Rumours and Red Roses (11 page)

Well, tough.

Long term, it would never have worked.

Plans needed to be made. She might have to move back in with her mother for a while until things settled for she would certainly not be remaining here alone.

And that night, getting to sleep at last after an hour of tossing and turning, who should creep into her dreams but Rory. 

A
DELE’S BUSINESS PARTNER
and friend Emma Barton looked as if she sampled the food she cooked rather too vigorously. A short squat bossy brunette with a cropped hairstyle, she was a breath of fresh air, cheerful to the last and the first person Adele would choose to be with in a crisis.

Emma was indisputably queen in the kitchen, Adele happy to take on the role of second-in-command.

Emma never panicked.

Even now, following a comical misunderstanding with the
state-of-the-art
oven in the kitchen of Rory Chandler’s home, she was perfectly calm, insisting that they had loads of time and everything was under control.

The kitchen was newly fitted out, grey slate floor tiles contrasting with the cream fitted units, with the original pantry adjoining, a good set-up so far as Adele was concerned although the temptation to knock down the pantry wall when the kitchen planners were in must have been huge. Good on the man for not succumbing to that. Old-fashioned cool pantries were perfect for rows of bottled fruit, marmalade and chutneys and it was her dream that one day she would be the sort of woman who had the time to faff around and do things like that. She thought of the cramped cupboard of a kitchen in her flat and sighed.

She and James had once talked about having a house like this one day, a lovely house that befitted the hot-shot consultant he would be by then. Although recently they had talked about future plans less and less, as if they knew it was just a dream.

‘He’s a bit of a dish, don’t you think? I like blue eyes with dark hair. Interesting combination,’ Emma said, chopping vegetables with aplomb
before sliding them into a large earthenware pot. Considering he had been at pains to point out he was no cook, Rory had an impressive collection of cookware but they had brought along their own knives because most people had knives that could barely cut butter. For the main course, Emma was doing a chicken and mushroom hotpot, the basic fare Rory had requested but enhanced by one or two special
ingredients
like ginger, garlic and white wine. In other words, a posh hotpot if that was not a contradiction in terms. It was a one-pot meal to make it as easy as possible for him.

‘I assumed you would be letting yourself in. Are you saying that he was still here when you arrived?’ Adele asked, for she had been late in getting here herself and Emma was already well entrenched in the kitchen when she finally made it. Adele had been in charge of making the starter, which she had prepared earlier – blue cheese and walnut tartlets, which just needed a small garnish.

‘He was ready for off, looking good, smart suit, swinging his
briefcase
, keys in hand, but we managed a quick word,’ Emma said, glancing at Adele, who was now in charge of making the dining table look
beautiful
, at present engaged in arranging the flowers she had brought along. ‘He needed a bit of reassurance, I think, that we knew what we were doing. I must say, he’s going to a lot of trouble to impress her. Who do you think this woman is? This woman who’s coming along tonight? A lover from way back?’

‘How would I know?’ Adele asked, uncomfortable to be talking about him like this, in his own kitchen at that. ‘He’s divorced so he’s perfectly free to do what he likes.’

‘Exactly. Poor man.’ Emma sighed. ‘Don’t you feel sorry for them when their wives walk out?’

‘It depends. We don’t know the circumstances.’

‘I bet she walked out on him. He has a lost look about him.’

Adele laughed. ‘I didn’t think that at all. Did he flirt with you?’

‘God, no. Did he with you?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t
think
so?’ Emma gave her a look. ‘The way I see it is that your long-term bachelors are usually pretty well organized but the guy who’s been married is hopeless. He’s made an attempt to keep on top of it, I’ll give him that.’

‘Perhaps he has a cleaner?’

‘He said not,’ Emma told her.

Adele drew a sharp breath. ‘You didn’t ask him, did you?’

Emma grinned. ‘As for food, well, he’s got bugger all in the fridge of interest and hardly anything basic in the cupboards and his pantry is bare. He couldn’t knock together a quick nutritious meal if his life depended on it. I bet he lives on ready meals but I must say, aside from that, I’m rather impressed by him. He’s a sales manager apparently….’

‘When did he tell you that? I thought you said he was ready for off?’

‘He was but I managed to wheedle that out of him,’ Emma said, slicing through the air with the knife as she spoke.

‘What must he think? I wish you wouldn’t quiz people, Emma. It’s not our place to do that.’

‘He didn’t mind. He was very polite. I ask the right questions, Adele. Sales manager could mean anything although, judging from this house and the furniture and that suit he was wearing, he’s not selling
door-to-door
encyclopaedias for a living.’

‘I don’t think they do that any more,’ Adele said, scrunching up the tissue paper the flowers had come in and depositing it in the kitchen bin. When they departed, mission accomplished, this kitchen would be left in a pristine condition with everything done for him.

‘I love Victorian properties like this,’ Emma said. ‘I love them, even though the kitchens leave a lot to be desired. He should have had the pantry knocked through then he would have had the space for a kitchen table.’

‘I like it as it is,’ Adele said.

‘It’s OK. When I can afford it, when I find Mr Right and get married, I’m going for a house like this, though. New houses are too poky. You should see the master bedroom, upstairs, first on the right. The ceiling is dark brown, the walls cream and it works. It looks
fabulous
. No feminine fripperies, of course, but he’s managed to fill up all the wardrobes with his stuff. My God, he likes clothes.’

‘Oh, Emma, you haven’t been snooping around, have you?’ Adele asked, giving the flowers a final tweak. ‘How could you?’

‘It wasn’t deliberate. I was trying to find the bathroom and opened the wrong door. I only had a quick look round,’ she said with an
apologetic
smile. ‘I didn’t touch a thing.’

‘I should hope not.’

‘Will you stop being so stuffy. Have you seen the bathroom yet? It’s
amazing. It is opulence gone mad with a gorgeous roll-top bath slap bang in the middle of it. Go up and have a wee. Stop looking at me like that, Adele. We are in here legitimately and he did say to use the
facilities
if we needed them, didn’t he?’

‘Not the bath, though, and I think he mentioned we should use the downstairs cloakroom.’ Adele smiled at Emma’s sheer nerve. ‘All right, I admit it is a lovely house. Just a bit tired, I suppose, but that will be because she’s left him. Men let things slide. It needs redecorating.’

‘I think it must have been an amicable divorce. For instance, she left the china intact. I always like blue and white. Thank goodness he’s got a toning cloth.’

‘I did check. I said we could supply everything if need be,’ Adele reminded her, leaning back to admire the arrangement of pink and white roses that would tone beautifully with the pink candles. ‘What do you think?’

‘Perfect. Just the right height. At least they’ll be able to gaze longingly into each other’s eyes without peering round too tall flowers. Did you know that the Victorians went in for tall flowers just so they could avoid talking to the person opposite? Conversing across the table was not the done thing.’

‘You’re a mine of information,’ Adele said with a smile.

‘Useless information. Do you think she’ll be staying the night
afterwards
?’

‘Honestly, Emma, you’re the limit. I have no intention of checking his bedroom to see if he’s put clean sheets on the bed. Oh, heavens, you haven’t done that, have you?’

‘Would I?’ Emma pretended indignation. ‘Although the guest room next door is made up. Pretty little guest towels and everything. For a man, he seems to have thought of everything.’

‘I give up,’ Adele said. ‘You are evil, Emma. Bet you anything she will be staying and sleeping with him. He’s not going to go to all the trouble of cooking for her, is he, and then kick her out?’

‘
We
are doing the cooking.’

‘Yes but you know what I mean. He’s hardly going to send her off to a hotel afterwards, is he? Especially not on a day like this,’ she added, pulling a face as they listened a moment to the wind whistling through the trees. ‘It’s hell out there and going to get worse this evening.’

With time marching on, Emma became suddenly brisk, picking up
her checklist and the quick-fire notes she had prepared for Rory. They were written in plain English as if she was addressing a child at school but she had found that when you were dealing with people who hadn’t a clue – as they invariably were – it was essential to keep it simple, even to the extent of reminding him to put oven gloves on before he took dishes out of the oven. She had underlined with a red pen that he should take the lid off the hotpot for fifteen minutes prior to serving to brown the potatoes.

‘Starter in the fridge. Main course about to go on automatic timer in the oven. Dessert also in the fridge. Cheese already out. Wine chilling. Everything timed to be ready at seven o’clock as requested. He’ll have to do the coffee himself,’ she added. ‘Poor darling. He should have accepted our offer to serve and wash up. Why the hell doesn’t he have a dishwasher or am I missing it?’

‘He can sort out the coffee,’ Adele told her. ‘He made me some perfectly good coffee when I met him and anyway he’ll have his lady friend. Surely it won’t be beyond her to make coffee and pass him a mint?’

Emma gave her a sharp glance. ‘We are not the teeniest bit jealous, are we?’

‘Jealous? Whatever for? Like you, I’ve only met him once,’ Adele said, close to twisting her engagement ring round her finger, a sure sign of agitation, before realizing it was no longer there. The talk she had had with James when he returned from his trip away had finally made things abundantly clear and, semi prepared as she had been, she thought she had taken it on the chin, not giving him the satisfaction of breaking down and howling. ‘Give me a bit of leeway, Emma, for goodness’ sake. James’s side of the bed is still warm.’

‘I know …’ Emma sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t mean to be flippant all the time and I’m so sorry things haven’t worked out with James. I know you loved him once.’

Adele gave her a look.

‘And I know there’s not much point in saying that I never really thought the two of you were right for each other.’

‘My mother is furious with me. And Jennifer, James’s mother, is furious with him. She’s practically disowned him for what he’s done to me. The mothers are saying we need our heads banging together. Everybody seems conveniently to have forgotten the other woman. She’s going to get a rough ride when James takes her to meet his parents.’

‘Who is she? This new woman of his?’

‘Another doctor. Beauty
and
brains, would you believe?’

‘Never? Doesn’t that make you sick? It’s not fair. It should be one or the other. Which would you pick? Given the choice? I’d go for beauty every time. When you get landed with a face like mine, you’re up against it from day one.’

‘Stop it.’ Adele was not going down that road. She picked up the flowers. ‘It’s all right, Emma. I’m over it.’

She was not quite over it, of course, but if she said it often enough then it might come true. The dining room looked superb, a cosy dinner for two promised and, as she put the finishing touches to the table, placing the silverware and candle holders very precisely on the pale blue cloth, she wished for a moment that she was the one sitting opposite Rory this evening being wined and dined and very likely being made love to later in the cream and brown bedroom which, in spite of Emma’s enthusiastic comments, she had no intention of peeping into.

It was getting dark by the time she and Emma left with their mission accomplished to their satisfaction. In the kitchen, everything was ready. Adele drew the curtains in the dining room and switched on lamps.

As a final touch, she withdrew one of the pink roses from the arrangement, wiped it with a piece of kitchen roll and placed it in the centre of one of the linen napkins before folding it.

That would be the lady’s place.

Cosy.

And very romantic. 

J
AMES WAS BEING
impossible. Extraordinary for, if anybody should feel affronted, it was her. Maybe it was his guilty conscience. Maybe it was because she had not broken down in tears and begged him to stay. Or maybe, and this was much more likely, it was because she had confessed that she had been having serious second thoughts herself and he had just beaten her to it.

Whatever the reason, he had moved out in a monumental huff – goodness knows where but the blonde bombshell of a doctor could take over responsibility for that. In a way, it was just as well for it gave her time to catch her breath and take stock.

For the moment, Adele had decided reluctantly to stay put at the flat, at least until the end of the month when their present tenancy
agreement
would run out. With the miserly amount of money she earned, she couldn’t afford to keep it on. The trouble was it wasn’t going to be easy finding the money for anything else on her own and she didn’t want to take up her grandmother’s generous but ludicrous offer of paying the next six months’ rent for her. Her mother had said she could move back in with her but the offer was decidedly lukewarm. Relations between herself and her mother were strained just now and Adele had the feeling that she was still being blamed for the split with James, never mind that it was he who had cheated on her.

‘If you’d only paused to think before you booted him out,’ Louisa had said, tight lipped. ‘My hunch and Jennifer’s is it will all peter out, this thing with this other woman, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he wanted to come back to you.’

‘Mother, please …’ Adele had said wearily. ‘I don’t want him back, thank you, and you can tell Jennifer that. I am really sick of you two
trying to run my life for me. If you hadn’t been so pushy, both of you, we would never have got together in the first place.’

‘Don’t you dare start blaming us.’ Louisa had flared up then and her father had arrived in the nick of time, calming them both down in that way of his and averting a full-blown row.

On the work front, the fliers and adverts had produced better results than she and Emma had hoped for and they had been run off their feet recently with two funeral teas alone to fit in this week, and another dinner party, for six this time so it was on a bigger stage. Obviously, the funeral teas were something that could not be predicted, so there was always an edge of panic associated with those, but they had their choice of set buffets for them, priced per head, and Emma was brilliant at organizing.

It felt strange to be alone in the flat and, because she couldn’t bear to stay in the big bed she had shared for so long with James, she had moved into the single room next door. She had promised herself an early night with a celebrity-gossip magazine, needing the frivolity to take the edge off her present anxiety, but first she was going to treat herself to a long lazy soak in the bath. She lit the scented candles, placing them on the tiled ledge beside the bath, and turned off the central light, and had just stepped into the lovely warm bubbly water when the phone rang. For a few seconds, she let it ring, reluctant to move, but then her conscience took over. Emma had had an enquiry about catering for a wedding and that might be her now.

Wrapping herself in a soft bath sheet, she went to answer the
extension
in the bedroom. ‘Adele Bond,’ she said, wiping water off her face as it trickled down from wet ringlets of hair, noticing she was leaving damp patches on the carpet. If this was her mother trying to smooth things over but very likely rambling on again about what she considered was just a temporary rift from James, she would hang up and risk her wrath.

‘Hello, Adele. This is Rory Chandler. How are you?’

She came close to dropping the phone. His voice was incredibly sexy, warm and wonderful. ‘I’m very well, thank you. I wasn’t expecting a call from you,’ she said, hitching up the towel as it threatened to slide down. ‘Thank you for leaving the cheque out for us and the little extra amount. That was very kind of you.’

‘No problem. I know I agreed with Emma that I’d do the clearing up
afterwards but you seem to have left some pieces of equipment here. Knives and cloths and things. I assume you will want to pick them up unless you want me to drop them off somewhere? I can’t post knives.’

‘No, no, of course not. We’ll collect. Emma did say we were missing a few things. I understand she was going to contact you but there is no hurry. We have a large stock. Look … you’ve got me out of the bath. I’m standing here getting chilly,’ she said, instantly annoyed to have said that because now he would be picturing her standing here half naked. Ridiculously, it made her tug the towel up even further.

‘Sorry. Shall I ring back in ten minutes or so?’

‘No. Let’s be brief. I can pop by tomorrow evening around seven to collect them. Is that OK?’

‘It is indeed. Incidentally, aren’t you going to ask me how it went?’

‘How
did
it go? I hope the food was all right for you and that you were happy with our services,’ she said, dipping into professional mode. ‘Did you remember to take the lid off for the last twenty minutes?’

‘Oh God, I knew there was something I was meant to do.’

She drew a sharp breath. ‘Emma did leave you explicit instructions, Mr Chandler.’

‘Rory, please.’ He laughed. ‘I’m only teasing. I followed Emma’s instructions to the letter.’

‘Good,’ she said, feeling foolish now. ‘As I say, we really do prefer to serve it ourselves so that we can do any last-minute tweaking but as you specifically requested otherwise … Are you sure everything was all right?’ she added, feeling a sudden anxiety at the silence, sensing he was smiling.

‘Superb,’ he said. ‘We toasted the cooks. Gina was most impressed. The dessert went down a treat.’

‘Good. See you tomorrow, then?’

‘Yes. I’ll let you get back to your bath.’

Gina, she thought, as she dipped herself once more into the warm bubbly bliss.

Nice name.

‘Will this rain ever stop?’ Rory asked, drawing her indoors. ‘Oh, look at you, you’re soaked.’

No wonder. The skies had been a variation of grey all day and the rain had suddenly turned torrential, bouncing off the path. The short
run from the car to his front door via a fumble with the latch on the gate had been sufficient to wet her through and her umbrella was useless in this wind.

‘That’s three times this week I’ve had a soaking,’ she told him, aware that her hair that she had carefully brushed before coming out was completely shot. ‘I can feel a cold coming on and I really don’t have time for one. If you’ll just hand me the stuff, I’ll get going straightaway.’

They were standing just inside the hall and, if it was possible, the rain had further upped a gear so that the gate and the road beyond it was just a blur.

‘Come on in, for God’s sake. You must stay a few minutes until the rain eases off. It can’t keep this up for long. I was going to offer you a cup of tea but would you rather have a Lemsip?’ he asked with a smile, assisting her as she struggled to take off her wet mackintosh. ‘I can rustle up a sachet from the medicine cabinet and you can sit and drink it by the fire. You are cold,’ he said. ‘Your hands are like ice.’

He had touched them in passing as he helped her off with her coat. Once again, as she could not help one enormous sneeze, he volunteered to get her a Lemsip.

‘Thanks but a cup of tea would be just fine,’ she said, wiping her nose on a crumpled tissue, stepping out of her shoes, which had paper thin soles and were not meant for weather like this, and padding after him into the sitting room where a real fire was burning away in the lovely old fireplace. She loved this room with its high ceiling and modern chandelier and now it was a welcome haven from the storm outside. Strictly speaking, she could have dealt with this a whole lot more efficiently by taking up Emma’s offer to do this – Emma had been popping by earlier – but, for whatever reason, she had wanted to see him again.

Probably because she was on her own just now and had nothing else to do but dream up all sorts of weird and wonderful scenarios involving him, she needed to diffuse the situation. He was divorced. He had grown-up children. He was considerably older than her. All the things that ought to send warning bells shooting through her. She was
vulnerable
just at the moment and she had to watch out because, feeling let down by James, she might well do something incredibly stupid.

‘A cup of tea coming up,’ he said, going off into the kitchen and leaving her to relax a moment. He was wearing the old jeans which she
supposed were a neat fit for a man of his age. Mind you, he had a perfectly good shape and the shirt – another of those loosely cut silky ones – was blue, matching his eyes.

Emma had sussed this man out already. Traditional with a twist, reflected in his choice of décor and a boldly patterned modern rug that ought not to sit well in this house, in this room, but somehow did.

‘Thank you, Rory. I’m glad your meal went well,’ she said when he was back in the room.

‘Gina said it beat the socks off her usual hotel stuff and she doesn’t do cheap hotels either.’

‘That’s nice to know. We do aim for a certain standard.’

‘Gina’s a very old family friend,’ he said carefully, his tone of voice making her look directly at him. ‘She acts as a go-between, you could say, between me and Angela. Angela’s my ex-wife. We had a fairly amicable divorce but we find it best if we don’t deal directly with each other. We soon wind each other up.’

‘I see.’

‘Gina is a single lady and intends to remain that way. She stayed in the guest room overnight,’ he said, a twinkle in his eye. ‘In case you were wondering.’

‘Good heavens, why would I do that?’ she said, feeling heat on her face, agitated and alarmed because he seemed to have read her mind. ‘It’s none of my business.’

‘Look, Adele … I’m out of practice with this sort of thing. It’s four years since Angela upped and left.’ He fussed a minute with his cup and the plate of biscuits. ‘But I would very much like to see you again. Privately …’ he added quickly. ‘I don’t expect I shall be in need of your professional services for a while.’

She said nothing for a minute. Oh, come on. It was what she had half hoped for but now it had happened she was no longer so sure. She was all mixed up after James and you couldn’t just set something like that aside, all those years, not without a great deal of thought. She was not ready for another relationship. Despite what Emma was saying, jumping back into the deep end was not to be recommended. She needed to do a bit of toe-dipping in shallow waters first.

He misinterpreted her silence, driven to apologies.

‘Sorry. I’m forty-five, a good bit older than you and I have two grown-up daughters. I didn’t think before I spoke,’ he said, his face
tight. ‘And I don’t even know if you’re seeing anybody although your colleague did say that …’

‘Emma should mind her own business,’ she said sharply. ‘I’ve just split up with my fiancé, as Emma no doubt told you, and I know that before long they’ll all be trying to fix me up with somebody else and it’s insulting if you must know. For heaven’s sake, can’t I make up my own mind? As to the age thing, well, that’s not the least important. Why should you think that matters?’ she asked.

‘It doesn’t matter to me but I thought it might to you,’ he said. ‘Let’s leave it then. You need more time.’

‘No, I don’t.’ She looked at him and, even from this distance, she could feel the powerful waves of emotion pushing and pulling at her. She loved the way he was looking at her and wondered how she seemed to him. How could she, in so short a time, have given off such strong vibrations? Was she grasping at straws, still mortified by James going off like he had, choosing another woman ahead of her?

Why not give it a go? He wasn’t proposing marriage, which was just as well because she was in no mood at the moment to think about it. ‘I’d quite like to see you,’ she said, managing a smile, very aware that the reply was half-hearted as if she didn’t really mean it.

‘Great. In that case, I’m going to take you out to dinner this weekend. Consider it a date.’

‘I could cook us something here.’

‘Oh no, you don’t. I shall book us a table somewhere. Are you happy to leave the choice to me?’

She nodded. ‘I think it might have stopped raining,’ she said, standing up and suddenly anxious to leave, for she was taken aback by this and she didn’t feel at her best with her hair all scruffy and yes, she really did have the beginning of the snuffles. She needed to get away, to think about things before she blurted out something really stupid. ‘Or, at the least, it’s eased off. Funny weather, isn’t it? Quite warm in a way and the rain is so heavy and comes on so suddenly, it’s like being in the tropics.’

‘Yes. I suppose we have climate change to thank for that.’

She nodded, catching his amusement at the meteorological turn the conversation had taken.

‘I’ll be off then and I’ll look forward to dinner. Thanks, Rory.’

She paused, clutching the stuff she had come for, her excuse, and he
smiled, presumably at her ridiculous formality, promising to give her a ring about the arrangements, hesitating a moment at the door before kissing her lightly on the cheek.

After the briefest of respites to catch its breath, it was bucketing down again and she hurried down the path but, once in the car, waiting for the blowers to clear away the steamed-up windows, she found herself gently touching her cheek where, just a few minutes before, his lips had lingered.