Czytaj książkę: «The Englishman's Bride»

CHAPTER ONE

‘ANOTHER satisfied customer,’ said Mrs Ludwig, pushing the envelope across the desk. ‘They wanted you to stay on, of course. Don’t they always?’

‘That’s nice of them,’ said Kit Romaine, pocketing her salary envelope without opening it.

Really, the way that girl ignored money was downright heathen, thought Mrs Ludwig.

She said curiously, ‘Aren’t you ever tempted?’

‘To stay on in one job?’ Kit shook her head. ‘I like my freedom.’

She more than liked it. She needed it. It had taken her a long time to work that out. Now she had, she was hanging on to it like a drowning man to a lifeboat.

Mrs Ludwig shook her head. ‘From our point of view that’s fine, of course. You’re probably the best temp we’ve got. But shouldn’t you be thinking of your future?’

‘I’m strictly a live-for-today kind of girl,’ said Kit firmly. She had learned that the hard way too.

Mrs Ludwig gave up. She looked swiftly down her list.

‘Well, next week there’s a complete spring clean of a house in Pimlico. Owners moving back in after tenants. You’d like that. You’d have the place to yourself. Or Henderson’s Books need cover while their under-manager goes to a book fair. They particularly asked for you, by the way. Oh, no, that’s next month. Oh, hang on—there’s the Bryants again.’ She caught herself. ‘No, that won’t do, you’d have to look after the little girl after school for a couple of hours.’

In spite of what she said, she looked up questioningly. The Bryants were good clients. She’d like to give them the best. In terms of competence and reliability, Kit Romaine was the best.

But Kit Romaine was shaking her blonde head vigorously. Kit Romaine did not look after children. It was the only thing she refused to do.

This Century’s Solutions was a London agency priding itself on being able to find someone to solve any problem, no matter how extraordinary. Kit met the job description brilliantly. She was fit, clear-headed and completely unflappable. She was as at home with an embroidery frame as she was with a computer. Assignments that other people regarded as hopeless were just a challenge to Kit.

‘If there’s a problem, there’s a solution,’ she would say serenely. And take herself off to the library to research the problem of the moment.

There were only two things that Kit Romaine did not do. She wouldn’t take care of children. And she didn’t date.

Which was odd when you came to think of it. A gorgeous girl like that: good figure, perfect skin and the sort of grace that made people turn and look at her in the street. A client had even wanted to use her in a television commercial once. It was a shame to waste all that long, silky blonde hair, or so he had said. Kit had laughed at him. And been adamant in her refusal.

Make that three things that Kit Romaine did not do, thought Mrs Ludwig, sighing.

‘Not the Bryants,’ Kit was saying now. ‘Give me the house-cleaning. A whole week should get me to the end of module ten.’

Mrs Ludwig laughed. ‘What is it this time?’

‘War poetry.’

Mrs Ludwig pulled a face.

‘Sounds grim. Rather you than me.’

‘It’s not all grim, actually. It’s stuff every educated person ought to know.’

Kit was a dedicated self-educator. When she worked alone, she would slap a tape of her most recent subject into her Walkman. Then she could clean or drive or groom or do whatever it was she was being paid to do. And all the time, as she explained to Helen Ludwig, she was increasing her knowledge.

Helen Ludwig, who had two degrees and generally forgot both of them, wrote it off as an eccentricity. It did not get in the way of Kit’s efficiency or the agency reputation, and that was all she cared about.

‘Whatever you say,’ she said, bored. ‘The Pimlico house it is. Pick up the keys here on Monday.’

Kit nodded and stood up. ‘See you.’

‘Have a good weekend,’ nodded Mrs Ludwig, already forgetting her.

Kit went home on the underground. It was crowded on this wet winter night. The train smelled of wet mackintosh and too many people crowded together. But the crowds were cheerful. Everybody partied on a Friday night, after all.

Except me, thought Kit, getting out at Notting Hill and turning north, into the Palladian jungle. She thought it with relief.

There had been a time when she partied every night, desperate to keep up with the in-crowd. It had cost her a degree, her self-respect and, very nearly, her health. These days she was very glad to be a non-party-goer.

Fridays were the nights Kit washed her hair and listened to opera. She had done piano concertos and given up on them without regret. But she still had hopes of coming to like opera.

So much to learn, she thought. So much to experience. Who needed to date?

She ran up the steps of a white stucco terrace house and let herself in. The terrace was elegantly proportioned but, once inside, the house was all homely chaos. Tonight it smelled of joss-sticks and an ominous citrus and cinnamon mix that meant her landlady was brewing punch.

Kit lived in the basement flat, courtesy of her brother-in-law, whose aunt owned the house. She was an ex-ballerina and full of artistic temperament. It was Tatiana who was responsible for the chaos. Tatiana, too, who burned joss-sticks and threw wild parties on a Friday night.

Kit tiptoed past the door to Tatiana’s part of the house. Her landlady was quite likely to demand her presence at tonight’s bash if she caught her. She thoroughly disapproved of Kit’s antisocial tendencies.

‘Get a life,’ she had said as they passed on the front steps only that morning. Kit was coming back from her early swim. ‘The only things you do outside this flat are work and swim.’

‘I’m taking driving lessons,’ Kit had said defensively.

Tatiana snorted. ‘You need to get your hands on a man, not a combustion engine,’ she snapped.

‘Been there. Done that,’ said Kit flippantly.

But Tatiana looked up at her like a wise old tortoise. ‘Oh, yes? When?’

Kit shook her head, half annoyed, half amused in spite of herself. ‘Why do you keep on about it? It’s like living with the thought police!’

Tatiana was not offended. Indeed, she looked rather pleased.

A suspicion occurred to Kit. ‘Has Lisa put you up to this?’

Tatiana sniffed. ‘She didn’t have to. It’s not natural. You only go out if you’ve got an evening class. A girl your age ought to be having fun.’

‘Dating,’ interpreted Kit with a resigned sigh.

‘Having fun,’ corrected Tatiana. ‘Especially a girl who looks like you.’

Kit flinched.

‘Golden hair and green eyes,’ said Tatiana rancorously. ‘And you move like a dancer. You could be stunning if you wanted. Only you dress in potato sacks. And you never go anywhere.’

‘I go where I want,’ said Kit, losing her rag. ‘And wear what I want. If you can’t take it, I can always move out.’

But Tatiana had backed away from the challenge. She had flung up her hands and retreated into her flat, muttering in Russian.

Kit grinned to herself now, recalling it. She did not often win a battle of wills with her landlady. Still, no point in inviting a rematch, she thought, edging down the stairs to her own flat as softly as she knew how.

She heard the phone ringing even before she had the key in the lock. She flung the door open and dived on it, before the ringing could bring Tatiana out of her lair.

‘Hello? Kit?’

‘Lisa?’ said Kit incredulously. Her sister was supposed to be in a tropical paradise, holidaying with her naturalist husband while she recuperated from a series of winter infections. ‘What on earth are you doing ringing me? You’re supposed to be relaxing on a palm-fringed beach.’ And then, quickly, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Nikolai, is there?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I hardly see him.’ Lisa’s voice sounded as if she were at the bottom of the ocean. It did nothing to disguise the waspish tone.

‘Oh,’ said Kit, feeling helpless.

‘He told me the hotel was hosting a conference about local conservation and he might look in. I thought he meant he was going to go to a couple of talks. But he’s there all the time. And now he’s agreed to speak.’

Kit knew Lisa. From the sound of it, her sister could hardly contain her rage.

‘And the damned hotel is empty except for men at conferences. What genius ever went and built a super de luxe hotel on the edge of a war zone? I ask you!’

‘War zone?’ repeated Kit, alarmed.

Lisa sounded impatient. ‘Seems to have died down at the moment. That’s the reason for all the conferences, I gather. But no one in their right mind would come here for a holiday.’

Kit looked at her dark window onto the lavish communal gardens that the terrace shared. The rain lashed at it.

‘If you’ve got sunshine, you’ve got a holiday,’ she said firmly. ‘You don’t even want to think about what London is like tonight.’

Lisa said rapidly, ‘Then come and share it with me.’

‘What?’

‘Why not? Come and keep me company.’

‘Oh, come on, Lisa. I’ve never liked playing gooseberry.’

Lisa gave a hard laugh. ‘You wouldn’t. I never see Nikolai. That’s the trouble. There’s nobody to talk to. And damn-all to do.’

Kit kicked off her shoes and curled her legs under her. She stuck the telephone under her ear and leaned forward to turn on the fire.

‘Hey, hang on. It can’t be that bad. No grey skies. No puddles. And you’ve got leaves on the trees. Who needs anything to do when they can laze on a beach?’

There was a pause. Not a comfortable pause.

What on earth had happened? thought Kit. The last she had heard, Lisa and Nikolai could not wait to get away together. Lisa had had a series of mysterious viruses in the weeks running up to Christmas. They had left her weak and wan and uncharacteristically tearful. And Nikolai had been continent-hopping most of the year. This tropical holiday was supposed to get them some quality time together.

Now only four days into the holiday, Lisa could hardly speak her husband’s name without spitting.

‘Anyway, holidays in a tropical paradise are not in my budget,’ said Kit into the silence. There was a hint of desperation in her voice. ‘I can’t afford it.’

‘I can.’

There was no doubt about that. Lisa was head of trading in a London bond-dealing room. Her annual bonus alone made Kit’s eyes water.

But she still said, ‘You’ve done enough for me over the years, Lisa. I’ll pay my own way now that I can.’

‘But you can’t afford a tropical holiday and I—need you here,’ Lisa added, so softly Kit could hardly hear her. ‘I really need some support, Kit.’

Oh, lord, thought Kit, startled. What’s going on here? She had never heard Lisa say she needed support in the whole of her fast-paced life.

‘Come and keep me company, Kit.’ Her voice was tight. Kit knew that note. It meant Lisa was determined not to cry. And then, the controlled voice cracking, ‘I’m so lonely.’

Kit was too shocked to say anything.

‘There’s a flight on Sunday. I’ve booked you on it provisionally. At least think about it.’

She rang off without saying goodbye.

Kit paced the room, disturbed.

Had Lisa and Nikolai fallen out? But why? Lisa’s husband was an aristocrat and the Romaine sisters came from the wrong side of the tracks. A long way on the wrong side of the tracks, as Lisa had once told him.

Lisa had got her education and her high-profile job entirely by her own efforts. Yet that had never seemed to be a problem before. If she’d been asked, Kit would have said Count Nikolai Ivanov was more in love with his raggle-taggle wife now than he had had been when he married her.

But on the phone just now Lisa hadn’t sounded like a loved wife. And Kit loved Lisa. She was more than a sister. She was Kit’s best friend.

Maybe this was the time to sink her principles, after all.

She was still wavering when there came a tap on the French window.

Tatiana, thought Kit. Normally she and her landlady had a slightly edgy relationship. Tatiana thought Kit was boring at best; at worst, a passenger clinging to her successful sister’s coat tails. Kit thought Tatiana was an eighty-year-old delinquent. But they met on their affection for Lisa.

So Kit opened the door with unusual enthusiasm.

‘Lisa has spoken to you,’ said Tatiana, recognising the enthusiasm and diagnosing its source with accuracy.

‘Yes. I’m worried.’

‘So am I,’ admitted Tatiana.

To Kit’s astonishment she sat on the sofa and made herself comfortable without once complaining about Kit’s pale cushions. Tatiana liked her furnishings bright.

‘She sounded wretched,’ said Kit, biting her lip.

‘When did you talk to her?’

‘Just now. She wants me to go out there.’

Kit waited for Tatiana to say, Don’t interfere. Tatiana thought the only person who was allowed to interfere in the affairs of Lisa and Nikolai was herself. But she didn’t.

The vivid, lined face creased into an expression of profound foreboding.

‘You talked to her now?’

Kit nodded. ‘I just put the phone down on her. Or rather she put the phone down on me. She sounded really upset.’

Tatiana’s monkey face looked as if she was about to burst into tears. ‘Do you know what the time difference is?’

Kit was bewildered. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘It’s seven o’ clock here. That makes it three in the morning at Coral Cove,’ said well-travelled Tatiana Ivanova. ‘Three. And she’s calling you. Where’s her husband, for goodness’ sake?’

Kit stopped her pacing, shocked.

‘No wonder she sounded so—fragile,’ she said, almost to herself.

‘You’d better go,’ said Tatiana. Adding, with that practicality that Kit always found so disconcerting, all mixed up with the crystal-balls philosophy and the joss-sticks, ‘Do you need some cash?’

Kit shook her head. ‘Lisa’s booked me a ticket and paid for it. And I haven’t used my credit card for anything this month. I’ll be fine.’

‘You’ll need a tropical wardrobe,’ said Tatiana, who thought clothes were the window of the soul.

Kit shrugged.

Tatiana bounced off the sofa. ‘You are impossible. Look at you. Wonderful golden hair, wonderful skin, pretty face. You’re tall and as slim as a model. Why on earth aren’t you out there buying disgracefully short skirts and giving everyone a heart attack with your skin-tight tops?’

Like Lisa.

Neither of them said it. They both knew what Tatiana meant.

Kit said more sharply than she meant, ‘Just stop it, Tatiana. I dress the way I like.’

Tatiana brooded. ‘Well, at least get yourself a swimsuit. I saw some pretty bikinis in—’

Kit went rigid. ‘No bikinis,’ she almost shouted.

Tatiana stared.

‘I’ll get a one-piece from the sports shop,’ Kit said in a more moderate tone.

‘And some shorts. And light tops. You have no idea how hot it’s going to be,’ Tatiana warned her. ‘Something respectable to wear in the evening. Oh, and a straw hat to keep your head covered in the sun. Coral Cove is on the Equator. You have to be careful. Blondes more than most.’

‘Thank you for the advice. But won’t I be able to buy straw hats and stuff there?’

Tatiana snorted. ‘This is not a teen beach club, you know. There won’t be hot-dog stands and market traders. Nikolai said Coral Cove was one of the most sophisticated hotel complexes in the world.’

Kit narrowed her eyes at her. ‘So?’

Tatiana was unimpressed by the dangerous glint. ‘You’ll feel out of place if you don’t dress properly,’ she warned impressively.

‘Well, it’s an empty sophisticated hotel complex at the moment,’ said Kit, refusing to be impressed.

‘All the more reason to keep up the proper standards.’

‘Tough toenails. I don’t suppose I meet their standards in the first place.’

Tatiana sighed. ‘You have such a chip on your shoulder, Kit.’

‘Only when I’m around people who rabbit on about proper standards,’ said Kit dangerously.

Tatiana gave up. She turned to go.

The French window swung gently. An elegant white paw, like an arm in a long evening glove, appeared round it.

‘That cat,’ said Tatiana with disfavour.

Kit chirruped at it. The paw pointed daintily and was followed by the rest of the animal. A small brindled cat oozed round the door and leapt for the rug in front of the fire. It began to wash itself rapidly. Kit smiled.

‘Cats,’ muttered Tatiana. ‘Anyone would think you were a hundred, not twenty-two.’

‘She’s only visiting.’

Tatiana cast her kohl-rimmed eyes to heaven. ‘You ought to be having visitors who are tall, dark and handsome and make you rethink your position on bikinis.’

Kit shook her head, impatient. ‘Oh, not that again. Why does it matter to you what I do with my life?’

‘Because you’ve only got one,’ said Tatiana forcefully. ‘And I can’t bear waste.’

There was a fraught silence. Kit was the first to look away. She bit her lip.

Tatiana did not know the horrors that sometimes rode Kit, when the nights were long and she couldn’t sleep. Even Lisa did not know all of them. But Kit had some very good reasons for her position on bikinis. And tall and handsome visitors were definitely not welcome.

She said with difficulty, ‘Look, I know this doesn’t fit in with your world view, Tatiana. But not all of us are brave enough to go everywhere and experience everything.’

‘Bravery has nothing to do with it.’

‘Oh, yes, it does,’ said Kit quietly. She faced her simmering landlady squarely. ‘Believe me, I do the best I can. But I’ve done the tall, dark and handsome visitor bit, years ago. Didn’t work. In my experience men just tear your heart out. And, when they’ve finished that, they mess with your head. I’m not brave enough to go through it all again. And that’s the honest truth.’

Tatiana was silent for a moment. Then she nodded sadly. ‘All right. It’s your life. So it’s your business. But you’ll go to Coral Cove?’

Kit nodded. ‘I’ll go.’

Lisa was waiting at the small airport. Kit thought she would break, Lisa hugged her so convulsively.

‘You came. God bless you, Kit. Was it difficult to get time off?’

Kit grinned. ‘On the contrary. The clients fell on my neck when they heard they’d got another week to clear the house before I move in with the industrial cleaning machinery. I’m their favourite person.’

Lisa heaved her roll-bag over one shoulder and linked arms with her.

‘I’m really grateful, honest,’ she said soberly. ‘I know it was a lot to ask.’

‘Oh, yeah, really tough. A whole week at your expense on a private tropical island with cordon-bleu cooking. Only a genuine saint would sign up for that one,’ said Kit drily.

Lisa sighed. ‘Well, it’s not as great as it sounds. The gardens are pretty and the sea is warm. And, when you’ve said that, you’ve said everything. I hope you’ve brought plenty to read.’

Kit looked at her ironically. Lisa laughed.

‘Yes, of course you have. What is it this month? Russian?’

‘War poems. But I’ve brought some paperbacks as well,’ Kit said reassuringly.

‘Thank God for that. I’ve read all mine.’

Lisa led the way out into a blazing heat so strong that Kit gagged. She put up a hand to shade her suddenly dazzled eyes. Lisa sent her a quick, remorseful look.

‘I hope you brought sunglasses. I didn’t think to tell you.’

‘Neither did Tatiana,’ said Kit ruefully. ‘Though she made me bring a cocktail dress.’

Lisa stared. ‘A cocktail dress? You?’

‘She’s very strong-minded when she gets going.’

Lisa gave a crack of laughter. ‘I remember.’ She hugged Kit. ‘Oh, it’s so great to see you. We’ll get you some shades and the local insect repellent and then we’re on our way. A new experience for you—you get to ride in a helicopter.’

Coral Cove took Kit’s breath away. It sat in the sunlit ocean like a toy island. But as the helicopter came in over the land she made out huge trees, great gashes in the forest cover where rivers had carved their way in their path to the sea, and even—She leaned forward, entranced.

‘Is that a waterfall?’

‘Probably,’ said Lisa, unexcited. ‘Nikolai and I have got a little one just above our cottage. There’s quite a big one about half an hour’s walk from the main hotel garden. We’ll go up there this evening, if you like.’

Kit sat back in her seat with a sigh of perfect pleasure.

‘Sun, sea and waterfalls,’ she said blissfully. ‘I forgive Tatiana for the cocktail dress. I forgive Tatiana for everything.’

But that evening they did not walk to the waterfall. That evening Lisa was locked in her room not speaking to anyone. And Nikolai, having welcomed Kit through gritted teeth, had gone back to his conservationists.

Kit looked into the ferociously formal dining room, thought of the little black and silver number that Tatiana had thrust into her bag, and decided that she would pass on dinner. On the other hand, while everyone else was dining she might be able to swim undisturbed in the delectable lagoon she and Lisa had explored earlier.

‘They have swimming stuff if you haven’t brought anything to swim in,’ had said Lisa, who knew her sister very well.

‘No. I have.’ It was not a bikini, in spite of Tatiana’s best efforts, but it would be just fine for swimming.

Kit had been terribly tempted. The water was turquoise. Little wavelets stirred but the sand bars held back ocean-sized waves. It had looked like heaven—except that there were three other people already swimming there. Kit did not take her clothes off in front of anyone, not even to swim.