad to be able to be truthful. But, fearing Leon might enquire further, she stood up and began taking their used breakfast plates to the sink unit, commenting as she went, 'I'd better try and find a garage prepared to go out to my car.'

`I'll go out and change your wheel,' Leon decided, joining her at the sink. Varnie turned to glance at him. `No, you won't,' she contradicted. `It's still tipping it down and you'll get soaked and all messed up- and I'm feeling badly enough that through me you got a drenching last night without you getting another one today. I'll ring a garage they'll need to take that tyre in and fit a replacement anyway.'

Leon heard her out, and then politely enquired, `Were you the manager of that hotel?'

She blinked, not with him for a moment. Then she was smiling again-this love business was making an utter nonsense of her head. `You think I'm a bossy boots?"

'How could I?' he asked dryly.But conceded, `You're a spoilsport, Miss Sutton. I was looking forward to getting my hands dirty.' She turned away-she was smiling again. But she was not smiling a second or two later when, and it had absolutely nothing to do with what they had been talking about, Leon levelly let a name fall. `John Metcalfe?'

She thought her heart would stop. `What about him?' she asked, her knees starting to liquefy as she turned back to face him.

Leon had a look about him that suggested he was not of a mind to let up. `You tell me?' he invited. `You told me you had slept with him.'

Attack had to be her defence. `That's none of your business!' she charged-and a fat lot of good it did her.

`Is he impotent?"

'How would I know?' she exclaimed, exasperated, realising only then that Leon's question no doubt came from his knowledge that she had never had a bed lover.

`How indeed?' he replied, but was grinning suddenly when he followed up with, `You may have shared a bed with him one time, Varnie Sutton, but that's all you did.'

`Smug devil!' she becalled him, realising her quick and fast exclamation of `How would I know?' was all the proof Leon needed that `slept' had been the operative word between her and his assistant.

Leon was unoffended, and was still looking pleased withhimself when he commented, `I'll get on the phone and find a garage.' Varnie's equilibrium was restored an hour or so later. While she did a few necessary chores, and attended to the clothes she had been wearing yesterday-her shoes were never going to be the same again-Leon drove to deliver her car key to a garage some miles distant. Because the garage owner was on his own that morning he said he would go out to her car that afternoon, but that it would be of help if they could drop the key in to him. All being well her car, complete with new tyre, should be delivered to them later that day.

Leon was not yet back when the telephone rang. Varnie doubted that the call would be for her. Her parents would ring her mobile phone 11' they needed to contact her. So unless Russell Adams was back visiting his parents... She picked up the phone, and said, 'Hello,'-and was astonished to hear her brother's voice!

`Where are you?' she asked, thinking that he must have come home early.

'I'm in Australia.' he replied. `What are you doing there' he countered. `I was hoping Leon-' he broke off. `Oh,' he said, then, going typical Johnny whenever he was caught out, went into full confession. `You're going to hate me, but I-ahem- rented out your property while you were away. I know, I know, no need to say it. I know I've one hell of a cheek, but-' He broke off. `What are you doing there'? You're supposed to be in Switzerland! What happened-did the snow melt?2 'I-er...' If Johnny was ringing from Australia, now did not seem the time to tell him about `the married Martin', as Leon called him. It then suddenly struck her that if her brother had rung Aldwyn House not expecting her to be

there, in that case he must have rung expecting to speak with Leon.

`Oh, you came home early,' Johnny erroneously realised. `Well, thank goodness not too early. The thing is,' he went on, in the bubbly, effervescent way he had when things were going well for him, `when Leon Beaumont wanted a bolthole, I said I knew the very place. I gave him my key to Grandfather's place, but didn't expect him to stay very long.' He paused,then enquired, `He's not there, by any chance-?' He broke off again, and then, his voice gathering speed, `No, of course he isn't. You both wouldn't be there. The thing is, I'm just bursting with news, but can't tell anyone until Tina has told her parents...'

Tina?Her parents? `Slow down, Johnny,' Varnie instructed.

'I'm gabbling, right?"

'You're gabbling.' `Is it any wonder? I'm in love!' he sang happily.

'You're-in love?' Shewas doubting her hearing.

`I knowit's early days yet. And I know I've only known her for a couple of weeks, but she's wonderful, Varnie. And last night we talked for hours and hours, and she agreed to marry me. Isn't that great?' He was ecstatic. `Anyhow, Tina's parents are away until next Monday, anal we agreed we'd tell both sets ofparents morn or less at the same time. So I can't ring Mum and Dad until Monday. You won't say anything to them, will you?'