In Separate Bedrooms (2 page)

There was no way her mother could have a healthy animal put to sleep—which was how they had ended up with four dogs of their own, already! No way could she send Sophie to a dogs’ home either, for the very same reason; Sophie might not find a new owner, and so might possibly meet the same fate.

Ordinarily Sophie would have been out of the kennel following her mother around as she worked, but as her mother had been expecting a visitor—this visitor, as it turned out!—she had put Sophie in one of the kennel rooms just for the afternoon.

‘That’s terrible.’ Jack Beauchamp straightened frowningly, still absently stroking Sophie behind one ear.

‘Yes,’ Mattie acknowledged heavily, in total agreement with him. Over that, at least! ‘If you would like to
come this way …’ she returned to her brisk, businesslike tone ‘… I will show you one of the empty rooms so that you can see exactly where—Harry?—will be staying if you decide to book him in for next weekend.’ Something Mattie, in spite of her mother’s need for business, hoped he wouldn’t do. She had already agreed to help her mother over the Easter weekend, which meant she was more than likely to bump into Jack Beauchamp again then!

‘It’s certainly luxurious,’ Jack Beauchamp acknowledged a few minutes later, sitting down in the armchair that stood to one side of the guest room.

‘Dogs are such loving, giving creatures, we feel they deserve the best,’ Mattie rejoined.

Brown eyes surveyed her unemotionally for several long seconds. ‘I agree,’ he finally answered. ‘Harry is going to love it here.’ He stood up. ‘I know it must sound slightly strange to you, but Harry has been with me since he was a puppy; he’s six now, and he’s never been away to kennels before.’

Mattie softened slightly. Having grown up with animals, she had the same weakness for them as her mother did. And there was no doubting that Jack Beauchamp—whatever else he might be!—cared about his dog very much.

‘I’m sure he’ll be fine here with us,’ she assured him as he once again bent down to make a fuss of Sophie. ‘Let me take you outside and show you the spaciously individual runs we have for each guest.’ She carefully locked the doors behind them as they went back outside. ‘Although each dog is taken for a long walk every day too,’ she hastened to add.

Jack Beauchamp gave that disarming grin once again. ‘This is more comfortable than some human hotels!’

‘Yes,’ Mattie acknowledged ruefully. It had taken a lot of capital to build this luxurious boarding-kennels in the first place, took even more for its upkeep, but it certainly was a first-class hotel for canines.

He quirked dark brows. ‘Do you and your mother run it on your own, or do you have help?’ he asked conversationally as they strolled back to the front office.

‘We have help,’ Mattie answered evasively. ‘But I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s a beautiful setting?’ she deliberately changed the subject. After all, it was really none of this man’s business whether or not she helped her mother on a full-time basis.

It
was
a beautiful setting too. Only a few miles outside London, they were nevertheless surrounded by countryside, their own large garden a riot of spring flowers.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured in agreement.

Mattie turned to look at him, her breath catching in her throat as she saw Jack Beauchamp wasn’t looking at the garden at all, but at her!

Well, really!

She stiffened resentfully. ‘I’ll pass you over to my mother now, so that the two of you can sort out the details for your pet’s stay,’ she told him briskly as they re-entered the office. Her mother looked up with a smile, Mattie’s barely perceptible nod of confirmation erasing some of the anxiety from her eyes.

‘I hope you found everything to your liking, Mr Beauchamp?’ Her mother smiled at him warmly.

‘Everything,’ he confirmed softly.

Once again Mattie looked up to find him looking at her rather than her mother. He was doing it again!

‘And please call me Jack,’ he invited her mother.

‘Diana,’ her mother returned happily, obviously feeling none of the awkwardness around this attractive man that Mattie obviously did.

Of course her mother was about ten years older than Jack Beauchamp, whereas Mattie was around ten years younger. But even so, her mother was still an attractive woman, had also been a widow for a very long time. Admittedly her mother had always claimed to have loved Mattie’s father too much to ever become involved again, but surely a woman would have to be almost dead herself not to be aware of Jack Beauchamp’s good looks?

‘Exactly how did you come to hear of The Woofdorf, Jack?’ her mother continued conversationally, the complete professional when it came to her beloved boarding-kennels. ‘It’s always nice to know these things. Was it a personal recommendation, or did you perhaps see one of our ads—?’

‘Strangely enough I found some of your cards lying around in the office. I have no idea who could have put them there.’

Mattie suddenly became very interested in the dozens of photographs that adorned one of the walls of the office, hoping that neither her mother, nor Jack Beauchamp, had noticed how anxious she’d suddenly become.

‘Obviously a lucky find,’ he acknowledged warmly.

‘Obviously,’ her mother agreed; no doubt thinking, for us as well as Jack Beauchamp.

He nodded. ‘I was explaining to your daughter earlier that Harry has never been away to kennels before—even one as luxurious as this,’ he allowed. ‘It’s just that I
really have to be in Paris next weekend, and as the whole family is going, there just isn’t anyone left here who I can leave him with, as I usually do when I have to go away. I have to admit—’ he grimaced ‘—that I’ve left it this late in booking because I’ve been putting off the evil day for as long as possible.’

Family? What family? Surely this man wasn’t
married
, too?

‘Every owner feels as you do the first time, Jack,’ her mother told him kindly. ‘But I do assure you, we will take very good care of Harry. If—’

‘I hope you’ll both excuse me,’ Mattie cut in abruptly, suddenly
really
anxious to get away from the company of this particular man. ‘I—I really must go and—and—er—I have some things to do,’ she finished lamely.

But Jack Beauchamp had paused in the doorway on his way in, and was still effectively blocking Mattie’s exit as she turned to leave. ‘I must thank you for showing me round,’ he told her quietly. ‘It was very nice meeting you, Miss Crawford.’

She looked up at him unblinkingly. ‘And you, Mr Beauchamp,’ she returned politely—if insincerely. Obviously she didn’t merit the privilege of being asked to call him by his first name! Which was okay with her—she would probably have choked on it, anyway.

He smiled, laughter still lurking in the depths of those dark brown eyes—as if he were well aware of her chagrin at the omission. ‘I do hope we’ll meet again,’ he finally said softly.

Contrarily, Mattie hoped for no such thing. Although, in the circumstances, she knew it was a pretty useless hope.

‘Probably next weekend—if you do decide to bring
Harry to us,’ she dismissed briskly. ‘Now, if you will excuse me …?’ She looked at him pointedly as he still blocked her exit.

‘Certainly.’ He stepped neatly aside.

Mattie couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. Her chest felt as if it were going to explode from lack of air.

So that was Jack Beauchamp.

Well, he was good-looking enough, she would give him that. Charming too, if you ignored all that staring he did. Her mother appeared to like him too. But then, her mother liked and trusted nearly everyone, even the young kennel-maid who had stolen money from her the previous year, so that was no recommendation, either.

But how could Mattie possibly have even guessed that her leaving those cards for The Woofdorf all over the offices of JB Industries would result in the man himself turning up here to board his dog over the Easter weekend? She couldn’t, came the obvious answer.

But she was certainly going to have some explaining to do to her mother once Jack Beauchamp had left!

Because the man she had described to her mother earlier as a womaniser and a greedy pig—and even he had suggested, albeit mockingly—that such a man should be taken out into the streets and publicly whipped, was none other than Jack Beauchamp himself!

‘W
HAT
an absolutely charming man,’ Mattie’s mother turned from waving to Jack as he drove away in the red sports car a little time later.

Mattie had very good reason for thinking otherwise. And, in all fairness to her mother, Mattie thought, perhaps she ought to tell her what those reasons were.

‘So natural and friendly, despite his obvious wealth. No side to him, as your grandfather would have said,’ Diana added affectionately. ‘Anyway, he’s booked Harry in for four days over the Easter holiday, so we’re almost fully booked up now for that period. I have to admit—Mattie, what is it?’ She suddenly seemed to become aware of her daughter’s less-than-enthusiastic expression.

Confirming that Mattie looked as sick as she felt! Because only an hour ago she had been describing that charming man in a totally different way to her mother. Not that Mattie went back on one single thing she had previously said about Jack Beauchamp, she just knew she wouldn’t be able to leave her mother in ignorance as to his identity.

She drew in a deep breath. ‘I had no idea you pronounced the name Beauchamp as Beecham,’ she began slowly. ‘If I had I—well, I—’ She would have what? No matter how you pronounced the man’s name, he was still everything she had said he was; not only did he
have four girlfriends that she already knew about, but it turned out he had a family of his own too!

‘Mattie …?’ Her mother frowned at her suspiciously. ‘Mattie, what have you done?’ she prompted warily.

‘Done?’ Mattie repeated, her voice slightly higher than usual, then clearing her throat to bring it down in tone. ‘What makes you think I’ve done something?’ she said over-brightly, deciding that coming clean to her mother wasn’t going to be easy to do, after all.

‘Because I know you too well, Mattie,’ her mother admitted worriedly. ‘I also know that you’ve been getting into one scrape or another all your life … What does it matter how you pronounce Jack Beauchamp’s name?’ she asked slowly.

It mattered a lot when you glanced in your mother’s appointment book for today and saw no connection between the name Jack Beecham—her mother had obviously spelt the name as it had been spoken to her over the telephone—and Jonathan Beauchamp, of JB Industries!

‘It doesn’t,’ she sighed. ‘Not really. But— Oh, Mum, you’re right; I’ve done something awful!’ She gave a pained grimace.

And when Jack Beauchamp found out exactly what it was she had done he was unlikely to bring his dog anywhere near her mother’s boarding-kennels!

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ her mother pressed gently, accustomed over the years to her daughter’s acts of impetuosity—followed by Mattie’s inevitable feelings of regret.

Talking about it was the very last thing Mattie wanted to do! But she really didn’t have a choice in this case. ‘I suppose I’ll have to.’ She sighed heavily.

‘Does it merit coffee or hot chocolate?’ her mother probed; in the past, coffee had always been chosen for a minor indiscretion, hot chocolate for a really major one!

Mattie looked forlorn. ‘In all honesty, I think this one may call for a glass of whisky!’

Her mother’s blonde brows rose almost to her hairline; none of Mattie’s confessions had ever merited whisky before! But over the years there had certainly been a lot of them; more often than not the impulsive Mattie acted first and thought later. This definitely sounded like one of those occasions.

‘Back to the house, I think,’ her mother decided ruefully.

Mattie followed reluctantly, knowing the next few minutes were going to be far from pleasant. Not least because she now suspected her mother might have been right in her initial summing up of the situation. Mattie probably had overreacted to Jonathan Beauchamp—because of the two-timing Richard!

Not that she had changed her mind about Jonathan Beauchamp’s behaviour—not in the least!—but maybe she wouldn’t have done quite what she
had
done if it weren’t for her own humiliating experience where Richard had been concerned.

Her mother made them both tea rather than the suggested whisky, the two of them sitting down at the table in their cluttered but comfortable kitchen, four dogs milling affectionately around their feet.

‘Well, Matilda-May?’ her mother prompted after several minutes of Mattie sitting staring broodingly into her teacup.

Mattie winced at the use of her full name. ‘I wish you
wouldn’t call me that,’ she protested. ‘In fact, I think it was very unkind of you to name me that at all. Just because your mother was named Matilda, and Dad’s was called May, was really no reason—’

‘Mattie, you can delay this as long as you like,’ her mother cut in crisply, ‘but in the end you’re still going to have to tell me what it is you’ve done,’ she reasoned.

Mattie swallowed hard, sighing deeply before speaking. ‘You remember the womaniser?’

‘The woma—? Oh, you mean the man you were telling me about earlier, the one who has four girlfriends?’ her mother recalled.

‘That’s the one,’ Mattie confirmed awkwardly. ‘Well, Jack Beauchamp is Jonathan Beauchamp!’ she burst out. ‘Him. It. He’s the womaniser!’ she revealed reluctantly. ‘What I mean is—’

‘I think I get your drift, Mattie,’ her mother acknowledged dryly. ‘He’s the man you were so angry about earlier today? The man whose secretary placed his order with you yesterday to send out four bouquets to his numerous girlfriends?’

Mattie took a quick swallow of her tea, burning her mouth in the process. But, in the circumstances, she decided, she probably deserved the discomfort!

How could she have been so stupid? So unprofessional? At the time she had thought she was being so clever; having now met Jack Beauchamp she had no idea how he was going to react to what she had done. But she could probably take a pretty good guess …!

So much for her own job of running a successful florists, for some lucrative contracts she also had to service the plants and greenery at half a dozen office
complexes—JB Industries being one of them. And Jack Beauchamp
was
JB Industries!