Reckless Runaway at the Racecourse (14 page)

     ‘I don’t like boats.’

     ‘Good. Because I wouldn’t sleep a wink if I knew you were canoeing anywhere other than a swimming pool with at least three qualified instructors present. But that’s not the point.’

     ‘What is the point, exactly?’

     He took a deep breath. ‘The point is that I’m on your side. And if I can help you to do something you really want, I will. I think you’d make a fantastic vet nurse and I happen to have contacts I can use to get you experience and even, maybe, a job at the end of it. I’d like it a lot if you’d let me help. No strings attached. That’s all.’

     ‘All?’ she queried warily.

     ‘All. Anything else between us is – I hope – still up for negotiation.’

     Fliss let out a sigh. ‘I don’t know, Luke. I’m not very good at asking for help. It scares me.’

     ‘You didn’t ask,’ he pointed out.

     ‘I know, but it’s the same. What if I start to depend on people to help me and then they let me down?’

     It was his turn to sigh. ‘I don’t know, Fliss. I guess it would make you human like the rest of us.’

     For the next week, both Luke and Fliss were careful not to make any mention of the elephant in the room. She was quietly going ahead with her plans to leave. He was carefully not making any obvious attempts to persuade her to stay. The L word had been studiously avoided by both of them.

     ‘It’s the Zhaos’ ball tomorrow,’ Luke said over breakfast one morning.

     ‘I know. Here.’ Fliss put a plate of scrambled eggs in front of Luke and went to find a clean mug in the dishwasher.

     ‘I thought you might like to take the day off.’

     Fliss looked up at him in surprise. ‘Tomorrow?’

     ‘And today, if you want.’ Luke smiled at her. ‘There’s nothing urgent you need to do, is there? Put the answer machine on the phone and set up an auto-reply on the email. I’ll deal with any emergencies that come up.’

     ‘Oh. But what am I supposed to do?’

     Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out a credit card. ‘My treat. Go up to London. Get a new dress. Have your hair done. Shoes. Make up. Whatever you want.’

     Fliss stared at the card on the kitchen table between them.

     ‘I already have a dress.’

     ‘That’s okay,’ Luke assured her. ‘I’m sure you can find room in the wardrobe for another.’

     She shook her head. ‘I don’t need another dress.’

     He smiled. ‘Since when did need come into it?’

     ‘Luke, what is this about?’

     Luke paused mid-bite. He took a proper look at Fliss’s face, then laid his fork down carefully. ‘Is this one of those times where a man says something and a woman hears something totally different?’

     ‘You tell me.’

     He sighed. ‘I just thought you might like a treat. Some time to pamper yourself. A trip back to London. You’ve been stuck out here in the country with me for weeks now, wearing old jeans and smelly jumpers as often as not. I wanted you to have some fun. As thanks.’

     ‘For what?’ she replied coldly.

     Luke eyed her warily. ‘For everything. You’ve worked hard, you’ve put up with my unsociable hours, you’ve provided a welcome distraction from work when I’ve needed it. I wanted to make sure you knew how much I appreciate it.’

     ‘Hmm.’

     ‘Fliss, what’s the matter?’

     ‘I thought you liked the way I look.’

     He stared at her as if she had gone mad. ‘Of course I like the way you look.’

     ‘But you don’t trust me to dress properly for a ball?’

     Luke shook his head. ‘Fliss, I have no idea where all this is coming from. If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. Wear whatever you damn well want to the ball.’

     ‘I will. And whatever I wear, I’ll damn well pay for it myself.’ She turned her back on Luke and stomped over to the sink, turning the tap on at full blast and squirting in a large dollop of washing up liquid.

     She stared out of the window blindly, hardly knowing why she was so angry.

     ‘Here.’ Luke’s hand slid past her to switch the tap off and pull out the plug. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered into her ear. ‘I don’t know why I got that all wrong but obviously I did. I just wanted to do something nice for you.’

     With his hands lightly round her waist, Fliss took a deep breath. ‘What made you think that was what I’d like?’

     ‘Apart from the hundreds of pairs of shoes I carried upstairs when you first arrived?’

     She smiled slightly. ‘Okay, you have a point on the shoes.’

     ‘You like dressing up. Don’t you?’

     Fliss nodded. ‘Sometimes. But I also like being in charge of what I wear and not having other people tell me it’s not good enough.’

     ‘That wasn’t what I was trying to tell you. I love the way you dress.’

     ‘Even when I’m wearing old jeans and smelly jumpers?’

     ‘Especially then.’ Luke kissed the side of her neck. ‘I just thought you’d find it fun. My mother always used to like a day up in London to get herself done up for a special event.’

     Fliss blinked. She hadn’t ever heard Luke voluntarily mention his mother before.

     ‘Did she have a new dress every time?’ she asked cautiously.

     ‘Every time,’ he said bleakly.

     ‘Luke?’

     His arms tightened around Fliss’s waist as he answered the implicit question. He’d never talked to anyone about this before but it seemed important for Fliss to know. ‘She hated it here. I never realised when I was growing up but looking back it seems obvious. She resented the fact that she had to live out in the country, with the smell of the horses and no one for company.’

     Fliss frowned. ‘But there’s loads of people around. How could she have been lonely?’

     Luke gave a hollow laugh. ‘Mum wouldn’t have dreamed of making friends with the staff. So there was just me and Dad. I was at school most of the time and Dad worked more hours in the day than I do.’

     ‘Poor woman.’

     Luke had never thought of it like that but Fliss was right. His mother had been lonely and unhappy. ‘Yes. You’re right. I don’t suppose it was easy for her.’

     ‘But?’

     ‘But she didn’t make it easy for herself either. She didn’t want to make friends here. She took every opportunity could to pop up to London – for a haircut, or lunch with a friend, or shopping for new clothes. The worst insult anyone could give her was to suggest she looked provincial.’

     ‘Wow. But surely she knew that’s what it would be like before she married your father?’

     Luke shrugged. ‘You’d have thought so. But they met at Royal Ascot – the most glamorous race meeting in the year. I think she expected her life to be a social whirl of society engagements with the rich and well-connected. Not Huntingdon in the rain.’

     ‘Oh, Luke. Was it very miserable?’ Fliss sounded genuinely concerned.

     ‘For her, yes.’

     ‘For you?’

     He didn’t much want to think about that either. ‘I suppose so. I didn’t know any different, though.’

     ‘What made her leave in the end?’

     ‘She found a richer, younger, more sophisticated replacement,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘She always did like spending someone else’s money. It didn’t matter if the horses’ tack was falling apart or if Dad was struggling to pay the stable lads’ wages. Mum always took the credit card and spent money like it meant nothing.’

     ‘Good thing you’ve got millions, then,’ Fliss said lightly.

     Luke shook his head. ‘I do now. Dad didn’t then. He barely scraped by, paying Mum’s bills and just about keeping the animals fed. We needed every winner we got back then.’

     ‘I didn’t know that.’

     ‘No. You’ve never asked,’ he pointed out. Since she’d first found out about his wealth, Fliss had shown a refreshing lack of interest in his money.

     ‘I didn’t think it was any of my business.’

     Luke told her anyway. ‘I set up a property development company with a mate when I left school. We hit the market at just the right time. Made a million in our first year. He bought me out when Dad retired and I wanted to come back to the stables.’

     ‘For how much?’

     ‘Twenty-seven million. Thereabouts. I’ve invested most of it. It means that the stable will be secure for the rest of my life, even if it turns out I’m a hopeless trainer.’

     ‘You’re not a hopeless trainer,’ Fliss replied automatically. ‘You’re going to win the Derby.’

     Just because Fliss said it didn’t mean it was true. But Luke felt warm inside at the thought she believed in him. He leaned down, turning Fliss to face him, and kissed her gratefully.

     Gratitude turned inevitably to heat and the whole thing took a lot longer than he had intended. His coffee was stone cold by the time he picked up the mug. Fliss took it from him, emptied it into the sink and set about making him a fresh one.

     ‘Luke?’

     ‘Mm?’ He’d picked up the newspaper and automatically started skimming the racing pages.

     ‘Is your mother happy now?’

     ‘I wouldn’t know.’

     Fliss didn’t say anything. She didn’t know how to help. Her own father had walked out before she was born. Until now, she hadn’t realised that might have been better than the alternative. If he’d stayed, there was still no guarantee that Fliss would have had the storybook happy family she’d once dreamed of. More likely, her childhood would have been as miserable as Luke’s.

     ‘Sorry,’ Luke said when she brought his coffee over. ‘I didn’t mean to land all that on you.’

     ‘I’m not your mother, Luke,’ Fliss said softly.

     ‘I know that.’

     ‘I’m happy here.’

     Luke put down the paper and took hold of her hand. ‘Are you?’

     Fliss met his gaze. ‘Oh, yes.’

     ‘Then will you think about staying? Not forever,’ he rushed on, before she had a chance to refuse. ‘Another six weeks?’

     It would be so easy to say yes. So easy to fall into this life that Luke was offering her. To believe it could be real. That it could last.

     But Luke was proof that fairytales were never real. The façade always hid something much worse.

     ‘Just until the end of the summer,’ he was saying. ‘Then you could start your course, or go travelling or whatever. Will you think about it?’

     Slowly, she nodded. ‘I’ll take today and tomorrow off. And I promise, I’ll think about it.’

     Luke picked up his credit card and silently offered it to Fliss.

     She shook her head. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

Chapter Eight
  

     Scarlet silk slithered over Fliss’s head and down her body, covering her lacy black underwear. She’d had her chestnut hair dyed to give it more of a deep auburn tint that made a dramatic statement against the clashing red of the dress. Jet black jewellery added a note of sophistication and she had splashed out on a stunning pair of black high heeled sandals with bright scarlet soles that showed as she walked.

     Fliss had blown over half her winnings from the race on tonight’s outfit. She had one goal in mind: to render Luke speechless at first sight, and then again when she took it off.

She squirted perfume on her wrists and neck, then down her cleavage and behind her knees. The hairdresser had twisted her curls up into a loose knot, careful to leave enough tendrils falling down her face to tempt Luke into touching, tucking, stroking her. Tonight was all about seduction and no detail had been left to chance.

     Finally she drew a black sequinned stole over her elbows, picked up her bag and went downstairs.

     One glance at Luke’s face and she knew she’d hit the mark. It was a good job he had ordered a taxi because he was in no fit state to drive with his jaw trailing on the floor and his eyes fixed on her cleavage..

     She paused halfway down the stairs and smiled at him.

     ‘You scrub up well.’ Indeed he did in his understated dinner suit and black handtied bow tie. ‘Like James Bond.’

     ‘So do you,’ he said, dragging his eyes up to her face with an obvious effort. ‘Like Jessica Rabbit.’

     Fliss laughed. ‘Is that meant to be a compliment?’

     ‘Yes. Though I’m not sure you should be allowed out in that dress.’

     Fliss let her eyes widen in mock innocence. ‘Why not?’

     ‘It doesn’t hide very much, does it?’

     She descended the last few steps and leaned close. ‘If you’re lucky, Luke Caldecott, I’ll show you exactly what it’s hiding. Later.’

     He drew in a shaky breath. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

     She was doing it deliberately, Luke decided. Touching people’s arms, brushing kisses to their cheeks, batting her eyelashes and teasing with her lips and eyes. Flirting came as naturally as breathing to Felicity Merrick. Luke took a deep breath and told himself that it didn’t mean anything. She was only teasing him. There was no way she thought she was going home with any other man tonight. Even if she was determined to dance with every other man in the room.