The Art of Romance Read online

  THE ART OF ROMANCE

  THE ART OF

  ROMANCE

  Margaret Carr

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

  This eBook edition published by AudioGo Ltd, Bath, 2012.

  Published by arrangement with the author.

  Epub ISBN 9781471300288

  U.K. Hardcover ISBN 978 1 405 63978 1

  U.K. Softcover ISBN 978 1 405 63979 8

  Copyright © Margaret Carr, 2005

  All rights reserved.

  Jacket Illustration © iStockphoto.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  There were three phones on her desk and all of them were ringing as Alison Wareham made her way across the office floor.

  ‘It’s been like this all morning,’ her secretary offered as she pushed back a loose strand of hair.

  ‘Well, not to worry, Sharon, I’m back now.’

  Alison lowered her tall, willowy figure into the chair behind her desk and answered the three telephones in quick succession. As Personal Assistant to the chairman of Harker & Harker, a small exclusive interior design establishment off Oxford Street, Alison warranted her own comfortable office next to the chairman’s, and Sharon as her secretary.

  ‘Have you found a replacement for the Maurice Kyle designs then?’

  Sharon cupped her chin in her hands and stared across the room at the woman who was her friend as well as her boss.

  ‘Yes. A very promising newcomer, one Penelope Sharpe.’

  Sharon Lisserman drew air in against closed teeth.

  ‘I thought Mr Harker didn’t like newcomers.’

  ‘Mr Harker isn’t here and work must go on. He left me in charge because he knew he could trust me, and so must you.’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ Sharon said turning back to her computer.

  Alison was checking then signing a pile of letters and spoke without looking up.

  ‘The job will be well in hand by the time Mr Harker returns and I’m sure the customer will be very pleased with Miss Sharpe’s work. It will show that egotistical Maurice Kyle that he is not irreplaceable.’

  Later that day Sharon was on the phone when Alison returned from overseeing some re-covering work for an important client. Holding her hand over the mouthpiece Sharon hissed at Alison, ‘Maurice Kyle.’

  ‘I’m not available.’

  Sharon made an apologetic murmur and replaced the phone.

  ‘He wasn’t happy.’

  ‘I’ll call him back tomorrow.’

  Sharon laughed.

  ‘You do have it in for the man don’t you. Have you ever met him?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, but then I doubt if we move in the same social circles.’

  ‘They say he’s very rich and just broken off his third engagement. I read in one of the glossies that his designing work is just a hobby. He doesn’t have to work at all.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, it explains his casual attitude to the work he does for us. He lets us down time and again keeping clients waiting, and worrying poor Mr Harker to the point where he has had this dreadful heart attack.’

  Sharon screwed up her face as she switched off the computer.

  ‘But that’s not all Maurice Kyle’s fault surely. I mean Mr Harker’s always been a worrier.’

  ‘I’m not saying it was all his fault but it was certainly a contributing factor.’

  By six o’clock the building was empty. As Alison made her way silently along the carpeted corridor of the second floor offices she couldn’t quite suppress a smile at the heavy, Victorian interior of the building. It was not what might be expected of a modern company, but epitomised the character of its creator to perfection.

  Alison was usually the last to leave when Mr Harker was away. Even though there was George, the caretaker, on the ground floor, she felt it her duty to check every door on her way to the lift and again the window at the end of the corridor.

  As usual the lift was on the ground floor. She raised a hand to press the button when suddenly the light indicator above the door showed the lift to be rising. Alison frowned. George never came upstairs until he’d had his first cup of tea. So who on earth had he let in at this time of night? The lift stopped and the door was thrust towards her.

  The words formulating in her head were never spoken as she found herself facing a tall, dark and extremely angry man.

  ‘George tells me there is only William Harker’s PA left in the building. Is that you?’

  Alison gave her head a slight shake to clear this sudden onslaught.

  ‘That’s correct, Alison Wareham, and what can I do for you, Mr, er …’

  ‘Kyle, Maurice Kyle, so tell me what the devil is going on here.’

  Blue eyes flashed down into quiet grey ones.

  Outwardly calm, Alison suggested they continue their conversation in her office. Inwardly her ribs were playing basketball with her heart. He was everything she had known he would be—obnoxious, bad mannered and those scruffy clothes were a disgrace for such a wealthy man.

  She led him back down the corridor, silently thanking Mr Harker for having installed an emergency alarm beneath her desk. Taking a bunch of keys from her bag she selected the correct key and opened the door.

  ‘Please take a seat,’ she said, keeping her tone cool and businesslike.

  Walking over to her desk she placed her purse and briefcase on its tidy surface.

  ‘Well?’

  Alison jumped at the sudden explosion of sound. Flaring anger forced her to count to ten before she could trust herself to speak.

  ‘I cannot tell you anything, Mr Kyle, until you explain to me what it is you want of me.’

  ‘Did you or did you not tell Madam Nicolopoulou that I was not available to work on her Sussex house?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And who authorised that decision?’

  ‘The family, who make up the rest of the board of directors, are silent partners and leave all the decisions to Mr Harker, who in turn has left that responsibility with me while he is ill.’

  His eyebrows shot up and disappeared beneath the overlong hair that lay across his forehead.

  ‘How long have you been with Harker’s, Miss … er …’

  ‘Wareham, Alison Wareham. I have been with Mr Harker for ten years. Three in my present position.’

  ‘Then how is it, Miss Wareham, that in all that time you still fail to appreciate where your bread and butter comes from?’

  Alison’s anger surged to the fore.

  ‘Why, you egotistical brute! You think this company would flounder and collapse through lack of your great talent? Well, let me tell you something, Mr Kyle. I have seen talent equal to yours emerging untried from colleges. You have held Mr Harker to ransom for years with your so-called artistic temperament and I think it is time to put a stop to it. Mr Harker is not a well man, the blame for which could well be laid at your door.

  ‘How dare you come bursting in here telling me that Harker & Harker depend on your talent for their solvency!’

  At this point Alison ran out of breath, her anger so great that she was having difficulty drawing air into her lungs.

  ‘I made no such claim.’ His voice dripped icy shards into the overheated silence. He stared down at her from across the desk. ‘What Harker was thinking of to hire you I can’t imagine. Before you go any further, you should get a few facts straight. Whatever rule you measure my talent by, Miss Wareham, it is my social connections that bring business to this establishment. My interest in the success or failure of Harker’s is between myself and the board of directors and no-one else.

  ‘I have informed Madam Nicolopoulou that she may rest assured of my full attention as soon as I am free. Please send a note to that effec
t.’

  With this final word he swung away from the desk and left the room without a backward glance—which was just as well when the echo of Alison’s briefcase hitting the door followed him down the corridor.

  * * *

  On the morning of Mr Harker’s return to work Alison did not wait to be invited into the inner office but tapped on the door and went in. William Harker was a small man with a bald head and a beautiful smile. His spaniel eyes masked a quick wit and a sharp if somewhat idealistic sense of business.

  ‘My dear, whatever did you say to Maurice Kyle?’

  How typical of the man to go whining to Mr Harker, she thought, forgetting for the moment her own rush to the office that morning.

  ‘I broke the rules,’ she admitted. ‘I went into battle before studying the opposition.’

  ‘You certainly did. Gave Madam Nicolopoulou to some little newcomer, I believe.’

  ‘I was given no indication that the lady objected to the change.’

  ‘No doubt, but then she promptly went to Maurice and cried all over his shoulder.’

  ‘She can’t have much taste then because he looks like a tramp.’

  Mr Harker chortled.

  ‘Mr Kyle has been playing us up for months,’ Alison insisted. ‘There is a backlog of work grinding to a halt. I have to alter schedules and finishing dates. This upsets the clients and all because of high-and-mighty Mr Kyle.’

  She could feel the flush of anger mounting her cheeks and sending feathery prickles up the nape of her neck.

  William Harker was nodding his head and rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘My dear girl, I am well past sixty-five, as you know, and have little family of my own, my brother having died several years ago and my two sisters happy just to collect their dividend at the end of the year. I actually enjoy coming into the office every day. I would be quite lost without the routine you know.

  ‘Yes, quite lost. However, although I am still the chairman, I am no longer the major shareholder. That honour goes to Maurice Kyle, I’m afraid.’

  Alison groaned and ran her fingers through jaw-length blonde hair that had a tendency to creep forward over her cheeks. At times like this, she used this curtain effect to hide her embarrassment. Now she faced up to the small man behind the desk.

  ‘Do you want my resignation?’

  ‘Does my left hand want my right hand,’ he asked with a whimsical smile.

  Alison breathed again.

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘First you must relocate this, er,’ he said, waving a hand in the air, ‘newcomer to a less important job. Then I rather think you must beard the lion in his den.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Alison whispered backing away from the desk. ‘I’ll just keep out of his way. He will never know you haven’t sacked me, I promise.’

  She came up against the door and half turned to grasp the handle when William Harker spoke again.

  ‘Here is the address. A full apology mind, no skimping. It will take more than that sweet smile and a flash of those lovely eyes to get you out of Maurice Kyle’s bad books.’

  Slowly Alison let go of the handle and turned back to her employer.

  ‘William, you know how much this job means to me. You gave me work when no-one else would. You trusted me, took me into your home when things were at their darkest. I owe you everything but if it comes to a choice …’

  ‘Don’t, dear girl.’ William spoke sharply. ‘Come back and see me at lunch time.’

  She was about to say more but the little man swung round in his chair to stare out of the window and Alison knew herself to be dismissed.

  Sharon looked up from her computer as Alison entered the room. Then her hands stilled before reaching up to unhook the earphones from her head.

  ‘That bad, eh?’

  ‘I could do with a coffee.’

  ‘Two coffees coming up.’

  Alison sank back in her chair with a sigh. The phone rang twice in the following ten minutes but she ignored it.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Sharon breezed in with a paper cup in each hand ten minutes later. ‘That machine needs replacing or someone is going to get hurt. It spouted hot water all over me, look,’ and she offered an angry red wrist for Alison’s inspection.

  ‘You should have gone to first aid,’ Alison said with a frown between her brows.

  ‘I did, that’s what took the time. There’s never anybody there when you want them, so I ran it under the cold water tap and patted it dry with a tea towel.’

  She placed one cup carefully in front of Alison then returned to her desk and pulling out a box of sugar cubes offered it to Alison.

  ‘I know you don’t normally but you look real peaky. Take a couple.’

  ‘No thanks, Sharon. Look, do you think you could cover for me until lunch?’

  Alison gave a weak smile then picking up her purse left the office and the cooling coffee to walk down the corridor and stairs and out of the building. She needed time on her own to think clearly. The beastly Kyle man had come into her life when everything was running like a well-oiled clock. Now without any great effort on his part he was threatening to throw her life back into chaos.

  She caught a bus to the small mews flat where she lived. It was still raining as the bus dropped her off at the end of the alley leading into the mews. The yellow door with its cheery gnome knocker welcomed her as she let herself in and climbed the steep, narrow staircase to the small living area above.

  Sitting in front of the electric fire with both bars burning Alison wondered what on earth she was to do. She didn’t want to leave. Her work was all she had and she loved it. Normally of a quiet, calm disposition she could not understand what it was about the man that made her feel so threatened. Why had the Nicolopoulou woman gone weeping to him? Why not just say she didn’t want the new girl?

  Moving into the small yellow and white kitchen, she switched on the kettle. As she waited for the water to boil she took two tablets from a packet of painkillers and swallowed them with a glass of water before making herself a warming cup of tea and moving back into the living-room.

  Once more in front of the fire with the hot cup between her hands, she thought hard about her options. William Harker had taken her into his home and given her a job at a time when she was homeless and destitute. She owed him everything. All that was being asked in return was that she apologise to a man, a stranger to whom she had taken an instant dislike.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The relief on William Harker’s face when Alison marched into his office after lunch, picked up the memo with Maurice Kyle’s address on it and walked out again without saying a word, would have made her laugh had she been in any other mood.

  The weather was bright and sunny the next morning as Alison made her way through the London traffic. She had waited until the worst of the mad commuter rush was over, before easing her ancient Mini out of the narrow alleyway and into Devonshire Road. It took her a good hour to get out of the city and into the countryside.

  When this ghastly interview is over, she promised herself, she would take a leisurely roundabout route back to the city and stop off somewhere pretty for lunch. It was early June and the sun’s rays through the car window lay warm across Alison’s bare arm beneath the short-sleeved jacket of her linen suit.

  Half-an-hour later she pulled over and parked the car by the side of a village green that she had passed five minutes earlier.

  ‘Excuse me.’ She thrust her head through the open window of the car trying to attract the attention of a busy mum with twin babies on the point of crossing the road.

  The young mum turned her head and began to drag the pushchair back towards the car. With a swirl of dust a silver grey Jaguar passed them and pulled into the verge some distance ahead of the Mini.

  Alison was too busy asking the young woman where she might find Devil’s Rock, the name of Kyle’s house, to notice the approach of the man from the Jaguar. The mum was placed gently to one side and
the window filled with dark pin-stripe suiting and a black tie held in place by a gold and diamond clip. The man was bent double in an attempt to see into the small car.

  ‘What the devil do you think you were doing distracting this young woman’s attention? Do you realise I might have run her over when she stepped back to this side of the road?’

  Alison turned in her seat to look back down the road. There was a slight curve but nothing a good driver wouldn’t have been watching out for.

  ‘Only if you were driving too fast.’ She revved the engine as a hint that she had said all she intended to say on the matter. On the point of letting the handbrake off she caught sight of him scribbling something on a piece of paper

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Taking your number. If I hear of you getting into trouble around here again I’ll report this incident to the police.’

  ‘Why you … if I am ever unfortunate enough to be in this area again, you will be the one who should watch out.’

  The last words floated out behind her as she drove off.

  The woman had managed to give her sufficient detail to get her off on to the right road out of the village. Now it was a case of peering up every private drive in the hope of finding a house name. At last she came to a five-bar farm gate with the name she was looking for carved into a piece of wood that hung lopsidedly from one nail. Surely this couldn’t be right, she chided herself.

  She drew the Mini just beyond the gate and stopped. Then she stepped out of the car and walked back. It was little more than a cart track leading across an open field the other side of which was wooded.

  She glanced at her watch, eleven-thirty-five. That decided it for her. Without further hesitation, she pushed the gate wide. Returning to the car she reversed back along the road and drove on to the track.

  It could never have been used for anything but farm vehicles, Alison decided. She wondered anxiously what she was going to find at the end of it. On the other side of the wood the track dipped down steeply then rose again to end in a cobbled farmyard. Alison gazed dispassionately through the windscreen. Well, it must be the farmhouse. Considering the mess he was in when he arrived at her office, anything was possible.