The Importance of Being Emma (14 page)

Dad seemed perplexed. ‘You wondered what, Mary?’

Kate came to Batty’s rescue. ‘Mary’s hoping you can give Jane a work placement, so that she can meet her course requirements.’

‘
Not that Jane wanted me to ask, you know,’ Batty twittered, ‘but I offered to, as soon as she … And it’s rather urgent, although the friends she’s lodging with, the Campbells, would love her to stay on with them.’

Dad’s face brightened. ‘Of course we can find work for Jane. What’s she studying? I’m sure you’ve told me, Mary, but my memory’s not what it was.’

‘
Business Studies, quite a broad course, even some Finance.’ Batty simpered at Philip, while I heaved a sigh of relief. Then, ‘But her special subject for this year is’ – demure look in my direction – ‘Marketing.’

I nearly choked again, this time on my wine. Across the table, Mark grinned at me. He knew my opinion of ‘dear Jane’ and, needless to say, disagreed with it completely.

After that, there was no time for pleasant daydreams about Flynn; I spent the rest of the evening thinking up arguments to keep Saint Jane as far away from Marketing as possible.

Even though it was a Saturday, everyone seemed keen to go home at a respectable hour, no doubt for quite different reasons. Dad, Batty and Old Mother Bates to embark on their various bedtime rituals; Izzy to check on the children; John to watch Match of the Day; Mark and Tamara to make up for lost time in the bedroom; I didn’t like to speculate what a lonely bachelor like Philip got up to last thing at night; as for me, I was just longing to curl up with a book.

There was a change of plan, however, when Mark went to start the Mercedes and nothing happened. He tried a few more times, then got out of the car and lifted up the bonnet.

‘
Father told me the battery plays up sometimes, I’ll have a quick look.’

‘
Not in that new Versace jacket, darling,’ Tamara drawled. ‘Leave the car alone and call a taxi.’ It was the longest speech I’d heard her make all evening.

‘
No need,’ John said. ‘I can give you four a lift, the Volkswagen holds seven. Hang on, there are eight of us – ’

Philip cut in, his tone unusually assertive. ‘I’ll take Emma.’

I hesitated, then decided I was the most obvious person. Izzy and Tamara didn’t know him and the others would struggle to get in and out of his low sports car or, in Mark’s case, to sit comfortably. And maybe I could have a little chat about Harriet on the way home.

‘
Thank you, Philip,’ I said, giving him a dazzling smile.

He grinned back. ‘Fantastic, I’ll just clear the front seat, won’t be long.’

While he rummaged around in his car, Mark said in an undertone, ‘Emma, are you sure about this?’

Typical ‘Mark knows best’ attitude, as if I’d just accepted a lift from Jack the Ripper. I glared at him. ‘Absolutely.’

He said nothing more, but then John took me to one side and muttered, ‘I can always come back for you, if you’d rather not go with Elton. He’s been eyeing you up all evening, obviously got the hots for you. Mind, you certainly egged him on during dinner, you laughed like a drain at all his crap jokes.’

This was getting silly. ‘I laughed at everyone’s crap jokes, including yours,’ I said haughtily. ‘And I’m not a simpleton, don’t you think I’d know if Philip fancied me? Believe me, he’s not the slightest bit interested.’

John shrugged. ‘In that case, I’ll leave you to it.’

As Philip opened the car door for me with a flourish, I reflected that people – especially men – would never cease to amaze me. There was John Knightley, a very able Finance Director but hardly what I’d call intuitive, meeting Philip for the first time and thinking he could read him like a balance sheet!

Soon Philip and I were speeding off towards Hartfield. He glanced across at me frequently and grinned, but made no attempt to talk.

I found the silence unnerving. ‘Lovely meal, wasn’t it?’ I said at last. ‘Kate’s a very – oh Philip, I thought you knew we had to go left there, you’ve missed it.’

A lay-by came into view; he swerved into it and brought the car to an abrupt halt.

‘
Yes, best to turn round,’ I went on, ‘otherwise it’s quite a detour – oh no, the engine’s cut out.’

He flung off his seat belt and loosened his shirt collar. For a moment, I thought the fan belt must have broken and he was about to substitute his tie.

But I was mistaken. About everything.

It all happened so quickly. He let out a peculiar sort of groan and lunged at me – grabbed my arms – clamped his mouth to mine. Somehow, I twisted out of his clumsy embrace and shrank back against the passenger window, gasping, unable to speak.

In the moonlight, his eyes glittered. ‘I know, Emma, you take my breath away too … No point wasting time, let’s go to my place.’ He leered at me as his hand scraped along my thigh. ‘My Ikea bed’s not called a
Ram
berg for nothing.’

‘
Get – off – me.’ I slapped his hand away.

He smirked. ‘Come on, stop acting the prude, you’ve been leading me on for weeks. When you bent over your tripod and wiggled those hips at me during the photo shoot, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.’

I stared at him. ‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous! You fancy Harriet, not me.’

He gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘Harriet? You’re mad, what would someone like me see in Harriet? Oh, I’m sure she’d be good for a quick shag, but why would I bother with her when you’re giving me all the encouragement I need?’

‘
Encouragement?’ I said, hotly. ‘You’re the one that’s mad, I’ve never given you
any
encouragement, except where Harriet’s concerned.’

‘
You mean pretending those flowers I gave you were for her? I thought that was all part of your little game.’ His lip curled. ‘Most of the time you understood me perfectly, I bloody well know you did.’

‘
Oh yes? Like when?’

‘
The Board meeting, when I said that you had beauty, class and brains and that you were my real-life inspiration for Victoria’s Secret Recipes.’

‘
But you never actually said who you were talking about, so I – ’

He interrupted me, grim-faced. ‘And when we were looking at those photos of your sister’s family, and you said there were no couples involved in the photo shoot, and I said not yet – you behaved as if you knew I meant you and me. And
then
, when I told you that my idea for the strapline had the name of my ideal woman in it, you said it was glaringly obvious to you!’

‘
It was,’ I said, coldly. ‘Harriet’s Secret Recipes.’

‘
For fuck’s sake, only Harriet would think it was something
that
obvious. I meant “Emma-ncipated” – the way I said it was a big enough clue, surely!’

I sat in silence, twisting my hands in my lap. What a fool I’d been, what a blind, self-opinionated fool. And now here I was, alone in a deserted place with a man I knew very little about – and even less than I thought I did – whose advances I’d just rejected. What if things got – out of control?

I took a deep breath. ‘Look, Philip, I’m not interested in you and I’m really sorry if you got the impression I was. Please take me home – now, before the others find out I’m not back.’

There was a nerve-racking pause. Then he yanked his seat belt on, bullied the engine into life and reversed the car, at speed, all the way back to the turning he’d supposedly missed. Once again, he drove fast and in silence; but this time he kept his eyes on the road and I made no attempt at conversation. I was trembling, both with relief that he was taking me home and with fear that we wouldn’t get there in one piece. Only when he stopped the car outside Hartfield, in a squeal of brakes, did I relax.

I forced myself to look at him. ‘Let’s be sensible about this, Philip. We’ve both made a mistake, but I hope we can still work together in a professional way. I won’t breathe a word about this to anyone and I’ll make sure Harriet sees you as nothing more than a work colleague from now on.’

‘
Great,’ he said, glowering at the windscreen.

Getting out of the car in my long tight skirt was tricky. Needless to say, the attentive Philip who’d helped me into it was nowhere to be seen; I’d barely shut the passenger door when he drove off, tyres screeching. I stayed outside for a few minutes, taking big gulps of the fresh night air, fighting back tears, cursing my stupidity.

I’d completely misjudged Philip Elton. When it came to women, he wanted the ‘safe and lucrative’ option – exactly as Know-it-all Knightley had predicted.

Chapter Five

~~MARK~~

Since Sunday morning was dry and sunny, and the autumn colours at their best, I decided I’d walk to Randalls to have a look at the car.

Tamara opted for a lie-in, especially when she heard where I was going. She’d been less than impressed by the Westons’ dinner party, dismissing Mary, Mrs Bates and Henry as ‘a bunch of old women, especially Henry’, Tom, Kate, John and Izzy as ‘too boring for words’, Philip as ‘a waste of space’ and Emma as ‘quite the surprise package’. When I probed a little further into this last comment, she said she’d imagined Emma to be more like her nickname and refused to say more.

As I strode along the bridleway, I realised how good it felt to be on my own. With Tamara’s frequent demands, the last few days had been a bit of a strain …

Ahead of me, a twig snapped. A small boy came hurtling along the path and skidded into my legs. My nephew, Mark.

‘
Up!’ he said, with the supreme confidence of a three-year-old.

I grinned down at him. ‘Hello to you, too. Who are you out with on such a beautiful morning?’

He pointed to a woman in red trousers some distance behind him; as she approached, I saw that it was Emma, with Emily in the backpack. Her trousers were tight-fitting, leaving little to the imagination. A bit like that skirt she’d worn to the Westons’ …

‘
Up!’ Mark said again. ‘Please.’

I switched my thoughts firmly away from last night. ‘OK then, one – two – three.’ I swung him onto my shoulders and he clapped his hands in delight.

‘
Aunty Emma, look, I’m the king of the castle!’

‘
And who’s the dirty rascal?’ she said, as she reached us.

‘
Uncle Mark.’

We all laughed; except Emily, who surveyed me gravely with her big hazel eyes, so like her aunt’s.

Mark whispered in my ear, ‘Are you coming to Grandpa’s to see us?’

‘
No, I’m going to see my poorly car. I could call in on my way home, though.’

‘
We’ll turn back now and walk as far as Hartfield with you,’ Emma said.

We set off side by side, falling easily into step with each other.

‘
Izzy and I are taking the children to visit the Bateses as soon as they get back from the nine o’clock service,’ she went on. ‘But John and Dad will be in, if you decide to drop by. Or you could bring Tamara for lunch, we’re having roast pork and all the trimmings, there’s plenty to spare. You never know, she might enjoy it.’

‘
Thank you, but I’ve booked a table at The Hare and Hounds.’

‘
You could always cancel it.’

‘
Best to leave the arrangements as they are, if you don’t mind.’

We walked in silence for a while, Mark crooning to himself and Emily tugging at Emma’s hair. Despite the slightly awkward conversation about lunch, I felt at peace with the world. And I had a strange, random thought: to anyone that didn’t know us, we would seem the perfect family, out for a Sunday morning stroll, happy as can be.

Or maybe not. When I glanced across at Emma, she was frowning and biting her lip. I had a silly urge to take her in my arms, but I didn’t; bit tricky with a child on my back.

Instead I asked, keeping my tone casual, ‘Did you get home all right last night?’

‘
Obviously, why wouldn’t I?’

Her blush and the defensive note in her voice were a dead giveaway. So Elton had tried it on, the little shit.

I cleared my throat and went for a less direct approach. ‘You know, Emily, there’s no need for your aunt to overreact like that, I just had a feeling something embarrassing might have happened. Of course, it can’t have, because she prides herself on being able to read people like a book – ’

‘
I got a new book,’ Mark put in. ‘’Bout Mog.’

Emma sighed. ‘Yes, and guess how many times we’ve read it, Uncle Mark? At least ten, and that was just before breakfast. But don’t let me interrupt your lecture to Emily, I bet she’s finding it riveting.’

I was pleased to see that my tactics were working; she was already looking more relaxed. ‘As I was saying, Emily, your aunt thinks people can be judged by their covers, like books. I’m afraid she still has a lot to learn.’

Emma gave a rueful smile. ‘You see, Emily, Uncle Mark’s lived so long in the big bad world that he thinks he knows everything. But he has a point, I do
occasionally
make the wrong call. So, when you grow up, make sure you’re twice as clever and only half as conceited as your aunt and you’ll be fine. Isn’t that right, Uncle Mark?’