Kitabı oku: «The Sheikh's Bride», sayfa 2

CHAPTER TWO

LEO was not really surprised when the room proved to be not only available but also quietly luxurious. When a discreetly noncommittal porter ushered her in she found there were gifts waiting on the brass coffee table: a bowl of fruit, a dish of Arabic sweetmeats and a huge basket of flowers.

Leo blinked. ‘That’s—very beautiful.’

The porter nodded without expression. He surrendered the plastic wafer that served as a key to her room and backed out. Neither he nor the hotel receptionist had expressed the slightest surprise about her lack of luggage.

It was unnerving. Leo felt as if the unknown stranger had cast some sort of magic cloak over her. Oh, it was protective all right. But it made her feel as if he had somehow made her invisible as well.

Still, at least it had got her a roof over her head tonight. Be grateful for small mercies, she told herself. He’s given you the opportunity to get your life back on track. She checked her watch and started making phone calls.

Her mother was fourth on the list. She expected to have to leave a message but Deborah was there.

‘Sorry, Mother, you’re going to have to take a rain check for tonight,’ she said. ‘I’ve got problems. They’ll take a bit of time to sort out.’

‘Tell me,’ said Deborah.

Leo did.

Her mother was indignant. She might not approve of her only daughter toiling as a menial courier but that did not mean that she thought anyone had the right to sack her. She urged various strategies on Leo, most of which would have ended with both Roy and Leo being deported. Used to her mother’s fiery temperament, Leo murmured soothing noises down the phone until her mother’s fury abated.

‘Well,’ said Deborah pugnaciously, ‘Mr Ormerod is certainly not interrupting my dinner plans. You have to eat and I want your company. See you at eight o’ clock.’

‘But I haven’t got anything to wear,’ wailed Leo.

‘You’ve got a credit card.’ She could hear the glee in her mother’s voice. Deborah was always complaining about Leo’s lack of interest in clothes. ‘And you ought to know this town well enough to know where the class boutiques are. I’ll see you downstairs now.’

Leo knew when she was beaten. She negotiated a fifteen-minute delay to allow her to make the rest of her calls. But that was as much of a concession as Deborah was willing to make.

Deborah was waiting in the lobby.

‘I’ve got a car,’ she said briskly. ‘And I know where to go, too, so don’t try to fob me off with any old shopping mall.’

She led the way purposefully. Leo grinned and followed.

Installed in the back of the hired limousine, Leo tipped her head back and looked at her mother appreciatively. Deborah fluffed up the organza collar to her stunning navy-and-white designer dress. The discreet elegance of her earrings did not disguise the fact that they were platinum or that the navy stones which echoed her ensemble were rather fine sapphires.

‘You look very expensive,’ Leo said lazily.

She did not mean it as a criticism. But Deborah flushed. She swung round on the seat to inspect her weary daughter.

‘And you look like a tramp,’ she retorted. ‘Do you dress like that to make a point?’

Leo was unoffended. She had been taller than her exquisite mother when she was eleven. By the time she entered her teens she had resigned herself to towering over other girls. She had even started to stoop until an enlightened teacher had persuaded her to stand up straight, mitigating her height by simple, well-cut clothes. Deborah had never resigned herself to Leo’s chosen style.

Now Leo said tolerantly, ‘I dress like this to stay cool and look reasonably professional during a long working day, Mother. Besides,’ she said as Deborah opened her mouth to remonstrate, ‘I like my clothes.’

Deborah gave her shoulders a little annoyed shake.

‘Well, you won’t need to look professional tonight. So you can buy something pretty for once. It’s not as if you can’t afford it.’

Leo flung up her hands in a gesture of surrender.

The car delivered them to a small shop. The window was filled with a large urn holding six-foot grasses. Leo knew the famous international name. And the prices that went with it. Her heart sank.

‘It’s lucky I paid off my credit card bill just last week, isn’t it?’ she said.

Deborah ignored this poor spirited remark. ‘We’re going to buy you something special,’ she said firmly, urging her reluctant daughter out of the car.

‘Here comes the frill patrol,’ groaned Leo.

But she did her mother an injustice. Deborah clearly hankered after a cocktail suit in flowered brocade. But she gave in gracefully when Leo said, ‘It makes me look like a newly upholstered sofa.’ Instead they came away with georgette harem pants, the colour of bark, and a soft jacket in a golden apricot. Deborah gave her a long silk scarf in bronze and amber to go with it.

‘Thank you mother,’ said Leo, touched.

Deborah blinked rapidly. ‘I wish you were wearing it to go out to dinner with someone more exciting than me.’

For a shockingly irrational moment, Leo’s thoughts flew to her mystery rescuer. She felt her colour rise. Inwardly she cursed her revealing porcelain skin and the shadowy Amer with equal fury. To say nothing of her mother’s sharp eyes.

‘Ah,’ said Deborah. ‘Anyone I know?’

‘There’s no one,’ said Leo curtly.

She stamped out to the limousine. Deborah said a more graceful farewell to the sales staff before she followed.

‘Darling,’ she began as soon as the driver had closed the door on her, ‘I think we need to have a little talk.’

Leo stared in disbelief. ‘I’m twenty-four, Mother. I know about the birds and the bees.’

Deborah pursed her lips. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Not that anyone would think it from the way you go on.’

‘Mother—’ said Leo warningly.

‘It’s all right. I don’t want to know about your boy-friends. I want to talk about marriage.’

Leo blinked. ‘You’re getting married again?’

Deborah enjoyed the attentions of a number of escorts but she had never shown any sign of wanting to have her pretty Holland Park house invaded by a male in residence.

Now Deborah clicked her tongue in irritation. ‘Of course not. I mean your marriage.’

Leo was blank. ‘But I’m not getting married.’

‘Ah,’ said Deborah again. She started to play with an earring. ‘Then the rumours about you and Simon Hartley aren’t true?’

Leo stared at her in genuine bewilderment. ‘Simon Hartley? Dad’s new Chief Accountant? I hardly know him.’

Deborah twiddled the earring harder. ‘I thought he was the brother of a school friend of yours.’

Leo made a surprised face. ‘Claire Hartley, yes. But he’s quite a bit older than us.’

‘So you’ve never met him?’

Leo shrugged. ‘Dad brought him out here a couple of months ago. Some sort of familiarisation trip. All the Adventures in Time staff met him.’

‘And did you like him?’

Leo gave a snort of exasperation. ‘Come off it, Mother. The strain is showing. Believe me, there’s no point in trying to make matches for me. I’m not like you. I honestly don’t think I’m cut out for marriage.’

Slightly to her surprise, Deborah did not take issue with that. Instead she looked thoughtful. ‘Why not? Because you’ve got too much to do being Gordon Groom’s heir?’

Leo tensed. Here it comes, she thought. This is where she starts to attack Pops.

She said stiffly, ‘I chose to go into the company.’

Deborah did not take issue with that, either. She said abruptly, ‘Leo, have you ever been in love?’

Leo could not have been more taken aback if her mother had asked her if she had ever flown to the moon.

‘Excuse me?’

The moment she said it, she could have kicked herself. Deborah would take her astonishment as an admission of failure with the opposite sex. Just what she had always warned her daughter would happen if she did not lighten up, in fact.

‘I thought not.’

But Deborah did not sound triumphant. She sounded worried. And for what must have been the first time in her life she did not push the subject any further.

It made Leo feel oddly uneasy. She was used to maternal lectures. She could deal with them. A silent, preoccupied Deborah was something new in her experience. She did not like it.

Amer had given Hari a number of instructions which had caused his friend’s eyebrows to climb higher and higher. He took dutiful notes, however. But at the final instruction he put down his monogrammed pen and looked at Amer with burning reproach.

‘What am I going to tell your father?’

‘Don’t tell him anything,’ said Amer fluently. ‘You report back to my uncle the Minister of Health. My uncle will tell him that I made the speech I was sent here to make. Et voilà.’

‘But they will expect you to say something at the dinner.’

Amer gave him a wry smile. ‘You say it. You wrote it, after all. You’ll be more convincing than I will.’

Hari bit back an answering smile. ‘They’ll find out,’ he said gloomily. ‘What will they say?’

‘I don’t care what a bunch of dentists say,’ Amer told him with breezy arrogance.

‘I wasn’t thinking of the dentists,’ Hari said ironically, ‘I was thinking of your uncle the Health Minister, your uncle the Finance Minister, your uncle the Oil Minister…’

Amer’s laugh had a harsh ring. ‘I don’t care what they think, either.’

‘But your father—’

‘If my father isn’t very careful,’ Amer said edgily, ‘I shall go back to university and turn myself into the archaeologist I was always meant to be.’

Hari was alarmed. ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have said that the women you know were programmed to think you are wonderful. You’ve taken it as a challenge, haven’t you?’

Amer chuckled. ‘Let us say you outlined a hypothesis which I would be interested to test.’

‘But why Miss Roberts?’

Amer hesitated for the briefest moment. Then he gave a small shrug. ‘Why not?’

‘You said she was like stale bread,’ Hari reminded him.

Amer’s well-marked brows twitched together in a frown.

‘I hope you weren’t thinking of telling her that,’ he warned.

‘I’m not telling her anything,’ said Hari hastily. ‘I’m not going anywhere near her.’

Amer frowned even more blackly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not the way to stop me seeing her.’

‘I’m not being ridiculous,’ said Hari. A thought occurred to him. He was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘If you want to play at being an ordinary guy, the first thing you’ll have to do is fix up a date in person like the rest of us.’

There was a startled pause. Then Amer began to laugh softly.

‘But of course. I never intended anything else. That’s part of the fun.’

‘Fun!’

‘Of course. New experiments are always fun.’

‘So she’s a new experiment. Are you going to tell her that?’ Hari asked politely.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to tell her yet,’ Amer said with disarming frankness. ‘I suppose it partly depends on what she tells me.’ He looked intrigued at the thought.

‘The first thing she’ll tell you is your name, title and annual income,’ snapped Hari, goaded.

But Amer was not to be shaken out of his good humour.

‘I’ve been thinking about that. If she hasn’t recognised me so far, she isn’t going to unless someone tells her. So you’d better make the arrangements in your name.’

‘Oh? And what about when you turn up instead of me? Even if you can convince the maître d’ to be discreet what about the other people at the restaurant?’

‘I’ve thought of that, too.’ Amer was as complacent as a cat. ‘Now here’s what I want you to do—’

Back at the hotel Leo found her father had tried to return her call twice. He had left a series of numbers where he could be contacted. Immediately, according to the message. So he was serious about it.

Leo tapped the message against her teeth. She did not look forward to it. But years of dealing with her father had taught her that it was better to face up to his displeasure sooner rather than later. She squared her shoulders and dialled.

‘What’s happened?’ Gordon Groom said, cutting through her enquiries after his health and well-being.

Leo sighed and told him.

She kept it short. Her father liked his reports succinct. He had been known to fire an executive for going on longer than Gordon wanted.

When she finished, slightly to her surprise, his first thought was for Mrs Silverstein. ‘How is she?’

‘Sleeping, I think.’

‘Check on her,’ Gordon ordered. ‘And again before you go to bed.’

‘Of course,’ said Leo, touched.

‘There’s a real up side opportunity here. The retired American market has a lot of growth potential for us,’ Gordon went on, oblivious.

That was more like the father Leo knew. She suppressed a grin. ‘I’ll check.’

‘And what about Ormerod? Has he lost it?’

Leo shifted uncomfortably. She had been very firm with her father that she was not going to Cairo to spy on the existing management.

‘Some of the local customer care is a bit archaic,’ she said carefully.

‘Sounds like they need an operational audit.’ Gordon dismissed the Cairo office from his mind and turned his attention to his daughter. ‘Now what about you? Not much point in making Ormerod take you back, is there?’

Leo shuddered. ‘No.’

Her father took one of his lightning executive decisions. ‘Then you’d better come back to London. Our sponsorship program needs an overhaul. You can do that until—’ He stopped. ‘You can take charge of that.’

Leo was intrigued. But she knew her father too well to press him. The last thing he was going to do was tell her the job he had in mind for her until he had made sure that she was up to it.

‘Okay. I’ll clear up things here and come home.’

Other fathers, Leo thought, would have been glad. Other fathers would have said, ‘It’ll be great to have you home, darling.’ Or even, ‘Let me know the flight, I’ll come to the airport and meet you.’

Gordon just said, ‘You’ve still got your keys?’

They shared a large house in Wimbledon. But Leo had her own self-contained flat. She and her father did not interfere with each other.

‘I’ve still got my keys,’ she agreed.

‘See you when you get back.’ Clearly about to ring off, a thought struck Gordon. ‘You haven’t heard from your mother, by the way?’

‘As a matter of fact she’s here. I’m having dinner with her tonight.’

Gordon did not bad mouth Deborah the way she did him but you could tell that he was not enthusiastic about the news, Leo thought.

‘Oh? Well, don’t let her fill your head with any of her silly ideas,’ he advised. ‘See you.’

He rang off.

Leo told herself she was not hurt. He was a good and conscientious father. But he had no truck with sentimentality; especially not if it showed signs of interfering with business.

It was silly to think that she would have liked him to be a bit more indignant on her behalf, Leo thought. When Deborah had ranted about Roy Ormerod, Leo had calmed her down. Yet when her father didn’t, she felt unloved.

‘The trouble with me is, I don’t know what I want,’ Leo told herself. ‘Forget it.’

But she could not help remembering how the dark-eyed stranger had stood up to Ormerod for her. It had made her feel—what? Protected? Cared for? She grimaced at the thought.

‘No regression to frills,’ she warned herself. ‘You’re a Groom executive. You can’t afford to turn to mush.’

Anyway she would not see the mysterious stranger again. Just as well if he had this sort of effect on her usual robust independence.

She made a dinner reservation for herself and her mother. Then she stripped off the day’s dusty clothes and ran a bath. The hotel provided everything you needed, she saw wryly, even a toothbrush and a luxurious monogrammed bathrobe.

She sank into scented foam and let her mind go into free fall. When the phone rang on the bathroom wall, she ignored it, lifting a long foot to turn on the tap and top up the warm water. For the first time in months, it seemed, she did not have to worry about a tour or a function or timetable inconsistencies. She tipped her head back and gave herself up to the pleasures of irresponsibility.

There was a knock at the door.

Mother come to make sure I’ve plucked my eyebrows, diagnosed Leo. She won’t go away. Oh well, time to get going, I suppose.

She raised the plug and got out of the bath. She knotted the bathrobe round her and opened the door, trying to assume a welcoming expression. When she saw who it was, she stopped trying in pure astonishment.

‘You! What do you want?’

‘Very welcoming,’ said the mysterious stranger, amused. ‘How about a date?’

‘A date?’

‘Dinner,’ he explained fluently. ‘Music, dancing, cultural conversation. Whatever you feel like.’

Leo shook her head to clear it.

‘But—a date? With me?’

A faint hint of annoyance crossed the handsome face. ‘Why not?’

Because men don’t ask me on dates. Not out of the blue. Not without an introduction and several low-key meetings at the houses of mutual friends. Not without knowing who my father is.

Leo crushed the unworthy thought.

‘When?’ she said, playing for time while she got her head round this new experience.

‘Tonight or never,’ he said firmly.

‘Oh well, that settles it.’ Leo was not sure whether she was disappointed or relieved. But at least the decision was taken for her. ‘I’m already going out to dinner tonight.’

She made to close the door. It did not work.

He did not exactly put his foot in the door, but he leaned against the doorjamb as if he was prepared to stay there all night.

‘Cancel.’ His tone said it was a suggestion rather than an order. His eyes said it was a challenge.

Leo found herself reknotting the sash of her borrowed robe in an agitated manner and saying, ‘No,’ in a voice like the primmest teacher she had ever had at her polite girls’ school.

He bit back a smile. ‘I dare you.’

She looked at him with dislike. ‘I suppose you think that makes it irresistible?’

‘Well, interesting, anyway.’

If Leo was honest, his smile was more than intriguing. She felt her heart give an odd little jump, as if it had been pushed out of a nice, safe burrow and wanted to climb back in again. She knew that feeling. She hated taking chances and always had.