Accidental Mistress, page 9
Except…
Except sometimes the way that Peter talked, and looked at her, made her feel the slightest bit uneasy.
Not in a sexual way, never that, but just with a kind of repressed elation, a smothered air of anticipation that she found difficult to fathom. As if he was expecting something from her. Something that their relationship promised, but had yet to deliver.
At other times he would seem to fall into a pensive depression, becoming choked up over trivialities—something that could be as simple as her early childhood memory of learning to play knuckle bones in an Ethiopian refugee camp.
In all other ways he seemed perfectly happy with the current arrangement and, although he had at first been a trifle ambivalent about Ethan’s probing curiosity about Emily, he had soon shaken off whatever doubts he had harboured and enjoyed the ‘buzz’, as he called it, of having other people in the house, even if they were off doing their own thing.
But every now and then, for no apparent reason, he would retreat into that fugue state, and she would look up to see him watching her with that strange, hopeful expression on his face. She was unable to shrug off the feeling that something was wrong. That perhaps Peter was suffering from more than just arthritis and an irregular heartbeat—that there was something starting to misfire in his brain. But her nebulous feelings were just that, she had no facts to support her concern should she speak out, and every reason to think Peter would be cut to the quick by any hint that she thought he was losing his mental grip.
As she teased out the last rivet and carefully turned the vase over to expose the second, more complex break, a stiff neck told her that she had been working longer than she realised, and she stripped off her goggles and pushed back her stool, rolling her shoulders to ease the muscular cramp.
She gasped when a heavy pair of hands settled on the sore spots and began a luxuriously deep, slow massage.
Tilting her head sharply back, she had a disorientating view of Ethan’s upside-down face and felt the familiar, uneven thump of her heart. Whether she saw him unexpectedly, or spent time psyching herself for the encounter, she could never avoid that initial, breathless leap of delicious fright. It came from some atavistic part of her brain that recognised a hungry predator and triggered a flight-or-fight reaction. Since flight wasn’t an option she had no choice but to stand her ground.
‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said shakily.
‘I’m not surprised,’ he said, reaching over to flick off her raucous radio before returning to his task. ‘You were concentrating very intently.’
Suddenly realising that the back of her head was resting against his flat belly, Emily quickly returned upright, sliding out from under his too-skilful hands. It was rather unnerving how many excuses she seemed to give him to touch her.
‘Thanks, I had quite a crick in my neck,’ she said, from the gleam in his eye not quite hiding her flustered awareness. ‘I usually take a shake break every half-hour or so, because if you get a sudden cramp when you’re doing close work…’
She was aware she was babbling as he subsided back onto the stool at the other bench, leaning his elbow on the polished top beside her open notebook and regarding her with a mocking amusement that immediately put her on the alert. He was casually dressed in fawn trousers and a classic navy polo shirt, which contrasted with the piercing lightness of his eyes. He hadn’t shaved, and the dark shadow on his chin added a raw, unfinished edge to the aristocratic features. He looked lazy, but he was radiating a hidden resolve, which in her experience was a bad sign.
‘How long have you been sitting there?’ she asked, turning to wipe down the tools she had been using, taking the opportunity for a quick check in the shiny surface of the magnifying-glass stand. Allowing for the distortion, she was satisfied that she was presentable, her freshly washed hair spiking up in scrunched curls, her naked face unblemished by any embarrassing smudges. Now that some of her clothes had been washed and re-washed several times to rid them of their smoke-infused toxicity—she couldn’t yet afford to follow the firemen’s advice and get her entire wardrobe dry-cleaned—she at least had a respectable pair of jeans and a tailored short-sleeved shirt in cheerful cherry to boost her confidence.
‘A while,’ Ethan replied with irritating vagueness. It wasn’t the first time he had invaded the studio. On his previous visit he had taken to wandering in to observe and ask questions as she had begun her preliminary examinations and was dealing with the items that only required dusting and light cleaning to be brought back to their best. Since she was on a grace-and-favour lease, she felt she could hardly order him to leave, especially as she had never quibbled at Peter dropping in for an occasional chat.
‘You must have an incredible amount of patience to be able to work at such a slow pace. Don’t you ever get the urge to hurry up the process?’
Emily’s blue eyes widened in such instinctive horror at the idea that he lifted up his hands in surrender. ‘I take it that the answer is “no”.’
‘If you’re impatient you can do more harm than good. There are no short cuts to proper conservation,’ she said sternly.
‘I stand corrected.’ He watched her subside a little at his unaccustomed meekness, the outraged colour in her eyes shading back to a more pacific blue. ‘Do you usually work on Saturdays?’
‘I work whenever there’s work available. That’s one of the big advantages of being self-employed and having a studio at hand,’ she said shortly. ‘I enjoy what I do, so it doesn’t bother me if there are stretches when I’m in the studio seven days a week.’
‘So your work is your pleasure and your pleasure is your work?’ he interrupted with a soft murmur. Why did that sound indecent coming from his lips? ‘It’s not just that you’re trying to impress everyone with your dedicated industry?’
Meaning himself, no doubt. She gave him a look of utter disparagement.
‘Or that you’re using work as an excuse to hide away in here,’ he added silkily, aiming a far more accurate dart, ‘hoping to avoid the inevitable.’
‘The inevitable what?’ she said, even though she knew it was asking for trouble.
The dark auburn whiskers on one side of his jaw indented with the corner of his mouth. ‘Me.’
She fought down a betraying blush. ‘I have a lot of lost ground to make up. Unlike you, I don’t have a load of employees to take up the slack if I decide to take some time off.’
‘Hmm.’ It was the truth, but the deep vibration in his chest expressed his scepticism as to whether it was the whole truth.
‘You seem to keep very detailed notes,’ he said, turning his attention to her open notebook, flicking over the pages of the thick folio, filled with dense writing and drawings, in which she kept a meticulous description of every item worked on and every step of the treatment it received at her hands.
It was her Bible, and fortunately it was her habit to take it to bed to review her notes and make plans for the next day, or to research older jobs that could assist with a current work. The night of the fire she had had all three volumes in her bedroom, and several of her grandfather’s, in preparation for the anticipated delivery the next day, and they were the first and only things she had grabbed as she had staggered out. The rest of James Quest’s notebooks, a priceless record of a lifetime of experience, had burnt on the studio bookshelves with her other reference texts, and no amount of compensation would be able to reimburse her for that loss—even supposing the insurance company accepted that they had any real monetary value.
‘I need to,’ she clipped, annoyed by the suggestion she wasn’t thoroughly professional. ‘Would you build a house without a survey of the site or a construction plan? If there’s any dispute by the owner about the way something’s been done, or question about a repair, or a job has to be redone or done in gradual stages it’s essential to have everything down in black and white.’
Ethan turned the pages back to the one featuring the vase she was working on, fingering the paper pocket that held the photos she had produced with the brand new digital camera and printer that she had found in one of the studio cupboards—another example of Peter’s suspect over-generosity, she supposed!
‘I hear my disreputable brother has turned up,’ he commented idly.
She wasn’t fooled by his offhanded remark.
‘Yes. Coincidentally, on the very day that you left,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Complete with bags and a long story about him having to lend his apartment to some incognito movie star and his family, here to make a high-budget commercial for his advertising agency.’
He eyed the scalpel she was briskly polishing. ‘Actually, I believe he rented his apartment at an exorbitant fee,’ he said drily. ‘Dylan is always open to the opportunity to make a fast buck.’
‘You mean you had absolutely nothing to do with him suddenly deciding to come and stay with his dear old uncle?’ she said, placing the scalpel back on the bench, out of the way of temptation. Actually she had found Dylan West fun. Flirtatious and good-looking, he was obviously a happy-go-lucky optimist who liked to skim through life without looking too deeply for meaning and motives. None of his teasing or interested questions provoked the kind of instant antagonism a mere raised eyebrow from his older brother could induce. He also had a very active social life, and did a lot of ‘nipping out’ in the evening, and it would usually be the early hours of the morning before she heard his Porsche throatily announcing itself in the driveway. So if Ethan had intended him as a chaperon he had fallen down on the job, she thought maliciously.
‘I may have mentioned you in a fashion that might have given rise to a certain curiosity on his part,’ said Ethan, picking his words with care. ‘Dylan is impulsive that way. He always likes to think up ways to get the jump on me.’
Emily stared at him. What did that mean?
On second thoughts, maybe it was safer not to ask!
‘At least he doesn’t sneak around trying to catch me in flagrante with your uncle!’
‘Is that what I do?’ He stretched his long legs out in front of him, the edge of his hips on the stool, a pose of studied insolence.
‘You know it is. I wonder you don’t prowl the hallways at night listening for squeaking floorboards!’ she scoffed.
‘Oh, I can assure you there are no squeaks, this house is very soundly built,’ he said mildly. ‘Although as it happens I do suffer a little intermittent insomnia, so don’t be surprised if you do blunder into me on some dark night…’
‘Unlikely. Once I go to bed, I never budge!’ she snapped.
‘Really?’ He quirked an eyebrow. ‘That surprises me—I would have thought you were very active in bed. How disconcerting for your lover—’
‘I don’t have a lover,’ she gritted, ignoring the tingling warmth flooding the pit of her stomach. ‘Least of all in this house!’
‘Yet…’
She gave a sharp cry of frustration. ‘You never give up, do you? You just can’t admit that you might be wrong. You’re the most cynical and untrusting man I’ve ever met!’
‘It’s part of my charm,’ he drawled, rising to his feet. ‘You did know the appraiser’s interim report had arrived?’
The swift change of subject was like a punch to the heart, turning the liquid warmth in her stomach to acid.
‘I knew it was due,’ she said, turning to the sink to pull on her rubber gloves and check the soiled plate she had been soaking in a plastic bowl of mild bleach solution. ‘I was the one who asked for it to be done, after all…’
‘Only after I’d told you I was going to suggest it to Uncle Peter—’
‘But you didn’t, did you?’ she took pleasure in pointing out. She rinsed off the plate under the tap and placed it into a fresh bath of solution. ‘You didn’t seem to take me at my word when I said I was happy for an appraiser to do a valuation—I don’t know why—so I insisted it be done to make sure that you’d have no reason to make any more unproven accusations.’ she stripped off the rubber gloves and flung them back into the cupboard under the sink with unaccustomed lack of care for where they might land.
‘Aren’t you interested in what it has to say?’
She washed her hands under the cold tap in the empty sink. ‘I’d rather wait for the final report—’
‘He says there are at least six items which at first glance are of suspect provenance.’
‘Really?’ she concentrated on drying her hands and rearranging the towel on its hanger.
He stepped up behind her, alive with frustration. ‘You don’t seem very concerned,’ he prodded.
She spun around, trying to ignore the disturbing proximity of his lean body. ‘I’m not,’ she said, keeping her voice calm. ‘Rose has two hundred and thirty individual pieces—most of which she searched out and bought herself, all over the world, and not always from reputable dealers. I would be very surprised if some of them weren’t dodgy—or at least not worth as much as she paid for them. It doesn’t mean that fraud was involved.’
She saw the ice move into his eyes and despaired at getting him to understand.
‘Even the best experts can be fooled and Rose was just a gifted amateur. She liked bargaining and she didn’t specialise in one type of porcelain or era as most people do, she was a bit of a magpie—when she saw something she liked the look of, or that had an interesting history, she bought it. That’s what made her collection fun for her—monetary value was never the point, it was all about the emotions associated with her find. Of course a thorough appraisal should be done for insurance purposes, or if a collection is being offered for sale, but I don’t see Peter ever wanting to let go Rose’s collection, do you? So identifying a few dubious pieces is not a disaster for him—unless it’s the value your own future inheritance you’re worrying about…?’
He brushed aside her angry slur as being beneath his notice. ‘You didn’t notice anything wrong yourself?’
Pride clawed her shoulders back. ‘Are you accusing me of something?’ she challenged.
His face hardened. ‘I’m just asking.’
Was this some kind of trap?
‘Then, without knowing which pieces are involved, I couldn’t say,’ she said with furious dignity. ‘I’ve seen the full collection, yes, but I haven’t handled or examined everything with an eye to authentication. I’ve just done cleaning and restoration work on damaged or deteriorated items. But if Mickleson thinks that the provenance is shaky, you can trust that his research will bear out his initial findings. He has a nose for that kind of thing.’
‘You know him personally?’ he said sharply, as if it was a crime.
‘Only by reputation. He’s the best in the country. That’s why I mentioned his name to Peter. I’m only surprised he could do it so quickly, he’s usually booked up for months—’ she broke off, having said too much. He would probably take that as an indication that she had hoped for precisely such a delay.
‘I paid him double his fee.’
She folded her arms in disgust. ‘No wonder you think everyone is for sale—maybe for you, they are…’
‘As you say, he has a reputation for being the best, and I never settle for less.’ Again he switched topics to devastating effect: ‘I understand there were a few odd rumours floating around about your grandfather’s reputation at one time. About the time you and I first met, wasn’t it…?’
She stiffened, her arms dropping to her sides, fingers curling into defensive fists. ‘That has nothing to do with this—I don’t want to discuss it!’
‘Too bad, because we’re going to have this discussion whether you like it or not. Were the rumours back then true? That James Quest’s name was no longer a guarantee of a top-class job? Is that why the business nearly went under last year?’
‘I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,’ she said desperately.
‘Would you rather I make up the answers myself?’ he said relentlessly. ‘All I have to do is collect enough pieces to make the puzzle fit. Ask around, pay someone to do some more digging…who knows who, or what, might crawl out of the woodwork…?’
Conrad, she thought with an inward shudder. ‘You have no right—!’
‘Emily—’ He reached out to touch her shoulder and she stumbled back, knocking her elbow against the edge of the bowl in the sink and setting the plate rattling against the plastic.
‘Now look what you made me do!’ she cried, stilling the plate, angry that she could be so clumsy in an environment in which she had trained herself never to make a careless or unconsidered movement. ‘It’s dangerous to get distracted by personal conflicts in the studio—’
‘Then let’s go outside—into the gardens, where there’s no danger of breaking anything precious…other than ourselves, of course.’
When Emily opened her mouth to object he said with implacable intent: ‘We have some unfinished business, you and I—going back two years. Until it’s settled I have every right and reason to question your honesty. Trust goes both ways. If you want me to trust you, then, at some point, you have to trust me. And that point happens to be now. It’s time to stop hiding, Emily. Withholding the truth is as good as a lie, and lies have a nasty way of coming back to hurt people.’
She hesitated, knowing he spoke the truth but still torn by old loyalties.
‘The secret, whatever it is, is going to come out,’ he promised. ‘How do you want me to hear it—from you? Or from someone who might want to put a whole different slant on things?’
She thought of Conrad again. How he would love to dish the dirt, if he thought he could get away with it without implicating himself. And he would make her look like a pathetic, deluded fool…
She looked at the hand Ethan was holding out, palm up. Now he was confident he had won, she thought, trying to whip up a defensive anger, he could afford to act gracious!
‘Come on, Emily,’ he said, beckoning imperiously. ‘If you’re thinking of having another go at leading me up the garden path, why not do it in a real garden?’
Not so gracious, after all!
