City Cinderella Page 10

  ‘How is she now?’

  ‘Running a temperature, and so wretched, poor darling, she gave in without a word when I laid the law down about staying to take care of her, and my children.’

  ‘You know, Nat, I’m sorry Thea’s ill,’ said Emily thoughtfully, ‘but in other ways—’

  ‘It’s an ill wind, and so on,’ he finished for her. ‘One snag, though, Emily. Louise Powell told her you answered my phone today.’

  ‘Only because I was mopping your kitchen floor, Mr Sedley!’

  ‘Thea didn’t know that, obviously. But apparently Tom and Lucy could talk about nothing else but you when they went back after half-term, so my wife asked me point blank if there was anything between you and me now, Emily.’

  ‘What? I hope you convinced her that’s utter nonsense, Nat Sedley.’

  ‘Yes. In the end,’ he said, an odd note in his voice. ‘But only at the cost of a little white lie.’

  Emily braced herself. ‘What kind?’

  ‘I was so determined to clear the decks with Thea that I said you were passionately in love with the new man in your life.’

  ‘Thanks a bunch!’

  ‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to produce him in the flesh. But I’d like our stories to match if you happen to talk to Thea.’

  ‘Right.’ Emily hesitated. ‘Nat, what about the original problem? Is Thea coming round on that one, too?’

  ‘Yes, thank God. We had a long talk this evening, after I put a jubilant pair of twins to bed. Let’s just say I’ll go happy to bed myself tonight.’

  Wishing she could say the same, Emily spent a restless night, gave up trying to sleep at last, and with the aim of getting finished to be with Lucas as soon as she could, arrived so early at the Donaldsons’ flat that Liz hadn’t left for work.

  ‘Goodness, you’re an early bird, Emily,’ she said, surprised. ‘Ben’s only just left. I’m agog to know what happened with Nat, so shoot. You won’t be telling tales out of school,’ she added, when Emily looked troubled. ‘At the firm, all Nat’s colleagues know the story. Besides, I’ve met Thea, even been to a party at their house in Chastlecombe. How is she?’

  Emily explained the situation and passed on the news that Nat was staying on to look after his wife and children.

  ‘But that’s wonderful.’ Liz raised an eyebrow. ‘Why aren’t you happy about it?’

  ‘Because the original rift may be healed, but Thea’s now got some crazy idea that Nat’s interested in me, for heaven’s sake.’ Emily groaned in despair. ‘And to convince her otherwise he told her I’m having a red-hot affair with someone else.’

  Liz gave a shout of laughter. ‘Poor Thea. She’s almost pathologically jealous where Nat is concerned. Which is understandable. Thea’s a honey, a wonderful homemaker and a brilliant mother. But pretty she’s not. And Nat is quite the handsomest man I’ve ever laid eyes on. Don’t let on to Ben I said that,’ she added, laughing.

  ‘I won’t.’ Emily hesitated. ‘Look, Liz, I suppose I shouldn’t be asking this, but do you know if Thea ever had reason to be jealous of Nat?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Liz assured her. ‘The trouble started when Nat’s PA left. Enter Melanie Baker—blonde hair, long legs and cleavage. She lusted after Nat from the first, but he wasn’t having any. So when they worked late together one night Melanie tried to seduce him.’

  ‘Wow! What did Nat do?’

  ‘Promptly dispensed with her services. Whereupon Melanie, spitting fire, storms down to Chastlecombe and tells Thea she’s been having a sizzling affair with Nat from the day they met. Sweet, unremarkable Thea took one look at this centrefold blonde and believed every word.’

  ‘Instead of trusting her husband. Poor Thea. Anyway,’ added Emily, brightening, ‘according to Nat, everything’s fine now, except for her crazy idea that he fancies me, of all people.’

  ‘Not so crazy, Emily,’ said Liz, getting up. ‘You’re attractive and female and you live in Nat’s house—you know what they say about propinquity.’

  ‘I assure you it doesn’t apply in this case. Besides, Thea ought to know me better than that—’ Emily was struck by a sudden thought. ‘Oh, crikey. Once she’s better, I hope she doesn’t turn up on spec in Spitalfields to meet this lover Nat dreamed up for me.’

  ‘If she does, there must be someone you can trot out for the purpose?’ Liz grinned. ‘I’d offer Ben for the role, but Thea’s met him.’

  After Liz left, Emily worked faster than usual in her hurry to see Lucas. When she was sure the flat was immaculate, she locked up and ran across the cobbled street to the converted eighteenth-century warehouse she much preferred to the modern apartment block which housed the Donaldsons.

  Strange, she thought, as she went up in the lift. After spending her childhood in a draughty Victorian vicarage she’d yearned for something modern and labour-saving when she went flat-hunting with Ginny. The one they’d rented was a bit poky, or bijou in brochure speak. But Emily had loved it so much it had taken endless persuasion from Miles to coax her to leave it for the bigger, pricier apartment of his own choice.

  But now she’d regressed a couple of centuries in her taste, both in Nat’s house in Spitalfields and in Lucas’s home, which, though a hip loft conversion, was part of an old, historic building. She loved both places. Which was silly when neither would feature permanently in her life. In fact, thought Emily gloomily, she would be forced to look for pastures new right away if Thea intended spending much time with Nat in London.

  Before Emily could put the key in the lock Lucas opened the door, dressed in a Cambridge-blue sweater and vintage jeans. He looked very different from the irritable invalid of only days before.

  ‘I heard the lift.’ He smiled as he took the borrowed ski-jacket she held out. ‘Hello, Emily.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said breathlessly. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘All the better for seeing you,’ he said softly, with a look in his eye which did serious damage to her resolutions. ‘I missed you.’

  ‘It’s only been a couple of days,’ she said, brushing past him to take off her jacket, but he was too quick for her and slid it from her shoulders.

  ‘It felt a hell of a sight longer than that!’ His lips twitched. ‘Relax. I won’t remove anything else.’

  She ignored him and went off to the kitchen. ‘If you’ll sit in the living room I’ll leave it until last,’ she said briskly.

  ‘Let’s have coffee first.’ He seized her waist and sat her on one of the stools at the bar. ‘Like me, it’s ready and waiting for you.’

  This, thought Emily bitterly, wasn’t fair.

  Lucas slid on to the stool beside her and filled two mugs. ‘There. While you drink that tell me everything you’ve done since I saw you last.’ He gave her a challenging look. ‘I presume you’re still getting messages from Miles?’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘Because every time I ring the machine takes over for a while before you answer.’ Lucas took her hand and stroked a finger over it. ‘Tell me. Is that bastard frightening you?’

  Not half as much as you are, thought Emily, panicking. ‘He says I’ve made off with something belonging to him.’

  ‘And have you?’

  She shrugged. ‘The only thing I can think of is the laptop. I gave it to him for his birthday, I admit. But I paid for it and still have the receipt to prove it, so he’s out of luck if he wants it back.’

  ‘If that’s all he wants, give him the damn thing,’ said Lucas irritably. ‘I’ll buy you another one.’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Emily detached her hand. ‘Anyway, I’m not worried about Miles.’

  ‘Then what’s wrong? Tell me.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, depressed. ‘Most of it is none of my business.’

  ‘But it’s worrying the hell out of you, so get it off your chest. Or do you have to rush back to Spitalfields to minister to your landlord?’ He grinned when she glared at him, then sobered. ‘Seri
ously, Emily, come and sit down for a while and tell me what’s wrong. You can trust me to keep it to myself, whatever it is.’

  ‘I know that.’

  When they were installed at opposite ends of the familiar sofa, Emily gave Lucas a brief outline of the trouble between Nat and Thea Sedley, and how the latter’s illness had been the catalyst to bring them back together.

  ‘Amazing thing, influenza,’ commented Lucas. ‘Without it, you and I might never have met, and in the Sedleys’ case it’s mended a broken marriage. I assume it is mended now?’ he added.

  ‘More or less.’ Not without reluctance, Emily told him about Thea’s suspicions where she was concerned.

  ‘Can’t say I blame her there,’ said Lucas, looking down his nose. ‘I share her point of view.’

  ‘But you don’t know Nat, whereas Thea’s known me all my life.’ Emily thrust her hair behind her ears in agitation. ‘I would never dream of doing anything to harm her—or the twins.’

  Lucas moved nearer to take her hand again. ‘Emily, I refuse to believe your money was the only attraction for Miles. And you know damn well I don’t find you a turn-off either. Thea Sedley obviously thinks her husband feels the same.’

  ‘She doesn’t any more,’ said Emily gloomily. ‘Nat’s told her I’m violently in love with the new man in my life.’

  ‘And who the devil’s that?’ he demanded, eyes slitted.

  She shook his hand off impatiently. ‘A phantom lover who doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Ah.’ Lucas relaxed. ‘So what happens if the suspicious Mrs Sedley turns up unexpectedly one day, thirsting for an introduction?’

  ‘Lord knows,’ said Emily despondently. ‘Liz would have offered Ben’s services, but unfortunately Thea knows him.’

  ‘She doesn’t know me.’

  ‘It’s no joking matter,’ she snapped.

  ‘Who’s joking?’

  Emily stared at him, startled.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Lucas casually. ‘If the occasion arises I’d be happy to oblige. After all, there’s no lie involved.’ He touched a hand to her cheek. ‘On one recent, unforgettable occasion I actually was your lover.’

  Emily sprang up precipitately. ‘Time I made a start,’ she blurted.

  For the next two hours Emily cleaned and polished and scoured, ignoring Lucas’s frequent demands that she take a break, or stop altogether.

  In the end he seized his state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner and thrust it in a kitchen cupboard. ‘Stop it right now,’ he said in a tone which brooked no argument. ‘Or are you by any chance trying to solve our little problem by sheer physical exertion?’

  She thrust damp hair from her forehead, her eyes widening as she realised what he meant. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘It occurred to me,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Well, it didn’t occur to me!’ she spat at him. ‘I was merely trying to get everything done as quickly as possible so I could get back where I belong.’

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. ‘After what you’ve told me about his wife, do you feel you belong in Sedley’s house any more?’

  Emily stared at him, stricken. ‘No—I suppose I don’t. I’d better start looking for somewhere else.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s past two. Shouldn’t you be taking some medication?’

  ‘In a minute. Let’s have some lunch.’

  ‘But I didn’t do any shopping on the way in,’ she reminded him, seized by the sudden urge to throw herself into Lucas Tennent’s arms and cry her eyes out. Which was idiotic. There was nothing to cry about. She just needed sleep. ‘Shall I dash out for something now?’

  ‘Certainly not. I ordered in. For the moment you’re going nowhere,’ he said inexorably. ‘Wash your hands, or whatever, then come and eat.’

  When Emily got back from the bathroom she found a tray waiting on the chest in front of the familiar sofa.

  ‘Not exactly a feast,’ Lucas said, indicating the platter of sandwiches. ‘But I thought the occasion merited a touch of ceremony.’ He set this thumbs to the cork of a bottle of champagne, removed it neatly, then filled a couple of tulip-shaped glasses and handed one to her.

  Emily took it with a dazed word of thanks, then followed his beckoning hand and sat beside him on the sofa. ‘Champagne? What are we celebrating? Your recovery from flu, or is it your birthday?’

  ‘Something far more important—an anniversary.’ He touched his glass to hers. ‘It’s exactly a week, almost to the minute, since you and I met for the first time.’

  Emily almost dropped the glass.

  Lucas grinned. ‘It’s only a sandwich and a glass of bubbly, woman. And in broad daylight in the afternoon, at that. Hardly cause for panic.’

  ‘I’m not panicking,’ she lied, and gulped down some champagne. ‘These look delicious,’ she added brightly when Lucas handed her a filled plate.

  ‘I would have preferred to take you out to dinner, but I thought you might lay down the law about behaving sensibly—’

  ‘I certainly would!’

  ‘I meant,’ said Lucas, ‘that you’d rage about relapses and so on. So we’ll postpone the dinner date until you think the time is right.’

  ‘Lucas,’ said Emily patiently. ‘This is lovely, and I’m flattered you went to so much trouble, but that’s as far as it goes. I’m certainly not dining out with you.’

  ‘Why not? It’s just a way of saying thanks for all you’ve done for me,’ he said, undeterred. ‘Nothing more sinister than that.’

  Surprised to find the argument had sharpened her appetite, Emily started on another sandwich and prepared to do battle. ‘Pointless rather than sinister, Lucas. Because when you’re fit and well, and back in the City, things will revert to normal between us. You the City Banker, me your cleaner. And never the twain shall meet and all that.’

  ‘I thought we’d put paid to all that nonsense.’ Lucas pushed his plate away and refilled their glasses. ‘Are you by any chance a snob, Emily Warner?’

  She stared at him in exasperation and waved a hand around. ‘How do you work that out? You own this. I live in one room I rent for such a small amount it’s tantamount to charity. How can I possibly be a snob?’

  ‘Inverted variety.’ He raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Does Mrs Sedley know how little you pay for your room, by the way?’

  Emily sniffed. ‘I’ve no idea.’ She drained her glass recklessly. ‘You know,’ she said, with a confiding air fostered by the champagne, ‘it really hacked me off to think that Thea suspected me of—of—’

  ‘Sharing her husband’s bed?’

  ‘I don’t suppose she went that far!’ Emily shrugged. ‘If so, it’s utterly ridiculous. I don’t think of Nat that way.’

  Lucas topped up her glass. ‘If she’s jealous of him, I take it Sedley’s got a lot going for him in the looks department.’

  ‘Liz says he’s the handsomest man she’s ever met.’ Emily thought for a bit. ‘How are you on movie stars?’

  ‘Adequate.’

  ‘Think of a young Robert Redford, only taller and even better-looking, if that’s possible.’

  ‘Good God!’ Lucas eyed her askance. ‘And you don’t find Sedley attractive?’

  ‘Of course I do, but not in the way you mean. Nat’s kind and nice and I like him a lot. I’m grateful to him, too. But to me he’s just my brother’s friend and not my type at all. I don’t go for fair men.’

  ‘In that case—’ Without warning, he scooped her on to his lap and kissed her. ‘Part of the celebration,’ he whispered against her parted lips. ‘If this is never going to happen again you can at least agree to a few kisses.’

  ‘Because of your outlay on champagne?’ she said rashly, and said no more for some time, returning kisses that grew so heated it was alarmingly obvious where they would lead if she didn’t do something fast. But when Emily gathered her wine-blunted wits about her and tried to get free, Lucas held her tightly against his chest.

  ‘I want you, Emily,’ he said hoarsely.

&nbs
p; ‘No!’ She shook her head frantically. ‘It’s not going to happen again, Lucas.’

  He tipped her face up to his. ‘You don’t want me?’

  ‘No,’ she lied in desperation. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You mean that?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said woodenly, and his eyes hardened, the heat in them icing over so quickly she shivered and scrambled to her feet. She ran into the kitchen, almost tripping over her bag in her hurry to be gone.

  ‘Wait,’ said Lucas, catching her up in the hall. ‘There’s still a certain matter outstanding between us. Or have you forgotten?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Emily threw him a scornful look. ‘I never forget it for an instant, believe me.’ She snatched up her coat, disdaining his help as she pulled it on. ‘Certainly not enough to risk the same mistake twice.’ She grabbed her backpack by the straps and made for the door, but Lucas stood barring her way.

  ‘Emily. Please. If you find somewhere else to live let me know.’

  ‘All right.’ Her mouth dropped. ‘Though, in the interests of the Sedley marriage, perhaps I’d better stay where I am for the time being after all. Otherwise, Thea might think her suspicions were right.’ She looked up with a bright smile. ‘Remember to finish the entire course of tablets, Lucas. You’re obviously a lot better—’

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ he said grimly, then took her hand. ‘Have a good rest this weekend, Emily. I’ll see you on Monday.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Lucas. I’ll wait until you start work again before I come back to clean. I’m sure you can manage until then. Unless you’d rather get someone else—’

  ‘I don’t want anyone else,’ he said through his teeth. ‘I want you.’

  Emily gave him a despairing look and hurried out on to the landing outside the flat, feeling oddly hurt when Lucas closed his door before she even got into the lift.

  Outside in the windy, cobbled street, Emily found that the champagne had given her a splitting headache and the straps of her backpack were cutting into her shoulders for once. And she was halfway back to Spitalfields before she remembered that Lucas hadn’t given her the usual Friday cheque.