Merger By Matrimony (9 page)

‘Because it's the way I am. Oh, I think I understand. Is it so that you have somewhere in the country for you and Stephanie, when you begin to have children?' She would have liked children. Of course, she was only young and had all the time in the world, but time had a nasty habit of slipping away when you weren't looking.

‘No, that's
not
the reason,' he was saying impatiently. ‘Naturally, you'd have to see the house. I wouldn't want you to consider anything until you're in full possession of all the facts.'

‘Naturally.' Sooner than expected, the car was pulling
up to the front of her pristine house. Strangely, the place was beginning to feel a bit like home, even though she still had an instinctive aversion to the English preoccupation with ordered greenery. She slung open her door and preceded him to her front door. It was much cooler now. She unlocked the door, pushed it open and then turned to face him. His face was all angles and his hair was raked back so that there was no relief from the chiselled perfection of his features. He was also standing too close to her. Claustrophobically close.

‘Thank you for dinner,' she told him politely, eyes skirting any possible clash with his by focusing on the terraced row of houses visible over his right shoulder. ‘Do you want me to take the files with me and have a proper read?'

‘So I suggest this weekend. I'll pick you up on Saturday morning and we can return on Sunday night. That should give you long enough to have a look around.'

‘Pick me up?' she stammered, confused by this alarmingly swift turn of events. Ever since Derek Wilson had stumbled his way to the compound, her life seemed to have adopted a galloping speed that was quickly turning into a sprint.

‘You
do
want to see your country place, don't you? See whether you want my proposal to go ahead?'

‘Yes, of course, but…'

‘Don't tell me you have plans for the weekend.'

‘No, b-but…'

‘Then why are you stuttering and acting as though you've been pushed into a corner?'

‘It's all a bit sudden, that's all.'

‘I'm a great believer in the saying that there's no time like the present.'

That, she thought, was glaringly obvious. But a week
end? Alone with him? It wouldn't do. She couldn't face down what the man did to her and she had no intention of being in his company without remission for days on end. She didn't understand what she was feeling, but she knew that it was all wrong. Mild-mannered Henri with his easy ways and his light-hearted flirting was something she could handle. But Callum unleashed different, frightening things in her. A weekend being frightened was not on her agenda.

‘I'd like Stephanie to come,' she said bluntly.

‘I intended to ask her along,' he lied. ‘I'll see you on Saturday. Around nine.' He looked away, showing her his profile. ‘We can all get to know one another a little better.'

T
HE
following day, Stephanie asked Destiny to lunch.
A gorgeous little wine bar in Chelsea. You'll adore it.

What was the dress code, she wondered, for gorgeous little wine bars in Chelsea? The flowered dress which she'd bought on her shopping trip made her feel frivolous. It was added to the list of new emotions which she had been accumulating ever since she'd set foot on British soil. Sometimes she felt as though the perfect bliss she had achieved for all those years in Panama had been an illusion. Back there, she'd operated on one level only. She had been calm, useful, productive and down to earth. Devoting her life to other people had left no room for anything else.

Now, it was as if the small world she had busily and happily occupied had grown and swelled into a complex network of different facets. She no longer felt nauseated and overwhelmed by the crowds. She was becoming accustomed to the buildings that rose around her like the tall, lush trees that encroached upon the compound and to the pace of life that left no time to be alone with the privacy of your thoughts for company. She hadn't read a book since she had arrived! In Panama, she had read voraciously every evening, all manner of books, which she stocked up on in quantity whenever a trip to the city was made and, of course, her father's medical journals, which she had started reading for interest from the age of fourteen.

And men had always been her equals. Aside from
Henri, who had worked alongside her for two years and whose gallantry rescued her from total asexuality, she'd had no experience of being aware of them in a sexual manner. She discussed problems with them, joined in their conversations, worked with them—but those peculiar antennae that were so finely tuned to their masculinity had never really got going with her. Callum had been the one to bring that side of her to life. It was a good thing that she was going to see Stephanie. Her stepcousin would put a bit of necessary perspective on what was going on in her head.

Destiny arrived at the wine bar, late but calmly resolved to sort out the problem with Callum and the wayward, puzzling effect he had on her, with the same calm determination that had always seen her through the thousands of minor crises that she had faced in her life. Crises of a more practical nature, but no less surmountable than the problem of Callum Ross. Which, anyway, was an inconvenience but hardly a crisis.

When she cast her mind back to their dinner the night before, she could feel her heart-rate speed up and that would never do.

Stephanie was waiting for her at a corner table of the wine bar. It was obviously a place to go with the fashionable crowd. Rows of men in business suits were lounging by the circular bar, idly drinking but more interested in who was walking through the door. Some of them were with women, who were also smartly dressed in well-tailored suits to match their well-tailored short haircuts. The tables were all occupied, mostly with groups of people talking loudly, gesticulating, and laughing.

The décor was very modern. Pale colours, wooden floor, large abstract paintings on the wall of the kind
painted by some of her eight-year-old children on the compound. Just splashes of paint that looked as though some idiot had spilled his palette on a canvas and hadn't been bothered about cleaning it up.

Stephanie stood up and waved and Destiny scurried over to the table and sat down.

‘It's very crowded, isn't it?' She leaned forward and glanced around her, smiling.

Her stepcousin grinned. ‘I know. It's brilliant, isn't it? Callum hates crowds like this, but I love it. What's the point making an effort getting dressed if no one's going to be around to appreciate it?' She was in a smoky blue fitted dress, very short, and her nails were painted the exact coral shade of her lipstick. This was Callum's fiancée, Destiny reminded herself, and incidentally everything a man like him would want in a woman. Neat, attractive, vivacious, always smiling, always amenable.

‘I wouldn't know,' Destiny admitted, breaking off to order some mineral water and a salad, taking the lead from Stephanie and remembering Callum's reaction at her hearty appetite. ‘I can't say that dressing up was something that happened much on the compound. No need.' She grinned. ‘And no dressing-up clothes either, come to think of it.'

Which revived all the open-mouthed fascination that Stephanie had shown previously. Whenever she leaned forward her wavy brown hair swung over her shoulders, and she would flick it back by running her fingers through it and then tossing her head the way a horse tossed its mane.

She wanted to know everything about Destiny—her life, her education, what it felt like to live so far away from decent shops, what she ate, what she drank, whether she'd ever had malaria, what the people out there looked
like, what her father looked like. When the subject came round to Henri, whose name had been mentioned casually, but had been picked up with the perceptiveness of someone well versed in the ways of relationships, Stephanie shot her a coy smile.

‘So there
is
more to life there than you let on!' She giggled. ‘What does he look like?'

‘You've hardly touched your salad,' Destiny said wryly, dodging the questions she could see hovering on the horizon. Stephanie obligingly stuck a couple of lettuce leaves in her mouth and continued to survey her stepcousin with a gleam in her blue eyes.

‘Okay. He's about my height, brownish hair, specs, thinnish.'

‘Any more
ishes
to add to the description? What about sexyish?'

No, that describes
your
lover, was the thought that flashed through Destiny's head, disappearing before it had time to take root.

‘Yes, well…' she said vaguely.

‘I can see—' Stephanie sat back and arched her eyebrows meaningfully ‘—that you're overwhelmed by lust for this man.'

‘It's too hot out there to get lusty.'

‘Oh, yeah?'

‘Too sticky.'

‘Right. In that case, I'm surprised anyone has babies.'

‘Tell me about Callum,' Destiny said, going red and rapidly changing the subject, which was greeted with another arch of perfectly bowed eyebrows, but Stephanie grinned and relented.

‘What about him?'

‘You must be very excited at the thought of getting married…' Her salad had already settled in her stomach
and steady hunger pangs were beginning to set in. How could anyone exist on a handful of shrubbery with a bit of black pepper on top?

‘Well, we're not
getting married.
Least, not yet.' The heart-shaped face suffused with delicate colour.

‘Oh.'

‘It's just that the time isn't right,' she rushed on, blushing madly. ‘You know…'

‘Well, not really, but it's none of my business anyway.'

‘Yes, it is! I mean, you're the closest thing I have to a relative. At least, a relative of my own age. I have a couple of aunts in Cornwall but they're in their nineties.' She wrinkled her nose, considering the dilemma of her relativeless state, then her face cleared slightly. ‘It's just that…you know…Callum and I… Well, he's pretty busy…work and such…'

‘Why don't you tell him to make some time for you?'

Stephanie shrugged and chewed her lip. ‘It's not as easy as all that.'

Destiny inclined her head to one side and listened. The waiter efficiently cleared their table, routinely asking whether everything was satisfactory, to which she replied, honestly, ‘There wasn't enough of it.'

‘I shall tell our head chef,' the man said with an expression that told her that he had no intention of doing any such thing.

‘I mean,' Stephanie said in a rush, ‘Callum's so
overpowering
and he
hates
women who nag. When we first started going out, he used to say that he loathed women who were demanding.'

‘So what?' Destiny frowned, trying to work this out in her head. ‘If you don't demand certain things, how on earth do you ever get them?'

Another helpless shrug. ‘Thing is, we met at a business do that Uncle Abe had hosted before he and Mum divorced, and he sort of swept me off my feet to start with. You wouldn't believe the women who would love to be seen with him…'

‘I can't see why if he's that intolerant.' But she could. He drew stares from other people. He was physically commanding. He had the sort of personality that compelled other people's attention.

‘Oh, he's so rich and powerful and awe-inspiring.'

‘I don't think he's awe-inspiring. Actually, sometimes he irritates the life out of me.'

‘But you'd never let him know that, would you?'

‘Yes. Why not? He's not going to chop both my arms off if I say what's on my mind.'

Stephanie looked at her as though she had suddenly discovered that she was dealing with a madwoman.

‘Anyway,' Destiny said hastily, ‘tell me about this wonderful house I shall be going to see on the weekend. Has Callum told you about his offer?' Which he hadn't, unsurprisingly, so she spent a few minutes telling her stepcousin the details.

‘So what will you do?' Stephanie asked, while Destiny wondered why her fiancé had chosen to withhold such important news from the woman he loved. ‘If he's made such an offer, then you know he'll expect you to accept. He never compromises when it comes to business.' She giggled nervously. ‘Or anything else, for that matter.'

‘I don't care
what
he expects. I shall have a look around and come to my own conclusions.' Now, from her stepcousin's expression, she was listening to someone from another planet speaking in forked tongue. Destiny gave a little sigh, plunged into an unrevealing conversation about Henri because she knew that it would distract
her stepcousin, and left the restaurant half an hour later wondering what exactly was the nature of the relationship between Stephanie and Callum. Was it any wonder that she had no time to read over here? There was far too much drama in her everyday life to leave much room for a bit of mindless escapism.

Whatever the dress code was for a trip to a country house—
her
country house, as Derek had explained in length on the telephone the day before—Destiny didn't care. She packed comfortable clothes. A spare pair of jeans, two tee-shirts, flat walking boots, a pair of wellingtons. She had worked out that she now possessed roughly twice the amount of clothes she had ever had at any one time before. Aside from when she had been boarding in Mexico.

She managed to cram everything she was taking into her rucksack, and Stephanie's first words on seeing her at ten past nine on the Saturday morning were, ‘Is that all you're bringing?'

Destiny slung her bag into the back seat and then folded her long body into the car next to it.

‘It's only a weekend,' she pointed out. ‘Hello, Callum.' She belatedly addressed the back of his dark head. It seemed that meeting Stephanie for lunch had not managed to put some vital perspective on her wayward feelings because, as their eyes met in the rearview mirror, she could feel her skin tingle.

‘My make-up takes up nearly as much room as that,' Stephanie was saying cheerfully. ‘Doesn't it, Callum?'

‘If not more.' He pulled out of the enclosed cul-de-sac, and reached over to hand her an envelope. ‘One or two photos of your little house,' he said drily. ‘Thought you might be interested.'

The bundle of twenty-odd photos, rescued from
Stephanie's photo album from the times she had gone there years previously, before her mother had joined the line of ex-Felts, showed a sprawling mansion with a series of outbuildings, curling around a swimming pool. From the front seat, Stephanie craned backwards to explain the photos. The outbuildings had apparently been used for stabling horses but were now empty and the swimming pool had been put in at the insistence of her mother, who had seen it as adequate compensation for being deprived of living full-time in the city. The grounds were extensive and included a wood, a stream and orchards of fruit trees.

‘Who looks after it now?' Destiny asked, still puzzled by the need her uncle had felt to possess a house of that size in which people could lose each other without a great deal of trouble.

‘Derek kept on a skeleton staff,' Callum said from the front. ‘He assumed that you'd probably want to sell but, if you didn't, I suppose he thought that you might want the retainers to stay. I have no idea how many people he's kept or what they're doing there for that matter. We haven't been to the place for months. They could have hijacked the silver and cleared off for all I know.'

‘I thought you said that the contents were willed to…lots of other people?'

‘Certain of the contents, yes. Which would still leave quite a bit
in situ.
'

‘So is there anyone there now?' She had visions of arriving at an inhospitable mansion, stone-walled and freezing cold.

‘Stephanie got in touch with Harold and his wife to open up and get the place ready. Or, should I say, get a small part of the place ready. A lot of the rooms have never been used.'

‘What a waste.'

She noticed that they were now leaving London and was heartened by the sight of greenery. It must be easy to forget the existence of open land when you were constantly surrounded by buildings.

‘What would you do with the house if…I decided to go ahead with your proposal?'

‘Convert it into something, I expect.'

‘Convert it into what?'

‘A hotel.'

‘You'd convert this beautiful old mansion into a
hotel?
'

‘I would convert a beautiful old mansion into a
beautiful old hotel,
' he said, with a trace of impatience in his voice. ‘At least it would be used. What difference would it make to you, anyway? Do you intend staying in England?'