Artistic Licence (23 page)

She swore for a few seconds before deciding it would be better to paint it now than to depend on remembering to do it later. She didn’t want to discover it unpainted when it came to hanging the pictures and if the floor wasn’t absolutely hard, the ladder could scrape the surface horribly. With Rory’s work being so enormous, she couldn’t rely on people not looking up that high. Someone had advised Molly to buy a ladder which Thea didn’t like very much, but according to Molly’s adviser it was the most versatile system, which could be long or short, with or without a platform, in fact, could do everything except apply the paint.

Now, she set it up very carefully, working out which bit hooked over which other bit. It seemed to take for ever to assemble and she yearned for a straightforward pair of steps. Eventually it appeared to hold together and, gingerly, she climbed up it, her pot of paint over her arm, her paintbrush stuck down her cleavage. She couldn’t run an art gallery if she was going to be pathetic about ladders. She had to be grown-up about it.

When she reached the top she realised that the wretched ladder wasn’t quite near enough. She didn’t like the fact that there was nothing to support her above her knees, and if she got down, moved the ladder and climbed up again, the whole grisly process would just go on longer. She knew it was silly, but she decided to get some paint on her brush, hang on for
dear life and lean. With her painting arm outstretched, it might just reach.

She dug her brush into the almost solid paint. The pot was heavy and when she’d loaded her brush, she hung it on the ladder. Then, very carefully, holding on tight with one hand she leaned over the front, aiming at the bit of ceiling with her brush, praying her arm would extend far enough.

It did, just about. It wasn’t the most perfectly painted bit of cornice, but no one would notice a few brush marks up there. She needed a dab more paint to finish the job. Her brush was just making a pleasing sucking sound as she dug it into the paint, when she heard a noise behind her. Startled, she jerked round and at the same moment that she saw Ben, she felt her ladder slip and begin to topple.

There wasn’t time for her whole life to pass before her, but she did manage to wonder if she could jump free of the falling ladder, what on earth Ben was doing there and if she’d ever get the paint off the floor. One foot hit the floor first, sending a stab of pain to her ankle, then Ben caught her and she swayed downwards, unable to save herself. Her weight and the angle at which he caught her knocked him off balance and they landed on the floor together, breathless, she on one of his arms, the rest of him more or less on top of her.

For a moment neither of them moved or spoke. ‘It’s all right. Don’t try to get up; just lie still and get your breath back. Thank God I managed to break your fall.’

Thea lay back. She felt strangely calm, considering that a moment ago she’d been confronting broken limbs or worse. She felt as if the elastic had gone in her
arms and legs; they felt heavy and relaxed, as if she were in bed after a long night’s sleep. Even the pain in her ankle subsided to a dull throb. Then she became aware that her shirt was halfway up her back and that Ben had moved off her a little. Also, that his hand was on her bare waist.

Questions flitted irrelevantly through her mind; when did she last wax her legs? Was there paint all over the floor? What sort of knickers had she put on that morning? Praying it wasn’t one of the older pairs, she wondered why on earth Ben didn’t get up. Was there some sort of medical reason why he should stay lying down too? Predominately, she acknowledged, she didn’t want him to get up. She liked lying under him, half naked, with this strange feeling of lassitude making it impossible to do anything except stay there. Normally by now she would have jumped to her feet, frantically apologising, and started to mop up the floor.

‘I must be squashing you to death,’ he said, not moving.

Thea’s brain was still on super-speed. She had time to realise that if he got up she might never get this close to him again. On the other hand her ankle hurt and she should really find out if she’d broken anything before even considering following up on this opportunity. ‘Not really. I wonder if you could just have a feel of my ankle. It hurt as I fell. It’s probably fine, but I’m a bit of a coward and I’d rather you checked if it was broken before I look. If I see it out of kilter I might be sick and this floor has suffered enough.’ By now she could see paint, looking like yoghurt, splattered across the newly sanded wood. She had a horrible feeling she
was lying with her head in it, too.

‘I should get you up and have a proper look.’

‘Just do a quick reccie. I’m afraid I’m one of those people who have to put the plaster on before I look at the cut.’

His hand on her leg and ankle didn’t recoil from broken bone. In fact, it appeared to be telling her there wasn’t much wrong at all, as it glided smoothly up and down. The feel of his warm palm on her leg was comforting, extremely pleasant.

It obviously didn’t have the same effect on him. Here she was, practically naked, giving him the perfect excuse to get his hand above her knee and he hadn’t done it. What could you do with a man like that? Just as well, she told herself, she hadn’t fallen off the ladder and hurt her ankle on purpose, to get herself in this position.

‘I don’t think anything’s broken, you’ve probably wrenched it,’ he said. ‘I’Il get up so I can help you up.’

A whimper escaped from her.

‘What’s the matter? Have I hurt you?’

‘No,’ she breathed, looking into his eyes, wondering if he would ever get the message and kiss her. A lot of men would be smoking the post-coital cigarette by now. He was aware of her lying under him, he must be, and he hadn’t got up himself either, but why hadn’t he done anything else?

He sighed deeply and the corner of his mouth lifted in the beginnings of a smile. Thea closed her eyes, waiting – hoping – to feel his lips on hers, knowing she’d die of embarrassment if she didn’t. She’d practically asked him to kiss her.

His lips brushed hers so gently that it was almost a
tease. Then he applied just enough pressure for it to qualify as a kiss but no more. It dawned on Thea that he was kissing her out of politeness, to save her the embarrassment of lying underneath him, offered but unwanted. He took his mouth away maddeningly soon.

He could have saved himself the trouble. She doubted if she could have felt more hurt and rejected if he’d just said ‘thanks but no thanks’ and left it at that. She lay still, her eyes tight shut, hoping she wouldn’t cry.

‘I think we should get up. There’s paint all over the floor. It’s in your hair and everything.’

Just for that moment she didn’t care about the paint, the floor or even the gallery. Because she’d realised that she’d fallen in love with Ben – at pretty much the same time that she discovered he didn’t want her and had made it abundantly clear. She had him actually in her arms and she couldn’t get him to do more than kiss her out of kindness. It was humiliating and heartbreaking. How could she bring herself to look at him again? She bet Petal never had this trouble – in fact, Petal’s troubles were probably all the other way.

She allowed him to help her up, not looking at him, with her eyes closed, but as she stood upright she was aware that her ankle really did hurt. She squeezed her eyes tighter shut. Pain was a perfect excuse for a few tears, but she couldn’t let herself shed them. Gingerly she put her foot to the floor, still clinging on to Ben. She bit her lip and inhaled sharply. ‘Ow.’ She wanted to say a lot more a lot stronger.

‘Can you stand on it?’

‘Probably.’ She tried a little tentative weight-
bearing. It was agony. ‘Ow’ no longer covered it. After a lot of inward breaths she said, ‘Hurts like hell.’

‘Do you think we should get you to casualty?’

‘No!’ Horror made it easy for her to look at him. ‘I’ve got a floor to varnish, not to mention get the paint off from. I can’t spend hours and hours in A & E reading old copies of the
Radio Times
. It’s nothing to make a fuss about. It’ll be right as rain in the morning. All it needs is a cold compress and a bit of a bandage.’

‘Which you have in your first aid kit?’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. We can make a bandage out of some rags or something. Haven’t you got any initiative?’ He accepted her anger with irritating calm as if he knew the real reason for it. ‘There’s a dust sheet next door.’

Ben nodded. Then he bent and picked her up.

She was reluctantly impressed. She was a healthy woman and was probably heavy to lift, but he not only got her up into his arms, but carried her through to the next room. There, where there was a chair, he sat her gently down. Then he tore off the end of an old sheet Thea had been using to protect the floor and went to wet it.

He came back and lifted her foot. He was very gentle and she was reminded of the way he had handled the puppies when they were born. He probably saw her in much the same light: something which needed caring for and looking after, but nothing beyond.

‘I wish I’d protected the floor next door,’ she said, to give him a reason for her extravagant sigh, and to distract herself from the feel of his fingers on her foot and ankle. She had very sensitive feet and although her ankle hurt like mad, even the pain
shad a strangely erotic effect. It was no good having those sorts of feelings for a man who didn’t want you. A tear got past her guard and trickled down her cheek.

She felt Ben stiffen, opened her eyes and saw that he too was angry now. ‘I wish you’d just moved the ladder. How can you have been so stupid as to lean out from a ladder like that? It’s incredibly dangerous. You should have known better. If I hadn’t caught you, you could have been seriously injured. As it is, you’ve got what might be a badly sprained ankle.’

He sounded horribly paternal and, although he probably couldn’t help it, she wasn’t prepared to be treated like a naughty child by a man who’d just hurt her far more than any number of sprained ankles could have done. ‘It’s easy to be wise after the event, isn’t it, and you’ve no right to talk to me like that.’

‘If I think you’ve been incredibly stupid and careless I’m not going to hold back on the matter. Have you no common sense? Don’t you know that people
die
falling off ladders? And here you were, all on your own, risking your life. You could have lain there for hours, unable to get help. I don’t suppose the phone’s connected, is it?’

It wasn’t and her mobile was downstairs with her handbag. ‘Oh, bollocks!’ she said, hoping the word would offend him. ‘What an overreaction. I probably wouldn’t have fallen off the bloody thing if you hadn’t come in and startled me.’

‘Don’t go blaming me for this. That ladder had started to go before I came into the room – otherwise I’d have caught you before your ankle hit the floor. God! If only it hadn’t taken me so long to find somewhere to park.’

Thea suddenly remembered saying that you didn’t get angry with people you didn’t care about. And even if he didn’t fancy her, he must be concerned for her welfare. She felt ashamed. He had tried to save her, he was now feeling the bones round her ankle very gently, she had no reason to shout at him. But she was not ready to forgive him entirely – her pride and her feelings hurt more than her damn ankle did, which was saying something. She hoped there was a special place in hell for men who refused the advances of nice girls, but still she summoned up some chilly dignity. ‘I meant the compress and the bandage to be separate.’

‘This’Il do both jobs until we can get you home to a packet of frozen peas. Now,’ he said, when he had finished binding her ankle with wet rags, ‘where are the rest of your clothes so I can drive you home? You won’t be able to drive yourself for a bit.’

There was an anxious silence while Thea realised what he was saying, that she might not be able to drive, and she absolutely depended on being able to get to and from home at the moment. What with Lara and the puppies she’d
never manage on public transport. Please God he was wrong. ‘I’m not planning to go home, not tonight,’ she told him, trying not to panic. ‘I’ve planned to stay the night here, putting on coats of varnish whenever one dries, sleeping in between. I’ve got to get this floor done.’

‘If you were varnishing the floor, what were you doing up a ladder with a pot of paint?’

‘There was a bit of ceiling that got missed. I just thought I’d do it before I got to that bit of floor.’ She summoned a carefree smile from somewhere. ‘At least my hurt leg won’t stop me varnishing,’ she added brightly, if a little brittly.

He opened his mouth to say all sorts of sensible things, but fortunately had the good sense not to. Instead, he said, ‘Then I’d better help you.’

She bit back a curt refusal: if she let her temper and her hurt pride get the better of her he might guess why, a woman spurned and all that. On the other hand he might just think it was hurting her ankle and spilling paint on the floor that was making her so touchy. ‘You don’t have to. I expect you’ve got somewhere else to go.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I came to see you. I wanted to see how things were going.’

‘But you didn’t come all the way down from London just to chat?’ She didn’t let her heart flutter at the thought, although it wanted to.

‘Not quite. I was in Bristol, having yet another interview, and I thought I’d catch up with you on the way home.’

Thea wasn’t good at geography, but she was fairly sure that there were more direct ways back to London from Bristol than going via Stroud. He was probably planning to visit Molly, too. ‘Where’s Toby?’

‘Staying with a friend. The friend he would usually have stayed with when I had to leave him with Molly.’

‘Oh.’

‘Thank you for looking after him that time. I heard all about you making pizzas and chocolate cake.’

‘We had fun together. I really like Toby.’

A shadow of something, which might have been sadness or anger, flitted across his features.

Thea despaired. There was no pleasing the man. She couldn’t even say she liked his son without some
invisible code being violated. ‘We’d better get on with this floor, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll get started clearing up the paint. There are more rollers and things downstairs. Although you don’t have to help if you don’t want to. I’ll manage.’