Camellia (42 page)

Here in the bedroom there were many reminders of his mother: needlepoint pictures, satin pleated cushions she'd made, fading now, their piping worn. Photographs of each of them as babies covered one wall and there were still more in silver frames on the dressing table. Nick always slept in the sitting room next door on the rare occasions he came home. He made the excuse that it wasn't worth messing up one of the guest rooms, but in fact it was because he liked to be close to his father.

When his mother was alive, they'd had private rooms on the other end of the house. Nick had bitterly resented Magnus moving out of those and into here on her death. But time and maturity had mellowed him and now he understood.

Ruth had loved pastels, dainty furniture and pretty watercolours, but once she was gone Magnus found it too painful to live with so many reminders of her. His new sitting room was as sternly masculine as a gentlemen's club with dark moss-green walls, leather armchairs and wall-to-wall books. Aside from one photograph of Ruth and Magnus on their wedding day, there were no jolts back to the past.

Nick stared out the window, watching as the sky turned dark. He knew he should have a shave, put on a suit and present himself downstairs for dinner with Magnus. But though he usually enjoyed meeting the guests and club members and playing the part of the prodigal son, tonight he was tempted to stay upstairs.

He could not get Mel out of his mind. He could picture the moment he first saw her as clearly as looking at a photograph.

One lone spotlight shone down on her dark glossy hair, tied back at the nape of her neck with a black velvet bow. She wore a slinky red dress which on many women would have looked tawdry, but she had the dramatic, almost Mediterranean-type colouring to carry it off.

When he saw Mel standing there behind the bar, he felt as if someone had winded him. Sophie had described Mel as some kind of raddled bar-fly, just waiting to get her teeth into their father. He knew Sophie exaggerated, and he'd wanted to see for himself what this harpy was really like. But he'd still expected a more buxom, obvious type; brassy, maybe even with an out-of-date bouffant hairstyle. This girl, and she was a girl, not a woman as Sophie had implied, was simply beautiful. For perhaps the first time in his life he enjoyed being anonymous.

A year or two earlier he would've been too puffed up with self-importance to really look or listen to her. But he found himself noting every last thing: the sensuality of that slightly fuller lower lip, the shape of her eyes, the jutting of her hip bone through her dress as she reached up to the optics to get him a drink.

All his girlfriends had been blonde, if he was entirely honest with himself he'd admit he'd chosen them almost as accessories. At eighteen he liked them small with big breasts; later he'd progressed to the long-legged Sloaney kind with bony bodies. But Camellia would never settle for being anyone's fashion accessory. She had a mind of her own and a look that was entirely individual.

In some ways she was like Kate, the forty-year-old divorcee who had helped him get back on his feet two years earlier. Not in looks – Kate had been voluptuous with violet eyes – but in the warmth, the interest, and perhaps the passion. His relationship with Kate had been platonic, but he could see for himself that the passion was there, just as he could in Mel.

It was the passion he found himself dwelling on late that night as he tried to go to sleep on his father's settee. Mel would be hot stuff, he was certain of that. This was definitely a girl with vast experience of men. He found himself remembering all those humorous, incisive little remarks she made about her male friends in Ibiza. And the seductive way she'd looked at him.

Now after four days in Mel's company, Nick was puzzled. He had abandoned all Sophie's theories: Mel had nothing but pure admiration and affection for his father. From his conversations with Joan Downes, Antoine and other members of staff, he could tell she wasn't on the make in any way. If she were to leave Oaklands, they'd all be devastated: it seemed she practically ran the place.

They had so much in common: they laughed at the same things, they could talk so easily and naturally. He'd been honest with her about his past, though there was much more he could tell her, and she'd opened up to some extent about hers. So why didn't she want him?

Perhaps he was still a bit arrogant, but he
knew
Mel was attracted to him. He could sense it, like being enveloped in a strong perfume. Why was she fighting it?

Later that night, Mel lay on her bed and sobbed her heart out. It had been one of the most painful evenings she'd ever endured. Despite her protestations Magnus had insisted that she joined him and Nick for dinner in the dining room. As she'd sat there toying with poached salmon, flanked by the two attentive men, she'd had the strongest desire to pack her bags and leave for good.

'I'm going back to London tomorrow,' Nick said, as he poured her a glass of wine. 'But I'll be back, continually, until I wear you down.'

Magnus just smiled beatifically, as if in his mind he was already arranging the wedding. 'That's right, son,' he said heartily. 'Faint heart never won fair lady. Mel's just out of practice. I've kept her under lock and key for too long.'

She could only blush and smile weakly. Nick looked so handsome in his dark suit and a pale blue shirt. How could she possibly feel such overwhelming
wanting
for him? Or betray the trust of Magnus, who gave her such fatherly affection without suspecting they were related?

Sitting there in candlelight, she was struck by similarities in all three of them that she'd failed to notice before. She had high finely drawn cheek-bones, and so did Nick. The lines and softening flesh on Magnus's face had stopped her noticing them before, but she could see them now. Their hair and eye colour had prevented her from seeing other resemblances, yet Sophie had dark hair and eyes, and Magnus's own eyes were sometimes tawny, sometimes green, never a true blue like Nick's.

Their skin tone was another pointer: by day, one only noticed that Magnus's was ruddy brown from working outside, and Nick's seemed pallid in comparison. But now she saw they all had the same underlying olive tone. And although Nick looked fairer-skinned, she remembered him saying that when he returned from Greece last year he was almost black. Even their lip shapes were a giveaway. Each of them had a clearly defined Cupid's bow, a wider, more fleshy mouth than usual.

At one time she would've been delighted to find further evidence of her closeness to Magnus, but now she felt sickened by it. She longed to be an anonymous employee, with nothing more pressing on her mind than how to spend next week's wage packet.

The conversation had moved on to Magnus's future plans to install a gymnasium and an indoor pool in the stable block. He jokingly suggested to Nick that he could take a course as a fitness instructor so that he'd have something to fall back on if his acting career ever folded completely.

Nick had mentioned in passing before that he worked out in a gym in London, but hearing Magnus speak of it gave Mel a sudden vision of Nick naked. She drank more wine to cover up her confusion.

Then Magnus said he intended to see she had driving lessons. 'It's ridiculous you not being able to drive,' he said almost curtly. 'You could do the banking for me and get out more. I shall arrange the lessons tomorrow.'

It got worse as the meal went on. Every long-term plan Magnus mentioned included her in a major role. It was quite clear that he was looking ahead to his retirement, and intended her to be manager.

1 want to expand here,' he said, smiling at her, then glancing back at Nick as though they had already discussed this in detail. 'I'm looking into having an annexe built next to the stables, with another twenty rooms, I thought of incorporating a conference room too so we can offer businesses a complete package.'

A week ago Mel would've been wildly enthusiastic about these plans. She might even have suggested that they tried to attract more weddings. But now she just drank her wine and listened to the men, hoping against hope that some emergency would come up in the kitchen so she could rush off.

Nick was talking about his schooldays, describing how it had been when he was home for the holidays, back when Ruth was alive. It was painful to hear both men speaking so lovingly about her, knowing that during this time Magnus was writing to Bonny, about herself. Nick's childhood sounded so idyllic, a tree house up in the woods, school friends coming to stay for weeks on end, putting on plays in the stables with local children.

Yet Nick didn't once mention the time after Ruth's death and Mel sensed he had been as unhappy then in adolescence as she had been. Maybe that was when he learned to act, pretending to be tough and uncaring as his father withdrew into himself in grief: a lonely young boy forced to become a man too quickly.

'It's time you had a holiday, my girl,' Magnus said a little later, prompted perhaps by her unusual silence. 'Nick's always raving about the Greek islands. It's still lovely there at this time of year, how about the pair of you popping off there for a week?'

With hindsight Mel realised Magnus was just being kind, concerned because she wasn't sparkling and afraid that he'd been overworking her. But at the time she just saw it as manipulation. 'If I want a holiday I can arrange it myself,' she snapped without thinking.

She saw the two men exchange glances and realised she was a little drunk. Afraid she might make a bigger fool of herself she made a feeble excuse about having to have a word with Antoine. Before either of them could protest she got up and left the dining room.

Fortunately Antoine did need a little help, as the dishwasher had broken down. Mel took everything out and washed and dried it by hand while Antoine dished up desserts.

By the time she got back to the dining room, Magnus and Nick had retired to their sitting room with a bottle of brandy.

Sally smirked at Mel as she imparted this information. 'They asked for you to join them,' she reluctantly added.

Sally was the only member of staff Mel wasn't entirely comfortable with: a tall, thin rather Roedean-ish sort of girl, by day a student at Bath university. Mel had wondered before whether Sally might be jealous of her; now she knew from her sharp tone that she fancied Nick.

'I'm not feeling too good,' Mel said lamely. 'I think I'll just go to bed. Will you tell them for me?'

She had just turned onto the last flight of stairs to the top floor, when the door to Magnus's sitting room opened and Nick appeared. When he asked her to come in, she offered the same excuse she'd given Sally and went on up the stairs. Nick followed her, taking them two at a time.

'What's really the matter?' he asked, catching up with her on the landing outside her room.

'I told you. I don't feel well,' she lied. Washing up had sobered her up a little.

'This evening's all been too much for you, hasn't it?' he said. 'Dad's like a bulldozer when he gets going.'

The understanding in his voice brought tears to her eyes. The softness of it seemed to soothe the troubled place inside her. But as he saw her tears he drew her into his arms.

'There, there,' he said comfortingly. 'You mustn't mind Dad. He's just afraid of getting too old before he achieves all his dreams. He forgets that some things can't be rushed.'

It was so good to be held by him that for a moment she forgot her fears, even when his hands moved to cup her face.

'You're worth waiting for,' he whispered, kissing her nose. 'Sometimes I can be the most patient man in the world.'

His mouth came down on hers, and for a brief moment she yielded to him, losing herself in the sweetness of those hot, sensual lips.

But reality came back swiftly and with it absolute horror. She pushed him away forcefully. 'Don't ever do that again,' she said, wiping away his kiss with the back of her hand. 'I told you I wasn't interested. Can't you get that through your thick head?'

He took a few steps back from her, his face flushing a bright pink.

'I'd like to say I'm sorry, but I'm not,' he said turning to go back down the stairs. 'I don't know what it is with you, Mel, but I shall find out one way or another. You wanted to kiss me as badly as I wanted it. You don't fool me.'

As she lay in bed crying, Mel knew she was trapped. All evening she'd seen pointers to Nick's dogged determination, from the child who decided he would be an actor, despite opposition from his family, to the way he'd managed to climb back up that ladder after his initial arrogance had toppled him off. He might have been a playboy in the past, but he wasn't one now. He had decided she was his destiny, and she knew he would persevere.

'Why do this to me?' she whispered into the dark, to the same presence she'd once thanked for landing her in this beautiful room. 'What have I done to deserve it?'

Chapter Sixteen

Mel looked out of Magnus's sitting room window at the heavy, driving rain. It was not quite four in the afternoon, yet it was almost dark. The strong wind had stripped the trees of their beautiful autumn leaves, covering the lawn and terrace with a tawny patchwork. To her it was a poignant reminder of the day she arrived at Oaklands two years ago, and the day last year when she met Nick Osbourne for the first time.

'When are you going to tell me what's eating you?'

The growled question startled her. She pulled the heavy tapestry curtains to, then turned back to Magnus. He was recovering from pneumonia. It had started with a bad cold the previous month, turned into bronchitis after an afternoon spent working outside in the rain, and finally to pneumonia when he refused to take himself off to bed.

He was sitting in his high-backed leather chair, close to the log fire, wearing old grey flannels and a maroon smoking jacket. The tea tray she had just brought in sat on a small table beside him. He'd never been ill in his life before and he made a very bad patient, constantly getting out of bed, and delaying his recovery still further. But he was on the mend now, and next week Nick would be taking him off to the Canaries to convalesce in the sun.