Camellia

  Mel sneered, even though her heart felt as if it were melting. She knew she'd got to find some way of wounding him.

  'You are even more arrogant than your brother Stephen,' she said cuttingly. 'I am not some little Victorian kitchen-maid. I have a mind of my own. As I said, I like you, but that's all. I'm not interested in men full stop. I wouldn't care if you were Paul Newman or Steve McQueen. I'd still say no. Can you get your head round that?'

  She expected him to come back with an equally sharp retort. He was after all a man of the world and very eloquent, but instead he just looked at her, dark blue eyes full of reproach.

  'I'm sorry, but I don't believe you,' he said in a quiet voice. 'Not because I'm an egotistical bastard who thinks all girls should fall at my feet, but because I can feel something between us. I know this might sound like the worst kind of cliché, but I felt it within moments of meeting you.'

  Mel laughed at him. She'd heard from Mrs Downes that he was something of a playboy, a social butterfly who flitted through life with a different girl on his arm each week. 'I would have thought an actor could come up with something better,' she said.

  'I'm good at clever chat-up lines when I don't mean it,' he said. 'But this isn't a joke, I'm telling you what's in my heart.'

  His sincerity floored her.

  'Look, Nick,' she said, finding it hard to meet his eyes. 'I don't know how much you know about me, but I've had a chequered past. I worked as a nightclub hostess, I'm a professional flirt. The way I was with you that night you came into the bar was just the way I am with everyone in there. If you read something more into it then I'm sorry. Now can I go on with my walk?'

  'I'm coming with you,' he said taking her arm. 'I've got a great deal more to say to you.'

  'I don't want to hear it,' she pleaded.

  'I didn't mean I was going to harp on about us all afternoon,' he said. 'I just want to know more about you. I understand now why Dad thinks so much of you. Sophie and Stephen might think you've deliberately wormed your way into his affections, but for the record I know they're wrong.'

  'Well I'm glad to hear it,' she said sarcastically, pushing his hand off her arm and stuffing her hands into the pockets of her coat. 'For the record, as you say, I've grown very fond of your dad too. He gave me a job and a new start. I owe him a great deal. I shouldn't think your brother and sister know him at all well if they think just anyone can "worm" their way into his affections. He's about the most astute man I've ever met.'

  'You frighten them,' Nick said. 'You are everything Sophie isn't, beautiful, fun, vivacious and clever. As for Stephen, well he just thinks a woman's place is at the sink, he hasn't even got the imagination to think of them in bed.'

  Mel had to laugh. 'I can't help your brother and sister's hang-ups,' she said. 'You can report back to them I'm not after their dad, or you. Tell them I'm a dyke if you like.'

  'Neither of them would know what that was,' he said, catching hold of her arm again and twisting her slightly so she was forced to look at him. 'Okay enough of all that, let's just walk and talk. Maybe I'll grow on you?'

  'Like moss?' Mel raised one eyebrow quizzically. 'I'd like to be friends, Nick, but let's get it straight right now, that's all. Okay?'

  'Okay,' he smiled, showing perfect white teeth. 'Whatever you say.'

  They walked down to the bottom of Brass Knocker Hill where the river had burst its banks, flooding the fields either side. But the canal towpath, though muddy in places and thick with leaves, was passable and sheltered from the cold wind by thick bushes.

  'I'm sorry you didn't get the part the other day,' Mel said. She was feeling a little easier now. Maybe they could have a platonic friendship. 'Have you any idea why you didn't get it?'

  'Just pipped at the post by a better actor,' he admitted.

  'Well, that's honest,' she said.

  He shrugged. 'I had to learn to be both honest and humble.'

  Mel felt she'd hit a raw note. 'You weren't always?'

  'No. I was King Brat,' he sighed, but then laughed as if he wasn't used to making such frank confessions. 'You see I didn't go to RADA or any other stage school. I thought I was so great in school productions that I didn't need it. I did a bit of extra work, then I fell into a couple of adverts through someone I knew. I never realised I was just lucky, I assumed I was naturally talented.'

  'And you got your comeuppance?' Magnus had said one or two things in the past which suggested something had gone badly wrong in Nick's life at one time. She hoped he might tell her about it.

  'That came later,' he said with a smirk. 'What really turned my head was getting the lead in a TV series. I was only twenty then. I got loads of advance publicity claiming I was a successor to James Dean, the lad likely to go to the top, and I believed every word of it. It was one of those gritty kitchen-sink type dramas, set on a South London housing estate. I played the Jack-the-Lad character, just back from a spell in Borstal.'

  'Not Hunnicroft Estate?' she asked.

  'Good God, someone remembers it!' he said dryly. 'Did you like it?'

  Mel was too embarrassed to admit that she and Bee watched the first few minutes of the first episode, then turned it off. From what she remembered it was all swearing and young lads hitting each other with motorcycle chains. 'It wasn't quite my scene,' she said. 'But in those days I hardly ever watched TV.'

  'It wasn't anyone's scene as it turned out,' he laughed again. 'The timing was all wrong, it was too hard hitting. People phoned up the television company and complained about the foul language and the violence. After the initial six weeks it was dropped like a stone.'

  'And then?'

  'Nothing more for me,' he said ruefully, kicking a stone along in front of him. 'I was type cast as a lout, all my dreams were down the pan and I didn't have the savvy to just lie low for awhile and wait for a second chance.'

  Mel pondered on this for a moment. He must've been a pretty good actor to play a convincing lout. He certainly didn't look or sound like one in the flesh. 'So what did you do?'

  'I acted the part of the big star. I went out clubbing it night after night, Annabel's, the Speak Easy, the Scotch of St James's. As long as there were a few dolly birds that recognised me, I'd stay till I was too drunk to walk. The money I'd earned was soon gone. All I had left after my five minutes of fame was a few glossy photographs and a couple of sharp suits.'

  Mel was touched by his honesty. She'd been to all those clubs and met plenty of men just like that during her time in Chelsea. But then she'd been one of those dolly birds prepared to drink and dance the night away with them, bolstering their egos with flattery, just as long as they were paying. It was tempting to admit this, but some things were better left buried.

  'You sound a bit ashamed,' she said instead. 'I know the feeling, there are bits of my life I'd rather forget.'

  He gave her a sideways look, as if to gauge whether he could take his confession further. 'I was a real prat,' he said with a faint humourless smirk. 'I used people until they dropped me, and I went down so far I thought I'd never climb up again. Fortunately I met someone who cared enough to offer a helping hand. She let me stay at her place while I got my head together again, insisted I got a job as a barman to support myself, and encouraged me to take some acting classes.'

  'Is that the reason you haven't visited your father for so long?'

  'Yes, I suppose so.' He looked a little ashamed. 'Dad's not a demanding type that expects me down every month or so. But I guess I couldn't face him until I knew I'd got myself together. But we've talked enough about me, tell me about yourself.'

  Mel had a feeling he wasn't in the habit of talking like this, and that the whole story was probably as sleazy and painful to him as hers was. She felt such honesty deserved some reciprocal openness.

  'I was just an empty-headed raver who thought she could burn the candle at both ends for ever,' she admitted with a sheepish grin. 'It was all pretty squalid. It's funny how you can delude yourself for so long that you'r
e doing okay. Then one day you wake up and find it's all turned sour.'

  She told him about Bee. But the same edited version she'd given Magnus, leaving out the pornography.

  'I'm so sorry,' he said, and his blue eyes held the same compassion she often saw in his father's. 'I couldn't make out why you were so happy to be cloistered in Oaklands, I understand now.'

  'It's the purity of life here that I like,' she said, turning to look back. Oaklands was hidden now by trees, but the rolling hills, the patchwork of fields, and the autumn colours in the valley were all so beautiful. 'I know that some of the guests aren't everything they seem, that perhaps I'm cocooned away from real life, but when I look out my bedroom window I feel renewed and at peace. That's why I'm so grateful to your father, Nick. He's been like your friend that helped you. He took me in hand, threw out all the hippie claptrap I used to believe in. I like working hard now, and it's good to feel part of things here.'

  Perhaps this wasn't entirely true, but she certainly believed Magnus had been the best and most formative influence in her life.

  Nick sat by his father's bedroom window later that afternoon. It was already almost dark. This room was on the first floor, directly under Mel's with the same view of the valley, but larger windows. Next door was Magnus's private sitting room.

  Here in the bedroom there were many reminders of his mother: needlepoint pictures, satin pleated cushions she'd made, fading now, their piping worn. Photographs of each of them as babies covered one wall and there were still more in silver frames on the dressing table. Nick always slept in the sitting room next door on the rare occasions he came home. He made the excuse that it wasn't worth messing up one of the guest rooms, but in fact it was because he liked to be close to his father.

  When his mother was alive, they'd had private rooms on the other end of the house. Nick had bitterly resented Magnus moving out of those and into here on her death. But time and maturity had mellowed him and now he understood.

  Ruth had loved pastels, dainty furniture and pretty watercolours, but once she was gone Magnus found it too painful to live with so many reminders of her. His new sitting room was as sternly masculine as a gentlemen's club with dark moss-green walls, leather armchairs and wall-to-wall books. Aside from one photograph of Ruth and Magnus on their wedding day, there were no jolts back to the past.

  Nick stared out the window, watching as the sky turned dark. He knew he should have a shave, put on a suit and present himself downstairs for dinner with Magnus. But though he usually enjoyed meeting the guests and club members and playing the part of the prodigal son, tonight he was tempted to stay upstairs.

  He could not get Mel out of his mind. He could picture the moment he first saw her as clearly as looking at a photograph.

  One lone spotlight shone down on her dark glossy hair, tied back at the nape of her neck with a black velvet bow. She wore a slinky red dress which on many women would have looked tawdry, but she had the dramatic, almost Mediterranean-type colouring to carry it off.

  When he saw Mel standing there behind the bar, he felt as if someone had winded him. Sophie had described Mel as some kind of raddled bar-fly, just waiting to get her teeth into their father. He knew Sophie exaggerated, and he'd wanted to see for himself what this harpy was really like. But he'd still expected a more buxom, obvious type; brassy, maybe even with an out-of-date bouffant hairstyle. This girl, and she was a girl, not a woman as Sophie had implied, was simply beautiful. For perhaps the first time in his life he enjoyed being anonymous.

  A year or two earlier he would've been too puffed up with self-importance to really look or listen to her. But he found himself noting every last thing: the sensuality of that slightly fuller lower lip, the shape of her eyes, the jutting of her hip bone through her dress as she reached up to the optics to get him a drink.

  All his girlfriends had been blonde, if he was entirely honest with himself he'd admit he'd chosen them almost as accessories. At eighteen he liked them small with big breasts; later he'd progressed to the long-legged Sloaney kind with bony bodies. But Camellia would never settle for being anyone's fashion accessory. She had a mind of her own and a look that was entirely individual.

  In some ways she was like Kate, the forty-year-old divorcee who had helped him get back on his feet two years earlier. Not in looks – Kate had been voluptuous with violet eyes – but in the warmth, the interest, and perhaps the passion. His relationship with Kate had been platonic, but he could see for himself that the passion was there, just as he could in Mel.

  It was the passion he found himself dwelling on late that night as he tried to go to sleep on his father's settee. Mel would be hot stuff, he was certain of that. This was definitely a girl with vast experience of men. He found himself remembering all those humorous, incisive little remarks she made about her male friends in Ibiza. And the seductive way she'd looked at him.

  Now after four days in Mel's company, Nick was puzzled. He had abandoned all Sophie's theories: Mel had nothing but pure admiration and affection for his father. From his conversations with Joan Downes, Antoine and other members of staff, he could tell she wasn't on the make in any way. If she were to leave Oaklands, they'd all be devastated: it seemed she practically ran the place.

  They had so much in common: they laughed at the same things, they could talk so easily and naturally. He'd been honest with her about his past, though there was much more he could tell her, and she'd opened up to some extent about hers. So why didn't she want him?

  Perhaps he was still a bit arrogant, but he knew Mel was attracted to him. He could sense it, like being enveloped in a strong perfume. Why was she fighting it?

  Later that night, Mel lay on her bed and sobbed her heart out. It had been one of the most painful evenings she'd ever endured. Despite her protestations Magnus had insisted that she joined him and Nick for dinner in the dining room. As she'd sat there toying with poached salmon, flanked by the two attentive men, she'd had the strongest desire to pack her bags and leave for good.

  'I'm going back to London tomorrow,' Nick said, as he poured her a glass of wine. 'But I'll be back, continually, until I wear you down.'

  Magnus just smiled beatifically, as if in his mind he was already arranging the wedding. 'That's right, son,' he said heartily. 'Faint heart never won fair lady. Mel's just out of practice. I've kept her under lock and key for too long.'

  She could only blush and smile weakly. Nick looked so handsome in his dark suit and a pale blue shirt. How could she possibly feel such overwhelming wanting for him? Or betray the trust of Magnus, who gave her such fatherly affection without suspecting they were related?

  Sitting there in candlelight, she was struck by similarities in all three of them that she'd failed to notice before. She had high finely drawn cheek-bones, and so did Nick. The lines and softening flesh on Magnus's face had stopped her noticing them before, but she could see them now. Their hair and eye colour had prevented her from seeing other resemblances, yet Sophie had dark hair and eyes, and Magnus's own eyes were sometimes tawny, sometimes green, never a true blue like Nick's.

  Their skin tone was another pointer: by day, one only noticed that Magnus's was ruddy brown from working outside, and Nick's seemed pallid in comparison. But now she saw they all had the same underlying olive tone. And although Nick looked fairer-skinned, she remembered him saying that when he returned from Greece last year he was almost black. Even their lip shapes were a giveaway. Each of them had a clearly defined Cupid's bow, a wider, more fleshy mouth than usual.

  At one time she would've been delighted to find further evidence of her closeness to Magnus, but now she felt sickened by it. She longed to be an anonymous employee, with nothing more pressing on her mind than how to spend next week's wage packet.

  The conversation had moved on to Magnus's future plans to install a gymnasium and an indoor pool in the stable block. He jokingly suggested to Nick that he could take a course as a fitness instructor so that he'd have something to fall back
on if his acting career ever folded completely.

  Nick had mentioned in passing before that he worked out in a gym in London, but hearing Magnus speak of it gave Mel a sudden vision of Nick naked. She drank more wine to cover up her confusion.

  Then Magnus said he intended to see she had driving lessons. 'It's ridiculous you not being able to drive,' he said almost curtly. 'You could do the banking for me and get out more. I shall arrange the lessons tomorrow.'

  It got worse as the meal went on. Every long-term plan Magnus mentioned included her in a major role. It was quite clear that he was looking ahead to his retirement, and intended her to be manager.

  1 want to expand here,' he said, smiling at her, then glancing back at Nick as though they had already discussed this in detail. 'I'm looking into having an annexe built next to the stables, with another twenty rooms, I thought of incorporating a conference room too so we can offer businesses a complete package.'

  A week ago Mel would've been wildly enthusiastic about these plans. She might even have suggested that they tried to attract more weddings. But now she just drank her wine and listened to the men, hoping against hope that some emergency would come up in the kitchen so she could rush off.

  Nick was talking about his schooldays, describing how it had been when he was home for the holidays, back when Ruth was alive. It was painful to hear both men speaking so lovingly about her, knowing that during this time Magnus was writing to Bonny, about herself. Nick's childhood sounded so idyllic, a tree house up in the woods, school friends coming to stay for weeks on end, putting on plays in the stables with local children.

  Yet Nick didn't once mention the time after Ruth's death and Mel sensed he had been as unhappy then in adolescence as she had been. Maybe that was when he learned to act, pretending to be tough and uncaring as his father withdrew into himself in grief: a lonely young boy forced to become a man too quickly.

  'It's time you had a holiday, my girl,' Magnus said a little later, prompted perhaps by her unusual silence. 'Nick's always raving about the Greek islands. It's still lovely there at this time of year, how about the pair of you popping off there for a week?'