Perfect Timing (15 page)

Caspar had been working up in his studio for ten hours without a break. Coming downstairs in search of banana doughnuts and stealable cigarettes, he answered the door en route.

‘Who is he?' he whispered to Poppy, because Claudia was clearly far too excited to make proper introductions.

‘The King of Smooth,' Poppy whispered back. She was marveling at the sight of Claudia fluttering not just her eyelashes but her whole body at him. She looked at Will Smyth—not Smith—and wondered if he had really been born with that glamorous ‘y' or if it was a recent addition, sneaked in there when no one was looking.

Poppy couldn't help comparing him with Caspar. Will's hair was dark and immaculately cut, Caspar's was blond and flopped all over the place. Will was wearing an expensive-looking suede jacket over an expensive-looking golfing sweater over a superbly ironed shirt, superbly pressed trousers, and expensive-looking pigskin shoes. Caspar wore no shoes, ancient jeans, and a tee-shirt that had been left behind years ago by one of his ex-girlfriends, with ‘I love Jason Donovan' on the front.

‘What's so funny?' Caspar had intercepted Poppy's sidelong glance.

‘I'm comparing the two of you. He smells of Givenchy for Gentlemen. You smell of turpentine.'

‘I like the smell of turpentine.'

‘His nails are manicured. Yours are covered in blue paint.'

‘Damn, no wonder Claudia prefers him to me.'

‘And he drives a Lotus.'

‘Oh well, no contest.'

As long as Caspar's battered BMW got him from A to B, he was happy. He couldn't care less about status-symbol cars.

‘It's Claudia's lucky day.'

Caspar lifted Poppy's chin. ‘Doesn't look like yours.'

‘It's been my unlucky day.' Poppy heaved a sigh. ‘Claudia got seduced; I got fired.'

‘So what else is new?' Caspar grinned. ‘Okay, Claudia getting seduced is a bit of a novelty, I'll admit. But you're always getting fired. I thought you'd be used to it by now.'

‘Don't make fun.' She pried a hideous old print of Westminster Bridge out of a frame that was at least made of wood, not plastic. If she polished it up, it might fetch a fiver. ‘I've been a prize prat. This time Jake isn't going to forgive me.'

After much high-pitched laughter and muffled shrieking in the kitchen, Claudia and Will came back. Claudia was holding a bottle of Krug and—precariously—four glasses. Will was holding Claudia around the waist, murmuring something into her ear that was making her blush.

‘I thought we could have a drink before we leave.' This was Claudia's way of getting everyone to know each other. She wanted Poppy and Caspar to like Will as much as she did.

‘You kept this well hidden,' said Caspar, meaning the Krug. He certainly hadn't spotted it in the fridge.

Claudia looked bashful. ‘We only met six and a half hours ago.'

‘She's the girl of my dreams,' said Will. He gave her a squeeze and winked at Caspar. ‘I like a cozy armful, don't you?'

Claudia mouthed What Do You Think? at Poppy while Will unraveled the wire around the cork. Brightly, Poppy nodded, because if Claudia didn't mind being called a cozy armful, who was she to object?

Seconds later, the cork flew out of the bottle and bounced off the ceiling. As Poppy held her glass up to be filled, Will deliberately tipped some of the Krug down her front.

‘Oops,' he leered, ‘now I expect you'll need a hand getting out of those wet clothes.'

‘It's a
joke
,' Claudia explained with a girlish giggle. ‘He did it at lunchtime, to Daisy from accounts. Everyone thought it was a scream!'

‘It's certainly a waste of champagne,' said Caspar.

Will winked again. ‘I'd volunteer to lick it off.'

Poppy didn't dare look at Caspar. She took a great swig of her drink instead, so quickly the bubbles went up her nose.

‘Well, cheers everyone,' said Claudia happily. Then, as the doorbell rang again, ‘Whoever's that?'

Will said, ‘If it's the wife and kids, don't let 'em in.'

He winked so often, thought Poppy, it was practically a nervous twitch.

Caspar answered the door.

‘It's your ex-employer,' he announced, coming back with Jake.

‘Oh help,' mumbled Poppy, her gaze flickering nervously to the heap of paintings strewn over the carpet. She couldn't face another shouting match. If Jake accused her of absconding with lot eighty-nine, she might have to burst into tears.

‘Jake, what a surprise,' exclaimed Claudia. Eager to show off the dazzling new love of her life—ha! this would show Jake the caliber of man she was capable of attracting—she dragged Will towards him. ‘You must meet Will… we're just off out to dinner… Will, this is Jake Landers. Jake, Will Smyth.'

Jake barely glanced at Will as he shook his hand. He muttered, ‘Hi,' then turned to Poppy. ‘Look, I'm sorry about earlier. I lost my temper and I shouldn't have. You aren't fired.'

‘I'm not?'

Poppy's eyes swam. She'd been so certain he'd come here to give her another chewing out.

‘I overreacted. I was worried sick when I couldn't find you. How on earth did you get home?'

‘A dealer with a van load of Victoriana took pity on me.'

‘You accepted a lift from a complete stranger? For heaven's
sake
, Poppy—'

‘It was a female dealer. I'm not a complete halfwit.'

‘Is that the same as not half a complete-wit?' Caspar wondered aloud.

‘Anyway,' Poppy felt honor-bound to tell him, ‘she had a quick look at the paintings and said if you wanted to cut your losses she'd take them off your hands for fifty quid.'

‘Oh well, I can do a bit better than that,' said Jake. ‘After you'd done your vanishing trick, I was approached by the chap who'd been bidding against you. His wife had her heart set on the painting of the puppies in the flowerpot—apparently they looked like a pair of spaniels they'd once owned—and he was desperate to get it for her. It's her birthday next week. He's not interested in the other pictures but he offered me three hundred for that one.'

Poppy bit her lip. ‘The puppies in the flowerpot?'

‘Oh shit.' Jake's face fell. ‘Don't tell me. You've already sold it. You threw it in the Thames. You drew moustaches on the dogs.'

‘No, it's right here.' Poppy grinned. ‘I've even polished the frame.'

‘Thank God for that. You had me worried.'

‘How do you suppose I've been feeling since lunchtime? So, do I really have my job back?'

Jake nodded. He looked up in surprise as Claudia thrust a full glass into his hand.

‘There we are, now we have something else to celebrate,' she said gaily.

‘Is it somebody's birthday?' asked Jake.

Will slid his arm around Claudia's hip with a proprietorial air, pulling her against him.

‘We're celebrating the fact that I've just walked into this gorgeous girl's life.'

Poppy wasn't the only one who'd been making comparisons. Claudia, reveling in Will's lavish compliments and scarcely able to believe her luck—to think, they'd so
nearly
lunched at Brown's instead—couldn't help comparing Will's suave glamour with Jake's painfully untrendy appearance. He looked disheveled too, in a Rhys Ifans-y kind of way, but you needed to actually
be
Rhys Ifans to carry it off.

The thing about Jake, Claudia decided, was he didn't have the first idea about style and grooming, and he didn't even have the grace to care. A makeover would do wonders. If he only bothered to smarten himself up, he could probably look quite passable, maybe even handsome.

But that was the trouble; he never
would
…

‘What's the matter,' Poppy teased Caspar, ‘jealous?'

He was looking through the untidy pile of paintings, running a finger through the layer of dust covering one of those she hadn't yet blasted with her trusty can of Mr Sheen.

‘Mmm?'

He was miles away.

‘Bet you wish you were that talented.' Poppy grabbed it from him, held it in front of her, pulled a face, and turned it the other way up. ‘Now this is what I call a masterpiece. What d'you suppose it is, an aerial view of Dorothea's crazy paving? And this brown splodge at the bottom; that could be a dead hamster…'

Caspar ignored Poppy's wittering. He took back the painting and gave it his undivided attention. It was smallish, fourteen inches by ten, and executed in oils. The frame was cheap, obscuring most of the signature. The aggressively abstract nature of the work and the unprepossessing color scheme—greys and browns with the odd streak of black thrown in for light relief—ensured that neither the auctioneers nor the dealers had paid it more than a moment's attention.

To the casual eye, it was a deeply unattractive example of the genre commonly referred to by the public at large as a load of old cobblers.

It had to be a fake, thought Caspar. A copy, an imitation, an ‘in-the-style-of'…

‘What did you say just now?' he demanded suddenly, making Poppy jump. ‘Whose crazy paving?'

‘Dorothea. Dorothea de Lacey. The woman whose stuff was being auctioned.' There was an odd expression on Caspar's face; Poppy wondered if he had known her. Damn, she hated having to break bad news. ‘I'm sorry, she, um, died a few weeks ago. But I'm sure she didn't suffer. It was very peaceful… and she'd had a jolly good innings.'

This ludicrous expression always conjured up in Poppy's mind a vision of some tottering old dear in cricket pads and head gear, valiantly defending her wicket. She envisaged Dorothea hitting a nifty six.

Caspar was still studying the painting.

‘How old was she?'

‘No idea.' Poppy shrugged. So he hadn't known her after all. ‘Pretty ancient.'

‘Mid-eighties,' volunteered Jake, who had spotted a portrait of Dorothea as a young girl at the sale. It had been painted in 1925. ‘Why?'

‘Let me take it along to the gallery tomorrow. Show it to someone who knows a bit more about this kind of thing than I do.' Abstract art wasn't his forte. He wasn't going to raise their hopes on such a long shot. But Wilhelm von Kantz had once had a brief affair with an English girl known only as Dorrie. And if this was an undiscovered von Kantz, well…

‘You mean it could be worth something?' Poppy gazed at the ugly little painting in disbelief.

‘Maybe. A couple of hundred or so, anyway.' No one had had more practice at lying to the opposite sex than Caspar. ‘Who knows? You could even end up in profit.' He gave her a nudge. ‘You'll be asking Jake for a pay rise.'

Poppy's eyes lit up. ‘Now there's an idea!'

‘Thanks a lot,' said Jake.

Will touched Claudia's arm. ‘We'd better be making a move.'

Claudia looked around for her jacket, which was draped over the back of the sofa. Spotting it, Caspar passed it across. He said, ‘Home by midnight, okay? Don't do anything I wouldn't do.'

Claudia was glad she had at last been cured of her crush on Caspar. There was nothing, after all, more depressing than the prospect of fancying someone rotten for years on end and never being fancied in return.

Thank you, Mother, she thought dryly, because the miracle cure was down to Angie. Before, Caspar's astounding success rate with women hadn't bothered Claudia. If anything it had only added to his allure.

Discovering that he had slept with her mother, on the other hand, had had much the same effect as a bucket of bromide. Yuck. Just the thought of them together made Claudia feel sick.

Anyway, she thought smugly, who needs that kind of hassle? I don't
need
to have a stupid crush on Caspar anymore.

Nor did she need to worry about those other unfamiliar and even more embarrassing feelings, the ones she'd found herself quietly developing for Jake. Now they
had
been a worry. When you could overlook such diabolical fashion sense, you knew you were in big trouble. Heavens, thought Claudia in alarm, what with his shyness and that haircut and the general lack of interest in the opposite sex, Jake was even more of a no-hoper than Caspar.

But now, thanks to Will, she could put the pair of them out of her mind. He took her hand and gave it a loving squeeze.

I've got someone who thinks I'm the business, thought Claudia, and who isn't afraid to show it. What more could any girl want?

***

By midnight she knew what Will wanted.

‘Oh come on, you know you do too,' he protested, trying to slide his hand for the third time up her leg. ‘You invited me in for coffee, didn't you? You can't turn all heartless on me now.'

‘I can, I can.' Frantically, Claudia wriggled out of reach. He was right, of course—she
wanted
him to stay the night—but she was even more determined not to be a pushover. She'd read enough women's magazines in her time to know how men operated. They'd take whatever they could get, simply because they were men. But when it came to settling down, they wanted a nice girl, one whose bedposts were more or less intact.

Too many notches were a definite no-no, Claudia reminded herself. Okay, it wasn't fair and it wasn't liberated, but that was the way things were. Men respected girls who said no—for a while, at least. If she slept with me on the first date, they'd ask themselves, how many other men has she been with? Oh dear, tut tut, that will never do. Not for the mother of
my
children…

‘What's the matter? We had a terrific evening, didn't we?' Will was looking hurt. ‘I thought you liked me as much as I like you.'

‘I do, I do.'

‘Hang on, there's an echo in here.'

Claudia began to panic. What if he lost patience with her? What if he took offense at being turned down? What if he decided she'd had her chance and she'd blown it? She might never see him again.