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‘Too many layers on,’ she mumbled, and took a huge mouthful of lager.
But she might as well have been a nun for all the notice he took of her. In the same situation, any other man might have leapt on her, but, while only a fool would deny that something fizzled through the air between them, Luke behaved like a perfect gentleman. Holly felt protected and safe; safer than she could ever remember.
Just my luck, she thought gloomily that night, as she lay in bed reading what the competition was up to in English Brides. You find a man you can spin wild fantasies about and he treats you like a maiden aunt!
Still, at least there was plenty of work to keep herself occupied, while Luke sat in the study, frowning like mad over his legal documents, or driving out to a farm his uncle had owned on the edge of the county which he said was driving him nuts because no money had been invested in it for years.
‘It will need a total rethink,’ he prophesied grimly, pleased that he had managed to offload Doug Reasdale without too much unpleasantness.
‘And is that what you’re going to do in England?’ asked Holly tentatively. ‘Build on your inheritance?’
‘I guess,’ he mused. ‘Maybe I’ll make a fortune and then give it all away to someone who needs it more than me.’
There weren’t many people who could have said that and made it believable, thought Holly—but Luke was one of them.
She had her dress samples sent down from London, and Luke gave her the use of a large ground-floor room to hang the wedding gowns up in. When they arrived she spent most of the day ironing them, and he brought her in a cup of coffee just as she was steaming the creases out of a silver taffeta gown with a huge skirt and a silver bodice encrusted with beads.
He stood looking at the elaborate creation for a moment, then frowned. ‘Do you like that?’ he asked her doubtfully.
Holly bid a smile. ‘This? It isn’t my particular favourite,’ she admitted.
‘Looks a bit like one of those dolls that some people use to cover up loo rolls,’ he observed.
‘They don’t generally use pure silk-taffeta for those!’ she laughed. She sat back on her heels to look up at him, then wished she hadn’t. From here, it was all too easy to start fantasising about those endless legs...
She began to chatter brightly instead. ‘This is a more traditional dress, because brides often come shopping with their mothers. And, no matter how way-out the bride might be, mothers do tend to like traditional dresses!’
‘Do they?’ he questioned thoughtfully. His eyes flicked over the other dresses on the rail. ‘I’m surprised that hardly any of them are white—I thought that’s what brides wore.’
It occurred to Holly that this was a man who knew very little about weddings. ‘Brides have worn different colours throughout the ages—but, yes, you’re right, white was the predominant colour for many years.’
‘But not any more?’
“That’s right.’
‘Now they wear cream?’
‘Ivory,’ she corrected. ‘Which suits most people’s skin tones much better. White can be a difficult colour to carry off.’
‘And its associations are obsolete?’ he suggested drawlingly.
Holly looked at him. ‘Meaning?’
Luke shrugged. ‘Well, white is traditionally the colour of virgins, and most brides these days are no longer virgins. Are they?’
Afraid that she would start stuttering like a starter gun, Holly put the steamer down, took the coffee from him and carried it over to the window. ‘Er, no. They’re not.’ It was tune to change the subject. She really didn’t feel up to discussing the modern decline of bridal virginity—not with Luke, anyway.
She realised that not once had he mentioned his own family—bar his uncle, who had left him this house, and that had been only fleetingly. He was an enigmatic man, that was the trouble. He kept his cards very close to his chest, and of course that made him all the more intriguing. Holly was so used to meeting men who told you their entire life story within the first five minutes of meeting them that she wasn’t sure how to cope with a man who kept his own counsel!
She stood savouring the bitter, strong aroma of the coffee for a moment, before plucking up the courage to say, ‘Are either of your parents still alive, Luke?’
‘No,’ he answered shortly.
She took another sip of her coffee, recognising that a barrier had come slamming down. Fair enough. Her own life had been unconventional and she knew that people prying only made her hackles rise in defence. She smiled at him instead. ‘You know, you’re absolutely right—you do make the best coffee in the world!’
Luke’s mouth softened. So she wasn’t overly inquisitive. The fact that she had correctly picked up the signals and retreated made him far less inclined to clam up about his past. And friendship was a two-way game—she’d told him plenty about herself. ‘My mother was an opera singer,’ he told her, going to stand beside her by the window.
It was not what she had imagined, not in a million years. She let out a low whistle. ‘I’m impressed!’
But he shook his head as he stared mto the middle distance. ‘Don’t be. She wasn’t a soloist, more a jobbing singer. So she had all of the sacrifice and insecurity with none of the glory.’ His smile held a sideways tilt of resignation. ‘But still she carried on singing.’
‘She must have loved it very much to continue,’ commented Holly.
‘Oh, there was ego involved, and certainly passion,’ he commented wryly. ‘Which are the two main motivating forces behind the arts.’
‘Ego and passion? Hmm! Yet another generalisation from Mr Goodwin!’ laughed Holly.
‘Maybe,’ he shrugged. ‘But I think that artists generally have a better time than their unfortunate offspring.’
‘You mean that they don’t make good parents?’ she asked tentatively, aware that the answer was suddenly terribly important to her. Because he thought of her as an artist? And if he damned their parenting skills in general, then surely he would also be damning her?
‘I don’t think they do make good parents, no. Try explaining to a five-year-old why Mummy has to go off for months on end on tour.’ He shot her a swift look. ‘Why the adulation of an audience means more than that of your small child.’
She glanced up at him. ‘And did you have a father anywhere on the scene?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He watched the steam rise from his coffee. ‘He used to care for me during my mother’s absences, even turning a blind eye to her little dalliances.’
Holly’s eyes widened. ‘You mean she had...’
‘Affairs?’ he supplied acidly. ‘I most certainly do. If there was one thing my beautiful, artistic mother excelled at, it was having affairs.’
‘Heavens,’ commented Holly uncertainly.
‘They were necessary to that ego of hers again—to show that she was still a desirable woman.’
‘I see.’ The bitter disapproval in his voice was unmistakable and understandable. Holly put down her empty cup on the window sill and turned to face him. ‘What happened to them? Your parents, I mean?’
There was a pause. His words were like lemon pips. ‘My mother died of an infection abroad, when I was eight—’
‘Oh, Luke,’ said Holly, her heart going out to him. ‘What a terrible thing to happen.’
He was caught in the sympathetic light from her eyes, and something in that emerald blaze started an aching deep within him, but he quashed it as ruthlessly as he would a fly. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed quietly, that one small word telling her more than anything just how bad it must have been.
She wanted to go and hug him, to take him tightly in her arms and enfold him, to soothe all that little-boy hurt away.
He saw the way she was looking at him, and it made him want to lose himself in the velvet softness of her lips, to melt and meld into the shuddering sweetness of her body. But he shook his head in denial, trying to get a handle on his senses.
‘It was .a terrible thing to happen,’ he said quite calmly, as though these were words he had repeated many times. ‘My father never really got over it. He loved her, you see—for all her capriciousness and her fickleness, her inability to accept reality. When she died it was as though a light had gone off inside him—’
‘He gave up, you mean?’
‘Not in the physical sense. He continued to care for me as best he could. A housekeeper cooked my meals and cleaned my clothes, and my father gave me what love he was capable of. Summer holidays were the worst—we lived in London, and the city used to feel like a cage during those long weeks. His brother began inviting me down here during the vacations—and the sense of freedom and space was a real eye-opener.’
Holly stared out of the window again, at the bare-branched beauty of the winter landscape. She imagined those same trees clothed in green, the summer flowers bursting into rainbow radiance. Yes, she thought, this place must have seemed like a paradise to a motherless little city boy. She turned back to him, her eyes full of questions. ‘And?’
Luke looked at her with interest. Most people had usually overdosed on sadness by this stage in his story. Not that he had told it for a long time. Even Caroline had blithely told him that bad memories were best pushed away and forgotten. That cans of worms were best left unopened. He found himself wondering fleetingly whether she was right.
‘My father died just after I finished school. It was as though he had been hanging on until he had seen through his parental responsibility. I was lined up to go to university—it was something my father wanted badly for me. Then, when he died, I suddenly thought, I don’t have to do this any more—in fact, I don’t have to do anything I don’t want any more.’
‘And that’s when you went out to Africa?’ Holly guessed. ‘For even more of the space you had come to love here? And to escape the unhappy associations with England. And the past.’
‘Intuitive of you,’ he observed.
‘It’s one of the more positive sides of being artistic,’ she told him archly. ‘It isn’t all ego, you know!’
‘Did I offend you with my comments?’ he drawled, noticing that she had failed to mention passion.
‘The truth never offends me.’ She was aware of him watching her closely. Too closely. Her long-limbed body seemed to suddenly lack co-ordination; her hand was shaking as she picked up the steamer once more and moved back towards the silver gown. ‘I guess I’d better get back to work.’
‘Yes.’ But he remained rooted to the spot, transfixed by the sight of her. Today she was dressed in some filmy-looking skirt covered in a delicate floral print, which flowed all the way down to her slender ankles. The shirt she wore was white and loose and gauzy, and she had some sort of dark, tight vest beneath it, so it certainly wasn’t indecent. But there was something about a woman in a diaphanous piece of clothing which would make any hot-blooded male’s heart pound.
And Luke’s was pounding now.
He swallowed, trying to ease the hot dryness in his mouth, the ache between his legs. He needed to get out of here. Away from here. Fast.
‘I’m going out,’ he told her abruptly.
‘Oh,?’ said Holly pleasantly. ‘Going somewhere nice?’ she heard herself asking, as if she were his form teacher!
‘Just out.’ Damn her, and her curiosity. He had offered her house room for a couple of weeks and suddenly she was his keeper? ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said tersely, and took himself off to telephone Caroline.
‘Sure,’ agreed Holly, in a casual tone which didn’t quite come off. His abruptness hurt. Was he angry with himself for giving away too much? For opening up a heart she suspected had been ramparted for too many years? She picked up a needle and began to sew, and presently the comforting rhythm of the needle and thread made her feel calm once more.
Holly spent the next couple of days checking she had done everything that her guidebook to starting a new business told her to. She knew how important it was for her to establish strong links with all the other local companies associated with weddings. She needed to get to know caterers and car-hire companies, the managers of popular wedding venues and local florists. That way, they all helped one another.
She took her car into Winchester and discovered that the best florist in the city was the one who had been displaying the holly wreath which had caught Luke’s eye that day when they’d braved the Christmas shoppers together.
The assistant who had ogled Luke so appreciatively went out to the back room to find the shop’s owner, and Michelle McCormack appeared almost immediately.
She was a tiny dynamo of a woman, aged around thirty, with eyes the colour of expensive chocolate and glossy brown hair which was tied back in a dark green ribbon to match the green pmafore she wore. She was imaginative and enthusiastic, and she and Holly hit it off straight away. They went into the back of the shop to browse over the big book of wedding bouquets over cups of tea.
‘I need plenty of fresh flowers for the opening on Saturday,’ Holly explained as she peered at a photo which featured a stunning combination of cornflowers and sunflowers. ‘For decorating the shop window—that’s as well as bouquets for the window. But naturally, this volume of blooms is a one-off.’
‘After that, I could supply a mixture of silk flowers and fresh?’ suggested Michelle. ‘Fresh flowers should be saved for special occasions, because they don’t last long and it won’t set your beautiful dresses off if you have wilting petals in the shop window! Some occasions would obviously need fresh posies for the window.’
Holly nodded. ‘All the key festivals, really. Brides get ideas at holiday times.’
‘White lilies at Easter,’ said Michelle dreamily. ‘And scarlet silk peonies for Valentine’s. Can I clash colours and break rules?’
‘As long as you make them as well!’ giggled Holly as she saw her dream begin to gather real substance. ‘I want you to be as creative as I intend to be!’
Michelle gave Holly a penetrating stare just before she left, and said, ‘So where’s your hunk?’
It would have been pointless and rather pathetic to have expressed ignorance of whom she was talking about. Holly shrugged. ‘Luke? I don’t know—and anyway, he isn’t my hunk.’ Michelle licked her lips exaggeratedly. ‘Then can I have him, please?’
‘You haven’t even seen him!’ protested Holly.
‘No, but my assistant has—and I value her judgement on most things! Just tell me one thing—has she been exaggerating about his extraordinary beauty and sex appeal?’
Holly couldn’t lie. ‘Er, no,’ she confessed. ‘She hasn’t.’
After seeing Michelle, Holly went in person to talk to a reporter from the Winchester Echo, guessing that she would get better coverage if she laid on the charm offensive in person, rather than just telephoning.
The cub reporter was called Pete, and he was young and enthusiastic.
Holly gave him all the details while he scribbled them down.
‘And you say you won a competition?’
‘That’s right. Sponsored by Beautiful Bridles.’
‘And the cheque was sufficient to get you started up in business?’
‘Only just!’
‘Interesting story,’ he mused. He wrote something else down, then looked up. ‘And where’s this dress now? The winning design?’
‘I have it packed away,’ she told him. ‘It’s being featured in next March’s issue of Beautiful Brides. I shall be unveiling it—if you’ll excuse the pun!—on Saturday at the opening, and every person who visits the shop during the month of December will be entered into a draw to win the dress!’
Pete pursed his lips together and made a clicking sound with his teeth. ‘Good publicity stunt,’ he breathed, then smiled at her as he flicked his notebook shut and stood up. ‘And it’ll make a brilliant story!’
‘I certainly hope so.’
‘See you Saturday, then!’
On the way home, Holly couldn’t resist going to peep at the shop, which was a flurry of activity. People were sawing wood and painting and knocking nails in walls. From the direction of the upstairs flat came the sound of a drill being used. She parked the car, and was standing outside for a moment, unsure of whether or not to go right inside, when a familiar figure came striding out of the shop, and predictably her heart leapt like a salmon.
He was dressed in a pair of faded jeans which matched his eyes and a fleecy blue-check shirt which made them look even bluer. His gold-tipped hair was sprinkled with sawdust that made Holly think of fairy dust, but his eyes were wary and reminded her that he’d been keeping his distance lately.
‘Hello, Holly,’ he said carefully. ‘I thought you were going to stay away until everything was ready?’
‘You sound as though you’re warning me off!’ she told him crossly.
Or himself, Luke thought grimly, before forcing a smile to hide behind. ‘Well, I’d hardly do that, would I?’ He forced his voice to sound placatory, but it wasn’t easy. He had two more days of this to endure—just two more days and then his life would be Holly-free. He would be able to sleep nights. Eat a meal without having lustful thoughts about the morsels disappearing into that pink and delectable mouth of hers. He couldn’t wait. ‘When it’s your shop.’
‘Your shop, you mean,’ she corrected sulkily, as she recalled her conversation with Michelle McCormack. He was the kind of man who made total strangers want to chat him up—so what chance did she have? Quite apart from the fact that his moods were so mercurial. One minute he seemed like her best buddy, while the next...
‘If it’s my shop then you have certainly made your mark on it,’ he commented drily. ‘Since I hadn’t planned on green, gold and purple walls—or a bleached wood floor!’
