A Mistletoe Proposal

CHAPTER FIVE

NEXT morning Roscoe’s secretary called and they set up the appointment at his office for the following day. An hour later Charlie came on the line, wanting to see her that night. Since there was still much she needed to discover she reluctantly agreed to let him take her to The Diamond, although a nightclub wasn’t the place she would have chosen.

She supposed she should notify Roscoe, but she stopped her hand on the way to the phone. He was just a tad too controlling for her taste, and yielding to it would only make him worse. She would make a report afterwards.

That evening she dressed carefully, choosing a fairly sedate black satin gown with a long hem and modest neck. She’d beguiled Charlie enough to secure his attention, but she had no wish to entice him further.

Downstairs, he had a car waiting, complete with chauffeur.

‘I hired it for the evening,’ he said, getting in beside her. ‘I don’t want to drive, I want to concentrate on you, now I have you all to myself.’

‘That’s lovely,’ she said. ‘Just you, me and my notebook.’

‘Notebook?’

‘Well, this is a professional consultation, isn’t it? You’re going to fill me in on any aspects of the case that were overlooked before.’

He grimaced.

At The Diamond she had to admit that he was a skilled host, recommending dishes from the elaborate menu, knowing which wine to order. He seemed in a chirpy mood, but at last she looked up to find his face pervaded by a wry, almost hangdog look.

‘I guess you were right about Ginevra,’ he said. ‘I tried to call her. I know you told me not to, but I had to try.’

‘What happened?’

‘She hung up. I can’t believe I was taken in so easily. But at least now I’ve got you. You’re my friend, aren’t you? Really my friend, not just because Roscoe has hired your legal skills?’

‘Roscoe does a lot for you,’ she reminded him.

‘I know I should be grateful to him. He’s always looked after me, but…but he does too much, so that sometimes I feel I don’t know who I really am. What would I do if I was left to myself? Stupid things, probably.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’

Once Charlie started to talk, it all came tumbling out-the years of growing up in the shadow of tragedy, the crushing awareness that he was all his mother lived for, the feeling that he could never be free.

‘My dad killed himself,’ he said sombrely, ‘but Roscoe won’t allow it to be mentioned, especially to Mum. That’s his way. “Do this, Charlie, don’t do that. Join the firm, Charlie-”’

‘Did he make you join his firm?’

‘He suggested it, and what Roscoe “suggests” tends to happen.’

‘Couldn’t you have held out against him?’

‘I suppose. Actually, I feel a bit guilty about Roscoe. I get mad at him, but I do know the truth.’

‘Which is?’

‘That he’s always had the rough end of the stick. I think Mum blames him for Dad’s death, not openly but she says things like, “If only he hadn’t been so tired that day, he might not have crashed.” And she says other things-so that I just know she thinks Roscoe wasn’t pulling his weight.’

‘Do you believe that?’

‘No, not now I’m in the firm and know a bit about how it works. Roscoe was the same age I am now, still learning the business, and there was only so much he could have done. And I’ve talked to people who were there at that time and they all say there was a big crash coming, and nobody could believe “that kid” could avoid it.’

‘“That kid,”’ she murmured. ‘It’s hard to see him like that.’

‘I know, but that’s how they thought of him back then. And they were all astounded when he got them through. I respect him-you have to-but I can see what it made him. Sometimes I feel guilty. He saved the rest of us but it damaged him terribly, and Mum just blames him because…well…’

‘Maybe she needs someone to blame,’ Pippa suggested gently.

‘Something like that. And it’s so unfair that I feel sorry for him. Hey, don’t tell him I said that. He’d murder me!’

‘And then he’d murder me,’ she agreed. ‘Promise.’ She laid a finger over her lips.

‘The reason I don’t deal with Roscoe very well is that I’m always in two minds about him. I admire him to bits for what he’s achieved in the firm, and the way he puts up with Mum’s behaviour without complaining.’

‘Does he mind about her very much?’

‘Oh, yes. He doesn’t say anything but I see his face sometimes, and it hurts him.’

‘Have you tried talking to him about it?’

‘Yes, and I’ve been slapped down. He shuts it away inside himself, and I resent that. He’s been a good brother to me, but he won’t let me be a good brother to him. That’s what I was saying; one moment I admire him and sympathise with him. The next moment I want to thump him for being a tyrant. I’m afraid his tyrant side outweighs the other one by about ten to one.’

‘If you weren’t a stockbroker, what would you have liked to do?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Something colourful where I didn’t have to wear a formal suit.’ He gave a comical sigh. ‘I guess I’m just a lost cause.’

She smiled, feeling as sympathetic as she would have done with a younger brother. Beneath the frivolous boy, she could detect the makings of a generous, thoughtful man with, strangely, a lot in common with his brother. Charlie wasn’t the weakling she’d first thought. He had much inner strength. It was just a different kind of strength from Roscoe.

‘You’re not a lost cause,’ she said, reaching over the table and laying her hands on his shoulders. ‘I say you’re not, and what I say goes.’

He grinned. ‘Now you sound just like Roscoe.’

‘Well, I am like Roscoe.’ Briefly, she enclosed his face between her hands. ‘He’s not the only one who can give orders, and my orders to you are to cheer up because I’m going to make things all right.’

She dropped her hands but gave him a comforting sisterly smile.

‘D’you know, I really believe you can,’ he mused. ‘I think you could take on even Roscoe and win.’

‘Well, somewhere in this world there has to be someone who can crush him beneath her heels.’

‘His fiancée couldn’t.’

‘His fiancée?’ Pippa echoed, startled. Since learning that Roscoe lived alone, she had somehow never connected him with romantic entanglements.

‘It was a few years back. Her name was Verity and she was terribly “suitable”. She worked in the firm, and Roscoe used to say that she knew as much about finance as he did.’

‘I dare say she’d need to,’ Pippa said, nodding.

‘Right. It makes you wonder what they talked about when they were alone. The latest exchange rate? What the Dow-Jones index was doing?’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Pretty enough, but I think it was chiefly her mental qualities he admired.’

‘Charlie, a man doesn’t ask a woman to marry him because of her mental qualities.’

‘Roscoe isn’t like other men. Beauty passes him by.’

‘Then why did you warn me against going up to his room yesterday?’

‘I was only joking. I knew he had no interest in you that way. Don’t you remember? He said so himself.’

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘He did, didn’t he?’

After that, she relapsed into thought.

Another bottle of wine was served and Charlie drank deeply, making Pippa glad he wasn’t driving.

‘Was he very much in love with her?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Like I said, he doesn’t talk about his feelings. He wanted her in his way. The rest of us look at a beautiful woman and think Wow! Roscoe thinks, Will she do me credit? I don’t think he’s ever thought Wow! in his life.’

Oh, yes, he has, she thought, gazing silently into her glass.

Noticing nothing, Charlie continued, ‘She could be relied on to know what was important-money, propriety, making the world bow down before you. And she’d give him intelligent children who would eventually go into the business. What more could he want?’

‘Surely you’re being unfair?’

‘Well, losing her didn’t seem to break his heart. He didn’t even tell us at the time. One day I mentioned that we hadn’t seen her for a while and then he said they’d broken up weeks ago. Any normal man would drown his sorrows in the pub with his mates, but not him. He just fired her and she ceased to exist.’

‘He actually fired her?’ Pippa was startled.

‘Well, he said she’d left the firm, but I reckon he made her understand that she’d better leave.’

She felt as though someone had struck her over the heart, which was surely absurd? From the start, she’d sensed that Roscoe was a harsh, controlling man, indifferent to the feelings of others as long as his rule was unchallenged. So why should she care if her worst opinion was confirmed?

Because she’d also thought she saw another side to him-warmer, more human. And because Charlie himself had spoken of that softer side. But the moment had passed. Charlie had switched back from the sympathetic brother to the rebellious kid, and in doing so he’d changed the light on Roscoe who was now, once more, the tyrant.

She knew a glimmer of sadness, but suppressed it. Much better to be realistic.

It was time for the cabaret. Dancers skipped across the stage, a crooner crooned, a comedian strutted his stuff. She thought him fairly amusing but Charlie was more critical.

‘His performance was a mess,’ he said as the space was cleared for dancing. ‘Listen.’

To her surprise, he rattled through the last joke, word perfect and superbly timed. Then he went back and repeated an earlier part of the act, also exactly right, as far as she could judge.

‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘I’ve never come across such a memory.’

He shrugged. ‘It convinced Roscoe that I was bright enough to be a stockbroker, so you might say it ruined my life.’

He made a comical face. She smiled back, meaning to console rather than beguile him. But the next moment her face lit up and she cried out in pleasure, ‘Lee Renton, you devious so-and-so! How lovely to see you.’

A large man in his forties was bearing down on them, hands extended. He was attractive, and would have been even more so if he could manage to lose some weight.

‘“Devious so-and-so!”’ he mocked. ‘Is that any way to address your favourite client?’

‘That’s not what I say to my favourite client. To him, I say, “Sir, how generous of you to double the bill!”’

Lee roared with laughter before saying, ‘Actually, I’ll gladly pay twice the bill after what you did for me.’ He seemed to notice Charlie for the first time. ‘I’m Lee Renton. Any friend of Pippa’s is a friend of mine.’ He pumped Charlie’s hand and sat down without waiting to be invited.

‘I did a court appearance for Lee the other day,’ Pippa told Charlie. ‘It went fairly well.’

‘Don’t act modest,’ Lee protested. ‘You’re the tops and you know it.’

‘Meaning that I saved you some money?’

‘What else?’ he asked innocently.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘My firm provided the entertainment here tonight, and I’ll probably buy the place. I’ll call you about that.’ He blew her a kiss. ‘You look ravishing, queen of my heart.’

‘Oh, stop your nonsense!’

‘Do you say that as a woman or as the lawyer who recently handled my divorce?’

‘I say it as the lawyer who’ll probably draw up your next pre-nuptial agreement.’

He bellowed with laughter. A passing waiter caught Charlie’s attention and he turned, giving Renton a chance to lower his voice and say, ‘Quite a performer, your companion-I overheard him retelling those jokes and he was a sight better than the original comedian. Does he do it professionally?’

‘No, he’s a stockbroker.’

‘You’re having a laugh.’

‘Really. He’s actually a client and we were discussing his case.’

‘Yeah, right. This is just the perfect place for it. All right, I’m going. I have work to do. Stockbroker, eh?’ He thumped Charlie on the shoulder and departed.

Charlie frowned, turning back from the waiter. ‘Lee Renton? I’ve heard that name somewhere.’

‘He’s very big in entertainment. He buys things, he promotes, he owns a television studio.’

‘That Lee Renton? Wow! I wish I’d known.’

He looked around, managing to spot Lee in the distance, deep in conversation with a man whom he overwhelmed by flinging an arm around his shoulders and sweeping him off until they both vanished in the crowd.

The waiter brought more wine and he drank it thoughtfully. ‘Do you know him well?’

‘Well enough. I’ll introduce you another time.’

He drained his glass. ‘Come on, let’s dance.’

He was a natural dancer, and together they went enjoyably mad. The other dancers backed off to watch them, and when they finished the crowd applauded.

Charlie’s eyes were brilliant, his cheeks flushed, and Pippa guessed she must look much the same. In a moment of crazy delight, he put his hands on either side of her face, just as she had briefly done to him at the table. But when he tried to kiss her she fended him off.

‘That’s enough,’ she said when she could speak. ‘Bad boy!’

‘Sorry, ma’am!’ He assumed a clowning expression of penitence.

‘We’re going back to the table and you’re going to behave,’ she said firmly.

Then she saw Roscoe.

He was sitting at a table on the edge of the dance floor, regarding her with his head slightly tilted and an unreadable expression on his face. Beside him sat a woman of great beauty in a low-cut evening gown of gold satin, with flaming red hair. Pippa saw her lean towards him, touching his hand gently so that he turned back to her, all attention, as though everyone else had ceased to exist.

‘What’s up?’ Charlie asked, turning. ‘What? Damn him!’

He hurried her to the table, muttering, ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t see us. What’s he doing here?’

‘Who’s that with him?’

‘I don’t know. Never seen her.’

‘Did you tell him you were coming?’

‘No way!’

‘Then perhaps it’s just bad luck.’

‘Not with Roscoe. I’ve heard him say that the man who relies on luck is a fool.’

‘Yes, in stockbroking-’

‘In everything. He never does anything by chance. He’s a control freak.’

Pippa had no answer. She, whose presence here was a result of Roscoe’s commands, knew better than anyone that Charlie was right. She shivered.

Now she could see Roscoe leading the woman into the dance. The band was playing a smoochy tune and they moved slowly, locked in a close embrace. Pippa shifted her seat so that she had her back to them and began to chatter brightly about nothing. Words came out of her mouth but her mind was on the dance floor, picturing the movements that she’d avoided seeing with her eyes.

At last the music ended and Charlie groaned, ‘Oh, no, he’s coming over.’

Roscoe and his partner were bearing down on them. Without waiting to be invited, they sat at the table.

‘Fancy seeing you here!’ Roscoe exclaimed in a voice of such cheerful surprise that Pippa’s suspicions were confirmed. This was no accidental meeting.

He introduced everyone, giving the woman’s name as Teresa Blaketon. Charlie was immediately on his best behaviour in the presence of beauty, Pippa was amused to notice.

‘I think we should dance,’ Roscoe said, rising.

It would have been satisfying to ignore the hand he held out so imperiously, but that was hardly an option now, so she let him draw her to her feet and lead her back to the floor, where a waltz had just begun. She decided that there was nothing for it but to endure his putting an arm about her and drawing her close.

But he didn’t. Taking her right hand in his left, he laid his right hand on the side of her waist and proceeded to dance with nearly a foot of air between them. It was polite, formal and Pippa knew she should have been glad. Yet, remembering how close he’d held his lady friend, she felt that this was practically a snub.

‘I’m glad to see that you’re taking your duties seriously,’ he said. ‘For you to spend an evening with Charlie is more than I’d hoped for.’

‘Don’t worry, it’ll appear on the bill,’ she said cheerfully. ‘And, as it’s my own time, I’ll charge extra. Triple at least.’

‘Don’t I get a discount for the meal he bought you, and the first class champagne?’

‘Certainly not. I drank that champagne out of courtesy.’

‘I see you know how to cost every minute,’ he said softly.

‘Of course. As a man of finance, you should appreciate that.’

‘There are some things outside my experience.’

‘That I simply don’t believe,’ she said defiantly, raising her head to meet his eyes.

He was looking down on her with a fixed gaze that made her suddenly glad her dress was high and unrevealing. Yet she had the disconcerting sense that he could see right through the material. Even Charlie hadn’t looked like that, and for a moment she trembled.

‘You flatter me,’ he said. ‘The truth is, I’m mystified by you. When I think I understand you, you do the opposite to what I was expecting.’

‘Just like the financial markets,’ she observed saucily. ‘You manage well enough with them.’

‘Sooner or later, the financial markets always revert to type. With you, I’m not so sure.’

‘Perhaps that’s because you don’t really know what my type is. Or you think you know, and you’re mistaken.’

‘No-’ he shook his head ‘-I’m not arrogant enough to think I know.’

‘Then let me tell you, I’m devoted to my job and to nothing else. I promised to get to know Charlie and “beguile” him, but I couldn’t have done that in an office. It was necessary to work “above and beyond the call of duty.”’

‘And how is your case going?’

‘Fairly well. He’s seen through Ginevra.’

‘And if you can persuade him to grow up, he’s all set for a serious career.’

‘You mean in the firm with you? Suppose that isn’t what he wants?’

‘He’ll thank me in the end, when he’s a successful man and he realises I helped to guide him that way.’

‘Perhaps you should stop guiding him and let him find his own path.’

‘Into a police cell, you mean?’

That silenced her.

After a moment he said, ‘Why are you frowning?’

‘I’m just wondering about your methods.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You don’t really expect me to believe this is coincidence, do you? You knew Charlie was going to be here.’

‘I see. I’m supposed to have every room bugged, and to bribe half the staff to bring me information. Shame on you, Pippa.’

She blushed, feeling foolish for her wild fantasies.

‘I suppose I might be the evil spy of your imagination, if I needed to be,’ he said in a considering tone, ‘but when my brother conducts every phone call at the top of his voice I simply don’t need to be. I happened to be passing his office when he booked the table.’

‘And you made immediate arrangements to put him under surveillance. Or me.’

‘I made immediate arrangements to have an enjoyable night out.’

‘Teresa must have been surprised to be summoned at the last minute.’

‘Teresa is a lovely woman, and she enjoys nightclubs. It gives her a chance to display her beauty, which, you must admit, is exceptional.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he’d hired his companion as he’d hired her, but her courage failed her. Besides, the memory of how he and Teresa had practically embraced as they danced, was all the answer she needed. It seemed to underline his sedate demeanour with herself.

She wasn’t used to that. Men usually seized the opportunity to make contact with her body. One who behaved like a Victorian clergyman was unusual. Interesting.

Annoying.

The floor was getting crowded. Dancers jostled each other until suddenly one of them stumbled, crashing into Pippa, driving her forward against Roscoe, cancelling the distance he’d kept so determinedly between them. Taken by surprise, she had no time to erect barriers that might have saved her from the sudden intense awareness of his body-lithe, hard, powerful.

It was too late now. Something had made her doubly aware of her own body, singing with new life as it pressed up to his, and the sensation seemed to invade her totally-endless, unforgettable. Shocking.

She tried to summon up the strength to break the embrace, but he did it for her, pushing her away with a resolution that only just avoided being discourteous.

‘We’d better return to the table,’ he said.

Then he was walking off without a backward look, giving her no choice but to follow. Which was discourteous. She might have been irritated if she hadn’t had an inkling of what was troubling him. She too needed time to think about what had just happened; time to deny it.

Charlie had reached the point of talking nonsense and Teresa looked relieved to see them.

‘How did you get here?’ Roscoe said, placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder with a gentleness that contradicted the roughness in his voice.

‘I hired Harry and his car. He’s waiting for us.’

‘Good. He can take you home while I take Pippa.’

‘Hey, Pippa’s with me-’

‘And the less she sees of you in this state the better. Waiter!’

In a few minutes he’d settled everything-Charlie’s bill as well as his own. They escorted Charlie out to the side road where the chauffeur was waiting. Teresa helped to settle him in the back seat, which gave Pippa the chance to mutter to Roscoe, ‘I’ll take a taxi home.’

‘You will not.’

‘But I don’t want to be a gooseberry,’ she said frantically. ‘You and she…I mean…’

‘I know exactly what you mean and kindly allow me to make my own decisions.’

‘Like you make everyone else’s?’ she snapped.

‘I won’t pretend not to understand that, but you can’t have known my brother a whole two days without realising that he’s vulnerable. I don’t want people to see him like this. Do you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Just let me say goodnight to him.’

But Charlie was dead to the world and she stood back while Harry drove off with him. Watching Roscoe get into the driving seat of his car, she realised that she’d seen him drink only tonic water, and after several hours in a nightclub he was stone cold sober and completely in control.

Which was typical of him, she thought crossly.

Teresa didn’t seem annoyed at having Pippa foisted on her when she would no doubt have preferred to be alone with Roscoe. As they sat together in the back she chatted merrily, mostly about Charlie, whose company she had enjoyed, especially as he had entertained her by running through some routines by another more talented comedian he’d recently seen perform.

‘He’s really good,’ she recalled.

‘You shouldn’t encourage him,’ Roscoe said over his shoulder. ‘He’s a sight too fond of playing whatever part he thinks people want.’

‘Which will surely be useful in a stockbroker,’ Pippa observed. ‘He must need various personalities, depending on whether he’s buying shares or selling them, manipulating the market, or manipulating people. With any luck, he’ll be almost as good at that as you.’

Teresa rocked with laughter. The back of Roscoe’s head was stiff and unrevealing.

Outside her apartment block, he got out and held open the door for her, a chivalrous gesture that also gave him the chance to fix her with a cool, appraising stare. She returned it in full measure.

‘I hope your evening was enjoyable, Miss Jenson.’

‘I hope yours was informative, Mr Havering.’

‘More than I could have imagined, thank you.’

‘Then all is well. Goodnight.’

Once in her apartment with the door safely shut behind her, Pippa tossed her bag aside, threw herself into a chair and kicked off her shoes, breathing out hard and long.

‘Phew! What an evening! Get him! More informative than he could have imagined. I’ll bet it was! Hello, Gran! Don’t mind me. I’m good ’n mad.’

She was addressing the photograph that she kept on the sideboard, showing the wedding of Grandmother Dee and Grandfather Mark. Dee had once confided to her that there had been complications about that wedding.

‘I was pregnant,’ she’d said, ‘and that was scandalous in nineteen forty-three. You had to get married to stay respectable, and I wondered if he was only marrying me because he had to.’

‘And was he?’ Pippa had wanted to know.

Dee had smiled mysteriously. ‘Let’s say he had his own reasons, but it was a while before I discovered what they were. On our wedding day I still couldn’t quite believe in his love.’

Yet the young Dee in the picture was beaming happily, and in Pippa’s present mood it all looked delightfully uncomplicated.

‘Fancy having to be married before you could make love,’ she mused.

In her mind she saw Roscoe dancing with Teresa, holding her in an embrace that spoke of passion deferred, but not for long. Right this minute they were on their way to her home, or perhaps to his, where he would sweep her into the bedroom and remove her clothes without wasting a moment.

She knew the kind of lover he would be: no-nonsense, not lingering over preliminaries, but proceeding straight to the purpose, as he did with everything. As well as pleasuring his woman efficiently, he would instruct her as to his own needs, with everything done to the highest standards. Afterwards, Teresa would know she’d received attention from an expert.

For a while Pippa’s annoyance enabled her to indulge these cynical thoughts, but another memory insisted on intruding-his care for his mother, his patience, his kindness to her. All these spoke of a different man, with a gentle heart that he showed rarely. Was that gentleness also present in the lover?

‘And why am I bothering?’ she asked aloud. ‘Honestly, Gran, I think you had it better in your day.’

Dee’s smiling face as she nestled against her new husband seemed to say that she was right.

Pippa sighed and went to bed.

The night that followed was the strangest she’d ever known. Worn out, she had expected to sleep like a log, but the world was fractured. Two men wandered through her dreams-one gentle, protective and kind, the other a harsh authoritarian who gave his orders and assumed instant obedience. Both men were Roscoe Havering.

In this other world he danced with her, holding her close, not briefly but possessively, as though claiming her for ever. Unable to resist, she yielded, resting against him with a joy that felt like coming home. But then she awoke to find her flesh singing but herself alone.

In a fury, she threw something across the room. It was time to face facts. Roscoe had appeared at The Diamond the night before in order to study her and see if she was doing her job as a hired fancy woman. Whatever gloss he tried to put on it, that was the truth. Curse him!

Unable to lie still, she rose and began to pace the room, muttering desperately. ‘All right, so I felt something. Not here-’ she laid a hand quickly over her heart ‘-no, not there, but-’ she looked down at her marvellous body ‘-just about everywhere else. Only for a moment. And he needn’t think I’m giving in to it. I’ve done with that stuff for ever. So that’s settled. Now I need to get some more sleep.’