A Mistletoe Proposal

CHAPTER EIGHT

PIPPA touched him gently on the shoulder and his eyes opened slowly.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Roscoe, what on earth-? Come upstairs.’

He retrieved the two suitcases near his feet and followed her into the elevator, where he closed his eyes again until they arrived and she led him out, along the corridor and into her apartment.

‘Sit down,’ she said, pointing to a comfortable sofa.

‘You must be thinking-’

‘Tea first, explanations later,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

She was smiling to herself as she filled the kettle. Her email had brought him home. The world was good again.

He drank the tea thankfully, but didn’t seem much more awake.

‘When did you last sleep?’ she asked.

‘I can’t remember. I was unlucky in catching a flight. I reached the airport just in time to miss one plane and I had to grab the next one. Only it went to Paris, so I had to get a connecting flight to London.’

‘You walked out on your conference?’ she breathed.

He shrugged. ‘After your email, what did you expect me to do?’

‘Email me. Text me. Call me.’

‘No, I had to talk to you properly.’

And for that he’d walked out on business.

Of course he’d done it for Charlie and his mother, Pippa reminded herself.

But common sense spoke with a feeble voice, defeated by the surge of awareness of Roscoe as a man. A man who’d tried to escape her and been defeated.

What was happening between them alarmed him because it threatened the life he’d achieved with such a struggle. But he’d seized an excuse to come back to her and now he was here, laying his gesture at her feet, waiting to know what she would do with it.

She was silenced for a moment. She’d misjudged him so badly.

‘The flight to Los Angeles is eleven hours,’ she said at last, ‘and then you came straight back-’

‘And I don’t even like flying,’ he ground out. ‘In fact, I hate it.’

‘I hate it too,’ she admitted. ‘It’s boring, you’re trapped, and I’m always sure we’re going to crash at any moment.’

He gave her a faint grin of understanding.

‘No wonder you’re exhausted,’ she said. ‘But why did you wait downstairs? There’s a sofa in the hall outside my front door where you could have been more comfortable.’

‘Yes, but I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming home alone, and if your companion had seen me lolling by your door…well…’

‘Am I understanding you properly?’ she asked, regarding him with her head on one side.

‘I just didn’t want to embarrass you.’

‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she breathed, feeling a return of the annoyance he could inflame so easily in her.

‘I’m only suggesting that you might have company tonight. What’s wrong with that?’

Pippa drew a deep breath, but instantly checked herself.

‘No-no!’ She held up her hands with the air of someone backing off. ‘Let’s leave it for now. I’ll say it later, when you’re back in the land of the living.’

‘Thank you for that mercy,’ he said. ‘So when “later” comes I can expect to be knocked sideways, beaten to a pulp-’

‘Walked over with hobnailed boots,’ she agreed. ‘But first I’ll make you some supper.’

‘Just a little, thank you. I’ll probably fall asleep over it.’

‘Then I shall wake you and make you eat something anyway.’

Roscoe gave her a look of appreciation. Then he followed her into the kitchen and tried to help, but finished up sitting on a stool, watching her out of bleary eyes.

‘It’s not just tiredness,’ he said. ‘It’s jet lag, which always hits me like a rock. I don’t know why I get it worse than most people. Everyone else seems to brush it off, but not me. And it’s not just the flight home. I’m still lagged from the flight out there, so I’m-’ he made a helpless gesture ‘-not at my best.’

‘That’s what comes of dashing off to conferences at the last minute,’ she suggested gently.

‘Yes, well…things happen. You can’t always plan for…’ again the gesture ‘…well, anyway…’

‘Did you hear anything useful while you were there?’ she asked in a neutral voice.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he said with a humorous sigh. ‘I can’t remember a thing.’

‘Is this Roscoe Havering talking?’ she asked lightly. ‘The man who makes the financial world tremble, whose tough decisions can shake the market-?’

‘Oh, shut up!’ he begged.

She laughed. ‘Sorry.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Hey, you’re right. I’m not.’

She made a light meal of scrambled eggs on toast, and he pleased her by eating every last crumb.

‘That was delicious. Do you want some help with the washing up?’

‘No, thank you,’ she said with more haste than politeness. ‘But you’ve made your offer so you can go and sit on the sofa with a clear conscience.’

‘That’s what I like. A woman who understands.’

He wandered away with the air of a man who had arrived in heaven.

When she joined him a few minutes later he said, ‘Do you really think Charlie’s protecting Ginevra?’

‘Oh, yes. But I can’t prove it without his help. I guess I’m just not doing my job properly. I haven’t beguiled him very well if he’s defending her against me.’

‘Charlie’s loyal. If he had feelings for her once, he wouldn’t drop her in it now.’

‘That’s nice of him but don’t you see what it means?’

‘It means my brother’s an idiot, but we knew that.’

‘It means I’ve failed. He was supposed to be so much under my spell that he’d do anything I said. Hah! Some spell! I’m useless.’

‘That’s enough. You’re not useless. It’s only been a few days.’

‘But you thought he’d take one look at me and become my willing slave,’ she said wryly. ‘Or something like that. This isn’t what you expected when you hired me. Perhaps you should get someone else.’

‘Someone else?’ he echoed. ‘Someone else with your eyes, your laughter, your charm? Is there anyone else? Pippa, you knocked Charlie sideways in the first moment.’

‘You’re just being kind.’

‘I’m not known for my kindness,’ he said drily. ‘And once you’d have been the first to say so. I knew from the start that you were exactly what I wanted-for Charlie, I mean. And you’re doing well. Look how you found out about this. I had no idea.’

‘But I’m failing.’

‘Why are you so hard on yourself? It’s not like you.’

Now she was all at sea, taken by surprise by his understanding.

‘You don’t know what’s like me,’ she muttered.

‘Don’t I? Well, perhaps I’m learning, and perhaps the things I’m learning are surprising me.’

She tried to be sensible, but it was hard with Roscoe’s gentle eyes on her.

‘Obviously I don’t have the hold on him that you wanted,’ she murmured.

‘I think you do. The other night, when you were dancing together and he tried to kiss you at the end-’

‘That didn’t mean anything,’ she said quickly. ‘He just saw it as part of the dance.’

‘But earlier that evening, when you were at the table and you-’

‘I didn’t kiss him.’

‘No, but you did this.’ Roscoe leaned forward, putting his hands on either side of her face and looking into her eyes. ‘You did this,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you remember?’

‘Yes,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I remember now.’

She waited for him to release her, but for some reason he didn’t. She had the strangest impression that he was imprisoned in himself, wanting to move but unable to. Then she knew that the feeling was there inside her also. His hands were warm and firm against her cheeks, his eyes uncertain and questioning as she’d never seen them before. How dark and mysterious they were, inviting her to explore depths that enticed her. His lips, so often set in a firm line, were slightly parted, the sound of his breathing reaching her softly.

He’d been watching her all the time in the nightclub, she realised; not just dancing but when she was sitting at the table with Charlie, laughing with him, smiling at him. He’d noted every gesture, every moment of warmth.

She felt a tremor go through her and realised that it came from him. He was shaking. She drew in a sharp breath and in the same moment he dropped his hands, as though the touch of her burned him.

And she saw fear in his eyes.

His alarm had an instant effect on her, reminding her of her own caution about getting too close.

‘You misunderstood what you saw,’ she said quickly. ‘It was just friendly. That’s all I can ever manage. Just friendly. That’s why you didn’t have to worry about me bringing anyone home tonight. I know what I look like, but it’s not real. People would be amazed to know how virtuously I live.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ he murmured, but she didn’t hear him.

‘It’s all front, all presentation,’ she hurried on, gabbling slightly. ‘So I suppose that makes me a tease. I meet a man, we go out, have a good time, exchange a few kisses-oh, yes, I don’t deny that-and he thinks that sooner or later he’s going to have a night of pleasure. I don’t intentionally deceive them, but pretty soon I realise that I can’t go through with it. He isn’t “the one” and the kindest thing to do is tell him.’

‘Yes, I saw that the first night,’ he reminded her. ‘But why, Pippa? You could have any man you wanted.’

‘No, I couldn’t,’ she said. Pippa turned sharply away and walked to the window, filled with shrieking alarm at the way the distance between them was closing by the minute. It was safer to pull apart now.

But perhaps Roscoe’s courage was greater than hers because he followed and stood just behind her, not touching but barely an inch apart.

‘What happened?’ he asked softly.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does. It matters because you’ve made it your whole life. If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t scare you as much as it does.’

‘I’m not scared,’ she said brightly. ‘What is there to be scared of?’

‘You tell me-if you can put it into words.’

‘You’re making something out of nothing. I had a bad experience, but so does everyone.’

‘Yes, but yours went deep enough to damn near destroy you,’ he said in a voice that was mysteriously fierce and gentle at the same time.

That almost shattered her control. Out of sight, she clenched her hands and forced herself to shrug.

‘Look, I lost the man I wanted and it cured me of silly fantasies.’

Hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. He was frowning slightly. ‘And what do you define as “silly fantasies”?’

‘Love lasting for ever. Moon rhyming with June. It’s all a con trick. Have fun, but don’t start believing in it, that’s my motto.’

‘Do you really not believe in people truly loving each other, wanting to give to each other, make sacrifices for each other?’

She gave a little laugh. ‘I believed in it once. Not any more. Let’s leave it.’

‘What happened?’

She shrugged. ‘It turned out that he didn’t believe in it, that’s all. Unfortunately, he discovered that rather late in the day. The wedding was planned, everything booked-the church, the honeymoon. So we had to cancel the arrangements. Very boring, but a useful lesson in reality.’

She finished with a tinkling laugh that made him look at her shrewdly.

‘I see,’ he said, nodding.

‘Do you? I wonder. I don’t suppose you know much about being jilted.’

He didn’t reply for a moment. Then he said simply, ‘Don’t jump to conclusions.’

Suddenly, as though he too had heard the sounding of an alarm, he stepped back, asking, ‘Is there any more tea?’ in a voice whose brittleness matched her own.

‘Yes, I’ll make a fresh cup. Sit down and wait for me.’

He’d revealed more than he’d meant to and was hastily blocking a door he’d half opened. Pippa understood the feeling, having done the same. Now she was glad to escape to the kitchen and have a few moments alone to calm her riotous feelings.

When she felt she’d returned to some sort of normality, she took in the tea and found him studying Dee and Mark’s wedding picture.

‘They were my grandparents,’ she said. ‘They married during the war.’

‘You’re very like her,’ he said.

‘Really? Nobody’s ever said that to me before.’

‘Not in features, but she’s got a cheeky look in her eyes that I’ve seen in yours. It says, “Go on, I dare you!”’

‘Hey, that was her exactly.’

‘Did you know her well?’

‘I lived with the two of them near the end of their lives. When she died, she left me some money on condition I used it to train for a career. It’s funny, I love both my parents, and my brothers, but I was closer to Gran than anyone else. She didn’t stand for any nonsense.’

‘You see; I said you were like her.’

‘Well, she taught me a lot, especially how to get the better of a man.’ She gave a merry chuckle. Now that the dangerous moment had passed, she was slipping back into the persona of Pippa the cheeky urchin. ‘“Let him think he’s winning”, that was her motto. “Make sure he doesn’t find out the truth until it’s too late”.’ She glanced at the picture on the sideboard. ‘And I was a good pupil, wasn’t I, Gran? Top of the class.’

‘You want to be careful having that kind of conversation with your grandmother,’ Roscoe said, grinning. ‘Your grandfather might eavesdrop and discover your secrets.’

‘If he doesn’t know them by now-’ She stopped suddenly, aghast as she heard herself talking as though they were living people. She must sound really mad. ‘That is…’ she resumed hastily ‘…what I mean is…’

‘Pippa-’ he interrupted her gently ‘-you don’t have to tell me what you mean. You really don’t.’

And she didn’t, she realised with a surge of thankfulness. Roscoe understood perfectly.

‘How long were they married?’ he asked.

‘Sixty years. We had a big celebration of their anniversary, and neither of them lived very long after that. He died first, and then Gran was just waiting to join him. She used to say he appeared in her dreams and told her to hurry up because he could never find anything without her. In the end, she only kept him waiting three weeks.

‘I remember her saying that she wanted to outlive him, but only by a little. She wanted to be there to look after him as long as he needed her, but then she wanted to follow quickly. And she got her wish.’

Roscoe gave her a strange look. ‘So love does sometimes last for ever?’

‘For their generation, yes. In those days it was expected.’

‘And that’s why they stayed together for sixty years? Because of convention?’

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘That’s not why. They loved each other totally, but just because they could manage it doesn’t mean that everyone… Drink your tea before it gets cold.’

‘Then I must call a taxi and go home. Perhaps you’d have lunch with me tomorrow, when I’m more awake. We’ll discuss the most sensible way to proceed.’

He took out his cellphone but, instead of making the call, he stared at it, then put it down suddenly as though reeling from a blow.

‘If I can just rest for a moment,’ he murmured.

‘Not just for a moment,’ she said. ‘All night.’

‘What was that?’

‘You’re not leaving while you’re in this state. You’d forget where you were going and end up heaven knows where. Come on.’

She reached for him to help him to his feet. Dazed, he let her support him into the bedroom, where a gentle push sent him tumbling onto the bed. She went to recover his suitcases and when she returned he was sprawled out, dead to the world. Quietly, she drew the curtains and turned out the light.

‘Goodnight,’ she whispered, closing the door.

She washed up quietly so that no noise should intrude on him even through the door. As she worked, she tried to believe that this was really happening. Her email had brought Roscoe flying home, despite his problems with jet lag, despite his work, despite his intense need to stay ahead of the game. Despite everything, he’d come speeding back to her.

Before retiring for the night, she opened the door of the bedroom just a crack. Roscoe was lying as she’d left him, his breath coming evenly. She backed out and went to curl up on the sofa.

Who would have imagined that he had an unsuspected frailty? she thought. More-who would have imagined that he would allow her to see it?

Just before she fell asleep, she wondered if Teresa had ever been allowed to know.

She awoke in darkness, feeling slightly chilly. The weather was growing cold as autumn advanced, so she turned the heating up, then recalled that the bedroom radiator was sometimes temperamental.

Quietly, she slipped into the room, realising that she’d been right. The temperature was low and it took some fiddling before the radiator performed properly. In the darkness she could just make out Roscoe, lying still, then turning and muttering.

He must be cold, she thought, taking a blanket from the cupboard and creeping to the bed, hoping to lay it down without waking him. But his eyes opened as she leaned over.

‘Hello,’ he whispered.

‘I just brought you this so that you don’t catch cold,’ she said.

She wasn’t sure if he heard her. His eyes had closed again while his hands found her, drawing her down against him. There was nothing lover-like in the embrace. She wasn’t even sure he knew what he was doing. But his arms were about her and her head was on his chest, and he seemed to have fallen asleep again.

It would have been easy to slide free, but she found she had no desire to do so. The feeling of Roscoe’s chest rising and falling beneath her head and the soft rhythm of his heart against her ear were pleasant and peaceful. That was missing in her life, she realised. Peace. Tranquillity. This was the last man with whom she would have expected to find those elusive treasures, yet somehow it seemed natural to be held against him, drifting on a pleasant sea in a world where there was nothing to fear.

Which just went to show.

Show what?

Something or other.

She slept.

She was awoken by a sudden movement from Roscoe. His hands tightened on her and he looked into her face, his own eyes filled with shock.

‘What…how did you…?’

‘You pulled me down while I was putting a blanket over you,’ she said sleepily. ‘It was like being held in an iron cage, and I was too tired to argue so I just drifted.’

He groaned. ‘Sorry if I made you a prisoner. You should have socked me on the jaw.’

‘Didn’t have the energy.’ She yawned, letting him draw her back against his chest. ‘Besides, you weren’t doing anything to deserve getting socked.’

And what would I have done if you had? The words ran through her mind before she could stop them.

‘Are you sure? Pippa, tell me at once-did I…I didn’t…?’

‘No, you didn’t. I promise. You were right out of it. You wouldn’t have had the energy to do anything, any more than I’d have had the energy to sock you.’

She was laughing contentedly as she spoke and he relaxed, also laughing.

Suddenly he said, ‘What on earth is that?’

He’d noticed the shabby toy on her bedside table. Now he reached out and took it.

‘That belonged to my Gran-the one in that photo,’ she said. ‘She called him her Mad Bruin, and I think he represented Grandpa to her. After he died she cuddled Bruin and talked to him all the time.’

Roscoe surveyed Bruin, not with the scorn she would once have expected from him, but with fascination.

‘I’ll bet you could tell a secret or two,’ he said.

Pippa choked with laughter and he drew her close, laying the little bear aside as carefully as though he had feelings.

‘Will you believe me if I say I never meant this to happen?’ he murmured against her hair.

‘Of course. If you’d had anything else in mind you would have gone to Teresa.’

‘Teresa isn’t you,’ he said, as though that explained everything.

‘Ah, yes, you couldn’t have talked stern practicalities with her.’

‘As a matter of fact, I could. She’s my oldest friend.’

‘She’s a great beauty,’ Pippa mused. ‘Useful kind of “friend”.’

‘The best. She’s helped me out of several awkward situations. Her husband was also my friend. In fact I introduced them. He died a few years ago but she’s never looked at anyone else, and I don’t think she ever will. She’s still in love with his memory.’

Roscoe wondered why he was telling her all this. Why should he care what she thought? Then he remembered her with Charlie the other night, holding his face tenderly between her hands. And he knew why.

He waited for her to say something, and was disappointed when she didn’t. He couldn’t see that she was smiling to herself.