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Still, she made her way back to her seat with a smile on her face. And when the chatty passenger in the next seat started a conversation again, she even replied.
The woman was a grandmother from Montana who had never been to London before. In fact, she confided, she had never flown long distance before. She refused Pepper’s invitation to change seats, but she did crane across her to look out at the landscape below as the plane came in to land.
‘It’s big, isn’t it?’ She sounded awed.
The flight was early. Very early. The sun was barely up as they came in to land at London Heathrow. It glittered on buildings and planes. To Pepper, leaning her forehead against the bulkhead, even the runway looked as if it was studded with diamonds. On the ground nothing moved.
In the cabin, there was that air of suppressed excitement that came from being woken too early, fed croissants and orange juice you didn’t want, and throttling down from five hundred miles an hour. And being about to step out into a new country.
Or, in Pepper’s case, a new universe.
Maybe the Englishman was right. Maybe she should try looking for her cousins. How hard could it be? And she was going to have plenty of time.
Grandma Montana swallowed. Suddenly, after all the hours of chat, she blurted out the cause. She was going to meet her unknown English son-in-law and her two English grandchildren for the first time. She was real nervous, she confessed.
Pepper did not know what to say. ‘That’s a new concept for me. My grandmother has never been nervous in her life.’
‘She must be very brave.’
Pepper was crisp. ‘If people never cross you, there isn’t that much to get nervous about,’ she said tartly.
It felt good to say it. She sat straighter in her seat.
The airbus hit the runway and there was a loud rushing noise of giant brakes. Grandma Montana gave a little gasp. She was very pale.
To her own surprise—well, she was Mary Ellen Calhoun’s granddaughter, and, until a week ago, designated heir to Calhoun Carter; she didn’t do emotion—Pepper took the older woman’s hand.
‘Everything’s fine. It always makes a noise like that.’
Grandma Montana’s smile wavered. ‘Thank you. I was sure it was really. But—’ She gave Pepper’s hand a squeeze, as if Pepper were her own family and entitled to that intimate little gesture. ‘I’m being silly. You’re very kind.’
It hit Pepper like a ten-ton truck. Kindness! Outside Calhoun Carter, people were kind to each other without expecting a return. The man she’d knocked into had been kind about it. Now this woman was thanking her for a gesture that her grandmother would have laughed at.
She nearly said, No, I’m not. I’ve never been kind in my life. There’s no room for kindness in business. And I’m a business woman to my toenails. I’ve got three degrees and my own biography at Fortune to prove it.
Nearly.
Only somehow she didn’t. Somehow she thought—But I don’t have to stay like that. I can change. The unshaven man with the sexual force field around him had said she could do anything she set her mind to. And she could. She could.
So she said slowly, ‘You’re not silly. Doing anything for the first time is scary.’
‘I suppose so.’ The woman sounded doubtful.
The brakes were off and the airbus had come out of its wild thrash down the runway to a stately prowl. She let go of Pepper’s hand. For a moment Pepper nearly took it back again.
She said abruptly, ‘Are your family meeting you?’
‘I sure hope so. But they might not have got here yet. We’re so early.’
‘Tail wind across the Atlantic. Happens a lot. They’ll probably allow for it.’
Pepper’s companion began to look more hopeful. ‘Do you think so?’
‘People do,’ said Pepper, who had been met by chauffeurs all her life. Astonishing herself, she said, ‘Look, would you like me to stay with you until your daughter gets here?’
The woman looked as if she had won a lottery. ‘Would you?’
‘Sure. No problem.’
‘But you must have people meeting you—’
‘No,’ said Pepper steadily. ‘Nobody meeting me.’ Ever again. ‘I’ll be glad to stay with you. Really.’
But in the airport her good intentions hit a setback. A voice behind her called, ‘Ms Calhoun? Ms Calhoun?’
She turned instinctively. It was a financial journalist for an international press agency. She knew him slightly.
‘I thought it was you,’ he congratulated himself. ‘I was sitting behind you.’
Oh, one of the partying entrepreneurs. He wouldn’t have believed his eyes, seeing her travelling outside business class. Pepper bit her lip. Having avoided the financial pages so far, she really didn’t want to be caught out in London.
But he seemed unsuspicious enough. ‘What are you doing here? Are Calhoun’s thinking of taking over a British company?’
After only a momentary pause, she held out her hand.
‘Not a business trip,’ she said firmly. ‘How are you, Mr Franks?’
His eyes were shrewd. ‘Just back from New York. I’ve been covering the sustainable trade talks. What are you doing in London?’
Pepper remembered her conversation with the unshaven pirate. ‘I’ve got family here,’ she said, inspired.
He was sceptical. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ She took rapid stock and told him part of the truth. ‘I haven’t had a holiday in quite a while. I’m told London in spring is beautiful.’
He pursed his lips, clearly unconvinced. But handling inquisitive journalists was all part of a day’s work for Pepper. She gave him a bland smile. He gave up.
‘Have a good time. If you could do with some company any time, give me a call.’
He fished a business card out of his wallet and handed it over. She managed not to wince. There had been a moment when she’d thought the pirate was going to give her his card. Now that would have been a triumph indeed. A man who didn’t know she was an heiress giving her his number!
‘Thank you,’ said Pepper, not looking at it. She thought wryly, Now, this is much more the sort of pick-up I’m used to.
The journalist was offering a classic bargain—dinner, or a night on the town, maybe a bit of inside information, in return for an exclusive on Calhoun Carter’s next move on the acquisition trail. He wouldn’t have bothered to say a word to Pepper if he had known that Mary Ellen had kicked her out.
The luggage carousel began to turn. She gave him a nod of farewell.
‘Excuse me. I’m going to be walking someone who’s new to London through Customs. Goodbye, Mr Franks. Nice to see you.’
But she kept his card. In the survival game you held onto any advantage you could get, however unlikely.
Steven looked for the glorious redhead in the baggage arrivals hall. There were so many people that it would have been a miracle if he’d found her. But he still looked.
Other people kept getting in the way, though. Martin Tammery, a pushy alumnus of Queen Margaret’s, returned to the attack, trying to persuade him to come on some new television game show he was starting. And he and Sandy Franks kept arguing about someone they’d seen in the crowd. The Tiger Cub, they called her.
Uninterested, Steven barely heard them. He wanted a goddess, not a tiger cub. He scanned the surge of people. Surely that fiery mane could not disappear so easily?
Martin Tammery took on an acquisitive expression. ‘Do you think she’ll be here for long? Could I get her on to In My Experience?’
Sandy Franks pursed his lips. ‘You’d have to move fast. She never stays anywhere long.’
‘Yeah. But if she’s here on some secret deal the London office will deny all knowledge. How do I get hold of her?’
Sandy’s eyes gleamed. ‘Ask me along to the recording and I might just help you out. I have contacts.’
‘There you are, Steven. That’s the class of company you’d be in if you come on the new programme,’ Martin said to him. ‘What about if I do a deal with you, too? If I get Pepper Calhoun on the programme, you stop wriggling.’
‘I have no idea who Pepper Calhoun is,’ said Steven, not taking his eyes off the crowd.
They both started to give him a potted biography. He paid no attention. There was a gleam of red on the other side of the luggage carousel. He started after it.
In vain, of course. By the time he got there the crowd had parted and closed up again too many times. She was lost, his golden Venus with her shy smile and her infectious laugh. And that mouth that brought him out in a cold sweat just to think about.
He should have asked for her number right then, when he’d had the chance, and to hell with political correctness. He should have given her his card. At least then he would have known.
The other two came panting up after him.
‘So what about it, Steven?’ said Martin. ‘Do the pilot show? For the honour of the old college?’
Steven sighed deeply. But, as the newly appointed Master, he had obligations to old alumni.
Here was the real world kicking in again, he thought wearily. Goodbye, dream of a goddess. Hello, duty.
‘Send me a proposal,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll have to check the diary. But in principle I’ll do anything I can.’
Martin Tammery was exuberant in his thanks. ‘Great. I’ll count on that.’
He could, too, Steven thought, as he trailed his suitcase out into the main concourse and agreed to share a cab back into central London with the other two. Steven never let people down.
Story of my life, he thought with a touch of bitterness. Steven Konig, the ultimate sustainable resource. Always there for Queen Margaret’s College. For Kplant. Chairing a conference here, delivering a lecture there. Never rebelling. And never, ever giving in to impulse.
Which is exactly why I’m travelling in to London with two men who want more lectures and interviews and wise words, he thought with irony. Whereas what I want is my golden goddess here alone with me.
What would have happened if I had given her my card? Would she have given me her number? Agreed to meet? Maybe even been here now?
He went hot at the thought.
And where would we have gone from there?
Just the question filled him with wild longing. It was so acute that he winced. His companions, deep in conversation about employment law, did not notice.
Just as well, thought Steven, crushing the picture that his reflections had brought to leaping life. He was still influential Steven Konig with all those responsibilities. He still had no spare capacity to run a private life as well.
But he wished he had. He could not remember ever wishing anything so much. If only…
The other two broke off their conversation.
‘What was that, Steven?’ said Martin Tammery blankly.
Steven’s smile was full of self-mockery. ‘I just said Captain Blood had all the fun.’
Pepper found that life as a non-rich person was surprisingly easy. In lots of ways, it was even fun. And the best thing of all was not having to think how her grandmother would react to everything she wanted to do.
She had never stayed anywhere but five-star hotels before, all pre-booked by efficient Carmen. So it was an adventure to find herself a modest hotel to stay in.
It was a relief that she came through that all right. She even managed to negotiate with the concierge when he said that she had to wait until midday to take possession.
‘I’ve had a bad time. I need to sleep for a week,’ she said, yawning hugely. She brought out her remaining credit card. ‘I’ll pay for last night, too, if you want. Just lead me somewhere I can lie down.’
Either the yawn worked or the concierge was someone else with an unexpected streak of human kindness. Within ten minutes she was stretched out on a hard bed, her eyelids closing.
‘First problem solved,’ she said to herself drowsily. ‘So shucks to Mary Ellen Calhoun.’
She did not wake until the evening. And even then she just got up and had a slightly dazed walk through dark streets before falling back into bed.
The next morning she felt entirely different. Not hopeful, exactly. More interested. The pirate on the plane had said she could do anything she put her mind to. So—was he right?
After a good night’s sleep she was ready to find out. She had even half formulated a plan. She went out and got herself a mobile phone and began putting it into practice.
Problem solving seemed to be her forte. By the end of the day an old contact had agreed to look at her business plan for Out of the Attic. Another had offered to make some introductions. She’d found a temporary job to get her through the next few weeks. It was only word processing, but at least it meant that she did not have to dig into her small store of capital—or spend hours on her own thinking about the vicious little darts that her grandmother had thrown.
She’d also made a decision that surprised her. She had the name of a lawyer who had acted for her mother’s family years ago. She went back through the files on her laptop and there it was, a reply to a letter he had sent her on her twenty-fifth birthday.
‘Tell them you want nothing to do with them,’ Mary Ellen had said.
And Pepper had. So she’d been shamefaced in approaching him today. But that piratical endorsement had got her through the first hesitation. She’d called the lawyer.
He had been cool, but he had not refused to see her.
‘This is a surprise,’ he said when she came in. ‘Mrs Calhoun always insisted that you did not want to see anyone from the Dare family.’
‘That was then.’
He looked sceptical.
‘I’ve been disinherited,’ she told him baldly.
‘Ah.’ He pursed his lips. ‘So what exactly do you want from the Dare family?’
